How to Murder Your Mother-In-Law

by Dorothy Cannell

  Who could blame Mum for being miffed that her spouse had not changed into something more subdued for the occasion of her survival? She had attired herself in a stiff little suit whose hem, from the telltale stitches, had been turned up almost to the waist in order to accommodate her pint-size figure. My heart was touched when I saw she had set her skimpy hair in curls that stuck out around her head like twisted paper clips.

  “I couldn’t persuade Sweetie to come downstairs,” she informed the wallpaper. “She’s in shock, poor little thing, and who can wonder after nearly being orphaned?”

  “Mum,” Ben said, “we all know you had a bad scare, but I was right there on the stairs to catch you when you tripped.”

  “My life flashed before my eyes! But don’t think I am blaming Ellie for polishing those steps to a dangerous sheen. I’m only thankful that I was the one to be almost killed. At my time of life I don’t have a lot of years left. I know full well that old people get to be very much in the way.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Dad roared.

  Realizing it was useless to protest that I had not polished the stairs when Mum had complained upon her arrival that the house reeked of Lavender Wax, I murmured I was glad she wasn’t hurt.

  “If you asks me, I do be the one as ought to be suing for’t damages!” Jonas lifted his head from his book to eye Mum coldly. “There was I, fixing your bedroom window, just like I’m told for to do, and up you comes behind me screaming fit to stop an army in its tracks. If it b’aint a wonder I didn’t drop dead on the spot, I don’t know what is! My heart being none too sound in my chest.”

  Mum shrank almost to the vanishing point, but managed to rally with “I might have guessed I’d be the one to blame!”

  “In future”—Jonas’s voice plowed into the thick silence, breaking it up like clods of earth—“why don’t you post a sign on your bedroom door saying ‘Trespassers will be persecuted’?”

  “Anyone would think,” Mum huffed, “that I almost got myself killed on purpose!”

  Ben and Dad did their part in egging the situation to a standstill by exchanging raised eyebrows. And Jonas, his moustache bristling with ill usage, slumped artistically back in his chair, compelling me to hurry over and prop his mud-caked boots on a footstool: whereupon Tobias Cat appeared out of nowhere to drape himself like a furry rug across the would-be invalid’s knees.

  “Perhaps it would behoove us all,” I addressed the room at large, “to remember what St. Francis might say under the circumstances: ‘Where there is anger, let us sow love. Where there is injury, pardon …’ ”

  The doorbell buzzed.

  “That can’t be Beatrix Taffer! She’s not due for another five minutes.” Am I the only idiot on the face of the earth who thinks that if she says something loudly enough it makes it true? That wretched mantel clock! The sundial in the rose garden was a hundred times more reliable. Given the glum state of Mum’s face, I was tempted to ring for Mrs. Malloy and send her to greet Mrs. Taffer with the news that the Haskell family had not finished quarrelling. And if madam would kindly repair to the winter parlour to admire the wallpaper, or perhaps chew on a piece of celery, we would be with her momentarily.

  “On your marks, get set, smile,” I begged as the doorbell buzzed again. “This little outing undoubtedly means the world to Mrs. Taffer.”

  “I doubt that!” Mum sniffed.

  “Quiet!” Dad roared at the moment the drawing room door pounced open to reveal Mrs. Malloy in all the glory of her two-tone hair and cranberry apron.

  “We rang?” Ben raised a dark, inquiring eyebrow.

  “All right, you lot!” When Mrs. M. forgets her place, she does so with style. “Stop that gawping and say a nice hello to your guest.”

  Lo and behold, Beatrix Taffer was right behind her. And what a shock! This was not the frail lady I had pictured in my mind—the one suffering through her geriatric exercise when I spoke with her daughter-in-law on the phone. This elderly woman did not hobble into the room on two canes, wheezing with every breath. She elbowed Mrs. Malloy out into the hall and rushed forward, throwing her arms wide open, in palpable eagerness to hug everyone and everything in sight. My heart sank. Here was a seventy-year-old harum-scarum if ever there was one.

  “Mags! Elijah! You haven’t changed a hair!”

