by M C Beaton
“There are new people at the Willets’s place,” said the doctor, pouring brown sauce over his steak and ketchup over his chips. He pulled away the wine bottle and poured himself a glass. Angela’s book fell over.
“I said there are new people at the Willets’s place,” repeated her husband.
His wife’s dreamy eyes focussed on him. “I suppose I had better go and welcome them tomorrow,” she said. “I’ll bake them a cake.”
“You’ll what? When could you ever bake a cake?”
Angela sighed. “I’m not a very good housekeeper, am I? But on this occasion, I am I going to be good. I bought a packet of cake mix. I can simply follow the instructions.”
“Suit yourself. Priscilla Halburton-Smythe called down at the surgery to pick up a prescription for I her father. She drove straight off afterwards.”
“And?”
“Well, she’s been back over a week and she hasn’t called at the police station once.”
“Poor Hamish. Why does he bother? He’s an attractive man.”
“Priscilla’s a very beautiful girl.”
“Yes, isn’t she,” said Angela in a voice which held no trace of envy. “Maybe I’ll bake a cake for Hamish, too.”
“The fire extinguisher’s above the stove, remember,” cautioned her husband. “The time you tried to make jam, everything went up in flames.”
“It won’t happen again,” said Angela. “I must have been thinking about something else.”
She rose to her feet and opened the fridge door and took out two glass dishes of trifle which she had bought that day at the bakery. The trifle consisted of rubbery custard, thin red jam, and ersatz cream. The doctor ate it with enjoyment and washed it down with Chianti and then lit a cigarette.
He was in his fifties, a slim, dapper little man with a balding head, light blue eyes, a freckled face, and dressed in shabby tweeds that he wore winter and summer.
After dinner, the couple moved through to the living-room while the cat roamed over the kitchen table, sniffing at the dirty plates.
The fire had gone out. Angela never raked out the ashes until the fireplace became so full of them that the fire would not light. She knelt down in front of the hearth and began to shovel out piles of grey ash into a bucket.
“Why bother?” said the doctor. “Light the electric fire.”
“Good idea,” said Angela. She rose to her feet, leaving ash all over the hearth and plugged in the fire and switched it on. Despite the warm weather, their house was always cold. It was an old cottage with thick walls and stone floors. Angela then went back to the table, absent-mindedly patted the cat, picked up her book, returned to the living-room, and began to read again.
The doctor had learned to live with his wife’s messy housekeeping. He would have been very surprised could he have known that Angela often felt she could not bear it any longer.
Often she thought of getting down to it and giving the place a thoroughly good clean, but a grey depression would settle on her. For relaxation she had once enjoyed reading women’s magazines but now she could not even bear to look at one, the glossy pictures of perfect kitchens and fresh net curtains making her feel desperately inadequate.
But on the following morning after she had served up her husband’s breakfast – fried black pudding, haggis, bacon, sausages, fried bread, and two eggs – she felt a lifting of her heart. She had a Purpose. She would behave as a good wife should and bake a cake and take it over to the new neighbours.
When she settled down to read the instructions on the back of the packet of Joseph’s Ready Mix, she experienced a strong feeling of resentment. If it was indeed a ‘ready mix’ then why did she have to add eggs and milk and salt and all these fiddly things that should have been in the packet already?
She searched around for the cake tin and then remembered the dogs were using it as a drinking bowl. She threw out the water and put the dogs’ water in a soup bowl instead, wiped out the cake tin with a paper towel, greased it, and started to work.
That afternoon, she set out for the Willets’s place – no, Thomas’s place, she reminded herself – feeling very proud of herself. She held in front of her, like a crown on a cushion, a sponge cake filled with cream.
There seemed to be a lot of activity around the old Victorian villa. Archie Maclean, one of the local fishermen, was carrying in a small table, Mrs Wellington, the minister’s wife, was cleaning the windows, and Bert Hook, a crofter, was up on the roof, clearing out the gutters.
