The Language of Spells (11 page)

‘It’s all right.’ Gwen patted him awkwardly on the arm. ‘Go home and take a nap. You’ll feel better in the morning.’

Brian blinked. ‘I’m supposed to be at work. I just left the office. I didn’t even tell anyone where I was going.’

‘Probably for the best,’ Cam said and Gwen shot him a
you’re not helping
look.

‘Marilyn. Oh Jesus. Marilyn is going to kill me.’ Brian took out a handkerchief and blew his nose.

‘You need to drink plenty of water,’ Gwen said.

‘Will that help?’ Brian clambered to his feet.

‘For the dehydration.’ Gwen stood up too. She stuck out her hand and Brian took it automatically. ‘You’re fine now. Good luck.’

‘But what am I going to tell Marilyn?’ Brian wailed.

‘Tell her you had a breakdown, but you were cured with a slice of lemon,’ Cam said. ‘Or, if you love your wife and you actually want a chance at making it work, tell her that you’ve been a complete and utter fool and that you’re deeply sorry and you’ll go to marriage counselling. If that doesn’t work, try poetry.’

Gwen looked at Cam. ‘You’re good at this.’

Cam smiled tightly. ‘Part of my job. Unfortunately.’

‘Well.’ Gwen stuck her hand out and shook Cam’s hand. ‘Thanks for your help.’ His hand was warm and touching him sent every nerve-ending in Gwen’s body into overdrive.
Bad idea
.

‘Any time.’ Cam was smiling a little less tightly, now, and time seemed suspended between their clasped hands. For a moment, Gwen could almost believe there was a connection between them still.

‘So,’ Brian gave a phlegmy cough. ‘Is that it? Do you have any more of those lemon-thingummybobs?’

‘You have to do the next bit on your own,’ Gwen said. She was distracted by the intensity of Cam’s gaze and the sudden awareness that her hair was probably plastered to her scalp by the rain.

She let go of Cam’s hand and waited for him to leave. Something in the back of her brain told her it was important for him to walk away first. And then, with a final crooked smile, he did.

I thought I would be so happy to have Gloria back in my life, but when I look at her I see the sixteen-year-old spitting bile and leaving without a backward glance. I know that I should rise above it, be a proper mother, forgiving and calm, but I can’t. Truth was, I never was very maternal. Motherhood has changed Gloria, though. She’s remaking everything, refusing to see the things she doesn’t like, arranging the world until it suits her. She’s like a biscuit-cutter. Everything that passes through her comes out heart-shaped and smelling of cinnamon. It can’t end well.

Gwen blinked. She tried to fit this view of Gloria with the woman she knew. It was strange to think of Gloria back then. She’d left Pendleford – and Iris – back when she was just a kid: a pregnant kid. Frightened and angry. For a moment, Gwen felt sympathy for Gloria. A kinship that jolted her.

Gwen took a deep breath and dialled her mother’s number. The most self-obsessed woman Gwen had ever known had chosen to relocate to a farm in Australia, complete with three hundred cattle and a new husband twenty years younger than her. It must’ve been true love after all. ‘Gloria?’

‘Sweetie! Lovely to hear you, but we’re up to our eyeballs in newborns. Can I call you back?’

Gwen knew that Gloria’s ability to phone a person back was minimal. ‘Two minutes.’

‘We need more than that. It’s been an age. When are you coming over? The weather is to die for, did I tell you that?’

‘You mentioned it, yeah.’ Gwen looked through the frost-coated window. ‘I’ve got some news. I don’t know whether you’ve heard. I assumed you would’ve done and then I realised you might not have—’

‘I know money is tight, honey, and I’d love to help you out but it’s just too tricky right now. You can get some great deals, though. There was this flight for under three hundred. Of course, you have to stop in Kuala Lumpur for three days—’

‘Iris is dead. She passed away.’

There was a silence. Gwen imagined she could hear crackling as the sound of her mother not speaking travelled around the world. Gwen filled the silence with, ‘She left me her house.’ Like ripping off a plaster.

Gloria didn’t miss a beat. ‘And what does she want in return?’

‘Nothing.’ Gwen considered adding:
she’s dead
, but didn’t want to sound callous.

‘That doesn’t seem likely. You stay away from that place, okay? Curiosity killed the cat.’

Gwen closed her eyes so that she wasn’t looking at Iris’s walls, her furniture, the open doorways. ‘I just thought you should know. About Iris.’ Gwen didn’t know what she was expecting. Some kind of revelation. Or maybe a thunderbolt all the way from Australia for saying the forbidden name.

‘You remember what I told you about that woman?’ Gloria said.

‘That she never let a truth out untwisted.’

‘Good girl.’

‘What should I do?’ Gwen surprised herself by asking. She thought she’d given up looking to Gloria for advice a long time ago.

‘Stay well, be happy, and don’t let the bastards get you down.’ Gloria’s voice was back to cheerful. It didn’t sound forced, just light. Gwen pictured her in the dry sunshine, red earth beneath her feet and a smile on her lips. ‘And keep away from that house. It always had a bad feeling. Do you want me to check your cards?’

‘No,’ Gwen said quickly. ‘Thank you.’

