Every Woman for Herself

by Trisha Ashley

  ‘Okay. Thanks, Em.’

  ‘And I’m off to the hospital,’ Anne said, pulling herself up.

  ‘The meeting’s tonight at eight, after dinner,’ Em reminded me. ‘In here.’

  I didn’t try to protest any more: if Anne and Em were determined Skint Old Northern Woman would live, then live it would, and I started to feel quite excited.

  We see the tip of history’s iceberg.

  Entombed in the deep belly

  the women’s mouths move

  silently.

  From ‘Words from the Spirit’ by Serafina Shane

  I don’t know why Gloria felt that I should beware of Mace, because he has never shown the slightest tendency to drag me into his lair and ravish me, which would be slightly difficult with Caitlin in the offing anyway.

  I think he is more in danger of Em dragging him into her lair: if she makes her mind up she is likely to pounce should she get an opportunity. Still, I think she also finds Chris attractive too, if she can only get over his double handicap of Christianity and the love of Dickens.

  Mace did not even emerge from his study when I got there this morning. Caitlin was ready and waiting for me.

  I painted ‘Caitlin in the Rainforest’, and Caitlin painted ‘Charlie with Blue Hair’. Time flew past on hummingbird wings, and before we knew it Mace had come knock, knock, knocking on heaven’s door, and entered our paradise like a particularly beautiful, but potentially dangerous, snake.

  Smooth and fatal, sums him up pretty well, really.

  Caitlin proudly showed him her picture.

  ‘It’s a speaking likeness,’ he said solemnly. ‘Especially the hair.’

  ‘Yes it is,’ Caitlin said severely. ‘You aren’t looking properly, but Charlie showed me: look at Charlie’s hair.’

  He turned his oblique, midnight-velvet stare on me, and I shifted a bit under the searching scrutiny.

  ‘It’s very pretty – and unusual. Silvery hair combined with dark eyes, eyebrows and eyelashes – different.’

  ‘It’s natural,’ I said coldly.

  Caitlin tugged impatiently at his arm: ‘You’re not looking properly, is he Charlie? The blue paintwork is reflecting onto it so she’s got blue hair.’

  ‘You’re right,’ he said, after another minute inspection. ‘And there is a blue-green light up one side of her face, from the plants. If she weren’t wearing jeans, she’d look like a wood nymph.’

  ‘It’s not good enough to look, you have to see,’ Caitlin said importantly.

  I hope I didn’t sound that bossy.

  Mace walked around me and stood close enough to radiate body heat, gazing down at my canvas. ‘It’s amazing how like Caitlin that is, even though she is so tiny in the middle of it. Clearly Caitlin…’ he added quietly. ‘Herself – there’s nothing of me in there.’

  ‘No, she doesn’t look like you or her mother,’ I agreed. ‘Though she has got your eyes.’

  Then I suddenly remembered what his ex-wife had said about Caitlin not being his … though surely he hadn’t believed that?

  ‘Anyone could have dark blue eyes,’ he said.

  Surprised, I twisted and looked up into his brooding face: ‘Well no, they couldn’t – didn’t you do genetics at school? Besides, yours are a real dark navy blue, and you don’t often see that.’

  He smiled like the sun coming out over the High Atlas and said unexpectedly: ‘I think I’ll take you out for lunch.’

  ‘Oh yes!’ Caitlin agreed. ‘Let’s take Charlie!’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, somewhat taken aback. ‘But I—’

  I stopped and swallowed. Well, you try being invited to lunch by Mace North and finding an excuse on the spur of the moment.

  And part of me wanted to go. I suspect it’s the same bit that always wanted to drag the young gardener, Steve, behind the shrubbery.

  ‘Were you doing something else?’ he enquired, employing the ultimate weapon: the ‘I’m going to abduct you on horseback, and carry you off to my tent – you don’t mind, do you?’ smile.

  ‘No,’ I conceded weakly.

  Barbarian hordes, sweep me away.

  ‘Get your coat,’ Barbarian Horde said practically.

  I was so glad to see that he wasn’t wearing the red duvet today.

  * * *

  ‘So my little chicken’s been going out with that actor,’ Gloria Mundi said, parting the silver fronds of my fringe and peering searchingly into my eyes.

