Encounters and Enemies

by Diana Xarissa

  At some point Gordon went and bought ice cream cones for everyone, and some time later Donald managed to find a bottle of wine and enough glasses for them all to enjoy a drink. The fireworks were the perfect climax to the day. As soon as they were over, everyone headed for their cars.

  “Would you like a ride home?” Donald asked Fenella as they walked together.

  “We all came in Peter’s car,” Fenella replied. “There’s no point in you going out of your way. I can ride home with him and Shelly.”

  Donald looked like he wanted to argue, but after a moment he nodded and then stopped and pulled her close. “It was wonderful to see you,” he told her. “Let’s have dinner together on Friday.”

  “I’m sorry, but I already have plans,” she replied, feeling oddly guilty about dinner with Paul.

  “Peter?” Donald asked.

  “No, I’m having dinner with someone I met recently. It’s just friendly, though,” she replied.

  “Anyone I know?” Donald asked, his voice casual.

  “Paul Clucas. I don’t know if you know him.”

  Donald laughed. “He’s a sweet kid,” he told her. “But hardly in your league. He mooned after Mona for most of his life. I’m sure having dinner with you is the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to him.”

  “He wants to apologize to me for his mother’s behavior at the party the other night,” Fenella explained.

  “He should be apologizing for not supervising the woman properly,” Donald said. “But whatever. I can’t be jealous of Paul Clucas. What about Saturday?”

  “I can do Saturday,” Fenella replied.

  “I’ll ring you to confirm after I make a booking somewhere,” Donald told her. He kissed her gently and then let her go. “Sleep well,” he said softly as she turned away.

  She rushed to catch up to the others, but she needn’t have worried. Shelly and Gordon were having their own private chat only a few steps away. Peter had stopped to talk to yet another business colleague, and by now Fenella was too tired to even listen to the introductions. She nearly fell asleep in the car on the way back to Douglas, in part because they spent so much time sitting in traffic as the site cleared.

  “I hope you both enjoyed the day,” Peter said as the trio stumbled tiredly into the elevator in their building.

  “It was wonderful,” Fenella said. “But I’m glad it’s only once a year. I’m exhausted.”

  “Next year maybe we should skip the ceremony and just go for the fun parts,” Shelly suggested.

  “I liked the ceremony,” Fenella told her. “Maybe we should go the ceremony and then come home for a nap in the middle of the day. We could go back later for the fireworks.”

  “If only parking weren’t so tricky,” Peter said. “But we have a year to think about it.”

  “And forget how tired we are,” Shelly laughed. “I’m sure by next year we’ll want to do the whole day again.”

  “As long as it doesn’t rain,” Peter suggested.

  Fenella had left extra food out for Katie, but she wasn’t surprised to find that both of her regular bowls and the extra water bowl she’d left out were all empty. She refilled everything and then fell into bed, falling asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.

  “Merroww,” Katie said in her ear.

  “Not yet,” Fenella said sleepily.

  “Meeerrrrooooooowwwww,” Katie replied.

  Fenella opened one eye and looked at the clock. It was seven, and far too early for her to be awake after her late night the previous evening. “I’ll give you extra treats if you let me sleep for one more hour,” she told the animal.

  Katie tilted her head and studied her for a moment, and then jumped down and disappeared. Fenella waited to hear the complaints from the kitchen, but she was back asleep before she heard a sound.

  “MMMeeeeoooowwww,” Katie said insistently.

  Fenella sighed and opened one eye again. It was exactly eight o’clock. “How did you do that?” she asked the animal.

  Katie shook her head and jumped down. This time when she started shouting from the kitchen Fenella heard her.

  “Yes, yes, all right,” Fenella called as she crawled out of bed. “I’m coming and I haven’t forgotten your extra treats, either.”

  She gave Katie the treats and then started coffee before refilling the animal’s bowls. Her head was pounding and she felt much worse than she should have, considering she’d only had one glass of wine before the fireworks display.

