Mum's the Word (9 page)

Bunging everything back in my bag, I flared, “Kindly remember, darling, who drove me to a state of nerves where I'm turned inside out and back to front.”

He feigned patience. “Nothing gained in turning this into a merry-go-round of blame. Could you have put them in another bag or a pocket?”

“No.”

“When was the last time you saw them?”

“Don't talk to me in that tone. I am not a suspect in a robbery.”

“I gave them to you at the airport.”

“So you did.” Rain descended at quite a clip now, blurring his face and the whole miserable business, until … Memory struck like a blade between the ribs. Me—reading
my mother-in-law's letter, with all its dire warnings, to Ben on the plane. And the charming oriental gentleman saying, Very many bad people in this world. Oh, surely he couldn't have been a gloating pickpocket? But think of Aunt Lulu! Looks like a middle-aged Shirley Temple and would steal the gold teeth out of a corpse.

“Oh, hell!” Ben slumped back against his seat. “What's the point! They're gone. Too much to hope, I suppose, that you purchased American Expr—”

“The bank was having a promotion on another brand, one apostle teaspoon for every five hundred pounds.”

“Pity,” he remarked. “But thank God we have the receipts. We do have receipts, don't we, Ellie?”

I knotted my fingers into a cat's cradle.

“You left them in the folder with the cheques?” He doubled in bulk like the bread dough he is forever making. “I believe, Ellie, that is a federal offence over here.”

People were emerging from the Log Cabin Diner looking well-fed and happy. Dreadful to think two dollars stood between us and starvation. Could we go in and pretend we had forgotten our doggie bag?

Shame! Food should be meaningless when the life of a loved one hangs in tatters. Ben did not have to explain to me—although he did so—repeatedly, that he was due at the Mangés' Mud Creek headquarters at seven-thirty that evening, meaning there was no time for us to go and throw ourselves on the mercy of the nearest police station.

When everything had been said that could be said to make matters worse, Ben jammed in the ignition key and the car purred back onto the motorway. Not a companionable silence this. He had done the decent thing and purchased me a small carton of milk. While I sipped, he ostentatiously tightened his seat belt.

The road unwound like paper towels being blown on the wind. The trees whizzing past us were beaten into fans and my hair kept escaping from its knot and flapping in my eyes.… I came to with a start to find that Ben had pulled over to the side of the road and was turning off the engine.

“Time for a Thermos break?” My voice polluted the air with sarcasm. “After all your talk about time being scarcer than a good woman.” He was slumped over the wheel. He'd
had a heart attack … he was dead! How could he do this to me—leave me a widow out here in the middle of nowhere? I grabbed his shoulders and pried up his head.

“Ellie, we're out of gas.”

This was worse than death. If I hadn't lost the traveller's cheques, he would have bought petrol at the Log Cabin pumps. Now even if we could cut through this jungle of corn and reach life-giving fuel, what were the chances that we would be allowed to write an I.O.U.? I tried to reassure Ben that the Mangés would be understanding, that having assembled to meet him they wouldn't turn tail and go home just because he was five minutes—or five hours—late. But my voice was blown away on the wind and I wasn't sure whether that was rain or tears on my face when his hand closed over mine.

“You mustn't blame yourself, sweetheart.” His voice was a quiet blend of fatigue and heroism. “I'm beginning to believe in Chantal's Black Cloud.”

Being wet and scared was bad enough, but doomed? I wasn't physically up to that. Opening my bag, I rummaged around for a tissue and drew out the envelope containing my mother-in-law's letter. Funny, it felt bulkier than I remembered. And no wonder! Inside the envelope were the traveller's cheques.

“Ben, I see it all now! I must have stuffed them in with the letter when I dropped my bag in the airplane loo and got in such a panic. When I think of how I blamed that innocent oriental gentleman …”

My love wasn't listening. He was standing on his seat. Arms waving wildly, he shouted, “Saved! Saved!” Miraculously the wind had died, the rain stopped and the sun burst in blazing splendour through the clouds. And a car was easing to a stop behind us. The couple inside thought Ben was shouting “Help! Help!” What ambassadors of goodwill. Dr. Bernie Wetchler and his wife Jorie from Peoria. They produced a petrol tin, did the honours and waving aside our thanks, sped on their way.

