Femmes Fatal Page 11

  Jacqueline Diamond stood behind her chair, gleaming red nails gripping the knobs. “First up, ladies, let me say I’m a perfectionist.” Her sleepy eyes roved the table. “My motto has always been, If you can’t do it right, kiddo, don’t do it at all: which is why Normie and I have never had too much sex.”

  Bunty got the applause going. “Everyone, give Jacqueline a big hand for honesty!”

  I slid lower in my chair.

  “Normie jokes that I’m the sort of person who sprays air freshener outdoors. That’s the way I am. Everything has to be just so, especially when we … have a party, as we call it. I want fresh flowers and dripless candles, the works. Normie’s different, he …”

  “Yes?” The word buzzed like a bee around the table.

  “Normie …” The red nails picked at the chair knob. “He used to toss his shoes in the air and say, ‘How about it, old chum?’ But since he got the role of Norman the Doorman …”

  “Yes?” This time the word was a roar.

  “Now he’s the one with the headache. He’s so into that bloody part, he never takes off his cape. He refuses to have sex with me because he thinks thousands of kiddies would be shocked out of their socks if they suspected their hero was up to tricks when he should be out leaping over rooftops in a single bound in pursuit of the evil Toy Snatcher.”

  Looking spent, Jacqueline resumed her chair.

  “Young woman,” Headmistress Thirsty said as she laid down her knitting pins, “you need to be doing your homework.”

  “But your problem is not insurmountable,” warbled Mrs. Wardle.

  “Any suggestions from the floor?” Bunty asked.

  To my horror, a treacherous right hand inched upward. Mine. Immediately, the eyes of all present zoomed my way. Stumbling to my feet, I bleated out an apology for my forwardness … my very existence.

  “And you are …?” inquired the librarian.

  “Ellie Haskell.”

  “Our other new member,” supplied Bunty.

  “It just sort of occurred to me that if Mrs. Diamond were to enact a fantasy in which she was the dolly in need of rescue, Mr. Diamond might feel comfortable in resuming the husbandly role.”

  The air quickened with the sharp intake of breath. Was I destined to be banished on the spot? Alas, not so. The room was suddenly asqueal with congratulations on my brilliant contribution. What Mrs. Diamond thought was lost in the crush of excitement. Several women left their seats to rush over and hug me.

  “Mrs. Haskell, welcome to our little group!”

  “You’re going to be such an asset!”

  “A breath of fresh air!”

  “Such insight!”

  When the hubbub ebbed a little, Bunty called the meeting back to order. “New members, each week all Fully Female candidates are required to do a homework assignment. Jacqueline, you might like to consider Ellie’s suggestion as a possibility. Which brings us to the moment when our second new person will tell us what brought her to Fully Female.”

  Sunlight came slicing down on the table in the shape of a golden guillotine, but enveloped in the mantle of friendship, I stood undaunted, ready to meet my fate. To be truthful, my only regret as my Fellow Females settled back into their chairs was that my saga would sound tame after Jacqueline’s.

  Perhaps if I doctored it up by stating my Christian name in its entirety.… “I’m Giselle Haskell and I reside at Merlin’s Court, Chitterton Fells, with my husband Bentley, our twins Abbey and Tam, and our gifted cat Tobias. These last few months I have been unhappy with my performance as a wife … as a human being. I am failing everyone—even my plants …”

  The going was easier than I thought, but at the crucial moment, when I was all braced to confess that I was not as highly motivated sexually as one might wish, I was jarred out of myself by the distant pealing of a bell.

  “Bloomin’ heck!” Bunty was on her feet and heading out of the room. “That must be the new vicar. She rang up this morning and insisted on coming round to bestow her blessing on the Fully Female program.” Still talking, Bunty vanished. She returned seconds later, followed by a black-garbed figure in lace mitts and a flower-seller’s hat.

  My emotions were in a turmoil. I resented being stopped midstream, and I was embarrassed at having the Reverend Mrs. Eudora Spike catch me in a place like this. I was beyond thought when I looked into her face and found myself bathed in the sunshine of that smile. Sinking down onto my chair, I clasped my hands in prayer.

