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Trisha Ashley was born in St Helens, Lancashire, and believes that her typically dark Lancashire sense of humour in adversity, crossed with a good dose of Celtic creativity from her Welsh grandmother, have made her what she is today … whatever that is. Nowadays she lives in North Wales, together with the neurotic Border Collie foisted on to her by her son, and a very chancy Muse.

Trisha Ashley’s latest novel, The Little Teashop of Lost and Found, was her ninth consecutive Sunday Times Top Ten bestseller. Her novels have twice been shortlisted for the Melissa Nathan Award for Romantic Comedy and Every Woman for Herself was nominated by readers as one of the top three romantic novels of the last fifty years.

For more information on Trisha Ashley and her books, see her website, www.trishaashley.com, where you can sign up to her newsletter, visit her Facebook page (Trisha Ashley Books) or follow her on Twitter @trishaashley.

Also by Trisha Ashley

Transworld is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com

First published in Great Britain in 2003 as SINGLED OUT
by Judy Piatkus (Publishers) Ltd

Published as A GOOD HEART IS HARD TO FIND in 2018 by Black Swan
an imprint of Transworld Publishers

Copyright © Trisha Ashley 2003
Extract from The House of Hopes and Dreams copyright © Trisha Ashley 2018
Cover illustration © Robyn Neild

Trisha Ashley has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Every effort has been made to obtain the necessary permissions with reference to copyright material, both illustrative and quoted. We apologize for any omissions in this respect and will be pleased to make the appropriate acknowledgements in any future edition.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

This one is for Laura Preston, with love.

Foreword

Originally published by Piatkus in 2003 under the title Singled Out, this is the fourth of my romantic comedies. It’s been long out of print and difficult to get hold of, so I’m delighted that Transworld have released this new edition.

It features Cass, whose tangled love life is about to receive a Gothic twist worthy of the horror novels she writes for a living …

I haven’t rewritten it, merely tweaked and polished a little here and there, so since it was created on the cusp of the new century it’s obviously very much of its time, especially with regard to mobile phones and computers. It’s amazing how things have changed in such a short space of time, but back then they were a luxury, rather than the norm.

Prologue

Resurrection

If Mary Shelley hadn’t been able to let her own dark demons out, we wouldn’t today have her classic novel Frankenstein. Now Cass Leigh’s demons are on the loose in her debut novel, Twisted Sister, and darker than most … Genuinely original, sincerely terrifying …

Charlie Rhymer: Skint Old Northern Woman Magazine

It was in spring, when living things were pushing green fingers up through the earth like a resurrection (and dead things were doing much the same in Chapter Sixteen of Lover, Come Back to Me), that three catastrophic things happened in quick succession: Max’s wife died, my sister, Jane, came to stay, and the vicar sold me as a slave.

Maybe you’re right, and perhaps it really shouldn’t have surprised me that Max’s wife, Rosemary, came back to haunt the ghoul who’d waited to step into her shoes for over twenty years.

Then there was my sweet twin sister, the Three Horsewomen of the Apocalypse in one person. While dear Jane’s presence was always as welcome to me as a wart, she didn’t usually stay. This time she brought luggage.

Even the vicar’s annual charity slave auction took a turn for the worse, when Dante Chase, who was far scarier than anything I’ve ever written into a novel, paid so much for my services I feared (or should that be hoped?) that he expected somewhat more than a fortune-reading and a little light dusting.

But I suppose things really first started to unravel long, long before that, when Max left for a sabbatical year at a Californian university, taking Rosemary with him …

Oh, Hell Again

Twisted Sister, Cass Leigh’s debut novel, takes elements of both traditional Gothic horror and the fairy tale, and weaves them into something altogether darker and nastier. While the horror genre is not generally noted for restraint, Cass Leigh drives her narrative along with the brakes of good taste permanently in the ‘off’ position.

Fiction Today

By December, Max’s luxurious trappings littering my cottage had ceased to be poignant and tear-provoking mementoes of our love and more a reminder that I’d been discarded for the duration, too: an abandoned Abandoned Woman.

He’d left traces of his presence everywhere like he’d been marking out territory, yet when it came to packing his possessions up they made a pathetically small heap of boxes. (Or rather, Fortnum and Mason hampers, Max having profligate tastes in food and wine.)

When I came down from stashing them away in the attic the answering machine was frantically winking at me. Three messages. Three messages. Three messages.

‘Play it cool,’ I advised it, ‘you know you’re the best offer I’ve had all year.’

And no, loneliness had not reduced me to the depths of talking to inanimate objects because I’d always done it, particularly with my worn (but still handsome) black leather Italian handbag, Guido.

When I pressed Play Messages, Pa’s voice boomed with unchristian fervour: ‘You’ll burn in hell, girl!’ Then he added on a rising note: ‘Spawn of Satan! Seed of Beelzebub!’

