‘Trisha Ashley writes with remarkable wit and originality – one of the best writers around!’
Katie Fforde
‘Trisha Ashley’s romp makes for enjoyable reading’
The Times
‘Full of down-to-earth humour’
Sophie Kinsella
‘A warm-hearted and comforting read’
Carole Matthews
‘Fast-paced and seriously witty’
The Lady
‘Packed with romance, chocolate and fun, this indulgent read is simply too delicious to put down’
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‘A lovely, cosy read’
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‘Fresh and funny’
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Also by Trisha Ashley
Sowing Secrets
A Winter’s Tale
Wedding Tiers
Chocolate Wishes
Twelve Days of Christmas
The Magic of Christmas
Chocolate Shoes and Wedding Blues
Good Husband Material
Wish Upon a Star
Finding Mr Rochester
Every Woman for Herself
Creature Comforts
A Christmas Cracker
Trisha Ashley was born in St Helens, West Lancashire, and believes that her typically dark Lancashire sense of humour in adversity, crossed with a good dose of Celtic creativity from her Welsh grandmother, have made her what she is today . . . whatever that is. Nowadays she lives in North Wales, together with the neurotic Border Collie foisted on to her by her son, and a very chancy Muse.
A Christmas Cracker was her eighth consecutive Sunday Times Top Ten bestseller. Her novels have twice been shortlisted for the Melissa Nathan Award for Romantic Comedy and Every Woman for Herself was nominated by readers as one of the top three romantic novels of the last fifty years.
For more information about Trisha please visit her Facebook fan page (Trisha Ashley books) or follow her on Twitter @trishaashley.
A LEAP OF FAITH
Trisha Ashley
BLACK SWAN
TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS
61–63 Uxbridge Road, London W5 5SA www.penguin.co.uk
Transworld is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com
First published in Great Britain in 2001 as THE URGE TO JUMP by Judy Piatkus (Publishers) Ltd
Published as A LEAP OF FAITH in 2016 by Black Swan an imprint of Transworld Publishers
Trisha Ashley has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Every effort has been made to obtain the necessary permissions with reference to copyright material, both illustrative and quoted. We apologize for any omissions in this respect and will be pleased to make the appropriate acknowledgements in any future edition.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781784160869
Typeset in 11/14pt Adobe Garamond by Falcon Oast Graphic Art Ltd. Printed and bound by Clays Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk.
Penguin Random House is committed to a sustainable future for our business, our readers and our planet. This book is made from Forest Stewardship Council® certified paper.
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
For Carol Weatherill, with love.
Author’s Note
The beautiful Gower peninsula in South Wales certainly exists, but the village of Bedd and all the characters portrayed within this book are the product of the author’s fevered imagination alone.
Foreword
Originally published by Piatkus in 2001 under the title The Urge to Jump, this is the second of my romantic comedies. It’s been long out of print and difficult to get hold of, so I’m delighted that Transworld have released this new edition.
It features Sappho, possibly my favourite heroine, who is tall, bossy, opinionated and outspoken – but also the kind of best friend we wish we all had.
I haven’t rewritten it, merely tweaked and polished a little here and there, so since it was created on the cusp of the new century it’s obviously very much of its time, especially with regard to mobile phones and computers. It’s amazing how things have changed in such a short space of time, but back then they were a luxury, rather than the norm.
Happy reading, everyone!
Trisha Ashley
Chapter 1
It’s All Greek to Me
Another glorious Grecian Two Thousand day was dawning over Bob’s Creative Break Centre on the island of Lefkada, and outside the air was like warm milk, tinged with the scent of burning charcoal . . .
Thank goodness I’m a woman of strong resolution. I needed to be, for not only did the island try to seduce me away from my morning’s work, so too that day did the stack of birthday mail on my bedside table.
But I’m like a jogger: I need my daily buzz and I’m programmed either to write every morning or self-destruct. It doesn’t matter which far-flung corner of the globe I’m in, whether I’m boarding a ferry, sitting in an aeroplane or paddling a canoe – between the hours of five and seven in the morning I’m either muttering into a tape recorder or scribbling in a notebook. Spiral Bound .
When I got a car of my own, I vowed I’d have a ‘Writers Do It Anywhere’ sticker on the bumper.
Still, there were ten more minutes and the current chapter of Vengeane: Dark Hours, Dark Deeds to wind up.
Nala, the heroine, shares with me (and Margaret Thatcher,
too, apparently), the traits of needing very little sleep and having great self-control.
