How to Murder Your Mother-In-Law (2 page)

“Edna’s got an ’orrible temper when roused,” said Mrs. Malloy, who never forgot her haitches unless the situation called for major emphasis. “The old story of still waters running deep, if you get my drift. And along them lines, Mrs. H., you haven’t said one word about how the mister is taking this dinner party of yours.”

“It’s for his parents.”

“And he’s jumping for joy, is that what you’re telling me?”

“Oh, you know how men are,” I hedged.

“After four husbands, I should say I do, duck.” Mrs. Malloy could be incredibly sympathetic when her nose got the better of her.

“Ben wasn’t immediately in favour of the idea.” I busied my hands straightening knives and forks that didn’t need straightening. “But it’s not as though I were talking about entertaining the postman and his wife. He’s known his parents for years.”

“So what was his problem?”

“He went on about the journey, as if Mum and Dad
would have to take the dogsled from Siberia instead of the train from Tottenham. If it had been dead of winter instead of June, he might have had a point. But what it came down to was his belief that Mum and Dad had never made any fuss over their anniversary and he thought they’d be happier with a nice card. You know the sort, with the satin heart that you can use for a pincushion later, and a verse on the inside such as ‘Still singing love’s song, while the world hums along.’ ”

“Spit it out.” Mrs. Malloy blew on a serving spoon before giving it a buff with her apron. “How did you bring him round?”

“The babies. I reminded Ben that the last time his parents saw the twins, they weren’t putting words together, let alone staggering all over the house. And the moment he started to waffle, I picked up the phone and issued the invitation.”

“And I suppose your in-laws was over the moon?”

“Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” I admitted. “Dad hemmed and hawed a bit about having to bring the dog, and I could hear Mum in the background saying she didn’t want to be a burden. But I knew they really wanted to accept. Why wouldn’t they? And in the end it was all arranged that they would come down today for the dinner and stay the week.”

“So when did you come up with the bright idea of including Mrs. Haskell’s long-lost friend in the invite?”

“Just a few days ago,” I said, looking around as if the walls not only had ears but their own telegraph system. For this was to be the
big
surprise. “Last time she was here, Mum mentioned she had learned through the grapevine that her girlhood pal, Beatrix, lives a few miles from here. And that her married name is Taffer. But when I suggested ringing up and inviting her over for lunch or tea, Mum went on as she does about not wanting to make work for me. Such a shame, because I knew she had to be dying to see her friend and chat over old times. So when I got down to organizing the dinner party, I rang up and spoke to Mrs. Taffer’s
daughter-in-law. The old lady couldn’t come to the phone herself because she was upstairs doing her exercises—arthritis I suppose, poor dear. But Frizzy Taffer couldn’t have been nicer or more excited about Beatrix having a night out.”

“Very nice.” Mrs. Malloy gave a lordly sniff. “But if you ask me, you’ve got your work cut out for you.”

“I keep telling you, everything is under control.”

“Says you, Mrs. H., and what I says is you’re forgetting your mother-in-law can be a real pain up the rear.”

“That’s unkind.”

“What was unkind”—Mrs. M. drew herself up on her stilt heels—“was her calling me the Harlot of Jerusalem when her hubby gave me a peck under the mistletoe last Christmas. Then again, perhaps I took offence where none was meant. My third—or was it me fourth?—husband always said I was too sensitive for me own good. But we can’t none of us change our natures.”

I was Wondering what Eudora Spike would have to say about that. Uncannily, Mrs. Malloy proved to be a mind reader.

“Take a lesson, Mrs. H., from our poor vicar.”

When Mrs. Spike had arrived at St. Anselm’s Vicarage as a temporary replacement for the Reverend Rowland Foxworth, there had been quite a few chauvinistic grumbles, but, after a few months, most parishioners seemed to forget she was a mere deacon; and Mrs. Malloy wasn’t unusual in addressing her as “vicar.”

“What sort of lesson?” I asked.

“Where’ve you been living, in an igloo? Her mother-in-law came for a fortnight the beginning of May and is still buggering up the place.”

“Really?” Not only had I not seen the elder Mrs. Spike in church, but Eudora hadn’t brought her to visit me, or invited me over to the vicarage to meet her.