  ‘What? Did you?’ Anne said, surprised. ‘Well, bugger me! Does Em know?’

  ‘I didn’t go out sort of out. I just had a pub lunch with him and Caitlin. I think he asked me on impulse.’

  ‘Drink this tea,’ Gloria said, thrusting a cup into my hands. ‘I need to see what’s coming to pass.’

  ‘I don’t feel like a cup of tea, thanks, Gloria. The discussion group will be here any minute, and I’ve got to fetch the magazine stuff up from the Summer Cottage.’

  She stood over me, though, until I drained the cup, and then spent long minutes staring down into the tea leaves and muttering.

  The coven might dismiss her as a mere wisewoman, but I’m sure she knows a lot more than any of them. She just doesn’t share it, even with Em.

  ‘Dead Greg’s widow’s staying at Hoo House with the other loonies,’ Em said coming in. ‘Inga’s up in arms – said I’d made her employ a “muwdwess”.’

  ‘Charlie’s nicked your actor,’ Anne said helpfully.

  ‘Someone dark and strange is entering her life … bringing change and trouble,’ agreed Gloria, taking another doubtful look into the teacup. ‘Storm clouds are gathering.’

  ‘That might be Angie. She’s naturally dark, she just dyes her hair, and she’s certainly strange.’

  ‘I’ve got no hair,’ chipped in Walter, who was quietly rocking away by the stove, carving another walking-stick head. ‘No bodily hair what-so-ever.’

  ‘And there’s the Treacle Tart, too. She and Father have made it up, and they’re even more all over each other than before.’

  ‘It’s a man,’ Gloria said with certainty. She tilted the cup as though some trick of the light might show her something better. ‘And I see a child … but—’ she broke off, frowning.

  ‘What?’ I demanded.

  ‘Never you mind.’

  ‘They do a good lunch over at the Stone Cross,’ Em said.

  ‘How did you…?’

  ‘Freya. In the back room with her lover.’

  ‘You don’t mind, do you, Em? It didn’t mean anything, they were going anyway, and just sort of took me along. I don’t want another man even if Mace is interested in me that way, which he isn’t. Anyway, he’s a bit scary.’

  ‘He does have a deliciously dark edge to him,’ Em agreed. ‘That’s why he seems so much more suited to my purpose than Chris. I need the love of a Bad Man. We’ll see tomorrow night. The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, so I’m going to mix a potion up that will make him appreciate me. Gloria, you’re in charge of seeing it gets in the right glass of sherry before dinner, and I don’t want any more of that “he’s not for you” business, right?’

  ‘Right,’ conceded Gloria, with unusual meekness. ‘I’ll see to that for you, don’t you worry. And if you don’t want that vicar, I could see that he falls for Anne instead?’

  ‘No,’ Em said quickly. ‘No, I’m enjoying the novelty of having a Barkis, even if he’s the wrong one, and Anne doesn’t really want anyone just now. Do you, Anne?’

  ‘No, just want to get fit and back to work. Besides, Red’s phoned me up.’

  ‘Red? But you wouldn’t have him back, would you?’

  ‘Might. Never trusted him in the first place, but damn good in the sack. I’ll think about it.’

  ‘There’s that Freya at the door,’ Gloria said absently, and I didn’t ask how she knew. ‘I’ll be fetching the ice in.’

  I noticed she took my teacup out with her.

  * * *

  We were there
until nearly midnight putting the magazine more or less in order, with Jen to tell us what was and wasn’t possible.

  It was hard work, but I think we’ve got it right, and Jen’s taken my painting of Jess Down the Well for the cover.

  Susie’s cartoons are great.

  Gloria hung around most of the evening, giving me strange, furtive, sideways looks, so goodness knows what she saw in the tea leaves.

  But whatever it was, it certainly wasn’t anything romantic, since that part of me has atrophied away to nothing. I confess to faint lustful pangs sometimes when I think of Mace North, but that is more just the last stirring of dying embers, and is balanced out by the slight frisson of terror he also somehow manages to inspire in me.

  Probably half the female population of the English-speaking world feels the same way, since without being in any way a hunk, he is still the sort of man women look at and wonder about the body beneath the clothes.

  Mmm …

  When we were tossing filler article suggestions about, Gloria suddenly said she had a winter tip for southern visitors: Never eat yellow snow.

