How to Murder Your Mother-In-Law (18 page)

“Think I’m getting the hang of it?” Mr, Savage’s smile penetrated my closed lids like strong sunlight.

“You should take up driving professionally.”

“I may look into it if my career in rock and roll doesn’t take off.” We were going the wrong way down a one-way street. But why be a spoilsport! The lampposts had the good sense to dodge out of the way, and Barclays Bank and the town clock could give as good as they got. Besides which, we were within swinging distance of the sign heralding the Dark Horse.

“This is it, Mr. Savage.”

“You mean …” He peeled his hands off the wheel to stare at the pub with its ye old oak timbers and leaded windows.

“We have arrived at my destination.” I had to raise my voice over the crunch of metal on metal as the Heinz nosed onto the pavement to collide with a disposal bin, rocking it on its cement socks. “Do you want to wait while I go inside, or …?” I left the question ajar, along with my door, as I climbed out.

“I would be honoured to join you in a lemonade.” He turned off the engine as if he had been in the habit for years.

“That’s awfully kind of you.” I closed the car door on his hopes of thumbing a metaphoric finger at his mother. “However, I came here only to deliver the suitcase in the backseat. It belongs to my father-in-law, who is putting up here.”

“You aren’t really running away from home?” Spectacles agog, Mr. Savage followed me onto the sidewalk.

A sigh feathered the hair back from my brow. “Only for half an hour or so.” I was about to suggest that we could take the longcut home in the interest of putting the wind up my loving family, but I was not a complete jade. The poor, susceptible man must not be subjected to prolonged proximity with my charming self. The scent of Pine-Scrub emanating from my skin might lead him to do something foolish, such as offer to buy me a bag of potato chips. I would see the prodigal father, give him a quick talking-to, and tell Mr. Savage that I would drive home.

What he lacked in brute strength he more than made up for in gallantry as he proceeded towards the etched glass door of the Dark Horse, practically on all fours, dragging the carcass—I mean the suitcase—along the ground. When we were blocking the path of a couple of decidedly merry blokes who appeared uncertain whether they were coming or going, he remembered he had left the tape recorder in the car, where anyone could steal it.

Rather than watch him hobble back to the curb like Caliban, I did the honours this time. Then without much more ado we entered the saloon bar to be blinded by the dazzling array of copper warming pans and ornamental horseshoes. Elbowing our way through the crush of local yokels, we crossed in front of the gas log fire to reach the bar with its two-inch coat of varnish and enough brass handles to steer a rocket ship.

“Out on a date, madam?” The woman at the helm paused in mopping up spills to look from me to Mr. Savage and back again.

Taking a deep breath of malt-liquor air, I hugged the tape recorder to my chest. “Whatever are you doing here, Mrs. Malloy?”

“Earning a living.” Pride inflated her considerable bosom. “I’m the new barmaid. It’s me life’s calling.”
She picked up a glass, blew on it, gave it a buff with her cloth, and set it down with exaggerated care. “Sad to say, I didn’t get to answer the summons until this evening, after I was given the heave-ho from me job at Merlin’s Court. But as they say, Mrs. H., when one door closes, another one opens. I had a word with me old chum Edna Pickle after I took Mr. Watkins home. She suggested this might be a good career move.”

“How is Mr. Watkins?” I flustered.

“Not long for this world, from the sound of him.” Shooing my hand off the counter with her cloth, Mrs. Malloy buffed fiercely away at the unsightly fingerprints. “But we have to bear in mind that only the good die young.” A sigh ruffled her purple eyelashes. “What goes to explain why your mother-in-law is still numbered among the living. As for you, my lad”—she pointed a finger that made Peter Savage jump—“the least you could’ve done to earn your keep was make the old girl a cup of tea and stir in a couple of spoons of arsenic.”

Mr. Savage, far from looking shocked, produced a smile as untarnished as any of the brass. But some of us still had a sense of what was fitting in civilized society.

“Life will get back to normal at Merlin’s Court one of these days,” I said firmly. “And you will come back to us, Mrs. Malloy.”

“Don’t count your chickens.”