  Neither one of them moved or spoke. Indeed my in-laws looked as incapable of action as the twin suits of armour out in the hall. Thank heaven for Ben. His smile was every inch as suave as his smoking jacket as he strode towards Mrs. Taffer, looking deep into her eyes. “Welcome to Merlin’s Court.”

  Inspired by her son’s good behaviour, Mum got her act together. Extending a stiff hand, she said in a voice guaranteed to cause freezer burn, “It’s been a long time, Bea!”

  The newcomer beamed. “Well, if that don’t turn back the clock! No one calls me Bea anymore; I’m known to young and old as Tricks.”

  “Suits you!” Dad stood up, looking in his white whiskers and red cardigan as if he would be quite happy to come down Mrs. Taffer’s chimney any time. Not to be outdone, Jonas scrambled out of his chair with more speed than befitted an invalid.

  “Pardon me muddy boots, m’lady! I just come in from digging up the veggies for your dinner.”

  Suppressing a quiver of unease, I said, “It’s lovely to have you here, Mrs. Taffer.”

  “Love-a-duck, Mrs. Haskell! I’m over the moon at being invited.”

  Tricks was certainly something to behold. She was on the short side of five foot. Her roly-poly figure was augmented by a bosom that quite cast Mrs. M.’s into the shade and made Mum look as if she had only just graduated to a training bra. Her frock was an Indian muslin affair with three dozen dancing tassels. She vibrated energy that sent the standard lamps swaying like palm trees and the chairs scuttling out of her way.

  Amazing! Her face, for all its wrinkles, belonged on a schoolgirl. A mischievous, funky schoolgirl whose ultra-red hair stood up all around her head in porcupine spikes reminiscent of a punk rocker. And … a thrill of shock and admiration shot through me … her ears were triple pierced.

  When Ben’s eyes met mine, I knew exactly what he was thinking. This live wire could not be a contemporary of his mother’s! The very idea was idiotic. Almost as idiotic as Jonas clumping to the forefront to inform our guest that meeting her was the thrill of a lifetime.

  “I’ve read all your books.” He was shaking her hand until it almost flew off. “I know they do be for little kiddies, but Peter Rabbit and his pals has always been my heroes.”

  “Jonas”—unmoved by ye olde simpleton’s tactics, I placed a hand firmly on his elbow—“this lady is not Beatrix Potter.”

  “I should say not!” Tricks gave him a playful poke in the ribs with a pudgy finger. “Mags and I are old friends, but we aren’t neither of us that old.” She beamed at my mother-in-law, who did not return the favour.

  “You don’t look your age … either of you.” Dad rose gallantly to the occasion in addressing Tricks—in particular her cleavage, which was indisputably one of the scenic wonders of the world. Needless to say, Mum was not tickled pink.

  “No one ever described me as mutton dressed up as lamb.” Virtuous sniff. “But then, my religion teaches that the body is the temple of the soul.”

  It was an uncomfortable moment but, far from appearing put out, Tricks gave a snorting little laugh and appealed to the rest of us: “Same old Mags, isn’t she? Always too good for the likes of us sinners. Come here, old duck, let’s kiss and make up.” So saying, she grabbed hold of Mum and gave her a smacking kiss on both pallid cheeks. While the men and I watched in awe, Tricks dragged Mum by the hand, almost skipping as she went, and plopped them both down on the sofa, where Tobias had retreated for a snooze. He went flying up in the air, along with a couple of cushions, but Tricks didn’t notice.

  “To think, Mags, it’s been forty years, and all because of that silly quarrel at the seaside.”

  Mum hadn’t said anything ab
out where the row had taken place and, being nosy, I was curious about the rhymes and reasons, if not eager for a blow-by-blow account. Tricks’s punk hair was softened from red to an iridescent pink by a stray shaft of sunlight, which also illuminated—less kindly—the ladder in her left stocking and the dirt trapped under her fingernails. “It was such a nasty grey day and no one was on the beach but the three of us.” She beamed up at Dad, who was stroking his beard into a more debonair shape. “So I didn’t see any harm …”

  “In suggesting we go swimming?” My mother-in-law sat as if she were on a church pew, tiny knees together, hands primly folded; her voice was several degrees chillier than the sea could possibly have been on that faraway day.

