Mum's the Word

by Dorothy Cannell

  “Felt guilty about Mummy and Daddy,” I suggested, “so she blotted out the experience?”

  “Whatever. Such is the great impression I made on her.”

  Ah, but would the mature woman take a more lingering second look? Ben thumped the bedpost. “Ellie, your suspicions have wounded me deeply. Nipping out for … a quick one with Ms. X, as though I were going down to the local for a pint.”

  “Does sound rather vulgar, I admit.”

  Another thump of the post. “I thought you loved me.”

  Gnawing a finger, I tried to come up with a defence.

  “And don’t give me some such idiocy as she’s so beautiful. I like the way you look much better. Or I did before you had your hair all stretched out of shape.”

  How could I tell him I had entered the Scissor Cut that noon in hopes of being remodeled into a Valicia X look-alike? But as it happened, our time for talking was up.

  A boom shuddered the room.

  Ben thumped a fist to his brow. “There goes the damn gong. Ms. X instructed Pepys to sound the alert when the next session was due to begin. Jeffries is to bring the candidates’ dinner to the meeting room. You will be sure and get something from the buffet?”

  “Promise.” My heart was heavy as I trailed after him to the door. What have I done? I cried silently. His farewell kiss was absentminded. Rather as if my face had got in the way of his.

  The moment I was alone I rounded on my reflection in the mirror and screamed, “Idiot!” This is all your fault, I thought. And don’t start blaming your mother or Fat Child Ellie! Flinging down on the bed, I burrowed under the poppy field spread. For comfort, not warmth. The horrid little bedroom was perspiring heavily. Willing myself toward the oblivion of sleep, I vowed that things would be better when I woke. Our love would be stronger for being tested. Please God, let Ben be the chosen candidate. I feel bad about Miss Rumpson and Lois Brown and being asked to play favourites can’t be easy for you. Bingo says he doesn’t want the honour, but he could have been talking tough. And you don’t have to worry about the poor comte. He’s out of the running … I fell asleep to dream of a swashbuckler knife being lifted from the dining room wall by an unseen hand. Where there had been five there now only two …

  I came awake with a horrible abruptness as if something had touched me on the shoulder and whispered, “It’s time!” The dark summons, however, was internal—not external. I was alone in the room, feeling exceedingly peculiar, in the grip of sensations astonishingly new, whilst unnervingly familiar. My travel clock said seven o’clock. The Mangés must still be in session behind closed doors, making up for the lost afternoon. Otherwise, Ben would have come for me. I wasn’t sorry. Feelings that have been rubbed raw need time to heal. Platitudes. To be honest, all thought of my husband slipped away like sand swept away by an incoming tide of emotions—ones I had thought dead forever.

  “Stop playing the ascetic, Ellie!” the demon whispered. “You’re not fooling anyone. Get up, get dressed and get thee gone from this barren room. You know what you want. And who’s to be hurt? Remember how late last night’s meeting went on? Cinderella, you have until midnight.”

  A dictionary could not provide enough adjectives for the craving—desperate, urgent, insatiable, voracious. I was like the headmistress of the girls’ finishing school who discovers she is a werewolf. Inching up on my elbow, a chill prickled my flesh.

  I fought the need, truly I did. Pulling the bedclothes up to my hairline, I ordered myself back to the safety of sleep. I might not feel weak or woozy, but this was a sickness. These last few days I had felt well. But not like this! For the first time post-pregnancy I surged with vitality.

  My hand tossed back the spread. Why fight the inevitable? There was a place in Mud Creek that offered all the spice I craved. I would sit in a dark booth, heavily disguised! The fantasy played on; but even as I got out of bed and began assembling clothes, I told myself I could back out at any time. The square eye of the window turned accusing. And my conscience turned to sandpaper. The risk of being spotted as I crossed the island to the boathouse was considerable. But I couldn’t worry about that now.

  Donning the sack-style dress I had purchased that morning at Nelga’s, I voted it as slinky as maternity in Mud Creek was likely to get. Oh, but surely that moon-coloured person in the mirror wasn’t me. How could I go anywhere with a face like that? As for my hips, they looked detachable. Would Mud Creek believe a new fashion fad—on the wave of shoulder pads?

