Every Woman for Herself (19 page)

‘I thought sex was supposed to enhance your powers, Em?’ I said hastily.

‘Only if she did it as part of the rites,’ Gloria said. ‘In a place of ancient power. Not just flinging herself headlong between the sheets with a man of the Church.’

‘I didn’t! We just talked – all night,’ protested Em. ‘Gloria, you didn’t put anything in
my
drink, did you?’

‘Of course not, my blossom,’ Gloria assured her. ‘It must be love.’

‘White witchcraft and the Church are not incompatible,’ Em said dreamily.

‘Obviously.’

‘Traditionally, the one has been absorbed into the other. Chris and I think our beliefs can co-exist within a relationship of mutual respect.’

Gloria and I stared at her.

‘Have you got one of those, then?’

‘Yes, but I’ll have to make allowances for the Dickens, and he’ll have to make allowances for the ways of Wicca.’

‘Are his intentions honourable, though, Em?’ I asked.

‘I effing well hope not!’ she said, sounding more like herself.

‘You could get married,’ I suggested, examining the covers on the hotplate and heaping a plate with slightly dried bacon, egg and mushrooms. Suddenly I felt absolutely ravenous.

‘I don’t know – we’d have to find a form of service we could both be happy with. But Chris says vicars aren’t supposed to live with someone unless they’re married to them.’

‘You’re going to live with him?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said, going off into another trance.

‘I’ll make you some fresh toast,’ Gloria said to me. ‘And some coffee – or maybe a cup of tea?’

‘I don’t feel like tea,’ I protested, but that’s what I got, and she stood over me until I drank it, too, then sat down and spent a long time examining the bottom of the cup.

She sighed heavily.

‘What?’ I said, eating buttered toast.

‘It’s still there. I knew he was trouble, but what will be, will be. And it might not have been the potion, not if he already loved you,’ she mused.

‘But he doesn’t love me, and I don’t love him – as will become quite clear when you give him the antidote. Last night didn’t mean anything to either of us. For me, it was just a quick last fling before I become a middle-aged artistic recluse.’

‘Out with a bang?’ Em suggested helpfully, becoming more alert.

‘Thank you, Em. And … do you think you could take Caitlin back to Mace later?’ I asked cravenly. ‘Maybe with the antidote, if it’s ready?’

It would be easier to treat the whole thing as if it hadn’t happened if a bit of time elapsed before I had to come face to face with him.

‘Only I promised Vaddie I’d take my new pictures over to the gallery today.’

‘You needn’t worry about Mace being there,’ Gloria said, seeing through this. ‘He’s gone, and Caitlin with him.’

‘Gone? What do you mean,
gone
?’ I asked, stunned.

‘To London,’ Gloria said. ‘That’s the sort of man he is, even with a full dose of love philtre inside him! Chancy.’

‘Mace collected Caitlin early this morning,’ Em explained. ‘He phoned first … I’d just got back. Chris walked me home,’ she added, going into another trance.

‘Em!’ I said sharply.

‘Oh, yes – he said he was coming to get Caitlin, and take her to his mother’s house in London, because the press had started phoning him at dawn, and they’d be turning up on his doorstep in droves any minute.’

‘Didn’t he leave any message?’

‘He said to tell you he had to go away for a few days, and he’d let you know when they were back.’

‘Kind of him. Was that it?’

‘Yes, except that he asked to speak to Jessie. What
was
all that last night about Caitlin? Isn’t she his?’

‘Of course she is!’

And if he could ask to speak to Jessica, he could have asked for me – if he’d wanted to.

‘There you are then, Gloria. Love clearly doesn’t come into it. He’s probably forgotten last night already.’

Em looked at me severely. ‘I hope you took precautions.’

‘Em, I haven’t conceived for years and I’m the shady side of forty; I’m barren.’

‘And I left her a brew last night, in case,’ Gloria added. ‘So that should be that … if she doesn’t do it again.’

‘I’ve no intention of doing it again!’

‘Yes, but it won’t stop her getting Aids or anything, will it?’ pointed out Em helpfully.

‘Mace has
not
got Aids!’ I said crossly.

‘He’s put it about a bit, according to
Surprise!
’ Gloria said.