Come to that, she’s a bit like a nubile Margaret Thatcher in leathers, for while she doesn’t exactly roam around the forest with a row of wizened willies dangling from her belt, she does have a nifty line in verbal emasculation.
Wish I did.
‘The realm of Mirrign was now rightfully Nala’s . . . but was she fated to rule it entirely alone? During her years of outcast wandering she’d dreamed of finding a true mate, her equal in skill, knowledge and strength.
‘Once, she’d thought Raarg was the man, until the scales had been torn from her dazzled eyes, and she’d seen the shallow, vain, self-seeking reality behind the beautiful façade.
‘In the bitterness of his rejection he’d followed her like a malignant shadow, stirring his followers to vile deeds fuelled by the evil, lichen-brewed Laag.
‘And now the mysterious and alien Dragonslayer, tall and wraith-pale against the dark forest, had come to haunt her life. His eyes, like clear crystal, seemed to pierce her very soul . . .
‘Dragonslayer? What sort of place could the Darkside be, if dragons were enemies who needed to be slain? And what did he want from her? ’
‘I don’t know, blossom,’ I told her, clicking off the tape recorder. ‘You’ll just have to work it out for yourself.’
And I needed to find another name for the evil-inducing drink: I couldn’t have Laag Louts in my fantasy novel, it was just too much. I’d think of something else that afternoon, while the current crop of Creative Breakers were utilizing their free time by writing, sleeping, or fornicating, according to their tastes (and luck).
I might be writing, but I certainly wouldn’t be fornicating.
It’s such a meaningless quick fix without love that I hadn’t been really tempted for years, though lately for some reason I seemed to have been thinking about sex almost as much as about my novel. (That’s about every thirty seconds.)
Perhaps it was something to do with my birthday approaching, heralding yet another upward step on the spiral stair to forty, with no vestige of a Significant Other in my life, and a decreasing chance of ever finding one.
Let’s face it, by this stage the only available men left on the shelf were the last few date-expired ones, for whom genetic modification could only be a good idea.
In a lesser person desperation might have set in, but I was not about to grab the nearest male flotsam like the Incredible Sinking Woman. I had a rash and ill-considered fling in my youth, so I know that the game is definitely not worth the candle.
Raarg, my novel’s gorgeous but evil anti-hero, is loosely based on my ex-lover, Dave (so he’s pretty loose), although Dave isn’t really evil, just a bit vicious round the edges like a marginally untrustworthy dog.
He turned a little odd after I realized I’d made a big mistake and ditched him, and he took to stalking me down dark streets, making peculiar phone calls, and stuff like that. Then one night I mistook him for a mugger and laid him out cold.
Had he known about the kick-boxing classes I was taking he might have been a little more circumspect in his approach, but the hospital let him out next day, so there was no real harm done.
He still kept track of me, though, sending little keepsakes in the mail to let me know he was still crazy after all these years, like the postcard I’d got the other day.
I know where you are, Sappho.
Dave
Well, that hardly put him in the running for the Christopher Columbus Discovery of the Year Award, since I’ve been teaching here every August and September since Bob set the place up.
And Dave is quite a well-known freelance photographer, with contacts everywhere, so even though he’s sitting darkly brooding in the middle of his web, he can always feel me twitching on the edges, no matter which remote corner of the globe I’ve got to.
I usually only responded to his little sallies by doing something particularly horrible to Raarg, but this time I sent him a postcard back.
Dave,
I know where I am, too.
Sappho
Then I did something horrible to Raarg.
This was the third book in the Vengeane series, and I wasn’t too sure how the fourth and (possibly) final one would go, but I didn’t hold out much hope for Raarg.
And where the hell did this mysterious Dragonslayer suddenly pop into my subconscious from? I mean – Dragonslayer!
Last time I was in London I met two other fantasy writers for lunch – Tom Mac and Rana-Raye Faye – and we agreed we really ought to start a breakaway Fantasists’ Society, with rules like: 1) No More Bleeding Dragons, 2) Less of the Big Fiery Swords, and 3) Definitely No Wizards.
Vengeane may be a wizard-free zone, but boy, has Dragon-
slayer got a big fiery sword! I didn’t know why he was coming across as so strangely sexy, since I didn’t go for blond men.
Nor did I go for handsome men, since Dave ‘call-meNarcissus’ Devlyn, nor stupid men, nor men shorter than I am.
The pool of tall, single, dark-haired, intelligent, attractivebut-not-handsome men had shrunk away to a small muddy puddle, so while I may have given up fornication originally from conviction, by now it was more necessity.