  Small wonder cosmetics found favour with the masses after the advent of electricity. Candlelight gilds the lily. As does emolient rich moisture balm, liquid-pearl foundation, blush, perfume, and lip gloss. My hands played over the bottles and plastic compacts like a concert pianist. Subtlety. That was the key word. No thornbush of back-combed hair. No beauty marks such as distinguished the comtesse. One should always look like a lady, especially when one doesn’t intend to behave like one. So says Aunt Astrid.

  Seven minutes later I was presentable, if not reincarnated. Britain’s Ellie Haskell looking darling, darlings! I had left my hair loose, handy to duck under should anyone look at me boss-eyed. Picking up my bag, I watched my fingers do a slow walk toward a pencil lying on the bedside table. What word could I leave for Ben—on the off-chance that the Mangé Meeting ended before my return? That a woman has needs? A faint hint of Mr. Right aftershave lingered in the air. I wondered if I could go through with this. My hand was trembling as I wrote: Gone into Mud Creek. Expect me when you see me.

  Making a face at the watchful window, I switched off the light and, vowing this would be a quickie, slid out into the hallway, which was heavy with silence. Did the film Melancholy Mansion silently … endlessly … replay itself within these walls? Was death forever crouched at the crook of the stairs waiting for the murder victims? Would I, unknowingly, rub shoulders with any of the ghost characters—the blonde, the butler, or the schoolboy or … even my mother? That her part had been played in a nightclub didn’t alter the fact that she was part of the history of this house. Suddenly, remembering her fatal fall down a flight of railway steps, I could not face the stairs.

  Heading toward the lift, my footsteps echoed after me. I opened the outer door and viewed the hanging cage with a jaundiced eye. Only the craving got me aboard. What if it stalled? What if knives came slashing through the grid iron sides? Silence, craven adventuress! Grabbing the elasticated brass gate, I rammed it shut. With courage that astounded, I pressed First. An electrical hum glided up my arm as my insides lurched down. So far so good. No dead body dropping as a free gift into my arms. Downward and Onward. All clear on the hall front. Out into the sultry air.

  Instantly I felt better. Mendenhall was a breeding ground for the fungus of imagination. Hurrying down the herringbone path, I skirted the rockery. Poor old Josiah! He should have chosen either a smaller house or a bigger island, if he didn’t want his home to look too big for its britches. In half a dozen strides I was level with the herb garden wherein grew, according to Miss Rumpson, all the ingredients to enable me to hold onto Ben’s love. We have an herb garden at Merlin’s Court. Jonas is a great believer in the power of mint sauce with his roast lamb.

  I had reached the boat house. Ah, yes! Here was the Nell Gwynn. A neatly wrapped orange square on the right hand shelf. Unfortunately, I had not enough puff in me to get it inflated this side of Christmas. Dropping my bag on the Melolite garden bench, I assured myself that borrowing a rowing boat without first acquiring permission was not contrary to any house guest rules I had ever read.

  Urgency gave me the speed and strength of … one pregnant woman. Once launched I became again the pride of St. Roberta’s rowing team. My oars moved with the steel rhythm of connecting rods on a steam engine. I inhaled deep breaths of river smell. Water the colour of stewed tea slopped and surged against the sides of the boat. I was free, I was racing to meet my destiny. No time to cry, Halt, who goes there, as a motor boat roared into view, sending up a geyser of spray. P
epys in pursuit or worse yet—the Coast Guard? Neither, thank goodness! Just some snooty river rats who wouldn’t give the wave to a nameless rowing boat. Off in the distance a couple of white sails hung like pillow slips out to dry, but otherwise it was just me and the river.

  By the time I tied the boat to a scrubby tree at the water’s edge, I’d had enough of the nautical life and was ready to give anyone who looked at me sideways the back of my oar. But upon reaching Main Street, the fever that had driven me to these shores was back full force. No traffic moved. I saw no pedestrians. Again I seriously wondered if this was a town existing only in the imagination of the stranger passing through. Silly! The bearlike dog fenced in alongside the B. & W. Hardware Store was too real for comfort. Jaws slathering, he ripped chunks out of the night. Should I turn tail and flee back to Mendenhall?

