The Widows Club

by Dorothy Cannell

  The pub door crashed open; a voice broke over the gabbling. “Terrible accident… building under reconstruction… half the bloody floor caved in… poor devil fell forty feet! Someone said his wife was here in town… anyone seen her?”

  I forgot the Raincoat Man. My legs felt like they were dissolving. The carpenters had warned Ben that the attic floor of Abigail’s was unsafe.

  From the Files of

  The Widows Club

  WRITTEN REPORT FROM MRS. M. SMITH RE:

  MRS. SHIRLEY DAFFY, 15th December

  I trust the Board and our venerable President will appreciate I imply no criticism when reporting that Mrs. Daffy is upset over the failure of The Widows Club to admit her to its ranks. As her contact, I have explained that some men cling to life after everything humanly possible has been done to remove it from their grasp.

  I have attempted to boost her spirits with the old adage, third time lucky. But I feel that Mrs. Daffy is in need of special moral support. I, therefore, request that we make an exception and allow her to participate in club functions even though she has not been initiated or received her badge. Inclusion in the bus trip to Skegness might do her the world of good.

  Respectfully submitted,

  Mabel Smith

  Notation by Millicent Parsnip, Recording Secretary:

  Suggestion vetoed by the Board, but a basket of fruit sent to Mrs. Daffy.

  12

  … “The accident victim, was, of course, neither Ben nor cousin Fredrick,” supplied Hyacinth. “It was that cat-o’-nine-lives, Mr. Vernon Daffy. He had gone to look at a house scheduled to be condemned and suffered only a few fractured ribs in the fall, I understand.”

  “According to his receptionist, as reported in The Daily Spokesman, someone had telephoned to say the town council might change its mind about demolition. Mr. Daffy could get lucky, if he put in a quick bid on the building.”

  “His wife was where?” Hyacinth separated a couple of pages in the notebook which had stuck together.

  “Having her hair done at Sidney’s, but apparently she quite frequently stopped at The Dark Horse. She and Mrs. Hanover are chummy.”

  “The man in the raincoat interests me.” Primrose adjusted the shawl around her narrow shoulders and fingered her Mickey Mouse watch. “Foolish creature to be so conspicuous but men don’t have our flair for disguise…”

  We were in the drawing room sipping our predinner sherry. Freddy had joined us for dinner, yet again, that evening. After discussing Mr. Daffy’s close call, I mentioned Miss Thorn’s news concerning Vanessa’s recent trips to Chitterton Fells, notably St. Anselm’s. Freddy scratched at his chef’s hat (which he wore everywhere these days, even on the motorbike) and said, “Guess this means we’ll have to invite dear old Vinegar for Christmas; can’t have the neighbors chinwagging about our neglect.” He licked the inside of his glass. “Ah, well, shouldn’t be too bad if we include the worthy Reverend Rowland and the gruesome church organist. It might even be fun watching Vin hone her wit on their deadly dull lives.”

  Getting up from the Queen Anne chair, I set my glass on the mantel. “Nice of you to take on the burden of planning Christmas, Freddy.” I ignored Ben’s look. “Will Jill be joining us, too?”

  “No.” Freddy punched down his hat. “We agreed when we parted on total noncommunication, except of a telepathic nature, until the eighteenth of May. My birthday.”

  “Shrewd move.” Ben gathered the glasses onto the silver salver. “Ellie, perhaps you should get in touch with Vanessa. If she’s been coming down here, she must be very much at loose ends. And it does look bad, our not having her over even for tea.”

  “All right… darling.” Anything else would have sounded insecure. I read his eyes; he was already orchestrating that tea, succulent shrimp toasts, gooseberry tarts. Vanessa would rave while I said the radishes tasted fresh. Damn. It would have been so much easier if Ben had been a banker or an undertaker.

  “Freddy, want to give me a hand with dinner?” Ben picked up the salver. “Ellie, sweetheart, put your feet up and relax.”

  Nothing is more tension-inducing than striving to relax. I stared at the closed door. Phoning Vanessa might be an improvement. First, I would ask Ben how many minutes we should invite her to stay.

  The kitchen door was ajar and I heard him say, “Darn it, Freddy, of course I’m worried about my mother, but I don’t want Ellie to think-” The electric mixer blared on. “You know how she’s been lately.”

