‘I think she’s peeved that she hasn’t seen Cliff yet,’ Angelica giggled. ‘Or Mick or Sacha.’
Cliff who? Rose thought. Hadn’t Cassia Wales mentioned him too? And Mick and Sacha who? She had definitely lost the slender grip she may have once had on this conversation. Rather than pursue it, she changed the subject. ‘Haven’t you ever thought of living separately? Being together under one roof every minute of the day can’t be easy. Perhaps you’d benefit if you only saw each other in small doses.’
‘Anise is so poisonous, even minute doses can be potentially fatal. Besides, I don’t think we could ever live apart. Anise couldn’t cope without me, no matter what she says. She can’t boil an egg, poor woman. We had a very pampered background – nannies, butlers, cooks. It was very nice at the time, but it doesn’t make you into terribly self-sufficient human beings. We were expected to be married into good families, so the need to learn basic domestic skills never really arose.’
Rose looked at the woman seated in front of her. She was poised, elegant and, for her age, quite glamorous. When she was younger, she would have been a stunner. She must have had her pick of men. ‘But neither of you did marry?’
‘Unfortunately not.’ She sagged a little. A small, barely discernible movement, but a definite deflating of spirits. ‘There wasn’t exactly a horde of suitors beating their way to our door. Great Brayford wasn’t renowned for its eligible young men.’ Angelica looked pointedly at Rose. ‘It still isn’t.’
‘So, there was never anyone . . . special?’
‘Oh yes. There was someone special all right.’ Angelica tapped the side of her nose secretively. ‘I had my grande passion.’
‘But you didn’t marry him?’
Angelica sighed heavily. ‘He was already married, my dear.’ She folded her hands in her lap and twiddled self-consciously with the ruby dress ring on her engagement finger. ‘It caused a terrible scandal. Daddy was outraged. He had his first heart attack very shortly afterwards. I blamed myself.’ Her clear grey-green eyes had filled with tears. ‘I’d always been his favourite.’
‘Did he leave his wife?’
‘No,’ Angelica stated flatly. ‘The scandal ruined him. We’re talking fifty years ago. Things were very much different then.’
‘Perhaps not as much as you think,’ Rose said quietly. ‘Do you still see him?’
‘No.’ The answer was harsh and bare again. It was a few minutes before she continued and when she did, her voice held a slight waver. ‘I’m afraid he couldn’t live with the shame. Or without me, he said. He took his own life.’
Rose felt a lump rise to her throat. ‘That’s tragic.’
‘Yes, it was a terrible waste.’ Angelica twisted the ring on her finger. ‘It’s awfully bad luck to give someone rubies. They represent blood and suffering. Did you know that?’
‘No,’ Rose said quietly.
‘Neither did I at the time.’ Angelica swallowed loudly. ‘Anyway, as I said, it was a long time ago.’ She took another drink of her tea and as she replaced her cup it rattled in the saucer. ‘You know, a pretty young thing like you shouldn’t be locked away in a place like this,’ Angelica said too brightly. ‘You should be out having fun. How will Mr Right find you tucked away down here?’
‘I’ve come here to avoid Mr Right,’ she answered honestly. It wouldn’t be long before they all knew anyway. Mel might be a caring, sharing human being, but it was probably her secret that she would be sharing with the rest of the village.
‘Your grande passion?’
Rose nodded. ‘Something like that.’
‘And is he married?’
‘Very,’ she said miserably.
‘Then you mustn’t be like me. It’s wrong to put everyone else’s feelings and happiness before your own. And above all, you shouldn’t feel guilty. It’s a pointless and totally destructive emotion. Don’t ruin your life by running away from this. If you think he’s worth it, fight for him! Your own peace of mind and your future is all that matters.’ Angelica reached forward and clutched Rose’s hand. Her skin was dry and papery, fragile. Brown age spots marred the cream-white delicate flesh. Her fingernails were white and thickened under the immaculate pale pink, pearlised polish. It was a shock after the clear, smoothness of her face. Her hands were telling a story that her face was still refusing to acknowledge. ‘Carpe diem, Rose. Seize the day!’ she whispered urgently, grasping at her fingers tightly. ‘Don’t grow old and lonely like me, riddled with regrets, with nothing but memories for company.’ She patted Rose’s knee and sat back in her chair. ‘Here I am,’ her eyes swept over the room, ‘looking for solace in a bottle of essential oils.’ She smiled sardonically. ‘Better than a bottle of gin, I suppose.’