  “Blessings, dear ladies.” Her features shadowed by the hat brim, the vicar swept to the far end of the mile-long table and inducted herself into Bunty’s seat. The buzz of voices subsided as the black lace mittens were raised. “My friends”—she paused to allow our hearts to become one—“let us reach out our hands in the circle of friendship and let the love flow.”

  Love be damned! I ground my teeth in helpless recognition. The “vicar” was none other than my traitorous kinsman!

  “And now”—Cousin Freddy piously bent his black hat—“let us talk of multiple orgasms.”

  Isn’t life wonderful? Horror may fade into memory but there is always some new, exciting torment waiting to take its place. On the morning following my Marriage Makeover session, Mrs. Malloy telephoned to lay down the law.

  “Mrs. H, I trust you have your homework assignment prepared?”

  “What?” Instantly I was back in the Upper Fourth at St. Roberta’s frantically trying to write an essay on the Hundred Years’ War during algebra class, all the while knowing that the heavy hand of Miss Clopper would soon descend on my shoulder. “What homework assignment?” I implored.

  Mrs. Malloy’s heavy breathing turned the receiver into a blow dryer. I had to hold down my hair. “Fantasy night at the old homestead, Mrs. H!”

  “That’s right!” I slumped down on a chair, mounded with the babies’ outdoor togs. “We’re to put on a real seduction production—turn the bedroom into an Arabian Nights’ tent, spread satin sheets on the bed and dance the Rumba of the Seven Veils …”

  “You can’t have that one,” Mrs. Malloy interrupted.

  “What one?”

  “The Salome schmozzle.”

  “But …”

  “I’ve already taken me net curtains down, so there’s no point in blubbering, Mrs. H, you’ll just have to come up with your own fantasy.”

  “What I was about to say,” I fumed into the phone, “is that I can’t possibly arrange a tryst with Ben for this evening. I have a million things to do. I have to take the babies in for their checkups; I have to write to my in-laws and Dorcas and Jonas; I have Mr. Bludgett coming this afternoon to repair the washing machine; I have to weed the rockery—”

  “You’re breaking me heart!” I suspected Mrs. Malloy of sarcasm, but she went on with a break in her voice. “I thought we was in this together. You was the one who suggested Fully Female in the bloody first place, when I’d far rather have put an end to me misery—a gentle squeeze of the trigger and peace, perfect peace.”

  “Enough!” I cried, as memory of the misplaced gun rose up to haunt me. Getting it back from Lionel Wiseman must be added to my Do list, but first things first, the mollification of Mrs. Malloy. “Truly,” I assured her, “I am committed to Fully Female, but do I have to do my homework tonight?”

  “Our reports have to be in tomorrow.”

  Impossible to tell her that much of what was said at Marriage Makeover had gone in one ear and out the other after the vicar had put in her … his appearance. By going to the afternoon session, Mrs. Malloy had missed Cousin Freddy, the wolf in clerical clothing.

  “You there, Mrs. H?”

  Rising from my chair like a phoenix from the ashes, I promised to do my part for the honour and glory of Fully Female.

  “I can’t wait to see my Walter in the rude.” On which grizzly note Mrs. Malloy hung up, leaving me wracked with despair.

  Was there no escape, no loophole in the fabric of my existence? Was I destined to cheapen a lo
ve which in its glorious heyday had rivaled that of some of the great duos of all time … Paris and Helen … Tony and Cleo … Charlie and Di? Thus might I have stood all morning, waxing morose in the hall at Merlin’s Court, but a reprieve came in the form of an imperious summons from the nursery.

  “Coming, my darlings!”

  What angels! They partook of breakfast with an enthusiasm to gladden a mother’s heart and accompanied me on the drive to Dr. Melrose’s office without protest.

  The one whose smile occasionally dimmed was mine. After managing a nip-and-tuck parking job in a space clearly reserved for a skateboard, I got through the business of unloading with only the loss of a scarf, which got sucked away by a passing lorry. Next came the trauma of shouldering my way through the double glass doors while gripping the babies’ pushchair with one hand and dropping the nappy bag with the other. Waiting for the lift in the brown linoleum lobby, I thought jeeringly of those tough-guy triathletes, the ones who aren’t satisfied with making it a one-sport event. Oh, no! They have to cycle up the slopes of Kilimanjaro, parachute onto their dogsleds, and canoe down subterranean rivers with stalactites dropping like spears out of the bat-infested darkness. What these gluttons for punishment need is a day in the life of a mother on the go.

