Читать книгу Trisha Ashley 3 Book Bundle - Trisha Ashley - Страница 35

Grumps was all excited about his post, because his Spanish chum had managed to translate the last bit of the manuscript.

‘It’s quite clear now that the part we have is the original Mayan invocation, as translated and brought back by the conquistadores. The rest of it, which is in a different hand, is an embellishment from perhaps a century or two later.’

‘I suppose the original charm, invocation, or whatever it is, wouldn’t have meant much when it was first brought back, because chocolate didn’t take off until much later, did it?’

‘No, the document would just have been put away as a curiosity, until this man found it, and appended a few lines of his own. As to whether they add anything to the power of the original, I do not know, but I would try it with caution, my dear Chloe. You are quite safe with the original Mayan invocation to the gods to give the chocolate special powers. The rest…well, it reads more like a blessing. The author may well have been a priest, as well as secretly a practitioner in the Old Religion.’

‘OK,’ I agreed. I don’t suppose the extra bit will make any difference, but it’s odd to think of some old coot, the Spanish version of Grumps, necromancing away so many centuries ago. If he was a priest too, then he was playing a very dangerous game.

I decided to try that blind-tasting experiment on Felix and Poppy: I’d make three identical batches of chocolate: one with nothing said over it at all; one with the Mayan incantation and one with the whole thing, including the later addition. I didn’t suppose there would be any difference.

Meanwhile, I’d just keep on using the original charm for every day, which can do no harm at all.

The chocolate tasting can be my birthday evening’s entertainment!

Digby Mann-Drake had somehow managed to insinuate himself into David’s group of local friends that he met at the Green Man, and he had invited David to dinner at Badger’s Bolt, together with one or two other of his chums.

He rang to ask me if I would like to go with him and got quite huffy when I turned him down, even when I pointed out it was my birthday and I had the whole day planned out already. Then I warned him about Mann-Drake, but he just laughed in a condescending sort of way and said, ‘You really shouldn’t listen to rumours! And you’re so terribly unsophisticated, aren’t you, darling?’

I expect I am, if the idea of dinner with someone who gets his kicks from holding pseudo-black magic rites spiced with sex, drugs and, for all I know, rock’n’roll, does not strike me as a pleasurable outing.

‘Apart from the unsavoury rumours, he’s also a moneygrubbing little weasel, haven’t you heard?’

‘Oh, that’s just business, and you can’t blame him for trying to make an honest buck! And if you were only planning on meeting your friends in the pub later on your birthday, then you could cancel that and come to the dinner with me instead, couldn’t you?’

‘Absolutely not. I’m having dinner with my family before I go out, I always do,’ I said. ‘Birthday cake and everything. And if you’ve any sense, you won’t go anywhere near Mann-Drake either.’

He finally got a bit miffed at that and said he would take someone else.

‘That’s an excellent idea, David,’ I said emphatically, which didn’t exactly pour oil onto troubled waters.

I made the chocolates for the tasting experiment: solid hearts, which I put in plastic boxes, marked A, B and C.

Strangely, there was just enough chocolate left from the whole incantation batch to mould the two halves of a large hollow angel, though I’m positive I used equal amounts of ingredients for all three!

Isn’t that weird?

I put it away, unfinished, until I wanted to do an Angel reading for someone really special.

My birthday morning started out really well. Jake managed to haul himself out of bed without being called, then gave me a lovely little white velvet teddy bear with angel wings and a lopsided silver halo.

‘I bought it before Christmas, and I think it’s supposed to hang on a Christmas tree, because there’s a loop on the back between the wings,’ he explained.

‘It’s perfect!’ I said, and reached up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, which he suffered stoically while wolfing down a chocolate spread toastie, washed down with half a gallon of orange juice. Then he remembered that Kat had sent me a gift too, a ‘Who needs men when you’ve got chocolate?’ fridge magnet. I thought I must use that phrase way too much…

I opened my other presents while he finished eating breakfast. Chas’s was a little book of gardening tips with funny cartoon illustrations, and Zillah’s a porcelain bell shaped like an angel. It seemed a bit irreverent, having a clapper up your skirts, but it was a pretty thing. There is generally a bit of an angel theme going with my presents, and at this rate I would soon run out of room to display them all.

