by Marele Day
Mrs Levack waited till the moment of silence was up before addressing Freda. ‘He got shot, like a soldier. I think it’s more appropriate.’ She drew in a breath. ‘Goodbye, Barry. It’s a pity we didn’t know each other a little longer.’
‘Mavis, I’m going to be sick.’
At the very moment Mrs Levack let go of the body Freda lurched forward. Barry fell on top of her. Very heavily. Freda grabbed hold of a bush to stop herself plummeting down the cliff. One of her feet dangled over the edge. ‘Mavis,’ her voice struggled out, ‘get him off.’
Mrs Levack looked aghast. ‘Freda, I’m sorry I dragged you into this,’ she said. ‘Hold on.’ If it hadn’t been for you none of this would have happened, she said silently to Barry. Bloody men, she thought, nothing but trouble.
With a titanic effort Mrs Levack managed to roll Barry off Freda and over the edge. She watched the body disappear into the sea below. No remembrance poems this time, no prayers. You just couldn’t afford to get sentimental over one-night stands.
Mrs Levack knelt there panting. ‘Freda, give me your hand. The one not holding onto the bush.’
Freda held her free hand out and Mrs Levack pulled her back from the edge. The two women lay there, wrung out from the ordeal.
‘Freda, are you all right?’ Mrs Levack asked anxiously. Freda was breathing through her mouth but at least she was still breathing, and some of the colour had come back into her cheeks. Not that Mrs Levack could see that in the dark.
‘Mavis, I’ve lost my shoe,’ she said plaintively. ‘Can we go home now? I’m very, very tired.’
Mrs Levack didn’t get much sleep that night but she did manage to have the place looking spotless by the time Eddy got home. It was wonderful to see him. To see the familiar bald patch, the familiar bulge where his waist used to be.
‘You all right, Mavis?’ he said. ‘You’re looking a bit peaky.’
‘Oh no, Eddy,’ she hastened to assure him, ‘I’m as fit as a fiddle.’
Mrs Levack put the kettle on for a cup of tea while Eddy went to unpack.
Before she could call out, ‘Eddy, your tea’s ready,’ he was back out again. With his old bowling bag. Which was very strange because he hadn’t taken it to Wagga, she’d bought him a new bag specially.
‘Has Father Christmas been during my absence?’ he asked. It was a funny kind of statement but Eddy wasn’t saying it in a funny way. He was holding the bag open. Sitting on top of an old bowling shirt was a large wad of money.
Mrs Levack looked at it as if it was a pile of old newspapers. ‘What’s that?’ she asked.
‘Looks to me like money,’ replied Eddy, rather obviously. ‘What I’d like to know is how it got there.’
Mrs Levack stood staring at it. No matter how bad her memory got she never lost track of money. She certainly hadn’t put it there and neither, it seems, had Eddy. There was only one possible explanation—Barry. She’d looked under the bed, she’d washed the sheets, she thought she’d got rid of any evidence of Barry. She certainly hadn’t anticipated that he’d stash his holiday money in Eddy’s old bowling bag.
She thought fast. ‘I’ve been putting it aside from my cleaning job. A little bit each week.’
‘But there must be ten thousand there,’ said Eddy.
Ten thousand dollars! thought Mrs Levack. A lot more than she could put aside from her weekly wages.
‘Freda and I had a bit of a flutter on the horses while you were away and won,’ Mrs Levack said the first figure that came into her head, ‘five thousand dollars. It was going to be a surprise. We thought it might be nice to go away for a holiday somewhere. To Bangkok.’ She couldn’t for the life of her think why she’d picked Bangkok as a destination.
‘That’s one of the nicest things you’ve ever done,’ said Eddy. ‘I think we all deserve a nice holiday.’ He came over and put his arm around her.
Oh no, Mrs Levack thought, ridden with guilt. I don’t deserve it, Eddy. I slept with another man, I dumped his body, I made my best friend help me even though heights make her feel sick.
She’d have to tell him, she couldn’t carry the burden of this secret the rest of her life. ‘Eddy . . .’ she began.
