Sheila takes the grid of Roy’s face from her shopping bag and she and Alison smooth the paper out on the sand and weigh it down with stones. Sheila draws a square in the sand with a stick, four times the size of the square on the paper, using a tape measure she has brought with her from her sewing kit to make sure the sides are even. Then she draws in the lines to make a grid, using her eye to guide her.
Sheila and Alison work for half an hour to build up the picture of Roy. They take stones big enough to fit into the palms of their two hands cupped together and they arrange them in the picture; white; purple; speckled hen brown. They find colored glass, dull and smoothed by the ocean, lying undisturbed on the beach like chunks of precious stones mined and discarded in a land where the people do not value them. They collect feathers, shells, pieces of rubber tyres.
Sheila breathes life into the picture, willing it to make a difference and bring him back to her. ‘Let him go,’ she thinks. ‘Let me have him back.’ Eventually, the Roy icon is finished, staring trustingly up from the beach, large enough to be seen from the sky. Sheila looks up, squinting because of the sun, then looks back quickly, bright pink dots jumping in her eyes across Roy’s picture.
‘Will it work?’ asks Alison. They are at the edge of a path between the sand dunes, leading from the beach back to the car park. She has removed Phoebe’s pink leather sandals and is holding them upside down so the sand can run out of them.
Taron, Joey Latimer and Hugo Fragrance get into Hugo’s silver BMW. They are going on a driving holiday to recuperate following the long nights spent on suicide watch on London’s bridges. Hugo is driving so the holiday part falls more to Taron and Joey. They have planned a route which will take in a tour of Britain’s heritage sites, which they hope will be deserted, given the strength of the pound. Hugo puts the key in the ignition. Before he starts the engine, he turns and reaches into the inside breast pocket of the jacket he has thrown on to the back seat next to Taron. With a magician’s flourish, he produces a water-marked, wax-sealed, signed certificate. ‘This is to confirm,’ reads Taron ‘that Mr H Fragrance has purchased two hundred and fifty-five trees to be planted on his family estate in Brittany.’
‘It’s a reforestation deal which will net me lots of money from the EU. It will also cancel any amount of carbon dioxide the three of us care to generate over the next ten days.’ Hugo turns the key in the ignition. ‘Let’s have some fun.’
Some hours later, the holiday mood has evaporated. ‘Are we lost?’
‘Let’s ask someone.’
‘We haven’t passed another living soul for twenty miles. Not even so much as a cat. We’ll be lucky to see anyone, never mind asking them whether they think we’re lost.’
‘A cat? Why would we see a cat in a field? This is the countryside. You’re supposed to look out for cows. I’ve seen plenty of cows.’
‘Here’s a sign. Let’s turn in here and ask. What does it say?’
‘“Paradise.” That’s cute. Turn in here, Hugo. There’ll be someone here who can help us.’
Mrs Fitzgerald bends to pick up the second post from the mat by the front door in her office in Brixton. She has been feeling recently as if a great burden has been lifted, almost as if she can finally anticipate some good thing coming her way. She has seen madness on the buses and in the cafes of London and she knows that she is not mad. She has even been able to identify a way to prevent herself going that way, which is to avoid publicity.
She sifts through the mail. There is nothing very interesting, except for a white embossed envelope addressed in a typeface she doesn’t recognize. Mrs Fitzgerald walks into her office and picks up her spectacles where they sit on her desk. She holds them so that the chain falls out of the way and brings them up towards her nose so that she can peer through them to examine the mystery envelope. It gives Lambeth Town Hall as the return address and for some reason Mrs Fitzgerald is disappointed. She sits at her desk and puts her spectacles on properly so that she can turn over the envelope and open it. It is perhaps fortunate that she is sitting down as she reads the contents.
‘Dear Mrs Fitzgerald,’ the letter begins, innocuously enough.
‘On behalf of the Brixton Regeneration Committee, I would like to congratulate you …’
Chapter Forty-Two ~ Vroom, Slam
Roy takes up the balance bar and looks along the length of the wire.