The front door was open, and Angela walked inside. A tall woman approached her. “My name’s Trixie Thomas,” she said. “Oh, what a beautiful cake. We adore cake, but what with us being unemployed and living on government handouts, we’ve had to cut out luxuries like this.”
Angela introduced herself and felt a rush of pride when Trixie said, “In fact, we’re ready for a coffee break. We’ll have it now.”
She led the way into the kitchen. Her husband, Paul, was washing down the walls. “All the poor dear’s fit for,” said Trixie in a rueful aside. She raised her voice, “Darling, here’s the doctor’s wife with a delicious cake. We’ll take a break and have some coffee. Sit down, Angela.”
Angela sat down at a table covered with a bright red-and-white checked gingham cloth. Bluebottles buzzed against the window. “You should get a spray,” said Angela. “The flies are dreadful today.”
“I think there’s been enough damage to the ozone layer already,” said Trixie. “What I need are some old–fashioned fly papers.”
She was making coffee in what looked like a brand-new machine. “I grind my own beans,” she said over her shoulder. Paul was already seated at the table, looking at the cake like a greedy child. “Now, just a small piece, mind,” cautioned his wife. “You’re on a diet.”
Angela watched Trixie with admiration. Trixie was wearing a sort of white linen smock with large pockets over blue jeans and sneakers. Her sneakers were snow white without even a grass stain on them. Angela tugged miserably at her crumpled blouse, which had ridden up over the waistband of her baggy skirt, and felt messy and grubby.
“Now, for the cake,” said Trixie, bringing out a knife. Paul hunched over the table, waiting eagerly.
The knife sank into the cake. Trixie tried to lift out a slice. It was uncooked in the middle. A yellowy sludge oozed out.
“Oh, dear,” said Angela. “You can’t eat that. I don’t know how that could have happened. I followed the instructions on the packet so carefully.”
“It’s all right,” said Paul quickly. “I’ll eat it.”
“No, you won’t,” said Trixie, giving Angela a conspiratorial ‘men!’ sort of smile.
“I’m hopeless,” mourned Angela.
“Don’t worry. I’ll show you how to make one. It’s just as easy to make a cake from scratch as it is with one of these packets. And it was a lovely thought.” Trixie moved the cake out of her husband’s reach. He gave a sigh and lumbered to his feet and went back to work.
“I can’t do anything right,” said Angela. “I am utterly useless about the house. It’s like a rubbish bin.”
“You’ve probably let it go too far,” said Trixie with quick sympathy. “Why don’t you get someone in to clean?”
“Oh, I couldn’t. You see, it’s so awful, I’d need to make a start on it myself before any cleaning woman could see what she was doing.”
“I’ll help you.” Trixie smiled at Angela. “I feel we are going to be friends.”
Angela coloured up and turned briefly away to hide the look of embarrassed gratification on her face. She had never fitted in very well with the women of the village. In fact, she had never talked to anyone before about how she felt about her dirty house. “I really couldn’t expect you to help me, Trixie,” said Angela, feeling quite modern and bold because people in the village called each other by their surnames, Mr or Mrs This and That, until they had known each other for years.
“I’ll strike a bargain with you,” sai
d Trixie. “I’ll nip back to your house with you and if you can let me have any old sticks of furniture you were thinking of throwing out, I’ll take that as payment.”
“Lovely,” said Angela with a comfortable feeling she had not experienced since a child of being taken in hand.
But as they walked to the doctor’s house, Angela began to wish she had not let Trixie come. She thought of the ash still spilling over the hearth on to the carpet and of all the sinister grease lurking in the kitchen.
Angela strode in, rolling up her sleeves. She walked from room to room downstairs and then said briskly, “Now, the best thing to do is just get started and don’t think about anything else.”
And Trixie worked. Her hands flew here and there. She was amazingly competent. Grease disappeared, surfaces began to gleam, books flew back up on the shelves. It was all magic to Angela, who felt she was watching a sort of Mary Poppins at work. She blundered around after her fiew mentor, cheerfully doing everything she was instructed to do as if the house were Trixie’s and not her own.
