Auntie Mayhem

by Mary Daheim

  “Bangers.” She sighed. “Only the English and the Germans make them properly. And Italians and Austrians.”

  Joe, who was wearing a semi-hideous plaid bathrobe that his mother-in-law had chosen from a mail-order catalog as his Christmas gift, arched an eyebrow at his wife. “Bangers?” he inquired. “As in sausages? Or,” he went on, coming over to kneel on the bed and kiss his wife’s forehead, “as in me?”

  As ever, Judith melted. Thirty years later, Judith was still under Joe Flynn’s spell. “I love you,” she said simply. “I loved you in 1964, when Renie and I stayed at a—guess what?—a bed-and-breakfast in Clarges Street for eight dollars a night. It’s been torn down. But you’re still here. So am I.”

  “So’s London,” Joe Flynn remarked, nuzzling Judith’s temple. “So’s the rest of England and Scotland and Ireland and Wales. The only difference is, this place is costing us about twenty times as much. And they call it ‘moderately priced.’ Why don’t you jack up your fees so that we can actually afford this trip?”

  Judith let Joe’s hands explore the curves of her body. “Jack what?” she asked in a wispy voice.

  Joe chuckled, the low, rich sound that Judith loved so much. “At least we’ll get a tax break. I’ve worked all the Scotland Yard angles, including six hours at a desk, giving them my useless Colonialist opinion on unsolved cases. I didn’t solve anything, but I’ll get a written thank-you to show the IRS. Now you strut your stuff at that old house in…where is it? I forget.” The fact didn’t seem to perturb him. He buried his face in the curve of Judith’s neck.

  “Somerset.” Judith spoke dreamily, with one hand maneuvering the breakfast tray onto the floor. “You’ll catch…fish.”

  “Salmon,” Joe replied in a muffled voice. “In a stream. Nice.”

  “Very.” With a rapturous tremor, Judith dismissed salmon, Somerset, and spending from her mind. Everything was forgotten, including the soft rain that fell outside the Abbey Court. Within the hour, Judith and Joe would be parted. The separation would last a mere week, but for Judith, who had pined for Joe on her previous trip to England thirty years earlier, the loneliness seemed to hover over her like the leaden skies of London.

  Even after they had made love, Joe Flynn sensed his wife’s lingering melancholia. “Jude-girl,” he said, “what’s wrong? You seem off your feed. How can that be? You ate like Renie and you carried on like Madame de Pompadour.”

  The comparison, at least to Madame de Pompadour, made Judith roll her eyes. “It’s nothing to do with you, Joe. It’s the weekend at Ravenscroft House. I’m supposed to be some expert at fixing up old dumps with bad plumbing and inflammable electricity. Just because I did it with Hillside Manor doesn’t mean I can duplicate the renovation of some English country cottage. Besides, the Marchmonts can’t do anything until Claire’s ninety-four-year-old aunt dies. She’s got control of the money, and from what Renie and I gather, she’s kind of…difficult.”

  Joe was heading for the shower. He turned, his green eyes dancing. “A difficult old lady who actually owns the family house? What’s wrong? Don’t they have a toolshed?” Joe disappeared into the bathroom.

  “Mother’s not ninety-four,” Judith shouted after her husband. There was no reply. “Not yet.” A rush of water ensued. “She doesn’t have any money,” Judith added, but to herself.

  Pouring a last cup of coffee from the silver pot, Judith started to put on her makeup. People were truly the same, all over the world: stubborn old ladies and put-upon middle-aged men and worry-prone wives who wanted to please everybody. Judith sympathized with Claire Marchmont. Claire was probably fifteen years younger, but she was in the same boat as Judith, with a cantankerous oldster at one end and, presumably, a much-loved husband at the other.

  Judith got dressed, kissed Joe good-bye, and joined a sleep-eyed Renie for the taxi ride to Waterloo Station.

  The cousins didn’t mind the rain that fell on London’s urban sprawl. It was April, and it was probably raining at home. The high-speed train they were taking wouldn’t stop until they reached Slough, the spur to Windsor and Eton.

  “They must have enough bedrooms at Ravenscroft House so we won’t have to sleep together,” Renie remarked, shrugging out of her black trenchcoat and sticking to her agenda of creature comforts. “You always try to push me out of bed.”