Sylvia leans against the wall of the house in a patch of sunshine near the trellis, her left foot half out of one slipper, her naked right foot moving up and down her left calf, kneading the strong muscle under the brown skin, gripping and squeezing until deep lines appear like frowns in the knuckle joints of her pink-painted toes. She taps her fingernails gently against the cup of coffee in her hand, feeling the rush of pleasure she always feels when she’s watching a fellow performer try something dangerous for the first time.
‘Are you ready?’ Sylvia asked Roy this morning.
‘Yes. I feel light.’
Vroom, slam, slam, vroom, slam. Like guests arriving late for a fabulous party, cars arrive one after the other in Paradise. Their drivers and passengers run up towards the house, stop at the arresting spectacle of Roy standing on the platform, then creep forward as slowly and quietly as if he has already broken his neck and they fear that any sudden movement will jar the bones in his body and paralyse him for life.
Among the semicircle of spectators anticipating Roy’s first step from the platform on to the high wire, a small elephant with a shimmer of gingery hair on its head, gray skin slack and wrinkling at the joints like an over-enthusiastic dieter, is testing the air thoughtfully with its trunk.
Jane Memory is there, with Jeremy’s locket. Harvey has the camera rolling. They are both thinking about Jeremy. Jane is crying, her face slippery with tears. She wipes her nose with the back of her hand, the turquoise ring on her littlest finger catching inside her nostril and making a red mark. Harvey takes her hand, to comfort her. The silver rings on his fingers squeeze against hers and make a mild grating sound. Making a connection between the slime on her knuckles and Jane’s running nose, Harvey releases her hand again quickly, wiping his own hand on the seat of his trousers.
Mrs Latimer and the Dalmatians stand with the rest of the impromptu audience. Mrs Latimer is watching Sylvia.
Alison is there, fingers curled round a phone number written on a scrap of paper. The paper is wrapped around a pot of cherry lip gloss in her pocket. Phoebe’s hand is in her other hand.
Sheila is standing next to them, very quiet, taking in the sight of Sylvia watching Roy. She removes the colander from her head with dignity.
Taron, Hugo and Joey have arrived. Walking softly towards his mother, watching her watching Sylvia, Joey sees that she looks as if all the color has gone from her, even from her clothes.
A police car is coming along the track towards Sylvia’s farm but no-one has noticed it yet.
Roy sees Sheila’s strained face among the spectators. He wobbles, then recovers. He replaces the balance bar, carefully. He understands something that has eluded him for months. He knows now that he is alive.
Alison’s hand involuntarily makes a fist in her pocket, twisting open the lid of the lip gloss with her thumb and smearing the numbers written on the paper around it. She barely hears the question Sheila asks as she watches Roy prepare to step down from the high wire.
‘How could you?’
0O0O0O0
About the Author
Helen Smith is a member of the Mystery Writers of America, The Crime Writers’ Association and English PEN. She's the author of Alison Wonderland, Being Light, The Miracle Inspector and the Emily Castles mysteries. Her books have reached number one on Amazon's bestseller lists in the US, UK, Canada, Australia and Germany, and her work has been optioned by the BBC.
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FOOD OF LOVE
A Comedy about Friendship, Chocolate…and a Small Nuclear Bomb
by Anne R. Allen
Southern California, 1997
Chapter 1—Regina: The Smile of the Spoon
Her Royal Highness Regina Saxi-Cadenti, Princess of San Montinaro, backed out of the bathroom stall on her knees, pulling the scrub bucket.
She felt her backside collide with something. Someone.
She froze.
So the assassins had found her, even here at the Recovery Clinic, half a world away from the palace and its intrigues. They were back to finish last night's botched job. She knew the falling oven hood in the kitchen had been no accident, any more than the other “mishaps” back in San Montinaro. Through the thin silk of her Dolce and Gabbana skirt, Regina felt human flesh: bony and death-cold.
