She gave me her glinting, gold gypsy smile. ‘You’ve got your own glass slipper now: I’ve seen it in the shop window!’
I thought what she was reading meant that the shop would be a big success, because that’s all I really longed for now … well, apart from a baby, of course, but I knew that wasn’t in my stars or my tea leaves.
Florrie Snowball was standing in the doorway of the Falling Star looking like a small wooden Mrs Noah when I came out, and beckoned me across, then gave me coffee in the snug from a hissing and steaming monster of a coffee machine. She seemed to take great delight in operating it and I was quite glad of something to take the taste of Zillah’s tea away.
I told her I was listening to Aunt Nan’s recordings of her memories and how sad it was that she’d lost her fiancé in the early days of the war.
‘She was always one to make the best of what life gave her,’ she said. ‘She just got on with it. And she was a good friend to me, my whole life.’
‘You can’t pay her a bigger tribute than that,’ I said, and she offered me another frothy capuchin, as she called it, though neither monks nor monkeys were harmed in the process.
I didn’t think I would ever fall in love again like I had with my Jacob, but after a couple of years I did start to go out with my friends once more, to the cinema or to dances, and even walked out with a young man once or twice. But there was nothing serious on my side, and it never seemed fair to go on letting them get fond of me if I couldn’t return their affection.
Middlemoss Living Archive
Recordings: Nancy Bright.
One night’s instalment of Aunt Nan’s memoirs wandered off into a description of how she’d made her friend Florrie a wedding cake during rationing, but then suddenly, just when I was about to turn off the CD, she switched to a tantalising bit about how she’d eventually resumed her social life and even gone out with other men, though her heart wasn’t in it.
I switched it off there, but I kept mulling over it next morning while I was working on an illustration. She’d been so young during the war, and it was just a pity that she didn’t get a second chance at love. But then, so many others didn’t either …
I went downstairs around ten thirty to let Flash out and make Bella some coffee, and as I was carrying both cups through on a tray, I heard the pealing of wedding bells, so knew we had another customer.
‘Good morning, can I help you, or would you just like to browse?’ I heard Bella ask brightly. Then she added in surprise, ‘Oh, but it’s Marcia, isn’t it – or Rae? I’m afraid I never did learn to tell you two apart when I came down to stay with Tansy that time.’
‘You were right first time, I’m Marcia – the actress,’ said my elder stepsister in her familiar, slightly husky voice.
And there she was – tall, thin as a rack of ribs and very elegant, her skirt short and her white-gold hair long and loose, though she was well the wrong side of forty. She had on a military-style winter jacket and high black patent Louboutins – you can always tell by the red soles.
She hadn’t seen me yet because her attention was fixed on a pair of cream sandals with criss-cross straps and high heels. ‘These are nice! I wonder if I get a family discount …?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘and those are vintage and size five, so they won’t fit you anyway.’
She spun round. ‘Oh, there you are, Tansy! Your big sister’s come to say hello.’
‘Hello,’ I said discouragingly.
‘Well, actually, I came to call on that dishy actor you’ve got living next door, but he must be out because there was no answer.’
I was quite sure Ivo wasn’t out, since to my knowledge he hadn’t yet been further than the garden in daylight, and that generally in the afternoons (presumably he wrote in the mornings – or in the evenings after he got back from his walk, while playing that miserable music), so he’d meant it when he said he didn’t want to see her.
‘Ah, yes! That would be the dishy actor
I
was once dating, until you told him I was sixteen and he stood me up,’ I said coldly.
‘Oh … did I?’ She looked blank. ‘You know, I’d quite forgotten that.’ Then she gave an empty, tinkling laugh, like a cheap tin bell.
‘Really?
I
hadn’t.’
‘You’re not still holding a grudge over it, are you?’ Her blue china-doll’s eyes opened wide. ‘It was such a long time ago. He married a friend of mine eventually – but you know about her, don’t you? She’s the actress who was killed in an accident – and what terrible timing, when she’d just wangled herself a part in
Cotton Common
. So unlucky!’