‘Not a word,’ said Eddy, giving her a big hug. ‘You sit there, I’ll make the tea. It’s the least I can do.’ Mrs Levack sat there and let Eddy make a fuss of her. He poured the tea and even got out the Scotch Finger biscuits. It would be selfish of her to spoil the moment by unburdening herself right now.
‘Don’t know about Bangkok,’ said Eddy. ‘You know how I feel about foreign places. What about Ireland?’
‘Ireland would be just fine,’ said Mrs Levack.
Mrs Levack and the Egyptian Goddess
‘What a cute little town,’ remarked Mrs Levack as she and Eddy drove into Neenish. On holidays in Ireland, and wasn’t it all green and delightful! A milder climate than England, the food was better and the people friendlier. It was just like being back home in Bondi, except they didn’t seem to play bowls so much.
Neenish wasn’t in the tourist brochures. Mrs Levack had discovered it on the map and wondered if it was home to the famous tart. And now they’d actually found the place. They had been in Ireland long enough to know that maps didn’t correspond to reality, crossroads weren’t signposted and people had a strange idea of how far ‘just up the road’ was. Mists descended suddenly and seemed to sweep them into another dimension. Narrow country lanes often ended up at a farmer’s gate and they’d have to reverse all the way back.
Such a pretty little place, Neenish. Green, pink and blue houses, a souvenir shop and a couple of pubs. A quaint stone bridge fording a river that ran through the middle of town, water gushing over rocks—very good for salmon fishing.
Just over the bridge they spied a bed and breakfast with the familiar Bord Failte shamrock. It was a charming two-storey pink house with pots of welcoming geraniums. Eddy pulled the car up right outside the front door. Mrs Levack felt liberated, a free spirit—fancy turning up at a guesthouse without booking ahead first. She and Eddy could have been forty years younger and in the first throes of romance.
The proprietor came to the door. A sandy-coloured man, very clean-looking. A good indication, thought Mrs Levack, of how he kept his house.
‘Can I help you?’ Oh that lovely Irish lilt, it made Mrs Levack’s heart sing.
‘Do you have a room?’
‘We’ve a twin bed room, would that suit?’ He looked them up and down. Just because they were old didn’t mean they were married. You could never tell with tourists, especially tourists who turned up without a booking.
‘Does it have a bathroom?’ enquired Mrs Levack.
‘All rooms are en suite.’
‘Very good. Dinner?’
‘They do a very nice meal at the pub. Just tell them Liam sent you, they’ll look after you. That’s Liam, L-I-A-M,’ he spelled it out. Must be an important man around town. Mrs Levack was impressed. ‘Shall I give you a hand with your luggage?’ Liam offered.
‘She’ll be right, mate,’ said Eddy.
Australians, Liam picked them straightaway. Apart from the fact that they took showers all the time, Australians were generally good guests and not too fussy.
‘I’ve a cousin in Perth—Fergal Carmody. Do you know him?’
Mrs Levack had encountered the cousin in Australia routine before, and smiled indulgently. ‘We live in Bondi,’ she explained. ‘It’s about three thousand kilometres away from Perth.’
‘Fergal Carmody? Big chap?’ said Eddy. Liam nodded. ‘You must remember him, Mavis, he was over in 1989 for the interstate bowls championship.’
‘Small world, isn’t it?’ she remarked rather unnecessarily. She couldn’t remember any Fergal Carmody.
‘Well fancy that,’ Eddy remarked once he’d hauled the bags upstairs. Everywhere they went in Ireland they were asked if they knew cousins, uncles, nieces and brothers, and finally they’d struck a familiar name. It had made Eddy’s day. He
was going to be impossible to live with for the next hour or so.
‘Why don’t you go for a little walk while I unpack?’ suggested his wife.
‘I’d much rather have a lie down. Err, would you like to join me, Mavis?’
It would have been very nice to spend the afternoon in bed with Eddy but she knew her husband well. He was asleep before she’d even arranged her toiletries around the hand basin. She had a little shower, changed into some fresh clothes and opened the window. It was so stifling. Why did the whole of the British Isles have the heating up full bore? Mrs Levack was sure that central heating was to blame for the decline of the British Empire. It made you too dozy. You just wanted to nod off in front of the television instead of going out and conquering things.
