Chocolate Wishes (11 page)

‘I can’t see her as a farmer’s wife, and she doesn’t like hunting, does she?’ he pointed out.

And it was true that Poppy had taken a sudden aversion to hunting living creatures for pleasure when she was about ten, and didn’t follow the hounds, even when they turned exclusively to drag hunting.

She was so terribly soft-hearted and I really didn’t want to see that heart bruised or broken by careless hands, like mine was, even if I had successfully cemented it back together with tempered chocolate, so it wasn’t just as good as new, but
better
than new.

But I knew she longed for love and marriage and even children, so I would much rather she fell for a decent man like Felix…if he fell for her in return, of course!

It was the evening of Poppy’s Desperate Date and I was going as emergency backup with Felix. It wasn’t just an excuse for an outing, I was curious to see what rabbit she had pulled out of the hat
this
time.

I collected Felix from Marked Pages on the way and we were just cutting through the car park of the Green Man, when a familiar voice called out, ‘
Chloe!
’

I swung round, startled. ‘David?’

My ex-fiancé was standing next to a snazzy red sports car, the keys in his hand. He looked just as handsome as ever: age didn’t seem to have withered his beauty and it couldn’t have staled his infinite variety because he never had any. His predictability was one of the things I’d appreciated most about him six years before: a calm harbour after the storm.

While I was still standing transfixed, he slammed the car door shut and strode over. ‘I knew it was you!’ Looking delighted, he kissed me on both cheeks, then held me away slightly and said, ‘And you look absolutely wonderful!’

I felt flattered, since I didn’t think I did really. My hair needed cutting and my nose was probably pink from the chilly breeze.

‘You look pretty good too,’ I said, finding I was quite happy to see him once I was over that initial surprise. Now he was closer I could see new lines on his face and some silver among his dark chestnut hair (he is several years older than me, after all), but it just made him look distinguished. Nature is unfair to the sexes like that.

‘You remember my friend Felix, don’t you?’

‘Yes, of course,’ he said with a brief, polite smile. ‘Nice to meet you again.’

‘Yes, you too,’ Felix said unenthusiastically. ‘I’ll go on into the pub, Chloe – see you there shortly.’

He walked off and David turned his full attention back to me. ‘I’ve often thought about you, Chloe. How have things been with you and what are you doing here?’

‘I was about to ask you the same thing!’

‘I have friends who live nearby and we sometimes meet up at the Green Man. But today I had a client over in this direction, so I stopped for a quick bar snack.’

‘You never did move out into the country then, David?’

‘No, I stayed in the city and I’m still living the bachelor life in my flat…though actually, that might be about to change. How about you? I don’t suppose you’re still in Merchester?’

‘No. In fact, we’ve just moved to Sticklepond.’

‘
We?
’ he queried quickly.

‘The whole family – Jake, Grandfather, Zillah. Grumps bought the Old Smithy at the other end of the High Street.’

‘Oh?’ He digested this information. ‘Jake’s still at home? He must be…how old now?’

‘Nearly nineteen and off to university this autumn, if he ever actually gets down to some exam revision.’

‘And your mother never came back? I was right about that?’

He might as well have added, ‘Told you so!’ But then, he’d never believed me when I said I knew she was alive.

‘No, she never came back.’

‘So – no husband, children, significant other?’ His hazel eyes looked deep into mine. ‘You surprise me.’

‘Not at the moment,’ I said, not wanting to come across as Little Miss Desperate, which I wasn’t in the least. ‘My Chocolate Wishes business is thriving and that, plus being Grumps’ PA, takes up most of my time these days.’

He looked at an expensive watch. ‘Look, I’ve got something on and I’m running late, but I’d love to catch up with you soon. We could even meet here one evening – how about it?’

‘I usually go to the Falling Star down the other end of the village with Poppy and Felix. You remember Poppy, don’t you?’

‘Oh, yes,’ he said, in the sort of voice that meant he had totally forgotten about her, though six years ago Poppy had been all set to be my bridesmaid at the registry office. ‘The Green Man might be better, though, because I’d like to catch up with you alone the first time – I feel I have a lot to apologise for!’

‘Oh, no, really you haven’t,’ I assured him, taken by surprise.