“Well, we’ve made a start,” said Trixie at last.
“A start!” Angela was amazed. “It’s never been so clean. I just don’t know how to thank you.”
“Perhaps you’ve got an old piece of furniture you don’t want?”
“Of course.” Angela looked about her helplessly. “There must be something somewhere.”
“What about that old chair in the corner of your living room?”
“You mean that thing?” The chair was armless with a bead-and-needlework cover.
Angela hesitated only a moment. It had been her grandmother’s but no-one ever sat on it and her gratitude for this new goddess of the household was immense. “Yes, I’ll get John to put it in the station wagon and run it over to you this evening.”
“No need for that.” Trixie lifted it in strong arms. “I’ll carry it.”
Despite Angela’s protests that it was too heavy for her, Trixie headed off. Angela followed her to the garden gate. She wanted to say, “When will I see you again?” and felt as shy as a lover. Dr Brodie was often away on calls and she spent much of her life alone. She had never worked since the day of her marriage to the young medical student, John Brodie, thirty years ago. They had been unable to have children. Angela’s parents were dead. She felt she had somehow only managed to muddle through the years of her marriage with books as her only consolation.
Trixie turned at the gate. “See you tomorrow,” she said.
Angela grinned, her thin face youthful and happy.
“See you tomorrow,” she echoed.
Constable Hamish Macbeth was leaning on his garden gate as Trixie went past, carrying the chair.
“Need any help?” he called.
“No, thanks,” said Trixie, hurrying past.
Hamish looked at her retreating figure. Where had he seen that chair? His mind ranged over the interiors of the houses in Lochdubh. The doctor’s! That was it.
He ambled along the road to the doctor’s house and went around to the side, no-one in the Highlands except the Thomases bothering to use the front door.
“Come in, Hamish,” called Angela, seeing the lanky figure of the red-haired policeman lurking in the doorway. “Like a cup of coffee?”
“Yes, please.” Hamish eased himself into the kitchen, and then blinked in surprise. He had never seen the Brodies’ kitchen look so clean. Angela bubbled over with enthusiasm as she told him of Trixie’s help.
“Was that your chair she was carrying?” asked Hamish.
“Yes, the poor things have very little furniture. They want to start a bed-and-breakfast place. It was just a tatty old thing of my grandmother’s.”
Hamish thought quickly. Someone setting up a bed-and-breakfast establishment usually wanted old serviceable stuff. He wondered uneasily whether the chair was valuable. But he did not know anything about antiques.
Flies buzzed about the kitchen.
“I should have kept the door shut,” said Angela. “Wretched flies.”
“You’ve got a spray there,” pointed out Hamish.
“These sprays make holes in the ozone layer,” said Angela.
“I suppose so. But it’s hard to think of the environment when you haff the kitchen full of the beasties,” said Hamish whose Highland voice became more sibilant when he was upset, and somehow he felt that that remark about the ozone layer originally came from Trixie. And yet Trixie was right, so why should he feel so resentful?
After some gossip, Hamish got up and left. A thin drizzle was falling. The sky was weeping over the loch, but the air was warm and clammy.
And then he saw a Volvo parked at the side of the police station and Priscilla just getting out of it. He broke into a run.
∨ Death of a Perfect Wife ∧
2
O Love! has she done this to thee?
What shall, alas! become of me?
—John Lyly.
He slowed his pace as he neared the police station and tried to appear casual although his mouth was dry and his heart was thumping against his ribs.
Then just before he reached her, his pride came to his rescue. He, Hamish Macbeth, was not going to run after a woman with such abysmal taste that she could become starry-eyed over a man who looked like an ape.
“Evening, Priscilla,”he said.
“Open the kitchen door quickly,” said Priscilla. “I’m being eaten alive. Why do the midges leave you alone?”
“I’m covered in repellent,” said Hamish. “The door’s unlocked anyway. No need to wait for me. What brings you?”