  When the lift grudgingly cranked open its doors, I got myself and the pushchair aboard with my usual spry grace, but somehow the nappy bag didn’t quite make it. The metal jaws snapped shut, leaving two inches of strap attached to my arm. Why me, Lord? Machinery hates me. Vacuum cleaners, hair dryers, coffee pots, my washing machine … they all spend their tinny little lives plotting ways to bring me down. Fortunately, the lift was out of condition. Before it could wheeze upward, I managed to press the Open button with my nose and rescue the nappy bag.

  “Mummy saves the day,” I boasted, feeling rather like Norman the Doorman, who was performing as we entered Dr. Melrose’s waiting room, for the television set had been tuned to my darlings’ favourite program. Scooting over to the woman at the desk—a woman who looked as though she had been born for the sole purpose of shouting “Next!”—I gave the twins’ names and surveyed the area with its rubber plants and magazine-littered table. Business was certainly brisk this morning. Faces, faces everywhere and not an empty chair. The words jingled inside my head to the music coming from the telly. I was wheeling the Porta-Pram into a corner when a wheezing old gentleman with a tobacco-stained moustache offered me his seat.

  I smiled. “That’s awfully nice, but really, I’m glad to stand.”

  He groped a hand toward the pram. “Got your hands full there, Mother!”

  Pink with pride, I drew back the covers to let him take a peek at Abbey and Tam sleeping like angels, their sweet little hands clutching the satin ribbon of the blanket, their mouths working as if they were blowing bubbles in dreamland.

  A rosy-cheeked woman to my left leaned forward for a look. “Aren’t they lovely?”

  “Thank you.”

  “Are they twins?”

  Amazing how often this question was asked, but I never found it irritating. One baby is a miracle; two at once is so mind-boggling that people tend to blither. I was recounting the babies’ life histories, starting with my heroic labour, when one of the doors off the waiting room opened and Miss Thorn emerged. A black hat was clamped on her head and her coat skimmed the floor in the manner of a downtrodden governess. A squeal from Abbey caused her to look across the room directly at me.

  Lifting a hand in salute, I felt my smile congeal. For Miss T looked right through me—actually cut me dead before gliding from the room. Silly of me to feel quite so spooked, even though I told myself her spectacles probably needed cleaning.

  “Next!” boomed the keeper of the desk, and away bustled the rosy-cheeked woman.

  “Now you sit down,” she told me, with a bye-bye wave at the twins. Glad to do as bid, I went to sit in her seat and found she’d left a paperback novel lying there. From the bodice-buster cover it didn’t look like something I could read to the twins, so I laid it down on the pram cover and settled down to watch Norman the Doorman. Noble and solitary, he stood in the doorway of Tinseltown Toys, his black cloak swirling about him.

  “My word,” he said, cupping a hand over his mask, “do my peepers deceive me, or do I see lots of my little friends coming to help in a very important rescue? Yes! Here come Billy and Josie—hope your broken arm is better, Josie—and a big hello to Edward, Nancy, Patrick, Julie, Lisa, and all my special friends. Now”—Norman lifted his cloak as if to draw the children under its shelter—“I really do need the help of everyone. Once upon a time, not very long ago or far away, a nice lady named Mrs. Brown decided to make a special treat for her little boy’s birthday. The little boy’s name was Barry and Mother made him a red jelly rabbit with licorice whiskers. When teatime came and Mother reached out her big spoon, a voice as sweet as red jelly said, ‘Please don’t eat me. I am a magic rabbit. All I ask is to be able to live happily ever after in your refrigerator.’ Barry’s daddy wasn’t too pleased at first. ‘What? Give up a whole shelf to a plate of plop! Am I supposed to turn my bottles of fizzy pop out on the street?’ But at last Daddy stopped huffing and puffing and the Jelly Rabbit became one of the family, until last night when he was kidnapped from the refrigerator by the evil Mr. Melt, and if we don’t get to Jelly Rabbit in time, he will be fruit juice—”

  “No!” The word whipped around the room, and I came out of my glassy-eyed stare to discover I was not the only one in the waiting room on the edge of my seat. The wheezy old gentleman next to me had almost chewed off his moustache. I nonchalantly informed him that I was personally acquainted with the star of Tinseltown Toys.