‘And the Season’s Greetings to you, too,’ I said, deleting him right at the start of what was clearly destined to be one of his longer, brandy-sodden rants.

Pa had phoned me at least once a month with the same message since I became Max’s mistress, so Hell hath rather lost its sting over the years.

As you may have guessed, Pa (who converted to the Charismatic Church of God as a young man on a trip to the USA) has had quite a strong influence on my life, some of it good, some bad. Or maybe it was all bad, and I’ve turned it into good?

I mean, think about the way he frequently locked me in the cupboard under the stairs in order to force the devil out of me! (And had he never tried to take it out of me, I might never have known it was in there in the first place, although his habit of addressing me as ‘Seed of Satan’ and suchlike from my infancy onwards, should have given me a pointer.)

You know, I never realized he was crackers until I was sent away to boarding school and could compare him with other people’s fathers. Mind you, I don’t think he was quite so unhinged before the demon drink took hold of him, but even so, my childhood experiences seemed to be pretty unique among my peers.

Still, it was great training for a horror writer, because I now know I’m invulnerable to ghosts, spectres, ghouls or any other supernatural manifestation. I often felt their inimical presence in the darkness of the cupboard, and if any of them had been capable of physically harming me they would surely have done so then when I was at their mercy.

… she heard others breathing a different rhythm in the darkness, and hearts pounded to a different beat from her own until sometimes the cupboard walls seemed to wildly pulsate …

But sometimes now I wonder if such apparitions only exist because I let them escape from some Pandora’s box in my brain, so that they owe their existence to me, their creator, La Frankensteina?

Who knows? The denizens of my novels certainly owe their existence to me, though on paper my monstrous creations have a more tangible presence in order to better curdle the blood and chill the spines of my readers, who do not believe in ghosts and their like but are afraid of them anyway.

Of course with me it is quite the reverse: I believe but I am not afraid – or not afraid of physical harm, anyway, though I do admit to an unnatural fear of birds and have a terrifying recurrent nightmare about cupboards.

Still, I believe I am a walking example that good can come from bad, though if you read some of my book reviews or listened to Pa, you might think that bad was coming from bad.

Emerging from my reverie, I listened to the second message, which was from my sister, Jane, and just as predictable in content as Pa’s. After briefly gloating over her immaculately conceived verse, life, and marriage to her adoring spouse, Gerald, she proceeded to plant as many wasp-like stings as she could into my quivering flesh.

Max’s leaving me for a year’s sabbatical at a Californian university, taking his wife, Rosemary, with him, had given her fresh ammunition. She could sense vulnerability, and his absence had left me feeling strangely exposed, especially since his communications had slowly dwindled to sporadic and unsatisfactory phone calls.

Jane was erroneously considered by many, including Ma and Pa, to be the nearest thing to an angel in human form, so she needed to say these things to me, because her pedestal would probably corrode and crumble under her if she couldn’t drain the poison from her fangs occasionally.

‘Hi, Cass, it’s Orla. Guess what, I’ve got a Perfect Partner tonight! I’m meeting him at a restaurant, but if he’s as useless as the last one I’m climbing out of the back window and coming home.

I wiped that, too, hoping against hope that Mr Perfect Partner would at least be approaching human this time, for poor Orla was getting desperate.

Could this be me all too soon? Old banger, high mileage, one careful owner from new, reliable and in good running order?

I dialled the familiar vicarage number and impatiently waited, imagining Charles waking up from a light snooze, working out what the ringing noise was, and then plodding across to answer it.

‘Charles, there wouldn’t be a lot of virtue in giving Max up if he’d already discarded me first, would there? I mean, I’d still be damned even if I did the sackcloth and ashes for ever thing that Pa’s so keen on?’ I demanded without preamble.

‘Yes, Cass my dear, but God is love, don’t forget,’ he said, then yawned. ‘Good heavens, is that the time? I must have dozed off in my chair.’

‘Pa’s God isn’t love, it’s punishment and vengeance and retribution and stuff.’

‘Love takes strange forms, and possibly your poor father is not always in his right mind. But I sincerely believe his phone calls to you are a manifestation of his paternal love.’

‘You do? What about the locking me in the cupboard to drive the devil out episodes when I was a child, though? Was that a manifestation of his love?’

‘In his own misguided way, I believe it was. He perceived your physical resemblance to an ancestor he thought evil, and took the Bible’s message that sin was handed down the generations too literally. Didn’t you say that he punished your brothers and sister also?’

‘Not Jane – never Jane. She couldn’t do any wrong,’ I said bitterly. ‘But the boys were physically punished if they misbehaved.’

‘Well, dear Cass, he was misguided, and the law would intervene on your behalf should such a thing happen these days, for which we must be thankful.’

‘I have told you of the many examples I have come across of families where one child is less regarded than the rest, for no discernible reason: it is not your fault.’