Priscilla sat down at the kitchen table and pushed back the hood of her anorak. “Father thought I ought to call on the newcomers,” she said.
Of course, thought Hamish bleakly, and while you’re playing lady of the manor, drop in on the local bobby at the same time.
“What did you think of them?” he asked, putting on the kettle.
“They seem very pleasant. She’s got quite a forceful personality. Dr Brodie’s wife was helping her get things arranged. Mrs Brodie’s delighted to find a friend at last, of course.”
“Why of course?” Hamish measured tea leaves into the teapot with a careful hand.
“Mrs Brodie’s a lonely woman. She should have been one of those vague academics, writing her thesis and taking yet another degree or doctorate. Lots of brains and no self-confidence and very little common-sense. Trixie Thomas has taken her over with a firm hand. She’s going to perm her hair for her tomorrow.”
“She shouldn’t have a perm,” said Hamish. “That baby hair of hers suits her.”
“Oh, well, she’s happy and perms grow out,” said Priscilla.
Hamish handed her a cup of tea, poured one for himself, and sat down opposite her at the table.
“And what do you make of the husband, Paul?” he asked.
“Nice man. Bit of a helpless child. Seems Trixie’s got a hard job managing him and all the arrangements for the bed and breakfast.”
“Or that’s the way she plays it,” said Hamish. “Has she asked you for any furniture?”
“As a matter of fact she did. But I told her she’d need to see my father. I don’t own any of it.”
“I hear you’ve been back for over a week.”
Priscilla looked at Hamish’s hazel eyes, which were calm and appraising.
“I meant to get down and see you sooner,” she said defensively, “but time seemed to fly past. I’ve got these friends up with me. They’re leaving tomorrow.”
“Who are they?”
“Oh, just friends. Sarah James and her sister, Janet, David Baxter, and John Burlington.”
“I saw them,” said Hamish casually. “I was driving past. Who’s the hairy fellow?”
“You mean the good-looking one with the tanned face? That’s John.”
“What does he do?”
“He’s a very successful stockbroker.”
“Looks a bit old for a yuppie.”
“Hamish, I wouldn’t have thought you would be the type to sneer at yuppies. He’s not exactly young, he’s thirty.”
“Nearly as old as me,” said Hamish dryly.
“Anyway, he’s very hard-working and ambitious. He’s bought this brill farmhouse in Gloucester for weekends and he’s going to take me down to see it when I get back in September. I’m studying computers. My course starts up again in the autumn.”
“And you’re in love with him,” said Hamish flatly.
Priscilla coloured up. “I don’t know. I think so.”
All in that moment, Hamish could have struck her. If she had said, “Yes,” then that would have been the end of hope and he could learn to be comfortable. But Hamish knew people in love were never in any doubt about it and he cursed her in his heart for the hope she had so unwittingly held out.
He had no claim on her. As far as Priscilla was concerned, they were friends, nothing more.
Priscilla changed the subject. “After that business in Cnothan, I thought you would have got a promotion.”
“I told you, I don’t want a promotion. I’m very comfortable here.”
“Hamish, there seems something very…well…immature about a man who doesn’t want to get on.”
“You’re hardly a dynamo of ambition yourself, Miss Halburton-Smythe, or are you just an old–fashioned girl who wants to realize her ambition by marrying an ambitious man?”
“This tea’s foul,” said Priscilla. “And you’re foul. You’re usually so friendly and pleasant.”
“Priscilla, you naff jist called me an immature layabout and you expect me to be pleasant!”
“So I did.” She put a hand on his jersey sleeve.
“I’m sorry, Hamish. Let’s start again. I have just arrived, you have just poured me a cup of something made out of sawdust, and we are talking about the Thomases.”
Hamish grinned at her in sudden relief. He prized their usual easygoing friendship and did not want to lose it.
Priscilla smiled back and then sighed. Hamish was tall and gangly and lanky and unambitious. But when he smiled and his hazel eyes crinkled up in his thin face, he seemed part of an older, cleaner world that John Burlington knew nothing about and could never belong to.