“Awfully decent of them to come braking to the rescue. I must say, darling, it quite restores my faith in human nature; from this moment forward I am done with all superstitious folly. What's the matter, do you have something in your eye?”

“No, sweetheart.” A grin got the better of him. “I hate to burst your bubble but they pulled over because they had reached a madly exciting part in the book the wife was reading aloud.”

“Don't tell me … not
Monster Mommy
! Ben, that horrible book is
following
us!”

He drew me to him. “Hush! A while back it was vultures. You're exhausted, and I'm a thoughtless devil to put you through such a journey in your condition. Let's shake the dust of this place off our feet. Not another cross word the entire holiday, I swear!”

My darling was right. We must focus on the road ahead.

We were back in the mainstream of life. If Ben gave the car its head he might make his Mangé Meeting on time.

Mud Creek, population four hundred and thirty-six. Its charm lay in the convenience factor. Getting lost here would be difficult. Main Street was backed by fields and faced the muddy Illinois River. Driving past Nelga's Fashions, with its One Size Fits All print frock in the window, I reflected that this might be the ideal hideout for the compulsive shopper. We drove past The Scissor Cut Hair Salon, the Lucky Strike Bowling Alley, and a corner cafe with a cardboard menu in the window. Approaching a set of traffic lights strung on sagging wire and now level with Jimmy's Bar, a corrugated brick building with Old West saloon doors. Would a spurred boot kick them open, sending a couple of bodies somersaulting onto the dusty pavement? Would a gun-twirling, tobacco-chewing Bad Guy saunter into the middle of the street and, with the sun as his backdrop, order us to get the hell back to Dodge?

“Ben, you never told me why the Mangés chose Mud Creek.”

“Who would suspect them of holding meetings here?”

“Clever.”

Time for me to start worrying about the impression I was about to make. Peering in my compact mirror I saw the sun had done a job on my nose, but I didn't have time to repine. A series of jolting bumps and Ben swung the car into a curve. Were we here? Was this the place? No, unless the Mangé
meeting place was a petrol station with antique pumps. Parking beside the rusted fizzy drink machine, Ben announced he would check his directions and, if necessary, ask assistance.

“Isn't the house on Main Street?”

Ben unfolded the Mangé communique and cupped it with his hands. “Sorry, sweetheart! You realize I would be breaking faith if I let you see even the signature.”

“Am I to be taken there blindfolded?”

“The house is Mendenhall, named for the first owner. No harm telling you Josiah Mendenhall was a whisky baron who made his fortune from distilled corn. That's bourbon,” he added kindly.

“And I thought the smell of the river was what I was imbibing,” I informed Ben's back. He had leaped out of the saddle—I mean over the side of the car—and made for the glass door of the garage. Soon he was joined by another head and I could see hands pointing.

Gosh, I was tired. What heaven an hour's soak in a hot scented bath! Easing back against my seat, eyes half closed, I studied the warehouse style building across the street. Was it the distillery? Had old Josiah used the river for transportation? Through a gap between the garage and a putty-coloured frame house with sagging veranda, I could see a stretch of water and what might be a lighthouse, rising up from a tiny island.

Aunt Astrid's warning—that no good comes of superfluous thought—came back to haunt me. I was shaken out of my revery with sufficient violence to throw me against the dashboard. Fast on the heels of fright came the crystal clear realization that I had been rear-ended.

That our car had been parked minding its own business and that I had not done the parking did not prevent me from blaming my lack of U. S. driving experience for the accident. A driver was coming around the side of my car. He was a hulk of a man. His seersucker jacket flapped open, his yellowish white locks lifted in the air with the force of his stride. Wildly, I looked toward the glass door for Ben. But the heads had disappeared.

Nothing to do but assume an assertive smile and remember I was a British subject.

The man was holding a leaflet. A do-it-yourself summons?
“Don't you go worrying yourself, young lady, not a lick of damage on yours and no more than a scratch on my old jalopy.”

