Page 11 of A Recipe for Romance

Finally I was left with just a large shoebox of old letters.

I hadn’t looked at them when I was packing her stuff up, but now I found myself sitting under the skylight on the Lloyd Loom chair with the contents spread across the top of the ottoman.

I wasn’t sure why I wanted to read them; I didn’t really think they would suddenly illuminate some depths that my shallow and self-centred mother had kept hidden because I was sure she hadn’t got any. What you saw was what you got.

There wasn’t a huge collection, though some dated back to just before I was born.

My mother had scrawled remarks on a couple of the envelopes like ‘Yes!!!’ and ‘Result!!!’ so I started with those – and hit pay dirt with the very first one.

Then, with horrified illumination dawning, I went through all of the rest, finishing with a couple of notes in Mags’ distinctive handwriting.

After that, I just sat there unconscious of time passing, my lap full of secrets and lies, until I heard the unmistakable thumping of Jake’s big boots on the wooden attic stairs.

Hastily bundling all the letters together, I thrust them back into the box and crammed on the lid, wishing what I had learned could be as neatly packed away and forgotten.

‘What on earth are you doing up here?’ Jake demanded, ducking his head to get through the low doorway. ‘The lights and radio are on in the flat, but Zillah hadn’t seen you for hours. I thought you’d vanished.’

‘Like Mum’ was the unspoken inference. I’m sure that’s why he had always got rid of my boyfriends – every time I’d gone out with one of them, he’d been afraid I wouldn’t come back.

‘Sorry, Jake. Grumps asked me to sort things out up here ready for the move, and I lost track of time.’

‘You look a bit pale.’

‘I’m tired, I’ve been up and down stairs with bags of stuff. But I’ve just about finished now and I found this lovely Lloyd Loom furniture for my bedroom. What do you think?’

‘It’s a bit girly ,’ he commented, his attention clearly elsewhere. ‘But I like that huge trunk with all the travel stickers on it! Do you think Grumps would let me have it?’

‘It would take up an awful lot of floor space in your room, you know.’

‘Maybe, but I could store loads of stuff in it, so the rest of my room would actually be much tidier,’ he suggested cunningly.

‘I suppose it would fit at the foot of your bed, if you really wanted it, and Grumps won’t mind because he said I could have anything from the attic.’ I handed him the roll of labels. ‘Here, write “Cottage – front bedroom” on this and stick it on top.’

He did that and then I asked him to carry the last boxes and bags down to the hall.

‘OK,’ he said, grabbing two heavy bags in each hand as if they weighed practically nothing, ‘but I really came to find out what’s for dinner.’

I passed a weary hand across my forehead. ‘Oh, I don’t know…I haven’t thought about it yet.’

‘Zillah says she’s doing steak and kidney pudding, mushy peas and crinkly chips, but you have to say now if you want any, before she starts cooking.’

‘You have that, if you fancy it, Jake. I’m meeting Felix and Poppy this evening, and by the time I’ve showered all this filth off, there’ll only be time for a snack. What are you doing tonight?’

‘I promised Grumps I’d help him with something,’ he said mysteriously, and then laughed at my expression.

‘No, I’m not about to become part of the coven, cavorting about with a lot of wrinklies, or do anything else daft!

He just wanted me to research someone called Digby Mann-Drake on the internet for him. ’

‘Digby Mandrake ? That sounds even more bogus than Gregory Warlock!’

‘Mann with a double “n” and it’s hyphenated.

I expect he made the Mann bit up, since he seems a bit Aleister Crowley – all fancy robes and “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law”,’ said Gregory Warlock’s grandson, casually knowledgeable.

‘In fact, he sounds a nasty piece of work altogether and he’s been sending veiled threats to Grumps, because he wanted to buy the Old Smithy, only he fell ill at the crucial moment. ’

‘Opportune,’ I commented, thinking that this sounded awfully like the plot of Satan’s Child .

Could this Mann-Drake possibly be the Secret Adversary, both of the novel and in real life?

The man who had tried to prevent Grumps realising the significance of the Old Smithy’s magical position?

The plot thickened. ‘Do they know each other, Jake?’

‘They were at Oxford at the same time, but I don’t think their paths have crossed since, until now. Grumps wants to probe Mann-Drake’s weak spots so he can protect us if he tries any mumbo jumbo,’ he said with cheerful irreverence. ‘That’s why he wanted the information. I’ll see you later.’

I carried the shoebox of letters down to my room, then dashed back up to the attic one last time in order to blast the inside of the cabin trunk with Jake’s very overpowering Lynx aftershave, which entirely vanquished the scent of Je Reviens.

There was no need for both of us to wallow in miserable memories.

I showered quickly, so I had time to do an internet search for one of Mum’s correspondents, who turned out to be an actor, printing out his photo and some information to take with me to the Falling Star, where I was meeting Poppy and Felix.

Zillah must have come into the living room just after I’d finished that and gone back into the bathroom to apply a bit of slap, because there was a plate of dinner on the table covered by a hot, inverted soup bowl.

I hadn’t thought I was hungry at all until I lifted the bowl off and the aroma of steak and kidney pudding and chips hit me, but I ate it in five minutes flat, standing up, before dashing out.

Indigestion was on the cards – if I could tell heartburn from heartache these days.