Wedding Tiers. Trisha Ashley

suggested that, now Ben is away so much, but he adores it here too—it’s not just me insisting that we live like this! He says when he’s in London he loves the idea of me in the cottage, waiting for him. And we have a life, and we like things the way they are now,’ I said firmly, unshakeable (and probably horribly smug) in my conviction that what I had would endure for ever.

      ‘But something Ben told me when he got back from London has upset me a bit, Libby Mary’s pregnant! It’s all through taking some kind of Chinese herbal medicine, apparently, not IVF, and it’s stirred up all my feelings again. But Ben was reluctant to even tell me about it and he certainly didn’t want to talk about us trying it.’

      ‘No, well, if Ben really wanted children he’d have agreed to have some tests done years ago, wouldn’t he?’ she pointed out. ‘He likes being the cosseted centre of your world, with you running round after him, and I’m sure he’d hate to change that.’

      ‘I’ve slowly come to that conclusion myself, though he’s always agreed with me that we’d like children. I can understand that seeing what Russell and Mary went through, financially and emotionally, set him against taking that route, but now he really doesn’t even want to discuss it any more. He goes all hurt when I try.’

      ‘I can’t say I ever wanted any more after Pia, and she was a mistake,’ Libby said frankly. ‘Not that she wasn’t sweet when she was little, it’s just that Joe spoiled her and she turned into a monster once she hit thirteen.’

      ‘I expect she’ll grow out of it eventually,’ I said consolingly.

      She looked thoughtful. ‘I have a horrid feeling that Tim would absolutely adore a little Rowland-Knowles. Think what that would do to my figure! At our age, everything isn’t just going to snap back into place like elastic afterwards, is it? But maybe I’m past it,’ she said hopefully ‘Doesn’t fertility decline rapidly after thirty?’

      ‘Yes, but you still have a pretty good chance. I mean, you’ve already got Pia, so you know you can get pregnant.’

      ‘Well, I’m telling you now that if I do have to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous pregnancy, I don’t see why you shouldn’t too. Shall I talk some sense into Ben and tell him he’s being a self-centred pig?’

      ‘Absolutely not! It would have the opposite effect anyway; you know how stubborn he is, and the more you try and change his mind about anything, the more he digs his heels in.’

      ‘Did you get the name and address of that Chinese herbalist from Mary?’ she asked innocently.

      I grinned, although guiltily. ‘Yes…she gave me the website address and I got the contact details through that, though I haven’t done anything about it. And Mary said it was very expensive.’

      ‘Give it to me. I’ll find out about it and get you some when I’m down in London, my treat. After all, if it worked for Mary, it’s worth a go! And if Tim is insistent, I may have to try it too—but it will be our secret.’

      ‘OK,’ I said, because I suddenly realised how unbearable it would be if all my friends suddenly produced a late crop of offspring, just when I thought I’d resigned myself to being barren ground.

       Chapter Six Hippie Chic

       On the recycling front, a friend has given me lots of genuine hippie clothes that she wore as a girl and, although I don’t really care about fashion, I’m told that this kind of thing is back in vogue again. One of the Acorn members is altering them to fit me and it feels rather decadently pleasant to change out of my workaday jeans into something long and floaty, or sumptuously velvety, in the evening. I don’t suppose the Artist will notice…

      ‘Cakes and Ale’

      Ben was fairly comatose that evening, after a dinner of globe artichokes with melted butter, followed by stir-fried brown rice and vegetables and a blackberry mouse. It made him reluctant to get all dressed up to go for drinks at Blessings, until I pointed out that I’d never seen Tim at home wearing anything other than jeans and jumpers almost as disreputable as Ben’s usual attire.

      ‘You’ve got a skirt on,’ he pointed out to my amazement, because he doesn’t usually notice that sort of thing.

      ‘Well, I do sometimes change in the evening. I don’t live in jeans, do I?’ I stroked the sumptuous folds of the long, teal-coloured velvet skirt lovingly. ‘This is a genuine hippie skirt Stella gave me. She showed me a picture of herself wearing it, circa 1970, with a headband and moccasins, and she looked lovely. But she can’t fit into it now and she thought it would suit me.’

      In fact, Stella had been sorting out a whole trunkful of clothes, and the skirt was only one of many pretty things she’d given me. ‘Fashion’s gone boho, so I think I’m actually very trendy at the moment.’

      I rather hoped he would think I looked pretty in my long blue skirt and cotton top, but instead he said, with unusual grumpiness, ‘If it doesn’t matter what I wear, I’ll go like this, then,’ this being his paint-spattered jeans and a sweatshirt up which he had at some time wiped a loaded palette knife.

      ‘Fine—Tim won’t notice. Libby says he can’t wait to get out of his solicitor’s suit when he gets home and out into the garden. He and Dorrie are having endless discussions about how to restore the grounds to their former glory. Now, come on, or we’ll be late.’

      I put on a long, purple Moroccan cloak with a pointy, tasselled hood (another of Stella’s offerings) and picked up a coracle-shaped wicker basket decorated with faded raffia flowers. It contained a bottle of our best elderflower champagne and a Battenburg cake made using natural marzipan and pink food colouring. Libby doesn’t know anything about baking, but she can whip up Italian pasta meals at the drop of a hat, especially those that had been her late husband’s favourites. I expect she’ll now learn to cook what Tim likes, being a great believer in the way to a man’s heart being through his stomach. I ascribe to that one a bit myself—Ben loves my food, just as he adored Granny’s cakes and biscuits when we were still at school. She used to joke that he had a stomach like a bottomless pit.

      Cupboard love.

      Ben always says his mother can’t cook and on the occasions when he visits them in Wilmslow, they eat ready-prepared Marks and Spencer’s meals, though since she’s never invited me over for a meal (or anything else), I can’t vouch for that. They have never visited this house either, though I gritted my teeth and invited them a few times, until I realised they were never going to accept me—or Nell Richards wasn’t. I had a feeling Ben’s father, sarcastic and superior though he was, might have weakened a bit, left to himself. But you can see why it was a bone of contention between me and Ben that he still accepted an allowance from them after they’d snubbed me for all these years!

      We walked past Blessings and up the little side lane, because no one ever used the front entrance of Blessings: by the time the bell had been pulled and someone had heard it jangle, then unlocked the big, oak door, come down a flight of steps, crossed the little front courtyard and opened the great gate, set in its castellated wall, the visitor would have long since vanished. Instead, a brass plate and an arrow directed you round the back.

      Feeling like a slightly Goth Little Red Riding Hood with my cloak and basket, I led the way to the rear gate and up the short gravelled drive past the empty and neglected gatehouse. I was heading for the kitchen wing, but Libby was standing at the French doors that had been rather incongrously let into the back wall of the Great Chamber, looking out for us.

      The two men got on fine, as I’d known they would, especially once they’d had a glass or two of bubbly each. Tim might have gone to Ampleforth College and sounded a bit plummy, but you soon forgot that because he was so ordinary and nice.

      It still struck me as odd to see him and Libby together, because she’d