‘Of course not: you have many good qualities. But you have sinned, as you yourself realize, in your relationship with a married man. Yet God will understand how needy of love you were, and at any time you can repent and start afresh, the one lamb that was lost and is found again.’

You know, I might not always follow what Charles is on about (or want to do what he suggested), but I always felt better after talking to him.

‘I couldn’t come to a service – I haven’t been in a church since I left home.’

‘I didn’t mean a service, although you are always welcome. I meant just come in, in order to meditate in the house of God. The door is always open.’

‘Yes, even at night. Of course I lock the vestry, and there’s a CCTV camera in the gallery, but I would only look at the film if something was taken, which praise the Lord hasn’t happened yet,’ he said practically.

‘Well I might try that, Charles, if you really think a bolt of lightning won’t crisp me on the threshold, even if I am still a married man’s mistress.’

‘Mrs Grace left a shepherd’s pie in the oven for my supper, and I’m afraid I fell asleep and forgot about it! It smells a little singed.’

After this somehow soothing conversation, instead of going down to the village pub for dinner as I generally did, I heated up my second pizza of the day (garlic chicken), poured a glass of red wine, and settled down to consider the whole Max’s Mistress situation, which was not something I’d bothered to do for a considerable number of years.

But in his absence I was slowly starting to wake from Max’s thrall (and he had a lot of thrall) like a somewhat aged Sleeping Beauty, and question just where my life was heading. If anywhere.

Look how we’d all jogged comfortably along for so many years, Max and his two women in their separate, non-interlocking worlds, once long habit had dulled my initial feelings of guilt; a guilt that now seemed to be slowly seeping back in.

Max once assured me that Rosemary tacitly accepted our affair, since she was not interested much in the sexual side of marriage even before her dreadful accident, and at least I was sharing him – I mean, I hadn’t taken him entirely away from her, as I might have done.

But now that golf (once merely his face-saving excuse for frequent weekends away) had become more of a passion than I was, I was wondering if perhaps he could get by quite nicely with that and Rosemary.

Vague daydreams of the ‘poor Rosemary hasn’t got long to go, and then we can marry and have a family’ kind had sustained me over the years, but suddenly here we were, a good twenty years down the line, and every cheery sundial was saying: The Time Is Later Than You Think.

But strangely enough, all this sudden angst seemed to be doing wonders for my writing.

Whenever Orla had a big problem she wrote down the reasons for and against doing whatever it was she was worrying about, so I settled down to compile a list of the pros and cons of being Max’s mistress:

1) Lots of time to write in.
2) Independence.
3) Don’t have to wash his dirty underwear.
4) Do not have to look wonderful all the time.
5) Max is tall, handsome, clever, charismatic, and distinguished. (And sexy.)
6) My brothers are all still in contact with me.
7) Have my friends for company when he isn’t there.

1) Guilt, because of his invalid wife, Rosemary.
2) Loneliness.
3) Max not interested in horror writing.
4) He’s never there in an emergency.
5) When he is there, he expects me to look great and be in the mood for lurve, like I’ve got an On and Off switch.
6) I now play second fiddle to his new love, golf.
7) Max resents my sneaking out of bed in the middle of the night to write and visit graveyards.
8) Max adamant about not having children until we can marry, which looks like being never.
9) Having committed to the relationship with Max, have to remain faithful due to inbuilt Puritan streak. (But haven’t been terribly tempted by anyone else for years, anyway.)
10) Max spooked by my mind-reading skills, even though I’ve promised never to do it to him … again. (And all I read was exasperated affection, lust and guilt, which figured.)
11) Ma hasn’t spoken to me since, and Pa only rings me up to curse me.
12) My sister, Jane, is always phoning me up or dropping in uninvited.
13) Max jealous of my longstanding strong friendships with Orla Murphy and Jason Shaw (and his wife, Tanya, until she took off a couple of years ago.)

But then, no one else had tempted me seriously in all these years, so even were I to ditch Max I would still have most of the disadvantages. Besides, whenever I got fed up with things as they were I only had to see him again and I was putty in his hands.

This charisma, Svengali touch, or whatever you want to call it, was not something that worked well via occasional transatlantic phone calls.

‘It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man of over forty is in possession of a major defect,’ Orla stated, walking past me into the cottage and flinging her coat and bag on to the nearest chair.

‘Yes, just as I thought,’ she said. ‘Hair blond to the roots, curves in all the right places, minimal crow’s feet, luscious lips, big, baby-blue eyes. What a waste!’

‘Forty-six and still lives with Mummy. I’ve had every variety of unmarried man now: divorced, for which read rejected by wife for a very good reason; Mummy’s Little Boy, like tonight, and Widowed, Wizened and Smug, like last week’s offering.’

‘They don’t join dating agencies – or at least, not Perfect Partners. What’s that you’re drinking?’

‘I’d never tried it before, because Pa’s drinking spirits put me off the idea. But it’s like gold: hot liquid gold.’