‘Okay. I’m sorry, I’ve got to go, sweetie. It’s calving time.’

Gwen stayed with the phone held to her ear for a moment, listening to dead air and looking around the hallway of the forbidden house.

Gwen stared in disbelief at the best-before date on the packet of flour. For two pounds fifty, she would expect five-hundred grams of self-raising to be made of gold or ground-up unicorn horn, not bog-standard wheat flour, best consumed before 1999. She put the packet back on the shelf and, as she did so, felt a prickling on her palms. A moment later, a wave of sickness swept up from her toes to the top of her head and her peripheral vision went black. She swallowed hard, but the nausea had already passed, leaving her with a clear image of a packet of in-date flour, its green and white paper bag intact and the yellow price sticker curling very slightly at one edge. The image was so stable, so clear, she felt as though she could zoom into it like with a digital camera. She blinked and the image disappeared, replaced with the real-life vista of the corner shop shelves and the looming face of John, the guy who ran the shop full-time because the owner – his mum – was eighty-four and no longer inclined to do so. ‘All right, miss?’ John’s tone was dubious.

‘Fine, thanks.’ Gwen lied. She blinked because the shop lighting was suddenly too bright. She moved down the aisle, away from John and his questioning look. A woman in her fifties with a sleek ponytail and a navy velvet Alice band, padded gilet and dark green wellington boots was picking up apples from a basket, one by one, and studying them intently before putting them back. She glanced at Gwen and gave a tight smile. Gwen nodded and smiled back but, before she could add a friendly ‘good morning’, the woman put her hand up to cover her mouth and said in a loud, raspy whisper that carried clearly through the quiet shop, ‘Check everything before you buy it; the man’s a crook.’

‘Um…’ Gwen glanced at John-the-shopkeeper, who was rearranging the cigarette display with an air of studied unconcern.

Alice band tilted her head to one side, considering Gwen as if she were some interesting new breed of dog. ‘You’re the girl that’s moved into End House, aren’t you?’

Gwen agreed, happy to move off the subject of the shop’s stock.

‘Well, it’ll be nice to have someone normal.’

‘What do you mean?’

The woman leaned in, but didn’t lower her voice. ‘Let’s just say, the previous owner was a little bit eccentric.’

‘You didn’t visit my great-aunt for help, then?’ Gwen said, smiling sweetly.

The woman pulled back. ‘Your great-aunt?’

‘Yes. Iris Harper. Resident of Pendleford for over fifty years; you probably knew her. Seems like everybody did.’

The woman fiddled with her gold watch, twisting it to look at the face. ‘Oh goodness, I must get on. It’s coffee morning in the town hall. For the seniors. You’re welcome to volunteer, of course …’ And she put down her last apple and rushed out of the door as if pursued by hell’s demons.

Irritated – both by the snotty woman and with herself for caring what the snotty woman thought – Gwen stuck out her hand to grab a tin of tomatoes. Her hand slipped through the line of cans and closed around a soft packet. She drew it out and stared: a green and white bag of flour. In date. Okay. She’d spent years resisting the Finding and now it was helping her with her grocery shopping.

After a slightly frosty exchange with John, Gwen stepped out onto the main street and wondered what to do next. She had plenty to do at the house, of course, the list of things that needed fixing, cleaning or throwing away unrolling in her mind like a serpent, but the air was pleasantly crisp and the pale November sun was high in an almost cloudless sky.

She walked along the roads at random, tracing a vague circle around the town. On a back road, the narrow pavement and green verge gave way to a small, flat green, speckled still with the remains of the morning’s frost. Beyond the green stood a church.

She walked through the lychgate to the ancient graveyard, the stillness complete. At the back of the yard there was another gate and, beyond that, a much larger, newer graveyard. The rows of marble and stone were more regimented, their polished surfaces shining in the light.

Gwen felt drawn to the stones, drifting down the rows until she came to Iris’s. It was a small, simple shape, made from speckled dark grey stone. The inscription read:

Iris Harper. 1924–2010. You get what you get.

Well, that was chirpy. ‘Sorry I didn’t bring anything,’ Gwen said, suddenly feeling rude. The woman had given her a house, for goodness’ sake. She slipped her rucksack from her shoulders and opened it. Flour, milk, carrots. She rummaged and her fingers touched a brown paper bag she didn’t remember buying. Inside was a small aubergine. Gwen frowned; had there even been aubergines in the shop? Had she picked one up? She held it up, its perfect purple skin glowing as if lit from within. Oh Christ, she was having a religious experience over an aubergine. That was blasphemy at the very least.

She balanced the aubergine on Iris’s grave, in the place where wilting flower arrangements sat on the others. It reflected in the surface of the stone, making the cold grey look warmer. More homely. Gwen felt a lump in her throat and her eyes pricked. Madness or not, she felt calmer than she had in months.

She hesitated, glancing around the graveyard before speaking out loud. ‘Is there something special about your house?’ Gwen’s voice was thin, trailing off at the end of the sentence and she blushed even though there was nobody around to hear her talking to herself. She wanted to ask if End House was somehow amplifying her abilities. The Finding was happening more and more, and the lemon slice had de-hexed Brian Dixon right in front of her eyes. She felt breathless, overwhelmed, sick. What if Helen Brewer’s dog and the packet of flour were just the beginning? What if she couldn’t control it any more?

