Mum's the Word (23 page)

“Awful!” I gripped the banister. Was I really ready for motherhood?

“I was misplaced on several occasions as a child, only to be told afterward that I wasn't lost if I knew where I was.” Mary mounted the stairs ahead of me. In her grey dress and sensible shoes she looked more like the housekeeper than the lady of the manor. And a daughter less like her mother would be hard to find, even though height and build were similar and the shape of face was the same. Would my—
did
my baby look like me?

“I'll take the rooms on the left of the stairs, if you'll tackle the right,” Mary suggested when we reached the second floor. We could well be retracing ground covered by other members of the group, but to dither was to do nothing.

As it happened the first room I checked belonged to Bingo. The Hawaiian shirt he had worn the previous night was laid over a chair and several other articles of boyish apparel lay folded on a case next to the massive wardrobe. Everything was extremely neat. And I had thought all children had a gift for muddle. The blue toothbrush lay straight across the travel soap dish sitting squarely in the middle of the glass tray on the dressing table.

Purely as a formality I peeked under the bed. Finding nothing, not even dust, I trod gingerly across to the wardrobe. The thought of Bingo, talented and obese, huddled there loomed very real. A floorboard creaked, turning my fingers to thumbs. The wardrobe was empty.

Fear took on the bitter aftertaste of disappointment. Wearily, I leaned against the coolness of the window. Rain slithered down. Branches of a dead tree, bleached white as antlers, grazed the pane.

A moment's blackness, perhaps I closed my eyes. The sound of the rain turned into the patter of voices inside my head—the Tramwell sisters repeating the words of Chantal.
“
… 
Trouble in the North Tower.”
If I had my bearings right, this room was directly under that tower, the one with the overgrown onion dome. As a child I would have found the temptation to explore such a hideaway irresistible. And surely a boy still lurked in the heart and mind of Bingo Hoffman, prodigy. Hope pried me away from the window. Could there be a door in this room leading to the tower?

Found! In the nook between wardrobe and wall. Stepping onto a twist of stairs, the door banged shut behind me. I was inside a drum, one being battered by rain. On a recent visit to Merlin's Court my mother-in-law had slept in our North Tower. She said she enjoyed the privacy and the view. She had even grown to like me … I think. The closer I came to the top of the stairs, the more furious the rain grew. Hard to believe such violence was impersonal. I had reached a landing and was confronted by an arched doorway.

“Help! Save me!”

The words stabbed into me. But immediately, I wondered whether to blame them on my imagination, egged on by the storm. The huge iron handle turned slowly. The oak door must be a foot thick—in keeping with ye goode olde days when smothering one's overnight guests was a national pasttime. A nervous groan as the door inched open. Or had I cleared my throat? The round room was lit by a bulb swinging skull-like overhead, which had to mean something, even if only that the room had already been searched by someone who had forgotten to turn off the light.

“Bingo?” A giant bed covered with ancient green velvet was mounted on a dais, centre stage. I pressed the door shut as gently as possible, so as not to frighten anyone, myself included. The floor boards creaked with each tiptoed step forward.

Whose laboured breathing was that? Mine. Stupid of me, but my skin prickled at the thought that I might be about to meet the ghost of Dame Gloom. Might she have spirited Bingo away because he had blabbed about seeing her last night? My eyes were drawn irresistibly to the narrow aperture enclosing the strip of window. A place only to be entered
sideways, and even then with a shoehorn. A marvelous hiding place for a ghost … or a boy playing Ivanhoe.

“Bingo?”

Answering sobs.

Before you could say Rescue!, I was whispering words of comfort to the boy huddled on the round floor, which wasn't much bigger than a tea tray. Removing my nose, in case it got stuck, I asked the prizewinning idiocy question of all time, “Can't you get out?”

I had done him the world of good. He puffed to his feet, knocking an elbow against the wall in the process. His pudgy face was red and sticky. His glasses were so fogged up he couldn't possibly see. “Do you have to work at being stupid? I'm not in here meditating!”

“Of course not.”

Polishing his glasses with the front of his shirt, Bingo pushed them back on his nose. “Oh, it's you.” His lip curled. “The other fat member of the group.”