There was a lovely view out the window, of the bubbling river and the big church beside it. Suddenly she was dazzled by something so bright she had to turn away. What was that? She fished the binoculars out of her bag and took another look. The sun was glinting off a perspex display case. Inside was a statuette of a woman with horns on her head. She was smiling an enigmatic smile and looking straight at Mrs Levack.
‘It’s the goddess Isis,’ said Liam in a disgusted tone when Mrs Levack went down to enquire about it. ‘A very evil woman, she is. Slept with her brother, do you know that? She’ll be the ruin of this town, mark my words.’ Little globs of spittle gathered in the corners of his mouth.
‘I resigned from the Tidy Town Committee over her. The mayor and the priest and the sergeant, all smarmy when the Egyptian ambassador presented it, anything to get their photo in the paper. A very evil woman, somebody ought to blow her up.’
It was probably not the right moment to ask Liam about the neenish tart.
Back upstairs Mrs Levack found a shaft of light beaming into the room. It seemed to come directly from the goddess. Eddy was sweating and straining as if having a bad dream, but there was a smile on his face. He was moving in a peculiar fashion. Mrs Levack stood beside the bed, breaking the beam. Immediately Eddy woke up. He was mumbling something. It sounded like ‘Queen of the Nile’.
‘Pardon?’
‘What?’
‘You said something.’
‘Did I?’
‘What were you dreaming about, Eddy?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Eddy.’ He could tell by her tone that she wasn’t going to leave it alone.
‘Now you come to mention it, I was dreaming. About . . . travelling.’
‘Which country?’
Was it a trick question? ‘Ireland, of course.’
‘There’s no river Nile in Ireland, Eddy.’
‘Did I say Ireland? I meant Egypt. It’s very hot in this room, isn’t it?’
Mrs Levack glared at him. They were supposed to be on a romantic holiday, just the two of them. She did not want her husband dreaming about some goddess.
They had dinner at the pub—garlic mussels and a nice green salad. It was a long way from the fare they’d lived on for most of their married life. Still, by and large it had been a happy marriage, even if it had been only chops, peas and mashed potatoes. After dinner they had a few pints of Guinness, listened to a few tall tales about salmon fishing, then came back to the guesthouse.
‘Goodnight, dear,’ said Eddy, giving his wife a quick peck on the cheek.
He could hardly wait to get into his bed. And why? So that he could get back to the goddess? She got out the binoculars again. The goddess was there, smiling smugly in the moonlight. Mrs Levack pulled the curtain closed but still she could feel her. She even imagined she was laughing. Eddy was starting to move in that peculiar fashion again.
‘Eddy.’ She shook him, but he showed no signs of waking up. Mrs Levack was not going to take this lying down.
It was eerie by the river at night. The cross on top of the church steeple was a black silhouette against the starry sky. Mrs Levack could hear water gurgling over the rocks and occasionally see the white edge of foam. She imagined she saw a bat flying across the moon. The goddess smiled enigmatically in her case.
She couldn’t very well blow the goddess up but she could turn her around. It would do the goddess the world of good to be staring at the church instead of beaming directly into her husband’s dreams. If the worst came to the worst, she could just put a tea towel over her.
Surprisingly, the cabinet was not locked, nor was there any other security. Mrs Levack simply lifted the latch and opened the door. The goddess felt warm against her hand, as if she were made of flesh. She was on an ebony base but it wasn’t screwed down. All Mrs Levack had to do was move the whole thing around. But it wasn’t that simple. The base was rectangular and the only way she could turn it was by first taking it out of the cabinet. Queen of the Nile, indeed! She was just a lump of stone, and a very unwieldy lump at that. Mrs Levack heard one of the horns scrape against the perspex.
The darkness seemed to be swirling and full of smoke, though Mrs Levack couldn’t smell anything burning. It was one of those mists. Mrs Levack got a strange feeling, as if it was of the goddess’s making. She finally wrenched the goddess out of her case. But the movement took Mrs Levack by surprise. She toppled over. The goddess went flying through the air and dropped with a thud. Where was she?
