by Caron Allan
“Not for much longer,” she said grimly, “Mavis is about to start her organ practice. It’ll be a bloody awful racket.”
Such language from a nice little old lady! I tried to hide my dismay. “Oh well, I was thinking of going home anyway. Goodness, is that the time?”
She was looking at me like a small bright bird. “Or,” she said, “we could go to the pub. I always go there when I’m waiting for her to finish.”
I must admit I was a bit taken aback. Do little old ladies frequent pubs? But thought it would make a nice change. Sid and Matt have popped in there a couple of times, but it would be another first for me.
So …
“We could,” I agreed, “but have we got time?”
“Plenty. She’s going to tackle the Miserere first, that’s forty-two minutes long, then the Nunc Dimittis, that’s twenty-seven mins, then the Nocturnal Watch, that’s thirty-six mins and fourteen seconds.”
Even as she spoke there came from the open side door of the church the strident first flourishes of someone warming up a mangle with stereo speakers. We got to our feet.
“This way,” said Henrietta, “it’s a short-cut.” And she scurried away, leaving me to gallop after her in a not very athletic or lady-like fashion.
Five minutes later we were settled in a cosy corner of the saloon bar of the Tripe and Clackett, Henrietta with her rum and orange juice, me with a mug of hot chocolate.
“Do you do this often?” I asked her.
She nodded, paused to down half her rum then said, “twice a week, or whenever Mavis is practising – usually Tuesdays and Thursdays.”
Well, well!
We talked. Firstly just about the weather, then a bit about how the village had changed over the years. Then she leaned forward and said to me in a really loud whisper, “you probably don’t realise this but Mavis and I are a couple.”
I gaped at her. Surely not? Didn’t lesbians evolve as fallout from the 1960s hippie movement? Then I did the maths and realised the numbers made sense. They were free-lovin’ flower-power gals.
“We live next door to each other for appearances’ sake. Oh I know times have changed and it’s all quite acceptable these days. But not here. Not in our village. Not when you’re surrounded by people who have known you forever.”
I still couldn’t think of anything to say, so to cover my surprise I coughed down a whacking gulp of my hot chocolate. But Henrietta continued.
“We’ve been together since 1957. That was the year she left her hubby. Oh yes, Mavis was married – still is, technically – when I first met her. But he was a rotten lot. Drinking. Bullying. Always abusing her in some way. She was a nervous wreck. A pale ghost of the girl she is now. I persuaded her to leave him, and I thought – we both thought – that we were shot of him. But no! After hearing nothing from him for years, now it seems he’s keen to divorce her so he can marry some fifty-year-old bimbo he’s met at a wine-bar. And he’s making our lives a misery.”
There was so much to struggle with here that I soon gave up the attempt. By my calculation both women had to be at least eighty yet neither of them looked a day over 65. Apparently the secret of eternal youth is being a lady in comfortable shoes! Makes sense when you think about it. I suppose no woman would be surprised to discover it’s being involved with men that makes you age.
My preconceptions were shattered – I mean, surely lesbians are 30 year-old games mistresses with horsey faces and premature moustaches? Not angelic-faced 80 year-olds who played the church organ? I mean – I’m as open-minded as anyone – but – well, I ask you!
“Thing is,” said Henrietta, and her voice trembled with emotion, “as I said, he wants to marry this tart he’s met, and so he’s putting pressure on Mavis for money.”
“And she doesn’t have any savings? Why does he want money from Mavis?”
“She’s got nothing put away, just what’s in her bank account. She’s stony-broke. In fact she can hardly make ends meet.”
“At least she’s got the cottage,” I suggested helpfully. “She’s got a roof over her head, so that probably gives her a sense of security. Or I suppose if she was desperate, she could always sell the house and then she’d have the cash, to save or whatever.”
“The house is rented. Same as mine. Bad investments, lost all our money, measly pensions.” Henrietta said, swilling down the last of her drink. She snapped her fingers at the barman who immediately got to work. Soon a second hot chocolate with little pink and white marshmallows and whirls of aerosol cream was being placed in front of me, and another rum-and-something in front of my compadre. If this went on for the duration of my pregnancy, I would soon be welcomed into the wonderful world of Type 2 Diabetes and Henrietta would need a liver transplant.