  Well, thank you for that one, Gloria.

  Chapter 16

  Going Hairless

  On the Friday of Father’s birthday, everyone was preoccupied at breakfast, and immediately afterwards went their separate ways. (Rhymers don’t do cards and presents, they have Feasts instead.)

  Branwell is pretty much recovered, but he has received dispensation from his university to stay at home until after Christmas and put the finishing touches to his Great Work. There wasn’t much term left anyway; universities seem to spend more time off than on.

  Father abandoned his nearly finished book and went out somewhere with Jessica, dropping the girls at school en route. Jessica was upset at breakfast because she had put two pounds on, and wouldn’t eat anything at all, just drank black coffee, which Em said she’d probably sick straight back up again if she got the chance. (But I think she was joking.)

  I couldn’t see any sign of the two pounds either, but I suppose that’s sort of like three extra layers of skin all over her little bird bones.

  Anne vanished for her mysterious treatment, Emily readied herself for a mammoth cooking session, Walter went off into the dining room to polish all the glasses, and Gloria disappeared into the back scullery to brew mysterious potions.

  She still had my teacup from last night in there with her when I looked, with a ‘do not wash this cup’ sticker on the side. I couldn’t make anything of it, except that it was drying out like dark dandruff.

  While I was getting ready to fetch Caitlin, Flossie emerged from her igloo and intimated that she wouldn’t mind coming too, which was a surprise: extra exercise seems to be paying off.

  We set off happily enough, but then some primal instinct made me look over my shoulder just in time to spot Angie, turning the Parsonage corner and starting down the track.

  Call me a coward, but I did not feel in the least like a screaming match at forty paces, so I scooped Flossie right up off her flat, furry little feet and ran, bursting into Mace’s house unheralded and panting.

  Flossie may be a bit thinner and fitter, but she’s still heavy.

  Mace, elegantly disposed on the window seat with a cup in one hand like a soigné coffee advert, raised a surprised eyebrow.

  ‘Come in, why don’t you?’

  ‘Sorry,’ I panted, dumping Flossie on the rug. ‘Angie – Dead Greg’s widow – chasing me.’

  Flossie, wagging her tail, ambled over and stuck her wet nose up his trouser leg.

  ‘Brazen hussy,’ he said, reaching down to pat her domed and silky skull, inside which precious little went on. ‘I don’t let girls do that until the second date, and we hardly know each other.’

  ‘That’s not what Gloria says,’ I commented unthinkingly.

  He stared at me: ‘I don’t remember any Gloria.’

  ‘Perhaps you haven’t met her? She’s … she helps…’ I stopped. There is no way of describing Gloria and Walter’s roles. ‘She’s Walter’s sister.’

  ‘Two old retainers? Well, well! And what does Gloria base her estimate of my character on?’

  ‘Tea leaves. Oh – and Surprise! magazine.’

  His face darkened alarmingly: ‘Never mention that evil, slime-spreading rag again in my presence!’

  ‘Why? What’s the matter with it?’

  We were interrupted by a sudden hammering on the door. ‘Come out you murdering witch – I know you’re in there!’ screeched Angie.

  I thought of those long, blood-red talons reaching out for me, shuddered and backed away, but Mace got up.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Opening the door,’ he said calmly.

  I darted in front of him clutching at him with both hands. He simply swept me behind him like I weighed nothing, and turned the handle.

  I peered around him; Angie, poised for another onslaught at the knocker, overbalanced and fell forward onto the path, where she stared up at him between witch-locks of violently auburn hair.

  ‘Can I help you?’ he asked politely.

  The transformation from raging, unbalanced harpy to normal-if-drooling fan was astonishing in a science-fiction, shape-changing sort of way. Maybe the aliens were at it again? Probably recruited her at the same time as Matt.

  ‘You’re Mace North, aren’t you? I loved you in One Midsummer Night, and – aargh!’

  She flung herself frantically back as a clatter of hooves heralded Elfreda Whippington-Smythe’s sudden advent. Her large and expensive horse slid to a stone-rattling halt and stood steaming, reeking and rolling its eyes, vast hooves inches away from Angie.