I was getting older and pickier: the world was filling with married men, married men whose wives didn’t understand them, divorced men, weird divorced men, gay men and seriously mother-fixated men. Oh, and adolescents, like the only single man among the current crop of Creative Breakers: the dew’s still on him.
Just to depress myself further, lately I’d been reading some of the women’s magazines that the Breakers had left behind, and they were all about sex, with lots and lots of ways to sexual gratification, though frankly the traditional way had seemed OK to me at the time, and if you had to do all this other stuff nowadays, well, count me out.
The only oral gratification I was interested in came in a Cadbury’s wrapper.
It seemed that some strange sexual tide had raced past me, and not only had it not swept me along with it, it hadn’t even left me damp around the edges: beached on the shores of love like a bit of faded flotsam.
These were dismal thoughts for a birthday, so I reached for the stack of mail and chose a fat cream envelope inscribed in the unmistakable scrawl of my best friend, Mu.
With what innocently happy anticipation I pulled out the
beautiful, hand-made card, the numbers picked out in pearly buttons – and with what horror I found that something dark, fully fledged and monstrous had slithered out with it: my age.
Thirty-nine? I mean – thirty-nine ?
Mu just had to have got it wrong, for although I stopped counting when I turned thirty, I was sure that was only a couple of years ago . . . wasn’t it?
Maths is my one weakness. It took me ten minutes of furious calculation to accept that it was true, all too true! I was blindfold on the brink of forty and the abyss loomed at my feet.
One year, one little year away from the big Four-O. It was so unfair: I wasn’t ever expecting to be forty. You don’t; it always happens to someone else.
Why didn’t someone warn me it was coming, before it jumped out of an envelope, smote me with the Bladder of Mortality, and capered off giggling insanely?
And there was another thing – not only did I suddenly have to cope with the realization that I’m not immortal, it meant that the next year I’d be a forty-year-old female living alone in a country cottage in Wales.
Do you know what that would make me? A Single Eccentric Female, that’s what – I’d need only the cat. And maybe the broomstick.
The only upside was that I’d be unlikely to be burned as a witch these days, unless the Greeks do it too: Stathis, the local café owner, made the sign of the evil eye when I told him I just didn’t believe he regularly used the flea spray I gave him for his cat. While I don’t have any particular affinity with cats, I don’t like to see them with great bunches of fleas dangling over each eye like grapes, so I seemed to be waging some sort of one-woman campaign here. My friend Mu sent the flea stuff out: she has Cat Mania.
And cats may just turn out to be the Immortals in feline form, and put in a good word for me, for they always looked at me as if they’ve seen everything since the Dawn of Creation and found it – ho hum! – boring.
Almost anything seemed possible bathed in the magical early morning sunshine of a Greek island – except my being thirty-nine.
But I supposed I’d have to learn to accept it gracefully, along with middle age, because the only alternative was to cling to the crumbling ledge of thirty-nine for ever like the very last lemming. I’d so much rather jump off voluntarily, as did the famous, high-diving, ancient Greek poetess my parents named me for.
To Boldly Go where neither of my closest friends, Mu and Miranda, have travelled before, since I’m the eldest.
Dave, of course, must be well into the foothills of the forties since he was a mature student when we were an item. And anyway, he’s not a friend – more an old poltergeist who pops up unexpectedly from time to time and throws things about in a fit of pique.
Even Bob is younger than me, which is not fair, because being a man he will become distinguished, not old, and even if he gets puckers round his mouth like a chicken’s bottom he can grow a moustache to hide it. (I suppose I could too, come to that, but it’s a little frowned on by women outside Mediterranean countries.)
Shell-shocked, I opened the rest of my cards and letters, all confirming the unwelcome truth, then went up to the cliffs to digest the implications of my future: rebirthed as a wrinkly.
I felt much better about things once I was standing on the edge of the nearest cliff – I always do, though so far, unlike the
original Sappho, I’ve managed to resist the urge to jump off. It might have been rash of my parents to give me the name, but according to Aunt Pops, Mother took one look at me when I was born and said: ‘Sappho!’ I thought this romantic until I read Plato’s description of the poetess as small, swarthy and having a big head on a little body. Pops, who brought me up after my parents abandoned me for the Great Archaeological Excavation in the sky, said I was never swarthy, just red and cross.
Sappho Mark One was supposed to have jumped off to purge her anguish when her lover deserted her, but maybe they got it wrong and it was the trauma of turning forty that really tipped her over the edge.
And lots of people did it at the time without ending up dead – it was a sort of early bungee jump, without the sixty metres of knicker elastic. Sappho was just unlucky.
