But who was I to throw stones? The mirror above the overmantel did not reflect a pretty sight. My hair was scraped back in a hangman’s noose; I was wearing a pair of horrible old shorts, and my shirt had been rescued from the duster bag. If my in-laws caught me looking like this, they couldn’t be blamed for thinking their Ben could have done a lot better for himself. But, happily, that catastrophe was not in the making. I had a luxurious two hours, at least, in which to take a bath, wash my hair, and slip into my party frock.
Mrs. Malloy put it another way. “In two shakes of a cat’s tail, unless this place is taken over by the Red Cross for emergency bandage practice, we’ll have Mum and Dad leaning on your doorbell. Better snap it up if you hope to lose that two stone you’ve been going on about all week.”
“Thanks for the moral support,” I said frostily.
“And you still have to get the twins dressed up in their pretties,” she reminded me.
“A mother’s privilege.” I beamed, trying not to imagine what Abbey and Tam might now look like after an hour with Cousin Freddy. The man who looked like the local hit man was putty in my babies’ hands.
“And what about St. Francis?” Mrs. Malloy tapped fingers loaded down with rings on a folded arm. “Is he still missing?” Honestly! The woman should work for Scotland Yard. I’d removed the statue that had been Mum’s wedding present from its niche in the hall to give him a dusting, and I’d put him down somewhere or other.
“I’ll find him,” I said confidently.
“Course you will, duck!” She gave one of her gusty guffaws. “Come nightfall you won’t have no trouble, seeing as how he glows in the dark. A nasty turn he gave me that time I was baby-sitting for you and the electricity went out. I thought I was having one of them visions Roman Catholics like your mother-in-law are always jabbering about. Believe you me, I got busy repenting me sins and was all done with the A’s and had started on the B’s when the lights came on.” Mrs. Malloy shuddered at the memory.
To my shame, I was in complete sympathy with her. During childhood I had read about the visions of Bernadette and promptly forfeited any desire to become a saint. For a long time afterwards I had made sure I did something naughty before going to bed just to increase the odds that I wouldn’t be singled out for the favour of a heavenly visitor rising up out of the shadows between the wardrobe and the window. Even so, I would sometimes waken in the dead of night and think I heard a voice whispering, “Ellie … Ell-ie, come down to the grotto.” The objective, I decided, was to be neither too good nor so bad that the devil got me. And early in my marriage I had determined I could never become a Catholic, even to please Mum; not without plugging in a night-light, which wouldn’t have pleased Ben.
“A rum sort of marriage, wouldn’t you say?” Mrs. Malloy broke into my thoughts.
“Whose?”
“Your in-laws. There’s her—an R.C. what makes the Pope look like a goof-off—and him as Jewish as they make ’em. Must have been a real turn-up for the book when they tied the knot.”
I had often thought the same thing. Times have changed in thirty-eight years, but when Mum and Dad took the plunge, they must really have been going against the flow. And knowing Mum, I could only assume that the lure of forbidden fruit … and vege (Dad ran a greengrocer’s shop) had proved irresistible.
“We tend to forget,” I said, “when looking at a couple close on seventy that theirs may have been one of the truly great love affairs.”
“Don’t go getting all misty-eyed on me, Mrs. H.” Mrs. Malloy pursed her purple lips.
“My point is they deserve this little anniversary party, with the surprise reunion with Beatrix Taffer being the icing on the cake.”
“Says you! And now if it’s all the same as makes no difference”—Mrs. M. gave her apron a tug that signalled business—“I think I’ll go and make meself a cuppa while you amuse yourself putting out them doilies.”
“Thanks for reminding me,” I said with genuine gratitude and, accepting my dismissal, headed out into the hall.
Mum, who was a whiz at handwork, had given us so many lacy little mats that had I put them all out at once it would have looked like the year of the crochet hook. That morning I had unearthed four drawer-loads and piled them on the trestle table in the hall, ready to be laid out on every available surface from the Queen Anne bureau to the ironing board. Picking up one of the doilies now, I acknowledged its museum quality and wondered a little wistfully whether Mum and I might have been closer had I shared her talent.