‘I’m not convinced you can believe anything it says in there, and I’m sure Mace isn’t the sort of man who would have … who would have put me in danger of that kind!’

And I was, too: instincts of a barbarian, manners of a gentleman.

Gloria looked doubtfully back into the teacup. ‘I’d better get that anti-love potion brewed – he’s coming back soon.’

‘I really don’t care, though I’ll miss Caitlin.’

‘Perhaps he’s gone to find what happened to Kathleen?’ suggested Em. ‘And did I tell you that Father and the Treacle Tart went with him? It was an impulse, but Father’s delivering his manuscript to his agent, and Jessica wanted to shop.’

‘But the girls …? It’s term time.’

‘Anne offered to look after them. She’s taken them out somewhere.’

‘Let’s hope she remembers to bring them back, then!’

‘They’re not bad girls,’ Gloria said.

‘No, I’m getting quite fond of them,’ I admitted. ‘And Caitlin.’

‘Well, I’m not getting fond of Jessica,’ Em said firmly. ‘One of us will have to go.’

‘Yes, but Father’s going to
marry
her, Em, so it looks like she’s here to stay. We might
all
have to go – she won’t want the whole family round her neck, too.’

Gloria had been out of the room, but now returned and began to smear a cold green paste over my grazed cheek.

‘Gloria, I can’t go over to York looking as if I’m daubed for battle. Vaddie’s expecting
me
, not the Last of the Mohicans.’

‘It’ll soak in. And you were limping – you can’t drive like that. Better stay home, and let me put a compress on that ankle. What did he do to my little chicken?’

Her expression boded ill for Mace, should he ever return. I said hastily, ‘He didn’t hurt me. I fell down – and it won’t bother me, driving. Do you want to come, Em?’

‘No. I’m taking Chris up to the standing stones on Blackdog Moor. He hasn’t been there yet and it’s a powerful spot … I’ll take a flask of something hot, and a few sandwiches.’

Thank goodness it’s too cold for anything
else
on the stones besides a chilly picnic, because I don’t think Chris has the power to resist Em.

‘Where’s Bran?’

‘Finishing off his manuscript before it goes off to be typed up by some poor creature at the university.’

‘Oh, well, I’ll take Flossie, then. She will enjoy the drive.’

But even Flossie declined to come with me, and retired downstairs to her igloo. Perhaps she is miffed that I left her in the Parsonage kitchen all night.

Skint Old Motoring Tips

The car is not a household god, it is a motorised biscuit tin, and need have only the same attributes: dry, roomy and convenient.

For once, it was actually quite good to be driving over the moors to somewhere away from Upvale.

A day away would let me push my confused feelings about Mace behind a locked door. It would also give me a chance to turn over in my mind what was likely to happen if Father did indeed marry Jessica.

From what he had said about nothing changing it was clear he hadn’t thought it through. The day he married Jessica, it would be like shaking a kaleidoscope: the parts would be the same, only they’d all be in entirely different places in relation to each other, some not even touching.

Nothing was
ever
going to be the same again.

Vaddie fell on my paintings with cries of great joy. She loved what by now had become the
Jessie Down the Well
series, and when I told her that the first one would be on the cover of
Skint Old Northern Woman
she ordered a personal copy in advance, and said she’d like a whole stack to put on the desk, sale or return, under the actual picture featured.

I’d decided not to sell that one, but give it to Father and Jess as a wedding present, assuming she actually managed to pull it off.

Vaddie said I looked totally different, and actually my change of hair colour and clothes made me look years younger and twice as pretty, which was kind of her. She had a cheque for me from the last lot of paintings she had sold – she didn’t part with money unless you went to her in person and demanded it – and after that I went out and bought myself a turquoise cashmere tunic sweater and then, as an afterthought, a rose-pink and silver nightie and dressing gown.

Definitely Pisces and slithery, although I wasn’t sure about the rose colour.

I popped in to see Miss Grinch on my way home, and told her about Angie, and my melon catharsis, and in return she told me all about the goings-on of the new people who’d moved into my house.

They sounded like they were providing a lot more entertainment for her than I ever did.

During my absence, Gloria had found a chewed document addressed to me in Frost’s basket, which proved to be the final bit of my divorce: I had absolution.

