Lots of Love by Fiona Walker Page A

he’s lost all his hair or had a sex change in the past eleven years. All these bidders are boffers or biddies.’ She let out a low, throaty giggle, but her eyes still scoured the room for the missing prodigal son.
    Ellen thought this was a bit of an anticlimax. After Pheely’s build-up, she’d hoped at least to catch a glimpse of the village’s worst-ever tearaway. ‘Maybe he’ll pop by later to see his lot come up.’
    ‘What lot?’ Pheely consulted her going-for-a-song sheet. Half-way down the last page, Ellen pointed out the short, cryptic lot fifty-four: ‘Three wishes to be granted to the winning bidder, kindly donated by Jasper Belling’.
    Pheely let out a great snort.
    ‘One hundred! Thankyou, Ophelia!’ Hell’s Bells pointed her gavel triumphantly.
    ‘Oh, shit.’ Pheely looked up with a nervous smile, through which she muttered ventriloquist-style, ‘Don’t tell me I just bid for a meal in the Fuck Upstream?’
    ‘Are we all done at a hundred?’ Hell’s Bells boomed.
    ‘Please bid, somebody,’ Pheely implored, through her fixed smile. ‘C’mon, Giles, help me out here.’ She stared helplessly at a suave-looking man in a crumpled linen suit who was lounging against a far wall, and who had been bidding on the lot earlier. He smiled back at her with a roguish wink.
    ‘Bastard.’ Pheely clasped her hands.
    Ellen, who had terrible munchies now that the dope high was starting to pass, was almost tempted to bid herself if she could claim her meal straight away.
    ‘At one hundred pounds, with Ms Gently.’ Hell’s Bells raised her gavel like a motorist preparing to take out an injured animal with a shovel. ‘Going once . . . going twice . . .’
    ‘No, no, please no.’ Pheely closed her eyes in horror.
    ‘One hundred and ten,’ came a lazy drawl, and the man in the crumpled suit lifted a finger.
    ‘Yes!’ Pheely sighed, her eyes springing open.
    ‘Thank you, Giles!’ Hell’s Bells was jubilant. ‘Ophelia?’
    ‘No!’ Pheely shook her head hastily then held her breath until the gavel smashed down on a tall mahogany plant stand that had been placed beside the library steps.
    While Gladys busily made a note of the lucky recipient of a meal at the village’s gourmet pub, Pheely blew Giles a kiss. He smouldered back at her.
    ‘Giles Hornton,’ she told Ellen, in an undertone, ‘lives in River Cottage. Dilly keeps her horse in his paddock. Giles is our biggest local solicitor in more than one sense of the word. Watch out – that meal has no doubt been bought with the express intention of cross-examining somebody’s bikini briefs, and he just loves new girls.’ Eyes darting around, she stretched up to whisper in Ellen’s ear. ‘You’re probably the only woman in this room he hasn’t slept with. He’s quite irresistible, my darling.’
    Giles, who was the wrong side of forty with a peppery Tom Selleck moustache, Bahamas tan, dissipated blue eyes and very Miami Vice taste in tailoring, hardly struck Ellen as irresistible. He gave her a seedy wink, and she lowered her eyes hurriedly to her catalogue.
    ‘Lot sixteen,’ boomed Hell’s Bells, ‘has been kindly donated by Prudence Hornton, and is half a dozen water-colour lessons, paints and paper included.’ She gestured towards a slim, scruffy redhead, who was scowling behind dark glasses in a window-seat.
    ‘Is she Giles’s wife?’ Ellen asked in alarm, not surprised that the poor woman was looking so glum given that she was sitting in a room of her husband’s conquests.
    ‘Ex,’ Pheely pulled a face, ‘and a very silly cow. She runs the gallery in Cider Lane. Only opens the place up when the moon’s in the ascendant, and even then she won’t let Capricorns in. She hasn’t sold one of my sculptures in months.’
    This left Ellen wondering whether Pheely’s sculptures were only bought by Capricorns, but she didn’t get the opportunity to ask because Hell’s Bells was already scouring the room for