“We’ve lived in this village for almost sixty years,” Henrietta told me, and anger was clearly vying with heartbreak within her surprisingly pert bosom. “If Mavis can’t afford her rent because he’s making her pay back the money she owes him, what will we do? I can’t go on without her. She’s my whole world.”
I had a sinking feeling.
It turns out that when Mavis left this chap, whatever-his-name-is, she relieved him of some of his mother’s jewellery as start-up capital for her new life. And for sixty years she’s lived on that and on her state pension, and the little money she earns as a lollipop lady mornings and afternoons at the village infant school. In her spare time she volunteers to play the organ at St-John-the-wotsit. And Henrietta similarly survives by the skin of her teeth on her state pension and a small private work pension.
Henrietta talked on and on about how difficult things were and how she doesn’t know what they’re going to do, and how Mavis is making herself sick with worry about the whole situation, and is terrified he might decide to take her to court. Clearly it was a relief for Henrietta to get it all off her chest.
But for me it meant just one thing. I felt a compulsion to help, I had to do something to help my new friends. I couldn’t just let two helpless little old lesbians suffer and worry like this.
I think my little to-do list is about to grow again!
By the time we got back to the church, Henrietta a bit wobbly on her legs and me supporting her as best I could, the organist was just emerging from the side door looking flushed and happy and as if she had blown away the cobwebs with heavy-duty sacred music. She was a bit surprised to see me, I think, but she was definitely pleased to see Henrietta. A little glint in her eye told me she knew exactly what had been going on. Henrietta is kidding herself if she believes Mavis still thinks she sits and waits in the churchyard.
They wandered off arm in arm through the gravestones, and I went home for a nap and a think.
Friday 27 June – 7pm
Doctor’s appointment today – hoorah! Today was the first time I listened to the baby’s heartbeat – so unbelievably and astonishingly amazing! It sounded like a slightly rusty little squeaky spring inside a hot water bottle. My – I mean our - baby! Only one – thank God! Such a relief – I couldn’t have coped with twins. So we worked out that I’m about 7 to 8 weeks pregnant now and she said my sore tummy and light morning sickness were normal. I’ve got to take iron tablets and folic acid to make sure the baby and I keep healthy and tickety-boo. Got a date for my ultrasound scan in four weeks – that’s very exciting too. Dr Sophie asked if ‘Baby’s Daddy’ would be attending the scan – I said I thought he probably would. I think Matt would be interested in doing that, don’t you? I hope so. I don’t want to turn up there on my own like a total loser.
And when I got home I had a nice cup of tea and a pile of cherry buns with Lill and told her everything Dr Sophie had said. I swear Lill is almost as excited about this baby as she was about Tetley’s kittens! I bet she’ll make me up a nice cosy box in a corner of the kitchen to have my kitten baby. And she said Matt will definitely be at the scan – “he wouldn’t miss it,” she said. Though she spoiled that somewhat by adding, “if he knows what’s good fo
r him.” Hmm. Will just have to wait and see.
But all this baby talk makes me think about my priorities.
Obviously now I have quite a few horrible people to dispose of. But, because no one likes to see a heavily-pregnant woman sneaking about with poison or blunt objects, clearly I will have to get cracking on a decent plan to dispatch these losers before I resemble a nicely-dressed walrus. Also no one, including the mother-to-be, likes to see a heavily-pregnant woman in the dock for murder, so I will have to rack my brains on this and not do anything precipitate.
But it’s so hard to decide what order to do them in – I mean, obviously I need to get Matt’s son Patrick’s evil bitch of a mother out of the way as a top priority – but then, there’s Desmond-the-child-molester and poor Whisper to avenge slash liberate, so he’s also got to go, toot sweet. But then there’s my new pal Henrietta and her gal Mavis. Now they’re already bloody ancient so technically could peg-out at any moment, they don’t really have time to waste waiting for me to stop farting about and get on with things. Obviously one would like them to be happy in their twilight months or possibly weeks, so they really need to be shifted up the list of priorities a bit.
