The Way to a Woman's Heart (15 page)

Poll nodded. ‘Yes, from a theoretical point of view. I’d never want to take part, of course… especially now that we
have the house full with Ash and Billy and Trixie. It would be far too much to contemplate… wouldn’t it?’

‘Oh, yes. Far too much.’

Ella and Poll looked at one another then looked away. Poll smiled. ‘Still,
Dewberrys’ Dinners
… I agree it’s very exciting. Whoever they choose, it’ll certainly put this area on the map in a fifteen minutes of fame way, won’t it?’

‘Mmm.’

‘Ella, you don’t think… I mean, you don’t want to, do you?’

‘No, of course not! Why – do you?’

‘Absolutely not. No way. No, it’s the last very thing I’d want to do.’

‘Right,’ Poll said. ‘What do you think?’

‘I think it looks wonderful.’ Ella gazed at the kitchen table, set for six, with the old-fashioned mismatched china and cutlery gleaming in the last rays of the evening sun, and a pink jug filled with a rainbow mix of flowers as a centrepiece. ‘You’re great at this front-of-house stuff. I hope Trixie appreciates it.’

‘You don’t think we should have used the dining room?’

‘Nooo.’ Ella shook her head. ‘Far too formal. This is perfect, and everything smells fantastic. I wish Trixie would hurry up. I’m starving.’

‘Me too.’ Poll looked anxiously at the huge station clock on the kitchen wall. ‘I wonder where she’s got to?’

‘Is she driving? She might have got lost on the way here. I did, didn’t I? Loads of times.’

‘Trixie doesn’t drive apparently. I did offer to collect her but she says she’s getting a taxi direct from Reading station.
It seemed easier than trying to change trains and find her way from one of the smaller stops, but even so, she’s very late.’

Not as late as Ash, though, Ella thought.

Ash still hadn’t returned from Winterbrook. Either the interview at Maxi’s had gone spectacularly well and he was celebrating, or spectacularly badly and he was drowning his sorrows, or – much, much worse – he’d got delayed by Onyx…

No, Ella shook her head, she really mustn’t think about Ash and Onyx. Or maybe she should…

‘I do hope the others turn up soon.’ Poll looked distracted. ‘Otherwise it’ll just be you and me. Billy went upstairs once he’d made his rolls to get ready ages ago and has probably fallen asleep, there’s no sign of Ash, and George has already had to have a cheese sandwich and some ice cream to stop his tummy rumbling, and now he’s outside playing and will probably be too full up to eat or too tired to join us, and the dinner, if Trixie doesn’t arrive soon, will be totally ruined.’

Ella stopped twiddling the napkins – real linen napkins, slightly discoloured and creased but real none the less in Billy and Trixie’s honour – and smiled, she hoped, cheerfully. ‘I’m sure it won’t. It’s all keepable, isn’t it? Ash’s lentil, squash and coriander soup will reheat nicely, and Billy’s herby rolls are in the warming oven, and my Brown Betty is on a low heat and I can put the custard back on later… That just leaves your main course. What did you decide on eventually?’

Poll sighed. ‘A ready-five-minutes-ago steak and kidney pie.’

‘Really? Blimey – you’ve gone carnivorous in Billy and Trixie’s honour, have you?’

‘I have not,’ Poll said indignantly. ‘It’s steak and kidney pie without the steak or the kidney.’

‘Right.’ Ella grinned. ‘Two layers of pastry filled with veggie gravy then?’

Poll looked suitably haughty. ‘Quorn instead of steak, and field mushrooms instead of kidney. Trixie – if she ever arrives – and Billy will never know the difference.’

Ella secretly thought they might.

‘Ta-dah!’ Billy, his fair hair slicked down damply, beamed shyly from the kitchen doorway. ‘Will I do? It’s my Sunday best.’

Poll and Ella nodded in approval at the outfit of badly ironed white shirt and slightly crumpled beige chinos.

‘You look lovely,’ Poll said softly. ‘Thanks so much for making the effort.’

‘Well, you two girls look just the ticket and even young George has been scrubbed up. Couldn’t let the side down, could I? Where’s everyone else got to?’

‘Don’t!’ Ella and Poll groaned in unison.

But before they could utter anything else about the absentees, George – not quite so scrubbed up after half an hour in the garden – galloped into the kitchen, excitedly waving a small red lorry in one hand and a large yellow shovel in the other.

‘A car?’ Ella said hopefully. ‘Really, George? Is it? A car? And it’s stopped outside?’

George nodded excitedly.

‘Thank God.’ Poll cast a frantic look at the simmering pans. ‘We might be OK.’

‘You stay here with me, George,’ Billy said, ‘while your mum and Ella go to see who it is.’

‘Thanks, Billy, and please let it be Trixie’s taxi,’ Poll said, hurrying towards the hall.

Please let it be Ash, Ella thought, hurrying after her.

Sod it, Ella frowned, emerging from the hall and spotting the taxi outside the front door.

Then she laughed.

The short, cuddly woman with the tightly permed greying hair and the too long crimplene floral frock, the double string of pearls, the sensible sandals and the capacious handbag over one arm, fussily removing her cases from the cab and arguing with the taxi driver, was as far removed from being an arsonist bad-fairy as it was possible to get.

Trixie Pepper looked exactly like everyone’s idea of a storybook grandmother.

‘Trixie!’ Poll billowed forwards in her scarlet and purple print frock. ‘Lovely to see you. And right on time, too.’