‘I’ve always regretted not being more understanding at the time, Chloe,’ he said with rather a wry smile.

‘No, I meant it, David, because later, when I wasn’t so upset, I could see
your
point of view too.’ This was true, though admittedly not for an awfully long time afterwards
and the way he had detailed his secretary to help me cancel the wedding plans and return the presents had only added insult to injury.

‘Look, how about if we meet early one evening at the Falling Star for a chat, then, before your friends get there?’ he compromised. ‘Can you make it Friday?’

‘OK,’ I agreed, because I really couldn’t see why not. Although I’d felt surprisingly pleased to see him again, I didn’t think there were any embers left to stir into a flame, so it
would
just be a friendly chat.

‘There’s no reason why we can’t be friends now, is there, Chloe?’ he said with his attractive smile, seeming to read my mind – and really, there wasn’t.

In the pub, Felix was already established in a dark corner with a good view over the room. He was inclined to be sulky and sarcastic about David’s reappearance in my life, even when I told him that I wasn’t about to fall for him all over again, and that I saw no reason why we couldn’t have a drink together for old times’ sake.

‘I think having anything to do with a man who could let you down like that is a big mistake,’ he warned me, and would have said more, except that Poppy came in just then. She gave us a little half-wave, got a glass of mineral water and settled into a table near the door.

‘I do wish she would let me advise her about makeup and clothes a bit,’ I muttered. ‘I’m no fashion plate, but I do make an effort when I go out.’

‘At least she’s not wearing jodhpurs with the down-filled gilet that makes her look three feet wide,’ he said.

‘No, though actually they suit her better than that blouse, because she’s not a spot, ruffle and pussycat bow sort of girl.’

The pub door opened and I nudged him. ‘Look, that must be the date!’

A tallish, thin man with thick grey hair had come in, and paused on the threshold, looking around the room. Then he walked across to Poppy, holding out his hand.

‘He looks fairly normal,’ Felix said critically.

‘Actually, he looks rather nice,’ I agreed. ‘He’s older than I expected, though – early fifties, I should think – but that grey hair with the tan and the bright blue eyes are a pretty good combination.’

So far as we could tell, he and Poppy seemed to get on well too, and we started to feel pretty redundant as watchdogs. But when they got up to leave together, Felix was still all for following them, to make sure Poppy was all right, and I was still trying to dissuade him when Poppy walked back in again, alone.

She was pink and smiling dreamily. ‘Gosh, he’s
sooo
nice – and he seemed to like me! He couldn’t stay long tonight, so when he left
I
pretended to go too, then doubled back. We’re having lunch tomorrow.’

‘Where?’ I asked.

‘At his house – he loves cooking.’

‘Dodgy.’ Felix shook his head.

‘No it isn’t. He’s really not that kind of man at all and I’ll be fine. He wants to show me his garden.’

‘But you aren’t interested in gardening,’ I said.

‘I’ll pretend. I don’t think
he’s
terribly interested in horses either, but he said he’d like to see my Honeybun.’

‘I bet he did,’ muttered Felix darkly and I gave him a sharp dig in the ribs. He was acting like a dog with two bones, neither of which he particularly wanted himself, but liked to have put by in case of sudden famine.

‘OK, you can go, but keep your phone on and I’ll call after about an hour to see if you’re OK,’ he said. ‘We can have a codeword for emergency rescues.’

‘Like “help”?’ I suggested.

‘This is serious, Chloe,’ he said severely.

We adjourned to the Falling Star’s dark, cosy snug, which was more our ambience than the slightly trendier surroundings of the front bar of the Green Man. Established in our usual window seat, Poppy waxed lyrical about her date. Apparently he was a former university lecturer who had taken early retirement, a widower, and he lived not far away, in Crank.

‘That figures,’ said Felix, who was determined to be disagreeable, and then he told her about David’s sudden appearance and described what he said was my spineless agreement to meet him again, despite everything he had done to me in the past.

‘He jilted me, that’s all, and it was pretty mutual in the end, when we couldn’t agree over Jake.’

However, Felix didn’t find an ally in Poppy, because she was on my side. She didn’t see why David and I couldn’t meet casually after all this time if I really wasn’t still attracted to him, and neither could I. In fact, I was quite looking forward to it.

