Femmes Fatal Read online

  Her spectacles had misted up when she spoke of the reverend’s most recent sermon, while her thin, knobby face achieved a kind of radiance.

  “A moment of epiphany, Mrs. Haskell. Reverend Foxworth’s text was St. Paul to the Corinthians, you know the one—faith, hope and love, and the greatest of these is love. I had goosebumps everywhere, Mrs. Haskell, even on my … derriere. I could hardly sit still on my stool.” A titter behind her hand. “I wanted to rise up, clench my fist and shout ‘Right on, Vicar!’ ”

  I told her I really would have to get to church more often.

  “Such a freeing experience!” Miss Thorn’s eyes were now magnified to mushrooms behind those specs. “I felt like Eve after the Fall, throwing off her fig leaves and crushing Adam to her breast. For the first time I feared I had been wrong not to marry. One does what one can spreading joy here and there …” A pause, during which we both paid homage to all those who had fallen in the line of duty at Miss Thorn’s feet. What her secret was I didn’t know. She had to be the most excruciatingly plain woman I had ever seen, but even Jonas admitted to a quiver below the belt when Miss Thorn tittered. “What I am saying, dear Mrs. Haskell, is that when I was a girl, I spoke as a girl and loved as a girl, but now that I am a woman, I must cast off girlish things.”

  Like other women’s husbands? And for this I missed Norman the Doorman.

  “You are responsible, Mrs. Haskell.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes.” A blush stained her cheeks a delicate shade of chartreuse. “It was at your wedding, seeing you so radiant, that I knew the time had come to blow out my old flames and strike a match.” Hands clutched to her concave breast. “You and your Heathcliff are still as much in love as ever?”

  Words wouldn’t come, even to ask who was the lucky chap destined to win her hand. Now, as I sat on the window seat in the nursery, Miss Thorn’s words still rang in my head, echoing my own dismal sense of failure. Ben was a man in a million. Somehow, somewhere, I had to find my way back to him, to the passion that once was ours … but first things first. The babies. The difficulties inherent in carrying them downstairs in one armload would be obvious to Pooh Bear. Naturally, the double trek appealed strongly to the exercise fiend in me, but would have been tough on the baby left clinging to the bars of the cot. So, Necessity being a mother too, I had taken to using the twin pack—a front-and-back pack, given to us by my cousin Freddy who works for Ben at Abigail’s.

  “Won’t be a tick, my loves!” I stashed both babies in the nearest cot, fished the pack off the changing table, and looped it over my head. I felt like a parachutist ready to jump for God and country. A deep breath to inflate my lungs before positioning Tam in the front pouch, then hoisting him around to the back. If this didn’t beat pumping iron any day! Now in with Abbey. A jostle to get them even, a moment to adjust Tam’s foot, a final check to make sure my flannel nightdress was hitched above safety level, and with Abbey sucking on her fist, all systems were go.

  We headed out onto the landing, that wainscotted gallery lit in daytime by the stained-glass window at the turn of the stairs and further brightened by the photo of my mother-in-law, Magdalene Haskell, on her prie-dieu. Were her eyes more reproachful—make that resigned—than ever this morning? Taking the first stair, I remembered! That letter I wrote to her and Pop Haskell last week was still on the study desk, waiting for Ben to add his imprint. Me and my scruples! I should have forged his kisses. My half-dozen pages were now hopelessly dated; Ben no longer had a cold, the twins were no longer sleeping through the night and I was no longer going on the shopping trip to Peterborough with the Hearthside Guild.

  Any fool knows a staircase is no place to let one’s mind doodle. Halfway down, Abbey jerked on my nightdress, Tam grabbed my hair—snapping my neck like an asparagus stalk—and all three of us squealed as I swayed and grabbed for the brass rail of the iron staircase. In that moment my life flashed before me. I don’t mean past glories and despairs, but the ongoing now—the twins’ breakfast and bathtime, the grocery shopping that must be done if we were not all to get scurvy, and the ironing of all those adorable little outfits that must not be left languishing in the airing cupboard an hour longer if they were to be worn twice. Clutching the banister as if it were the mast of the Hesperus, my vision cleared. Why, whatever was that at the foot of the stairs?

