Blueberry Muffins and Misfortune

by Agatha Frost

  Julia tried to smile, but she could not seem to un-wrinkle her brows. The ceiling creaked again, even louder than before. They all looked up as Johnny’s bulb flashed, but even he looked up, causing his camera to point down. This time, however, the creaking did not stop, and Julia saw the fibre tiles bulge towards them.

  “One more!” Johnny called as he held up the camera. “And try to look happy this time, Julia. This could be the cover shot if you smile.”

  Before Julia could smile, the creaking turned to a loud groan and the tiles gave way. In a flash, Julia felt herself being dragged backwards as something large and yellow fell through the ceiling in a cloud of dust and pieces of broken tile.

  The nearest light fitting exploded and swung loose, the tubular bulbs falling and smashing inches away from Johnny. He clicked the camera, but it seemed to be out of nervousness as he was not aiming it anywhere.

  A stunned silence fell across the library as the crowd formed in a circle around the settling dust. Julia felt both of Barker’s hands on her shoulders as she realised it had been him who had pulled her back. Izzy, on the other hand, had fallen to the ground and was covered head to toe in dust; nobody hurried to help her up.

  When the immediate shock wore off, Julia stared at what had caused the roof to cave in. It was a large roll of yellow ceiling insulation, the same as that hanging over the frayed edge of the hole, and the same stuff Julia had had fitted in her cottage’s roof when she had first moved in.

  “What -” Johnny mumbled as he looked down at his camera’s screen, his thumb clicking to zoom in. “Is that a –”

  Johnny turned his camera display to Julia to show her the picture he had taken in the panic. His eyes wandered down to the insulation as Julia’s did. She saw the same thing on screen as she did poking through the end of the roll.

  “Barker, call the station,” Julia whispered as chatter began to grow in the library. “We need to get this place cleared.”

  Before he could ask why, the roll of insulation bounced free from whatever had been binding it shut, and like a blossoming flower, it peeled back to reveal its contents. The smell came before Julia saw what she knew was wrapped inside.

  Izzy let out a shrill scream, which shuddered around the room as the rest of the spectators joined her. Julia stared down at what she could only describe as a mummified body, its shrivelled surface resembling leather more than skin.

  Johnny lifted his camera to snap a picture as hysteria spread around the room, but Julia placed her hand on the device and shook her head.

  “Let me through!” a familiar voice called from behind Julia. “You just stood on my foot, you animal!”

  Dot burst through the crowd, appearing between Julia and Barker. She shook out her short grey curls before pushing them up at the back.

  “I was in the bathroom, and I heard –” Dot said, stopping when her eyes landed on the new arrival. They immediately widened, and her mouth opened as though to scream, but she stopped herself and clutched the brooch holding her stiff blouse collar together. “Oh no! It can’t be!”

  Keeping her eyes on the ground and away from the body lying on its yellow mattress, Dot scurried around the mess and headed straight through the front door. Julia looked down at the body again, something metal catching her eye under its chin. The fabric had long-since disappeared, but a silver and green brooch sat where it would have as though it was still holding up a stiff collar.

  “It’s the same,” Julia said, looking at the door, and then up at Barker. “Barker, that’s my gran’s brooch.”

  3

  Leaving Barker to empty the library, Julia set off after Dot, only catching up with her outside Evelyn’s B&B.

  “Slow down!” Julia begged as she struggled to keep up with her octogenarian grandmother. “Where are you going?”

  “To the party!” she cried, her expression blank as she headed towards the village hall, her hand clenched around her brooch. “They invited me, but I didn’t feel right going. Oh, Julia! It’s her. It’s my poor Mabel!”

  “Mabel?” she echoed, the name ringing a bell. “Is that who you think just fell through the ceiling?”

  “I know it’s her,” Dot insisted, her fingers tightening around the brooch. “I should have known it wasn’t right. She would never have left me like she did. I should have pushed it.”