  “I’m getting too old for late nights,” she said as she hunted around in the cupboard for her bottle of headache pills.

  “But did you enjoy the day out?” Mona asked from behind her.

  Fenella shrieked and dropped the bottle of pills that she’d just found. She spun around and sighed. “I didn’t know you were there,” she said.

  “So I gathered,” Mona replied. “Next time I’ll make more noise as I come in.”

  Fenella didn’t believe her, but she nodded anyway. She washed the pills down with coffee and then poured cereal into a bowl. While she’d have preferred pancakes, she didn’t have the energy to make them.

  “What did you think of Tynwald Day?” Mona asked as Fenella slid onto a stool at the counter.

  “It was better than I expected,” Fenella said. “The ceremony itself was fascinating, and the fair was fabulous. I hadn’t expected there to be so much to do. I must have hundreds of brochures for local businesses and charities now, and I’ve been introduced to dozens of amazing artists and crafters that I want to buy things from.”

  “Didn’t Donald buy you anything nice?” Mona asked.

  “He offered, but I wouldn’t let him,” Fenella replied.

  Mona shook her head. “You should never turn down a gift from a man,” she told her. “Donald can afford it and it would have made him happy to give you something.”

  “I don’t want him to think that I’m for sale,” Fenella countered.

  “He should be smart enough to know better than that,” Mona scoffed.

  “Anyway, I met some friends of yours,” Fenella changed the subject.

  “Did you?”

  “Margaret Dolek and Hannah Jones,” Fenella told her.

  Mona smiled. “I hope they’re both well,” she said. “As we grew older, we saw less and less of one another, but I still have very fond memories of both of them. Neither had a particularly happy marriage. We used to get together and complain about men on a regular basis.”

  “The way they tell it, you didn’t have anything to complain about,” Fenella told her. “They both said they were crazy about Max.”

  Mona gave her a smug smile. “Max was irresistible to women,” she said. “But he never looked at another woman in all of our years together.”

  “But you fought all the time?” Fenella made the statement a question.

  Mona shrugged. “We both had passionate personalities. Conflict was inevitable, and only added to our relationship.”

  “Well, Margaret is coming for tea this afternoon, so get ready to see her again. Hannah may be coming as well, if she can get away from her grandchildren.”

  Mona laughed. “I couldn’t believe it when I heard that her son had finally married,” she said. “He’s very stupid and not at all attractive. I’ve never met his wife, but I do wonder what sort of woman would marry that man. I can’t even imagine what their offspring will be like.”

  “Apparently they use Hannah as a babysitting service. She didn’t seem too happy about it, either.”

  “Hopefully she’ll be able to get away today, then,” Mona said. “It will be nice to see them both, although I know they’re only coming over so that they can get a look at my flat.”

  “Oh, thanks,” Fenella said sarcastically. “Maybe they found me fascinating and wanted a chance to get to know me better,” she suggested.

  Mona laughed. “I rarely had visitors here,” she said. “It wouldn’t have been proper when the building was a hotel, even though I
had two rooms and used one as a sitting room. By the time I moved into this flat, I was too old to change my ways. Shelly and Peter used to visit, and Max, of course, but I rarely invited anyone else here.” She looked around the beautiful kitchen. “Maybe I should have made more of an effort.”

  “It’s such a wonderful apartment,” Fenella said. “I can’t imagine not wanting to show it off.”

  “By the time it was finished, Max was unwell,” Mona told her, frowning at the memory. “He loved to come and sit here and watch the sea. I couldn’t have guests. He wouldn’t have been comfortable here with other people around.”

  “I’m sorry,” Fenella said, surprised at the amount of pain she could hear in the other woman’s words.

  Mona nodded. “Thank you,” she murmured.

  Fenella finished her cereal and dumped the bowl into the dishwasher. “My guests are supposed to be here at two. What do you think I should feed them?”

  “You’ve invited them for tea,” Mona replied. “You must have a proper tea for them.”