“Now wait a minute …” I was saved by the memory of myself at his age. Equally portly, almost as cranky when anyone pushed the wrong buttons. “Shall we pass on the hostilities until we get you out of there? Your mother's worried about you.”

“Then she's happy.” Folding his arms he stuck out his chins. “Mom enjoys suffering for my art. The woman needs to do something meaningful with her own life.”

The Do's and Don'ts of Discipline
is vehemently opposed to the raised voice, so I said through my teeth, “After I pull you out, you can tell me how such a smart lad got into such a tight squeeze.”

“Oh, all right.” He shoved a pudgy hand my way. “But I don't think all your yanking will do more than get me wedged.”

He was right. After much huffing and puffing, I felt like Rabbit and all his friends and relations put together, trying to get Winnie the Pooh unstuck.

“I'll go and get your mother.”

“You do that,” Bingo growled. “You fetch anyone and I swear I'll jump out the window.” An idle threat considering he couldn't have got a letter through it, let alone the rolls of fat around his middle, but his desperation reached me. “I
don't mind you so much”—his cheeks were chapped by the dry sheen of tears—“because you seem to understand about looking ridiculous.”

I rubbed my hands, trying to get the circulation going to the brain. “Bingo, why did you come up here?”

He stopped tugging on his shirt, and it rode up—revealing a strip of porky tum. “Swear on your life not to tell! If you do, I'll ruin that husband of yours. I'll see he never works again. I have the contacts, you know. There are guys who'd kill for my pigeon liver
pâté
. Hey! Where are you going?”

I turned back to face him. “I'm sorry for you, Bingo, but I've better ways to spend the rest of my pregnancy than letting you vent your stupid temper on me.”

His face crumpled. “Okay. My troubles are due to that dumb Mangé rule, the one that brought down Jim Grogg. When I saw what happened to him over the baking powder, I got the jitters.”

“You smuggled baking powder in, too?”

“Don't be dumb. I can make a cake rise to dizzy heights by blowing on it. What I brought in was my secret supply of …” He gnawed his plump lower lip.

“What?”

“Junk food.” He glared at me. “I don't know why I am baring my soul to you. Do you think we have met in a former life? Perhaps you're a skullery maid I was kind to. Never mind. I'm addicted to Ding Dongs, Ho Ho's and Twinkies. Last night I ate down part of my hoard and decided to find a safer place for the rest.”

“So that's what you were up to last night!”

“May I get on with my story?” His fat face filled the aperture. “I had found a temporary place, but all this morning at the meeting, I pictured Pepys as a bloodhound. Sniffing. And then I remembered opening my window this morning and seeing the bird's nest at the top of the dead tree.”

“Ideal.”

“Unfortunately I am not a tree climber. After lunch I went outside and discovered that the nest was in line with this window. After making certain architectural computations I returned to my room, located the door to the tower. Once up here I squeezed through here, without scraping off more than a few layers of skin, but …”

“Yes?”

The prodigy frowned. “I hadn't counted on the window being narrower than a pencil. I thought it only looked that way because I was seeing it from the ground. Must need new glasses.” He tapped them. “All that stair climbing had made me ravenous, so I decided to stash the stuff where it couldn't be found.” He emptied his pocket of wrappers.

“You ate everything?”

“What if I did? A few mouthfuls can't make the difference between my getting out of here or being kept prisoner.” Expression sullen, he thumped concrete. “These walls are defective. They're swelling.”

“Bingo dear,” I said. “You have to let me summon help. We can tell an abridged version of the truth. We'll say you came up here to admire the view.”

His cheeks blew out in fury and his glasses bounced on his pug nose. “I thought you might be different, but you're no brighter than any other adult! The Mangés won't excuse my missing a session because I'm a scenery buff. I trusted you with the truth because I thought you might be able to help me think up a convincing, heroic reason for my being here. One which would remove the stigma of my ridiculous incarceration.”

I did not reply. The tower door groaned open.

“Ellie?”