“I expect they’ve been busy cutting each other’s throats,” Mrs. Malloy said kindly. “I’ve been getting the lowdown from me ex-chum, Edna Pickle. Edna’s not
like me, Mrs. H., for as I told you the first day I walked through your door, I don’t do drains, I don’t do cellars, and I don’t gossip about me clients. As I said, I’m too meek and mild for this world, and I worry about you and your good intentions, Mrs. H.; I tell you straight and no mistake, you’ll end up looking like Lady Kitty Pomeroy’s daughter-in-law, Pamela. My friend Edna, in the days when we was speaking, said you could hold the poor girl up to a light and see right through her.”

The thought of my being reduced to a waif had a certain appeal for me. All this rushing around had played havoc with my diet, which I had planned to start after lunch. Or, rather, after the box of chocolates I had eaten after lunch.

“Speaking of Lady Kitty,” I said, “you’ve reminded me I have to speak to her about the tents for the fête. I understand she gave last year’s chairperson a real drumming for not consulting her. And rightly so, I suppose, considering the event is held on the grounds of Pomeroy Manor.”

“The woman’s a bloody tyrant,” Mrs. Malloy said vehemently, wiping the complacent smile off my lips. “You have only to look at her to see that. And no one ever gets a look at Sir Robert. Edna says the poor old bugger hasn’t been off the grounds since he went hunting without permission twenty years ago. But some would say as compared to your mother-in-law, her ladyship is a prize. Mark my words, the old girl won’t be in this house five minutes before she has you in tears, insisting the cat be put down.”

“This isn’t helping, Mrs. Malloy.” I looked around the dining room for some telltale sign that my darling feline, Tobias, was listening in on our conversation from under the sideboard. “My mother-in-law and I have had our differences in the past, but I see now they were mostly my fault. I’ve been too quick to take offence. But no more. This dinner party is to be a new beginning.”

“Whatever you say.” Mrs. Malloy heaved a disbelieving
sigh. “But if she asks to have
me
put down, Mrs. H., I hope you’ll make it quick and painless.”

“Let’s talk about the flowers,” I said firmly. “I’m having second thoughts about those peonies.”

“They look all right to me.”

“Are you sure?” Suddenly I was wondering if marigolds wouldn’t have looked better in the bowl, which is the size of the church font, on the sill. The sunlight foisting its way through the leaded glass window did rather clash with all that pink. Thank heavens for Ben. His classic good looks are always complementary to any decor. Jonas is another story. Our resident gardener takes pride in looking as grungy as possible, from his hoary moustache to his clumping boots. A good thing Lady Kitty didn’t have him in her clutches, or Jonas might have found himself stashed away with the Hoover under the stairs.

But who was I to throw stones? The mirror above the overmantel did not reflect a pretty sight. My hair was scraped back in a hangman’s noose; I was wearing a pair of horrible old shorts, and my shirt had been rescued from the duster bag. If my in-laws caught me looking like this, they couldn’t be blamed for thinking their Ben could have done a lot better for himself. But, happily, that catastrophe was not in the making. I had a luxurious two hours, at least, in which to take a bath, wash my hair, and slip into my party frock.

Mrs. Malloy put it another way. “In two shakes of a cat’s tail, unless this place is taken over by the Red Cross for emergency bandage practice, we’ll have Mum and Dad leaning on your doorbell. Better snap it up if you hope to lose that two stone you’ve been going on about all week.”

“Thanks for the moral support,” I said frostily.

“And you still have to get the twins dressed up in their pretties,” she reminded me.

“A mother’s privilege.” I beamed, trying not to imagine what Abbey and Tam might now look like after
an hour with Cousin Freddy. The man who looked like the local hit man was putty in my babies’ hands.

“And what about St. Francis?” Mrs. Malloy tapped fingers loaded down with rings on a folded arm. “Is he still missing?” Honestly! The woman should work for Scotland Yard. I’d removed the statue that had been Mum’s wedding present from its niche in the hall to give him a dusting, and I’d put him down somewhere or other.

“I’ll find him,” I said confidently.

“Course you will, duck!” She gave one of her gusty guffaws. “Come nightfall you won’t have no trouble, seeing as how he glows in the dark. A nasty turn he gave me that time I was baby-sitting for you and the electricity went out. I thought I was having one of them visions Roman Catholics like your mother-in-law are always jabbering about. Believe you me, I got busy repenting me sins and was all done with the A’s and had started on the B’s when the lights came on.” Mrs. Malloy shuddered at the memory.

