were just a sample. I expected I’d get them all hopelessly mixed up.
‘Ah, Caitlin,’ Inga said to one little girl, her voice warming up to blood heat. ‘You awe eawly. Is Daddy hewe? I wanted to speak with him.’
‘Gone,’ Caitlin said succinctly. She was wearing a teddy-bear suit, the head, which I now saw was a hood with ears, pushed back. On her feet she wore flowered wellingtons, like a frivolous Paddington. ‘Daddy wants to be left alone, because he’s writing a play. And resting. And looking after me, while Mummy’s in a film. Then she’s going to marry Rod, and I’ve got a bridesmaid’s dress. Daddy says it makes me look like a meringue.’ She eyed me curiously, especially the limp black drapery and lace-up boots, then informed me: ‘My daddy’s a famous actor – he’s Mace North.’
‘Face North?’ I echoed, puzzled.
‘Mace North.’
‘Of course,’ I said, trying to sound impressed, which isn’t easy if you don’t watch films very often, although the name was ringing bells faintly somewhere. ‘Then I think I met him behind my cottage yesterday. I’m Charlie Rhymer, and I live at the Parsonage.’
‘I know Em. And Frost. Em gave me a gingerbread dragon with chocolate drop scales.’
‘Em’s my sister.’ And she wasn’t usually prone to like children. What was she up to?
Caitlin gave me a look of disbelief, for which I didn’t blame her. I can hardly believe I’m related to three such enormous entities myself.
‘Daddy’s frightened of Em, but I’m not.’
‘I’m suwe youw daddy isn’t fwightened of anyone!’ Inga said. ‘Wun along in; we awe neawly weady to begin.’
I took the hint and left as yet more expensive dinosaurs trundled up the drive to decant their small passengers, and as I walked home through the mushy, melting snow I tried to remember if I’d ever seen Mace North in anything (other than a red duvet).
I didn’t go to the cinema and although Matt was wont to hire DVDs, they were of the violence, sex and nastiness kind, which were not images I wanted stored in my subconscious for ever.
However, that made me think of the actor’s barbarian cheekbones, so at odds with his rather posh, mellow voice, and then I remembered where I’d seen him before: the cover of Surprise! magazine, the one Angie’d whipped away again.
Tartar blood, that was it.
When I got back to the Summer Cottage Flossie was just waking up, so I took her for the hundred-yard stroll she considered a strenuous trek, which got us as far up the track as the actor’s cottage (no sign of life) but not quite as far as the farm, although Madge waved from the doorway. Then I set to work to try to turn the cottage into a home.
It was just two rooms, really, built into the hillside, and partitioned off to provide a bed-sitting room and the usual facilities. The décor was a bit flowery – the last mistress’s taste, presumably – and if I was going to be here for any length of time I would have to paint it.
I set up my easel in the veranda, a gesture of hope, and arranged my plants around me, though there now weren’t enough of them to give me quite that being-towered-over-threateningly feeling. I’d brought the tall ones, it was just the thick jungle effect that was missing.
I would have to take a big chunk of the auction money, go to the nearest garden centre – and hope they’d deliver.
It wasn’t very warm, either. The two paraffin heaters were only there to stop the plants freezing, and they gave out a pleasant but strange smell all of their own (a bit like Walter).
I could do with some coconut matting over the stone flags, and electricity so that I could have lighting, and some heating …
Which sort of presupposed I was ever going to spend some time in there painting; but Em and Walter had done their best to encourage me.
I went up the stairs to the kitchen to see if Em fancied a trip out plant-hunting, and Flossie trailed wearily after me, wheezing. I felt sure all the exercise would do her good.
The kitchen was deserted except for Frost, who lifted his head and gave Flossie a leer.
Walter was in the small front room, watching TV and carving a walking stick. He grinned, but didn’t say anything. His wig, never worn, occupied its usual place of honour on the mantelpiece, draped carefully over a polystyrene head.
Father’s study door was shut with his ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on it, though if anyone was already disturbed it was Father.
There was no sign of the Treacle Tart, and the children must be at school, but the sound of hoovering was still audible from above, where Gloria Mundi was singing Gilbert and Sullivan in a falsetto.
She was the very model of a modern major-general.
I found Em eventually in the sitting room, the curtains half drawn, which is why I was well into the room before I saw that she had company.
‘Sorry,’ I said, ‘I didn’t know you were entertaining, Em. I was just going to tell you I was off to the garden centre.’
‘That’s OK – you know Xanthe, don’t you?’
Xanthe nodded graciously at me; she did look vaguely familiar from her days as Father’s Flavour of the Month.
‘And this is Lilith Tupman and Freya Frogget.’
Lilith looked like she’d been blanched under a pot. Freya was large and clad in billowing white, like over-exuberant ectoplasm.
‘I’ll leave you to it, but let me open the curtains first,’ I offered, taking hold of the heavy velvet drapes.
There was a gasp from Lilith, who held her hands to her temples and exclaimed hysterically, ‘No! No! The light must not touch my face!’
I hastily unloosed the curtains. ‘Sorry.’
Maybe she was a vampire? But then, how had she got here?
‘Would you like me to make you some coffee or something before I go?’ I offered in atonement.
‘Thanks, Charlie,’ Em said. ‘There’s a tray ready in the kitchen – just fill the pot with boiling water and bring it in, will you?’
‘You could join us,’ said Lilith, recovering. ‘If you wished?’
‘No, no, her aura is blue!’ Xanthe cried. ‘I cannot have blue near me … it drains my psychic energy.’
If Father hadn’t managed to drain her powers, I couldn’t see how my blue aura would.
‘Ice, I must have ice!’ gasped Freya, in a parched voice.
‘A bowl of ice from the freezer, too, please,’ said Em. ‘Do you want a hand?’
What, the Hand of Death? The Hand Of Glory? The Hand of the Baskerv—
‘No, that’s OK,’ I assured her, backing
