Auntie Mayhem (2 page)

While Claire appeared to be almost as tall as Judith, she was very slim, with a pale face and a delicate air. Mid-thirties, Judith guessed, and pretty, though her features were faintly pinched, as if from worry.

“So kind,” Claire murmured after their order was taken for a bottle of Vouvray. “So very kind. Of you. To offer.”

Judith smiled encouragingly. “But Margaret and I've been writing since we were in our teens. We only met once, when Renie and I were here in 1964. We got started with our letters through a program sponsored by my junior high school.” Renie had also gotten involved with a pen-pal. But hers had stopped writing after running off at seventeen with an RAF pilot nicknamed Zipper. Margaret had proved more stable.

While sipping their wine, Claire apologized a half-dozen times for Margaret's absence. She also tried to update the cousins on her sister-in-law's recent past. Judith, who had received a lengthy letter in mid-March, didn't interrupt. Meanwhile, Renie rubbernecked around the other tables, looking not only for Princess Margaret, who was said to be a regular, but at the other customers' entrees.

“So there it is,” Claire said, a bit wistfully, and Judith realized she'd lost the conversational thread. “A pity. Actually.”

“Ah…” Judith struggled for an appropriate remark. “I suppose so. Life's full of ironies.”

It seemed that Judith had inadvertently struck the right chord. Claire nodded enthusiastically. “Indeed! On the one hand, it's marvelous. That Aunt Pet has lived to such a great age. On the other, it's frustrating. To have so little say about things. Except for Charles, of course.”

Charles, Judith recalled, was Claire's husband and Margaret's brother. Now middle-aged, Charles was, she hoped,
without spots. He was a businessman, which was why the Marchmonts lived in London. As for Aunt Pet, Judith drew a blank. Margaret had never mentioned her.

“…twins away at school.” Claire was looking worried, agitating her wavy red hair with long, thin fingers. “They so love horses.”

Claire and Charles Marchmont had twin boys, as Judith knew from Margaret's letters. “How old are they?” Judith asked, wishing Renie would stop trying to look over the shoulder of a bulky man in Harris tweeds at the next table.

“Nine,” Claire answered, now smiling with maternal pride. “Such fine boys. Very keen on soccer. So convenient having twins. It's fortunate that they run in the family.”

Renie was tapping one of the broad Harris tweed-covered shoulders. “What
is
that?” she asked.

The man glared at her from under sparse white eyebrows. “Turbot,” he snapped, and swiveled back into place.

Renie wrinkled her pug nose. “Turtle? Did he say
turtle
? What next, donkey sandwiches?”

Looking apologetic, Claire explained the selections on the fixed-price menu. Renie smiled sheepishly, confessing that she understood most of the brasserie offerings but was more accustomed to salmon and trout and halibut. After the three women finally decided on steak
frite
, Judith tried to reconstruct Claire's conversation. As usual, she relied on logic to piece together the snatches she'd garnered from their hostess, as well as what she knew from Margaret's letters.

“You live in London,” Judith said, savoring the Vouvray.

Claire nodded. “St. John's Wood.”

Judith and Renie both recognized the neighborhood; some of the Grover ancestors had lived there in the late nineteenth century. “But you spend weekends at Ravenscroft House,” Judith noted.

“Oh, yes,” Claire replied with a tremulous smile. “At least some. London makes me nervy.” To prove the point, Claire looked as if she were on the verge of an anxiety attack.

Renie was nodding. “We've got a cabin in the woods,
about an hour outside of town.” She referred to the ramshackle structure that had been built a half-century earlier by their fathers and Grandpa Grover. “Of course it's sort of falling down. We don't go there very often.”

Claire put a hand to her flat breast and leaned back in the chair. “Oh! I know! These old houses are so stress-inducing! The heating, the electrical, the plumbing!”

“Actually,” Renie murmured, “we don't exactly have plumbing. Or electricity or heating. The outhouse is collapsing, too.”

Claire sympathized. “Outhouses! My! We call them outbuildings. But I know what you mean about repairs. Such a challenge! Judith—may I call you that, I hope? Thank you so. Margaret said you renovated your family home. The one in the city. Into a bed-and-breakfast. I shall hang on every word. I swear.”

Judith assumed a modest air. “I'll do my best. Hillside Manor had some serious problems, too.” Fondly, she pictured the Edwardian house on the hill, with its fresh green paint and white trim, the bay windows, the five guest bedrooms on the second floor, the family quarters in the expanded attic, and the enclosed backyard with the last few fruit trees from the original orchard. There was a double garage, too. And the remodeled toolshed where her mother lived. Gertrude Grover had refused to share a roof with her son-in-law. She didn't like Judith's second husband much better than her first one.

“It
was
a challenge,” Judith finally said, thinking more of coping with Gertrude than of the renovations. “It's expensive. I had to take out a loan.”