She kicked off the stiletto shoes that had raised her to the level of my chin, then curled up on the sofa. ‘Phew, that’s better! You know, it’s simply impossible to believe in the theory of evolution, because if it was true by now women’s feet would naturally have pointed toes and thin, four-inch heelbones.’

‘Mine wouldn’t, I’ve been wearing those Nanook of the North knee-length suede moccasin boots all winter. And Max isn’t snooty!’

‘Of course he is, and he’s getting worse the older he gets. He’s turning into a boring old fogy right under your nose. Just think about it,’ she added earnestly. ‘The sudden passion for golf, imagining he looks good in Rupert Bear trousers, droning on about why expensive wine is the only sort worth drinking, trying to get you to write literary novels instead of the horror you’re so brilliant at: I rest my case. Come on, let’s be young and reckless and desecrate his whisky!’

‘You’re an idiot,’ I said, pouring her drink. ‘And Max isn’t like that at all!’

But then I actually thought about what I was saying instead of letting my mouth run on automatic pilot and realized she was right: ‘OK, yes he is – and selfish, too! Why hadn’t I noticed that before?’

I took another swig of whisky, which was helpfully reconnecting parts of my brain that had long since stopped communicating with each other even by semaphore. Laphroaig Gets You Clean Round the Bend.

‘Until he took himself off for this sabbatical thing, I’d just been drifting along never really questioning anything, Orla. I mean, I did all the agonizing years ago when I fell in love with him and realized he couldn’t leave Rosemary, and once I was committed to the relationship I suppose it was just like a long marriage, where the changes are so gradual you don’t notice them.’

‘Except it wasn’t a marriage, and it’s a bit significant that he took his wife to America with him and not you,’ Orla pointed out helpfully. ‘You’re still only The Mistress even after all these years. Or maybe because of all these years? Your novelty’s worn off.’

‘Well, it’s no worse than me, is it? Dumped for a younger model, and destined to be divorced, single and desperate for ever. I’m a Trade-in, and you’re a slightly tarnished Spinster of This Parish.’

Since we seemed to have empty glasses I poured us both another generous measure of peaty goodness.

‘At least you still have parents who love you, Orla. Mine always treated me like a changeling or a cuckoo in the nest, just because I took after my gypsy great-grandmother, and then they cast me out entirely when they found out about Max.’

‘Yes,’ she conceded. ‘Though Daddy can’t always remember who I am these days.’

‘I was an unwanted throw-back for the first half of my life, and I’ve been a married man’s mistress for the second. That’s not going to look good on my tombstone, is it?’

‘No, but then, you’re not going to pop your clogs yet, are you? You’ve probably got years left, and you can write your own epitaph before you go.’

‘That’s more like it. And it’s always seemed to me that you had your life arranged to suit you pretty well – perhaps better than you realized.’

‘Oh yes, apart from feeling permanently guilty about Rosemary, only seeing Max for occasional weekends had a lot of advantages. He devoted himself to me when he was there, and the rest of the time I could write, and research, and bum about in my old dressing gown looking an absolute dog.’ I sighed. ‘Of course, the downside was that there was never anyone but me to cope with the blocked drains, or the blown fuses, or even just keep me company when I felt lonely or down.’

‘And the infrequent sex,’ pointed out Orla, whose list of life’s priorities was perhaps not in quite the same order as mine. ‘Why you’ve remained steadfastly faithful to the Unfaithful is one of the great paradoxes of all time. Max was definitely getting the best deal: a wife, a comfortable home and a career, plus someone young and pretty on the side. All he had to do was turn up when he felt like it with his little hamper of goodies and expensive bottles of plonk. No strings, no worries.’

‘He loves me!’ I protested, then paused. ‘Or – he did love me. He really did, Orla. When I finally agreed to this arrangement he actually cried! And he promised he would be faithful to me always.’

‘As far as I know, and I don’t really see how he’d have the time to be anything else, because he’s either been working, or under Rosemary’s eye, or here. Or playing golf, I suppose, which was originally only a cover story for his weekends away. If Rosemary hadn’t been an invalid, I’m sure he’d have left her soon after we met. But he always meant to marry me when she … well … when she—’

‘You’re so credulous! Just because she’s partially paralysed after that skiing accident it doesn’t mean she won’t live as long as anyone else if she has the proper care – which she does, doesn’t she?’

‘Yes, of course, the best of everything. And I never wanted her to die just so Max and I could marry … or not entirely. I’m guilty enough as it is.’

‘Oh, come on! You were a naive student from a strict family, desperate for love; he was a lecturer, your typical suave, handsome, older man in a position of power. It’s only surprising that you resisted so long. Max should have let you go when you got that teaching job and moved here to Westery. You’d probably have found a nice man and have lots of children by now.’