Back home, I passed through the museum, where Grumps was unpacking one of the last boxes and took no notice of me at all, and on into the house.

As I expected, Zillah was in the kitchen, which had already taken on an even more exotically gaudy aspect than our last one. I think the bright red Aga must have gone to her head.

Today she was wearing a red cardigan back to front under a purple one the right way round, with a corsage of orange felt roses pinned to the bosom. She’d added to the effect by wrapping a shawl covered in shrieking pink flowers over the whole ensemble and what looked suspiciously like a checked tea towel wound turban-wise around her head.

It was a gloomy day but the lights were off, since she hated artificial light unless it was essential, not counting the big, flat-screen TV that was constantly on in the corner by an easy chair. When she smiled her teeth flashed white and gold in the light cast by the flickering screen.

‘There you are,’ she said, as though she’d been expecting me – indeed, she had two flowered china cups in front of her and was already pouring tea.

‘Zillah, I’ve just met the person from my past that your Tarot reading warned me about, but it was only David, after all.’

‘David?’

‘My ex-fiancé, remember? You bought a feather fascinator in six colours for the wedding ceremony.’

‘Ah, yes,
him
.’

‘He was just getting into his car outside the Green Man, so we had a chat. I’m meeting him in the Falling Star early Friday evening.’

She looked up from swirling her teacup round and round, her bright eyes sharp. ‘Is that wise?’

‘Why not? A lot of water’s passed under the bridge since we were engaged to be married, so there’s no reason why we can’t meet as friends, is there?’

‘Hmm,’ said Zillah, removing my now empty cup and scrutinising the tea leaves at the bottom. ‘If you remember, I said that more than one person from your past
might reappear and affect the course of your life,’ she reminded me.

‘
Might
– so maybe not. And anyway, people from my past can only affect me if I let them, can’t they?’

‘You’ve already agreed to let one of them do that, Chloe.’

‘No, I haven’t. Although it was nice to see David, I’ve no intention of falling for him all over again – or anyone else that might pop up from my past. You have a look at my tea leaves: they’ll show you.’

‘Sometimes you can’t see all aspects of the future until it’s unfolded.’

‘Then I’ll keep mine tightly creased. But maybe you could read the cards for Poppy? She’s getting so desperate for love that she’s abandoned the internet dating sites and started ringing up men advertising in the newspaper. Felix and I are both worried about it. That’s what we were doing at the Green Man earlier, keeping watch to see if her latest date looked OK…though I have to admit he looked very nice.’

‘I would have thought your angels would have told her what her future held,’ Zillah said, a trifle tartly.

‘They have. I did a reading for her birthday, but it was all a bit general.’

‘Oh, bring her to me, then,’ she sighed, putting my teacup down. ‘And whatever you say, your life
is
about to change greatly. The cards and the leaves don’t lie.’

‘No, but that could simply be interpreted as meaning all the changes involved in moving here and Jake going off to university in the autumn and that kind of thing, couldn’t it?’ Then a horrid thought struck me: ‘Oh God – perhaps the cards mean Mum’s about to turn up again and
totally
disrupt everything!’

Although I would have been quite pleased to have had word that she was definitely all right, I wanted it to be in the form of a postcard from a long, long way away. Call me selfish, but I really didn’t want to share my little cottage with
anyone
, and especially not with my chaotic and totally self-centred mother.

On the other hand, I could ask her who my father really was – if she actually knew. It was a problem I was going to have to deal with at some point, though I was not yet sure exactly how.

Jake and I had dinner with Grumps and Zillah and she came right out and told them I was going to see David again!

Grumps looked up from his plate of seafood risotto (Zillah likes to try out new recipes from magazines, though she spices them up with peculiar little additions of her own), and said that if my former fiancé crossed the Old Smithy threshold he would ill-wish him, and that went for any of the other men who had let me down in the past.

Then Jake said, ‘Good idea, Grumps – I’ll help!’ so clearly that news didn’t go down too well.

‘What does Felix think?’ Jake added, removing a clove from between his teeth and laying it on the side of his plate beside two more. I’d wondered what the hard black bits were until I’d tried to bite into one – but then, I think cloves are good for the teeth, aren’t they?

