Femmes Fatal (6 page)

Numbly, I took the envelope she handed me.

“Give that to Mr. Fisher. I wrote him a poem.”

Somehow I knew it wouldn’t be anything like the rhymes of Norman the Doorman.

She pursed her butterfly lips, flung out her chest and with hands clenched to her gut, proclaimed in tones that would have won her an audition in a theatre without microphones:

“Sugar is sweet,

Violets are blue,

Red is the blood,

I shed for you.”

Tears burned my eyes. “Mrs. Malloy, it’s wonderful! You must live to see it published.”

Useless! She was headed for the cliffs.

What followed is branded in my memory as one of those larger-than-life moments of truth. Mrs. M went
for her leopard coat in the flash-grab manner of a gun-slinger going for his holster. At any cost she must be stopped. Grabbing up the newspaper, which I had brought in here with such high hopes that it would be used for cleaning the windows, I moved to roll it into a cudgel with which to whop her senseless if that was what it took to save the woman from herself … and along came déjà vu.

I saw myself standing in the hall a scant few hours since, bent on doing the self-same thing to Jock Bludgett. And in a burst of shining joy I knew that were he to come knocking on the door that minute, washing-machine pump in hand, I would offer him a piece of cherry cake, even if so doing did constitute sexual harassment. Because thanks to the plumber with the Charlie Chaplin moustache and dodgy eye, I k
new
how to lure Roxie Malloy back to life and love.

Look out, Mr. Walter Fisher, Funeral Director and Embalmer. Your horoscope says you are destined to forget the wife who deserted you. Surely by now you have earned the right to declare her legally dead and fall victim to the charms of a Fully Female woman!

Humbling as it is to admit, I am not the perfect homemaker. When life-or-death situations intrude, I tend to let the housework slide. Ignore the washing machine still occupying the centre stage in the kitchen. Forget the unmade beds and grandiose plans for repapering the pantry shelves. I would resort to my secret hoard of disposable nappies in the airing cupboard, and Mrs. Malloy and I would be off down the Yellow Brick Road to keep my one o’clock appointment with Fully Female. Hadn’t that nice woman on the phone said two for the price of one?

Only one problem. Her Mightiness kept putting obstacles in the way as fast as I could stick spoonfuls of mashed carrot into the twins, who sat in their feeder chairs on the kitchen table, ready to eat the spoon. My heart went out to mother birds everywhere. How do they cope?

“Load of twaddle, Mrs. H.”

“Mr. Bludgett doesn’t think so. He came to fix the washing machine this morning, got a call from his wife—who’s a member of Fully Female—and rushed home for … elevenses, as if someone had lit a firecracker under him.”

Mrs. Malloy sniffed. “Jock Bludgett always was a horny devil. Everyone knows he did the hokey-pokey with Gladys Thorn.”

Would I never cease to be devoutly shocked by the doings of our revered church organist? The lady had been through more men than there are hymns in the hymnal. But from the bombshell hints she had dropped in the past, Mrs. Malloy was in no position to throw stones. Seems true love makes prudes of us all. As does motherhood. I became aware that the twins were all eyes and ears as they sat chewing on their plastic straps. Possibly they were on the watch for the signs that more din-din was forthcoming, but ever ready to read disapproval in those periwinkle eyes, I steered the conversation away from illicit sex to the wholesome, holistic variety prescribed by Fully Female.

“Mrs. Malloy,” I proclaimed, “you are a coward.”

“I am not.” Standing up tall on her stilt heels, she folded her arms, forcing her taffeta bosom up to her chin. “When it comes to pleasuring a man, there’s not much I don’t know.”

“Doesn’t do to rest on our laurels!” If I snapped, it was because I’d tested a spoonful of applesauce for hotness by touching it to my lips. When I licked them, they sizzled and tasted of pork crackling.

“Can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”

“Rubbish.” I’d got my mouth unstuck without tearing it. Swatting Tobias Cat off the table, I wiped my hands on my apron and began dolloping creamed rice and applesauce into the Peter Rabbit dish. “Mrs. Malloy, I’ll bet you five pounds that by the end of week one
you’ll have Mr. Walter Fisher jumping through hoops and woofing at the moon.”