‘Who knows? You thought you had a happy marriage until Mike suddenly asked for the divorce, didn’t you? But I would have liked the chance to have children, and that’s the only thing I’ve ever argued about with Max. He’s never wanted them, and I have, and the years pass so quickly. And then suddenly he tells me he’s off to America for a year with Rosemary!’

‘He even said it would probably do our relationship good to be apart for a few months!’

‘Yes, and it was when he said he couldn’t pass up an opportunity like that, that I suddenly saw him – us – from a different perspective. Things sort of shifted.’

‘I should think so, after all the opportunities you’ve passed up for his sake.’

‘That’s what I said, and then we argued about the baby thing again, because I wanted to try and get pregnant before he left. I expect he thinks I will be past it when he gets back, and I probably will be too, if I’m not already.’

‘I don’t know what you want one for anyway,’ Orla said. ‘But then, my maternal instincts are completely absent. How old are you now?’

‘Mmm … late, but you could still give it a go. You can get some sort of kit, can’t you, to test if you’re still fertile?’

‘Yes, but Max won’t be back for months, and even then I’d still have to persuade him.’

‘But I don’t know anyone else except Jason, and he’s such an old friend I couldn’t possibly. And even if I could, just look how his son’s turned out!’ I shuddered. ‘Who’d want offspring like Tom?’

‘That’s a point, and he’s as old as you. Whereas if you got a younger lover you’d probably have a better chance of getting pregnant – if you’re really serious about it. Maybe younger lovers are the way to go anyway? I mean, if I’m not going to find good sex and a soulmate combined in one package in my age group, I might at least have the good sex.’

‘I thought I had a soulmate, but he’s really keener on the golf than me these days. I’m just a habit to him.’

‘Convenient Cassy, always there when he wants you,’ agreed Job’s comforter. ‘Probably convenient to Rosemary too, because although she knows he’s unfaithful, at least it’s only with one person.’

‘I suppose so. But whenever I wonder if I could bring myself to break with him, I remember all the good times. And when he rings up and says he misses me, I just can’t do it! He can be so charming when he wants to be that the things I mean to say go right out of my head, and I can’t ring him back and say them later, because I’ve no way of contacting him.’

‘He could – but he doesn’t. I tell you, Orla, when I take a clear look at my life, what have I got apart from my writing?’

‘A clear case of rebellion?’ she suggested. ‘It’s not like you to drink Max’s precious whisky, for a start! And now I come to think of it, where are all his things?’

She looked around, her eyes so wide that the spiky lashes spread like a sooty sunburst. ‘I mean, we’re drinking whisky from the bottle, not a cut-crystal decanter, and these glasses look like Woolworth’s finest.’

‘They are. I’ve just packed all his stuff into empty Fortnum and Mason hampers and put them in the attic while I was up there getting the Christmas decorations down.’

‘Sounds like a fair exchange. Are you going to put the decorations up now? Can I help?’

‘Why not?’ I said, waving my glass expansively. ‘There’s the tree, and I’ve made gingerbread stars, and I’ve got two dozen candy canes, and little chocolate umbrellas and—’

‘You do go over the top at Christmas, don’t you? Must be that strict childhood you had.’

‘You haven’t been alone on Christmas Day since Mike left me,’ she pointed out. ‘You, me, Jason and turkey at my house as usual?’

‘Into every pot of ointment a fly must fall. With any luck he will drink too much and pass out like last year, and Jason will have to take him home early,’ she consoled me.

Actually, it turned out that there were three flies in the jar of Seasonal Balm, and the major one was that by Christmas Day Max had failed to send me even a card, let alone a present, and I knew there was little chance that he would be able to slip away and phone over the holiday.

Tom, bluebottle number two, was indeed present at Orla’s house for Christmas dinner, the price we have to pay for our friendship with Jason. It is a constant amazement to me that he could father so objectionable a child. (Or man, I suppose I should say, since he is now at university.)

After Jason and Tom had finally gone home, replete and bearing foil-wrapped parcels of left-over turkey and pud, Orla revealed the existence of the third fly to me.

‘I’ve thought up a new act for Song Language,’ she told me as we cleared the festive board.

Song Language is the name of the singing telegram service she set up after Mike left in order to try and maintain the standard of living to which she was addicted.

She’s a Marilyn Monroe look-alike herself and she’d soon talked me into a Vampirella costume (which was not much different from my normal look, actually) and a couple of other people into even more improbable garb.

‘It’s a great idea,’ she said now, tossing the turkey carcass arbitrarily into the dustbin, because, as she pointed out, who wants to see turkey ever again after Christmas Day?

‘Yes. You’re going to double up as Wonder Woman! Won’t that go down a bomb?’

‘Me? Wonder Woman? You mean, like that old TV series with Lynda somebody – Carter – terrific figure and a mouth like a ventriloquist’s dummy?’

‘That’s the one. You’re tall and dark-haired, and you’ve got the figure for the costume, and the legs for the boots, too.’

