Chocolate Shoes and Wedding Blues. Trisha Ashley

I found myself pouring out to him a part of my past I normally preferred not to dwell on. ‘I did stay in Lars’ London house with them all when I went down to start my graphic design course, but my stepsisters made my life such hell that I moved into a flat with some of my college friends instead. Lars was quite hurt, but he didn’t understand what the girls were like when he wasn’t there. He’s always been a bit blinkered about them, though he can be very firm too, especially about them earning their own money rather than relying on him.’

      ‘So, your mother divorced him?’

      ‘Yes, but Lars still takes an interest in me and looks me up when he’s in London – he’s a lovely man. Both daughters have made their homes over here now. The elder, Marcia, is an actress living in Middlemoss, but Rae is living in the London house with her little boy …’

      I felt another pang and added, ‘Lars is always trying to get me and the girls together for a big family reunion, but sometimes I wish he’d just let me go.’

      ‘So where’s your mother now?’ Raffy asked.

      ‘Immy married her plastic surgeon a few years ago and moved out to California, where she seems to be trying to turn herself into a Barbie doll. That was another thing with the stepsisters,’ I added bitterly. ‘They were tall, fair and pretty – much more like my mother than I was, because I take after the darker side of the family – and they all shared the same interests: men, fashion, clothes and gossip. They were like three sisters and she sided with them even when they were bullying me. She was my mother, yet it was me who felt like the cuckoo in the nest! Rae and Marcia called me an evil little goblin.’

      ‘Nice,’ he said. ‘That must have really endeared them to you.’

      ‘They stole my boyfriends when they could, too. Recently I discovered that Rae, the younger one, had an affair with my fiancé, and that her son is his. That’s why he is my ex and I’ve moved back here.’

      ‘Poor Tansy, you have been having a time of it,’ Raffy said sympathetically, his lovely turquoise-green eyes sincere.

      I managed a wavering smile. ‘I feel better for having unburdened myself – that was quite unintentional!’

      ‘That’s what vicars are for. Chloe says she’d love to pop in and see you, too, if you felt up to visitors?’

      ‘Of course,’ I said, thinking that if Raffy, ex-rock star, was the unlikeliest vicar you ever saw, then his wife, daughter of the pagan and somewhat eccentric proprietor of the Museum of Witchcraft (who was not only a self-confessed warlock but the author of many lurid black magic thrillers), was an even more unlikely vicar’s wife.

      But then, her artisan chocolates were heavenly! My spirits rose slightly as my mind took a new tack.

      ‘Actually, I wanted to ask her if she might make a special line of chocolate shoes for me to sell in the shop when it goes totally bridal.’

      ‘I’m sure she’d be delighted. And I’m glad you’ve started thinking about the new shop, because your aunt was really keen that you should get on with it, she told me so.’

      ‘Yes, she made me promise I’d carry on, so I must … and a Chocolate Wishes shoe would be the perfect wedding favour, wouldn’t it?’

      ‘It certainly would. I’ll tell her to pop round.’

      As he shrugged himself into a very un-vicar-like long black leather coat he asked, ‘Any sign of your new neighbour yet?’

      ‘No, so perhaps he’s changed his mind, or his health took another turn for the worse, or something,’ I said. ‘Nan said he was an elderly actor.’

      When Chloe came she brought her baby, Grace, with her, who has the same amazingly greeny-blue eyes and dark hair as her father. Chloe’s even smaller than I am and very pretty, with a slightly elfin face, a bit like Kate Bush. I didn’t say so, though, because she was probably just as fed up with people saying that as I was with being likened to Helena Bonham Carter, just because we both liked to dress a little differently from everyone else.

      Chloe’d brought me a chocolate angel and a geranium in a pot. ‘It’s scented and has red flowers. Red geraniums are for protection,’ she told me.

      ‘Against what?’

      ‘Sadness, bad vibes,’ she shrugged. ‘I just felt it was what you needed.’