  Dot quickened her pace, leaving Julia jogging to keep up. When they reached the open gates of St. Peter’s Church, Dot slipped through and walked even faster towards the more modern village hall which had been built on the grounds in the 1970s. The balloons and banners Julia had noticed earlier were still there, and flashing disco lights shone through the frosted windows in the front doors while a chorus of ‘Y.M.C.A.’ echoed around the party.

  A woman with slightly yellowed, rabbit-like front teeth was leaning against the hall, a cigarette clenched between her lips as she puffed smoke out of the corner of her mouth. She had long, frizzy, straw-coloured hair with silvery strands of grey peppered throughout, and a full fringe that hung low over crinkled eyes. Just from her tight leopard-print blouse and short leather skirt, Julia knew she was not a resident of Peridale.

  “You’re a bit late,” the woman muttered through her cigarette as she squinted at Dot through a cloud of smoke. “Not that you’ve missed much. Don’t know why I bothered coming all this way, but your dad doesn’t turn ninety every day, does he?”

  “Donna?” Dot asked, narrowing her eyes at the woman. “Donna Crump?”

  The leopard-clad smoker dropped her cigarette to the ground and stamped it out with her open-toed wedge-shoes, her chipped polished toenails wiggling as she assessed Dot. A glimmer of recognition flashed across her face as she nodded slowly.

  “It’ll come to me,” Donna said, blowing the last of the smoke out of her lungs. “You used to run around with my mother, didn’t you? I remember you. Are you here to see my dad? You might want to save your time. He’s not all there upstairs if you get my drift.”

  “Have you seen Mabel recently?” Dot asked, her voice shaking as she clung even tighter to the brooch. “Or even heard from her?”

  “She’s not here if that’s what you’re hoping for,” Donna said with a hoarse chuckle that turned into a gritty cough, letting them know her cigarette habit had been a life-long one. “Haven’t heard from my mother in years. Have you?”

  Dot mumbled something to herself, her eyelids fluttering as she shook her head. Without responding, Dot burst through the doors as the ‘Y.M.C.A.’ turned into the ‘Cha Cha Slide’.

  “Is she alright?” Donna asked as she pulled out another cigarette before offering the packet to Julia. “They get batty at that age, don’t they? Do I know you too? You look familiar.”

  Julia gulped hard as she stared at Donna Crump, a memory from deep within her childhood surfacing. She had not recognised the weathered woman until hearing her name, but she was undeniably the same Donna Crump who had locked Julia under the stairs at her gran’s cottage for four hours while Dot had been out shopping; Donna had been fifteen and Julia had been five.

  “I don’t think so,” Julia said quickly, dropping her gaze before going after her gran.

  Leaving Donna to start her second cigarette, Julia walked into the village hall. There were a handful of children dancing in the middle of the room as colourful lights flashed around, but the adults were scattered on chairs around the edges, sipping their drinks and not talking to each other. Julia spotted Dot with a familiar looking man at the buffet table as he filled up a paper plate with sandwich triangles.

  “I haven’t seen her since she went to Spain ten years ago,” the man called over the music as Dot looked up at him hopefully. “Has she been in touch?”

  “She’s your mother, Keith!” Dot cried as she reached out and grabbed his wrist to stop him picking up another sandwich. “You must have heard something from her in the last decade.”

  Keith, who appeared to be in his sixties, looked down at Dot as he apparently tried to
think of the last time he had heard from his mother. He was wearing a slightly crinkled pale blue shirt, its buttons straining around his bulging stomach. He was completely bald, but a thick, grey moustache balanced above his top lip. Just like Donna, he had two rabbit-like front teeth that dug into his bottom lip. Circular glasses made his spherical face look even rounder, but his overweight appearance did not seem natural. The tightness of his skin made him look like a man who had recently gained a lot of weight instead of always having been that way. Somewhere within his plump face, Julia was sure she recognised something, as she had with Donna.

  “I haven’t heard from her since she ran off to Spain,” he replied as he pulled his hand away from Dot’s grip. “We were never that close.”

  Keith moved further down the buffet line towards a similarly aged woman who appeared to be missing an arm. He left Dot to look desperately around the party. Julia rested her hands on her gran’s arms and forced their eyes to meet.

