He had an amazing capacity for putting away food; he’d already eaten most of my dinner since, unsurprisingly, I wasn’t that hungry.
Kat was coming round to watch him practise in the garden with his firesticks while I was out at the Falling Star, so before I left I warned him not to set anything alight, including himself.
I’d been tempted to ring Poppy and say I had a sudden rush of Wishes orders and couldn’t go out tonight, but I knew if I did she and Felix would only come to the cottage instead.
Unfortunately, I’m not terribly good at fibbing. And anyway, by now I’d gone through the angry, tearful and distraught stages and was feeling fairly numb, with just a piquant hint of bitterness.
Maybe I could invent a new chocolate line: BitterSweets for dumped lovers?
Poppy and Felix were just turning into the entrance to the Falling Star together as I came into the High Street, so I ran across to join them. Mrs Snowball switched the coffee machine on and started bustling about with the cups and saucers the second we opened the snug door so I, for one, hadn’t the heart to tell her that after the day I’d had I really felt more in need of a double brandy than a cappuccino.
‘I saw that young man you brought in here, dropping you off earlier in his posh little sports car,’ she said to me conversationally. ‘He hasn’t been back since. Didn’t he like my coffee?’
I suppose a man in his early forties did seem young to Mrs Snowball. Oddly enough, although I hadn’t really noticed the age difference between David and me six years ago, I was now much more conscious of it. All David’s tastes, ideas and attitudes seemed to be terribly stuffy and set in stone, and he just assumed I would automatically agree with them as if there weren’t other, and usually better, options.
‘David loved your coffee and I’m sure he’ll want to come again. But we’d been house-hunting and he had to get back home.’
‘Oh yes, I’d forgotten you were doing that today,’ Poppy said.
‘I hadn’t.’ Felix gave me a pained look, as if I’d done something not quite nice.
Florrie Snowball turned from fiddling with the steaming, hissing chrome monster and looked at me. ‘So, you’re moving in together already? I know you used to be engaged, because that Zillah told me. And who can blame you if you’ve taken up with him again – a handsome feller like that?’
‘No, it’s nothing like that. It’s just that he wants to move into the country and I enjoy looking at other people’s houses, that’s all.’
‘Well, who knows, his heart might soften towards you again,’ she said, so clearly she had a romantic heart concealed behind her Maidenform corset. ‘You bring him back in soon and I’ll make him some extra special coffee,’ she promised, with a gappy grin.
‘It looks like David has made a conquest,’ Poppy said when we were sitting out of earshot in the window. Felix was paying for this first round, which involved a lot of checking of various pockets and counting out of coins.
‘Funny, I didn’t get the feeling at the time that she liked him that much.’
‘She certainly likes Felix – look at her going all flirty at him again,’ Poppy said.
‘But even he doesn’t get extra sprinkle on his cappuccino,’ I observed as Felix sat down with his cup. ‘David did, though actually you’re not missing anything, Felix, because it was funny, speckled greenish stuff, not grated chocolate or cinnamon.’
‘I wonder what it was, then?’ Poppy said. ‘What would have green speckles in it?’
‘Perhaps she mistakenly used rancid powdered milk substitute, or something like that?’ I suggested. ‘It didn’t look very nice and he poured most of it into that plant behind you. He dashed off home, too, and rang me later to say he didn’t feel well.’ And now I came to look at it, the aspidistra was looking pretty ropey.
‘I wanted a pint of best bitter, not a coffee,’ Felix complained, ‘only I couldn’t hurt her feelings. I mean, I’ve got my own coffee maker in the shop now – I can drink it all day if I want to, for free. She seems to be in love with that machine.’
‘The novelty will probably wear off soon, now that Molly and Clive can both work it,’ Poppy said. ‘Look, she’s going, so we can have something else in a minute.’
But Mrs Snowball paused in the doorway to deliver a parting shot. ‘I hear the new vicar nearly bought it this afternoon: squashed flat by an angel!’
She could be heard cackling like the wicked witch in a pantomime even after the door had shut behind her.
I turned to the other two and demanded, ‘What on earth does she mean? Has Raffy had an accident?’
‘It’s OK, he’s fine. It missed him by a mile,’ Felix said. ‘Effie Yatton came into the shop later and told me about it.’
‘Yes, and she rang me at home, too. She always knows everything first – she’s the village voice!’
‘But I don’t know anything,’ I said impatiently. ‘What angel? When?’
‘It was one of the marble monuments in the graveyard and it fell across Raffy’s path on his way to the church this afternoon,’ Poppy explained. ‘It blocked the left-hand path, where it divides. Effie thinks it was a sign.’
‘Yes, a sign of mole activity,’ Felix put in, grinning.
‘Raffy saw Grumps this afternoon,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘I don’t suppose that had anything to do with it.’
‘I know your grandfather is a gentleman in a velvet jacket, just like the old Jacobite toast, but he’s no mole,’ Felix said. ‘Didn’t he and Raffy get on well?’
‘I don’t know, but that’s not what’s bothering me. If Zillah told Grumps about Raffy and me, he might be impelled to try and take a bit of revenge on my behalf.’
‘But there isn’t anything he can do really, is there?’ Poppy said. ‘Magic doesn’t really work, we know that.’ But she didn’t sound entirely convinced.
‘Of course it doesn’t,’ agreed Felix uneasily. ‘It’s a load of mumbo jumbo.’
‘It would be pointless anyway now, because Raffy came to see me after he’d been next door and we – well, we’ve cleared the air,’ I confessed, though I didn’t mention that there was still a sulphurous haze hanging about.
‘Oh, I’m so glad,’ Poppy said. ‘Are you friends again?’
‘No, I think it would be going quite a bit too far to say that, but I understand now that he didn’t behave as badly towards me as I thought he did.’
Then I explained about Rachel’s lies, and Poppy, her soft heart stirred, said, ‘So it wasn’t really his fault, then? Oh, but it’s all so terribly sad!’
‘Yes, that’s what Jake thinks now I’ve told him about it, but only because he’s devastated to think he missed out on having Raffy for a brother-in-law! But I don’t suppose our relationship would