Mrs Levack felt around, then stood up. This was all getting out of hand. She wanted to go back. Mrs Levack could just make out the shine of the river. If she kept her eye on that she’d eventually make it back to the bridge. The mist thickened, settling on her skin like a cold clammy breath. Now the river had disappeared completely. She strained to hear the sound of water gurgling over the rocks, anything to stop the panic. Her legs were aching from the cold, she had to keep moving. She took a step and felt water fill her shoe. Another step and this time her foot skidded on slippery mud. She lost her balance and felt an icy shock as she landed in the river. She gasped and water entered her mouth. The gurgling was loud now and the current strong. She floundered about trying to get back to shore but the current dragged her along.
Then she bumped into something. Rocks. She clung onto them for dear life. She was feeling very poorly and wanted to cry. It didn’t help knowing she’d brought all this on herself. She was shivering now and her fingers were going numb. She wouldn’t be able to hold on for much longer. So much for Ireland being in the Gulf Stream. Even Bondi Beach in the middle of winter was warmer than this. She was going to get hypothermia and die.
It was starting, just the way she’d read about in those near-death experiences. She’d lost all feeling in her body. She could hear strange rustlings. She was in a dark tunnel and at the end was a dim light. She was dying all alone in a foreign land. She didn’t want to go. She didn’t want to leave Eddy. ‘Eddy . . .’ she called with her last breath.
Hallucinating now, she imagined she could hear him, her beloved husband. It would be terrible for him, she would float away into the sea and he would spend the rest of his days looking for her. She hoped he would marry again, but not too soon.
‘Eddy . . .’
The light was growing stronger and stronger. So strong, in fact, she had to blink.
‘Stone the flamin’ crows, Mavis, what are you doing in the middle of the river?’
There were no bands of angels, just her husband. Shining a torch at her.
‘It’s cold, Eddy.’
‘I know, I know, I’m standing in it. Take my hand, Mavis.’
The mist was lifting. She could see his outstretched hand but couldn’t quite touch it. She felt a bit foolish noticing that the river at this point was not very wide at all.
‘Just hang on a minute, Mavis, I’ll get a stick or something.’ He felt around on the ground. ‘This should do the trick.’
He held it out to his wife and she grabbed hold. She came ashore, cold and shivering.
Mrs Levack was in a hot bath drinking a cup of tea laced with duty-free whisky and promising Eddy that she’d never wander off like that again. When she came out of the bathroom rugged up
in her dressing gown, her jaw dropped. There on the table between the beds was Isis.
‘That’s what saved you, Mavis, that’s what I held out to you. I think it’s one of those pre-Christian fertility goddesses. Fancy that turning up. I think we should take her to Dublin and hand her over to the proper authorities.’
‘Oh, they’re probably lying around all over the place,’ said Mrs Levack. ‘I’ll just pop her back down there in the morning. Fertility goddesses probably like being by the river.’ Mrs Levack didn’t want the holiday taken up with authorities and red tape. Nor did she want Isis in the car with them for the rest of the trip.
‘You’re rather partial to rivers yourself, aren’t you, dear?’ Eddy nudged his wife.
‘Please, Eddy, nearly drowning is not a joking matter.’
‘It wasn’t that, it was . . .’ He snuggled up to her. She could smell freshly applied aftershave lotion.
‘What, dear?’ Mrs Levack asked. She was feeling frisky. It must have been the shock.
‘It was the dream actually, this afternoon.’ He was tickling her behind the ear, one of her G-spots.
‘Whatever do you mean?’ asked Mrs Levack, craving detail.
‘I was floating down the Nile on a barge, lying on a kind of settee, big bowl of grapes in front of me, bananas, a bottle of whisky. Then from out of the water comes this girl, you know, like the ones in the wet T-shirt competition. But instead of a T-shirt she’s wearing veils. She starts dancing and taking them off, and when she gets to the last veil I can see that it’s you. My little Queen of the Nile,’ he whispered breathily into his wife’s ear. ‘I don’t suppose you could do that again sometime. Tonight, maybe?’
Mrs Levack smiled an enigmatic smile. She didn’t have any veils but she could use those nice Irish tea towels.
‘I don’t see why not, Eddy, I don’t see why not.’
Marple Syrup
It didn’t matter where Jessica Fletcher went, someone was bound to turn up dead. And now the same thing was happening to Mrs Levack.