The bong of the grandfather clock was not the only reason I dropped the doily. Jonas stuck his head over the banister to growl, in what was supposed to be a whisper, “Ellie girl! I can’t find my Choco-Lax.”
“What?”
“That stuff as keeps me regular.”
“Well, don’t look at me like that!” I said defensively. “I didn’t sit down and make a pig of myself with a couple of Choco bars. Try and remember where you put it.”
His answer was drowned out by the ringing of the telephone. When I turned back with the receiver in my hand, he had vanished up the stairs.
“Hello!” I chirped, expecting to hear Ben’s voice asking if I needed him to come home and clean out the gutters, which isn’t as silly as it sounds, because Mum was just as likely to climb a ladder to check them out. She’s a meticulous housewife besides being such a character!
“Mrs. Haskell?”
Seeing that Ben and I had never picked up the habit of addressing each other like characters in a Jane Austen novel, I figured he wasn’t the caller. Besides which, it was a woman speaking. I recognized the voice. My heart dropped to my tennis shoes. Frizzy Taffer. Oh, no! Don’t tell me her mother-in-law, Beatrix, wasn’t up to an evening out!
“Hello,” I said weakly.
“I hope I’m not catching you at a bad moment?”
“Not at all.”
“I know how it is when you’re rushing around at the last minute trying to get a million things done at once,” Frizzy said sympathetically. “Last week I had a thirteenth birthday party for my daughter, Dawn.” Breathless laugh. “And just when the doorbell was ringing, my four-year-old slipped and cracked his head, and the minute I got him sorted out, I found the toddler had taken bites out of all the fairy cakes.”
Hardly liking to boast that I was one hundred percent organized, I said it was lovely to hear from her.
“I thought I’d better give you a ring to let you know we’ve arranged for the taxi to bring Ma over to your place, and pick her back up when she’s ready to come home.”
“Then, she is coming?” I could have kissed the receiver.
“Why, yes!” Frizzy’s voice turned all panicky. “You haven’t changed your mind, have you?”
“No!”
“It’s just that she’s so excited!”
“Oh, I am pleased!”
“She’s like a teenager going to her first grown-up do!”
“How nice!”
“Will there be any games? Ma is very fond of games.”
I hadn’t planned on anything of that sort, but I hastened to assure her that we might be able to work in a game of Scrabble after dinner.
“That’ll be nice,” Frizzy said brightly, “Ma does rather have her heart set on Postman’s Knock, but look—she’s lucky to be having a night out.”
Oh, dear! I thought. From the sound of it, Beatrix Taffer was entering her second childhood: all the more reason to get her and my mother-in-law together while they could still enjoy each other.
After telling Frizzy I hoped to meet her too, one day, I returned the phone to its cradle as gently as if it were a baby. Filled with goodwill to mankind in general, and to myself in particular, I scooped up the doilies and went into the drawing room. Lately it had become something of a museum, cordoned off against the day when the twins could sit on the Queen Anne chairs or on one or other of the ivory silk sofas without taking bites out of the cushions, or bouncing fragile ornaments on the flo
or.
The peacock-and-rose Persian carpet which, like much of the furniture, was a gift from the past, dated back to the days when Abigail Grantham was mistress of Merlin’s Court. Her portrait hung above the mantelpiece and I reached to straighten it. Sometimes my organizational acumen amazes me. In the midst of depositing doilies around the room, I came up with the idea of having, at some future date, my in-laws renew their marriage vows here at Merlin’s Court. Suspecting that theirs hadn’t been the splashiest of weddings, I couldn’t think of anything nicer. Only one question nagged at me. Should the bridal pair stand in front of the fireplace or by the window? With dreamy steps I crossed to the leaded glass bay and promptly dropped the doilies. What I beheld was so frightening, my blood ran cold. There were men out on the lawn putting up big white tents. My heavens! The scene resembled a summit meeting in the Sahara. And if that weren’t sufficient cause for alarm, a taxi was zinging its way through the wrought iron gates, past Freddy’s cottage, like a Black Maria.