Claire's high forehead creased. “My word! A loan! Charles should hate that!”

Trying to be tactful, Judith made an effort to put Claire's mind at rest. “I'm sure my situation was different. I'd been recently widowed and had no savings.” Dan McMonigle had blown every dime on the horse races or the state lottery. “My husband wasn't insurable.” Dan had weighed over four hundred pounds when he'd died at the age of forty-nine. “We had no equity in our home.” After defaulting on the only house they'd ever owned, the McMonigles had
lived in a series of seedy rentals, and had been about to be evicted when Dan had, as Judith put it, conveniently blown up. “In fact,” she went on, feigning serenity, “I had no choice but to move in with my mother. That's when it occurred to me that it didn't make sense for the two of us to rattle around in a big old house. My son was almost ready for college.”

“How true!” Claire positively beamed, revealing small, perfect white teeth. “That's precisely what I've told Charles. Why maintain a second home with so many expenditures and taxation? Why not turn it into something that will produce income?”

“Exactly,” Judith agreed. “The main thing is to figure out if you're going to run it or let someone do it for you.”

Claire's smile evaporated. “Oh, no. The main thing is Aunt Pet,” she insisted, her rather wispy voice now firm. “First of all, she has to die.”

P
AUL
F
LYNN HAD
shown his brother and his sister-in-law a good time since their arrival in England on Saturday, April seventeenth. Of course Paul's leisure time was limited by his busy schedule doing whatever diplomats did at the Court of St. James. “Translations,” Joe had told Judith with a wink. He had never given Paul much credit for hard work, insisting that his brother got by on charm.

But Paul had picked up the hefty dinner tab at Jason's Court on Wednesday night. Meanwhile, Renie and Bill had joined some other IMNUTS conferees at La Gavroche. The gathering's finale was set for Thursday evening, and Bill had managed to finagle tickets for the Flynns. The cocktail reception and dinner were to be held at the Barbican Centre.

En route to the festivities, Renie, who had a passion for British history, acted as the quartet's self-appointed tour guide. “There's the Old Bailey,” she cried, bouncing on the taxi seat. “It was built on the site of Newgate Prison. You wouldn't believe the horrors that went on there.”

“Perps will be perps,” Joe Flynn murmured, adjusting the black tie on his rented tuxedo.

“I mean the treatment they got,” Renie said. “It was incredibly cruel.”

“That's right,” Joe retorted. “Coddle the criminals.
Treat them with kid gloves. Whatever happened to brass knuckles and the rubber hose?”

Renie ignored Joe. “There! Where those post office buildings stand now, that was once Grey Friars, the Franciscan church.”

“Franciscans wear brown,” Judith put in, more concerned with her own garb than monks' habits. She was trying to tame the long purple silk scarf that hung down the back of her simple matching gown. Even on sale, the floor-length dress had fetched an exorbitant price. Judith had rationalized away the tab, assuring herself that she would be able to wear it not only on the trip, but afterward. Maybe. If she and Joe ever went anywhere formal. Which they didn't. Judith tried not to think about how much the dress had cost, and concentrated instead on the conversation.

“Yesterday afternoon a paper was presented on St. Francis,” Bill Jones noted, “by a woman from the University of Ottawa. Her premise was that St. Francis could penetrate the human soul and analyze behavior objectively. Had he devoted himself to the field, he could have made enormous contributions to the study of psychology.”

“Aldersgate!” exclaimed Renie, after the taxi had turned into St. Martin's Le Grand. “It's gone now, but in 1603, King James entered London through it to claim the throne after Queen Elizabeth died.”

As the taxi came to a stop in line behind the queue of vehicles arriving at the Barbican's conference headquarters, Judith turned to Joe. She hesitated for a split second, drinking in his presence. In middle age, the receding red hair had streaks of gray; there was the hint of a paunch under the black cummerbund. But Joe Flynn was otherwise still fit, and the green eyes retained their sparkle. Most of all, the round, engaging face had lost none of its charm for Judith.

“Joe,” Judith said plaintively, “don't let my tails drag.”

Joe looked puzzled, then grinned. “Oh, your scarf. Sure, I'll keep an eye on your tail…s.” The grin turned faintly wicked.

“Now remember,” Bill cautioned Judith and Joe, “the
conferees are unwinding. They've put in a very intensive four and a half days. You may see them in—”

“The nude.” Renie gave Bill a sweet smile. After almost thirty years of marriage, the Joneses were accustomed to interruptions. Or, if not accustomed, they had stopped trying to kill each other. Most of the time. “What Bill means is that these people may sound like a bunch of pedantic stuffed shirts, but underneath all their academic titles and honors, they're—”

“Just as wacked-out as you are,” Bill finished smugly, with a slap on his wife's crepe-de-chine-covered knee.

