A Leap of Faith

by Trisha Ashley

  ‘They were d-draining it, and it was at the b-bottom,’ she explained breathlessly.

  ‘How can the Bottomless Pool have a bottom?’ I objected.

  ‘That’s only its name. Actually, it is very d-deep in the middle, b-but it shelves at the sides, and that’s where the car was. Completely empty too, and it looks like it’s b-been there a long time.’

  ‘No Drowned Dorinda?’

  ‘No. And there’s another thing – it’s b-been b-broken into! There was a hole d-drilled through the lock. So joyriders probably took it and then pushed it into the pool. It’s just off the road – it would run d-down quite easily.’

  ‘Is that good news?’ asked Mu, who’d been rather abstracted from the conversation, and no wonder. ‘I mean, good for your friend Gil? After all, presumably there are spare car keys, so he wouldn’t have had to break into it and steal the car, even if he murdered Dorinda?’

  ‘He wouldn’t murder D-Dorinda!’ Miranda objected. ‘B-but you’re right. I expect she parked the car in a remote spot and it was stolen. Then something happened to her while she was trying to get home.’

  ‘I suppose someone could have found her alone,’ I agreed, ‘though it would be two coincidences, wouldn’t it? First the car stolen, then an attacker.’

  ‘Yes, b-but coincidences d-do happen.’

  ‘Yes, they do.’ Like Dragonslayer and the potter being such an exact match, for instance . . .

  A thundering on the stairs heralded Simon’s reappearance, looking pleased with himself. With the air of a secret agent he passed something surreptitiously across to Mu.

  Miranda broke off and stared at him.

  ‘Oh – this is Ambler’s younger brother, Simon,’ I explained. ‘You must have heard Mu mention Miranda, Simon?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said, smiling seraphically, and in automatic response she silently offered him all the remaining doughnuts.

  Well, he was a growing boy – and that probably accounted for the way he could get one whole into his mouth, too.

  ‘If you’ll excuse me . . .?’ Mu murmured, vanishing upstairs clutching her prize to her bosom, though I suppose if she’d been clutching Simon to it, it would have made for a more difficult situation.

  It’s just a trifle difficult sustaining some semblance of normal conversation when you know that your best friend is upstairs performing strange rites with a baster and the sperm of the man eating doughnuts like a schoolboy in front of you, but I rose above it. And at least he wasn’t rising above . . .

  Mmm. All this sex in the air sort of gets to you. Maybe, I thought, I’m about to have a kind of second spring . . . or an Indian summer? Perhaps my next Spiral Bound guidebook should be Spiral Bound: Sex. (Or does that sound a bit S & M?)

  A journey in search of a dark-haired, attractive (but not handsome), tall, unattached, straight, medically-certified-free-from-anything-disgusting, male.

  Actually, finding a unicorn might be easier. Still, at least I’m not desperate enough to find Simon tempting, possibly partly because he looks like Ambler, whom I love dearly in a sisterly way, but without Ambler’s cuddle-blanket appeal.

  Miranda, who’d clearly realized there was a subplot without guessing what it was, pulled herself together and poured Simon coffee, then began to discuss his university course with him. Then somehow it came out that he was a big Vengeane fan, and was in fact wearing one of the Dark Planet T-shirts under his leathers. (I just loved that creaking noise they made when he sat down!)

  ‘. . . as he carried her through the forest Nala could feel his heart beating through the soft leather of his tunic and hear the soft susurration as his thighs . . .’

  ‘What?’ said Simon, staring at me strangely.

  ‘Nothing,’ I said, hastily clicking off the memo recorder and smiling brightly.

  We had an animated three-sided discussion about why Raarg doesn’t ever deserve to get his hands on Nala even if he is redeemed, unless he conquers his dark side and achieves Cosmic Karma, though Dragonslayer very well might if he plays his cards right. Raarg might then fall into the hands of Sirene, the queen harpy, who is morally unfettered like Lili, only without a vestige of a conscience.

  At this point Lili/Sirene also wandered into the room. On Grand Central Station I sat down and had an insemination party.