  “You don’t mean like what I had on Sunday at the Seaview,” Fenella protested. “Sandwiches and cakes and cookies and fruit and piles and piles of lovely food.”

  “That’s exactly what I mean,” Mona said. “Margaret and Hannah will be expecting it. Why, when I hosted tea parties, they were magnificent affairs. You mustn’t let me down.”

  “I thought you said you never entertained here,” Fenella argued.

  “Oh, I didn’t. I used to have tea parties in the dining room of the restaurant when this was a hotel. Max would have the chef prepare dozens of trays of food for me. We always tried to outdo the previous event, with even more variety each time. The chef would fly in all manner of exotic fruits and salad leaves from all over the world for the sandwiches. It was wonderful.”

  “I can’t possibly compete with that,” Fenella said. “And I don’t really see the point in trying. I’ll make tea and put out a plate of cookies. Your friends will have to be happy with that.”

  “No,” Mona said sternly. “You don’t have to compete with what I did, but you do have to put some effort into the affair. My tea parties were legendary. You haven’t the time to manage that, but you can at least try for satisfactory.”

  Fenella sighed. “I should have asked them to come to lunch,” she said.

  “Some day I’ll tell you about the fabulous luncheons that I used to host,” Mona said, winking at her.

  “What do I need and where can I get it, then?” she asked.

  An hour later she had a long grocery list and a headache. “I don’t know if I can afford all of this,” she complained. “And I hardly think it’s worth it for one little old lady, anyway.”

  “Hannah will come,” Mona assured her. “She won’t want to miss the chance to see what Max did for me.”

  “Even so, this is far too much food for three people.”

  “You can have Shelly over later to help you eat the leftovers. Invite Peter as well, if you think he won’t get the wrong idea.”

  “There’s no way I can get all of this into my little shopping cart,” Fenella said. “I’ll have to make two or three trips to the grocery store.”

  “You’d better get started, then,” Mona suggested.

  “Tell me again why I have to do this,” Fenella demanded.

  Mona sighed. “In my heyday, my tea parties were the highlight of many women’s social calendars. Women like Hannah and Margaret and Anne Marie would spend hours deciding what to wear and having their hair and nails done. We always started at two o’clock with tea and food, oh, the most delicious food. The parties often went on into the small hours of the morning, though. Wine would start flowing around six and the chef would make us more and more food as we drank and talked and laughed about life and men and anything and everything.”

  “And did Phillipa Clucas come to your tea parties?” Fenella wondered.

  “Sometimes,” Mona told her. “She never stayed for very long, but she would come and have a cup of tea and tell us all about her children.” She frowned. “Actually, she’d talk about Paulette and Paul. She never really talked about Paula, although after about half an hour she’d look at the clock and announce that she needed to get home to Paula. She’d rush away and we’d all carry on having a wonderful time. The men would begin arriving around six, and Paul Clucas was always among them. He was never in a rush to get home to Paula, or Phillipa for that matter.”

  “How sad,” Fenella said. She looked at her shopping list again. While there was no way she was going to buy everything that Mona had insisted on, even if she only bought half of the items on the list she’d need to make two trips with her small wheeled cart. She hated asking her friends for favors, but she felt like she didn’t have much choice.

  “Shelly? It’s Fenella. I was wondering if you might have time to run me to the grocery store. I want to put on a proper tea for my guests this afternoon and I can’t do that without a trip to the store,” she said when Shelly answered her phone.

  “Of course I can,” Shelly said. “If we leave in the next five minutes, we should be able to get there and back before I have to worry about meeting Gordon for lunch.”

  “I don’t want to get in the way of your lunch plans,” Fenella exclaimed.

  “You won’t,” Shelly assured her. “We have plenty of time.”

  Fenella ran into her bedroom and threw on clothes. She’d have to shower later, before her guests arrived. Pulling her hair into a messy ponytail, she put on the barest minimum of makeup and grabbed her handbag. She was at the door when Shelly knocked.