‘I don’t know about
unlucky
, but it was certainly very tragic,’ I said drily, wondering how she could speak so flippantly about Kate when she was supposed to have been a close friend.
‘I’ve been consoling her widower, but he’s turned very elusive. Still, now he’s living practically on my doorstep, this is my big chance!’
‘I think he
vants to be alooone
,’ I said, all Marlene Dietrich. ‘And as far as you’re concerned, so do I.’
‘Are you still mad that I told Ivo you were sixteen? It was just a bit of fun, and your little romance wouldn’t have come to anything anyway.’
‘Thanks to you, it never got the chance! And you didn’t let me know he wasn’t going to meet me, so I waited for him for
hours
.’
A faint illumination dawned. ‘He’s been talking to you about it, hasn’t he, or you wouldn’t know what had happened. Have you … seen a lot of him?’
‘Hardly anything. He’s almost a recluse and I think he’s here for a rest. But of course we recognised each other and I asked him why he’d stood me up.’
‘Right,’ Marcia said thoughtfully.
‘He told me he’d rung the house again a few months later, and that time someone else – presumably Rae – told him I’d gone to live with my boyfriend.’
‘Oh, yes, Rae did always call that gay friend of yours “the boyfriend”, didn’t she? But only joking.’
‘Ha, ha!’ I said.
‘Come on, Tansy, none of that matters now, does it? Are you feeling ratty because you’ve broken up with Justin?’
‘Did Rae tell you that?’ I demanded.
‘Daddy told me about your great-aunt dying and that you and Justin had broken things off, so you’d moved back here. I rang Rae for the inside story and –’
‘I expect she told you what she’d done, so you could both have a good laugh about it?’ I interrupted bitterly.
She stared at me. ‘You mean,
Rae
had something to do with you and Justin breaking up?’ Then she laughed again, and I could have hit her with the nearest shoe.
‘You just can’t keep a boyfriend when either of us are around, can you?’
‘It would appear not,’ I said through gritted teeth.
‘Look, Tansy, why don’t we go into the cottage and talk it all through,’ she suggested. ‘You and Justin are made for each other, I’ve always thought so, and I’ll help you to get him back.’
‘I don’t
want
him back, thanks very much! And I’d rather you just went, because you’re neither friend nor family. I love your father, but I just can’t understand how you two turned out so shallow, selfish, malicious and hard-hearted.’
She flushed slightly. ‘Oh, come on, Tansy! We may not always have got on –’
‘Ha, understatement of the year! When I moved down to London I was only eighteen and you were both old enough to know better, but you
bullied
me!’
‘Well, you were always such a quiet, geeky little wuss, you provoked us into it. And even your mother preferred us to you!’ she snapped, turning nasty.
‘That was pretty clear – you were three of a kind. And now I really don’t see why I should ever have to put up with you or Rae again.’
Marcia reluctantly put the shoe she was still fondling back on its stand (though it would never have fitted her, unless she’d cut her toes off, like the Ugly Sisters in the more extreme versions of Cinderella). ‘If you feel like that, I’ll go,’ she said, and swept out to the peal of The Wedding March, a joyous paean to a welcome departure.
‘Well, do you feel better after that little outburst?’ Bella asked.
‘Yes, lots,’ I said, and grinned. ‘She’s had it coming for quite a while.’
‘I’d forgotten what she was like, and that perfume she was wearing was almost as invasive as she was – only it’s still hanging about,’ Bella said.
‘I expect she’ll be back eventually, because she’s got the hide of a rhinoceros and if she’s set her sights on Ivo Hawksley, which it sounded very much like, then we’re handily placed for her to stalk him from here.’
‘It did sound as if she fancied him.’
‘Yes, and she always gets her man, though she may have to let this one get over his wife, first!’
‘He doesn’t look or sound as if he’s ready for a new relationship yet, that’s for sure,’ Bella agreed.
When I went back to the
Slipper Monkeys
I picked up the pale yellow pipecleaner monkey I’d been painting earlier and crumpled it up into a ball.
Then I realised what I’d done, and carefully unknotted its furry limbs and rendered it unscary again, because it was all a bit too voodoo doll-ish.
