Bishop's Road

by Catherine Hogan Safer

  Ruth is home at a civil hour tonight. She and Patrick are too tired to do much of anything, fell asleep at the movie, barely spoke, held hands. They arrive as Judy and Dorrie are lugging the last of their loads into the house. Ruth wonders how the hell it’s all going to fit, suggests that the dolls be given a room of their own since there are so many vacancies. They enlist the exhausted Patrick to help out and he stumbles back and forth over the stairs until Ruth takes pity and sends him on his way.

  “Wait until Ginny Mustard gets a look at these dolls.” says Judy. “There must be a hundred of them. Did you ever see any-thing so pretty in your life, Ruth? And Dorrie’s got little tiny dresses and boots and shoes for all of them to change into. Even underwear. And catalogues if she wants to buy more. I never saw anything so nice before. And she’s got dresses for herself to match the little ones exactly. She made them on her sewing machine.”

  Ruth agrees that yes they’re nice enough and goes to bed. Sleeps through the sounds of construction as Dorrie puts her shelves together, scrubs the Barbie room spotless and arranges the dolls just like they were at the old place, thinks about going out tomorrow for a nice piece of lacy fabric to make new curtains. Maybe some paper for the dingy walls. Perhaps she’ll even buy a starter Barbie for Judy so she can begin her own collection. Dorrie has never met anyone who didn’t mock her passion, didn’t ask if she wasn’t just a bit old to be playing with dolls, imply she had shit for brains, wasting good money on toys, what’s wrong with you Dorrie?

  All through the night she works and when Ginny Mustard wanders in at six to see what’s going on, the smile on her face is well worth the effort. “You know,” says Dorrie, “they make black Barbies too. The same color as you but they don’t have blond hair. We could go and see if there’s some in the stores, if you want one. I don’t have any myself, but I know they’re out there.” Ginny Mustard doesn’t respond. The dolls are like her music, so pretty that they hurt, but it’s a good hurt and she nods. There has never been such a marvelous sight in Mrs. Miflin’s house if you don’t count the flowers that Ruth got.

  Mrs. Miflin isn’t happy to be giving Dorrie two rooms for the price of one but she’s pleased enough to have another tenant, and a nice dresser too, different than some she could name who go around like streels half the time. And besides, she reasons, it won’t do any harm to have a classy-looking woman out and about telling people where she lives now and what a lovely boarding house it is. Clean. Who knows? She might end up with more just like her and be able to tell the rest of them to take a leap and go find somewhere else to hang their sorry hats. So when Ruth asks if it will be all right for Dorrie to set up her sewing machine and dress forms in yet another spare room, she is feeling magnanimous, envisioning her future glory as the landlady of all landladies and says yes without batting an eyelash. She shoots a ‘Your days are numbered, Missy’ look in Ruth’s direction making her wonder what the old bat is up to now, but who cares anyway.

  Patrick is off today. He arrives early to see Ruth. Judy finds them hugging in the sitting room when she comes downstairs. “Oh, gross, you guys. That’s really gross.” And they stop, though they’d rather not.

  “Don’t you have anything better to do than hang around here, Judy? We could stand a little privacy, you know,” says Ruth.

  “No I don’t. Not until Dorrie is ready and then we’re going out to look at wallpaper and material for curtains. Ginny Mustard is coming with us. We’re bringing Maggie over to her father’s house first cause she hasn’t seen him in six years. She found Lester Eldridge in the phone book at the address where she used to live so we figure it’s got to be him. Right Maggs?”

  Maggie is nervous. Nods her head.

  Ginny Mustard has never been in a car that she knows of. Is excited about going to the mall. Asks Ruth if she’ll mind the baby while she’s gone.

  Patrick says, “I didn’t know you had a baby, Ginny Mustard.” Ruth starts up about the imaginary baby that poor Ginny Mustard conjured in her warped little brain, that she thinks is real, how she rocks it to sleep and sings to it all the time. And Patrick’s nice blue cop eyes narrow a bit while he listens to the lies but he doesn’t say anything else. Ruth hurries the others into the kitchen for a little talk. “Watch what you’re saying Ginny Mustard. And the rest of you too when Patrick is here. I’m not going to let anything screw things up for me. I really like him and if he finds out what’s been going on in this house, I might as well kiss him good-bye, that’s for sure. He’s a cop, for God’s sake.”