“Five quid?” She bridled. “How bloody far do you think that’ll go toward paying for this f’ing course?”

“For heaven’s sake,” I said, popping a spoonful of cooled applesauce into Abbey’s rosebud mouth, “they’re having a two-for-one special.” Out of the corner of my eye I saw Mrs. Malloy plump down on her laurels in the rocking chair.

“Won’t cost me a penny?” Her face seemed to waver, as if all sorts of emotions were working their way up to the surface; but that could have been because I was in a tug-of-war with Tam over the spoon. “Thanks ever so, Mrs. H, but I don’t see as how I can accept.” She was back on her high horse. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s not me pride. As Mrs. Pickle at the vicarage always says, ‘A lady keeps her pride in her pocket. She don’t flash it around, no more than she’d flash her bare behind in public.’ ”

I couldn’t imagine Reverend Foxworth’s daily saying anything of the sort, but then I hadn’t believed Jonas when he claimed she was after him.

“And I know, Mrs. H, as how you feel this is the least you can do, after all me years of loyal service. Never a job too big or too tall.” She swept a hand ceilingward.

Remembering my earlier thoughts about Michelangelo, I spooned rice into first one beak, then the other. “So exactly what is the problem?”

“Sounds to me as though this Fully Female is for married women only.”

“Rubbish. That would be discrimination. Besides, the number of times you’ve been married, you make me look a rank amateur.”

“Well, since you put it that way …”

Time to close in for the kill. “They’ll beg you to
join. You’re a far more interesting candidate than I. Think about it. Mr. Walter Fisher is still a moving target, whilst Ben is already …” I broke off, shocked by where my babbling was headed. Was that how I saw myself—as the lady huntress who, having bagged her lion, could sit back and fan herself while watching him prowl the cage?

Bother! I’d slopped applesauce down my apron.

On the bright side, Mrs. Malloy was looking happier than I had seen her in hours. Getting onto her high-heeled feet, she rolled up her leopard cuffs, looked at the clock, which said twelve fifteen, and picked up the toaster—in lieu of a hand mirror—to check that every hair and beauty spot was in place. Satisfied, she wound up the electric cord, stashed the appliance in a cupboard, and signalling time was up, put on her feather hat. Poor Tobias Cat, diddled out of his inheritance.

“Let’s get one thing straight from the beginning, Mrs. H. If we’re to be partners in this passion pit caper, I won’t have you making me late for appointments.”

Success can be sweet, or it can come in other flavours. At that moment I, who had vowed never to smack my children, could have smacked my employee. Did she expect me to slip on my coat, wave the twins bye-bye, and tell them to fend for themselves until Mummy got home? I was about to tell Mrs. M that I had old-fashioned ideas on parenting, when the garden door burst open and, with the impact of Norman the Doorman arriving to save the day, in strode my cousin Freddy. Good heavens! Why was he dressed up like a horny Viking?

“Hey, cos!” Kicking the door shut with his booted heel, Freddy dropped down on one knee and flung his arms wide. Rooms, along with people, cower when Frederick Flatts enters. He’s a six-foot stick of dynamite waiting
to blow. “I come at your command, O radiantly disheveled maiden, to bend your ear with verses sweet from Balda Dead.”

“What’s he cackling about?” Mrs. Malloy, who has yet to learn respect for her betters, turned on me as if I had invented Freddy for the express purpose of making us late for Fully Female.

“I promised to help him rehearse for a part in the play,
Norsemen of the Gods
, being put on at the village hall.” Wiping my hands on my apron, I reached down and lifted Freddy up by his ponytail, dislodging the horns in the process.

“Clumsy,” he grumbled, as said appendages bounced into the playpen.

“You do know that you’re making a complete goat of yourself? Real Vikings never wore those stupid things.” Take that, Freddy, for the crack about my appearance.