  Impossible! I sped past Jimmy’s Bar. My footsteps echoing the thump-thump of my heart, I crossed at the traffic light and came with a rush of ecstasy and longing to the place.

  But what was this? Confronting a Closed sign on a locked door, I could have wept with frustration. Martin’s Mexican Café. The restaurant was exactly as I had imagined when Mary had mentioned it outside Jimmy’s Bar—a flat-faced building with peeling boards and a straggle of plants clawing at the inside of the window. I smelled the spices, felt them seeping into my pores, tasted their burn on my tongue. When the craving had first taken hold, it had been for curry. But this wasn’t England and I am adaptable. I clawed at the door. Tacos, enchiladas, tamales! All begging to be devoured one slow nibble at a time.

  I sagged against the wall. Where was it written that I should suffer like this? All the pregnancy How-To books stressed the importance of giving in to this most basic of urges. Easy for the books to say. Easy for those women not haunted by a fat past. For me had come denial, followed by that terrifying exhilaration. The urge has come upon me! cried this Lady of Shalott. I had been so pure since marriage: no food orgies. I had come to believe that passion for food had been sublimated by nobler desires. I had determined not to use my pregnancy as an excuse to backslide. And how easy to walk the straight and narrow during those days of morning sickness. Now, true to form, the sin without the satisfaction.

  Drearily, I stopped using my hair as a face cloth and dragged myself into a walk which ended abruptly after half a dozen steps. I was at the door of the Lucky Strike Bowling Alley. Taped to this door was a sign that read:

  Enjoy Life In The Fast Lane

  Annual Bowling Banquet, Six To Nine, July 3

  Buffet—$5.00 per person

  Anyone interested in joining Wednesday or Thursday night leagues is welcome.

  I moistened my lips. What sort of a buffet? Was I putting one and one together and making four? Martin’s Mexican might be closed for any number of reasons. Admit defeat! Return to your boat and head back to Mendenhall. As Child Ellie you may have been known as the Midnight Marauder for your successful nocturnal raids on the school pantry. But the woman you’ve become isn’t brazen enough to walk in there only to have your legs mistaken for skittles. Remember, you have the Mangé name to uphold. You have your marriage to consider. Ben is already unhappy at being blamed for an affair he did not commit. You’re going to fight this thing and win.

  Ellie, come back! Don’t do this! Don’t gate-crash the Mud Creek Bowling Banquet!

  A sport where you are meant to drop the ball had always appealed to me, but I had never been in a bowling alley before. And, to my untutored eye, the Lucky Strike resembled a bomb shelter down to its last candle. Overhead fans moved whirligigs of shadow over the empty lanes. Did the dim lighting indicate a desire for ambience or were they conserving on electricity? Immaterial, my dear Ellie! Cloaked in shadow I scooted unchallenged past the pay desk and ball racks.

  The bar was mobbed. Did the entire population of Mud Creek leap at every chance to party? Cigarette smoke breezed my way. Voices flowed past me, gentle as the river I had so recently rowed. “As I said to her … after she said to me …” “I could have kicked her face in!” “But she sure is darling!…”

  I recognized several faces from earlier in the day. Nelga from the dress shop. Heidi, our waitress at Jimmy’s Bar. The Swedish blonde twins who had been such a hit until Theola Faith stole the fashion show. But here was a face guaranteed to kill my appetite if anything could. Sheriff Tom Dougherty sat on a bar stool, nibbling on a drinking straw. I shoved back a quiver of unease along with my hair. The prize might be worth the price.

  The buffet table was laden to groaning. I could feel the vibrations in my feet. This was the sort of feed bash with which pioneers must have fortified themselves when there was a forest to be cleared and a log cabin township to be raised before sundown. My palms turned clammy. My body flooded with wave upon wave of wicked wantonness. I was a lioness surveying her kill.

  Set out among the down-home delights of baked beans, sweetcorn casserole, macaroni and cheese, and brown-sugar glazed ham, were two great platters of crunchy shells loaded up with spicy dark meat, crispy green lettuce, bright red tomato, and shiny black olives. I merged with the crowd, as safe from prying eyes as any taco thief could wish. Too safe. All around me, disembodied hands loaded up paper plates. Curses! My arms were pinned to my sides by the press of bodies.

