Chocolate Wishes

by Trisha Ashley

  Inside, it looked all neat and mown, with ancient graves mingling with more recent ones, and I saw what Raffy had meant about angels: even from the gate I could see the one that had almost fallen on him, a severe, asexual creature with firmly folded wings, holding a book. Its nose was freshly chipped but it had been fixed to its pedestal again.

  When I got further in I found one or two smaller angels and I particularly liked a white marble one that seemed to be either taking off or landing in a positive whirlwind of draperies, a bit like the carving Raffy had given me. That was a Winter grave. There were, unsurprisingly, a lot of those.

  It was very peaceful, with no one else around at all, so I thought I would just pop my head in the church to see if I could spot the famous Heaven and Hell window that Jake had said was over the altar.

  The old door was enormous, with a heavy iron latch, and inside the smell was curiously but pleasantly compounded of flowers, lavender polish and old books, the latter explained by the wooden shelves of prayer books next to me.

  It had been quiet outside, but it was totally silent in there, though no drastic events happened at the intrusion of an infidel – no bolts of lightning struck me, nothing crumbled. Instead, it was somehow warm and safe, and I suddenly had that rare but uplifting feeling of being folded in downy wings…

  I drew closer to the window over the altar and became lost in the bright, fragmented, primary colours. There was so much going on – wistful angels at the top and merry little devils below, who were feeding people to monsters, flames or other damnations, a bit like a backlit Bosch painting.

  I thought of Raffy, praying in here after I’d told him about the lost baby, and wondered whether he had found comfort…

  When I finally emerged, the light outside felt very bright and harsh. Raffy was sitting waiting for me on a table tomb, which seemed a little irreverent.

  ‘Hello, Chloe. I saw you go in, but I didn’t want to disturb you. I’m so glad you came!’

  ‘I wanted to see the angels and the window. You piqued my curiosity.’

  ‘For whatever reason, you’re always welcome here – and now you can see that there’re lots of good places to hide the Easter eggs too! You are going to come and help me, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, all right,’ I agreed. ‘I’ve started making them already.’

  ‘Good. Well, time to go and say evening prayers,’ he said, getting up, then paused and added questioningly, ‘You could come in, if you wanted to?’

  I backed away slightly. ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘OK, let’s not rush things,’ he said with a smile. ‘You just go in whenever you want a quiet minute. All Angels welcomes everyone, for whatever reason.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I felt,’ I agreed, then added lightly, ‘But then, so does the Falling Star! See you there later.’

  On the way home I popped in to tell Felix that I’d persuaded Raffy to join us at the pub, and found Mags, his mother, reclining on the leather settee in the front room of the shop like an abandoned mannequin, all angular limbs.

  ‘Sweetie!’ she said, in her usual casually friendly way. ‘I haven’t seen you for ages. Great hairstyle! I saw Poppy too the other day and barely recognised her.’

  ‘We had makeovers,’ I explained.

  ‘It was worth every penny,’ she said earnestly, then hoisted herself back onto her four-inch stilettos. ‘I’m afraid I’ll have to go. Thanks for the coffee, Felix darling.’

  She looked pretty good, considering she was a lot nearer sixty than fifty, just like Janey and my mother. Goodness knew what Lou looked like by then: probably much the same – well preserved, if not pickled.

  On impulse I said casually, ‘Give my regards to Lou when you next ring her.’

  ‘OK, I—’ She stopped abruptly and stared at me aghast through blue-fringed eyes.

  ‘Just as I thought! She’s in Goa, isn’t she?’ I demanded.

  Mags looked suddenly a little frightened. ‘I can’t say – you’d need to ask your grandfather about that.’

  Then she picked up her huge woven leather bag and shot out into the street.

  ‘Grumps knows?’ I said slowly, staring at Felix.

  ‘Sounds like it,’ he agreed. ‘Mags has always been nervous of him.’

  ‘Well I’m not, and I’m going back to ask him where Lou is, right now!’

  ‘And when I did, he admitted he’d known where she was for the last two years!’ I told the others, including Raffy, at the pub that evening.