  Dorrie doesn’t understand what the all the fuss is about. “Couldn’t you just tell him what you told me? I mean, it’s not like any of you killed the baby, is it now.”

  “Ha,” says Judy. “You don’t know the half of it, Dorrie. We’ll all be up to our necks in it if old Patrick starts snooping around.”

  “That’s enough Judy. Now you crowd take off and do whatever it is you’re doing. Patrick and I are going out for the day. Where’s Eve? Did anyone remember to feed Mrs. Miflin?”

  “She had some corn flakes but she wouldn’t eat them. Says they’re stale and we’re not closing the box right. Eve is in the Barbie room. I brought in her chair so she could sit and look at them. She thinks they’re pretty too.”

  “This place is turning into a regular looney bin. I’ll say goodbye to Eve. Make sure you’re not gone too long and check on her when you get back.” Ruth ushers them out the front door and goes to see Eve who is pleased to stay right where she is with her cup of tea.

  Anyone knows that if you allow yourself too much happiness you court disaster. If you dare to relax and assume life is grand, well then, it simply has to up and prove otherwise. That’s all there is to it. Ruth knows this is true but she seems to have for-gotten the teachings, though Heaven knows how. Mrs. Miflin knows, which is why she takes her pleasure in small doses and even then is not too swift to recognize one. Dorrie knows and has Barbie insurance to her eyeballs. Ginny Mustard can be forgiven since she never quite caught on. Judy and Maggie, well they’re what you might call heathens, not having been born into the one true church. And Eve, dear Eve, never believed it anyway since she has always found evidence to the contrary. But there’s no excuse for Ruth. She knows better.

  The man who opens the door to Maggie bears little resemblance to the father she remembers. He has folded considerably in six years.

  His voice is low and gentle. “Margaret? Is that you my Margaret?” Maggie nods yes. He puts out his arms. She steps into him and holds on, laughing and crying all mixed up together. He needs to know why she ran away. Needs to know how she could have hurt him like that. That she has been all right. That she is back to stay. He can hardly believe what she tells him about the home and her mother’s face hard, turning away while Maggie screamed and screamed. He thought he had dreamed that night. For years he’s been dreaming that night.

  The house is the same as it always was. Still neat as a pin with bonsai trees all over but no dogs. They sit close on the sofa and talk. Smile and cry some more until Dorrie’s car pulls up and they all troop in. Maggie wants to stay until her mother comes home but her father says she should go. That he wants to talk to his wife about all of this before Maggie sees her again. Perhaps that will be best. Maggie is reluctant to leave. Writes her address and Mrs. Miflin’s phone number for him, laughs and cries again through a long good-bye until Judy leans on the car horn. Mr. Eldridge watches them pull away, waving even after they’ve turned the corner, out of sight.

  Ruth is still out when they get back to the house. Once they dry off from the rain that shows no sign of ever wanting to quit, Dorrie asks if they’d like to have a tea party in the Barbie room. She and Judy set up a big round table and some chairs from the attic with Ginny Mustard’s blessing; she needs space for a playpen. Dorrie makes another trip, brings home little cakes with pink and yellow frosting and a poppy seed loaf. They dig out the good cups and saucers. No one can tell Mrs. Miflin, though, Judy says. “She only uses them when
the Pope is visiting.” Dorrie has lace-edged napkins and a matching tablecloth and in a few minutes the room is fit to entertain royalty. And now they must dress up pretty as well. No problem for Dorrie but the rest of them have to make do with odds and ends. Judy shares her junk jewelry and Eve has some old hats with lace that falls down over their eyes and makes everything look soft and blurry. Gloves that come all the way past their elbows, even Judy’s, accessories that haven’t seen the light of day for fifty years.

  It’s this picture of elegance that greets Ruth when she comes looking for them and she wishes to God she had a camera. Accepts Ginny Mustard’s offer of tea and cake and they all sip together, quiedy.