To my shame, I was in complete sympathy with her. During childhood I had read about the visions of Bernadette and promptly forfeited any desire to become a saint. For a long time afterwards I had made sure I did something naughty before going to bed just to increase the odds that I wouldn’t be singled out for the favour of a heavenly visitor rising up out of the shadows between the wardrobe and the window. Even so, I would sometimes waken in the dead of night and think I heard a voice whispering, “Ellie … Ell-ie, come down to the grotto.” The objective, I decided, was to be neither too good nor so bad that the devil got me. And early in my marriage I had determined I could never become a Catholic, even to please Mum; not without plugging in a night-light, which wouldn’t have pleased Ben.

“A rum sort of marriage, wouldn’t you say?” Mrs. Malloy broke into my thoughts.

“Whose?”

“Your in-laws. There’s her—an R.C. what makes
the Pope look like a goof-off—and him as Jewish as they make ’em. Must have been a real turn-up for the book when they tied the knot.”

I had often thought the same thing. Times have changed in thirty-eight years, but when Mum and Dad took the plunge, they must really have been going against the flow. And knowing Mum, I could only assume that the lure of forbidden fruit … and vege (Dad ran a greengrocer’s shop) had proved irresistible.

“We tend to forget,” I said, “when looking at a couple close on seventy that theirs may have been one of the truly great love affairs.”

“Don’t go getting all misty-eyed on me, Mrs. H.” Mrs. Malloy pursed her purple lips.

“My point is they deserve this little anniversary party, with the surprise reunion with Beatrix Taffer being the icing on the cake.”

“Says you! And now if it’s all the same as makes no difference”—Mrs. M. gave her apron a tug that signalled business—“I think I’ll go and make meself a cuppa while you amuse yourself putting out them doilies.”

“Thanks for reminding me,” I said with genuine gratitude and, accepting my dismissal, headed out into the hall.

Mum, who was a whiz at handwork, had given us so many lacy little mats that had I put them all out at once it would have looked like the year of the crochet hook. That morning I had unearthed four drawer-loads and piled them on the trestle table in the hall, ready to be laid out on every available surface from the Queen Anne bureau to the ironing board. Picking up one of the doilies now, I acknowledged its museum quality and wondered a little wistfully whether Mum and I might have been closer had I shared her talent.

The
bong
of the grandfather clock was not the only reason I dropped the doily. Jonas stuck his head over the banister to growl, in what was supposed to be a whisper, “Ellie girl! I can’t find my Choco-Lax.”

“What?”

“That stuff as keeps me regular.”

“Well, don’t look at me like that!” I said defensively. “I didn’t sit down and make a pig of myself with a couple of Choco bars. Try and remember where you put it.”

His answer was drowned out by the ringing of the telephone. When I turned back with the receiver in my hand, he had vanished up the stairs.

“Hello!” I chirped, expecting to hear Ben’s voice asking if I needed him to come home and clean out the gutters, which isn’t as silly as it sounds, because Mum was just as likely to climb a ladder to check them out. She’s a meticulous housewife besides being such a character!

“Mrs. Haskell?”

Seeing that Ben and I had never picked up the habit of addressing each other like characters in a Jane Austen novel, I figured he wasn’t the caller. Besides which, it was a woman speaking. I recognized the voice. My heart dropped to my tennis shoes. Frizzy Taffer. Oh, no! Don’t tell me her mother-in-law, Beatrix, wasn’t up to an evening out!

“Hello,” I said weakly.

“I hope I’m not catching you at a bad moment?”

“Not at all.”

“I know how it is when you’re rushing around at the last minute trying to get a million things done at once,” Frizzy said sympathetically. “Last week I had a thirteenth birthday party for my daughter, Dawn.” Breathless laugh. “And just when the doorbell was ringing, my four-year-old slipped and cracked his head, and the minute I got him sorted out, I found the toddler had taken bites out of all the fairy cakes.”

Hardly liking to boast that I was one hundred percent organized, I said it was lovely to hear from her.

“I thought I’d better give you a ring to let you know we’ve arranged for the taxi to bring Ma over to
your place, and pick her back up when she’s ready to come home.”

“Then, she is coming?” I could have kissed the receiver.

“Why, yes!” Frizzy’s voice turned all panicky. “You haven’t changed your mind, have you?”