‘Why should it matter what Felix thinks? And anyway, David won’t be trying to cross your threshold, Grumps. We’re just having a friendly drink to catch up on what we’ve been doing the last few years, not rekindle the romance.’

‘That may be what
you
intend, but
he
may have other ideas,’ Grumps said. ‘You’re a fool. Felix is much the better man.’

‘I’m sure he is, but I’m not romantically interested in either of them. Nor do I expect an orderly line of all my previous boyfriends to start forming up outside the door any time soon, so this is all much ado about nothing.’

I shot Zillah a dirty look, but she just gave me a glinting, minted smile and carried on eating.

The following day was pretty busy. For a start, Grumps had surpassed himself and written three whole chapters of
Satan’s Child
in the early hours, plus several very long letters, so that it was mid-morning before I got round to printing off a whole sheaf of new Chocolate Wishes orders. I was usually on my way back from the post office by then, via Marked Pages for a cup of coffee, but I was still labelling the last boxes at lunchtime when Poppy burst through the door, looking even pinker and more dishevelled than usual.

‘Hello, what are you doing here?’ I asked, surprised, but with my hands automatically continuing to slap address labels onto the parcels and adding them to the pile, like a one-person production line (which is what I am, I suppose). ‘Weren’t you having lunch with your Desperate Date today?’

‘I did! I was!’ she cried, flinging herself into the nearest chair. ‘Honestly, Chloe, you’re never going to believe this!’

‘Did he make a pass at you? Well, I did warn you, Poppy – and wasn’t Felix supposed to be calling your mobile in case you needed rescuing? You had a secret codeword and everything.’

‘Yes, and thank goodness he
did
call, because I pretended
he was my mother telling me that Honeybun was taken ill and I had to go straight home.’

I looked at her with a raised eyebrow. ‘Did he fall for that one?’

‘He didn’t look
entirely
convinced,’ she admitted. ‘I don’t think I’m a very good liar. But he said he’d phone me and we’d have to do it again.’

‘Do
what
?’

‘Have lunch in the garden.’

‘That doesn’t sound
too
dreadful, Poppy, though February is hardly ideal picnic-in-the-garden weather, is it, unless he has one of those patio heaters?’

She shook her head. ‘There was no heater and he’d laid lunch out on a table in a sort of summerhouse with three open sides. I wished I hadn’t left my padded jacket in the Land Rover – and that was
your
fault,’ she added reproachfully, ‘because you said I looked the same shape as a dumpling in that or my warm down gilet.’

‘You do and I didn’t think you’d need them because I hardly expected you to be eating outside at this time of year! But
that
can’t be what made you leave so quickly, so come clean, Poppy – what else did he suggest you do in the garden?’

Poppy’s naturally rosy face turned to a shade of dark carnation. ‘Not in the garden, but in the summerhouse, actually. There was one of those wide, wooden-framed loungers at the back, practically like a bed, and that should have given me a clue because you can’t leave cotton-covered cushions out in all weathers, can you? If I wasn’t so stupid, I’d have realised they must have been there for a
purpose
.’

‘That
was
a bit of a giveaway,’ I agreed, keeping my face straight with an effort.

‘But it didn’t occur to me straight away and everything was fine at first: we started lunch and were getting on really well, just like we did in the pub. Then suddenly he said that there was a good reason why our first real date was taking place in the garden: it was because his wife was always there and he wanted her to meet me and continue to feel part of his life.’

While she was talking I had been stacking the parcels of Wishes into the huge and entirely unstylish shopping trolley I used to transport them to the post office, but I looked up at this and said incredulously: ‘His wife’s the
gardener
? I thought you said he was a widower?’

‘Yes, that’s what I said to him. So then he said, yes, he
was
a widower, but he felt his wife’s presence everywhere in the garden because she loved it so much. And what’s more, Chloe, he said her ashes were sprinkled all around the roses next to the summerhouse where we were sitting!’

‘That’s pretty bizarre, to say the least, Pops. I bet the roses are healthy, though?’