The room had grown cold and dark, even though it was only mid-afternoon. It was time she thought about lighting the fire in here, Rose mused. The shortest day was long past, but it was still some time until the light, bright summer evenings came to cheer the house. The wallpaper was chintzy, covered in pink floribunda roses and green twisting ivy. Normally, the roses looked too fussy and effusive but in this light they looked flat and unwelcoming. It would have to go. She’d been studying paint techniques – only out of a book, nothing too elaborate – principally with the idea of renovating the kitchen chairs. Now that she’d learned about sponging off, ragging off, bagging off and distressing – all terms which she thought sounded like ways of scrounging from the DHSS – no surface in the house was safe.
‘I can at least blend some oils to help. Perhaps some clary sage, geranium and ylang-ylang. They’re all wonderfully relaxing. Ylang-ylang helps to dispel anger borne of frustration – so my textbooks say.’
‘Yes,’ Angelica nodded. ‘I could definitely do with a bit of that, dear.’
‘You can use them at home in your bath – I take it you can get away from Anise then?’
Angelica’s lips twitched in a half-smile. ‘Armitage Shanks is my only refuge.’
‘If you can escape, it would be a good idea to have some massage. The therapeutic benefits are wonderful.’
‘It sounds bliss,’ Angelica agreed. She stood up, smoothing the perfect pleats until they fell into obedient folds over her knees. ‘I must go. Your next gentleman will be here soon.’ She winked theatrically and took Rose’s hand. ‘Thank you for your help, dear.’
‘I haven’t done anything yet,’ Rose protested.
‘We’ve had a nice chat and that’s helped me to get a lot off my chest.’ She squeezed Rose’s fingers with her thin, parchment hand. She surveyed the lounge again. ‘This really is a very lovely drawing room, dear. It’s so relaxing and soothing. It has much the same feel as a confessional.’
Rose wasn’t sure if that was supposed to be a compliment. ‘I’ve had the house Feng Shui-ed,’ she said by way of explanation.
‘Bless you, dear,’ Angelica said. ‘Have you got a cold? You should use some of those nice aromatherapy oils yourself.’
‘No,’ Rose said. ‘Feng Shui.’
‘I never catch anything. I take vitamin C religiously. Every Sunday without fail.’
‘It’s the ancient Chinese art of placement. It’s a way of designing your home to bring you luck in money, health and relationships. You arrange your furniture to best harness the powers of Chi energy to keep you in harmony with nature and at one with the universe.’
‘Very nice, dear.’
Rose decided to escort Angelica to the door. The subtle mysteries of the Far East were obviously even less interesting than Tantric sex.
‘Well, goodbye, dear. Thank you, again.’ She turned and looked at Rose earnestly. ‘If there’s anything I can ever do for you, do please let me know.’
‘Actually,’ Rose said, ‘there might be one thing.’ Angelica had already admitted that she and her sister were domestically challenged. It seemed reasonable to assume that they weren’t involved too heavily in horticultural battles either. ‘I’m having terrible trouble managing such a large garden. I have
so much to do in the house, I can’t seem to find the time to get outside often enough.’ She put aside the thought of last Saturday pleasantly wasted in the pub and strolling round Woburn Woods with Dan when she could have been weeding and digging and whatever else a garden of such enormous proportions required. ‘You don’t happen to know a good gardener, do you?’
‘Well, I know a gardener. Though I’d hate to be responsible for professing that he’s a good gardener.’ Angelica looked thoughtful. ‘We have Basil. You know, Basil Fitzroy-Smith.’
Rose shook her head. It wasn’t a name she had come across yet.