“Meanwhile, you have this job.” I held on to the tape recorder as if it were a life preserver that would enable me to keep my head above water. “It was good of Mrs. Pickle to suggest you apply.”

“One in a million is Edna,” returned Mrs. M., conveniently forgetting that she had routinely kept me abreast of her pal’s shortcomings.

“There’s nothing like a woman friend.” Mr. Savage looked dreamily into my face.

“I shall be spending the night at her house.” Mrs. M. folded her arms, hefting her taffeta bosom up to her chin. “Wouldn’t take no for an answer, would Edna.
She didn’t want me to be alone. Not under the circumstances. Being reduced to a charity case don’t suit me, but I’ve ways of making it up to her.” Gimlet stare. “I’ve decided to leave her me china poodle, the one I always promised would be yours after my day.”

“That’s as it should be.” I endeavoured to sound suitably crushed.

“Well, let’s cut the cackle. It won’t do me no good to get the sack twice in one day.” She reached for one of the brass taps. “A pint of bitter for the gent, and what about yourself, Mrs. H.?”

My response never made it past my lips because we were in that instant hemmed in by an influx of stein-hefting, tongue-lolling imbibers, one of whom gained the advantage of added height by standing on the suitcase Mr. Savage had set down on the floor. This brief respite was not wasted on Mrs. M., who clasped a heavily ringed hand to her throat.

“Where’s me brains, Mrs. H.? You haven’t come down here for a belt of lemonade; you packed your bags and walked out of that hellhole you call home, didn’t you now?”

“No! I’m here on behalf of my father-in-law.”

Either my voice was lost in the roar of the crowd, or she didn’t believe me. No doubt about it, she had brightened considerably. “There, now, ducky! What you don’t want to do is go from the frying pan into the fire.” She looked at my companion and pursed her damson lips. “Mr. What’s-his-name here could be a prince, I’m not saying he isn’t, but he’s getting you on the rebound.”

“Am I?” Mr. Savage swallowed his Adam’s apple.

“Of course not!” I thumped the tape recorder down on the bar for emphasis.

“You can come and live with me,” offered my Lady Bountiful. “You can even bring the twins if you’re one hundred percent set on it.”

A man in a tweed cap and knitted waistcoat asked
for a pint of mild in a voice that was anything but, and was roundly told to bugger off.

“That’s awfully kind of you, Mrs. Malloy,” I said, “but the only reason I came here was to bring Dad his suitcase. He’s staying here until things sort themselves out.”

“So I heard. Room 4, top of the stairs, first on the right.” Wiping her hands on her apron front, she began pulling on the taps and foaming up the glasses at a furious rate. To my mind the day was wearing thin, but by the expedient of putting one foot in front of the other I made my way, with Mr. Savage in tow, past a pair of settles with tapestry cushions and through an open doorway into a narrow hall with the Ladies and Gents to our left and on our right a flight of stairs with more twists and turns than a gothic novel. It wasn’t until I was nearing the top step that I realized I had left the tape recorder on the bar. Luckily, every ounce of Mr. Savage’s being was concentrated on dragging the suitcase onto the landing, which was no bigger than a handkerchief. While he took a breather I knocked on the door of Room 4.

Dad took his time opening up. Even then all that came poking through the crack was the tip of his white beard.

“I don’t want more towels. What do you think I’m doing up here, running a Turkish bath?”

Understandably unnerved by the lion’s roar, Mr. Savage’s spectacles fogged up, but I managed to remain calm.

“Dad, it’s me—Ellie!”

“Never rains but it pours!” Grudgingly, my father-in-law removed his foot from the crack and granted admittance. Behind him on the chest of drawers was a television with the sound turned off but the picture going full blast.

“Very nice,” I said, looking around. Truth be told, the radiator was the handsomest piece of furniture in the room. The wardrobe had
not
seen better days, the
walls were boring beige, the bedspread hospital-green, and the exposed pipes of the wash basin were unpleasantly reminiscent of someone who had ended up on the wrong side of Good Queen Bess and been hung, drawn, and quartered. As for Dad, he was not himself. His bald head was more in need of a shine than his shoes, and his attempt to brighten up the place with an artful arrangement of fruit and veggies on the windowsill made my heart ache. Was he hearkening back to his shop in Tottenham, or laying in provisions for a long siege?