OMG! The weight of responsibility is doing my head in, as Sid would say. Will sleep on it and trust that a relaxing evening in front of the telly along with a few more cherry buns and some nice herbal tea will work its magic and that I’ll wake in the morning with a bright, sparkly solution at the tips of my freshly manicured pinkies.
Saturday 28 June – 3.25pm
Lunch with Madison Maxwell-Billings. She’s growing on me. I know she’s a bit dull, but you know – who isn’t? She’s all right actually. Quite sweet really. Sounds like she’s had a hell of a life though – father old-school stand-by-your-beds Major in the army, very angry man from the sound of it, and they’ve lived absolutely everywhere! Their house (her’s and Sacha’s) is full of old tat she’s kept for twenty or thirty years from all the places she’s lived – and she still writes to ‘girls’ she met at kindergarten in Borneo or somewhere. Yes! Writes! Facebook, is I fear, a total mystery to her.
And she makes jams. And marmalades. Curds. Pickles. Relishes. Chutneys. You name it, she flings it into jars and sticks a home-made label on the side with a little pink smiley face and a little gingham hat over the lid. She’s got bloody shelves of the stuff, and now, as a sign of our friendship, we are beginning to accumulate some too. She nipped in yesterday to invite me for lunch, and brought some of her wares with her. She has started us off with her red onion chutney and some loganberry and lime jelly. Yuck. I scurried out into the kitchen to hand the jars over to Lill – if she has any sense she’ll have popped them straight in the bin. I had to wash my hands – a bit sticky after handling the jars. All this without letting my encouraging smile slip.
But in spite of all the crap, she’s quite sweet. And I realised after today’s lunch, absolutely zero self-confidence. She thinks I’m so brave, because I’m a widow, and so brave to move house, and so brave to live in a new village where I don’t know anyone. I felt like I should apologise for making everyone else look bad! What was I supposed to do when Thomas was murdered? Curl up and die? Believe me, I felt like it. But you can’t, can you? One has no choice but to go on. It’s not brave – quite the opposite, really. I never had the guts for suicide.
She’s not a gossip though, which is a bit of a shame. Good thing I’ve already got Henrietta, I’ll bet she’s one of those old ladies who peeks over God’s shoulder as he’s writing everyone’s good and bad deeds in his big book – she knows absolutely everything about everyone! She believes the absolute worst of everyone. And luckily for me, she is keen to share.
Madison hasn’t any children. She’s quite excited about my - I mean our – baby, even though we’ve only just got to know each other. Have sneaking feeling she’s going to throw me one of those baby-showers like they have in America – fingers crossed anyway!
But.
When her hubby came in from whatever he’d been doing or wherever he’d been doing it, I noticed Madison seemed to – I don’t know – shrink, I think is the best way to describe it. I left soon afterwards. It was as if the weight of his presence crushed her. He wasn’t even in the same room, just stuck his head around the door to say “Hi”, then he went to read his paper in an adjoining sitting-room they’ve got coming off their main drawing-room. But the air was heavy with the awareness of him. She lost the thread of the conversation, all the brightness and bubbliness seemed to just desert her.
Which is a bit odd because at the dinner party the other day, it appeared to be him with the lack of confidence and the over-adoration and the air of disbelief. What is going on there?
He smiles. He says the right things. But – I don’t know – I’m beginning to think I don’t think I like him. At first I thought he was a bit dull and uninteresting. But now I find him a bit sinister somehow. I wonder if – I mean, everyone knows that victims of paternal abuse choose partners with the same tendencies … She seems a bit scared of him.
Oh God! I hope I haven’t got to add him to my little list!