‘I haven’t got the mouth, though, or her really light-coloured eyes. Mine are just grey, putrid grey.’

‘As usual. And you don’t have to be an exact copy, just near enough to give the impression,’ she wheedled. ‘I bet it would be even more popular than the vampire thing.’

‘Yes – with men. Why does the thought of walking into pubs and parties dressed only in a push-up swimming costume and kinky boots not sound all that attractive to me, I wonder.’

‘And tights and a tiara thing,’ Orla said persuasively. Seeing I was far from convinced, she added: ‘We could send Jason out with you as a minder, if you’re afraid things might get a bit out of hand.’

‘No thanks, he’s bad enough when I’m dressed as a vampire! As Wonder Woman I’d need a minder to protect me from the minder.’

‘I’ll think about it, but I can’t imagine doing it! It takes me all my courage to do the vampire act, Orla.’

I resisted all her persuasions, but I feared she was unlikely to let her idea go that easily.

While I knew it was unlikely that there would be a message on my answering machine from Max when I got back, I was illogically deeply upset when there was nothing more than the standard message from Pa, who took no account of such debauched festivals as Christmas.

‘You will burn in hell, girl, for your sins lie heavy on your soul! Yet the adulterer is gone from you, and if you truly repent now and serve the Lord, you may yet escape the fiery flames of eternal damnation! Your brother James, too, is a drunken harlot,’ he added.

Clearly sweet baby Jane had been telling tales again. I wondered what poor old Jamie had been up to now. And aren’t harlots usually women?

‘Spawn of Beelzebub,’ he finished rather predictably, and I was just thinking: Ho-hum, nothing new there, then, when his message was followed by my name uttered in a small, breathy voice. Familiar – yet strange.

‘Repent, Cassandra – it’s not too late,’ whispered Ma, before quietly replacing the phone, a pale Ghost of Christmas Past.

Why? Why did she send me a message after so long? Did it mean that she did, deep down, care about me?

Unsurprisingly, I felt somewhat forlorn and unsettled for quite a time after this. Do not think, though, that I sat moping and alone on Christmas evening without a greeting or gift to my name.

I’d already exchanged presents with Orla and Jason (a book called Everything You Need to Know About Last-Minute Pregnancy from Orla, and an antique mourning ring from Jason), and Mrs Bridges next door had given me an adorable hand-knitted toilet-roll cosy in the shape of a white poodle. It was the sort of thing Max absolutely loathed, a factor that just then endeared it to me all the more.

My four brothers (who have steadfastly kept in touch since my ejection from the family nest) had also communicated according to their different natures.

George and Philadelphia sent their annual pre-printed Christmas card, Francis a pair of skiing socks (though I could no more ski than I could fly), Jamie the harlot a box of chocolates with a card sending ‘lots of snuggles to Little Huggins’ (who was presumably now puzzling over why Jamie should be sending her brotherly greetings with her chocolates), and Eddie a battered parcel wrapped in handmade paper full of strange lumps, bumps and stalks, containing one of those stick crosses wrapped in coloured yarn which for some reason are called God’s Eyes.

I have never heard that God is at all into psychedelia, especially Pa’s God, and I bet Eddie sent one just like it home.

Jane’s offering was a coffret of bathtime goodies, though why they call them coffrets I don’t know, since it has very ashy connotations to me. Maybe it sounds posher than box?

The contents were all rose-scented, which suddenly and painfully reminded me of walking with Max down a path covered in velvet-soft pink petals, long ago. He’d said that he’d strewn roses before me, and what more could I ask?

But there, alas, was the basic difference between us: he’d seen rose petals, and I’d seen dismembered flowers.

As usual, I sent everyone a copy of my last book, Grave Concerns, for Christmas.

Pregnant Pause

Even aficionados of the horror genre will be shocked, stunned and revolted by Cass Leigh’s latest offering on the altar of bad taste …

The Times

Max did eventually send me a Christmas present (in January) of some expensive but noxious perfume. It smelled like it had been extruded from the nether regions of a musk rat, and probably had.

The musk rat was welcome to it, because I never wore perfume. Why didn’t he know these things by then?

… from the unstoppered bottle rose a strange, evil, dark miasma that took form and shape and a greasy solidity before her eyes …

He was still calling me when the fancy took him, though his conversation was more and more about golf, the excellence of Californian wine, and their new personal fitness trainer, Kyra, than about how much he missed me.

Meanwhile in a fit of pique I bought my own late Christmas present of a Predictova fertility kit, although it took me a week or two to break open its pristine Cellophane wrappings, especially after reading that book Orla gave me for Christmas: Everything You Need to Know About Last-Minute Pregnancy.

I was not sure how good an idea Predictova was either, because if I wasn’t ovulating at all I would be devastated, and if I was, I would be perfectly frantic in case each egg was the last one.

And it was all very well for Orla to tell me to get a young lover, but you couldn’t just pick one up in the supermarket with the weekly shopping. Buy one, get one free? I didn’t think so.