“That's nice.” If only Ben would hurry up! There was something about this man I didn't like: he had failed to comment on my charming English accent. Other than that he was too genial. His smile took up the entire bottom half of his face, revealing higgledy-piggledy teeth of the same yellow as his hair. Mesmerized, I let out a screech when a woman's face peered over his shoulder. A washed out face with faded auburn hair. She stood two paces behind him, twisting the front of her colourless sweater into a knot.

“A blessed evening this!” The man lifted his face to the sky, and radiance overtook his features, spoiled, alas, by those teeth.

“Perfect,” I said.

The woman risked a smile, then took it back.

“Try as sinful man may, he cannot destroy all that is good! Is that not so, ma'am?”

“Very true.”

“Young lady, I worry that you drive a high-priced car. But I don't judge you. My hope is you are numbered among those who are mightily concerned about the wickedness that is overtaking the American family.” Lifting a hand to smooth back his hair, he continued to hold it aloft to keep sin at bay.

“Not really.” I backed away from his smile. “Everyone I have met since coming to this country has been most frightfully kind.”

“The devil has his sidekicks. Don't we know that, Laverne?”

“That's so, yes it is, Enoch,” the woman said.

“I really do have to be going,” I stammered.

His face burrowed through the window as I slid over to the driver's seat. “Young lady, I must ask the question. Are you saved?”

Was I morally obliged to tell this Pharisee that I attended service regularly at St. Anselm's and was working on bringing Jonas back to the fold by insisting he take the altar flowers over himself? “Saved? I felt perfectly safe until you crashed into me.”

“The workings of Providence.” Enoch bent his head for
a moment of silent prayer, before thrusting at me the leaflet he had been clutching. “We pass through this life but once, and in the infinite wisdom of His ways it may be written that we do not meet again. Read and all will be made plain. Young lady, this very evening you go on our regular prayer list. For a donation in that there envelope you can be added to our Blessed Brethren portfolio.”

When Ben emerged one minute later, the old jalopy was a rumble in the distance and I had voted unanimously not to mention the collision if he did not. I didn't think I would go to hell for keeping quiet. I looked at the pamphlet,
One Hundred and One Deadly Sins
, and was aghast to discover that it was the work of the Diethelogians, the very group my mother-in-law had warned about so eloquently in her letter. The Food Haters. Those fanatics who earned extra stars in their halos if they fought the good fight with the archfiends—chefs. Ben must not be allowed to fall prey to the Diethelogians. As eccentrics went, the Mangés might not be so bad.

“Sweetheart?” Ben loomed over me much as Enoch had done. “I didn't mean to startle you.”

“You didn't; I squealed to clear my lungs.”

“Ellie, I was gone so long because I discovered I needed more than directions to the Mangé meeting place.”

“Really?” Oh, how I did love his teeth, but why didn't he get back in the car, instead of standing, hands behind his back like the Duke of Edinburgh? Why that haunted look in his eyes, that desperate note in his voice?

“Ellie, Mendenhall is located on an island in the middle of the river.”

“Darling, what a kick in … the knee!” A glance at my watch showed twenty minutes past seven. Ten minutes to get to his Mangé Meeting. No wonder he was in a tizz! But surely the Mangés would not refuse to conduct the interviews because he was a trifle late. We must not let panic drag us by the coattails. I offered to drive if he would relay instructions on how to get to the ferry.

Ben's face was pale. “There isn't one.”

“Can we rent a boat?”

He opened the car door. “We are wasting precious time! I purchased a boat.”

“A what?” My mind became a slide show of yachts,
motor boats, sail boats, tankers. “You mean you bought a boat sight unseen from the garage attendant?”

“He was a decent chap, though not at all forthcoming about who owns Mendenhall—the Mangés are apparently borrowing it for the weekend and he had some foolish misgivings about the organization.”

“Where is this boat docked?”

“Right here.” Bringing his hands out into the open, he held out an orange package, not much bigger than a plastic raincoat in a zipper bag, along with a pair of over-sized wooden salad stirrers. “Just what you always wanted, Ellie! An inflatable rowing boat.”