Saturday 28 June – 7pm
These last few days ‘the boys’ (Sid and Matt obv) have done some incredible work in the garden. I am now the proud new owner of a walled herb garden, neatly segmented into little departments like “Dairylea triangles” as Lill says (whatever they are). And there are now trellises, a sundial, a little roofed love-seat, some pretty little stepping stones, oh just all sorts of things. The pond is finished, we just need to plonk a few fish into it (entertainment for the cats, I assume). It all looks absolutely stunning and I’ve taken thousands of photos to put on my Facebook page, when I wasn’t rushed off my feet forming the crucial link between Lill in the kitchen and the two permanently-ravenous men – I have probably ferried a hundred mugs of builders’ tea, along with bacon or sausage sandwiches and slabs of fruit cake in order to keep the wheels of industry well and truly oiled.
And Matt was doing all this topless, I’m glad to say. Not that I let him know I found the sight agreeable – that would never do! Mind you, Sid was also topless a good deal of the time, so I can see where Matt’s torso is headed in a few years’ time unless I take firm charge of his dietary intake. No more sugar in his tea, for starters.
Obviously all three cats were out there to watch slash help. Tetley is recovering from her recent spaying. Lill had a little weep, “no more babies!” I felt like pointing to my own stomach, clearly she has completely forgotten about the actual human baby she is about to become grandmother to. Anyway, Tetley was charging up and down the lawns and dashing up trees with scant regard for the vet’s instructions to “keep her quiet for a few days”. The two kittens tried to follow her but aren’t quite so efficient at moving up vertical planes at speed.
Felt much better today, no sign at all of the queasiness of the last few days, thank God.
Am wondering about a new frock for Monica’s memorial service. But if I do decide to get something new, I will need to get myself organised as it’s now only a few days away.
But I can’t make up my mind. In fact am still wondering about Monica’s memorial service full-stop. Would it be better if I didn’t go? I could always invent some kind of pregnancy-related excuse to get out of it? I don’t know what to do, I can’t decide, will think about it again tomorrow. Nothing needs to be sorted out right this minute, does it?
Later – 10.15pm
But I’ve got to go, haven’t I? I mean, she was my best pal, so I can’t really not go. But do feel the teensiest bit guilty, as she’s dead because of me. Not that anyone else knows that, obviously. But it might be a bit too much like Thomas’s funeral all over again. It’s the thought of all those familiar faces, those same expressions, those same words, those same dreary phrases from the book of misery. Oh, isn’t it awful, what a terrible loss, so sad, so young.
Plus, however kind it was of Matt to do her in for me as a birthday present – and he hasn�
��t said a word to me about it since then, apart from that text message – I do feel ever so slightly cheated because of course I had really set my heart on killing Monica myself. Still can’t believe she didn’t drink a drop of that ethylene glycol – why? I mean, I put some in absolutely everything in her fridge!!!
Have decided not to buy a new frock for the service – I have loads of very smart widows-weeds that are scarcely worn and so still very decent – don’t want to waste a lovely shopping experience on buying something to wear to say good-riddance to the best friend whom I utterly detested. So will dust off some old rag already hanging up in the back of my dressing-room. Think there’s an Armani shift that will do the job. And I won’t be able to get into that much longer, once the baby-belly begins to show (more than it already is – can’t help feeling that might just be Lill’s cooking!) so may as well make the most of it while I still can.
Saw something on TV last night – one of the characters was heavily pregnant and she couldn’t get her tights on, and she struggled to do up her shoes. God – I have all that to look forward to! Will invest in lots of pop-socks and Velcro-fastening trainers. If I ever have another baby, will ensure I plan a bit more carefully (not hard there was no planning WHATSOEVER this time) so that I am heavily pregnant during the summer months so I can live in sandals sans socks. Very comfy.
Monday 30 June – 4.45pm
Lazy morning at home then Sid drove me to Monica’s neck of the woods this afternoon, ready for the service tomorrow at 9.30. Bit early in the morning for a memorial service, isn’t it? Still I suppose at least I won’t have wasted the whole day.
A couple of things on my mind.
Am nervous about the service. What if I get arrested ‘on suspicion’ or something? What if they did find the EG after all and know I tried to poison her? I don’t want my baby to be born in prison, however nice they are now.