  ‘She left Jamaica after a few months, on someone’s yacht, and eventually washed up in Goa, where she’s running a bar with another man she’s picked up. She contacted Grumps a couple of years ago, and he’s paying her an allowance on the understanding she doesn’t come back or contact me. He said he thought we were all much happier without her.’

  We were all sitting round our usual small table in the window, sipping coffee. Mrs Snowball was in charge and had insisted: the machine’s novelty was proving surprisingly long lasting.

  She seemed to have taken one of her fancies to Raffy, even though he was, spiritually speaking, playing for the other team.

  ‘That’s true, but even so, he might have told you,’ Poppy said sympathetically. ‘He shouldn’t just have let you carry on wondering.’

  ‘The worst thing is, he did tell Jake, when he turned eighteen, because he was a man! How chauvinistic is that? But he swore him to silence first, so he couldn’t pass the news on to me.’

  ‘But look on the bright side,’ said Felix. ‘The mystery is cleared up, but she can’t come back and mess up your life again, even if she wants to, because your grandfather holds the purse strings.’

  ‘I don’t think she wants to, and if she did she’d have to be repatriated, I think, because she hasn’t got a passport any more. She left hers on the cruise ship with Mags, and it’s expired.’

  ‘At least you know now that she hasn’t expired,’ pointed out Felix, who was clearly in male Pollyanna mode.

  ‘Perhaps, when you’ve got used to the idea, you could go out there and see her?’ suggested Raffy.

  ‘I don’t want to see her, specially since I’ve had another bombshell tonight: Chas had the second DNA test back, and Carr Blackstock is my biological father.’

  I’d quite forgotten that Raffy knew nothing about all that, but Poppy, seeing his blank expression, quickly explained the situation to him.

  ‘And Felix and I thought we could see a likeness to photographs of this actor. We just didn’t really want to say so when Chloe hoped so much it would be Chas.’

  ‘Your mother did that?’ Raffy asked, staring at me. ‘Blackmailed two men into paying maintenance?’

  ‘Yes, and in a way it’s a relief to know it is actually one of those two, because she might have been lying about that as well, which would have thrown the field wide open, and I might never have found out.’

  ‘I know one of Carr Blackstock’s daughters,’ Raffy said. ‘Her husband’s in the music business.’ He looked at me consideringly. ‘Come to think of it, your eyes are the same colour as hers and there is a slight resemblance, though the Blackstock girls are all tall – comes from their mother’s side of the family.’

  ‘She’s from a famous acting dynasty, isn’t she?’ I said. ‘I looked them up. But I’m not about to try and claim him as my father or anything, I just needed to know who he was.’

  ‘Of course,’ Raffy agreed. ‘That’s perfectly natural.’

  ‘Chas – this is Chas Wilde, the man I thought was my father – says Carr Blackstock has agreed to meet me, only I’m not sure if I want to, because apparently he still half suspects I’m going to be wearing a secret microphone and sell the details to a newspaper, or something!’

  ‘He’s not that famous, is he?’ said Felix. ‘I’d barely heard of him before all this.’

  ‘I think you should meet him, just the once,’ Poppy said.

  ‘Poppy’s probably right and – well, would you like me to arrange it?’ R
affy suggested. ‘I could be the intermediary and even stay with you during the meeting, if you wanted me to. I just thought he might find the presence of a vicar reassuring.’

  ‘That seems like a good idea,’ Felix said.

  ‘Oh, would you?’ I said gratefully. ‘He gave Chas his email address. That’s the only contact I have for him.’

  ‘If you let me have it, I’ll approach him tactfully. I still haven’t sold my flat in Notting Hill, so we could use that as neutral territory for the meeting. It’s partly furnished with the stuff that I didn’t think would fit in the vicarage and I can drive you down there. In fact, you could stay there overnight and we’ll come back next morning. I’ll go and stay with a friend nearby.’

  ‘But I know you’re so busy at the moment,’ I protested, remembering what Poppy had said.