  A strange man was standing in pooled shadow by the front door. But no need to blow things out of proportion. Bless his heart, he wasn’t a great hulking fellow brandishing a Colt .45. My intruder was a shortish chap sprouting a Charlie Chaplin moustache and flexing an iron wrench the length of his arm.

  “Morning, Missus.” His furry thick speech and puckered left eyelid caused me to wonder if he were a family man, devoted to his godfather. Releasing a breath that set the wall tapestry swaying, I reached a casual hand for the bronze urn, conveniently placed in the niche to my right. The trick was to employ the calm, reasoning voice that worked when getting the babies to go night-night.

  “Move a muscle,” I trilled, “and you’re dead.”

  “No call to take that tone, Missus! I wiped me feet when I come in the door.”

  “Good Housekeeping should give you a medal.” How dare he look outraged. Crushing the neck of the urn, I backed up a step. “Waltzing in here! Just who the hell do you think you are?”

  “Jock Bludgett.”

  “Not Sammy the Slug?”

  “Eh?” He strained at me with his good eye as though I were a talking kangaroo. Abbey wriggled in her pouch, bringing me to my senses. Attack is not the best defense when you are an out-of-condition female who gets winded standing still and who, moreover, has one baby yanking on her hair and another sucking on a collar button, almost choking one in the process. Guile was more my speed. I would offer the burglar a cup of Earl Grey and, while his back was turned, pour in a bottle of teething medicine. Didn’t the label promise to turn a cross face into a smiley face or your money back? A pity I didn’t have any arsenic handy, I could have used that. But beggars can’t be choosers.

  “Time’s money, Missus.” The burglar was warming up the wrench on a ham-sized fist. “I got a couple of big jobs after this one.”

  “You don’t want to overdo, Mr. Bludgeon.”

  “Bludgett.”

  “Pardon me.” The urn tucked under my arm, I inched down the stairs, counting my blessings like crazy in one of those bargaining sessions with God. The twins seemed to be asleep and my flannel hem had stayed hitched above the ankle. Suddenly I saw the funny side. Entertaining a burglar in my night attire, whatever would the neighbours say? The bubbles were rising in my throat, and any moment they would explode in a cacophony of lunatic mirth.

  Strange! The peals which rang through the hall seemed to emanate not from me, but the trestle table which occupied the stone dais across the flagstone hall. The telephone. So near and yet so far.

  “That’s my husband. If I don’t answer, he’ll …” The urn fell from my grasp, drowning out thought. It thudded and thumped down the stairs, slammed with metallic force onto the flagstones, and rolled with gathering speed—like a bowling ball about to make a strike—toward the skittles—I mean, the legs—of Burglar Bludgett. The moment was mine. My infallible clumsiness had saved the day.

  Forget the cheering. Victory was about to be snatched from my clutches. Hopping nimbly over the urn, which ran to earth under a table, our villain headed for the phone.

  “The call’s for me, Missus.”

  “No!”

  “I’d know that ring anywhere.” His ugly face softened horribly. The Charlie Chaplin moustache quivered into a smile that flattened his features. Tucking the wrench in his back pocket, he thumbed up his trouser belt and smoothed a hand over his godfather hair, before lifting the receiver and placing it caressingly to his ear.

  Was I to be granted a second chance? Terrified the twins would awake and sound the alarm, I edged toward the front door and—heart-stopping moment—almost tripped over the newspaper th
at lay spreadeagle under the letter box. Was fate setting booby traps? Usually The Daily Chronicle arrived before Ben left the house and he read it over his cup of coffee. Freedom was within my grasp, my fingers were inches from the doorknob, when the grandfather clock boomed the half hour. The vibration moved up through my feet and hot-rodded toward my heart; I couldn’t move in case I stepped on a land mine and blew up. Oh, my darling babies! For a second I thought that queer rasping sound was me, then realized it was Burglar Bludgett’s heavy breathing. He stood fondling the telephone cord, a glazed look in his eyes.

  “Little Miss Muffet, I’ll sit on your tuffet any day. You get yourself all perfumed and pretty and, if you’ve got a mo, stick a bottle of that massage lotion in the microwave, just to take the chill off like, and I’ll be ’ome in two shakes … of me tail.”

