The Widow's Club (38 page)

I believed her. The kitchen was a changed place. Strung above the window were brightly painted egg shells sprouting tiny plants. A patchwork rug lay on the floor, a doily draped over the back of the rocking chair, and a new army of statues topped one of the cupboards. But the biggest change was in Magdalene herself. She wore a secret glow that perked up her dusty sparrow face. She and Poppa still weren’t speaking beyond essentials, and she continued to cross herself every time he came into the room. But there seemed something different about the way she did it. Had Charles’s untimely demise brought home to her the temporary nature of all things, including extramarital flings?

“You haven’t done anything to upset me, Magdalene. I’m just a bit preoccupied.” A nicer person would have reassured her with a hug. My uncooperative arms dangled at my sides. In a few minutes I must take that long walk to the phone.

“You’ll just be saying that, but it’s not in my nature to poke and pry.” Opening the garden door to admit Sweetie, her expression clouded. “Hm! Here comes Mrs. Malloy.”

“Morning!” Roxie rattled the supply bag at Sweetie. “Not another in the world like the little moppet, is there? Only scratches to come in when she has to go.”

Magdalene and Sweetie bristled. Hurriedly, I mentioned the post Roxie had in her hands.

“Don’t get excited, Mrs. H. Nothing of interest.” She licked her index finger and continued to flip through. “Nothing but bleedin’ bills, by the looks of it.” She whapped the envelopes on the table and prissied her lips at Magdalene. “We can’t get letters from France every day, can we, Mr. H.’s Ma?”

My mother-in-law hadn’t mentioned any foreign correspondence. She avoided my eyes and got busy stroking Sweetie; her lips were tight. Roxie dumped the supply bag on the table and gave me a lavish smile. “How’s Mr. H. and the restaurant coming along?”

“Ben’s at Abigail’s now. It’s going to reopen for lunch tomorrow.” I leafed through the envelopes and put them in the wire rack. I didn’t want either of the women to realise how scared I was that he wouldn’t be given a fair chance to live down the … my past.

Roxie unstoppered the all-purpose bottle. “My guess is things’ll be all right. There’s always them what like to live dangerously.”

Spoken from firsthand experience? Did that two-tone hair and madam makeup hide a face I didn’t know?

“Mr. Flatts’s back on the job, is he? Not nursing his dart wound so he can sue Sid Fowler?”

I started to say that Freddy was again an employee, but was cut off by my mother-in-law.

“Mrs. Malloy, this isn’t my house but—”

Roxie looked right, then left. “You could’ve pulled the wool over my eyes.”

“—and I’m never one to criticise, but the last time you were here you did miss three finger marks on the left side of the cooker.”

“Ooooh!” Roxie snarled a breath which tripled the size of her bosom. “Begging your royal pardon, I must not have had the time. I’m that busy these days putting fresh water in all them little birdbaths you’ve got dotted around the house. And there’s not even a budgie in the house!”

Magdalene crossed herself.

“And another thing!” Roxie smacked her lips. “Haven’t
I been telling Mrs. H. until I’m purple as this hat that I don’t dust little graven images.”

A blessing on my house. I was driven from the kitchen, driven to phone Ann. Out in the hall I seized the telephone off the trestle table and trailed its cord into the drawing room. Closing the door, I deposited the phone on a chair, shoved another chair against the door, and paced the room. Ready or not! Hands shaking, I picked up the phone, put it down, picked it up again, and dialed. Ann answered at the second ring.

“Ellie! Lovely to hear your voice.”

“And yours.” I was appalled at how calm I sounded. “How are you feeling?”

“Serene. In so many ways this has been harder on you than me.”

Indubitably true, if the suspicions of Flowers Detection were correct.

“Ann, you are incredible.” My voice splintered. “You make me ashamed of myself. There you are getting on with your life while all I’m doing is making the most terrible botch of mine.” Again, true.

“Ellie,” her voice rang with sincerity. “Clearly you need to talk, really talk. Would you like to come over here?”

“Now?”

“What better time?”

I had to wash my hair, grow my nails …

I drove, rather than taking the bus, because the odds as always were excellent that the Heinz would break down midway. That damn car!