Perhaps I ought to try it on my next birthday, since I think I’ll need some form of extreme catharsis.
Turning forty is definitely a rite of passage needing to be marked in some way. For most people it would be a time to jump off the rails and do something totally different, but unfortunately I’ve never quite managed to be on the rails in the first place.
It might have to be the cliff jump.
I seemed to be getting the urge to jump in more ways than one lately . . .
But now I came to think of it, my life was going to change this next year anyway, because the tenant in my Welsh cottage had died, leaving me with no excuse not to go and settle there . . . for part of the year, at least.
I’d never had a home of my own before. In between travels I’d stayed at Pops and Jaynie’s in Portugal, or Mu’s house
in Pembrokeshire, or here on Lefkada, with Bob and Vivi.
When I bought the cottage, plus tenants, it was with the intention of settling down there when I was much older –forty, maybe. Some great age like that. But suddenly it was upon me, and I was to move there in the spring – before I lost my own spring altogether.
I also vaguely envisioned living there with a soulmate –maybe a writer or an artist of some kind – though when you see what comes of that sort of marriage of equals, like Plath and Hughes, I thought maybe getting a dog would be a better bet.
But I was still not entirely without my dreams. For instance, were Daniel Day-Lewis to jump out of my birthday cake in half-naked The Last of the Mohicans mode with the words: ‘Take me, Sappho, I’m yours’ on his lips, I would be prepared to give it a go, though I expect his novelty value would soon wear off.
While I stood there ruminating, with the sun warming my impervious complexion (brown hair, brown eyes, sallow skin – like a six-foot sparrow), time had already marched past me and I wanted to grab it with both hands and haul it back.
I opened my eyes and came back down to earth – the crumbling bit of cliff edge I was standing on, for some reason with my arms outstretched in classic Titanic pose, Medusa locks swirling.
Waves creamed on the rocks way, way below, and I let myself sway slightly towards them, savouring that heady feeling that down is up, and up is down, and everything is one . . .
‘Sa-phooo!’ shrilled a horribly familiar voice, nearly sending me into a fast Icarus down the cliff face. ‘Sa-phooo, dooon’t jump . . .’
Stout, perspiring, panting, gesticulating, Ken Smollett thundered towards me like a mad sea urchin.
‘Don’t be silly,’ I told him repressively when he was close enough to spray-grease me. ‘What do you mean by startling me like that?’
‘I was looking for you,’ he said reproachfully, caught a glimpse of my bare feet and reddened as if they were indecent. ‘And don’t mind me mentioning it, but shouldn’t you have shoes on? There are scorpions, snakes . . . ’
‘While I’d be sorry to tread on any creature, they’ll just have to take their chance,’ I said patiently. ‘I’m not a Buddhist so at least I won’t think they’ll be a defunct relative.’
And my soles are so leathery, due to my unfortunate habit of walking about in my bare feet like a superannuated hippie, that I don’t suppose I’d even notice unless it was something really squidgy.
Ken eyed me strangely. ‘Are you on something?’
‘Borrowed time: isn’t everyone? Why were you looking for me?’
‘Well, because it’s the last day of the course, and I didn’t want to waste a minute of it. So when I looked out early and saw you—’
‘It’s your last day, not mine,’ I cut in ruthlessly. ‘My sessions run at clearly stated times and none of them before breakfast. In any case, you aren’t on my course, you’re supposed to be doing poetry with Nigel.’
His face fell, but he stood his ground and took a determined grip on the sheaf of papers clutched in one sweaty paw. ‘I’ve written a villanelle – for you!’
He wouldn’t recognize a villanelle if it snuggled up and licked his ear. And one more of Ken’s appalling poems and I might be jumping off the edge voluntarily.
(Another theory – maybe Sappho Numero Uno was hounded into the leap by awful poets following her around trying to read her their work.)
‘You are so much more sensitive and sympathetic than Nigel,’ he pleaded, edging too close considering I couldn’t step back. ‘In fact, I hoped we might be able to meet in London from time to time to discuss – work.’
By now he was leeringly eye to eye with my bosom, and I was just contemplating the bloodless infliction of a little agony upon his portly person, when His Master’s (or Mistress’s) voice yelled: ‘KEN!’
Barbara Smollett’s voice is a rare gift: deep, powerful, strong, commanding – you could use it as a foghorn in emergencies.
Ken gave a galvanic jerk as if a rod had been strategically inserted by an invisible hand and hissed: ‘It’s Barbara – act casually. Later we can arrange—’ ‘KEN!’
His little fat legs turned about of their own volition and marched him jerkily off, while with turned head he was still mouthing at me.