Ella sniggered at the blatant Pinocchio moment. ‘The train was late,’ Trixie said, finally agreeing on the correct fare with the taxi driver who, clearly tipless, reversed crossly and roared away in the direction of Hideaway Lane. ‘Then I couldn’t find a porter, then someone said you had to get your own trolley for your luggage, and then there was all sorts of hullabaloo with getting through the turnstiles, and then the taxi rank was empty when I got there – still, I’m here now, and what a lovely house, dear.’

‘Thanks.’ Poll beamed. ‘And I hope you’re hungry because we’ve planned a welcoming dinner in your honour.’

‘Lovely. I could eat a horse, dear.’

Poll looked slightly shocked at the carnivorous reference. Ella chuckled to herself.

‘And this,’ Poll said, lifting one of the suitcases, ‘is Ella Maloney. Ella is my new best friend and my helpmate and is quite amazing and I really can’t imagine what I’d do without her now. Ella, this is Trixie Pepper.’

After a slightly embarrassing hesitant moment of shall-we-shan’t-we kiss cheeks, Ella stooped down and they shook hands.

‘Lovely to meet you, dear.’

‘And you.’ Ella smiled. ‘Oh, let me take that bag for you – oooh – damn me – I mean… Lordy, that’s heavy. No wonder you wanted a porter at Reading.’

‘Books,’ Trixie said as they all trooped back into Hideaway Farm. ‘I can’t be doing with being parted from my books.’

Compendiums of magical spells? Ella wondered as they hefted the luggage up the twisting staircases to Trixie’s room. Encyclopaedias of fairy enchantments? Twenty-three ways to hex your faithless lover? Nine fail-safe recipes to heal warts? Or ruin crops? Or turn your neighbour’s wine into vinegar – or your neighbour into a toad? Or bring on a plague of locusts?

Or maybe they were do-it-yourself fire-starting manuals?

And were these new books, seeing as presumably all Trixie’s old ones had been incinerated in herself-imposed arson attack? And how had she managed to accumulate so
much luggage anyway after razing her cottage to the ground? Surely all her belongings would now be a pile of ash? Oooh, no, don’t think about Ash… Presumably she’d managed to salvage something from the ruins? But, what if –

Poll broke into this thrilling train of thought. ‘I’ll just get Trixie settled in. We shouldn’t be long. If you’d be an angel and pop back to the kitchen and make sure we’re all ready to go?’

‘Yes, sure,’ Ella said, rapidly translating ‘ready to go’ as ‘not burned to a cinder’ which might be a touch insensitive in Trixie’s hearing, and very relieved to dump the weighty suitcase on the landing. ‘And maybe I should try ringing Ash again and remind him to get a move on?’

‘Good idea.’ Poll nodded. ‘If you don’t know it – which I’m sure you do – his number is on the kitchen wall. On the pinboard with everyone else’s. And tell him to be here in the next ten minutes or we’ll have to start without him otherwise. Now, Trixie, this is your room. Oh, please mind the step down.’

Back in the kitchen, Ella discovered Billy was snoozing in the cushioned rocking chair, snoring gently. He looked lovely. Like a little contented elf. Trixie would probably love him. She couldn’t wait to tell him about Trixie.

Tiptoeing quickly to the cooker, lifting lids and checking the ovens, making sure nothing had burned, Ella giggled to herself. Trixie… Not a sparkly wand or set of gauzy wings or glittering tiara in sight. Hah! So much for Ash wanting Trixie to arrive in full panto fairy godmother mode. He was going to be sooo disappointed. If he ever came home, of course.

She’d ring him. Now. It wasn’t as if it was a social call or anything, was it? She had a really good reason – and Poll had asked her to – and, no, she didn’t know his number – yet…

Making sure she didn’t disturb Billy, Ella skirted the kitchen table and squinted at the massed jumble of scrappy paper, Post-its, business cards, photos, postcards and George’s
artwork on the pinboard. How the heck did Poll ever find anything she wanted on there?

Ah – Ella grinned. There was the piece of paper with the
Dewberrys’ Dinners
details on it. So, Poll hadn’t thrown it away… Ella glanced across at Billy. He was still sleeping. And George was playing outside. And Poll was still upstairs… And – oh, hell – why not?

She quickly copied the
Dewberrys’ Dinners
contact number into her mobile.

Then, feeling slightly guilty, she rummaged through the rest of the assorted papers until she found Ash’s number and quickly entered that into her mobile too. Not that she’d be using it on a regular basis, or the
Dewberrys’ Dinners
one either, of course, but just in case…

She punched out Ash’s number. It went straight to voice-mail.

‘Oh, damn,’ Ella muttered, then deciding that a text would be better than leaving some garbled and probably unheard message, she sent: ‘Poll wants you here asap. Trixie’s arrived. Dinner’s burned. Two not necessarily connected. VBG!’

Message delivered in a light-hearted way. Nice and noncommittal.

‘Ah!’ Billy woke up with a start and blinked wildly. ‘I wasn’t asleep, Ella, love. I was –’

‘Just resting your eyes, yes, I know. My gran used to have to rest her eyes a lot too. You carry on. You must be exhausted anyway, after all that driving, then the tour of the farm and cooking as well. Trixie’s here at last and she seems
lovely but I reckon she’ll talk the hind leg off a donkey so you’ll need all the rest you can get.’

Billy yawned, stretched and chuckled. ‘And is she all in pink net with a little crown and a big wand?’

‘Sadly, not. She’s all floral and mumsy. Ash is going to be bitterly disappointed.’

‘Not to mention you, eh, love? See, Poll told you Trixie was a normal person, didn’t she?’