On the way home, she called into the corner shop again. John looked at her suspiciously and she bought a bag of apples as a mark of friendship. There was no way to ask the question without appearing unhinged, but Gwen swallowed her pride. ‘Did I buy an aubergine earlier? I wasn’t sure.’

John looked down at the counter, his cheeks reddening. ‘I put that in. Free of charge.’

‘Oh.’

‘I used to order them just for Iris. Special, like. That was the last one and no one else will want it, so it seemed like the right thing to do …’ He trailed off, his cheeks pink.

‘It was,’ Gwen injected as much warmth into her voice as possible and John smiled properly, showing nicotine-stained teeth.

Back at the house, Gwen was surprised to find Cam waiting for her in his car. Truth was, she found it difficult to deal with the actuality of Cameron Laing; she’d spent so many years coming to terms with him in the abstract. The living, breathing, frowning Cam still seemed like a creature from another planet which, Gwen supposed, he was.

‘Would you like some tea? Coffee?’ The saying ‘you can never go back’ was on a loop in Gwen’s mind, which didn’t help matters.

‘Coffee, please,’ Cam said, seemingly oblivious to the effect he had on her. He dug into his bag and produced a brown cardboard folder. ‘I was supposed to give you this when you came to the office. I can’t believe I forgot.’

‘That’s okay.’ Gwen concentrated on unlocking the front door. ‘It’s nice of you to bring it round.’

‘Not at all,’ Cam said. ‘It was my mistake.’

Gwen moved around the kitchen. Soon the smell of good coffee filled the air. She opened a tin and frowned at the contents. ‘A neighbour left these on the front step as a house-warming. I think it’s ginger cake.’

‘It’s a friendly town,’ Cam said.

‘Apparently.’ Gwen sat opposite him and took a slice.

Cam was looking at her with an odd expression on his face.

‘What?’

‘It’s funny seeing you being so domestic. It’s not how I remember you.’

‘I was eighteen,’ Gwen said, irritated. ‘And I think you mostly saw me horizontal and with my shirt unbuttoned.’ As soon as the words were out, Gwen could’ve hit herself with her plate. She felt the redness rush up her face.

Cam nodded, as calm as ever. He took a slice of cake, then paused before eating it. ‘No salty lemon in this?’

Gwen forced a smile. ‘I told you, I didn’t make it.’

‘That was a weird day, wasn’t it?’

Before Gwen could work out whether Cam actually wanted to have a conversation about the de-hexing of Brian Dixon, the back door swung open and Lily appeared.

‘Hello.’ Lily peered at Cam with interest. ‘Are you the lawyer?’

‘Cameron Laing.’ Cam stood up and offered his hand.

‘What can I do for you?’ Gwen said, pointedly not standing. This open-door policy was beyond a joke.

‘I’m Lily Thomas.’ Lily took Cam’s hand and stared up at him with a winsome expression. ‘I looked after Iris.’ She turned to Gwen, switching gears: ‘I haven’t been paid for the last month, either.’

‘Oh God, I’m sorry,’ Gwen said. ‘Did Iris leave a chequebook or anything? I know I can’t access her account for six months.’

‘I don’t remember seeing anything, but we can check again,’ Cam said. ‘There might be something in this lot.’ He tapped the file on the table.

‘Personal service,’ Lily said. ‘I’ll have to remember that. If I ever need legal help.’

‘Certainly,’ Cam said. He offered her a business card.

‘Or perhaps it’s the irresistible charms of our lovely Gwen here.’ Lily smiled without warmth. ‘Has she bewitched you, Cameron?’

‘Uh—’ Cam managed.

Lily turned back to Gwen, suddenly all business. ‘I’d appreciate my money as soon as possible. If you don’t have it, then I’d happily take Iris’s notebooks instead. I’m sure I’ll be able to find that recipe, as you’re too busy to look.’

‘Recipe?’ Cam said.

‘Chutney,’ Lily and Gwen spoke at the same time.

‘Well, I won’t impose.’ Lily nodded to Cam. ‘Nice to meet you.’

After Lily had left, Gwen turned to Cam. ‘You said something about papers?’

He opened the file on the table. ‘Just formalities. You’ve got to agree to the covenants on the house, sign that the house contents match the list, things like that.’

‘What sort of covenants?’

‘Old regulations that were made when the land was originally developed. Let’s see.’ He flicked through the papers. ‘Okay. You’re not allowed to farm sheep.’

‘Damn it!’ Gwen clicked her fingers.

Cam smiled and continued. ‘You can’t run a medical practice, barbershop or paint the gable end of the house a “gaudy colour”.’

‘It doesn’t say that!’ Gwen reached for the paper and her hand brushed his. A bolt of electricity shot up her arm and she felt the blushes coming on again. It was embarrassing.

‘Well, what do you know?’ she said, studying the paper. ‘I wouldn’t have thought “gaudy” was a technical term. Do you think blue counts? I’ve always liked blue.’