“You could watch where you're going, your Highness.”
False alarm. Regina's breath came back. She unclamped her hand from the bucket and turned to give a polite smile to the sour-faced woman who spoke. Regina recognized her from the Clinic's orientation meeting last Friday—a former child actress, addicted to cocaine. She'd been one of TV's Partridge Bunch or Diff'rent Spoons or something.
The poor dear did look like a spoon, her skeletal body supporting a moon-shaped face that must have been adorable at age eight.
“Sorry. I'm still a bit clumsy with this.”
Regina nodded at her cast, the result of last night's “accident” that had left her with several shattered bones in her foot—and come so close to smashing her skull.
“It's not your foot that's a menace.”
The Spoon gave a venomous glance at Regina's ample derriere as she stomped into a stall.
Regina was used to the venom. Her newly matronly figure made some people feel it was their right, even their duty, to treat her with contempt. Last month's Italian tabloid photos—taken by a hidden camera while she tried on an awful spandex thing in the dressing room at the House of Porfirio—probably fueled the girl's scorn. The pictures had already been pirated into the U.S., in spite of the lawsuits. When she'd arrived at LAX last Friday, she'd caught sight of a tabloid headline touting:
“Secret Pix! Prince Max Sues over Heartbreaking Photos of Porky Princess.”
So much for escaping to safe obscurity in California.
Still, the Recovery Clinic at Rancho Esperanza, much lower profile than nearby Betty Ford, seemed a fairly good place to wait for the paparazzi to settle down, although she could have done without the chores and insufficient meals. But, as Max pointed out, any lingering bad press could be put off by hints at a bit of fashionable substance abuse.
She hummed and fantasized about her favorite California foods as her unfed stomach growled in low counterpoint to the murmur of the Clinic's New Age Muzak: Shrimp Louis, artichokes with melted butter, Double Rainbow chocolate ice cream.
Oh, yes, chocolate. What was that Shakespeare thing her mother used to quote?
“If music be the food of love; play on.”
If Mr. Shakespeare had spent more time with women, he would have known the food of love is not music but chocolate.
The promise of that sweet, soul-satisfying reward gave her the will to keep on. That nice London hairdresser with the heroin problem had promised to risk dire consequences to sneak her a Cadbury's after group therapy. She'd confessed her craving to him last night when he caught her hobbling back from the infirmary, too late for dinner. Nigel, his name was. A sweet man. He'd loved her since her first Vogue layout in the '70s, he said.
Bless him. Gay men were such a comfort.
“I can't deal with this. What have you done in here?”
The Spoon banged her way out of the stall, her voice a grating mix of childishness and condescension.
“Your Highness, the toilet water is pink!”
“Yes, dear. I let the cleanser soak in a while. The ring on that bowl was a bit stubborn. But please. No titles. Call me Regina.”
Even in such a heavily guarded facility, the wrong person might overhear a random “Your Highness” and drop a lucrative tip to the media.
“Addiction knows no class boundaries dear.” She hoped she sounded gracious.
“Whatever. But I cannot throw up into a bowl of toxic chemicals!” The Spoon disappeared into a different stall with the clang of a metal door.
Regina gave the bowl another scrub and pulled the chain of the old-fashioned toilet tank to flush. The ring hadn't faded.
When she got home, she would have to ask Titiana about toilet rings. Titiana knew about things like that. Regina felt lucky to be blessed with a head chef who was also a wise and trusted friend. Her only friend, really. Life in a country with only as many inhabitants as Rodeo Drive during a good sale at Gucci made gossip the primary national sport.
Gossip, yes, and intrigue—but not murder.
So why were these things happening? Why would anyone want to hurt her?
As the doctors kept reminding her, she was one of the most beloved women in the world—the ordinary American girl whose fairy-tale wedding to the fashion designer-monarch of the tiny Alpine kingdom of San Montinaro had defined the fantasies of every pre-pubescent girl on the planet.