  “I haven’t done that since we were kids,” Judith replied indignantly. “But you’re right. The Marchmonts—or should I say Aunt Pet?—must have extra space or they wouldn’t be thinking about turning the place into a B&B.”

  Three days had passed since Judith and Renie had lunched with Claire Marchmont. While Bill attended the conference sessions and Joe observed Scotland Yard, Judith and Renie trooped all over London, from Wapping Wall to Windsor, from Hampstead Heath to Hampton Court. They had seen the Tower of London, the Houses of Parliament, St. Paul’s, Westminster Abbey, the silver vaults, the Cloth Fair, Temple Bar, Somerset House, Clarence House, Lancaster House, and the House of Donuts. By the time they kissed their husbands farewell, the cousins were reeling. Just sitting quietly on the train was a blessed relief.

  “I wonder if the Marchmont place has a thatched roof,” Renie mused as they roared through London’s old urban blight. Rows and rows of smoke-blackened houses lined bleak narrow streets. The only color was provided by brave, bright window boxes filled with spring flowers. “Thatch has to be changed every hundred years, you know.”

  Judith grimaced at Renie. “Gee, lucky me, I don’t have to worry about that. Claire said they were by a river.”

  “Just like our cabin.” Renie was now looking out through the rain-spattered windows at some of the newer suburbs. Though they were painted from a brighter palette, the lack of imagination made them as drab as the dwellings from the previous century. “Do you suppose Aunt Pet is about to croak?”

  “It didn’t sound like it. She was ninety-four on April first, but the joke’s on the relatives. Except for arthritis, the old girl’s got the constitution of an ox.” Judith stretched out her long legs and admired the updated version of British Rail. The high-speed train traveled at ninety miles an hour, which seemed only a fraction slower than the taxi she had taken to Buckingham Palace. “And, as Claire hinted in her well-bred way, Auntie has control of the money, and thus of the entire family.”

  “Are there a lot of them?” Renie inquired.

  Judith reflected. “I don’t think so. Over the years, I vaguely remember Margaret writing about various shirttail relations who had died. I assume they were Claire Ravenscroft’s kin.”

  The train was now zipping through patches of green. Apparently, they had finally left London’s suburbs. Renie stared out the window for a few moments, then turned back to Judith. “Are they rich? Claire’s family, I mean. I know the Marchmonts weren’t.”

  Judith gave a shrug. “Mr. Marchmont was a fishmonger. Remember how we visited the docks with Margaret and got fresh plaice for supper? Oh, her father did very well, and I gather Charles went to university someplace. I don’t know about Claire’s background. Maybe Charles married up.”

  For some time, the cousins sat in silence. Judith considered Charles Marchmont, the kid brother who had spoken in shy mumbles but had dreams of becoming an architect. It seemed that he had changed his mind. Or Fate had changed it for him. A lot had changed in thirty years. Judith and Renie had changed; England had changed; the world had changed. Upon her return from Europe in 1964, Judith knew she wanted to marry Joe Flynn. Fortunately, he wanted the same thing. The following year, they had become engaged. Judith had finished her degree in librarianship. Joe was no longer a rookie, but a seasoned vice squad cop. With their education behind them, Judith and Joe planned to get married. And so they did, but not to each other.

  Joe may not have been a novice, but he hadn’t yet developed the tough shell that protects veteran policemen from life’s cruelties. The spectacle of two teenagers who had overdosed on drugs had sent Joe Flynn reeling off to a nearby bar. He had drunk
himself stupid, and let a voluptuous lounge singer drag him off to a justice of the peace in Las Vegas. Judith was devastated, and retaliated by marrying Dan McMonigle. It hadn’t been a satisfactory revenge; instead, it was eighteen years of penance. Then she had found Joe again, and life was once more worth living.

  “Look!” Renie exclaimed, after the stop at Slough. “Fields! Farms! Foals! England as we knew it!”

  Sure enough, the pastoral scene slipping by the train window was as lush as it was tidy. Low stone fences separated properties, and Judith glimpsed an occasional wooden stile. Smoke spiraled from the chimney of a farmhouse nestled in a vale. New lambs frisked across satiny grass. “This is more like it,” Judith said with a contented sigh. “Do you remember what a goose I was when we saw London the very first time?”

