Every Woman For Herself. Trisha Ashley

and sculleries are built into the hillside below the road level, facing across the valley.

      And even below that is the undercroft, which we call the Summer Cottage, also partly built into the hillside, and linked to the house by a twisting and rather dank spiral staircase with oak doors top and bottom.

      The Summer Cottage gives on to the narrow, rough track that leads down to another cottage, derelict last time I saw it, but recently renovated and sold to some kind of actor, according to Em. Then there’s Owlets Farm, where Madge and her old father, Bob, live.

      Em had always kept the hinges on the Parsonage door to the Summer Cottage unoiled, so she’d know by the squealing when an alien invader (i.e. one of Father’s seemingly endless string of mistresses) was entering her territory.

      But this time the invaders had sneaked in behind her back.

       Kitchen Pests

       1) Your Father’s mistress

       2) Your Father’s mistress’s children

       3) Your Father …

      ‘The van got here OK,’ Em said when I phoned her from my strangely naked house. ‘I had everything put into the cottage, including all the stuff from your bedroom that I’d stowed in the attic. Walter took it all down.’

      ‘It seems odd coming back to the cottage. Still, I suppose I do still have a lot of things and I’m going to have a car full of plants, despite Miss Grinch having taken some. I don’t know where I’m going to put them, but I’ll need them if I ever paint again. I can’t do it now without the jungle round me.’

      But would I ever paint again? I’d had painter’s block since the Great Pan Swing … and if I did paint, would I revert to the old style at Upvale, or perhaps evolve something between the two?

      ‘You will paint again,’ pronounced Em, like the word of God – or maybe the Word of Wicca – ‘and Walter’s making you a conservatory in front of the cottage, only of course he calls it a veranda.’

      ‘Out of what?’

      ‘Someone gave him some old doors and windows, and he’s using clear corrugated plastic for the roof. I told him you needed somewhere like his friend George’s pigeon loft, only much lighter, and he got the idea immediately. He’s been at it a week – I can hear him hammering now.’

      ‘That’s wonderful,’ I said, a lump coming to my throat at this extra kindness.

      ‘Father’s been complaining, but he isn’t working – too busy banging away himself. That woman’s so insatiable it’s embarrassing. I caught him carrying her up the stairs the other night, which won’t do his back much good.’

      ‘He was always like that, though, Em.’

      ‘This one’s different. She’s got into the house, for a start, with her brats.’

      Like Angie’s squirrels. I hoped Angie didn’t follow me here and get in the house, too.

      ‘Does he mind my coming home for good?’

      ‘He doesn’t care, just says you’ll have to pay for your keep, so the mistress must be expensive.’

      ‘He’s right, though, Em – and I can’t stay in the Summer Cottage for ever. He’s bound to want it for the next mistress. I’ll have to find a job of some kind, and rent a place. Matt hasn’t sent me any money since I dinged Greg. I knew it would be the odd duck, and that only if I was lucky, but I don’t think I want his money any more anyway. I don’t deserve it after killing his best friend.’

      ‘It was an accident, and you’re entitled to some maintenance – we all keep telling you. You’ve got to live on something until you paint again, so—’

      ‘If I ever paint again,’ I said pessimistically.

      She ignored that. ‘So I’ve got you a part-time job, starting Monday.’

      Panic clutched me round the midriff with sharp talons. ‘A job! What on earth as?’

      ‘Helper in the Rainbow Nursery down the road. You don’t know it – they started a sort of self-sufficient commune in Hoo Hall, and there’s a progressive nursery attached.’

      ‘Montessori or Steiner or something?’

      ‘Something. They don’t keep their staff long, probably because they don’t pay much, so they’re always desperate.’

      ‘Do they know I’m a murderess?’

      ‘You’re not a murderess, and the accident didn’t make the national headlines, so probably not.’

      ‘Oh, Em, I don’t think I can do it. I don’t know anything about children and—’

      ‘You can try. Then maybe something else will turn up, or you’ll start painting again.’

      ‘Vaddie at the gallery keeps asking me for more – but they’ve got everything I’d finished.’

      ‘You need to get back here and let the moors cure you, and Gloria will brew you up a tonic. You’ll see – everything will be OK.’

      Gloria is a wisewoman, and taught Em everything she knows, but she brews the most God-awful-tasting potions.

      ‘It’ll be odd living in the mistress’s house.’

      ‘Gloria Mundi’s cleaned it till it squeaks, and I’ve oiled the kitchen door so you can come and go as you like without anyone knowing.’

      ‘Thank you, Em,’ I said gratefully. ‘I’ve put you to a lot of trouble.’

      ‘No you haven’t – you know I like organising. It’s that Jessica woman who’s making trouble – you’ll have to help me to get her out.’

      ‘Father’s mistresses never last long,’ I assured her. ‘Bran’s mother was the longest, but that was only because she wanted to have Bran before she went back home. I don’t think she and Father were communicating in any way once Bran was conceived.’

      ‘Ah, yes – Bran. He phoned me the other day from outside the university. Apparently the High Priestess of Thoth manifested herself, and informed him that he shouldn’t use mobile phones any more because evil spirits escaped from them into his head. I couldn’t hear him very clearly because he was holding it away from his ear, and then there was a swooshing noise and a splash before it went dead, so I think he threw it into the river.’

      ‘Ah.’

      ‘Yes, so I’ve put Rob’s taxi on stand-by to go and collect him. I don’t suppose Bran’s students will notice his absence if he has to come home for a break. He doesn’t remember he’s got any, half the time, and when he does he probably lectures them in some ancient tongue they can’t understand. But apparently the book’s going to be brilliant.’

      ‘There has to be a good reason the University is prepared to put up with his little ways, other than his having an IQ greater than the sum of all the other staff.’

      ‘He also has a whanger bigger than any of the other staff,’ Em said, which was true; even skinny-dipping in the icy beck as children we’d seen he’d been impressive in that department. But unless the High Priestess of Thoth manifested herself in a more solid form and drew him a diagram, I feared that asset would be entirely wasted.

      ‘I don’t think that would particularly impress academic circles,’ I said.

      ‘Perhaps not. I’ve asked them to phone me if he doesn’t calm down in a day or two, and Rob can set off.’

      Rob knew Bran’s little ways and was always quite happy to drive down to Bran’s ancient and hallowed university (which had proved surprisingly accepting of his eccentricity) and transport him back without mishap.

      ‘Well, I suppose you couldn’t