Even after twenty years and forty extra pounds, the public loved her.
And if Max wanted to be rid of her, he had only to say so. Divorce had always been legal in San Montinaro, a country so conservative it still followed the laws of ancient Rome rather than those of the Vatican.
She had dreamed of him last night; Max at his most handsome, in all his princely regalia: Prince Maximus Saxi-Cadenti, as he had looked when she married him.
When she had almost loved him.
In the dream, he was feeding her noodle pudding, the sweet Hungarian dessert her father used to make—but somehow, the food never reached her mouth. She watched Max's silver spoon come toward her, smiling at her with the seductive curve of a noodle nestled in glistening apricot sauce. But when it reached her mouth, she tasted nothing—nothing but air, empty and noodle-less.
She woke to gnawing pains in her stomach.
But now her knees were causing more pain than the hunger. She needed something softer to kneel on. Spotting a newspaper stuffed in a trash basket, she retrieved several sections and smoothed them out to use as a cushion. But she stopped as a photograph caught her eye.
It couldn't be.
Holding her breath, she stared at the slim, elegant, African-American woman in the picture.
Cady. A thin, beautiful Cady. Her foster sister and childhood best friend.
Here. In nearby Los Angeles: former Congresswoman Rev. Cady Stanton (R. Mass.) anti-pornography crusader and former size eighteen, in the February twelfth L.A. Times—wearing one of those creamy new Donna Karan knits and looking no more than a size ten. She was promoting a new Christian TV talk show at “an old-fashioned box social” at the Silver Cathedral in Anaheim.
She looked wonderful. The very fact made Regina feel betrayed—selfishly, childishly—betrayed.
February twelfth. Yesterday. Cady's birthday, wasn't it? The same as Abraham Lincoln's. She'd be forty-nine. A year older than Regina. They hadn't seen each other in years. Too many darkly hoarded secrets and clashes of politics and religion had reduced their communication to an occasional holiday card.
Regina knelt on the paper and scrubbed, attacking the toilet ring as if it were the invisible barrier that imprisoned her here.
Cady was so near.
If only she could tell her about the accidents—the brakes that had mysteriously failed on the brand new Ferrari; a skittish young horse that had appeared in the stall that usually housed her docile old mare; and the Venetian chandelier—perfectly secure for three centuries, that had suddenly broken from its chains and crashed down on her bed.
Cady would have a rational explanat
ion.
She could always make things right, in the old days. Regina felt an empty pang. Why had she let their friendship slip away? Was it Max's intolerance? The San Montinaran royals, who traced their bloodline to pre-Indo-European Etruscans, were historically so racially biased they viewed Italians as ethnically impure upstarts, but it was Cady's size that Max had been most insensitive about.
What had he called her? “So intimidating; so larger than life.”
Would he be less intimidated now that Cady was a size ten?
With a clatter, the Spoon pushed her way out of the stall.
“Won't flush. Stupid cowboy plumbing. I'm surprised they don't make us dig our own outhouses—they're so into the hard labor thing around here. I had garbage duty this morning. Those cans weigh an effing ton.” She massaged a spindly arm.
Regina's stomach let out a growl. She laughed. “With all this starving and hard work, maybe I'm losing weight.”
The Spoon's pinched face lit up with a lovely, genuine smile.
“Oh, God, I wish!” She studied her scrawny reflection in the mirror over the sink.
Regina returned the smile. They had found common ground—the contemporary woman's compulsion to diminish herself.
“I am getting so fat.” The Spoon pinched her face hard as she grimaced at herself in the mirror.
She craned her neck to study her buttocks, barely grapefruit-sized in spandex leggings.
“I'm as big as a house! One week off cocaine and I must have gained ten pounds.” She hit herself hard on the backside with a clenched fist. “At least you have the tits to balance your butt, Princess. I used to, but I had to have them out. The silicone was leaking.”
Six Pack of Sleuths: Comedy Mysteries Page 79