Ann met me at the door of the shop, put up the Closed sign, and led me through the amber velvet curtains, across the storage room, and up a flight of varnished stairs into the flat. On first coming here I had been intrigued by Ann’s collections. Music boxes, clocks, crystal, jade, salt cellars, and inkwells crowded the sitting room. Now the place had a narcissistic look. The many photos were all of herself, most of them taken in childhood with some singer of forgotten fame. Several were inscribed, Me with the wonderful so-and-so. My misgivings intensified when I saw, newly pinned to the collar of Ann’s white crepe blouse, a blackbird brooch. She closed the door. The very ordinariness of her smile made my skin prickle.

“Would you like a sherry?” She moved to a table covered with a tapestry cloth and crammed with decanters, some with price labels on them.

“No, thank you.” My fingers brushed a silver frame surrounding the image of little Ann gazing idolatrously into the face of the songbird Sylvania. “I … I am avoiding alcohol at present on account of its being a depressant.” Far smarter not to think about what I was going to say or the consequences. Get on with it and get out of here.

“I understand.” Ann smoothed down the sides of her maroon and black skirt and perched gracefully on the arm of the horsehair sofa.

“No, you don’t!” I crossed to the window and flung my arm around my eyes. “You’re too good, too decent to have any idea what is going on inside my head. All the anger! The feeling that all men are beasts!” Was the great Sylvania smirking at me?

“May I hazard a guess as to what is distressing you so? You feel guilty because you don’t pity me … you envy me.”

My neck came up, almost snapping off my head. Thank God for long hair. It is forever tumbling down and providing something to do for one’s hands.

“Ann, I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yes, you do.” She crossed her ankles, inserted a cigarette in a jade holder, and lit up. “This, for instance.” She blew out a curl of smoke. “When Charles was alive, I couldn’t have a cigarette in peace. I couldn’t do
anything
in peace, even dislike him.” She leaned back and exhaled. “There, I am finally telling you the truth. All the other stuff I told you regarding my relationship with him was rubbish, invented according to the rules of …”

“Yes?” A hairpin dropped down the front of my shirt.

“The rules of … the stiff-upper-lip club.” Ann tapped away ash. “Strangely enough, I never hated Charles. He wasn’t man enough to inspire that deep an emotion. But even from a distance I can see Ben is different. He is virile and dynamic, and you are in love with him, you poor fish.”

“Why else would I marry him?” I turned back to the window.

“Not for the reasons he married you. It isn’t necessary for you to tell me anything, Ellie.”

How convenient, considering my lips were hermetically sealed.

“It was crystal clear to me the day of your wedding that Ben was nothing but a handsome rogue. That service, a
menage à trois
, and the reception crammed with his debauched friends. Where did he dredge up that woman who did obscene things to the suit of armour? And that paunchy man who kept chasing the woman in paisley up and down stairs! Small wonder his parents refused to come. Ellie, dear,” she continued serenely, “everyone felt frightfully sorry for you, especially when the policeman dropped in and Ben was so cavalier. ‘Just a little private business.’ ” Ann mimicked his voice so closely that I almost wrenched the cigarette away from her and stubbed it out in her face.

She leaned toward me. “Sweet, innocent Ellie. When word got out that you had hooked up with him through an escort service, no one was surprised or thought any the less of you for succumbing to his fortune-hunting charms. Your being overweight made you an easy mark.”

“I was fat, actually.”

“Yes, well …” Ann touched her fingertips to her smooth dark hair. “Poor dear.” She sounded as though I had said something a little coarse.

“Happily you are a resilient person, Ellie. I imagine you would have continued to endure being used if only Ben had exercised the decency to be discreet in his relationship with your cousin.”

Incredibly, Ann was speaking the lines assigned to me by the Tramwells, making everything so much easier, but I forgot I was playing a role. “Not true, there is absolutely nothing going on between—”

Ann rose from the sofa and placed a hand on my arm. “Ellie”—her voice throbbed with sympathy—“you know it is true. Don’t hide behind passive misery. Feel anger! Feel murderous rage! Think of all you have done for your cousin—giving him a job, letting him live in your cottage.”

Him
? She wasn’t talking about Vanessa. My eyes dilated. Ben and … Freddy! Those two would collapse with laughter if they heard this. But my mind went into reverse. I was back at the wedding reception, overhearing snatches of conversation puffed on the air.