Interesting . . .
I moved away from the cliff edge and, taking out my notebook, scribbled: The power of her voice was irresistible – even Dragonslayer, though not of her race, felt its resonance jerk his limbs commandingly . . .
Chapter 2
Birthday Letters
There were three letters among my cards, though one was not strictly speaking a birthday letter, but an indignant epistle from one Dorinda Ace, who was writing on behalf of her husband ‘ . . . Gilbert Ifor Ace, last direct male descendant of the Gower Aces, and as such the rightful inheritor of Aces Acre . ’ Then she went on to accuse me of exerting undue influence on the two elderly Ace brothers in order to buy the property, and ended by demanding that I instantly restore it to her husband, for: ‘I am not without influence in the Gower: before my marriage I was a Penryn. ’ I dashed off an immediate reply.
Dear Mrs Ace,
I will not begin by thanking you for your letter, since it was offensive in tone and slanderous in content.
Reading between the lines I take it that your solicitor has already informed you that you don’t have a leg to stand on. When I bought the cottage more than twelve years ago Dafydd and Gethyn Ace were fully aware of what they were doing, and more than happy with the price I paid and the
agreement that they could continue to live there, rent-free and without interference, for the rest of their lives.
I understand that your husband has inherited all the contents of the house, including family documents, which I’m sure will be a consolation to him.
I was most interested to learn your maiden name. Tell me: are you any relation of Chinless Charlie Penryn, who was arrested last year for posing as a nude Greek statue at the Acropolis and frightening a party of female tourists nearly to death? I believe the police have agreed to let him go back to Britain, providing he undergoes medical treatment. I expect you will be glad to have him home . . .
Of the other two letters, one was from Aunt Pops and Jaynie in Portugal, saying they thought they’d made a pretty good job of bringing me up for an Odd Couple, and now I was about to move to my Welsh hovel they were having fun collecting old pieces of Portuguese china and furniture for it, including a door.
I only hoped they didn’t try to gift-wrap it. Miranda’s note gave me the welcome though surprising news that she had moved down to what had been her parents’ house on the Gower:
. . . which Dad left to me provided I lived there: otherwise it would have passed to the Pondfish Preservation Society. We’re going to make it our main home, although we will have to keep the London house on too, since Chris needs to be there so much.
I’m sure he’s quite pleased to have me down here, because I’m an embarrassment now I’ve put on all this weight, but actually I prefer it in the country and so does Spike. He’s
pretty old for a Labrador, but the fresh air has given him a new lease of life.
The Gower peninsula has changed a lot since you and Mu spent that summer here when we were students. There was a magazine article recently that called it the New Cornwall, since lots of writers and artists are moving here, or buying weekend cottages. Even the ruined house at Penryn Castle is now a craft centre.
I meet most of the newcomers, since when Chris is down for the weekend it always develops into a sort of open house on a Saturday night, but there are some old friends here, too. I bumped into Lili Ford Jakes recently, who said she’d just bought a weekend cottage in the next village, and she wrote down the recipe for the Cabbage Soup Diet and gave it to me.
It was well meant, but when I read it I realized that being fat with permanent wind would be even worse than just being fat.
Also, I’m terribly busy working out biscuit recipes for Chris’s next TV series, Chris Goes Crackers, so there are thousands of tempting biscuits around all the time . . .
It was great news that Miranda would be living in Bedd too, so what with Mu being only in Pembrokeshire, we would be practically all together again for the first time since we were students. Also, since Miranda was on the spot, she could keep an eye on the workmen who were supposedly fixing the roof of Aces Acre, and installing an indoor toilet. When shall we three meet again? Mu and I hadn’t actually seen very much of Miranda since she married Chris Cotter, and the Iron – or maybe Slab Cake – curtain came down.
He really doesn’t like me. Maybe it was the time I told him that since he’d built his career on Miranda’s creative cookery skills, he should at least credit her contribution in the series and in the books. I thought he was going to spontaneously combust, which would have been the most interesting thing I’d ever seen him do, on or off screen, but unfortunately he didn’t.
What sort of a man can’t take a little criticism? Especially when it’s clear to anyone who knows them that Miranda is the real creative cookery genius. She even produced her own cookery book, The Stuffed Student, while we were still at college. Mu did the illustrations, we persuaded Miranda to send it off to a publisher, and it’s been in print ever since. But then she married Chris the Succubus, who has the culinary skills of a dead donkey, and that was the end of her personal career. I don’t know what she saw in him, though apparently some women do find him sexy in a foxy kind of way, but he was persistent and she is very persuadable.
