is what I wanted Zillah to give you. I’ve been searching the packing cases for it, I knew it was in there somewhere. Jake told me you loved angels when we were in the church looking at the stained-glass window, and when I was here I noticed there are an awful lot of them in the cottage, so…well, I thought you might like one more for your collection. I picked it up abroad.’
I unwrapped it, disclosing an exquisitely carved dark wooden angel, perhaps three inches high, her beautiful face calm amid a swirl of delicately carved draperies.
‘But it must be terribly old and probably valuable,’ I protested, though I immediately coveted it. I expect that’s a sin: all the best things are.
‘The ribbon the angel’s holding says “Pax”,’ he pointed out, with a hint of the old glinting, Raffy smile. ‘So it’s a peace offering and entirely appropriate that you have it. An offer you can’t refuse.’
And he was right because somehow, although I wanted to, I couldn’t.
I kept going to look at the angel. Her serene expression amid the whirlwind of draperies, like the perfect stillness at the heart of a storm, seemed to epitomise how I would like to feel, however unattainable that now seemed. I had thought I’d won through to a quiet, happy, contented phase in my life after we moved here, until Raffy came along and tossed me back into the maelstrom.
But eventually I came to the conclusion that, by accepting the angel from him, I’d taken at least one faltering step in the direction of total forgiveness, and even finally acknowledged that what happened between us in the past wasn’t entirely his fault.
When I said as much to Zillah, she replied, ‘Then you can take another giant step tomorrow, if you like, love, because I told Raffy me and your grandfather are making something special for him and he’s to call for it in the morning.’
‘One step will do for me at the moment, thanks! And what sort of something special are you and Grumps cooking up? It’s not nasty, is it?’
‘No, the opposite,’ she assured me mysteriously. ‘I told him I’d leave it with you, because I’m going out in the morning and Gregory won’t answer the door.’
‘Out? Out where?’
‘I’m going to the cash-and-carry with Clive Snowball, just for the ride…and maybe a catering-sized jar of piccalilli and some biscuits.’
‘Then Raffy can collect it when you’re back.’
‘No, he might need it earlier,’ she said mysteriously, then added, ‘It’s your birthday soon.’
I stared at her. ‘Has that got anything to do with it?’
‘Nothing at all, our Chloe, I was just making conversation,’ she said, and since she was evidently in one of her more obtuse moods, I went to see if I could get any sense out of Grumps, though let’s face it, that was a forlorn hope.
I was still packing the day’s Wishes orders in the morning when Raffy tapped quietly at the door to Angel Cottage. I’d intended to hand him the small padded envelope Zillah’d given me without inviting him in, but there was a bitterly cold early March wind and the little white dog at his feet was shivering.
‘Come in,’ I said, opening the door wider.
Raffy hesitated. ‘No, that’s OK, thanks. I didn’t mean to disturb you, and anyway, I’ve got Arlo with me.’
‘Look, just come in out of the cold, will you?’ I snapped. ‘Grumps said I was to make sure you read the note with the package anyway and I’m not freezing on the doorstep while you do it. And why don’t you get your dog a coat? He looks chilled to the bone!’
In fact, he was now shivering pathetically all over my feet and, when I bent to pat him, licked my hand and gave me a piteous look.
‘Arlo won’t wear a coat, he rips them off and eats them. He’s putting all this on for your benefit. Look at him – he’s so greedy he’s got a layer of blubber two inches thick to keep him warm.’
Indeed, he was as fat and glossy as a seal, and once the door was shut he stopped shivering and looked perfectly happy to the point of smugness: I’d been had. Story of my life, really.
‘You’d better come through into the sitting room, because I shouldn’t really have animals around the chocolate workshop.’
‘But I’ve obviously interrupted you when you’re busy and that’s the last thing I wanted to do,’ Raffy protested.
‘I’m packing orders, but I’ve almost finished and I’ll be off to the post office with them shortly.’ In fact, another ten minutes, and I would have been on my way when he knocked at the door, so he’d have had to come back later, when Zillah had returned.
He followed me through and Arlo immediately curled up in front of the fire as if he belonged there, though his ears twitched when he heard the crackle of the envelope I handed to Raffy. He probably hoped it was biscuits.
I sat down and watched him open it. I had, of course, prodded and fingered the package and so had a reasonable idea of what it was.
He took out a small, square sachet, looked blankly at it, then passed it to me.
‘A herbal teabag?’
‘I don’t think so. Better read the note,’ I suggested, but from the look of it, it was just as I thought: several ingredients – probably herbs, but possibly something more revolting – had been pulverised and then enfolded in a small square paper packet on which Grumps would have written a spell. Zillah had then sewn it into a covering of white cotton.
‘Your grandfather writes, “I must insist that you carry the enclosed in the pen pocket of your shirt at all times, but especially when you visit Mr Mann-Drake later today.”’ Raffy looked up. ‘He doesn’t say why, and unfortunately, there’s a slight problem.’
‘I know – you don’t wear shirts, with or without pockets, do you?’ I said. He was wearing the black T-shirt with its printed dog collar, black jeans and trainers, and the long leather coat that Jake had so admired when he first saw him. He could have done with another, warmer layer on top of the T-shirt on a day like this.
‘I only wear a real shirt for official occasions, when I have to. The other snag with your grandfather’s gift is that it’s presumably some kind of protection charm, which as a vicar I probably shouldn’t have anything to do with, though it’s a kind thought.’
I went into the kitchen to brew hot chocolate, but it was only two steps away, so I could carry on with the conversation while I made it. ‘Yes, and at least it means he’s got ill-wishing you out of his system, thank goodness, before you got more than a few bruises. I told him not to do it, and it didn’t do his sciatica any good, either.’
‘Ill-wishing me?’ he said, his voice sounding amused. ‘Can you possibly mean…when the angel fell on me?’
‘And when you fell in the trench. Poppy and Felix told me about