  ‘There you all are!’ she said accusingly. Lili Ford Jakes, Secret Party Police. ‘I’ve been sitting in the pub for hours because I’m sure Nye said he was going there, but he didn’t show, so here I am.’

  She spotted Simon and, deciding she’d made the right decision, bestowed a sultry smile on him that caused a slight halt in the doughnut consumption.

  ‘Didn’t you say Mu was coming this weekend?’ she asked.

  ‘She’s upstairs – chipped nail varnish.’

  ‘She doesn’t still hand-paint them, does she? You can get all kinds of transfers and stick-on things now, you know,’ she said, then, abandoning the topic, began to make preliminary overtures to Simon.

  Poor Lili! The very first note of a – surely familiar? – powerful motorbike stopping outside had him out of the door like lightning.

  I followed after him, and without too much surprise found the Harley-Davidson parked there with Jaynie, small and plump in red and white leathers like a very special ripe tomato, deep in conversation with an enthralled Simon. Pops, her long grey plait thrown around her neck like a muffler, sat in the sidecar puffing at a hand-rolled cigarette.

  She unfolded herself, stepped out and gave me a kiss. ‘Surprise, darling! We thought we’d just pop over and see the hovel, but don’t worry, we aren’t staying here. We’ve booked a room at the local pub for tonight – the Frog and Ratchet.’

  ‘Toad and Blowpipe,’ I corrected.

  ‘Eagle and Stone?’ suggested Miranda faintly, having followed us out, and was instantly recognized and embraced by Pops. Jaynie broke off briefly and hugged everyone indiscriminately before plunging back into an enthralling discussion with Simon in which only words like ‘cc’s’ and ‘cylinder heads’ could be heard.

  I speak many languages, but not Motorbike.

  We left them to it and went back in, together with a couple of bottles of Portuguese wine, some salami and a lot of olives. Mu had descended, and quite a party developed before Simon popped back in to say goodbye – with a wink at Mu, sitting demurely next to Miranda on the horsehair sofa, and a kiss blown at Lili, before leaving with that sexy leather-thighs-slithering-together sound again . . .

  Oh dear.

  Lili didn’t leave until the last drop of booze ran out, when the rest of us repaired to the pub for dinner, halfway through which Pops demanded a large pair of scissors from the waitress and casually hacked twelve inches or so off the end of her plait, because she said it kept getting in everything and had nearly caused an Isadora Duncan by getting caught in the bike wheels on the way down.

  I must have inherited my rogue Rapunzel genes from Pops’ side of the family.

  It was late when Mu and I finally staggered back to the cottage and slumped down wearily, trying to raise the energy to make that final mile to bed.

  ‘There are rows and rows of Chinese characters imprinted on the inside of my eyelids,’ Mu said drowsily. ‘That’s strange, isn’t it?’

  ‘Perhaps you were made in Hong Kong?’ I suggested, just as the phone rang. ‘Who on earth can that be, at this time of night?’

  It was Ambler, reporting outbreaks of sneezing and runny eyes among the felines, and seeking guidance, which woke Mu up, and she ordered him instantly to drag the vet from his bed to minister to them, in case it was cat flu.

  ‘And don’t take no for an answer! No, there should only be eight cats and the kittens, Ambler. If there were eleven at tea-time you’ve been feeding the neighbours’, too. Now, do what I said and I’ll come back early tomorrow.’

  Mu left at dawn. I’d already worked out the best left-handed circular route back for her, and stuck the road numbers across her dashboard in fl
uorescent Post-it notes.

  After that I managed to do a whole chapter of Vengeane before I heard the sound of the Harley, and I only just remembered to dash up to the spare room and hide the turkey baster box before giving them the guided tour.

  Fortunately they loved the cottage, and Jaynie promised to find some blue and white tiles for the kitchen to replace the mottled beige ones. Pops, always good at interior design, helped me rearrange the furniture and hang some drapes, and before I knew it, it all looked totally different and much more comfortable.

  After this we stretched our legs over the moors at the back and went up to the cromlech to admire the distant view of the silvery sea, before Pops and Jaynie packed the sidecar and drove off, tooting the horn and taking a giant avoiding swerve around Pansy as she wobbled out on her heavily laden bicycle.