It was a pity my handbag couldn’t turn into a dark, handsome and comfortably worn lover. I contemplated kissing it, but I think that only works with frogs, besides seeming a little weird.

Orla was quite right about all available men having major defects, though, because when I actually came to look around, there were no possible baby-fatherers in the offing except Jason, whose progeny spoke for itself, mostly using the F-word.

We didn’t know how Jason could carry on being so nice to Tom, unless he’d got the drop on him. After all, there was only one witness who saw Tanya driving off in the middle of the night after that row she had with Jason (who had a fearsome temper), and it had been two years since then with no word.

Still, he did report her disappearance to the police and they looked into it, so they must have been satisfied.

Had now paid several nocturnal visits to the church, especially on rainy nights. Dim lights burned all night, making it look pleasantly eerie, and I could settle in a little nest of tapestry cushions in my favourite pew next to the Templar’s Tomb.

The knight was wearing a pair of those knitted-looking chainmail tights with pointed wrinkly toes, which made him look rather endearing. His wife lay next to him, looking serene: she was probably glad of the rest, going by the number of named offspring on the sides of the tomb.

I found the atmosphere conducive to thinking about the current novel, and contemplating Max and motherhood, but not, so far, to repentance.

When I told Charles this he said God was always happy to welcome me to his house whatever I thought about. He had such a cosy view of God, so unlike Pa’s that I only wished I could share his comforting vision; but even if I should undergo some miraculous conversion, I feared I would never be the type to cover myself with little fish brooches and dance about singing ‘Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam’.

The evening being stormy, I settled down (in the night, by the Knight) to do another of the pros and cons lists, although the first one hadn’t really helped: it showed me what I should and shouldn’t do, but then I ignored the information. Like horoscopes, really: you only take any notice of the bits you like the look of.

Biologically it was now (if I was very lucky) or never. I was still in working order, but for how much longer?

I ought to give Max an ultimatum, but this was not easy when we weren’t currently sharing the same continent, and not only might it be too late when he got back, but I had always been putty in his hands.

I was sure he was too stubborn to change his mind, and I couldn’t wish for Rosemary to die (not that she showed any sign of doing so) because it would make me feel even guiltier than I already did.

So if I wanted to try for a baby I would have to find another father for it and forfeit Max for ever, only after so many years with Max I was unversed in the art of finding another man.

Even Orla was finding it difficult, and she was not only terribly attractive but by no means picky.

At my age I was sure it would take considerably more than a couple of one-night stands to achieve the desired result even if I fancied that idea, which I didn’t; but equally I didn’t want the biological father hanging about interfering with my life.

And speaking of fathers, if I had an illegitimate child Pa would not just ring me to tell me I will burn in hell, but consign me to being eternal spit-roast on Hell’s Rotisserie, basted at frequent intervals by Satan and all his little minions.

Clearly the cons outweighed the pros: but hell, logic had nothing to do with the issue of my Issue!

At this point the battery in my Maglite went out, which might or might not have been a sign from God. If so, it was unclear just what the message was.

It then being too dim to write, and the sound of rain having ceased, I went out into the newly washed churchyard.

To celebrate the publication in February of my new novel Nocturnally Yours, I treated Orla and Jason to dinner at the village pub.

Not that it was a novelty to go to the King’s Arms, since we ate dinner there together most nights like some sad singles club, but one had to mark these twice-yearly occasions in some manner other than the obligatory bouquet of rather pleasantly funereal lilies from my publisher.

Orla and I got there first, giving us an opportunity to air our more personal preoccupations before Jason arrived.

‘I’ve got an American antique collector staying,’ she confided. ‘He’s a bit old, but he’s not bad-looking. He’s gone out to dinner with local friends, or I’d have offered to cook him a little something.’

One of her phones jangled, and she snatched it up. ‘Hello, Song Language? Can I help you?’

‘No, no, I didn’t say strong language,’ Orla was saying soothingly. ‘You must have misheard me. This is Haunted Well B&B speaking. Can I help you?’

‘Certainly. From Friday? Yes, Bed and Continental Breakfast. No, only Continental. Yes, do let me know by tomorrow – I only have one vacancy for that weekend. Yes, goodbye.’

She put the phone down on the table next to the pink Barbie Glitter one and sighed. ‘Honestly, do they think I’ve nothing better to do than run around cooking cholesterol in the mornings?’

The Barbie phone rang before I could answer that, as far as I was aware, nothing better had been offered lately.

‘Song Language. Tonight? Tarzanogram? I’m afraid all my operatives are fully booked this evening. Yes, it is late notice. So sorry. Bye.’

She raised her glass: ‘Here’s to Nocturnally Yours, and to finding someone nocturnally mine!’

‘You will,’ I assured her. ‘There must be interesting unattached men out there somewhere.’