  ‘Oh Mace,’ Elfreda gasped, wrestling with the reins as her mount jerked its head up and down. Her little round boiled-gooseberry eyes under the pulled-down hat zoomed in on her quarry. I don’t think she noticed anyone else was there.

  ‘Hef you heard? That Charlie Rhymer’s an actual murderess! Inga at the nursery—’ She stopped as some elements of the tableaux before her finally registered. ‘Oh … you’re there, Charlie?’

  I stood on tiptoe and peeped around Mace, who was still holding me behind his back like a secret present. ‘Yes, the murderess in person – and this is Inga’s guest.’ I indicated Angie, momentarily silenced. ‘The murderee’s widow.’

  In the face of a new, expanded audience, Angie gave it her all: ‘She killed my husband! She led him on, and then killed him when he made a pass at her!’

  ‘I killed him, but I certainly didn’t lead him on!’ I said indignantly. ‘He sneaked into my house and assaulted me, and his death was an accident.’

  ‘An accident? You hit him with a cast-iron pan!’

  ‘It dropped on his head, and I’ve got an unimpeachable witness to prove it.’

  ‘If you mean that batty old cow who lived opposite you, she’d say anything.’

  ‘Don’t speak like that about one of my best friends!’ I said furiously, trying to duck under Mace’s arm, but he held me back with muscles like iron.

  ‘I just thought you ought to be warned about the woman looking after your child,’ Elfreda said to him stuffily. ‘Especially after what she did to Gunilla at the nursery.’

  ‘She didn’t do anything to Gunilla. It was the other way around, and I have an eyewitness to that one – Caitlin,’ Mace said pleasantly. ‘But thank you for the warning, Mrs Whippington-Smythe. How nice of you to rally to a helpless man’s defence.’

  She stared at him, went faintly pink, and kick-started her nag into movement. ‘I wouldn’t have bothered if I’d known you were under her spell already,’ she said nastily, and jolted away like a sack of potatoes. King Edward’s.

  ‘What spell? I haven’t done any spell!’ I yelled indignantly; trying again to release myself and get around Mace.

  ‘Will you be still?’ he said exasperatedly over his shoulder, then turned back to Angie. ‘I’m so sorry about your husband, but I’m sure Charlie didn’t mean to kill
him – it was clearly an accident – and if you persist in trying to blacken her name like this there is a law in this country she can use to stop you. Haven’t you got a life of your own to lead, without a hate campaign?’

  ‘Life? No – I had a good life, and we were going to Japan after Christmas! And there isn’t even a proper pension, and the insurance are hanging back on paying out, and to top it all, the squirrels are an Act of God! And it’s all because of that innocent-looking bitch behind you.’

  ‘I don’t think you can blame the squirrels on me, Angie,’ I protested. She ignored me, her voice rising:

  ‘She hasn’t always looked like that, you know. When she killed my husband she looked like the vamp she is!’

  ‘Goth,’ I corrected. ‘Different thing. I’m sorry about, well, about everything, Angie. Can’t you just let it rest and get on with life?’

  ‘Never,’ she said, turning away. ‘You just wait, Charlie Rhymer. I’m going to make sure your name is like mud, stinking mud, around here.’

  ‘You could get her stopped,’ Mace said, pushing me back in and closing the door.

  ‘Anyone who matters around here knows already. The incomers are the only ones who won’t have heard yet.’

  ‘Like me? Don’t I matter?’

  ‘Well, yes, but I was going to tell you. Angie just got to you first. You can let go of me now,’ I added pointedly.

  ‘I’m not sure I dare – you’ve got quite a temper.’

  ‘I don’t think I even register as a blip on the Mace North scale of temper, and anyway, I’m not angry with you.’

  He gazed down at me, his grip tightening rather than letting go …

  ‘People were shouting, Daddy,’ Caitlin said, pushing the door open with a large bag from which spilled clothes, teddy bears and hair ribbons in artless profusion. ‘Why are you holding Charlie?’

  ‘To stop her flying off.’

  Caitlin giggled. ‘Like a fairy?’

  ‘Something like that. Don’t you think it’s a bit early to pack?’ Mace said mildly.

  Caitlin was to have tea with the twins and stay the night, while the grown-ups had dinner in a civilised manner – though actually no Rhymer Birthday Feast had ever quite managed that yet.