‘It’s a bit hard to tell at this time of year,’ Poppy said, starting to get her sense of humour back. ‘I was gobsmacked; but then I said, if he felt that his wife was sort of hanging about watching, didn’t he find it off-putting bringing new girlfriends back, and he said no, he was sure she approved.’

‘I’m not surprised you made an excuse and left!’

‘Oh, but there’s more! He said the reason he’s sure she approves is because they had an open marriage – and open in more ways than one, because they both liked having sex in the open air, even if not always with each other.’

‘He
didn’t
!’

‘He certainly did – he came right out with it, as if it was really everyday. That’s why they had the summerhouse built:
to screen their activities. The back of it is towards the road. And then, Chloe, I was so startled I blurted out that I remembered his lonely hearts advert saying he liked outdoor pursuits and now I could see exactly where he was coming from! And unfortunately that seemed to encourage him, because he pulled his chair round to my side of the table and said he thought a riding mistress sounded fun and he was always open to new ideas. Then luckily Felix rang, and that’s when I said I had to go. I’m sure I left with more speed than manners.’

‘Serves him right – and he looked so nice too,’ I commiserated.

Having got it all off her chest, Poppy was beginning to find it funny. ‘It’s a pity he didn’t have a date with Mum instead of me. She’d have given him a run for his money,’ she said, with one of her sudden giggles.

‘You never know with Janey,’ I agreed. ‘He could have been thrown, hogtied and branded before he knew where he was.’

‘Still, it’s taught me a lesson. I’m starting to think you and Felix are right, and I’ll never find a man this way. They’ll
all
be weird.’

‘Maybe that’s because
all
men are weird and most women simply settle for the least weird one they can find,’ I suggested cynically.

‘No, they’re not. Felix isn’t weird, for a start,’ she protested.

‘Any man who is so engrossed in books that half the time he doesn’t notice that he’s buttoned his jacket up wrongly, or is wearing odd shoes, is just a little on the weird side, even if he’s nice, don’t you think?’

‘Lovable eccentricities are different,’ she said firmly, then hesitated and added, ‘Chloe, have you thought lately that Felix seems to be…sort of looking at you in a
different way? I thought I was imagining it, but then the other night…’

I sighed. ‘Oh, you’ve noticed? I thought
I
was imagining it, too – I hoped I was. Now he’s suddenly decided he wants to settle down, he seems to have fixed on me, for some mad reason. I think it dates back to last year when he bought those old Kate Bush albums at auction in a mixed box with some books, and decided I looked like her picture on the cover. It made him see me in a different light.’

‘Yes, I think you might be right,’ Poppy said thoughtfully. ‘It was about then I began to notice it. I expect it made him suddenly realise how pretty you are too – and you
do
get on well together.’

I ignored the pretty bit, which is just Poppy being loyal, and said, ‘Of course we do, all three of us get on well, we always have – so it would be just as logical to have a
ménage à trois
, wouldn’t it?’

She grinned. ‘When you put it like that, I can see how ridiculous it is. He’s been a big-brother figure all our lives, it would take quite a bit of doing to make
us
see
him
in a new light.’

‘Yes, some very strong magic!’

Poppy giggled again: ‘Actually, I’ve twice found Felix watching an old clip of Kate Bush on YouTube, when she’s singing that “Wuthering Heights” song, so she’s magic as far as he’s concerned.’

‘I absolutely do
not
look like Kate Bush!’

‘Most people wouldn’t mind if they did. I certainly wouldn’t!’

‘I think I just have an inbuilt aversion to having a
doppel-gänger
. Come on, let’s go through into the cottage and have coffee. I’ll post these later – there aren’t any urgent ones.’

I got out some truffles that I’d been experimenting with. Though I only sell hollow chocolate shapes, I still like to make (and eat) the filled sort – one shelf of my fridge is usually full of them. And there’s nothing quite like chocolate for cheering the troubled mind. Poppy went off back to Stirrups with most of her bounce restored.

I trundled my trolley off to the post office with my parcels, trying to think of a way of transferring Felix’s interest to Poppy and of making her see him in the light of a lover, not a brother.

But since there was absolutely no chance of making her look remotely like Kate Bush, or him like George Clooney, I was on a bit of a sticky wicket.