  Renie laughed. “You blubbered like a baby. I think you even forgot about Joe for a while. We’d come up from Southampton on the boat-train, and the minute we saw Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, you burst into tears and said, ‘Oh, my God, I’ve come home!’ I figured you’d been watching too many old British movies on TV.”

  “But,” Judith persisted, still vaguely embarrassed by the memory, “I really felt that way. It was some atavistic thing, going back to Grandpa Grover.”

  “Grandpa hated England,” Renie pointed out. “He used to call the English ‘those goddamned Limeys.’”

  “That’s because he was English,” Judith countered. “Once he took out his American citizenship papers, he hated everybody who was different. It was the English way. Insular. Prejudiced. Superior.”

  At Reading, two young men wearing lots of leather and studs sat down next to the cousins. Their magenta and chartreuse punk haircuts didn’t endear them to Judith and Renie. Neither did their conversation, which seemed to be made up of brief bursts that sounded like “naffy-fook-fudder!”

  Twenty minutes later, Judith and Renie were glad to change trains at Newbury. The express moved at a mere sixty miles an hour, but the cousins weren’t sorry. They were now deep in the countryside, crossing the North Wessex Downs, which rolled in every direction, gently green, and infinitely peaceful. Judith studied her map of the area and smiled at the quaint place names: Inkpen Hill. Buck-leberry Common. Wayland’s Smithy. And, to her librarian’s delight, Watership Down.

  Their route kept close to the Kennet and Avon Canal, where speckled ducks paddled downstream on what had been a bustling waterway in the Victorian age. The rain had almost stopped by the time they reached Pewsey.

  In the Vale of Pewsey, newly plowed wheat fields resembled rich brown ribbons. There were sheep, of course, munching the wet new grasses. The train raced across the Salisbury Plain, and Judith wished she could visit Stone-henge, which, according to the map, seemed near the rail-road line.

  “Maybe next time,” she murmured.

  “What?” Renie was jarred from her admiration of yellow and blue wildflowers growing up the sweep of Westbury Hill.

  Judith was rueful. “We missed so much the first time we came to England.” She waved at the passing countryside. “This whole area, for instance. I’m already feeling bad about what we won’t see on this trip.”

  Renie made a face. “Gee, you’re a lot of fun, coz. Think of what we have seen. Will see. And when’s lunch?”

  Chastened, Judith checked her watch. “We’re due in at Castle Cary shortly before noon. The local line leaves in fifteen minutes. Claire says it’ll take less than half an hour to get to Little Pauncefoot. Ravenscroft House is right on the edge of the village. Maybe they intend to feed us when we get there.”

  Renie brightened. “Good. Remember all the great food we had when we stayed with Margaret and her husband? Plus tea. A minimum of four meals a day. The English have the right idea about eating.”

  “Well…” Judith recalled some of the less savory meals they’d eaten in 1964. On a list of international cuisine, English cooking would have ranked near the bottom in those days. “Claire or Charles will meet us, I think. They drove down from London last night. Aunt Pet had a spell, or something.”

  The train that took the cousins from Castle Cary to Little Pauncefoot was a far cry from Brit Rail’s high-speed and express models. It was old, it was small, it was independently owned and operated. Still, it creaked its way from village to village right on schedule. By the time they stopped at Little Pauncefoot, a hint of sun was poking through the clouds.

  Judith and Renie were the only passengers to disembark. The station was tiny and seemed deserted. They hauled their luggage out to the road, but there was no sign of a waiting car.

  “Now what?” Judith gingerly sat on her big suitcase.

  Renie leaned against the white railway crossing gate. “The town must be over there somewhere,” she said, pointing down the road, “just past those shops and the pub.”

  Judith consulted the hand-drawn map Claire had given her. She grimaced. “That is the town. Or village. The village green is behind the shops, then there’s another street—no, it’s a lane of some sort—and Ravenscroft House. It’s actually very close. See that wall?”

  Renie turned. Not twenty feet away was a barrier of mellow gold stone, perhaps five feet high. Beyond, they saw trees and what looked like a turret.