  ‘If I can set it up for early next week, I’ll be able to do it. We can leave right after morning prayers and then perhaps Mike will say the evening ones, if he’s free, or people can just have private prayer if not. We’ll be back next day. But if it’s not early next week, then it will have to be after Easter, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Thank you, that would make everything very much easier,’ I said, because I found I did want to see the man who had so carelessly fathered me, from sheer curiosity if for no other reason, even if I was also very nervous about it.

  Raffy walked me back home and came in for long enough to get Carr Blackstock’s email address. I gave him a jar of my chocolate and ginger spread too, since I’d made enough for Jake as well as Zillah, forgetting he was going to be away. It doesn’t keep that long.

  I only hope Maria Minchin doesn’t come after me with a steak tenderiser, but I don’t really think murder runs in families, and anyway, Salford’s was a crime passionnel, not a spat over a jar of ganache.

  Raffy came back again next day – or rather, he visited Grumps and then Zillah let him through the museum door into the cottage.

  ‘Gentleman caller!’ she announced, just like last time.

  ‘Hi,’ I said from the desk, where I was just finishing typing up Grumps’ latest chapter of Satan’s Child. Unless he suddenly went off at a tangent again, tomorrow’s chapter should be the last.

  I rattled off the final sentence and pressed save, then swivelled round. ‘Finished! Come through to the sitting room. Tea? Coffee? Hot chocolate?’

  ‘I didn’t want to disturb you, if you’re busy.’

  ‘I’ll have to start packing chocolate orders in a minute, but I would have had a drink and ten minutes first, anyway. So, what’s it to be?’

  ‘Not tea – I’ve had enough of that doing my visits. It’s usually either that or very weak instant coffee.’

  ‘It was pretty keen of you to decide to visit everyone in the parish. I mean, most of them don’t go to church at all, and those who do probably go to a different one.’

  ‘You’d be surprised how welcoming most of them are, though. I just want to meet them all and say I’m there for them, no matter what denomination they are, and also that they are welcome to join me at evening prayers, if they want to.’

  ‘And do they?’

  ‘Quite a few drift in and sit for a while. Perhaps they find a moment’s peace after a busy day.’

  ‘Mmm…’ I was brewing up hot chocolate, while thinking that I still found it hard to replace the old Raffy with the new one. He may have had a Damascene conversion, but I hadn’t. Sometimes I managed to get one transparency on top of the other, but then they would suddenly slide apart again.

  ‘You know, for years I thought you were a cheap blended forastero chocolate, but then I started to think maybe you were a reasonable criollo, after all.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a compliment,’ he said with a grin. That smile and the sparkling eyes must have been laying waste to the hearts of his female parishioners.

  He’d come to tell me that he’d emailed Carr Blackstock on my behalf and already had a reply. We were to have our meeting at Raffy’s Notting Hill flat after lunch on Tuesday!

  ‘My name obviously didn’t mean anything to him, but he seemed reassured that your vicar would vouch for you having no intention of trying to profit from the relationship.’

  ‘Thank you for organising that,’ I said gratefully.

  ‘We’ll set out early in the morning, right after prayers, if that’s OK? I’ve already spoken to Mike and he’s free to go in that evening, and Mr Lees will make sure the church is unlocked in the morning and locked at night, as usual. I’ll leave Arlo with the Minchins, because he’s really taken to Salford. He’s taken to you too – he tries to drag me in here every time we pass.’

  ‘I expect it’s the smell of the chocolate, though it isn’t good for dogs.’ I paused. ‘It really is kind of you to set all this up and go with me to London. I feel much braver knowing you’ll be there, because Carr Blackstock doesn’t sound terribly friendly.’

  ‘It’s the least I can do – and don’t worry,’ he said reassuringly, ‘I’ll look after you.’

  I finally told Zillah about the letters I’d found, and my father turning out to be someone other than Chas, and she was not in the least surprised. I expect she’ll tell all to Grumps too, which will save me having to do it.

  ‘I always knew it wasn’t Chas Wilde,’ she said.

  ‘I only wish it was,’ I replied, and then when I explained about Raffy arranging the meeting and mediating, she insisted on reading my cards again. They looked complicated, but she read them quickly, while I was still trying to figure the meaning out upside down, then whipped the pack back together.