  The pounding rain is louder than the sound of Mrs. Eldridge banging away at the front door but they certainly hear the crutches on the floor below and Mrs. Miflin yelling to see who’s there. Eve goes to the door and the others follow. Maggie’s mother is fit to be tied. When she sees her daughter her face opens into a scream. Eyes popping. Mouth spitting. “I told them to find you a place away from this city. What are you doing coming back and upsetting your father. He’s sick. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had another heart attack with you crawling out of the woodwork now. I’m going to sue those bastards for moving you in here. What the hell were they thinking? You had no right to go to my home.”

  Her hands are raised to strike and Maggie is about to crumble. Judy steps between them, tucks Maggie safely behind her. “I think it’s Maggie’s home too Missus. She’s got as much of a right to be there as you do. And if she wants to visit her dad then you can’t say anything about it.”

  “Like hell I can’t! She’s insane and I can get papers to prove it. And if I have to take out a restraining order to keep her away from my husband, I will. Do you understand that Margaret? If you come anywhere near him again I’ll report you to the police so fast it will make your head spin. They’ll lock you up again and believe you me, it won’t be as pleasant a place as the last one. I’ll make sure of that.” And she’s gone, nothing but a puddle of rain water on the floor to prove she was ever there. Maggie sits right down in that puddle and shakes all over. Rocks back and forth and doesn’t make a peep. Picks up a passing kitten and holds on tight until it starts to cry and Judy has to pry the struggling creature from her shaking hands to keep Maggie from squeezing it to death.

  The rain will not let up. All night and the next day it beats on the house. Eve’s garden is a shambles. Gladiola are flat on the ground and the morning glory trellis has blown over, pulling the plants with it. Ugly toadstools sprout everywhere among the ruins and the slugs are having a field day. It’s all doom and gloom and if Judy hadn’t decided to bring up a casserole from the freezer, Ginny Mustard having wandered away into the fog before she made breakfast, they wouldn’t have known that Mr. Miflin is well into thaw mode, popsicle juice soaking all the way through the rug they wrapped him in.

  Tearing into the Barbie room, soaked to the knees, Judy practically screams her news. Dorrie says they just have to call a plumber and get him to pump it out, it’s not that big a deal. The others are a little more agitated than the situation warrants as far as she’s concerned and she tells them so. “Well,” screams Judy “That just goes to show what you know, Dorrie Blake. Mr. Miflin is thawing out faster than May snow down there and we’ll all be fucked if we don’t do something about it. Where’s Ruth? We have to find Ruth.”

  But Ruth is waiting for Patrick at the station, staring at a picture on the bulletin board. Leaping to her feet and out the door with no explanation to anyone when she recognizes the missing person. Racing into the house minutes later, yelling to the others to get down here right now we’ve got troubles like you wouldn’t believe, ripping photographs out of frames, off walls, flushing littie pieces down the toilet fast as you want. In Mrs. Miflin’s room looking for more. “Do you have any other pictures, Mrs. Miflin? We have to get rid of them now!” Oh God. Prays Patrick never makes the same connection. Prays please God. Please. Please. And Mrs. Miflin is howling from her bed. “Ruth. Stop it. What are you doing? What will I say when Mr. Miflin comes home and there’s none of our wedding pictures around? He’ll think I don’t love him.”

  Ruth is stunned. “What are you talking about? Ginny Mustard killed him. He’s frozen solid in the basement. In the freezer. Don’t you remember?”

  “Well actually,” says Judy. “He’s not all that solid anymore, Ruth. The basement flooded and the freezer stopped working. The casseroles are ruined too and all those chickens that Eve bought. What are we going to do Ruth? Won’t it start to smell bad soon?”

  “Well yes, Judy. It’s going to stink to high heaven, just like everything else in this Godforsaken place right now.” And Ruth sits on Mrs. Miflin’s bed. Puts her head in her hands and feels very small until Mrs. Miflin whacks her across the back with a crutch and tells them all to get the hell out of her room.

  Think. Think. Think. Ruth pulls herself together. Tells Maggie to look up a plumber in the phone book and ask him to get over here as fast as he can. Goes to the basement to survey the damage. It’s not so bad. No smell yet, anyway.

  “Judy. When he gets here you stay in the basement with him while he drains the water out. Sit on the freezer and make small talk.”

  “What about the rats?” asks Dorrie. “You should take a stick or something with you for the rats.”