  “Tell me what’s going on,” Julia urged with a soft smile. “Who’s Mabel? I recognise the name, but I can’t place it.”

  “Mabel Crump,” Dot started, gulping tightly. “You must remember her. You used to call her Auntie Mabel. She was my best friend.”

  “Auntie Mabel?” Julia whispered, her eyes glazing over as the memory box unlocked. “Of course! I’d forgotten about her.”

  “As it seems most people have.” Dot’s eyes searched the party as though looking for Mabel. “We met at the hospital in 1953. We were both having our first children, and they were both boys. She had Keith, and I had your father, Brian. They weren’t in such a rush to get you out of the hospital back then, so we had time to bond. Our beds were right next to each other on the ward. When we left, we became as thick as thieves. She was the sister I never had, although people said we were more like twins. It didn’t help that we were the same age, the same weight, and the same height. We even used to dress the same, but we were in on the joke. She wore a green and silver brooch to keep her collar together, and I always used to comment on how much I adored it.” Dot unclipped the brooch and turned it over to reveal a small engraving in the aged silver. “She bought me a matching one in the 80s. See here, it says ‘Mabel’s Shadow’. It was our little joke. Hers said ‘Dot’s Shadow’, and we always wore them. If you turn that brooch over on that body, you’ll see it.”

  “But I don’t understand how that’s her,” Julia said, her own memories of Mabel swirling around in her head. “If she moved to Spain, how did she just fall through the library ceiling?”

  “I don’t know, dear,” Dot said, her eyes searching the party again. “I always knew something wasn’t right. One day Mabel was here, and the next she wasn’t. All anyone could talk about was how she’d run off to Spain to live with a younger man! That was ten years ago, but Mabel wasn’t like that. She was seventy-three the last time I saw her, and she’d never mentioned anything about a Spanish lover, and she told me everything. Mabel worked at that library for forty years, and she wouldn’t have left that job without a fight. She didn’t leave me a note, and I never got a Christmas card, and she ran her Christmas card list like it was her mission from Jesus Christ himself. Ah! There he is!”

  Dot slipped away from Julia’s grip and scurried across the village hall through the group of dancing children, knocking one of the little girls over in the process like a bowling pin. Julia went to help the little girl, but she sprang up and continued dancing as though nothing had happened.

  Dot made her way to the corner of the hall, where an elderly man was sitting in a wheelchair, a birthday hat on his head. He had a vacant expression on his face as a thirty-something-year-old woman, who looked like a younger version of Donna right down to the teeth and leopard print, attempted to feed him birthday cake. A slightly younger woman in an Oakwood Nursing Home uniform was on the elderly man’s other side, but she was more interested in her mobile phone than the party.

  “C’mon, Grandad!” the older of the two women urged as she pushed the cake to the man. “Have a bite. We had it made especially for you. It’s your birthday.”

  “He doesn’t want any, Shannon,” the texting nurse snapped without looking up. “Leave him alone for once in your life. He’ll eat some when he’s hungry.”

  “Oh, be quiet, Kylie!” Shannon spat as she tossed the cake onto the table. “You don’t always know everything!”

  Kylie smirked as she rolled her eyes, her thumbs tapping nonstop on her phone screen. Despite them looking nothing alike, Julia could tell they were related from the way they spoke to each other. Whereas Shannon looked like Donna with frizzy straw-coloured hair and two prominent front teeth, Kylie had glossy, chocolaty hair, which looked dyed, and perfectly straight, pearly teeth. She looked uncomfortable in her nursing home uniform, making Julia wonder if it had been her first career choice or just something she had got stuck in just to pay the bills. Something about their hazel eyes looked the same, but if Julia had not seen them interact, she would not have thought they were related.

  “Peter?” Dot cried as she stepped towards the man, making both of the women look up. “Crikey, I’ve seen you looking better! I suppose I should say ‘Happy Birthday’.”

  Peter looked up at Dot, his watery eyes crinkling at the sides, his lips trembling as though he was trying to speak but couldn’t.

  “He had a stroke last month,” Kylie explained, finally putting her phone on the table. “We thought the party would cheer him up, but it’s not working. How do you know Grandad?”