Me disheveled? The man should look in a mirror every once in a while. Several weeks previously he had shaved off his beard, but he was still very much the vagabond. A skull and crossbones dangled from one ear and the left sleeve was ripped out of his sweatshirt to reveal the tattoo of two locked hearts (presumably his and that of his girlfriend Jill) on his shoulder. Aunt Astrid in one of her rare attempts at humour once said that Freddy’s parents had tried to donate him to the Salvation Army at birth—without success. Such poisoned arrows never made a dent in my cousin’s armour, however. The world would learn the error of its ways when he made famous the family name. At one time he had planned to accomplish this as a rock star, but when Lord Olivier died, Freddy immediately felt there was an opening for him on the stage—sort of like an empty horse stall with his name above the door. Knowing that he really did count on my hearing him practice his lines,
which I could see bunching out of his pocket, I thought about broaching Mrs. Malloy with the possibility of changing our appointment until tomorrow. But she read my mind and wasn’t having any.

“Ready, Mrs. H, or do I return to Plan A?”

Family discord is bread and butter to Freddy. And being a matey soul, he considers Mrs. M a member of our tribe. Eyeing us both, he practically smacked his lips at the prospect of digging into some dirt.

“Ladies, please!” He leaned against the pantry door next to the broom—and really, the resemblance was amazingly strong. “The two of you are obviously up to something. The twins are absolutely agog, on the edge of their seats …” He paused to tuck his thumbs in his ears and wiggle his fingers at the twins, who squealed for an encore. “Tell Uncle Freddy. What’s this Plan A?”

“Nothing important.” Now was not the time to remember that Mrs. M’s gun was still in my apron pocket.

“What?” She scorched me with her eyes. “
Not
important when I’m all gung-ho to kill meself over the man of me dreams and you talk me out of it—”

“With Plan B!” Freddy was beaming from ear to ear. “Gosh darn, Ellie. This is the most fun I’ve had since I came off my motorbike last week and went floating halfway down the cliff. Come on, tell all to Papa Confessor.”

Lifting Tam from his chair and pressing his sticky face to mine, I snapped, “What makes you think—”

“Cousin, dear, I always know when you’re up to something. You get that priggish look on your face.”

“Bloody hell! Tell him and be done with it.”

“Yes, Mrs. Malloy.” I handed her Tam and squared off to face Freddy. “For your information, Mr. Nosy Parker, we have an appointment at one o’clock, barely fifteen minutes from now, with—don’t you dare laugh—Fully Female.”

Freddy’s eyebrows shot up like a nosy neighbour’s windows. “That place? For state-of-the-art sex? Girls, you can’t! They’ll be steeping your minds in all sorts of bosh. Lesson one, students dear”—he mimicked a tutorial female voice—“an orgasm is not something nasty growing in your refrigerator.” Freddy’s grin now threatened to split his face in two. Good, it would save me the trouble! “Does Ben know?”

“Not unless he has ESP.”

Freddy took Tam from Mrs. Malloy as if we were playing a game of Pass the Parcel. His face sobered. “You and the boss aren’t having problems? You haven’t joined the ranks of newlyweds who become the newly deads, have you?”

“Certainly not.” Avoiding his eyes, I watched Tam jiggle Freddy’s ponytail. “Mrs. Malloy and I thought it might be interesting to do some in-depth study into the marital arts, that’s all. We were on the verge of heading out the door when you walked in.”

“Right. You were going to toss your pinny in the air, tuck a baby under each arm and go gamboling off—”

“Enough!” I swallowed a mouthful of humble pie. “I had thought of asking you to watch Tam and Abbey, but by the time I got round to it …”

“Here I was.”

“Freddy, I am sorry about play practice.” I finished washing my hands at the sink and dried them on the last of the clean nappies.

“And I’m sorry we’re going to be late.” Mrs. Malloy rolled down her leopard cuffs, gave her feather hat a twitch, and supply bag in hand, headed for the garden door.

“Freddy, would you really mind awfully?” I gestured to Tam, whom he was still holding, and Abbey still in her chair. Oh, my goodness! My daughter, a fastidious little mite, was making known by a reddening
face and puffer train noises that she desired a nappy change. Spit spot.

“Give her here,” said our very own Mary Poppins. “Go on, I’ll top and tail the pair of them while you doll yourself up for your interview. Can’t have the lady of the manor showing up at headquarters looking like Mrs. Muck, can we?”