  Across the buffet from me were the Swedish blondes. Their giggles drifting upward like bubbles blown from a pipe, until … a unified gasp. Like a tiny pop. Eyeing each other with identical expressions of bemusement, they said, “Who’s she?”

  “Yes, don’t think we’ve had the pleasure.” A beefy chap in a flannel shirt, fists doubled into boxing gloves, gave me the once over.

  I flexed my lips.

  One of the twins touched a sculpted nail to her flawless chin. “I feel certain sure I’ve seen her some place.”

  “Same here.” An unspeakably handsome youth, his mouth carved into a sneer, picked me apart with his eyes. He who had notified me in Jimmy’s Bar that I was wearing a price tag. Was I about to pay for being so lavish with makeup and flouncing my hair over my shoulders? The need to mask my hungry eyes had been consuming. Now it didn’t take a mirror to confirm that in the eyes of these Puritans I looked a thoroughly bad lot.

  “She was in Jimmy’s lunchtime gone.” A female cattle rustler spoke, thumbs in her belt, salt-and-pepper hair slicked back. She wore leather wrist bands.

  “You’ve got her tagged, Rema!” The flannel shirt man executed a middle weight boxer prance. “She’s one of them! One of those crazies staying over on the island.” Eyes squeezing from their sockets, he loomed across the table at me. “What’s your game, dame?”

  The twin on the left wrinkled her nose. “Why are you here spying on us?”

  “I …”

  “Does Mary Faith plan on putting this whole town in her next book?”

  Relief at the question restored my voice. “Such a wonderful party!” I gushed. “You can’t know how I would love to stay, but I only stopped by to inquire about bowling lessons and—”

  Impossible to go on. I was drowned out by a surge of voices. Impossible to continue backing up. The crowd was closing in again, cutting off light and air. Was that buzzing the rush of blood to my head or the mounting fury of the mob? I heard, “Mangés” and “Dangerous weirdos.” Followed by “We don’t need their sort in Mud Creek.”

  “What’s this, folks? A private party?” Enter Sheriff Tom Dougherty, hoisting up his gun belt. His thatch of grey hair shaken boyishly onto his forehead, the set of his mouth belying the vulnerability of his pouchy cheeks. Here was a man trained to read every twitching muscle and evaluate every flinch. Would he handcuff me before or after reading me my rights? Would he cross to the island and personally inform Ben that his wife was about to become a felon as well as a mother?

  What had I wrought in my blind folly? Had I destroyed my love’s every hope of becoming a Mangé?

  The sheriff silenced the mob with a raised hand. His smile was chummy, but I feared his left eye wasn’t n
arrowed because he had a cold. He was lining me up, for target practice. “Well, young lady! What brings you to the Lucky Strike?”

  Hugging my shoulder bag as though it were the arm of a friend, I backed up against the human wall. “As I have explained, sir, I happened to be passing and popped in to inquire about a game of bowling. Finding the tracks shut down, I paused to admire the buffet.” I like to think I am not a great liar due to lack of practice. But I thought this one skirted the letter of the truth rather nicely.

  “She’s lying.” The cattle rustler tightened her leather wrist bands.

  “Too right!” the twin on the right agreed.

  “Not even cute about it.” Horrendously handsome young man speaking.

  “Now hold your horses!” grumbled the sheriff. “Sounds to me the young lady may be speaking nothing but the blamed truth.”

  What a lovely man. Had I not been in such a hurry to leave, I would have been tempted to kiss him. “Thank you so much!” I tried a sidestep. “Now, if you will excuse me—”

  “Not so fast, honey!” A curvaceous woman in a leopard skin frock reeled me in by my bag strap. Her eyes worked the crowd. “Hey, you bunch of softies, get yourselves a good look at that face. She look the sort to care a hang about bowling? Not her. Doesn’t have the class! She came skunking in here up to no good, or my name’s not Bertha May Johnston.”

  A dark and deadly hum of bees swarming. To think I had felt cheated in leaving Massachusetts—the seat of witch burnings and other Puritan terrors. I could feel the hot collective breath of my accusers. Their eyes branded a G for Gate-crasher on my forehead. A dubious look had crept into Sheriff Dougherty’s eyes. Was he going over to the enemy? Would anything be served by throwing myself at his feet?