Grumps’ gift was different – a gold charm shaped like a cocoa bean sliced in half, on a chain. I’d never seen anything like it, so I’m sure he must have commissioned it, especially since it seemed to be hollow and rattled slightly when shaken…I put it on straight away, though I’d have to wait to thank him and Zillah later, at the birthday dinner.

I’d already packed up the urgent Chocolate Wishes orders at the crack of dawn, so I could dash to the post office with them before driving out to Stirrups and picking Poppy up for our Day of Beauty.

When I arrived, she looked terribly nervous. You’d think we were going to spend the day having major dental work done, rather than being glammed up!

She needn’t have worried because when we came back several hours later, exhausted but happy, we’d had a wonderful time.

It wasn’t something either of us could do on a regular basis – high maintenance we were not – but it would be fun as an occasional treat and we decided we’d repeat it every six months or so.

I’d acquired a subtle new makeup and had my hair cut in a shorter, more feathery style, which suited me, though it was the same very dark brown as before, just shinier. And my eyebrows were reshaped, which made an amazing difference. I mean, I like them natural, but they had started to look too natural, like escaping hairy caterpillars.

Poppy was the real revelation, though: her hair had been given golden highlights and now fell into long, natural curls rather than the damp-sand-coloured frizz. She had lots of new makeup too, though in different shades from mine, being so fair. But the most stunning difference was that her eyelashes and brows had been dyed brown, which made her eyes seem brighter and the blue much deeper.

She has a good figure, even if it is a bit sturdier than the current fashion for lollipop-shaped women dictated, but her everyday garb of quilted jackets and gilets made her look top heavy and thick-waisted, which she really wasn’t. Her attempts to look smart usually involve bunchy skirts and pussycat bows but now, in slim dark jeans and a pretty jersey top, she looked lovely.

It had taken us ages to find dresses we actually looked good in, the current fashion being all ruched and smocky, like baby clothes. What had happened to fashion for adults since I’d last looked? Did designers not think women over thirty bought clothes? This is why I subscribe to Skint Old Northern Woman magazine – it’s for real women who aren’t necessarily thin, teenage, rich, London-based or almost entirely self-absorbed. I now advertise my Chocolate Wishes in it too, since they’re the thinking woman’s after-dinner mint.

Eventually we went to a shop known for having very individual stuff, and spent more than the rest of the day had cost us put together, on an outfit each. I only hoped Janey’s cash flow was up to it. I wasn’t sure about mine, unless the bank had inserted some elastic since I’d last checked.

‘I’ll see you in the Falling Star at eight,’ I said, dropping her off at Stirrups in the late afternoon, laden with shopping bags. ‘Don’t wash the makeup off, or brush the curl out of your hair, or do anything to your face before you come. And wear the dark jeans with the white and blue floaty top and the chunky necklace. We’ll save our dresses for something really special.’

‘Yes, boss,’ she agreed, ‘but my hair feels funny.’

‘It doesn’t look funny, it looks great. You’ll have to keep using the conditioner and serum, because you can’t possibly go back to frizz, now.’

‘I do like the way it looks,’ she admitted.

‘OK, I’d better get off so I’m not late for the birthday dinner with the family, so I’ll see you and Felix later – and don’t forget, tonight is the blind chocolate tasting.’

‘Should be fun!’

Janey, who had just come out of a loose box with a bucket, and the usual fag hanging out of the corner of her mouth, gave a scream at the sight of her daughter. As I drove away, I tried to decide whether it was from delight, or dismay that suddenly Poppy had turned into a younger, fresher version of herself. Or maybe it was a combination of the two?

Back at the cottage, Zillah had taken in a flower delivery for me from David, one of those tortured arrangements featuring a couple of dark and diseased-looking orchids and a twisted sprig of bamboo. I don’t think he has any taste at all.

Even when we were house-hunting, his ideal of a lovely home looked more like a factory unit than a cottage. If he bought something with original features it would be gutted like a fish in no time, so he might as well stay in his minimalist flat in the first place.

He was clearly not a wellies-and-chicken-run sort of man.