  The subject of late motherhood hadn’t raised its head above the parapet.

  Peace slowly descended on Aces Acre.

  Dear Pops and Jaynie,

  I’m staying overnight in London, since I’ve suddenly become a media person. However, once I’ve done these two shows I don’t suppose I’ll ever be asked again.

  The film rights for the Vengeane novels are being negotiated for, which may make the tax man very rich, but I don’t suppose will do me a lot of good. And look what they did to Dune!

  I thought you’d like this postcard of Millais’ Ophelia, which reminded me of Miranda when she’s feeling depressed. A sort of beautiful half-wittedness, just letting herself drift down the river of life with a limp bouquet and an expression of gormless resignation.

  I put it down to low blood sugar. In Selfridges I discovered lovely long-stemmed flowers made out of sweets and sugared almonds, and bought some for Miranda to nibble on if she feels gloomy. I bet if Ophelia had had a bunch of those she wouldn’t have been such a wet lettuce.

  It was lovely to see you both, even so fleetingly: next time you must stay in the cottage.

  Love,

  Sappho

  Chapter 11

  Aces High

  April came in like a badly stuffed lion and proceeded to leak, off and on, most days.

  It had been another of the Chris weekends, where Miranda was briefly present on the Saturday morning, but abstracted and ready to dash off to do her master’s bidding. Not a lot seemed to have changed since the small clothes incident or the infidelity, and I didn’t suppose she’d told him about the craft workshop scheme either.

  But then, he had had years to perfect ways of making her feel very unsure of herself, a sort of mental bullying technique.

  On Sundays there were, of course, no flower orders, but I expected to see her on the Monday.

  I’d done a good morning’s work, and felt the need of a cliff walk, despite it being a pretty murky sort of morning. When you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go.

  The car park at Rhossili was deserted, and when I got out of the car and set off along the cliff path a thick mist wrapped my head like wet, earthy sacking.

  There was that familiar sense of treading along the edges of unseen chasms, even though this morning I couldn’t see them.

  You might think this was a bit foolhardy, but at Rhossili I could feel the pathway beneath my feet even though, in deference to the chilly wetness of the day, I was wearing shoes. The texture of the sheep-nibbled turf on the seaward side is quite different.

  The mist was delicious, like walking inside loosely knit marshmallow. Cold, damp tendrils richly scented with the sea, trodden grass and warm wet sheep invaded my lungs as I moved through the muffled dream landscape.

  Twice a seagull ripped past my ear as it took last-minute avoiding action, and once a sheep leaped from under my feet and lumbered off with a strangled bleat.

  I went as far as the triangulation point, and then leaned on it, transposing all these fog-invoked thoughts to Vengeane.

  Nala moved slowly through the eerie twisting spirals of mist, feeling the way with all six senses . . . but even so, a bronze-winged beast of Megadorr sprang into the air with a cry like a screeching demon from right under her feet, rudely awakened and hungry.

  Another gull screeching past my ear like a howitzer made me jump practically out of my skin: there seemed to be lots of them suddenly, circling with mad yelps just out of sight.

  And what were those strange, bobbing shapes, no more than a change in the density of the fog, which seemed to hover just ahead of me on the cliff edge? The birds’ yelps took on the sound of insane laughter . . .

  No, not the birds – for surely that was insane laughter? Was I alone on the cliff top with a giggling maniac?

  ‘Ger-on-i-moooo!’

  Now that I must have invented, for who’d be standing on a cliff edge in wet mist (besides me), shouting and laughing? The voice, distorted as it was, sounded sort of familiar . . .

  It was probably in my head. It’s so hard to tell the difference sometimes, isn’t it? I mean, what’s real, and what isn’t real – and of course Vengeane is real to me.

  Cautiously I crept forward off the path to where the sound might – if it existed – have come from, and another sheep (or something) moved off past me into the murk. Or maybe my eyes had begun inventing shapes?

  Only a madman would leave the path in this weather . . .