My dog-walking vampire came to the back door and collected Flash at dusk.
‘“Light thickens and the crow makes wing to the rooky wood”,’ he said when I opened the door. I thought that was from
Macbeth
, which it was unlucky to quote. But then, I expected he felt he’d already had all the bad luck possible.
‘Marcia Anderson was here earlier and said she knocked at your door,’ I told him, but I wasn’t sure if the news even registered, because he just held out his hand for Flash’s lead and then turned and went.
I baked some Welshcakes while listening to Aunt Nan, and when Ivo finally returned with a wet, tired and muddy dog an hour or so later, I handed him a tinfoil parcel of them, still warm from the oven, in return for the lead.
Seeming to feel that some slight social exchange was necessary, he asked me how my book was going.
‘Oh, fine,’ I said, then almost slipped up and asked him how the novel I wasn’t supposed to know he was writing was coming along, but just managed to choke the words back in time.
Flash wolfed down his own bodyweight in dog food, and then went to sleep on the rag rug by the stove, while I put a malt loaf in the bread maker.
I’d switched Aunt Nan off when I’d heard Ivo at the door, but now I listened to a bit more, where she did one of her sudden digressions from the narrative thread of her life into the realms of chutney production, before wandering back to the subject of her sister’s shortcomings.
I wouldn’t say Violet sounded quite as bad as Rae and Marcia, but she certainly seemed to be an early prototype.
I started seeing an American airman towards the end of the war, which worried my parents a bit even though I assured them it wasn’t anything serious. Hank was a nice boy but homesick and lonely, so we had a bit of fun together – we both loved to jitterbug, for a start! You wouldn’t believe it now, but I was a slip of a thing then, full of energy.
Middlemoss Living Archive
Recordings: Nancy Bright.
‘My mother’s getting worse,’ Bella said gloomily when she arrived for work in the morning. ‘The wind blew all the blossom off the cherry tree last night and she’s been out since dawn, picking each petal up individually.’
‘Her behaviour’s getting very extreme, isn’t it? Do you think she needs therapy?’
‘I’m sure she does, but she and Dad don’t seem to think it’s a problem and that she’s just house-proud.’
‘I think Flash needs therapy too. In fact, I’m starting to think he’s autistic,’ I said. ‘He gets upset if everything isn’t exactly the same every day – his bowls in the same place, the same walks at the same times – anything at all different throws him. Sudden noises panic him and so do men holding anything remotely resembling a stick – even a fishing rod.’
‘Can dogs
be
autistic?’
‘I don’t see why not. But maybe he’s over-anxious because of his hellish life before you rescued him. He still cringes when I pat him, so that gives you some idea of what his life was like.’
‘He’ll learn to know that he’s safe now you’ve rescued him from all that. And I need to rescue Tia from Mum’s example, before she thinks her granny’s behaviour is normal,’ Bella said. ‘Only renting’s so expensive.’
‘Is Tia with her today?’
‘Yes, I left her helping to pick up blossom, but I should think the novelty will wear off pretty soon.’
‘You could have brought her with you – you can do that any time.’
‘No, that’s OK, because Dad’s offered to take her up to Stirrups for her first riding lesson later today and she’s wildly excited about that. I wish I could have been there, though!’
‘Well, you can if you want to,’ I offered. ‘You know you can take time off whenever you like.’
‘That wouldn’t be fair. I’d feel I was taking advantage of our friendship if I kept skiving off. Besides, I think we’re going to be quite busy today, what with getting all that local newspaper coverage during the week, and we’ve already decided there needs to be two of us in the shop on Saturdays.’
‘I hope you’re right about it being busy and we sell lots of shoes, before all this year’s brides have bought them somewhere else! Did you realise, it’s British Summertime tomorrow?’ I asked. ‘The clocks go forward, so we’re getting into the peak wedding season already!’
‘Or do they go back?’ Bella said doubtfully. ‘I can never remember.’
‘
Spring
forward,
fall
back,’ I said. ‘Easy!’
‘Good one.’
While we were opening up I described what Aunt Nan had been saying in the latest recordings.