Page 69 of The Trouble With Love

‘It was you that brought up sex. I was going to show you my greenhouse.’

‘Just drive, Rhys.’

Chapter Twenty-Four

‘I want to stop the spell.’

I stared at Vivienne. ‘But I thought you said it couldn’t be stopped. In fact, I distinctly remember you told me . . .’

Vivienne wasn’t listening. Her fingers wove a complicated pattern through the fur of the cat which sat smugly on her lap. ‘It’s gone too far. I never meant—’ A deep sniff. ‘I suppose you think I’m vindictive, don’t you?’

‘No. Well, yes, a bit. Your wish did seem a touch drastic.’

‘Twenty-five years Richard and I were married.’ She stared over my head at a patch on the wall where brighter paper showed that a picture had hung until recently. ‘I suppose we took one another for granted really, what with his job and the children and everything.’ Her scarlet head nodded solemnly. ‘And then he was gone.’

‘So,’ I took a deep breath, wanting to get this straight in my head. ‘You wanted him to suffer and now you’re having second thoughts?’

‘I’m wondering if I wasn’t a little bit hasty. No, not hasty. Mmmm.’ A thoughtful pause, until the cat butted at her hand. ‘No. He was wrong to abandon me, of course he was. But since he left I’ve discovered a whole new lease of life, what with our little group, and Isobel is getting me a part-time job in the hospital. Oh, nothing grand, pushing a trolley round the wards but it’s better than sitting at home all day. And Eve, she’s become such a good friend, we speak on the phone most days. All of this is something I never had before, when my life was so regulated by Richard and his comings and goings. Maybe his leaving did me a favour. Plus, I have this place . . .’ Her eyes briefly unfocussed, wandering to the gap on the wall again, as though this was habit. ‘He put everything into my name just before he went.’ A quick shake of the head against possible softening, adding, ‘Probably to stop Miss Busty getting her hands on it.’

‘So Eve told you about Kai.’

‘Oh yes.’

‘Right. Just wanted to sort that one out. And you know that Kai and I are . . . ?’ I waved one hand. It wasn’t really indicative of ‘banging like a barn door on a windy day’ but it was the best I could do.

‘Lovers, yes.’

I opened my mouth to correct her, but didn’t.

Vivienne pushed the cat off her lap and it stalked off, doing its best to look as though leaving had been its own idea. ‘I wanted him to suffer, Holly. He’d hurt me so deeply, shrugging me off as though I meant nothing to him, that I wanted him to know how it felt to be at rock bottom.’ She touched my arm lightly. ‘I’m nearly fifty, you know.’

‘Prime of life,’ I threw in gamely.

‘It’s old to be starting again. But I can, I will. I shall meet someone else, one day. I can see that I do have a future, even if that does start with pushing the book trolley around a geriatric ward, and I no longer want Richard to . . .’ She looked at me and her eyes were sunken under swollen eyelids. ‘His whole business is gone, and I know how much he loved that company. Everything he ever did was for his work, he put all of himself into it, his time and his energy, and I resented it, Holly. I hated his job as if it was his mistress, because that’s how he treated it, like someone more exciting than I could ever be. And now he’s lost it.’ She dropped her eyes to her hands, which fidgeted in her lap. ‘He’s suffered enough.’

‘But now it’s all running out of your control?’

Vivienne stood up slowly. She seemed to have aged suddenly. ‘But the spell has worked for everyone else, so well. You have your Kai . . .’

‘He’s not “mine”.’

‘No matter. You and Kai are together, Megan has the dreadful Rufus who, as you pointed out, adores her far more than any man could ever do. Eve has met her David again and Isobel — well, Isobel seems to have back-pedalled on her wish. Maybe she’s realised that men aren’t the great catch they seem to be when you don’t have one. Now I’m afraid of what the spell might do to Richard.’

I restrained myself from saying ‘you should have thought of that before’. ‘I’m sorry, Vivienne. If there’s anything I can do . . . ?’

Vivienne gave me a cautious smile. ‘Ah. Well. That is where I need your help, Holly, and this is why I asked you to come alone today.’ She carefully moved a tabby cat from the top of the dusty piano and retrieved a book which it had been lying on. ‘I’d like you to do a charm to keep Richard safe.’

‘Me? Why me? I never even . . .’ I had been going to say that I never even believed in any of the magic nonsense, but a quick audit of the results made me bite my tongue. ‘I mean, I never even knew it could be done.’

Vivienne turned the pages of the book, causing little puffs of dusty air to swirl into the room like exhalations from a tomb. ‘This is the book I used.’

I took the book out of her hand and began riffling through the pages, reading passages at random. It mostly seemed to be full of things about ‘freeing your inner creativity’ and ‘addressing the earth as mother’. There wasn’t a single spell in it, although there was a recipe for a thyme and parsley dressing which looked rather interesting. ‘But there’s no spells in here.’

‘No. It encourages a — how shall I put it — a freestyle approach to magic.’

‘You mean you made it up? All those horrible things you had us looking for?’

‘The book says that the more esoteric the ingredients one requests, the more intense will be the thought put into making the wish work.’

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