The taxi pulled into the unloading zone. Bill paid the driver, who spoke no English of any kind, and followed the others into the centre.

“This had been the outer fortification of the City of London, going way back,” Renie announced, bumping into a kilted gentlemen whose tartan tam was knocked askew. “Henry III leveled the tower in the thirteenth century, but it was rebuilt. The area was almost wiped out by German bombs in World War II. This complex was completed in—”

“Ten minutes,” Bill said, grabbing hold of Renie and steering her between some French Canadians and a pair of New Zealanders. “We're ten minutes late. It must have been all that traffic on the Holborn Viaduct.”

“Then everybody's one drink ahead of us,” Joe remarked as Judith got a high heel caught between the stones of the entrance floor. “And my wife's already having problems walking.”

“I'm afraid of tripping over my scarf,” Judith complained.

Joe squeezed her shoulders. “You look terrific, Jude-girl. Purple is almost as good on you as red. Or black or blue or green.”

His use of her despised nickname was forgotten in the pleasure of his compliment. Briefly, she snuggled up next to him. “I can't believe how handsome you are in that tux. It reminds me of our wedding day.”

Renie jammed her elbow into Judith's bare arm. “Cut the cooing crap,” she said out of the side of her mouth.
“You're acting like newlyweds and embarrassing Bill and me. Jeez, you've been married for almost three years. Have a fight or something normal.”

Joe stopped admiring his wife long enough to survey the reception room with its banks of spring flowers and ornate chandeliers. “Nice,” he remarked. “It reminds me of the city employees' cafeteria at home. Here comes a giant cockroach now.”

The giant cockroach was actually a waiter clad in silver livery, bearing a tray of hors d'oeuvres. Renie grabbed two of everything while Bill pretended he'd never seen her before in his life. The crowd milled about, chattering in various forms of the English language. Judith, who was an inveterate people-watcher, found herself bedazzled by the delegates who came from all over the Commonwealth and the United States. The IMNUTS members and their guests did indeed seem to be unwinding as the laughter flowed on a rising tide of spirits, both potable and exuberant.

At the open bar, everyone in the Flynn-Jones party ordered Scotch except Renie, who was elated to discover a store of Kentucky bourbon. Nodding at a goateed man with a cane in one hand and a margarita in the other, Bill brushed crumbs off his wife's metallic tunic with a practiced hand.

“There's the keynote speaker, Alfred Fortescue, looking down the front of that redhead's dress,” Bill said in his carefully modulated voice. “Fortescue is behavioral.”

“Yes, he is,” Joe agreed. “Who's the tall blond woman in the long sarong doing the tango with the midget?”

Bill followed Joe's gaze. “The midget is Karl Herkendorfer from Columbia University. He's into dreams. The blond is Ursula Renfrew-Smythe from Cambridge. She's sexual deviation.”

Joe lifted one reddish eyebrow. “Has Ursula met Alfred?”

“They're married,” Bill replied, somehow keeping a straight face. “He's at Cambridge, too.”

Judith was craning her neck to see around several people who were mesmerized by a swarthy man balancing a silver cream pitcher on his head. “Who's the guy dressed like
Elvis?” she inquired, discreetly gesturing in the direction of a spangled and sequined figure who wriggled his hips near the long table that held the punch bowl and more hors d'oeuvres.

Bill peered through his glasses. “It's Elvis. Or so he says. Vanderbilt University. His specialty is delusions.”

“No kidding,” said Joe very softly. “And here I was, thinking about arresting all these delegates for impersonating real people. It would—” A loud explosion caused Joe to slam a hand into Judith's back. “Hit the floor! Cover me, I'm going in!”

Calmly, Bill sipped his scotch. “It's all right, Joe. Sir Angus MacDougall set off a firecracker in that suit of armor by the far wall. Unfortunately, Alonzo Devlin was inside. He's memory, University of Wisconsin.”

“He's history, if you ask me,” Renie remarked, as several people attempted to pry Alonzo out of the armor. She poked her husband in the chest. “Hey, are all these people really crazy? I mean, you're not. At least not often. But let's face it, this bunch strikes me as bizarre.”

“They're acting out,” Bill said, at his most unflappable. “It's good for them. Tomorrow, they'll head home, go back to their mundane lives, teach classes, advise students, see patients, take out the garbage.” His voice dropped with every phrase, then he grabbed Renie by the arm. “Come on, there's Sidney Weinstock, Stanford. He's depression. I need to talk to him.”

“You sure do,” Renie muttered as Bill led her away.

Judith was trying to rearrange her long purple scarf. “Maybe we shouldn't have come,” she muttered. “This place is goofy.”

But Joe was no longer hovering at her side. Ever the policeman, he had rushed off to attend to Alonzo Devlin. Judith sighed and decided to replenish her drink.