I wrote a note back to her, since there was no point in ringing to tell her the glad tidings about the cottage: she has the mother of all stammers, and it’s worse on the phone.
After my last class with that week’s budding Fantasists I went into the hall and phoned Mu, who sounded wraithlike, which she isn’t, her slenderness stopping just this side of skinny.
‘Happy birthday, Sappho,’ she said cheerily.
‘Yes, but I’m thirty-nine, you heartless hag! What’s there to be happy about?’
‘It could be worse – you could be forty now.’
‘Thanks for that Thought for the Day – and there’s only a year to go. How can I possibly be nearly forty, Mu? I mean, isn’t forty wearing your hair in a bun, twinsets, Mantovani,
and changing your library book twice a week? Middle age?’
‘I am old, I am old, I will wear my Levis rolled,’ she intoned sepulchrally. ‘Come on, Sappho: that might have been what it was like once, but not now. Forty today means changing your hair colour twice a week, not your library books, twinsets aren’t compulsory, and even if you could get all that hair into a bun the weight would squish your face up like a rubber mask.’
‘But then no one could see the wrinkles,’ I pointed out. ‘And what about the Mantovani to Manilow?’
‘I think Motörhead’s the Mantovani of our generation,’ she suggested.
‘Forward into forty on a wave of “The Ace of Spades” and hennaed hair? You know, I think I’m beginning to feel better.’
‘Good. And don’t forget it will be my turn next, then Miranda’s, even though it doesn’t seem five minutes since we were all dewy little innocents sharing digs.’
‘I was never a little anything, dewy or otherwise, but no, it doesn’t, though I do feel much more mature inside – I’ve gone from seventeen to about twenty-five.’
‘That’s probably going to be the hell of it,’ Mu said thoughtfully. ‘Inside our heads we’ll still be young, but our bodies won’t cooperate. Pity we can’t slough them off from time to time like a snake.’
‘That would be lovely. I’d like to hand my folded papery self to one of the Creative Breakers and walk off fresh and uncreased . . . But – well, it’s not going to happen, is it? The only coil I shuffle off will be a mortal one.’
I shivered, goosed by Time. ‘You know, Mu, I never actually realized until this morning that I’m not going to live for ever!’
There was a surprised silence. ‘How odd!’ she said at last.
‘I’ve never thought of it like that either. I mean, you know you’re going to pop your clogs one day, but you don’t accept it. The bullet’s always got someone else’s name on it.’
‘There can’t be many that say Sappho or Mu. We just have to keep dodging.’
She sighed. ‘It’s funny, I’ve been watching my biological clock ticking away, but not my life.’
I cursed myself for my tactlessness, but she added more cheerfully: ‘At least your books will be immortal: O Immortal Sappho!’
‘But they’re not the Great Literature I thought I was going to write.’
‘Great fantasy, though – brilliant. Everyone reads them. Even teenage boys read them,’ she pointed out.
‘I know, I have to answer their letters.’
‘Well, have little cards made. Or get computerized – so much easier than compiling all those tapes and scribbles together into a book, too.’
‘Oh, yeah, and I ought to get a degree in computing while I’m at it.’
‘It’s not that difficult – I type up all Ambler’s adventures on to a computer now to send to the publisher, though my illustrations have to go separately.’
Ambler, Mu’s husband, goes on Boy’s Own ‘Cycling up the Limpopo on my pedalo with a llama’-type adventures, having much more money than sense. He’s big, blond, friendly, enthusiastic and not terribly bright.
‘My agent thinks I’ve nearly finished Dark Hours, Dark Deeds, but I haven’t. There’s the most pestilential little man among this intake of Creative Breakers who keeps following me – he thinks I’m on tap twenty-four hours a day. Hot and cold running Sappho. Mostly running.’
‘There always is one – attracted helplessly like a moth to a flame. Why do you do it? You don’t need the money any more.’
‘Bob’s been such a good friend to me over the years, and there’s always the hope that one or two will go on and become good writers. Anyway, I’ve only one more group to teach before I can settle down and finish the book – and meet you in Rhodes.’
‘You could be a personality at home. You’re a cult figure.’
‘A what?’
‘Cult.’
‘Oh, cult. The original Sappho’s already one of those, though I don’t know what she’d make of all the lesbians flocking to her island on an Olives Are Not the Only Fruit pilgrimage. But all I want is a bit of peace to finish this novel and the next Spiral Bound guidebook.’
‘You could do that over here, and help me with the Fantasy Flowers business,’ she offered. ‘It’s been fun, but I’m getting bored with it now. Speaking of which, you’d never guess who phoned up and ordered a very special little bouquet to be sent to you?’