‘He’s not so much a gardener as a garden ornament. I think he only comes to us because he has his eye on Anise. He hides behind the bushes and looks at her with a strange twinkle in his eye and a line of spittle drooling from his mouth. It’s quite frightening.’ Her eyes took on a mischievous glint. ‘I think he has a crush on her – if people over fifteen are allowed to have crushes. Anise is mortified. She was terrible as a youngster; unless they had a lord somewhere in the family she wouldn’t even entertain them to tea. Heaven only knows what it would have taken for them to get a hand up her skirt. That’s why she’s still a spinster of the parish.’ Angelica inclined her head knowingly. ‘I can ask him for you – if you don’t mind taking a risk.’
‘I suppose he’d be better than nothing,’ Rose said hopefully.
‘Marginally,’ Angelica agreed. ‘He might be tempted to do more work if he doesn’t develop a fixation for you. I’ll ask him to come over in the next couple of days.’ She patted Rose’s arm. ‘A word of warning. Don’t be alarmed at his clothing. He’s not known locally for his sartorial elegance. I think he favours the Wurzel Gummidge school of haute couture.’
‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ Rose assured her. ‘And I’ll have your oils ready tomorrow, if you want to pop over again.’
‘That would be very nice, dear. I’ll bring a spot of Earl Grey, just in case you’re kind enough to ask me to stay for tea. If you don’t mind me saying, one urine sample a week is more than enough.’
Rose closed the door behind Angelica and rested on the frame. Her client would be here in a minute, it hardly seemed worthwhile walking back into the lounge. Would it be so bad to grow old alone like Angelica? On the whole, she seemed pretty content and well-balanced – if you ignored the psychopathic tendencies towards her sister. Which were understandable, after all. Anise was starting to bring out psychopathic tendencies in herself and she hardly knew the woman. Angelica was smart and self-contained. Wasn’t it easier to live like that rather than be dependent on unreliable men? And there didn’t seem to be any reliable men around any more. Was Hugh Mr Right? Was he her grande passion? She had thought so. God only knows, she had thought so. Why, when she tried to think of him now, couldn’t she remember exactly how his face looked? Why did she have to keep staring at pictures of them together to remind her of the way he had been. The easy smile, the hair that flopped endearingly, the bedroom eyes. Why, when she lay in bed alone at night, was it Dan’s face that seemed to feature more prominently in her erotic meanderings? Had Hugh expressed any suicidal thoughts just because she had ended their affair? No, quite frankly, he hadn’t. The only thoughts he’d had were to watch his own back. Perhaps Angelica was right; fifty years down the line in the 1990s, things were different. Very different.
Chapter Thirteen
‘Are we all here?’ Anise asked, tapping her notebook with her pencil. She perched her glasses on the end of her nose, thinking that it made her look intelligent and in control. A force to be reckoned with. In truth, it simply made her look old and bossy. She cast her eyes round the spartan little group, incensed that so few people had answered her call to arms. ‘Where’s the vicar?’
‘Dave said he’ll be along as soon as he can,’ Melissa replied.
‘The Reverend Allbright,’ Anise said haughtily, ‘should be more interested in this than any of us. It is, after all, his church hall that is in danger of being razed to the ground.’
‘He’ll be along as soon as he can,’ Melissa repeated more forcefully. ‘He’s gone to see Mrs Garner and her funny veins.’
‘Varicose,’ Anise informed her. ‘Varicose.’
‘Very close,’ Melissa said. ‘Just round the corner.’
‘Stupid girl,’ Anise hissed under her breath. Melissa winked at Angelica who tried very hard not to laugh.
‘Hasn’t anyone invited that nice young woman from number five?’ Angelica piped up. ‘I would have thought she’d be interested. The flats will be right at the end of our lane. The people on the top floor will be able to see straight into her rear garden.’
‘It’s not what goes on in her garden that people need to worry about, Angelica,’ Anise spoke tightly, ‘it’s what goes on in her house that concerns me. That’s what I’d like to know about.’
Angelica tutted lightly. ‘It doesn’t concern you, Anise. I’ve told you before, she’s an aromatherapist. Nothing more sinister than that.’
‘And I suppose you know all about aromatherapy?’ her sister asked tartly.
‘No, not all about it. But I do know that it involves massage with essential oils which come from herbs and flowers.’
‘Massage!’ Anise wrinkled her nose in distaste.
‘There are lots of therapeutic benefits,’ Angelica assured her.
‘Very commendable,’ Anise snorted.