  Click. He had replaced the receiver and was heading blindly toward me.

  “That was my Moll.”

  “So I gathered.”

  “Sorry to rush off like, but it’s this way. She—the wife—wants me”—Burglar Bludgett licked his moustache—“wants me ’ome for lunch. So if it’s all the same with you, I’ll be back tomorrow to finish up the patch job on the washing machine. Then I’ll do me sums and see if I can’t come up with a price to suit.”

  “Yes!” I was caving in under the weight of the babies and my own folly.

  “Lady, you need a new pump.”

  “You’re the plumber!”

  I’d stopped him in his tracks.

  “Seems to me, Missus, you need more than a new pump.” His good eye swerved away from me, but not before I caught a glimpse of pity. The next moment he ducked down, picked up the newspaper and whirred through the pages, then finding what he wanted, he folded it over and shoved it in my hands.

  “There, Missus, do yourself a favour and read the column on top page sixteen. My Moll did and it’s changed our lives. She’s a different woman and I’m twice the man I used to be. I’ve started sending ’er flowers and a thank-you card the morning after. Cheerio and best of British.”

  And off he went without a backward glance, through the door, down the steps, and across the courtyard to his van, which he boarded in a single bound, for all the world as though pursued by some madwoman who had mistaken him for a burglar.

  I closed the door on a glimpse of the van hurtling down the gravel drive, past the cottage where cousin Freddy lives, through the wrought-iron gates onto Cliff Road. And I am ashamed to say the nasty thought crossed my mind that if he went over the edge, he would never get to have a laugh with the Missus about the grouch with the pouch. Rolling the newspaper into a cudgel, I wished Ben were here this minute, so I could whop him over the head for not shouting up at me that he had let Mr. Bludgett in on his way out. As for taking a look at page sixteen, I’d be blowed if I’d do anything of the sort. An advert for iron pills I did not need. Dr. Melrose already had me taking so many my mouth tasted like a foundry. Besides, why in the world would I harken to the advice of Mr. Bludgett, a crackpot plumber who raced home for lunch at eight-thirty in the morning? The Missus must have quite a way with fish paste sandwiches.

  There I stood, knowing the twins were dozing, and suddenly it was as though the hall lost all sense of familiarity and became a chilly antechamber in one of the great cathedrals. The twin suits of armour standing against the staircase wall became St. Rufus and St. Raoul. Buried under the flagstones would be dames like me—women who had spent their lives chasing dust and were now dust themselves. A place where all doors lead to the confessionals. If I were to kneel behind the grille, what would I say? “Help me, Father! In the blink of an eye my babies will be grown and I will be a grey-haired woman colliding in this very hall with a handsome stranger who introduces himself as my husband. ‘How do you do, Mr. Haskell. Didn’t we meet once years ago? Perhaps we can get together to renew the acquaintance over a glass of wine and a romp under the covers? And please don’t get me wrong, I don’t usually do this sort of thing on the first date in twenty years but …’ ”

  The Daily Chronicle fluttered from my grasp. And when I grabbed for it, I found myself glued to page sixteen.

  BEDDED BLISS

  Want to put the lust back in love? Our village of Chitterton Fells is gripped by a new craze which threatens to turn wives into vamps and husbands into sex objects ready to flee the boardroom for the bedroom in answer to the siren call of black satin sheets and Peach Melba Love Rub. Police constables are abandoning their beats and bus drivers their routes in order to rush home for five minutes of stolen pleasure with their wives.

  The goal of Fully Female is to enable every woman to fulfill her physical, emotional, and sexual potential. Clients are urged to participate in all phases of the program. These include Working Women Workouts, Heart Happy Holistics, and Retro Relaxation. At Marriage Makeover, participants discuss such compelling issues as when they discovered they had a G Spot …

  Abbey stirred in her pouch before I could finish the article. “Load of twaddle,” I murmured, stroking her silk hair, the colour of barley sugar in the sunlight, which darted like Tinkerbell about the hall. “Mummy would be a complete nincompoop to phone up this Fully Female.” But even as my lips did the talking, my legs did the walking over to the trestle table up on the dais. With a bit of luck, Directory Inquiries wouldn’t be able to provide the number.