“A fairy story in the true sense of the word.” “Extremely
good-looking, but then they so often are. More unfair, I always say.” “Best man a hairdresser …” And later, Ann herself had talked about it’s being worse when the Other Woman was a man.

I sank into an armchair. It made grotesque sense. Freddy’s masquerade had set the spark and eager tongues had fanned the flames.

“Ellie, do you feel faint?” Ann was all solicitude.

“No, I’m fine.” And so I was. Blood surged to my brain. I was angry—for Ben, myself, and Freddy. Whatever my cousin’s failings, he would never have stooped to setting his cap at my husband. I didn’t doubt that the most venomous of the gossips were those same women who were bumping off their husbands right, left, and center.

Eyes closed so their expression wouldn’t give me away, I groped for Ann’s hand. “What a coward I have been! I haven’t wanted to face the truth about those nights when Ben and Freddy stopped for a drink after work, the hours they spend engrossed in each other, talking about secret”—I had to do better than recipes—“things.” Then I let my anger work for me. “Ann, I can feel it! The beginning of that murderous rage!” I pounced out of the chair and paced the crowded room. “They have taken me for such a fool! I could kill them! Kill them both!” My voice spiralled. I could feel the heat of Ann’s eyes on my back.

She gave a light laugh. “Wouldn’t one of them be sufficient? It does, after all, take two to have an affair. Ellie, have you ever heard of a novel called
The Merry Widows
?”

I tensed. So this was how the approach was made. “I … I can’t say I have.”

“Not surprising. It’s been out of print for years; a book that sank without a ripple. We get boxes of such in the shop and end up using the paper for packing. This one’s by Edwin Digby actually and is about a group of wives who form a club, the purpose of which is to murder off their adulterous husbands. The especially nice thing about the scheme is that one doesn’t plunge the knife or the poison … into one’s own mate. The necessary steps are taken for one, and afterward, an abundance of emotional and social support is provided.”

Silence.

“Amusing, don’t you think?” Ann peeled a price tag off a decanter.

“I think … it’s a pity there isn’t something like that locally. I could divorce Ben, but then he would get a share of the inheritance and I … I can’t bear the thought of him walking away with more than the clothes on his back.” Pressing my fingers to my brow, I waited.

“What if there were such a group?” Ann circled around me, fingers trailing the furniture.

“I suppose … I wouldn’t be eligible. After all, mine isn’t a case of another woman.” I fought a feeling of sickness.

“Oh, I don’t think that—it’s only a technicality. The important thing is knowing the right people.” Ann brushed my arm. “And, of course, we
are
talking about fiction.”

I moved away from her to stand in front of a Victorian standing lamp. “Fictitiously speaking, how would someone apply for membership?” The room seemed to dim.

“Come here.” Ann pulled a chair away from a table with claw feet. “Sit down and tear a sheet off that pad of paper, and yes, there’s a pen behind this vase. You are going to write a letter.”

“I am?” My heart pounded.

“Yes, to Dear Felicity Friend.” The paper nearly blew off the table. Ann stood in front of me, tapping out a beat on the table. “Wisest, I think, to keep the message short and sweet: Dear Felicity Friend, Please help me get rid of a terrible problem—my husband.” Ann picked up a cigarette and flipped it between her fingers. “Sign it with your full name and a code.”

The pen dug a hole in the paper. Could I assume that Felicity Friend was The Founder, or was Felicity merely an unwitting instrument? “Why a code?”

Ann touched a cold finger to my cheek. “Why, Ellie, so Dear Felicity can answer you in the confidential column. Let’s see, how about something charmingly traditional like Heartbroken. That’s it! Write it down.” When I had done so, she tweaked the paper out of my slack grasp and folded it in two. The urge to snatch it back made my throat hurt.

“What next?” I managed. “… if this were fact, not fiction.”

Ann folded the paper again. “I would take this to the president of the club and urge your admission to our … the ranks.”

“The president being …?”

“Let us say Mrs. Amelia Bottomly, although I don’t suppose I should be saying anything of the sort. But we don’t have to be terribly discreet, do we, as this is only fiction. She would then get in touch with the founder of the organisation, who would make the decision as to whether or not you were eligible.” Ann straightened the Sylvania photo. “Then if you got clearance from the top, you would be contacted by telephone and asked in so many words if you wished your husband murdered. If you answered yes, you would be told the amount of dues payable and where to deposit. Simple, isn’t it?”