off the target I was after selling the flat. My best friend, Celia, and her husband, Will, have been a huge help, setting up the Stella’s Stars fundraising site, which is getting lots of small donations, too.’
‘I’m sure you’ll make it – and I and the rest of Sticklepond will help you,’ he promised.
‘That’s kind of you, but I’m really a stranger here. I mean, we’ve only visited before, we aren’t really part of the community …’
‘Oh, that won’t matter,’ he said, and assured me that the villagers would all unite to support a good cause.
Ma, who’d wandered in at that moment still holding a fully loaded paintbrush, taken a macaroon and begun to leave again without seeming to notice the vicar, stopped and focused at that.
‘They may not for this one, because my family were never well liked in the village: I told you,’ she said to Raffy, taking the jade cigarette holder from her mouth and gesturing with it. A half-smoked red Sobranie dropped out of the end and Toto, who’d followed her in, sniffed at it before making friendly overtures to Raffy. I’d have warned him about getting white dog hairs on his black jeans if he hadn’t already got a liberal sprinkling there from his own little white dog, which I’d seen him out with sometimes.
‘I’ve heard the odd rumour about the Almonds,’ he admitted, ‘but it was something that happened so long ago that I think only the most elderly parishioners know the details. But when it comes to helping a child, I can’t see any of them thinking twice about it.’
‘Why exactly aren’t the Almonds well liked? You’ve never actually told me,’ I said, emboldened to press Ma by the presence of the vicar.
She straightened with the Sobranie in her hand, shoved it back in the holder, and then shrugged her plump shoulders. ‘It’s as the vicar says, an old story, and I don’t know all the details. Let’s let sleeping dogs lie.’
‘The important thing is to raise the money,’ Raffy agreed, ‘and we’ll soon do that – so trust in the Lord and make all the bookings. There’s nothing the village likes so much as uniting to fight for a good cause – only look how we saw off those property developers in the village itself, and then managed to have planning permission for turning the Hemlock Mill site into a retail park overturned.’
‘True,’ Ma said, and then she suddenly seemed to become aware of the loaded brush in her hand and, without another word, went out again.
‘I wish she’d put a coat on, because that wind is cold, even if it is May,’ I said, watching her through the window as she started back up the garden towards the studio. Then Hal suddenly loomed up next to her from behind a clump of Fatsia japonica, draped his tweedy, shapeless jacket over her shoulders, and they turned and went up the steps together.
‘Hmm … I don’t think I’ve ever seen Hal smile before,’ Raffy said thoughtfully. ‘He usually looks like Indiana Jones on a bad day, crossed with just a hint of the Grim Reaper.’
‘They do seem to be good friends,’ I said noncommittally, ‘and he’s here quite a bit … though weekends and evenings, mostly. Perhaps today is his half-day from the Hall.’
‘I don’t think it is, actually,’ Raffy said, ‘but with the estate coming right up to his cottage on the other side of the lane, I expect he just popped back for something.’
He smiled at me. ‘Chloe said she’d had a nice chat with you before Christmas in the shop. She loves your “Cake Diaries” in the newspaper and says that you also write about cake in a magazine – I don’t know where you find the time,’ he said, taking another macaroon.
‘To be honest, sometimes I’m not too sure myself,’ I confessed. ‘Things have been slightly easier as Stella’s got older and stabilised, though she’s prone to infections and then we have to get her treatment straight away. Each bout seems to sap what energy she has …’
‘Yes, I don’t suppose she has a lot of resistance to things and it must be a huge worry to you.’
‘It is, and I really don’t want any more complications till we leave for Boston. She needs to put a little weight on before the surgery too. You’d think with all the cakes around she’d quickly do that anyway, but she’s the pickiest eater in the world.’
‘Unlike me,’ he said, ruefully eyeing the macaroon plate, now almost empty.
I asked suddenly, ‘You do think I’m doing the right thing, don’t you? Only the operation is experimental and although Dr Beems has been very successful with it, there are no guarantees …’
‘Of course you are. You’ve had to make the decision with your head, not your heart, because logically there’s no other course of action you can take, is there? If she doesn’t have it, you’ve been told that she doesn’t have a long-term future, it’s as simple as that.’
I felt better for hearing him spell it out. Then Stella woke up sounding a little fractious and I fetched her in to meet Raffy. She seemed to like the look of him – and who wouldn’t?
‘I nearly forgot,’ he said, digging out a Cellophane-wrapped chocolate figure from his pocket. ‘Chloe sent you a gift. Are you allowed chocolate now, before tea?’
‘I don’t see why not,’ I said, ‘it’s very good chocolate.’
‘An angel,’ breathed Stella raptly, taking it.
‘Stella’s very into angels at the moment,’ I told Raffy. ‘I think it’s Ma’s fault for pointing out all the angels in the graveyard.’
‘And the funny little men with horns and tails in the window,’ Stella said.
‘Oh, yes, the Heaven and Hell window is great,’ he agreed.
‘Grandma paints angels in her pictures,’ Stella confided. ‘Flying ones with bird faces. Moses and Toto are flying round in her new one and Hal is holding on to the angel’s leg to stop it flying right off.’
‘I’d like to see that!’
‘I thought I saw an angel when I was having Stella,’ I told him, ‘and though Ma said it was a nun going by in a white habit, it seems to have stuck in her head. The oddest things do.’
‘You saw an angel? I must tell Chloe,’ he said, interested. ‘We’re both great believers in guardian angels. Get her to tell you about the time she saw one when she was a little girl.’
Stella announced that she was going to show the chocolate angel to her Sylvanian Families and vanished off back into her bedroom.
‘Transylvanian?’ Raffy asked, looking mildly surprised.
‘No, Sylvanian. They’re collectable toys, little fuzzy animals.’
‘Oh, right.’ He passed on an invite from Chloe to take Stella to her Mother and Toddler group, which met on Monday mornings up at the old vicarage.
‘If she’s well enough, it would be nice to go and meet other local mothers and children,’ I said, ‘though so far I’ve tended to avoid that kind of thing in case coughs and colds are going round.’
‘I’ll