“Don't let these high jinks disturb you,” a distinguished man with silver hair and a mustache to match said calmly. “You have no idea how dedicated these people are. They need diversion.”

Judith eyed the man a bit warily. “I suppose. But it's awfully rowdy. For grown-ups.”

The man cupped his left ear. “Eh? Rowley? For turnips? How d'you do, Mrs. Rowley. But I think they're serving peas. Swinford, Woodley Swinford. But call me Doodles. Delighted, of course.” He shook hands with a mighty grip.

“Flynn,” Judith shouted, one eye on a man who was dangling from the chandelier.
“Judith Flynn.”

“Jewish Finn? Didn't know there were any. Very nice, very nice.” Doodles Swinford beamed under the mustache, his big teeth making him look like a cross between Bugs Bunny and Adolf Hitler.

Judith surrendered the task of trying to explain herself. Doodles paid no heed to the dangling man. “Don't know about you, but I haven't the foggiest what these people are talking about. It's m'wife who's the delegate. London University, amnesia. What's your specialty, Mrs…. Sorry, didn't catch your name. Finnish, I suppose, with all those ‘Ns.'”

“Sort of,” Judith muttered, then took pity on Doodles Swinford's deafness. “My husband is with the police.”

“He's with a valise? Where?” Doodles's glance darted around the room. Two men were carrying Alonzo Devlin away on a stretcher. “Is your husband a doctor? I rather hope so. They could use one about now.”

Judith winced. “The
police
,” she all but screamed. “In the States.”

“The police!” Doodles looked vaguely alarmed. “You don't say! Do excuse me, I'm a bit hard of hearing. Just as well. These fetes are such a bore. Much prefer staying home and watching the telly. You Yanks must find England very dull.”

Since the man on the chandelier had just fallen into the punch bowl, Judith couldn't agree. “Goodness, I think he cut himself,” she gasped.

“Possibly,” Doodles allowed with a vague glance at the long table. “I'm in insurance. Glad I don't carry
his
accident policy. No rider for punch bowl injury.”

Joe, Bill, and three other men who seemed to know what they were doing had now converged on the man who had fallen out of the chandelier. Judith scanned the crowd for
Renie. She was at the other end of the table, stuffing canapés in her mouth.

“Insurance,” Judith said in an odd voice. “Oh, yes, I see. How interesting.”

To Judith's surprise, Doodles Swinford nodded vigorously. “It is indeed. You'd be flummoxed. I'm primarily into animals.”

The large room with its swirl of glittering guests and masses of flowers and hyperactivity under the chandelier seemed to swim before Judith's eyes. “Animals?” she echoed faintly.

Doodles nodded as he sucked on his daiquiri. “Exotic pets. Pedigreed dogs and cats. Racehorses. Have you any idea what the annual premium is on a hedgehog?”

Judith hadn't. She was admitting as much when she saw Joe and Bill help the chandelier man to his feet. A moment later, she felt a tap on her shoulder. It was Renie, looking remarkably composed.

“Guess what?” said Renie. “It's time for dinner. As soon as they remove the latest carcass, we can go into the banquet hall.”

“Is that good?” Judith asked with a nervous expression.

“Dinner is always good,” Renie replied. “At least as a concept. Here come Bill and Joe, back from their recent emergency run. I think we're having prime rib.”

Dazedly, Judith looked around her. Doodles Swinford had disappeared, but Joe was almost immediately in front of her.

“Ready?” he asked, offering his arm.

Judith stared at her husband. “Yes. No.” She saw the magic gold flecks dance in the green eyes and relaxed a bit. “Yes, I'm ready.” She sighed, slipping her hand through his arm. “But after all this, I'm a just a little…a-Freud.”

Once again, Joe arched his eyebrow. “That, Jude-girl, is because you're too Jung.”

Following Renie and Bill, they advanced to the banquet hall.

 

Judith and Joe Flynn were in bed. Room service had delivered breakfast, complete with hot toast, excellent sausages, country eggs, and surprisingly delicious coffee. Judith nestled back among the pillows and savored the last morning of their stay in London. The Abbey Court was not so much a hotel as it was a home, a restored Victorian mansion tucked between Bayswater and Notting Hill. Judith had studied the nineteenth-century structure closely, hoping to get some ideas for Claire's conversion of Ravenscroft House. Taking a sip of her coffee, Judith turned to Joe.

“Bangers.” She sighed. “Only the English and the Germans make them properly. And Italians and Austrians.”

Joe, who was wearing a semi-hideous plaid bathrobe that his mother-in-law had chosen from a mail-order catalog as his Christmas gift, arched an eyebrow at his wife. “Bangers?” he inquired. “As in sausages? Or,” he went on, coming over to kneel on the bed and kiss his wife's forehead, “as in me?”