  Tobias came meowing down the hall. He’d get me caught eavesdropping on my own husband. “You know how she’s been lately;” that had to mean since the wedding. I scooped up Tobias. Was it possible Ben, too, had noted the absence of violins? But supposing he had. Surely he wouldn’t discuss anything of so intimate a nature with Freddy, of all people. Wait-hadn’t I read that men did that sort of thing? Engaging in male-bonding conversations such as, “I say, old chap, been having a spot of bother with the wife. Isn’t twanging as she should.”

  Everything I had read in Marriage Takes Two stressed the importance of confronting issues head-on, before insecurities grew like weeds and took over the marital flower garden.

  I scratched Tobias’s ears and told both of us that Ben had only meant I was depressed about Dorcas and Jonas leaving. A secure wife wouldn’t resent his talking to Freddy about me-or his mother.

  I went to the phone and dialed. She answered at the exact moment I felt justification in hanging up.

  “Hello, Vanessa.”

  “Oh, it’s you. Imagine you’ve heard I’ve seen the light. It happened when I saw my first miracle, your wedding. Ellie, don’t screw up your face like that; it makes your cheeks bag.”

  “I am not.” Now I would spend the rest of this bloody conversation kneading my cheeks.

  “You will remember, Ellie, that Mummy was being particularly obnoxious that day, trying to seduce that suit of armour. I don’t know how I could have borne the anguish”-Vanessa yawned into the phone-“if Reverend Foxworth hadn’t been so divinely Kind. He made me finally see what I have been missing all my life-spiritually speaking.”

  Naturally he had been kind to her. She was my cousin. I gritted my teeth. “Vanessa, you are welcome to stay at Merlin’s Court whenever you are in Chitterton Fells.”

  “Have you left it to me in your will?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then I don’t think so, thank you. As I said to someone-I think it was Reverend Foxworth-Ben and Ellie only have a couple of dozen bedrooms; I would feel I was intruding.”

  Stuffing the telephone cord into my mouth, I clawed at the air. Calm again, I said, “So you couldn’t manage Christmas?”

  “Let me check my calendar.” A pause. “No, darling, I have other plans.”

  Good. I would invite Rowland and Miss Thorn.

  * * *

  Both declined with regret. Previous engagements. Ben’s father didn’t, of course, celebrate the twenty-fifth of December and explained over the phone to me that this was a very busy time for him, selling Christmas trees.

  “On Christmas Day?”

  “A lot of last-minute shoppers.”

  “Any word from Mrs… Mum?”

  “Paris got another card a couple of days ago.”

  She had been absent almost a month and still no word for Ben. It really was awful, but when I tried to console him he got snappish, saying it was clear his mother did not wish to put him in the middle. How could a postcard put him in the middle?

  Speaking of the mail, I had heard from my Chicago correspondent, Dorcas.

  Dear Ellie old sock,

  Best way to describe this place is tall and cold. Breath freezes to your face. But natives are charming. Get bombarded with such questions as, do we Brits have hot and cold running water? Inside loos? Can’t count the times I’ve been told I speak English frightfully well for a foreigner. Our monetary system also fascinates them. Want to know what’s a sixpence, a shilling and a farthing. Get frightfully disa
ppointed when I say the old coinage has gone the way of the bustle. Now Ellie, no need to worry about Jonas, unless you are averse to baseball caps and TV dinners-only food the man eats anymore. You have my word-won’t let him out of the apartment until weather breaks. Enjoyed all news in your last letter. How is the household help situation?

  Ah, yes. During the latter days of December we had received several applications in response to our ‘Help Wanted’ advertisement in The Daily Spokesman. The first woman, a Mrs. Philips, was aged. How would I ever be able to leave her alone in the house, let alone see her wheezing into her bucket? For her interview I sat her in the rocking chair, fed her lunch, and heard how she was working to buy a knitting machine, something she had always craved.

  The next day I had one sent to her anonymously and proceeded to interview Mrs. Hodgkins, who was young and stalwart, but wanted to bring her boxer dog, Alfred. Personally, I didn’t object, but Tobias is rather given to these silly prejudices.

  The upshot of these negative experiences was that when Mrs. Roxie Malloy presented herself on the back doorstep, on the twenty-seventh of January (Christmas had been pleasant but nothing to write about), I didn’t say the position had been filled.