  “I know you don’t like the water, Mum,” Ben soothed.

  “Ah”—her sparrow eyes flashed—“but what you don’t know, son, is that we didn’t have our swimming costumes with us. And someone”—she edged farther away from Tricks—“called me a spoilsport because I refused to—”

  “Go skinny-dipping?” I quavered.

  “If that is the vulgar expression.”

  “My word, Dad”—Ben sounded on the verge of laughter—“what part did you play in all this?”

  “I took your mother’s side. Had to, didn’t I?”

  Silence descended, threatening to engulf us, but somehow I managed to locate the salmon pâté and a tray of cheese straws while Ben busied himself rustling up drinks.

  “What can I get you, Mrs. Taffer?” he asked.

  “Fruit juice, there’s a love.” She gave a girlish giggle. “I’m quite the health nut. And do call me Tricks.”

  “How fitting.” Mum squeezed out a mirthless laugh and accepted a glass of lemonade. She did not “drink,” but on this occasion I wished she could be persuaded to indulge in something stronger. A glass of Lourdes water, for instance. Our little get-together was definitely in need of a miracle.

  In the gurgling voice that was decades too young, Tricks offered a toast. “Let bygones be bygones, I say, and may the good times roll!”

  Mum kept right on staring into her lemonade, but the men, my husband included, converged in a rush, and before I could get in the act, Tricks disappeared in a round of clinks and exclamations of “Cheers!” followed by an unidentified “Oops!”

  Someone’s drink went sloshing over the rim of his or her glass to splatter the arm of the sofa and a patch of carpet with a nice rich stain. A good hostess does not flinch under such circumstances, and I was about to say it didn’t matter a tiny bit, when Tricks eased all our minds.

  “Don’t give it a thought, love! These modern fabrics clean up in next to no time.” She patted the damp arm of the sofa. “And anyway, you can always hide the problem with one of these cuties.” Suiting action to words, she lifted a doily from the oak end table and plopped it down over the carpet stain. “There!” She beamed. “Who would ever know?”

  The men were struck dumb with admiration. I drank my sherry in one gulp before I could spill it. And Mum pointed a trembling finger at her life’s work, the doilies that were on display throughout the room.

  “Cuties!” Rounding on Tricks, Mum seized on the word and chewed all around it as Sweetie might have done a chair leg. “Cuties! Is that what you call them?”

  “Enough, Magdalene!” Dad thundered. “She didn’t mean anything.”

  “I might have known you would take her side.”

  “Parents! Parents!” Ben reproved.

  Jonas could not continue at this frenetic pace. Tottering back to his chair, he hid out behind A Tale of Two Cities. Wishing desperately that there were some escape for me, I was tempted to announce dinner even if it meant eating the vegetables raw. Tricks started to say that she thought the world of Mags’s doilies, but there was no stopping Mum. And perhaps that was all for the best. Her hostility was like a genie unleashed from a bottle after forty years of incarceration. Even were one to catch it and stuff it back in, the respite would be only temporary. We would all be waiting for the stopper to fly off again.

  “Cuties! How very American of you, Tricks! I used to be so embarrassed when people clucked about you flirting with the Yanks at the air force base. I didn’t want to believe it when your own mother burst into tears one day and admitted you accepted favours from them—sticks of gum and worst of all”—she spat out the word as if she could not bear it to touch her lips—“cigarettes.”

  “Be you saying she was a spy?” Jonas came back to life, his caterpillar eyebrows scurrying with curiosity.

  “No, old love!” Tricks’s face remained one big smile. “Mags is saying I was a slut.”

  Call me a defeatist, but I experienced one of those flashes of insight on which I pride myself. My splendid evening was dead. And from the looks of Ben and the other chaps, they agreed with me. But how wrong can you be? Either our guest was the mistress of the stiff upper lip, or she was incapable of taking offence (A) because she was the salt of the earth, or (B) because she was completely out of touch with other people’s feelings. The thought did occur that the latter could be a real handicap—tantamount to crossing life’s treacherous highways blindfolded. But as usual I did not get to wallow in philosophical conjecture.