  ‘Just as I thought,’ she said darkly, but then infuriatingly refused to explain.

  Felix and Poppy would probably barely register my absence. They kept drifting together like two magnetic ladybirds, but without seeming to get any further. What kind of push would it take actually to propel them into each other’s arms?

  Perhaps, I thought I should get Raffy, in his capacity as vicar, to ask Felix if his intentions towards Poppy are honourable.

  Practically the whole village turned out for the Palm Sunday walk around the boundaries, brought together by a spirit of solidarity and, in my case, gratitude to Raffy and a desire to distract myself from worrying about Tuesday’s meeting.

  The local press and TV station were out in force to cover the blessing of the Plague Pit Field, which Raffy performed very movingly, speaking with a sincerity you couldn’t mistake, while also looking ravishingly handsome with the wind catching his black hair and flipping his white surplice about.

  I reckoned I was slowly getting used to this new, improved Raffy…

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Melting Moments

  What do you wear for travelling down to London with your ordained ex-rock star former lover, in order to meet a father you only just found out about?

  A minor point, perhaps, but I wasted a lot of time on it, and then decided it didn’t matter after all. Jeans would do, and a favourite, flattering top for confidence, worn with heeled boots so I didn’t look quite so insignificant.

  Raffy, as befitting his role, wore one of his vicar T-shirts with black jeans. His long, black coat was slung in the back with the overnight bags and a small carton of milk, coffee, tea and biscuits, which he had thought of, not me.

  ‘Supplies,’ he explained, as we headed down the motorway. ‘Someone goes in to clean the flat and I told them to switch the fridge on. We’ll stop for sandwiches or something on the way down, then we could have dinner out this evening before I go off to my friend’s place.’

  But I was so nervous I hadn’t eaten any breakfast and my throat closed up when I tried to eat lunch, though I did drink several cups of tea. My hands felt cold and clammy and my heart kept racing. I really hadn’t expected to feel like this!

  Raffy’s flat was nice, on the first floor and very light, with funny little wrought-iron balconies outside the long windows. He said he remained undecided whether to sell it or let it out.

&n
bsp; The sitting room was still furnished, and the spare room where I dumped my bag. I smartened myself up a bit while Raffy made tea and opened a packet of biscuits, and I managed to eat one or two of those, though they tasted like sawdust in my dry mouth.

  The clock was ticking towards the hour…and then the bell rang.

  ‘This is it,’ Raffy said. ‘You stay here and I’ll go and let him in. Remember, if you want me to leave you both alone at any point, just say, OK?’

  ‘OK,’ I echoed hollowly.

  I expect Raffy’s appearance surprised Carr Blackstock, even if he didn’t recognise who he was, but his manner and the dog collar must have reassured him because I could hear the low sound of their voices, then the unfamiliar light tenor one said impatiently, ‘Very well!’ and in they came.

  Carr Blackstock was a lot smaller in real life than I had thought, but conversely had a lot more presence, even if he was currently wearing the defensive air of the found-out villain of the piece.

  For a long moment we just stood and took stock of each other. He was a well-preserved man of about sixty, at a guess, with handsomely greying locks, the same unusually light grey eyes as mine and, it has to be admitted, the same pointed, elfin ears.

  ‘Would you like me to leave you alone?’ offered Raffy tactfully. ‘I could make some tea, perhaps?’

  ‘No, don’t – I’d much rather you stayed,’ I said, quickly linking my arm in his to physically keep him there at my side.

  ‘I, too, would prefer it if you stayed,’ my newly discovered and evidently extremely reluctant father said, looking at me with a kind of chilly distaste. ‘I’m not sure quite what etiquette demands we say on these occasions…er, Chloe, since I suspected I was being bled dry all these years for a child that wasn’t mine, only to find that I was wrong, after all. It has all been quite a shock.’

  ‘It was an even greater shock to me when I found out that Chas Wilde wasn’t my father,’ I told him, ‘because I’m fond of him. In fact, when I discovered it was you instead, it wasn’t just a shock, it was a huge disappointment!’