Page 71 of A Good Heart is Hard to Find
‘Eddie? Who the hell’s Eddie?’ he snapped.
‘My brother. Oneof them: I’ve got four.’
‘He lives with you? Why haven’t I seen him around, then?’
‘He lives in a van, he’s just visiting me. And you probably have seen him around: he looks sort of like a blond Rastafarian.’
‘I’ve seen him,’ he said after a short but menacing silence. ‘But I don’t know why my sister would go off with him. And where have they gone?’
‘No idea. He’s old enough to stay out withouttelling me, and so is your sister.’
‘My sister’s emotionally fragile. She’s just come out of a violent relationship, and the one thing she doesn’t need is to get involved with some New-Age weirdo.’
‘Eddie’s entirely harmless, peaceful and non-violent,’ I told him. ‘He’s vegetarian, he doesn’t drink, and he likes to commune with the wild creatures in the woods, playing his flute.’ I didn’t mentionthe weed.
‘Could he possibly be communing with my sister in the woods?’ he enquired rather nastily.
It was by no means an impossibility.
‘Yours are the nearest woods, so why don’t you go and look?’ I suggested.
‘No need,’ he said in a different voice. ‘There’s an old van with big psychedelic daisies painted all over it coming up the drive. Your brother’s, I take it?’
‘Sounds like it,’ I admitted.
‘Yes: he’s getting out, and so is Rosetta. They’re coming in – and they’re holding hands.’
‘I think it’s legal in public,’ I told him. ‘Ithoughtthey seemed to hit it off.’
Dante put the phone down on me. I only hoped he didn’tdo anything hasty to Eddie, though it was very difficult since Eddie tended not to notice people being annoyed or irritated by him and it’s hard to hit anyone radiatingindiscriminate peace and love at you.
It sounded to me as though Rosetta deserved a good time, and I only hoped Eddie was it.
Eddie’s van still hadn’t returned by the time I went down to the pub, so perhaps he was staying up at the Hall. And what did Dante think about that?
The vicar and Jason had evidently been having a boys-together session going by the empty glasses in front of them, butCharles was just getting up to go when I got there.
After reminding me once more about the impending slave auction and trying a last, unavailing attempt to get Jason to put himself up for bidding too, he went off to his t’ai chi class. He said when he had mastered the art, he would run classes on the vicarage lawn until the whole village stopped and did them every morning like the Chinese peasants.
I couldn’t see it myself but I was willing to give it a go, and so was Mrs Bridges.
Before he left, I asked if he would let me hold his hand for a minute.
‘Any time, my dear!’ he agreed enthusiastically. ‘Any particular reason? Not that I’m complaining, mind.’
‘You’re a sort of control – something to judge other men against,’ I told him, and he looked baffled but pleased.
His mind was theequivalent of a sunny cloudless day, what guilt there was being the very faintest tinge of the ‘perhaps two helpings of apple pie and custard shows ungodly greed?’ kind.
After he’d gone, beaming, Jason held his hand out to me, too. ‘Go on – you’ve been dying to do your mind-reading bit on me, ever since Tanya vanished.’
‘You know I don’t read minds,’ I protested weakly, because he was quiteright: I had. ‘Only emotions. Do you mind if I take a quick peek into your subconscious?’
‘Not really. Not if I can hold your hand and leer at you while you do it. I don’t see why the vicar should have all the fun.’
Jason’s subconscious was like the bits from several jigsaws jumbled in a bag, one of them a big chunk of guilt. In the ratings chart it was somewhere between Max and Dante.
Therewas also lust again, but rather warmer in tint, Jason being of an affectionate disposition.