I didn’t know how long it had been in the basket, and nor did I really care.

I had absolution already.

Divorced Skint Old Northern Woman?

The Should I?/Shouldn’t I? Dilemma: Some Common Questions Answered

1) Will I be lonely?

Answer: Yes, but probably not any lonelier than you were before the divorce. Buy a dog.

2) I’ll never be able to understand the paperwork, the tax returns, the bills …

Answer: The running costs of an accountant are much less than a husband.

3) Will my married friends still invite me round?

Answer: No.

4) Will all my ‘happily’ married friends’ husbands suddenly make passes at me?

Answer: Yes. You now have ‘Divorced and Desperate For It’ stamped across your forehead in a special ink only they can read.

5) Will I ever have sex again?

Answer: Only if desperate. (See question 4.)

6) Will I ever find a new partner?

Answer: What are you, some kind of masochist?

We settled down to quite a pleasant and normal week before Father and Jessica returned (by train). Pleasant and normal by Rhymer family standards, that is.

Perhaps searching the woodland nearest to Mace’s cottage for signs of freshly dug earth
was
a trifle on the bizarre side, but I only truly accepted this when I bumped into Anne and the twins doing the same thing (except the girls thought they were looking for acorns).

Besides, we were quite high up there, and the ground had been frozen underneath ever since I’d moved home, even when the surface seems to have thawed out. (Just think of Upvale and the surrounding Blackdog Moor as being in a sort of snow dome, with its own ecosystem. Hence the early snow when other people were having Indian summers.)

I’d been spending almost all the daylight hours painting minute barbarian warriors on horseback being sucked into vortexes of savage greenery, like warped Persian miniatures.

It was very enjoyable. And no, I was not going to think about the significance at all.

Anne seemed happy looking after the girls, although Em took over one day when Red showed up in order to abase himself.

Once he’d grovelled enough they vanished upstairs. Anne was saying as they went, ‘So what’s the matter with sodding war wounds? Seen them before, haven’t you? One battle’s the same as any other bloody battle, isn’t it?’

I assume their
entente
was
cordiale
, since although he would now be away until the New Year on an assignment, they were to resume their semi-attached state of shared flat-dwelling when Anne was back in London after Christmas. Her treatment was to finish just before, so she would be fully revitalised after one of our family celebrations.

It could be the last, for everything was bound to change when or if Father married Jessica. The kaleidoscope would shift permanently and we would all be cast to the edges.

The family circle had expanded already to include Chris – since the picnic at the standing stones he and Em seemed mysteriously to have become one entity.

Indeed, they were spending so much time together, it made me wonder if he ever did any vicar stuff at all – not that I knew what they were supposed to do anyway.

Still, Em’s powers seemed suddenly to have returned to her with a vengeance: she was very practical when I told her about my dark thoughts regarding bodies in woods. Having borrowed from Gloria a copy of
Surprise!
containing a photo of Kathleen Lovell, she called in Freya, Xanthe and Lilith and sat down to discover the actress’s whereabouts.

The unanimous result was that Kathleen was certainly alive, somewhere far away from Upvale. And they all felt that Kathleen was … well …
dwindling
was the way they put it.

I hoped she had not succumbed to some wasting disease? But no – surely she would have told someone?

It was certainly a relief not to have to look for the body any more.

Lilith, Freya and Xanthe seemed quite resigned to Em not joining their coven after all. I didn’t think it would affect their friendship.

And speaking of friendship, Freya had managed to strike up an acquaintanceship with Angie, and invited her to meet the other two at the pub tonight to, as she put it: ‘direct her out of her present circle of hate, and into a more profitable frame of mind that will take her orbit elsewhere.’

Mars would be good.

On the Tuesday Branwell finished his book – or, at least, stopped scribbling and took to staring at the pile of manuscript as though he couldn’t remember how it got there.

He was extremely averse to the idea of its being taken away so we could post it off to the poor woman at the university whose job it was to type up this scrawl. In the end Em had to lure him away to visit a second-hand bookshop, while I had the whole thing photocopied and returned to his room before he realised it had been removed. Then I sent the copy off; it was clearer and darker than the original, anyway.