  “Well, what’s it to be, Mrs. H., am I to be left standing on the step like a milk bottle?”

  Time is a great mellower. The memory of how she had taken an uppish attitude when Freddy threatened to jump from the tower on my wedding day had scabbed over.

  Which doesn’t mean I clasped Mrs. M. to my bosom and begged her not to leave us till retirement. She entered the kitchen carrying an enormous bag containing “me supplies, Mum.” Off came her coat, revealing her tree trunk figure compressed into a bronze-and-black taffeta cocktail suit, its hem three inches lower at the rear. She wore stacked black suede shoes, and so many rings I doubted she could bend her fingers. While I put her coat on a chair, she toted the bag over to the table, stepped out of her shoes, and disparagingly assessed the navy Aga cooker, the wallpaper with its wheatsheaf pattern, and Ben’s beloved copper pans.

  “Husband not home?”

  “He’s at work.”

  “Quite a superior establishment, this”-a hiccup punctuated this observation and confirmed my suspicion that she had diluted her morning orange juice with gin-“and in a fairly salubrious neighborhood, but we both know that anyone deciding to work here would have their work cut out for them.” Exhausted by the prospect, Mrs. Malloy sagged into a chair and lit up a fag.

  “Work cut out for you?” The place gleamed. I had spent hours keeping everything shipshape for the stream of candidates.

  “Got a lot of dust traps.” Mrs. Malloy waved a ring-encrusted hand past the greenery curtaining the window, to the shelf containing Ben’s collection of Victorian mixing bowls. “But should Roxie Malloy decide to take you on, you won’t have reason to complain.”

  Picking up a wooden spoon, I struck out at an imaginary insect. “Mrs. Malloy, I am happy to discuss the position with you, but I do anticipate other applicants.”

  “Don’t see them knee-deep at the door, do we? But suit yourself, Mrs. H.” She heaved to her feet and stubbed out the cigarette in a plant pot. “You won’t find many with my credentials. Two mornings a week I do the executive toilets at The Daily Spokesman.”

  “The Daily Spokesman? You wouldn’t happen to know the Felicity Friend?”

  Mrs. Malloy smacked her raspberry lips. “We have met in the course of my work; to say more would be a violation of me code of ethics. Three evenings I do the offices of Bragg, Wiseman & Smith, which tells you I can keep me eyes and hands to meself, all those documents sitting around; though who could make top nor tail of them I don’t know. That poor Lady Peerless. But I suppose these modern typewriters do Latin and such. And an old maid like her, she’ll have the hot chills for him.”

  “Who’s ‘him’?” I asked, feeling horribly low.

  “Mr. Greek God, Lionel Wiseman, but I doubt she’s got lucky. Not with him being married to the blond chorus girl-if they are married, which some in these here parts doubt.” Mrs. Malloy heaved a sigh. “On the subject of men-your husband isn’t the sort who makes a nuisance of himself, I trust?”

  Here was my out. I heaved an echoing sigh.

  “Unfortunately, Mrs. Malloy, you have touched upon the one drawback to this job. He will be home sometimes during the day. Cooking.” I made the last word sound as sinister as I could.

  “Mrs. H., you don’t grasp my meaning.” Roxie Malloy adjusted the diamanté clasp on her rope of pearls. “I don’t care a farthing what sort of floury muddle the man makes, so long as he cleans up after himself. Now was I married to the man”-she picked up a Victorian mixing bowl and inspected it-“I might feel all me femininity being sapped away, never getting to open a tin of peas. But what interests me is whether or not Mr. H. is given to lecherous advances. Having buried three husbands, I’m giving up men. Undependable lot.” She pinned me to the wall with her gaze. “So, give it to me straight, Mrs. H. Can you vouch for your man?”

  “My husband is completely harmless.” The words came out like bullets.

  “I’d guessed as much. Women aren’t his type… of vice.” Her eyelids fluttered. “But then-I’ve been known to bring out the beast in men a bishop would swear to. Still, I’ve put me cards smack on the table. And I’m giving you a month’s trial. Can’t say fairer than that, can I?”

  “Well-”

  “Only reason I’ve got any spare days is that one of my ladies, Mrs. Woolpack, has gone batty and is in hospital.”