  “There are no rats, Dorrie,” says Ruth. “We made that up so you wouldn’t find out about Mr. Miflin. Fat lot of good that did.”

  Since Ginny Mustard can never be sure she won’t tell secrets, she hasn’t said anything at all lately to Joe Snake but when she runs into him at the Sea View Tavern, decides to fill him in on the summer’s events. Tells him all about her baby and the kittens. How she shot Mr. Miflin. About Dorrie and the Barbie room. About Maggie’s mother coming and upsetting everybody being so mean when they were having such a nice tea party. Tells him about her money and the doctors saying she isn’t stupid anymore. Invites Joe Snake to come home and have some supper with them because she feels like cooking and thinks he could use some fattening up, being so thin. He accepts her invitation, thanks her for her generosity. They pick up a case of beer on the way.

  “Well this is just what we need,” moans Ruth when they arrive but she accepts a beer and sets another place at the table. Patrick calls to see why she hightailed it out of the station so fast and she has to tell him another lie about having a nasty stomach flu and she’ll be in bed, most likely, until tomorrow and it’s best if he not come over since she’d hate for him to pick up the germs too.

  If the friggin’ sun doesn’t come out soon I’ll hang myself,” says Judy and Ruth tells her to go right ahead, she’s sure there’s rope in the basement and if not she will personally go out and buy some for her.

  Eve wants them to come clean. This problem is way out of hand. “You can never go wrong telling the truth,” she says. “Though it will be hard on Ginny Mustard, I suppose.”

  Joe Snake speaks up. “You’re probably better off just getting rid of the body. You’ll all be considered accessories to the crime. Why don’t you bury him in the back yard? Plant a few bushes over him. As long as everybody can keep a secret, it should work.”

  “Well, it seems to me there are already too many people in on this secret. We’ll have to live in each other’s pockets to make sure no one tells. Look what happens when Ginny Mustard goes out alone. She spills her guts to the first person she sees.”

  “Joe Snake is my friend. He can know He won’t tell.”

  “We can’t start digging until the rain stops. Dorrie, tomorrow you and Maggie buy some kind of bushes or trees or some-thing that we can plant over him. Ginny Mustard you’ll have to pay for them. Tell them what to get, Eve. You’re the only one around here who knows about growing things.”

  “But I really wish we could tell the police what happened, Ruth. It is starting to wear on my conscience.”

  “You didn’t do anything, Eve. Stop fretting. Unle
ss someone has a better idea, we’ll stick him in the ground and that will be that.”

  When Joe Snake says that he wasn’t really serious about burying the body, Ruth ignores him.

  It’s a sorry lot that greets Patrick when he comes to see how Ruth is feeling. Glum and nervous in the sitting room. Quiet. Kittens racing up and down the heavy curtains and no one telling them to stop. Dishes still on the table, and pots dirty in the kitchen. Ruth doesn’t care that he ignored her warning to stay away but does nothing to make him feel welcome either and he leaves after a quick beer. Gives Joe Snake a ride to his rooming house.

  Finally sunshine but there’s autumn all over it. Everything green looks tired, ready to quit this party and rest up for the next one. Judy sniffs the air like a cat when she steps outside to help decide where the new trees will go. A weeping birch is what Eve wants and a blue spruce. They take turns digging. There’s only one shovel and it’s too late to tell Dorrie and Maggie, off in search of trees, to buy another. The going is tough and muddy. Huge rocks have to be removed before the hole is deep enough. They wait until dark to fill it. Cover their secret. Father Delaney is up all night with his rheumatism, sitting out back at the rectory with his glasses on. Watching.

  When Patrick comes to the door next morning they are still sleeping. If Ruth hadn’t flushed all the pictures away he might never have put two and two together. But the missing pictures and pictures of the missing got into his dreams and, as he likes to put it, his spidey senses are tingling. In his hand is the photo of an odd-looking fellow, a vagrant, the kind few will admit to knowing. But someone in the world has reported his disappearance. No one who cares much mind, just another odd fellow who claims this one owes him money and filed a report. When he woke, Patrick added forty years to the newly-wed face in Mrs. Miflin’s photo-graphs and came up with the unknown hangashore on his office wall. When he got to work, old Father Delaney was waiting to report some strange happenings last night on Bishop’s Road.