  Something soft wrapped itself around my legs and I fell forward with one hand clutching empty air and the other frantically grabbing tussocky grass. There was an interesting interlude while I slowly shifted all my body weight back on to firm ground and sat up.

  My would-be assassin was an old raincoat. Kicking it away I got up and felt my way back to the path with extreme caution and the feeling that even a hardened brink-lover like myself would be better off somewhere else.

  And I was getting wet. It wasn’t that my hundred-per-cent waterproof wasn’t working – it was – but it was shedding a hundred per cent of the rain on to my legs. It didn’t mention that on the label.

  My eyes were so encrusted with blown salt spray that they felt (and probably looked) like frosted grapes, and the wind was rising to a demonic shriek in my aching ears.

  Enough.

  I love being alone, but that morning I wanted to be somewhere where I could see I was alone, though I filed all those lovely sensations of muffling, howling opacity away for future reference.

  It was now later than I thought, for the National Trust shop sported a glimmer of light, and the car park held a scattering of cars and one coach – but not a human was to be seen.

  Had aliens abducted them to conduct more weird sexual experiments? How many did they need to do? Why didn’t they just pop out of their spaceships and buy a load of women’s magazines, which would tell them more than they ever wanted to know about sex on Planet Earth?

  But no, everyone was in the Seaspray Café.

  The forcibly decanted tourists (it’s Monday – you will see the cliff top at Rhossili) were well settled in with postcards, guidebooks and coffee, and a group of happy hikers occupied one corner.

  They all had bright red socks on: maybe that’s how the aliens recognize each other when disguised as humans?

  In another corner were a pair of thwarted and sullen hang-gliders, prevented from hurling themselves Icarus-like into the void by an inability to see where they were going. But at least they were fully clothed. I’ve had a warped inner picture of hang-gliders ever since I saw a film on TV at Mu’s about nudists going about their usual pursuits stark naked. It certainly gave whole new connotations to the words ‘hang-gliding’.

  I hung my anorak up and slid my feet out of my wet shoes. They looked a bit blue, but would soon thaw out.

  None of the tables was free, but one was inhabited only by a morose individual reading a tabloid newspaper.

  Figuring, perhaps illogically, that anyone preferring rude pictures to words would be disinclined to be chatty, I squidged across and asked if the other chairs at his table were taken.

  He barely glanced at me, but his expression suggested
that sharing his table with a bedraggled female of uncertain age was not high on his list of must-dos for today. Still, he didn’t protest when I swept his belongings off one chair on to the next and sat down.

  I was suddenly hungry: very, very hungry. And cold.

  The only-here-for-the-money student waitress might avoid eye contact, but she couldn’t escape my voice, which has a certain depth and resonance when in need of sustenance – and the potential for a living on the stage had I been of a more exhibitionist nature (and if leading men came in larger sizes).

  ‘Full English breakfast,’ I said, smiling at her reassuringly, for she was clearly of a nervous disposition. ‘Coffee – lots of coffee. With milk, no pots of that Polyfilla substitute. And I’ll have the coffee now, while I’m waiting for the breakfast.’

  ‘Coffee comes with the breakfast.’

  ‘Mine will come before, during, and after,’ I said encouragingly, and she stared blankly at me before wandering off, scratching her head with her pencil.

  Perhaps I was wrong about her being a student, for what could she be studying? Unless it’s hairdressing, for that look of having stuck your head in a blender for ten minutes must surely be intentional?

  Before I’d had time to do more than blink the crusting of salt off my eyelashes, she was back with a pot of coffee, a mug, and plastic containers of something that described itself as half-milk. What was the other half? Bonemeal?

  ‘This is the Coffee with Breakfast,’ she explained earnestly. ‘If you want more, it’s extra.’

  ‘Fine,’ I said warmly, ‘well done.’ And wrapping my icy hands around the mug, began to gently steam, noticing for the first time that the morose bearded one had abandoned his comic and was, frankly, staring at me.

  He looked vaguely familiar, and not unhandsome, resembling a small Spanish grandee, though the way his eyebrows trudged up and down like hairy caterpillars when he slurped his tea rather spoiled the effect.