Page 94 of A Good Heart is Hard to Find
How was it that I understood the motivation of the characters in my books, yet did not have any inkling of my own? Why did the thought of Easter weekend make me feel aghast, panic-stricken, excited and stomach-churningly nervous all at the same time?
Was I now so far round the bend even Laphroaig won’t get me back?
I told Orla about Jason bookinginto the Hall for the Saturday night while I was helping her retrieve the money people had thrown down the Haunted Well.
She stared at me, her hands full of slimily dripping coins. ‘But I thought Rosetta was full up? And I’ve got plans for Jason over the weekend!’ she protested.
‘I’m sorry, but it’s not my fault.Ididn’t want him to do it.’
‘Oh well,’ she said, cheering up, ‘it might be agood thing after all now I think about it. My Barbarella costume’s come, and one of Rosetta’s guests got my number and booked me to go up and deliver a birthday telegram early Saturday evening to her husband. She chose Marilyn Monroe, but I’ll have a sudden attack of confusion and wear the new outfit.’
‘Orla, you can’t do that!’
‘Yes I can, and if this get-up doesn’t knock Jason’s eye out I’llgive up and we canbothbuy dogs.’
‘What will you sing?’
‘Just “Happy Birthday”, I think. She’s ordered a cake shaped like a ghost from Clara – she phoned Rosetta and asked her for ideas, that’s how she found us. Rosetta’s put a large sitting room aside for the visitors, and they mean to have a little cake and wine celebration in there, everyone welcome.’
‘I wouldn’t miss it for the world,invited or not,’ I said, helping her to replace the grating over the mouth of the well, and the sign inviting people to toss their money down it for good luck. (Good luck for Orla, that is.) ‘After all, there has to be some perk to compensate me for being Dante’s slave for a whole weekend.’
‘I think being his slaveisa perk,’ Orla said. ‘Are you mad?’
‘No, but something seems to have madehimmad withmeand now he’s read the whole of my manuscript he’s even angrier. I’m afraid he’s going to spend the whole weekend punishing me for implying he has an immortal vampire ancestor.’
‘I bet you can hardly wait!’ she said unfeelingly.
When I got home Mrs Bridges gave me a bouquet of red roses that had been delivered in my absence, with the message ‘Forgive me! Love You Forever, Max.’
When hell froze over, I would.
The entire tape on my answerphone was also taken up with one long loving message. Max not only wasn’t taking no for an answer, but was afraid I’d been influenced by hearing some of the lying stories that were going around about him and Kyra. Kyra was a sad, unbalanced woman, and actually he and Rosemary were going to fire her for dishonesty … And so on and so on.
When he was being persuasive and charming Max used his warm honey voice, the one that had trapped me like an insect in amber nectar for far too long.
For a moment or two I might have felt a touch of the old enchantment, but the bit at the end where he said he’d now shaved his beard off especially for me, like my knight had just gone out and personally slain me a dragon, made me laugh out loud.
Although I was dreading a weekend that might bring twofold retribution on my head (divine in the form of Pa, and infernal in the case of Dante), yet I managed to completely forget it for large stretches of time as I became more and more involved with the world inside my new book.
The heroine, Dr Amulet Bone, firmly believed that genetically modified androids were the way to go, and if you couldn’tfind the perfect man you might as well construct him.
Somehow, I didn’t think her two-timing ex-fiancé was going to be in full agreement with that one.
Thus it was that I’d so lost track of time that when Orla phoned me up one day and hissed conspiratorially: ‘Cass? Your family’s arrived!’ I was quite taken by surprise.
‘I thought they weren’t coming until Friday?’
‘It is Friday:GoodFriday.’
‘Oh bugger, that’s all I need,’ I said ungraciously. ‘The Black Death has hit Westery and we might as well close the boundaries until it festers itself out.’
‘I don’t think that’s a nice way to talk about your family!’ she said reprovingly. ‘Francis is right here – he wants a word with you. Your dad’s good-looking, isn’t he? In a demented prophet sort of way, I mean.’
‘My father is a pustulatingbubo on the face of the world, Orla, so spare me the murkier dredgings of your subconscious and put Francis on.’
‘Hi, Sis,’ Francis said. ‘Got your note. Looks like we’ve come all this way for nothing, doesn’t it? Is Sweet Baby Jane really in London? Pa says he doesn’t believe it.’
‘Why on earth not?’