  “You know Norman?” The old gent almost wheezed his last.

  “In a manner of speaking.” Rocking the pram with one hand, I smoothed back my hair with the other. “I know his wife.”

  “What’s she like?”

  “Friendly, nice …”

  “And you think that one day she’ll get you together with the old man?”

  “I hadn’t thought …” My eyes returned to the television where Norman was propping a ladder up against the moon. Magical, harmless make-believe. Fantasies. Suddenly, on the outskirts of my mind, I heard Mrs. Malloy’s voice informing me that tonight was the night for my homework assignment. And I felt a stirring of girlish, childlike anticipation. I wasn’t embarking on a lifetime of slime, I was rescuing my marriage from the evil clutches of neglect. As if fate so decreed, Norman the Doorman was replaced by an advert for cat food, and my eyes fell on the pram cover, where lay the paperback book Voyage to Valhalla. My hands reached out and the book fell open to this page as if waiting for me.

  The great god Thor, who once drank from the ocean and made the tide, now drew back the clouds with one sweep of his wrathful hands. You could have heard a pin drop upon the field of battle. Cringing mercenaries fell to their knees, their eyes fixed upon a grassy knoll, where stood the warrior princess, Marvel.

  Her fiery hair burned like the sun’s fierce rays. Her amethyst eyes rivalled the jewels pillaged from her father’s castle. The hem of her kirtle was stiff with blood and her creamy shoulders ached from wielding the sword which at daybreak she had removed from the hand of her dying henchman, Bod the Unmerciful. Dry-eyed, Marvel had sworn to hunt down his murderer, that vilest of all Saxons—Baron Derick of Dryadsville. Safe in Thor’s protection—one hand trailing the sword, the other pressed to a waist no bigger than a laurel wreath—she paced the knoll all bright with buttercups.

  Across the weir, eyes steely as his shield, Derick stood in the shadow of his men and thought her fairer than any flower. By Wodin! Before the moon set over this accursed vale he would make the warrior princess his own. His chiselled lips curved into a boyish smile, which as quickly froze hard as ice. Herold of Leeth was creeping up the far side of the knoll. The scurvy knave was within a hand’s breadth of crushing that lovely neck in his yeoman’s hands. But suddenly, with the delicacy,
the elegance that was hers by right of royal blood, Princess Marvel whirled about and with a flash of silver sword put a period to Herold’s existence. In the golden hush of that April afternoon, the lifeless head went somersaulting down the knoll—eyes bulging, lips mouthing Gadzooks! until with a final bounce it came to rest at Derick’s feet.

  Kneeling, he doffed his helmet and raised his eyes to the lady of the hour. “Ye gods, you’ve come a long way, baby …”

  I was laying Voyage to Valhalla down on the pram cover when a twentieth-century war cry sounded.

  “Next!”

  Abbey and Tam bopped up and—yes! Three cheers! We were the chosen ones! Under the envious gaze of the rabble, who looked as though they had been there since the dawn of penicillin, I pushed the pram into the hallowed presence of Dr. Melrose.

  My goodness! The good physician was slumped in his chair, eyes closed, leading me to assume he was dead (anything else being completely unprofessional), but suddenly he sat up, scaring me spitless.

  “Mrs. Haskell, isn’t it?” This from the man who had been my M.D. since my arrival at Merlin’s Court. The doctor was a large man, both tall and bulky. He usually wore tweeds which heightened his resemblance to a bear, but today he seemed to have shrunk. His face had caved in and his eyes possessed a glassy look that brought forcibly to mind the severed head bouncing like a football down the knoll.

  “Yes, ’tis I,” responded moi, with all the perkiness that was mine by right of good old peasant stock. “Time for the babies’ checkups.” The need to remind him why we were here was overwhelming. Still seated, Doc Melrose watched me lift Abbey from the pram as if he had no idea what—let alone who—she was.

  “I haven’t been sleeping well.” His hands were trembling. Unnerving because they were of a particularly hairy sort.

  “Oh, dear!” I sat across from him with both babies in my lap. “Lots of middle-of-the-night stuff, I suppose.” I meant emergency bunions, that sort of thing; but his response almost resulted in Tam’s falling over the precipice of my right thigh.