Seeing he wasn’t about to be immediately ejected, he came over to look.
‘I get them printed on sheets of this thin, shiny paper and cut them out myself,’ I explained. ‘There are lots of different ones, so no two boxes of Chocolate Wishes are identical. I make a random selection.’
‘So, how do you get them inside the chocolate shell?’
‘I mould the shapes in two halves, then I put the Wish in one and stick on the top with a little melted chocolate.’
‘Easy when you know how.’
‘Yes, though you have to use tempered chocolate, or a white line could develop around the join and spoil the look of it.’ I was talking slightly too fast, unnerved by his nearness. I’d forgotten quite how tall he was too, until he was inches away, looking down at me…‘I sell them in boxes of six or twelve.’
‘Felix says you shift them by the bushel-load so you have to go to the post office with parcels every day.’
‘Yes, the number of orders snowballed after my Chocolate Wishes got a mention in an article in Country at Heart magazine and I’ve been advertising in it ever since. You have to keep on top of them, even when they’re not urgent, and I usually call on Felix on the way back – it’s the lure of his new coffee machine.’
‘I know, I’m getting into the habit of doing the same, only earlier, after I’ve said morning prayers in the church.’
‘Do you have to say prayers every day, morning and evening?’
‘I don’t have to, I want to; it’s different,’ he said with a smile. ‘By the way, did Jake tell you he’d been round to the vicarage with that nice girlfriend of his?’
‘Yes, and he said you were about to move back into the main house.’
‘I already have, into one bedroom and a small downstairs room at the back, while the decorators finish the rest. Jake’s an interesting young man – lively, intelligent and outgoing. You’ve done a good job with him, because he can’t have been easy.’
‘No, he certainly wasn’t that,’ I agreed.
‘Felix told me some of the tricks he used to play – very inventive!’
I reflected that Felix seemed to have been telling him way too much! ‘He’s grown out of them now and he’ll be going to university in the autumn, assuming he ever puts any revision in for his exams and gets the grades. But luckily his girlfriend’s keen on studying. They’re applying to the same universities, but I don’t know how that will work out.’
Raffy had now caught sight of the chocolate spell stuck to the cupboard door next to him and was reading it. ‘Interesting!’
‘According to Grumps, that’s some sort of magical incantation that the Mayans used when they were making their chocolate, and it was brought back by the conquistadores. He has a Spanish archivist chum who’s cataloguing the books and papers of an ancient, titled family and he found the manuscript among them. He and Grumps have deciphered most of it between them and now he insists I say it over every batch of chocolate I make, to improve it.’
‘And do you?’
‘Yes, though I don’t see how it could have any effect. They’re working on the last part now, though that may be a later addition. I only hope they don’t find any more after that, or I’ll be muttering like a witch over the cauldron for hours every time I make a new batch.’
Raffy laughed deep in his throat. I’d forgotten the way he did that but it made my heart do the flippy thing again. I realised I’d slowly relaxed while we were talking, and there was a pile of snipped, shiny Wishes in front of me that I didn’t remember cutting.
Raffy dug a hand into the pocket of his black greatcoat and handed me a small, tissue-wrapped package.
‘This is what I wanted Zillah to give you. I’ve been searching the packing cases for it, I knew it was in there somewhere. Jake told me you loved angels when we were in the church looking at the stained-glass window, and when I was here I noticed there are an awful lot of them in the cottage, so…well, I thought you might like one more for your collection. I picked it up abroad.’
I unwrapped it, disclosing an exquisitely carved dark wooden angel, perhaps three inches high, her beautiful face calm amid a swirl of delicately carved draperies.
‘But it must be terribly old and probably valuable,’ I protested, though I immediately coveted it. I expect that’s a sin: all the best things are.
‘The ribbon the angel’s holding says “Pax”,’ he pointed out, with a hint of the old glinting, Raffy smile. ‘So it’s a peace offering and entirely appropriate that you have it. An offer you can’t refuse.’
And he was right because somehow, although I wanted to, I couldn’t.
I kept going to look at the angel. Her serene expression amid the whirlwind of draperies, like the perfect stillness at the heart of a storm, seemed to epitomise how I would like to feel, however unattainable that now seemed. I had thought I’d won through to a quiet, happy, contented phase in my life after we moved here, until Raffy came along and tossed me back into the maelstrom.
But eventually I came to the conclusion that, by accepting the angel from him, I’d taken at least one faltering step in the direction of total forgiveness, and even finally acknowledged that what happened between us in the past wasn’t entirely his fault.
When I said as much to Zillah, she replied, ‘Then you can take another giant step tomorrow, if you like, love, because I told Raffy me and your grandfather are making something special for him and he’s to call for it in the morning.’
‘One step will do for me at the moment, thanks! And what sort of something special are you and Grumps cooking up? It’s not nasty, is it?’
‘No, the opposite,’ she assured me mysteriously. ‘I told him I’d leave it with you, because I’m going out in the morning and Gregory won’t answer the door.’
‘Out? Out where?’
‘I’m going to the cash-and-carry with Clive Snowball, just for the ride…and maybe a catering-sized jar of piccalilli and some biscuits.’
‘Then Raffy can collect it when you’re back.’
‘No, he might need it earlier,’ she said mysteriously, then added, ‘It’s your birthday soon.’
I stared at her. ‘Has that got anything to do with it?’
‘Nothing at all, our Chloe, I was just making conversation,’ she said, and since she was evidently in one of her more obtuse moods, I went to see if I could get any sense out of Grumps, though let’s face it, that was a forlorn hope.
I was still packing the day’s Wishes orders in the morning when Raffy tapped quietly at the door to Angel Cottage. I’d intended to hand him the small padded envelope Zillah’d given me without inviting him in, but there was a bitterly cold early March wind and the little white dog at his feet was shivering.
‘Come in,’ I said, opening the door wider.
Raffy hesitated. ‘No, that’s OK, thanks. I didn’t mean to disturb you, and anyway, I’ve got Arlo with me.’
‘Look, just come in out of the cold, will you?’ I snapped. ‘Grumps said I was to make sure you read the note with the package anyway and I’m not freezing on the doorstep while you do it. And why don’t you get your dog a coat? He looks chilled to the