‘Yes I would,’ I groaned. ‘You didn’t, did you?’
‘He didn’t recognize my voice, and I didn’t see why I shouldn’t have his money, so expect a parcel in the post if it hasn’t arrived already. I’ve done you proud.’
‘Thanks a lot. Look, I’d better go – see you in Rhodes.’
‘Oh-oh,’ she said in a muted voice. ‘Ambler’s waving something at me.’
‘You should be so lucky.’
‘Not that sort of thing – a piece of paper. Looks like the bill for importing and quarantining that Egyptian cat – the one I told you about, that attached itself to me when I was out
there helping Ambler make arrangements for the canoeingdown-the-Nile thing he’s doing this winter. I couldn’t leave her behind, could I? I think I’d better go . . . Bye-ee!’
There was just time to hear Ambler roar: ‘Aren’t there enough bloody cats in Britain without—’ before the line went dead. But I wasn’t worried – Mu can, except for one important thing, twist him round her little finger.
As I stood smiling, the crunch of gravel alerted me to danger: the portly shape of Ken Smollett was trudging hotly up the path, the inevitable sweaty handful of papers clutched to his bosom.
I tiptoed to the rear of the gloomy hall and backed through the kitchen doors, almost colliding with Bob’s wife, Vivi.
‘What—’
‘Shh! Listen, Vivi, you haven’t seen me all afternoon, so you think I must be out until dinner.’
Her brown eyes sparkled with laughter. ‘Is it that Ken? Always it is the little men who chase you. But he has a wife –he should behave himself.’
‘At least he’s going home tomorrow, and Lili’s arriving tonight, isn’t she? That’ll distract him – he might even stay another week and take “Putting the Spice into Your Fiction”.’
‘That Lili,’ she sniffed disdainfully. ‘Married three times, and can she pass anything in trousers? I said to Bob: “What does she know about romance?” She thinks love, romance and sex are the same thing.’
‘It doesn’t seem to affect her book sales.’
‘Then other people, they cannot tell the difference either.’
‘That’s a very sad thought, Vivi.’
‘You need a husband before it is too late – a Greek, perhaps, romantic and cultured? You are thirty-nine, I know, for Bob
tells me, so it must be true – but I know a very nice widower, in Athens, teaching at the university, and—’
‘No, thanks,’ I said hastily. ‘I need a husband like a fish needs a bicycle.’
She wrinkled her broad, smooth forehead. ‘It is a joke? But you must be serious, Sappho – already it may be too late for the babies, and when you are forty you’ll need—’
‘Shh!’ I whispered. ‘He’s coming down the hall. I’m off!’
‘I will head him off at the pass, as they say,’ she nobly volunteered. ‘He is not allowed in the kitchen under Eleni’s feet while she’s preparing the special birthday dinner, the lovely cake, all white icing with candles – many, many candles . . .’
‘Oh my God!’ I exclaimed ungratefully, and bolted.
‘Later I will tell you of the handsome widower,’ she hissed after me, and then I heard her voice raised, clear and cool: ‘Ah, Mr Smollett, can I help you? Coffee for all will be served on the terrace in one little half-hour and—’
She’s worth her weight in birthday candles. But what did she mean, it might be too late for babies? Had someone cancelled my option without telling me?
Not that I wouldn’t rather be sacrificed as a Born-Again Vestal Virgin than give birth, of course, but it was my choice. Wasn’t it?
Was that another buffet from the Bladder of Mortality?
Chapter 3
Say It with Flowers
Dinner was served outside on the terrace that night, the long trestle tables lit only by the soft flickering light of candles.
This proved a blessing when Lili Ford Jakes made her appearance in a slinky green garment whose top half consisted of a narrow, horizontal strap. She’s the type of diminutive brunette sometimes described as a Pocket Venus, though I really wouldn’t recommend it unless your clothing is fire retardant.
‘Oh, am I late?’ she drawled huskily, posing her assets artistically in the doorway.
‘That dress!’ whispered Vivi, scandalized. ‘Surely she has it on the wrong way round?’
‘For goodness’ sake don’t suggest it – I don’t think it’s got a back at all. As Aunt Poppy would say: “She’s all fur coat and no knickers.”’
‘All fur coat and no knickers?’ Vivi echoed doubtfully.
Bob took a mouthful of wine down the wrong way and choked, and when I resumed my seat after patting him on the back (fortunately the Heimlich manoeuvre was not necessary
on this occasion) Vivi was in fits of helpless giggles at something or other.