  “Ready?” Shelly asked.

  “I just need my list,” Fenella told her. She grabbed the sheet of paper off the counter and followed Shelly down the corridor. “I’m hugely grateful,” she said as they boarded the elevator. “You should come to tea, too, once you’ve finished lunch with Gordon.”

  “I might,” Shelly said. “But the last time I had lunch with Gordon we ended up talking until dinner time. He’s, well, he’s rather special. I just wish I knew what he thought of me.”

  “He obviously likes you or he wouldn’t keep making plans to see you again and again,” Fenella pointed out.

  “Yes, but are we just friends or is there something more there?” Shelly asked.

  “You need to ask Gordon that question,” Fenella said as she slid into the passenger seat of Shelly’s car.

  “I can’t bring myself to do that,” Shelly replied, blushing.

  “So kiss him,” Fenella said, feeling as if she were channeling Mona as the words came out.

  Shelly laughed. “Well, that’s one way to find out how we both feel, isn’t it? I’m not sure I’m brave enough for that, though.”

  “Take him to the pub, sit next to him on one of the couches and split a bottle of wine,” Fenella suggested. “After each glass, slide a little closer to him and see what he does.”

  “You sound like Mona,” Shelly said. “That’s exactly the sort of advice I’d have expected from her.”

  “Maybe living in her apartment is wearing off on me,” Fenella said.

  They went their separate ways at the large grocery store. Fenella felt a little overwhelmed as she filled her shopping cart with cream cakes and biscuits along with the ingredients for several different types of sandwiches.

  “How many people did you say were coming?” Shelly asked as Fenella loaded her bags into the trunk of Shelly’s car.

  “Just two,” Fenella replied. “But after my tea at the Seaview the other day, I felt like I had to put some effort in.”

  “Mona used to host fabulous tea parties,” Shelly told her as they headed toward home. “I remember hearing about them when I was younger. Only the very wealthiest women were invited, and even having lots of money was no guarantee of an invitation. As I understand it, there was a subsection of high society that didn’t approve of Mona and her lifestyle. They did their best to snub her and she returned the favor.”

  Fenell
a laughed. “That sounds like her,” she said. “I mean, from what I’ve heard about her,” she added quickly.

  “I didn’t move in the same social circles as Mona in those days, of course,” Shelly said. “Or I should say my parents didn’t, as I was only a child when Mona was in her prime. From the stories I’ve heard, though, it was all terribly glamorous and wonderful.”

  “Just looking at the clothes in Mona’s wardrobe suggests that she had a very glamorous life,” Fenella said. “I’m sure my tea party will pale by comparison.”

  Shelly helped Fenella carry all of her shopping bags up to her apartment. It took them two trips and left Shelly shaking her head.

  “It does seem like rather a lot of food,” she said as she put the last bag on the kitchen counter.

  “So you’ll come over when you finish your lunch, right? I don’t care what time it is, just come hungry,” Fenella said.

  “If I come right after lunch, I probably won’t be very hungry,” Shelly replied. “Maybe I should come over for dinner.”

  “You’ll be more than welcome,” Fenella told her. “I’ll probably invite Peter, as well. As you say, I’ve bought far too much food.” Although she’d only intended to buy half of the things on Mona’s list, once she’d started shopping, she’d become overenthusiastic and bought nearly everything. She blushed as she realized that she’d even purchased a few extra items that Mona hadn’t mentioned. She was going to be eating cream cakes and cookies for weeks.

  “I’ll see you later,” Shelly promised as Fenella let her out. “I’ll ring first to see if your guests are still here or not, though.”

  “You should bring Gordon back with you,” Fenella suggested. “And any other random people you come across.”

  Shelly laughed and then disappeared into her own apartment. Fenella walked back into the kitchen and stared at the food that was piled everywhere. She didn’t even know where to begin.

  “There are tiered trays in the cupboard next to the refrigerator,” Mona told her. “You’ve probably never even looked in those cupboards, have you?”