  “I was friends with your grandmother, Kylie,” Dot said as she crouched in front of Peter’s wheelchair, her eyes searching the old man’s. “You used to call me Auntie Dorothy once upon a time. You too, Shannon.”

  The two women looked at each other and then at Dot as they seemed to realise who she was. Julia recognised their names, but they looked nothing like the little girls they were attached to in her memory. She had an inkling they were both Donna’s daughters, but she could not be sure.

  “Peter?” Dot whispered, her hand clutching his pale bony fingers. “Have you heard from Mabel?”

  “M-M-M-M-,” he stuttered.

  “Why would you ask him that?” Kylie snapped, batting Dot’s hand away. “He doesn’t need upsetting today of all days.”

  “Have you heard from her?” Shannon asked, jolting to the edge of her seat, her eyes darting open. “Have you heard from my grandma?”

  The music suddenly paused, the sound of sirens echoing from outside the village hall. Julia looked over at the DJ who was stabbing at the buttons on his laptop with a confused look.

  “Please, tell me that you’ve heard from her since she moved to Spain,” Dot urged, grabbing at Peter’s limp hand again. “Nod or shake your head if you can’t speak.”

  Kylie and Shannon stared at their grandfather, clearly annoyed by Dot’s questioning. Peter jerked his head as though he was about to nod, but his brows dropped, and his face jerked from side to side.

  At that moment, Barker burst into the village hall with Jessie next to him. Izzy trailed behind, still brushing off the dust from her pencil skirt. Their eyes immediately planted on Julia and Dot.

  “Gran, maybe we should –”

  “She’s dead,” Dot whispered, almost to herself. “Mabel really is dead.”

  “What?” Shannon cried, jumping up and knocking the paper plate with the untouched cake slice onto the floor. “Is this some twisted joke to make my grandad even sicker?”

  Barker approached slowly, his expression dark. Dot stood up and turned her attention to the new arrivals, her hand clutching her brooch again.

  “Something else fell through the roof after you left,” Barker said quietly, his hand on Julia’s arm. “A bag tumbled out with a passport in it. I think we have a positive ID on the party-crasher.”

  “It’s Mabel Crump, isn’t it?” Dot asked, the words catching in her throat. “My best friend, murdered and stuffed in a roof all this time!”

  Kylie, Shannon,
and Peter all looked expectantly at Barker, who could only offer a nod. As though it had only just become real, Dot’s hand clenched over her mouth as tears formed along her bottom lashes, while the two sisters stared at each other, frowning with their mouths open.

  “I don’t –,” Shannon started, but she was interrupted by a loud groan escaping her grandfather’s loose lips. His eyes fluttered back into his head as one of his hands sloppily batted at his chest as he slid out of his chair. “Grandad!”

  “I think he’s having a heart attack!” Kylie cried, jumping up, her hands disappearing into her glossy hair. “What have you done? Someone call an ambulance!”

  But Barker’s phone was already to his ear. As he instructed an ambulance to get to the village hall quickly, the music suddenly jolted back to life, and the jerky opening beats of ‘Mambo No. 5’ filled the room.

  4

  “Mabel would have loved all this drama,” Dot explained as she placed a teapot in the middle of the table. “It’s just a shame she’s the centre of attention, and yet -”

  Dot stopped to dab at her nose with the handkerchief that had been attached to her wrist with an elastic band all morning. After a little sniffle, she adjusted her brooch, stiffened her spine, and shuffled back into the kitchen.

  “I’ve never seen her this upset,” Sue whispered across the table as she fed Pearl from a bottle. “I don’t know how to act. Should I go after her?”

  “Give her some room to breathe,” said Neil, Sue’s husband, as he fed Dottie with a matching bottle. “I remember how close they were. Dot was always coming to the library to gossip with Mabel. If you’d have come in to see me like that, I’d have been fired, but I suppose Mabel made the rules and I just had to follow them.”

  Julia glanced through the net curtains as she poured herself a cup of tea from the pot. Her café sat across the village green, but she was spending her lunch break at Dot’s cottage while Jessie held the fort.