Gwen followed Brian, catching his arm just before he reached the door. 'h.e.l.lo, Mr Dixon. Would you-'

Brian shook her arm off and carried on. Which was good in one way as Gwen had no idea how to finish that sentence. On the other hand, there was a good chance that Mr Conatello would be displeased to make his acquaintance.

'Brian!' Cam was next to her, and he grabbed Brian's arm but with considerably more success. Brian executed a balletic turn to face Gwen, Cam's other arm firmly across his shoulders. He blinked at Gwen and then at Cam. To the untrained eye, he probably looked drunk. To Gwen he looked enchanted.

'Let's take a walk!' Gwen said brightly.

'Come on, mate,' Cam said. 'I think you need some fresh air.'

Cam led Brian out of the cafe. One of the tourists leaned out of her seat and patted Brian as he pa.s.sed. 'Don't you give up, honey.'

The drizzling rain had turned into hail and Brian was putting up some resistance. 'Got to go to her,' he mumbled.

'What now?' Cam said over Brian's head.

'He needs to sober up.' What he needed was to be disenchanted, but Gwen wasn't about to say that to Cam.

'I don't think this is just alcohol talking,' Cam said, peering into Brian's face.

Gwen hid her surprise. 'We need to get him away from here.'

'Should we take him to hospital to get checked out? What if he's having a breakdown?'

'He's upset,' Gwen said. 'And he's in love.' And someone had been burning verbena.

Brian's eyes flicked open. 'Love!'

'Uh-oh.' Cam renewed his Vulcan grip on Brian's shoulder. 'Come on, Brian, we're going for a walk.'

A few steps down the street, Gwen's hair was plastered to her face and Brian's grey jacket was black from the rain. Cam was soaked, too, and looked rumpled for the first time since she'd arrived back in town.

They made it as far as the toy shop at the end of the street, with Brian pulling against Cam all the way. The rain was mixed with stinging hail, and Gwen couldn't see how she was going to ditch Cam. Even if he agreed to leave, Gwen would lose Brian the moment she let go of him. She didn't know how she was going to get Brian to take his cure, or even if it was going to work. Just do it.

'Hold on,' Gwen said, and Cam stopped half-dragging Brian.

Gwen tugged them both to the shelter of the toy shop awning. 'Sorry about this,' she said to Brian and then licked his cheeks, the left and then the right. Brian didn't seem as surprised as he should've been.

'What on earth was that?' Cam looked horrified.

Gwen thought about lying, but couldn't think of anything convincing. Besides, she had messed things up with Cam thirteen years ago. What did it matter if he thought she was a lunatic?

'I'm just checking to see if he's under a spell.'

'What?'

Gwen reached up on her tiptoes and licked across Brian's forehead and up the middle. She tasted soap, which was something of a relief.

'Stop licking him!' Cam said, sounding annoyed.

'Salt,' Gwen said, wiping her mouth with a tissue. 'He's been hexed. Enchanted. Whatever you want to call it.'

'Maybe he's salty because he's been sweating, Gwen.' Cam was speaking in the slow voice of one speaking to a toddler with a hunting knife. Gwen ignored him.

'Okay, Brian. I need you to put this under your tongue. Let it dissolve, right?'

Brian gazed over Gwen's shoulder in the direction of the Hearty Baker. 'Let me go to her. I know what I have to do.' He looked beseechingly at Gwen. 'It's all so clear.'

'I'm sure it is. Open wide.'

Brian obediently opened his mouth and Gwen popped the slice of dried lemon inside.

His face twisted. 'Urgh.'

'Don't spit-' Gwen said, just as Brian spat the lemon onto the floor.

'Are you going to help?' Gwen said to Cam. 'Hold his jaw shut this time. Like when you're giving pills to a dog.'

'I don't have a dog,' Cam said. 'What is that, anyway?'

'Dried lemon slice covered in salt.' One of the more useful things she'd learned from her flaky mother was to always be prepared for the worst. She'd been carrying hex-removing lemon slices around with her since she was fifteen, along with the stub of a candle, some thread, and a feather. She was like a freaky Girl Guide.

'And that's supposed to do what exactly?'

'Lift the curse,' Gwen said.

'Of course.'

'Open up, Brian.'

Brian looked marginally more with it. 'I don't feel right,' he said.

'This will help,' Gwen said.

'You promise?' Brian said.

'I promise.' Gwen gave him the lemon slice and watched as Brian slipped it underneath his tongue. His shoulders convulsed and he pulled extraordinary faces, but the lemon stayed in.

'I hope he doesn't sue you,' Cam said.

'At least I know a lawyer,' Gwen said, avoiding Cam's eye.

After a moment, Brian swallowed and coughed. His eyes were watering, but they looked a little clearer. He wasn't pulling at Cam, either. He sank to the ground instead, and sat on the wet pavement.

Gwen crouched down beside him. 'Brian? Mr Dixon?'

Brian raised his head. He was crying. 'Holy Mother of G.o.d, what have I done?'

'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.

Chapter 9.

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 pa.s.ses 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 a and Iris a 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 eyeb.a.l.l.s 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 a.s.sumed 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 pa.s.sed 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 b.a.s.t.a.r.ds 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 p.r.i.c.kling 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 pa.s.sed, 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 a his mum a 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.'