“We brought your suitcase.”

“So I see.” Dad glared at Mr. Savage, who was dragging the leather carcass over the threshold. “And he’ll be your mother-in-law’s solicitor, I suppose.”

“Don’t be silly.” I sat down on the bed and felt it sag to within an inch of the floor. “He’s a rock-and-roll singer. A friend of Freddy’s, who—”

“Is that right?” To my surprise, Dad’s brown eyes showed interest.

“I’m just starting out. Local gigs, that sort of thing, until the job market opens up.” Mr. Savage cleared his throat and took a couple of steps towards the windowsill. “Would you mind if I had an orange? I’ve been falling behind in my intake of vitamin C.” He had said the magic words.

“Help yourself.” Dad tried to sound gruff and failed, which encouraged me to get down to the nitty-gritty of my visit.

“We do wish you’d come home,” I told him.

“Who’s we?” He went right on watching Mr. Savage peel his orange.

“Ben and I, and … Mum.” My voice could have done with some oil to cure the squeaks. “There’s no doubt in the world that she misses you desperately. All it would take from you would be a teensy-weensy apology”—I crossed my fingers behind my back—“and a carefully worded assurance that you have no romantic interest in Tricks Taffer. Come on, Dad.” I leaned towards
him. “Surely it would be worth it in the interest of salvaging a thirty-eight-year relationship.”

“Did Magdalene say she wanted me back?”

“Not in so many words, but …”

“But me no buts!” His face turned so red, I was afraid it would set his beard on fire as he stomped up and down in front of the bed. “Magdalene was the one who turned me out on the street, so if there’s any running to be done, she’d better be the one to get her legs in gear.”

“But think of all the good times,” I implored him.

“Like when?”

“Like when you were first in love.”

“In what?” This bellow almost caused Mr. Savage to swallow the apple he had raised to his lips, but when Dad next spoke, it was in a curiously flattened voice, as if all the air had been let out of his lungs. “Speaking of rock and roll, I had a decent singing voice myself once upon a time.”

“Did you?” I sat absolutely still.

“Would you believe that back in the early days I once wrote a song for Maggie?” Incredibly, he was smiling, faintly but surely, and his eyes looked past me to the days when he and Mum were young and life and love were filled with promise. And suddenly, as I watched Mr. Savage reach for a banana, an idea popped into my head that made just as much sense as the notion of Dad doing volunteer work at a local greengrocers.

A
bsence does not always make the heart grow fonder. When I approached the bench—I mean the bar—and asked Mrs. Malloy if she had put the tape recorder behind the counter for safekeeping, she produced it with a wallop that would have given a woman with stronger insides than myself a prolapse.

“Anything else I can do for your majesty?”

In case she was on commission, I ordered a large gin and tonic. Then, horror of horrors, when she rang up the price I remembered I had not brought my handbag with me. The car keys were in my raincoat pocket, but no matter how far I pulled out the lining, I couldn’t come up with a penny in loose change. Asking if she would kindly keep a running tab, I looked around for a table that wasn’t under her eagle eye.

All were occupied except one, bang up next to the bar, so there I retreated with a drink that was almost as tall as I, which I couldn’t drink because I would have to drive home. Even if Mr. Savage should abandon his
newfound musical collaboration with Dad and return to me this side of morning, I wouldn’t feel comfortable letting him drive in the dark.

Under different circumstances I could have asked Mrs. Malloy to let me write her an IOU. But given her present miffed state, the best I could hope for was to be ordered out back to do the washing-up. For a doleful few moments I sat twiddling the knobs of the tape recorder before depositing it on the floor in hope that it would be mistaken for a black leather handbag. I knew I was being silly. All I had to do was go upstairs to Room 4 and borrow some money from Dad. But on that particular night I balked at the thought of looking like a helpless female. If the shoe fits, you don’t
have
to wear it.