Before I could complete my gasp, my in-laws were standing on our gravel driveway, paying off the cabbie, while their little dog, Sweetie, raced around in mad circles, yipping and yapping and tying up three pairs of legs with her lead. Smile, Ellie! Do not even harbour the suspicion that Mum and Dad had done this to catch me on the hop. There had to be a simpler explanation—such as all the clocks in the house being a couple of hours slow. Besides, what did it matter that there was no time for me to comb my hair—let alone lose five pounds—before the doorbell rang? My mother-in-law was a saint. She would love me just the way I was … even if it killed her.
“Never let it be said we’re not punctual!”
Mum stepped tidily over the threshold while Dad and the taxi driver hobbled in behind her with the luggage. Was it the brash afternoon sunlight that made Magdalene Haskell look like a workhouse waif, with her crocheted beret pulled down over her ears and her much-washed frock two sizes too big, as if to allow room for growing? She wasn’t any bigger than a sparrow. And I was a heel to be disturbed by punctuality. Had I learned nothing from my near-perfect attendance at St. Anselm’s Church in the pursuit of humility, patience, and generosity of spirit? The doilies weighed heavily upon my conscience and my chest. Halfway to the front door I’d realized I still had some in my hands. With the desperation of the family dog about to be caught with the Sunday joint, I’d stuffed them down my bra.
Speaking of doggie-wogs, Sweetie came trotting in to fix me with a look that said What—you still here? But I didn’t let her put me off my stride. “Mum! Dad! How lovely to see you!” I enveloped them in a huge embrace that included the astonished taxi driver.
“So where’s the brass band, Ellie?” Dad roared. Elijah is inclined to bellow as if the whole world were deaf. And he gets away with it, I suspect, because he has a beard worthy of Father Christmas, and dark brown eyes that must have melted the heart of many a young girl in his day.
“Oh, you mean the tents!” I started to say that they were a mistake, when the front door slammed open, almost sending Mum into the arms of one of the suits of armour by the stairs.
“Mrs. Haskell?”
A giant of a man blocked the opening. This massive creature had a pencil behind his left ear and a crumpled green form in his meaty right hand. “We’ve got the lot up, so if you would be so good as to sign for receipt on the dotted line, we’ll peel on out of here.”
“You can leave anytime you like,” I said. “After you take those tents back down.”
“But you ordered them, lady!”
“I know.” I mustered a smile. “But for St. Anselm’s Fête, which is on the twelfth of July, not the twelfth of June; and they were to be set up on the grounds of Pomeroy Manor, not here.” Closing the door on his wounded face, I enjoyed a brief respite, during which Mum said that she had known the tents weren’t for her and Dad, not that they would have wanted that kind of fuss anyway. Before I could reply, a tap sounded at the blasted door. I opened up yet again, expecting to see some fellow with a white flag, intent on negotiating a truce in which the tents went, but the bill got paid.
“Why, hello, Mrs. Pickle!” I tried to look thrilled.
“I do hope as I haven’t come at a bad time.” She looked up at me with apology written all over her currant-bun face. Edna Pickle, unlike Mrs. Malloy, looked exactly like those charwomen you see on the telly—floral coveralls, and metal curlers bristling under her headscarf.
“My in-laws just arrived”—I cast a look over my shoulder—“but it’s always nice to see you.”
“I’d have gone round back.” Mrs. Pickle always spoke as if allowing time for an interpreter to translate the words into a foreign tongue. “But I didn’t like to take Mrs. Malloy unawares, not after our recent bust-up. She can be a little sharp, can Roxie, and I thought as I should tread a bit wary, like.”
By taking the longcut through the hall? Smiling to show I understood completely, I held wide the door, and in the time it would have taken to unpitch one of the tents, Edna Pickle stepped into my home and opened up her big black bag.
“Here you are, Mrs. Haskell. I brought you a couple bottles of me dandelion wine, seeing as Roxie said you went through the last ones I sent in such a hurry.”
“Why, thank you.” I knew without turning my head that Mum had exchanged a questioning look with Dad. “If you’d like to take those down to the kitchen, Mrs. Pickle, you’ll find Mrs. Malloy there along with my cousin Freddy and the twins.”
