Agatha Raisin and the Love from Hell

She was to arrange a concert in Mircester to launch the new boot and the new song. She bought herself a dark blue dress ornamented with glass beads and pearls. It had a square neckline and a very short hemline. She then bought sheer stockings and a garter belt, the latter being an item of clothing which Agatha despised, but she planned a hot night and was prepared to sacrifice her comfort.
    She carried her purchases home and proceeded to prepare herself for the evening ahead. James was to drive them into Oxford for dinner at a French restaurant on Blue Boar Street.
    She bathed and made up her face with care and then brushed her hair until it gained some of its lost shine. Then she put on the dress and stood in front of the mirror.
    And scowled.
    The sequins and beads had glittered in the electric light of the shop and had looked beguiling. In the late sunlight streaming through the bedroom window, it looked vulgar, tasteless, and middle-aged. And that same cruel sunlight fell on her face, showing Agatha Raisin that she had an incipient moustache. She tore off the dress and left it in a crumpled heap on the floor. In the bathroom, she applied depilatory to the area between her nose and her upper lip and then went to her closet to rake through her clothes to find something suitable. Five try-ons later, she realized she had forgotten all about the depilatory and was only reminded by a burning sensation on her face. She went back to the bathroom and washed it off. Above her upper lip there was now a scarlet line. ‘I hate being old,’ howled Agatha at the mirror.
    She returned to the bedroom and gloomily selected a white satin blouse and a short black velvet skirt. Now to do something about her face. She had planned to wear only a little light make-up, but heavy foundation cream would be needed to cover that red mark.
    When she finally got into James’s car, although he glanced at her without comment, she could sense his disapproval. She should tell him what had happened, but somehow to confess that she had reached the shaving age seemed impossible.
    James actually thought Agatha had put on too much make-up as an act of defiance. His cancer treatment was to start the following week. He would start to lose his hair and then he would need to tell her something. He had meant to tell her that evening, imagining a soft and sympathetic and womanly Agatha. But Agatha, he thought sourly, had never been soft or womanly.
    So on the road to Oxford and throughout dinner, he talked about his new book, which was to be about the Normandy landings in World War II. Agatha ventured that surely enough had been written on them already and then promptly realized that, once again, she had said the wrong thing. As usual with James, she felt she was facing an unbreakable wall of resentment.
    ‘We should be talking about what we really need to talk about,’ said Agatha abruptly, cutting through one of James’s history lessons. ‘I can assure you, Charles is just a friend. Nothing has been going on. What about you and Melissa? What prompted you to take her for a drink in the first place?’
    That usual look of distaste and weariness which always crossed James’s face when confronted with any intimacy of conversation was back again. ‘I told you, I happened to meet her in the pub. Then I knew Charles was with you, and so . . . Do we really need to go through all this?’
    ‘Yes, we do,’ said Agatha. ‘Did you sleep with her?’
    ‘No,’ said James. He despised the euphemism. What he had done with Melissa could hardly be described as sleeping.
    ‘Do I have your word on that?’
    ‘I have to trust what you say about Charles and you have to trust what I say about Melissa, or there is no point in going on.’ He suddenly smiled at her. ‘Let’s forget about the whole sordid quarrel.’
    Agatha melted before that smile. ‘About my job. The concert is next week and after that I will be a lady of leisure again.’
    ‘Good,’ said James. I should tell her about the cancer, he thought. Maybe tomorrow.
    They made love that night. Pillow talk had never been James’s forte and yet Agatha tried. ‘It seemed a good idea keeping our separate cottages, James, but now I don’t think it very sensible. Why don’t we sell our cottages and buy somewhere bigger?’
    James thought of Agatha being perpetually underfoot, Agatha with her bad cooking and her smoking. He manufactured a faint snore.
    Agatha rose on one elbow and peered in the