Perhaps it was Ken Smollett’s face – his mouth had been hanging open for so long while he goggled at Lili that his tongue had dried to something you could sole shoes with.
He was even oblivious to the evil eye his wife was casting on him from her seat further along, but at least for once she wasn’t glaring at me. So restful after a week of it – and did she really believe that I had been trying to wrest her little tub of lard away from her?
Lili glided up to the empty chair next to Ken with the sort of oiled motion you only see in vampire films, and passed a tissue-wrapped parcel across to me.
‘Happy birthday, sweetie. Frankly, I don’t even want to be reminded such things exist, but Vivi did say this was a birthday dinner, so . . .’ She shrugged, and the strap of her dress shifted to Indecency Point and hung there.
Ken went puce and missed his mouth entirely with his glass, without noticing the stream of wine trickling down his chin.
‘Thanks, Lili,’ I said, unwrapping the parcel to find one of her historical novels, the cover featuring a big, blond man entwined with a swooning redhead. The title was Some Day My Prince Will Come.
How does she get away with these things?
Inside, under the usual birthday greetings, she’d written: ‘Get a piece of the action before it’s too late.’
‘I’ve already had a piece of the action, thanks, Lili,’ I assured her, wrenching my eyes away from the lurid cover with some difficulty, for there was something tantalizingly familiar about the man . . .
‘Yes, but not in living memory, darling. Blow the dust off it and have another,’ she suggested.
She means well, but she’s addicted to love.
I had more presents to open, the first an excellent reproduction of an antique vase depicting the poetess Sappho made by Vivi, who is a very talented potter, and the second a joint present from the Creative Breakers of a jingling little bracelet of fake coins. It chimed every time I breathed.
I now know how the belled cat feels.
I knew what was in the last parcel because Mu had warned me about it, but in any case I helped design the packaging for Fantasy Flowers when she set the business up two years ago, so it was instantly recognizable.
She’d really gone to town: the long, shiny black box contained a lot of purple tissue paper, adding a sepulchral effect to the bouquet inside, which was constructed of very artistic and lifelike silk flowers and leaves. We tried dried, at first, but finding sources for, say, dried hemlock, is difficult.
‘Oh, urgh!’ Vivi said, leaning over for a closer look. ‘The yellow roses are all right – but against that purple! And what are these things that look like weeds? And those spiky things? And look, here is a little book.’
I handed Meanings of Flowers and Foliage to her, and pointed out the message in my bouquet: yellow roses for jealousy, rosemary for remembrance, rue for obvious reasons, wormwood for absence, begonia for dark thoughts and hemp for fate.
Isn’t it ironic that the nasty little objects Dave dispatched to me from time to time over the years should have inspired Fantasy Flowers? (We literally did say it with flowers.) And the wheel had now come full circle, with Dave using our service to send something to me!
Lili was frankly envious: ‘You must have made quite an impact on someone to get that kind of message!’
I shrugged. ‘Just an old boyfriend who likes to remind me of what I loved and left behind me.’
‘Was he so awful he put you off men for ever?’ she asked.
‘He was dark, tall, handsome, and the “I’m-totally-incapableof-faithfulness-but-forgive-me-because-I-love-you” type.’
His main asset was his undiluted and rampant sexual magnetism. He had the power. The force was with him. And he wasn’t selfish with it, either – he would sleep with anyone youngish and female who was up for it.
‘He sounds so Heathcliff,’ sighed Lili. ‘And he must still be mad about you if he keeps sending you these things.’
‘I think he’s mad at me, not about me – or even just plain mad, going by the nature of his little offerings.’
She should have seen one or two of his early gifts, like the sealed plastic package containing a rotting pig’s heart that had followed me out here the year I was helping Bob to set up the place. He got more subtle later, but not much.
‘Beware Englishmen bearing gifts,’ Vivi said merrily, her eyes taking on a new, assessing look. I hoped she wasn’t going to bring up the eligible bachelor from Athens again. ‘Sappho, always you stride through life as though you were a goddess above such things, when all the time you have a Past.’
‘The Greek goddesses don’t seem to have been above earthly pleasures,’ I pointed out. Still, at least I didn’t have to explain myself to Bob, who went to the same university – so restful.
He gave me a lazy smile now and said, ‘I suppose it’s Dave again?’
Vivi stared at him open-mouthed: ‘You knew? And you never told me? Bob!’
He shrugged. ‘I’d forgotten, or thought he’d given it up, or something.’
‘This is all so intriguing,’ Lili exclaimed, eyes shining. ‘You