‘Well hidden,’ she said gloomily. ‘How about you? It’s nearly six months since Max left, and you must be missing the sex, if nothing else.’

‘Well, not really,’ I confessed. ‘It hasn’t been terribly memorable for a while, and sometimes I think Max goes through the motions out of habit now, and only gets excited thinking about a particularly good round of golf.’

‘I don’t know how you can live like that, or like a nun now that he’s away.’

‘To tell the truth I don’t mind most of the time … but every so often I get the urge so badly I feel like jumping on the postman. Do you ever feel like that?’

She looked at me, astonished: ‘All the time! Why don’t you do something about it? Not the postman, because poor old George isn’t up to it, and anyway, Agnes wouldn’t like it. But you could look for another man.’

‘I have looked at other men, and I’ve discovered that I don’t find many of them attractive. Hardly any, in fact, even when I was younger and lots showed some interest in me. I must be too choosy.’

‘But until recently I was only mad for sex with Max, and if I’d gone with anyone else I would have felt horrible, and unfaithful, and all the rest of it.’

‘You’re such a Puritan! Why don’t you lighten up a bit? I certainly don’t feel like that.’

‘But you were faithful to Mike while you were married, weren’t you?’ I said, because it had always seemed to me that she had only gone off the sexual rails since the divorce. She and Jason used to flirt quite a lot before Tanya vanished but it was just harmless fun.

Orla went faintly pink. ‘Sort of. Now I don’t have to be faithful to anyone.’

‘I’m conditioned by my upbringing and it’s too late to change now, even if I found a man I fancied, I think,’ I pondered doubtfully, for who knows where desperation will lead us? ‘And after charting my ovulation cycle I’ve come to the conclusion that my sex drive switches on only around the time I might get pregnant – assuming my eggs aren’t cracked, addled, or blown – so presumably when I stop getting the urge at all it’ll mean I’ve run out for ever.’

‘Of course I like Jason: he’s big, cuddly, attractive – and a friend.’

‘He’s not cuddly when he’s in a rage,’ she pointed out. ‘Though that’s when I find him sexiest.’

‘You have him, then. He always seemed to fancy you more than me, until he saw me dressed as a vampire. Worryingly kinky.’

‘Interestingly kinky,’ she amended. ‘And it’s me he only sees as a friend these days. Marilyn Monroe obviously doesn’t do it for him …’

She sighed and I looked at her sharply, because there had been a certain tension between them just after Tanya disappeared that I’d never quite understood, and although they were the best of friends again now there was no more flirting.

‘Wonder where Tanya went?’ she said, obviously pursuing a similar train of thought.

‘You know, I was just thinking that a few days ago, and how odd it was that she’s never contacted Tom, at least. And although we know Jason argued with her the night she disappeared, before he came down to the pub, he’s never said what about. You don’t think he did anything to her in one of his rages, do you?’

‘There was that witness who saw her car on the Kedge Hall road out of Westery in the early hours of the morning,’ she reminded me.

‘They might have seen the car, but maybe it was Jason driving it with the body in the back,’ I suggested.

He drove fast along the road, conscious of the limp, bloody thing in the back that had lived and laughed and loved – once too often.

Then he heard a soft scuffling noise, the scratching of long fingernails on fabric, as some travesty of Lara began to drag itself between the rear seats …

Orla gave me a sharp nudge with her elbow. ‘Come on, Cass! If Jason had hurt her, it would have been accidentally in the heat of an argument, and he’d have been ringing the police and ambulance two seconds later!’

‘Yes, you’re right,’ I said. ‘And he did report her missing to the police.’

‘There you are, then. And he walked me home from the pub that night because Mike was away, and when we passed his house Tanya’s car was still there,’ she reminded me. ‘And he stayed for coffee and a chat, so that by the time he got home not only had she vanished but her car had been seen. She took a load of her things, too.’

Having a baby in your forties:
For:	Against:
1) I want one. 2) I’m fit and healthy. 3) I’m financially solvent. (Just.) 4) I work from home. (Except for the singing telegrams.) 5) I want one. 6) I want one. 7) Max has gone to America for a year, making me question my conscience (and my fidelity). 8) I don’t have time to wait. 9) I’m no longer one hundred per cent sure I want Max back anyway. Out of sight, out of thrall. 10) I want one.	1) Max doesn’t, and he always takes precautions. 2) Even if he agreed, according to that book Orla gave me I probably wouldn’t get pregnant now anyway, but, if I did, would have a high risk of miscarriage, or something wrong with the baby, or medical risk to myself. 3) Max adamant unless we can marry, and Rosemary seems to be going from strength to strength. 4) If I had a baby by someone else, I’d lose Max and be completely on my own. 5) Don’t know any other possible man except Jason, and his offspring is no advert.
Conclusion: I still want one.

About the Author

Also by Trisha Ashley

Foreword

Prologue

Resurrection

1

Oh, Hell Again

2

Pregnant Pause