“My husband!” I warned Bingo, as though the former love of my life were a moustachioed villain come to hurl us both off the battlements. Too late to hide. Too late to think. I was caught and crushed in Ben's arms. His fingers stroked my hair, his lips found mine and my heart lurched in that irresponsible way it has.

“Sweetheart, did I tell you I like the maternity outfit?”

The medieval bed on the royal dais mocked us with the promise of a fairy tale idyll made for two. Saved by a watching child.

I found the strength to pull away and study Ben's face with detachment, while he explained how he had gone into Bingo's room and found the tower door. He had aged in the last day. Those tiny lines around his eyes came from wanton living. And it struck me that his dark hair and blue green eyes
were a little gaudy. Thank God, getting over him was going to be a breeze.

“Ellie, I've been worried. You seemed different somehow in the hall. And call me the overprotective husband if you wish, but I didn't relish the idea of your racing all over the house looking for the boy. You shouldn't be climbing all these stairs.”

All my pregnancy I had yearned to be treated like a fragile flower …

“But, sweetheart …” Eyes avoiding mine, he touched my hair. “There is something I feel compelled to mention …”

“Don't either of you mind me.” Bingo to the rescue.

“Why, hello old chap,” said Ben, with less enthusiasm than the situation merited.

“Please refrain from staring. I am not in a zoo.”

“Sorry.” Ben approached the aperture. “Am I to understand that you are not receiving guests?”

I expected a sullen outburst from the boy, but he actually grinned. “I was about to say”—my voice came out in an earsplitting blast, as though someone had turned up the volume on the TV—“Bingo has suffered a bizarre and brutal experience.” Deep breath. “He was having a browse around after lunch and heard this strange fluttering behind the door closing off the tower stairs. Being the conscientious person he is, he checked to see what was what and there was this pigeon. I myself had met one last night, once on the second floor and …”

“Is this a shaggy bird story?” Elbow on the wall, Ben smiled.

“Don't interrupt,” snapped Bingo. “I want to know, er,
relive
what happened.”

I stuck my hands in my bumble bee pockets. “The idiot bird balked at being rescued. It flew back up the stairs and kept banging into the door at the top until Bingo opened it. Once in this room it dive-bombed through the aperture. And would you believe the poor thing went smack against the window and dropped to lay for dead until our hero here—”

“That's right!” Bingo's smirk was as expansive as his shirt front. “With no thought for my own safety, I squeezed in after it, ready to provide artificial respiration, but …”

I retook control of the story, anxious to end it lest Bingo
get stuck in his own yarn. The first sweet rapture of paying back Ben lie for lie had faded. My mouth held a bitter aftertaste. “Pigeon came back to life. It belongs to Theola Faith, so it's not too surprising it has histrionic tendencies and was only playing dead. Whatever, it left the aperture and flew down the stairs, leaving Bingo trapped.”

“You'd left both doors open?” Ben addressed the boy.

“Naturally,” I said, “otherwise Pigeon would have had to open them with his little feet. I closed the one leading to the stairs and this one when I came up.”

“Ah!” Ben's face was set in tight lines. Was he angry with Bingo for upsetting the precious Mangé schedule, to say nothing of Valicia X, or was he having trouble repressing a grin? “An incredible adventure.” Ben walked around me and stood eyeing Bingo through the aperture. “Also frustrating. I know the feeling. I once got wedged between the refrigerator and a stack of packing cases at my father's greengrocery.”

Now who was telling unvarnished lies? Ben could suck his abdomen against his spinal cord and crawl in and out of a letter box if necessary.

“So far I haven't been too impressed with you, Mr. Haskell.” Bingo wiped off his glasses which had fogged up again. “However, if you can get me out of here, I am prepared to give you the answer to that embarrassingly easy question on Trojan cookery that stumped you this morning.”

“Thanks a lot, old son, but I can't take advantage of your generosity. Your predicament is the same as when trying to remove a ring that's grown a little snug. The more you push and pull, the more the ring won't come off. Because the finger gets puffier.”

“That's so!” I agreed. How hard it was not to think of this husband as my hero. “Bingo's shoulders definitely look swollen to me. Are you suggesting …?”