  Efficiency will be the downfall of this country. The telephone number was promptly supplied. Frankly fearful, I dialled the number and began counting the burps. Seven rings and I would hang up. No one need ever know that I had momentarily embraced the archaic notion that Man is Head of the Household.

  Brrrp, brrrp.

  Heaven help me, what might I be getting into? A ghastly vision filled my mind—me on a stationary bike, called a Sexercycle, pumping away for dear life while my face broke out into a map of broken veins and my exploding heart yearned for the good old days before we all started killing ourselves keeping fit. Who was I kidding? There have always been nutty females.

  “Mummy, why can’t I grow up to be a galley slave like big brother Ethelwolf?”

  Brrrp, brr …

  “Good morning, Fully Female here.”

  The snooty-tooty voice nabbed me as I was about to hang up. I could picture the speaker as clearly as if she had been flashed before me on a screen. A super-efficient mannequin in fashion spectacles, wearing a smile that clipped on like a bow tie, and blessed with more arms than an octopus, capable of juggling a dozen phones at once.

  I gave up lying, the way people give up cigarettes, when the twins were born, but every so often I weaken and tell a major fib. “Sorry, wrong number,” I mumbled.

  Instant retribution. The straps of the twin pack were cutting into my flesh and Abbey kicked out a foot, getting me below the belt.

  “Who were you dialling?”

  “Uhhhmmm—”

  “Signing up is the hardest part, dear.”

  “But I don’t want—”

  “I quite understand, Mrs.…?”

  “Haskell.” Bother! Talk about giving the name away! Now I’d be on their mailing list. A pair of pasties would arrive in the mail; Ben would get curious and I’d have to tell him they were eye shades.

  “Fully Female is very soft-sell, Mrs. Haskell.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “If you would be so kind as to spare a few moments to answer our questionnaire, we will send you free of charge our heart-shaped Do Not Disturb sign to hang on the bedroom door when your mother-in-law visits.”

  An offer no red-blooded Englishwoman could refuse. “Well,” I hedged, “if it won’t take too long. I have four-month-old twins who want their breakfast.”

  “Busy Lady, our forty-five-minute beauty routine, could be a life-saver, Mrs. Haskell.” A rustle of papers, then: “Ready for question one?”

  “I …” What was I getting myself into? Already I felt like a prisoner, bound hand and foot by the telephone cord, unable to move a finger to hang up. I, who
am the sort of person who tries to find euphemisms for “making love,” was about to be trapped into talking about nitty-gritty stuff like peekaboo underwear and multiple orgasms.

  “Question One: Are you as much in love with your husband as the day you married him?”

  Resignation surged through me. “I’d like to make an appointment.”

  “One o’clock this afternoon. You won’t be sorry.”

  Famous last words. I was sorry the moment I hung up, even without benefit of a crystal ball. At that moment I felt I had the weight of the world on my shoulders, which wasn’t too surprising since the twins were growing by leaps and pounds. Who could I find to babysit that afternoon? Freddy was my only hope. He was always off on Mondays, and despite his madcap, motorcycle ways, he was surprisingly wonderful with Abbey and Tam. Even so, I hated palming off my responsibilities. And then there were the nappies to wash, the kitchen windows to wash, and my hair … there weren’t enough hours in the day.

  Fortunately, inadequacy tends to empower me. Glaring at the suits of armour, I snapped, “To work, you lazy louts! There is brass to be polished and floors to be scrubbed.” Bother! Couldn’t I have waited to remind myself at least until I had fed the babies?

  My Aunt Astrid, who never lifts a finger to butter her own toast, let alone make her bed, is a great believer in the efficacy of making lists. Seeing my day set out in black-and-white exhausts me, however. I prefer conning myself that I’m a junior housemaid who will be dismissed without a character if X number of jobs aren’t completed in X amount of time. The trouble with this method is that occasionally I outfox myself. That particular day it completely slipped my mind that this was, in a manner of speaking, my day off. For on Mondays Mrs. Roxie Malloy came to help out at Merlin’s Court. She typically arrived at whatever time suited her fancy, so there was nothing unusual in her not having been on hand to give Mr. Bludgett the third degree.