“If you’re sure it’s no bother?”
“Not the least.”
Aware that the taxi driver, a tough-looking bruiser, was breathing hard, as if to signal his motor was still running, I am afraid I hustled her off to the kitchen before she was properly done saying “Pleased to meet you both, I’m sure” to Mum and Dad. Coming back up the hall, I squeezed out a smile for the taxi driver. His face was fast turning the colour of a bad bruise.
“Look, lady,” he was saying to Mum, “I counted your cases when I put ’em in the cab, and there they all are.”
“And I tell you,” Mum snipped, “that I’m missing my needlework bag. Not that anyone cares, I don’t suppose; even though crocheting is my life”—she paused to cross herself—“next to Mother Church, that is.”
Dad gusted a sigh that fluttered the snowy whiskers around his lips. “You know what, Magdalene? You drive me crazy. Everywhere we go for thirty-eight years, you lose something.”
“Go where, Elijah? We haven’t been on a day trip to the seaside in all that time.”
“Here we go again.” He turned to me. “Your mother-in-law’s got a mind like an elephant.” His voice worked its way up to a bellow. “If it isn’t her handbag she thinks she’s lost, it’s her umbrella! And you know why, Ellie? Because every five minutes she repacks. On the train she put her crochet bag first in her small case, then the big one, then the small one again.”
“I like to be organized.” Mum drew herself up so that she was the height of the umbrella stand.
“That’ll be two pounds twenty.” The taxi driver forced a beefy smile, peeled open his wallet, stuffed in the five-pound note Dad handed him, and grudgingly made change on his way out. Closing the door and turning back to my in-laws, I heard a series of merry squeals from the kitchen.
Mum’s ears pricked up above her beret. “Is that the twins?”
“Yes! My cousin Freddy has been baby-sitting this afternoon, and from the sound of it, everyone is having a good time.” I could hardly contain myself from racing down the hall, flinging wide the kitchen door, and showing off Abbey and Tam. So what if my darlings needed a wash and brush-up? Grandparents see with their hearts. They would understand that I wasn’t raising prize poochies. No offence, Sweetie. In my exuberance I gave Mum a kiss and she didn’t flinch. What she did was peck the air two inches to the right of my cheek and cling to her handbag as if it were a life raft.
“You won’t believe how they have both grown, or how dark Tam’s hair is now. Abbey’s is still the c
olour of barley sugar, and she’s just as sweet.” Taking hold of Dad’s arm, I hadn’t propelled him more than a step, when his better half called a halt.
“We’ll see them when we’ve had a wash and rinsed off all the dirt and germs from the train,” Magdalene decided. “I know things are different nowadays, Ellie! You young people aren’t so particular—too busy doing your own thing, or whatever the saying is. Far be it for me to criticize, but Elijah and I are too old to change.”
“Speak for yourself.” Dad’s roar was softened by a wink and really, it wasn’t hard for me to make allowances for Mum. She had to be tired and was probably struggling to remember the patron saint of lost luggage, so she could say a thank-you for the safe deliverance of the crochet bag. For a moment I couldn’t think why my heart had started ticking like a time bomb. Then I remembered. St. Francis! I didn’t dare look at the empty niche on the wall. Where on earth had I put that statue? And if that were not worry enough, I felt the doilies worming their way upwards, causing me to fear I would end up with an Elizabethan ruff around my neck.
Mum’s nose was probing the air with the relish of a vampire breaking into a blood bank. “Ellie, what is that peculiar smell?”
Immediately the humiliating thought crossed my mind that my deodorant had gone on the blink. Backing away with all speed, I bumped into the grandfather clock, which gave a bong of annoyance. And Gramps wasn’t the only one to witness my discomfiture. The two suits of armour were falling all over their metal feet to hear more.
“I don’t smell anything,” roared Dad.
Mum’s nose went right on twitching as though it ran on one of those long-life batteries. “Lavender, that’s what it is!”
How to Murder Your Mother-In-Law Page 2