  “Is that the church?” Renie asked.

  Judith again studied the map. “Maybe,” she answered. “The church is in that direction. St. Edith’s.”

  A soft wind was ruffling the plane trees. Renie gazed at the old wall. “It curves there. And I can see a bridge just behind the station. That must be the river. The house can’t be very far away.”

  “Right, Ravenscroft House is on the river. But we can’t climb over that brick wall. At least not with our suitcases.” Judith took another look at their surroundings. There wasn’t a franchise in sight. The only things that moved besides the trees were two older women shuffling into a shop, and a limping brown dog. “We’ll have to walk down the street and double back.”

  The old brown dog collapsed about ten yards away from the cousins. Before Renie could pick up her suitcase, a red Alfa Romeo convertible roared down the High Street. The dog dragged himself onto the sidewalk and collapsed again. The sports car stopped within inches of Judith and Renie.

  “Yo!” cried the young man who was behind the wheel. “Are you the Yanks?”

  “Yo?” Renie gave Judith a look of dismay. “Whatever happened to ‘I say, old thing’?”

  But Judith was already dragging her suitcase up to the Alfa Romeo. “We’re Mrs. Flynn and Mrs. Jones. Are you…ah…from Ravenscroft House?”

  The handsome young man with the jet-black hair and the mocking black eyes slapped the steering wheel. “In a manner of speaking. I’m Alexei Karamzin, Claire’s cousin. Hop in.”

  “But…” Judith indicated their luggage. The car was a two-seater. “Should we leave these and come back later?”

  Alexei’s dark eyebrows arched. “Bloody bad idea. Bikers buzz through these quaint old places and steal everybody blind. England isn’t what it used to be.” With the press of a button, he flipped the trunk open. “There, give those bags a toss into the boot.”

  “What about these bags?” Renie pointed to herself and Judith. “How are we going to fit into this squirty little car?”

  Clearly, Alexei hadn’t thought ahead. His response was limited to running a lean, brown hand through his hair. After stowing the luggage, Judith tried to sit on one haunch and make room for Renie. As Alexei rocketed off down the High Street, Judith slid into Renie, who fell into the well between the seats. Alexei grabbed Renie’s arm instead of the stick shift. Renie tumbled under the dashboard and landed on Judith’s feet.

  “Don’t fret, it’s not far,” Alexei said, his longish hair blowing over his shirt collar. “The house is just on the other side of the green. Drink?” With one hand, he deftly produced a leather flask from somewhere on his person.

  “Ah—no thanks,” Judith replied. Faintly appalled, she watched Alexei take a hefty swig.
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br />   “Nothing like a little pick-me-up,” he said blithely, looking at Judith instead of the road. “Weekends with the relatives require fortification. I must be charming, especially to Aunt Pet.”

  Judith made no comment, silently willing Alexei to pay attention to his driving. As Renie wallowed about on the floor, Judith glimpsed a pub, a tea shop, and a greengrocer. Then they swung around a corner, and for what seemed like split seconds, were traveling a country highway. “To Great Pauncefoot” and “To Yeovil” read the weathered sign. A moment later they had turned again, and were slowing down. A small stone church was on their left; Judith presumed it was St. Edith’s. She made some quick mental notes: Ravenscroft House was close to the railway station, a decent highway, a house of prayer, and some conveniences. Hillside Manor was situated similarly, even though it was in the middle of a big city. The comparison gave Judith heart.

  Trees surrounded the village green, which was calm except for a mother pushing a pram and an elderly man leading a cat on a leash. Judith thought of Sweetums. She thought about putting him on a leash. She thought about Sweetums’s reaction. She thought about being clawed to shreds. She decided to stick to thinking about converting Ravenscroft House into a B&B.

  Judith saw a pillar in the middle of the grassy expanse, and then another piece of granite at the far end of the green. War memorials, she thought, then realized that Alexei had slowed down again. Renie had the opportunity to squeeze herself into a crouch. Trying to rearrange her legs, Judith saw a continuation of the same mellow wall that had run past the railway station. But, just ahead of the Alfa, the wall itself was bisected by a charming building made from the same golden stone.