‘There’s nothing fishy about it.’
‘I’ve seen halibut that are less fishy,’ Anise sneered. ‘And I suppose she told you all this clap-trap about aromatherapy.’
‘She did. Her name is Rose and she’s very nice. And,’ Angelica stared pointedly at her sister, ‘she should be here.’
‘Yes, yes, all right. Perhaps I should have invited her. But we don’t want that sort getting involved with the affairs of the village.’
‘She isn’t a sort. She’s a perfectly nice young lady.’
‘I think you’re looking at the world through your rose-coloured spectacles again.’ Anise allowed herself a little tinkling laugh. ‘You don’t know what we’re dealing with here.’
‘Neither do you, Anise. You just think you do. I might be wearing rose-coloured spectacles, but at least they’re not blinkers.’
Anise stiffened. ‘I didn’t want to bring this up at the meeting. We have matters of greater import to discuss. But you have forced my hand, Angelica. You have forced my hand.’ She adjusted her glasses on her nose and checked carefully over either shoulder before speaking. ‘Mr Patel informed me that she gets a magazine – this . . . this . . . aromatherapist – about sado-masochism.’ She sat back in her chair and watched this pearl of wisdom drop before the swine, a sardonic smile at her lips. There was a gasp from Mrs Brockett, the gills of Mrs Devises had gone decidedly green, while Mrs Took fanned herself vigorously with a copy of the parish magazine, Good Neighbours. Melissa’s lips held the glimmer of a smile.
‘He said nothing of the sort, Anise.’ Angelica raised her eyes to the ceiling in supplication. ‘I was there. He said she gets the M&S magazine. M&S, not S&M. Marks & Spencer, Anise. I think you’ll find that’s totally different.’
A titter went round the room and Mrs Took recovered sufficiently to restore the parish magazine to its former resting place on the table. Anise’s face suffused with a shade of purple not dissimilar to the cashmere twinset she was wearing. ‘Anyway, she’s not here for whatever reason. And neither are a good deal of other people who ought to be – and who were invited.’ She bristled with indignation. ‘There’s no one here from the Toddlers’ Group, or the Cubs or Brownies. Even the Tummies, Bottoms and Thighs haven’t turned up.’ Anise refused to say Tums and Bums – even Thighs was a struggle. It was such a lascivious word.
‘Perhaps it’s because they’re happy with the fact that we’re going to get a new village hall,’ Angelica voiced. ‘That is part of the plan.’
‘It’s a sop,’ Anise said crisply. ‘Offered up in the vain hope that
we will turn a blind eye to the ruination of our village.’
‘Dan only wants to build a few retirement flats,’ Angelica said. ‘He showed me the drawings. I must say they looked rather nice. Each one had a little wrought-iron balcony.’
Mrs Took nodded in agreement and opened her mouth to speak until she saw the black look she was getting from the self-elected chairperson.
‘Yes, it might just be a few harmless flats this time, Angelica, but if we start letting standards slip in the village, we’ll simply open the floodgates. Next it will be a new Tesco or a late-night petrol station or, heaven forfend, a Spud-u-Like. How would you like that?’ She remembered she had a notepad and with a flourish wrote Spud-u-Like on the blank page in front of her. ‘And why on earth do they need balconies? This isn’t the Costa del Sol.’
‘This place is an eyesore, Anise.’ Angelica surveyed the decrepit hall distastefully. ‘It looks like something Pontin’s would have built in the 1950s.’ There was a lot to look distasteful about. ‘Corrugated iron and breeze block isn’t exactly in keeping with the village image – if there is one. It’s a health hazard, too. A visit by Dyno-Rod seems long overdue. Wouldn’t it be nice to have somewhere brand spanking new for the toddlers? It can’t be very nice prancing round in a leotard in sub-zero temperatures and we wouldn’t all have to wear thermal underwear just to come to the whist drives either.’ Mrs Took looked in serious danger of nodding again. ‘Or sit with our legs crossed all night because we’re too terrified of what we might find in the lavatory.’ Mrs Took could hardly contain her urge to nod. The unpleasant incident with the tramp was obviously still firmly planted in her mind.
‘If we’re not very vigilant, this rural slice of England will be turned into a gateaux.’