  Tricks was chirruping “Feeling better, dearie, after getting all that out of your system?” while crushing Mum in another of those pals-forever hugs. To which the recipient responded with her usual fervour, arms rigid at her sides. Her nose and one visible eye stared straight ahead into infinity.

  I was about to extol the virtues of the cheese straws, when the drawing room door banged open, making another notch in the wall, and in came Mrs. Malloy, her fishnet knees buckling under the weight of the monstrous bouquet she carried in her arms.

  The four-foot structure was made up entirely of vegetables. Obscenely oversize vegetables that looked as though they had succumbed to taking steroids. Ben was the first one to pry open his lips. “My God, Ellie! Is that your idea of an hors d’oeuvre?”

  “I brought it!” Tricks leaped to her feet, sending a lamp and a couple of eminently dispensable ornaments flying, her smile radiating more light than the hundred-watt bulb. “It’s my little party present—my thank-you for having me here for this fun evening.”

  “Give me a bunch of daffs any day!” Tactful as always, Mrs. Malloy shoved the horror at me and zipped out of the room before it could extend a green or orange paw and rip off one of the juicier parts of her anatomy to feed its insatiable appetite for human flesh.

  Poor Ben. I could see him struggling to find some word of praise that would not be in violation of the chef’s Hypocritical Oath. I myself was struggling to stay upright. Mum meanwhile sat there like a turnip—as if we didn’t have enough of those already. And Dad and Jonas crept towards me as silently and reverently as if they were in church.

  “Go on, tell me what you think!” Tricks was vibrating with excitement.

  “Incredible!” Relieving me of the Leaning Tower of Veggies, Dad held it on high, while Jonas stood riveted at his side, eyes uplifted.

  “You like it?”

  “We love it!” The two men spoke as one. And why not? Jonas gloried in the growing of vegetables and Dad in the selling of them.

  “A real prize!” one or the other of them gushed.

  “Oh, you lambs!” Modesty was not the lady’s middle name. “I’m all fired up to enter one of my Veggie Fantasias in St. Anselm’s Summer Fête.” I started to say I was that year’s chairwoman, but Tricks talked right over me. “Everything has to be grown with the exhibitor’s own wee hands.” She held hers up, fingers spread wide. And I must say it was nice to know that the dirt beneath her nails was good, honest soil. “For the last five years, ever since I got into horticulture in a big way, I’ve won second place ribbons. But this year I think I’ve got a chance for the big one because Louise Bennett, who always won for her Marrow Medleys, won’t be competing.”

  “What a bit of luck!” Ben commented.

  “Isn’t it? And you know what I w
as just thinking, Mags?” Tricks beamed at her ex-friend. “Sarie Robertson’s absence this year could be your ticket to glory.”

  Mum looked black, so I explained: “There’s an opening for someone else to take the first place ribbon in crocheting.”

  “Are you suggesting, Ellie”—Mum roused herself—“that I couldn’t beat this Sarie woman if she was still in the running?”

  “Of course you could. You’re a genius with the crochet hook,” I said, growing dizzy, either from hunger or because Jonas and Dad were still twirling the Veggie Fantasia in their joint hands like men possessed. “But unfortunately you aren’t eligible because you’re not a resident of the district.…”

  “That’s right, Mags.” Mrs. Taffer spoke with her eternal good cheer. “I was forgetting you’re down for only a few days. Never mind, this should be a great year. What with so many of the old-time winners having moved away or for other reasons thrown in the towel—or trowel—even the Martha is up for grabs.”

  Ben, who was an expert on affairs of the fête, having had to listen to me bewailing my responsibilities, started to explain the nature of this trophy, so coveted by many of the women, along with a growing number of men—not least of whom was our vicar’s husband, Gladstone Spike. Gladstone made a formidable sponge cake. Alas my man about the house was drowned out by the dinner gong.

  “Ask not for whom the gong bongs,” I addressed the reverberating silence, “it bongs for thee.”