  And so she joined our happy home.

  Of course, even with Roxie coming in two mornings a week, there was plenty to do in the house.

  Every Thursday afternoon was aerobics class. Bunty had phoned me immediately after our curtailed lunch at The Dark Horse to solicit me as a pupil. When I had said that the Historical Society was more my speed, she had responded, “That lot! They weren’t born, they were exhumed; and their leader is Mrs. Bottomly!” The magic words.

  Three years previously, a foray into the world of organized exercise had resulted in a week off work and a plea for forgiveness to my body. But as this new year got underway, I was determined to make good. If I could once learn to hop and bob in time with the rest of the group and stop smacking the woman next to me in the face with my foot each time I did a leg lift, I would be a marginal student. Bunty was an exuberant teacher. The rest of the class found her instructions easy to follow. I found the sight of her legs kicking to the ceiling demoralizing. All I wanted was to pull in, firm out, and be able to eat a little more, so Ben wouldn’t look so wounded when I tried to hide the potatoes under the parsley sprigs.

  All of Bunty’s students were to be in the burlesque routine she was planning for the middle of May, benefits going to the St. Anselm’s youth group. And I was assigned a starring role, one which had the advantage of keeping me offstage much of the time. I was to leap out of a cake and cry, “Ta-Ta!” in the scene entitled Bachelor Party. The cake would supposedly have been baked by Ben. A little free advertising, which a good wife could not refuse.

  Another plus was that I got to know Ann Delacorte better; she did wardrobe and sets for all the St. Anselm’s productions. She loved theatre, which helped in this case because for some reason she did not love Bunty Wiseman.

  Ann appeared to have only one friend, Millicent Parsnip, the tabby woman who had been with Amelia Bottomly on the train. And although no one could replace Dorcas as a confidante, I needed a woman to talk to. The marriage manuals, I was discovering, often focused on the obvious, and I already possessed the sophistication not to wear rollers, a face mask, and flannel pyjamas to bed or devour onions by the plateful-even though they are low in calories and make a pleasing change from naked lettuce. Where I needed instruction was in how to deal with the revelation that after only a few months of marriage Ben did not think of me exclusively twenty-four hours a day. Equally saddening was my own growing indifference. I found I no longer begrudged him
the occasional drink with Freddy at The Dark Horse. And on those evenings when he retreated to the study with his recipe collection, I could quite happily occupy myself with a book or sketch pad until it was time to go upstairs and fill my bath with Essence of Orchid. Was it possible that after four months our marriage was developing middle-aged spread?

  I didn’t verbalize all this to Ann or confide in her my concerns about my missing mother-in-law or remark that Ben put the shutters down when I brought up the subject of his parents’ separation. Rather, Ann confided in me, taking my mind off myself, giving me a sense of perspective. On Thursdays, after aerobics class, she would accompany me on expeditions for Abigail’s accoutrements. Usually we took her cute bottle-green Morris Minor, because I had still not persuaded Ben to bury Heinz and get a new vehicle. But on an afternoon in mid-April, I drove because Ann’s car was in the garage.

  “If we can make it to the village,” I assured her as we lurched through the church gates, “we should be all right. Usually when the sweet old thing conks out, he does so during the first five hundred yards.”

  “Nice, though-having a convertible.” Ann put on a pair of dark glasses and hugged up the collar of her beaver coat.

  Gracious, as usual; Ann knew this car did not convert. Its roof was permanently compressed into accordion folds. Ideal for Ben with his claustrophobia.

  “Ellie, do you have to stop in at Abigail’s and get that sample of tile for the ladies’ room from Ben?”

  “Actually, no.” I downshifted. “Ben vetoed… I mean, we mutually agreed last night that I should look for something more restful in colour.” Biting my lip, I stared through the windscreen. All euphemisms aside, Ben and I had verged on a quarrel the previous evening. I hadn’t been able to get through to him that we didn’t want the customers taking forty winks while freshening up. At one point I had come close to raising my voice, above the level of what it was already raised; but then, bathrooms had become something of unhallowed ground for us. Twice that week I had caught Ben removing my still damp hose from the towel rail in the bathroom, and once I’d nabbed him in the act of stuffing them in a drawer. The wrong drawer!