“Got a lot of dust traps.” Mrs. Malloy waved a ring-encrusted hand past the greenery curtaining the window, to the shelf containing Ben’s collection of Victorian mixing bowls. “But should Roxie Malloy decide to take you on, you won’t have reason to complain.”
Picking up a wooden spoon, I struck out at an imaginary insect. “Mrs. Malloy, I am happy to discuss the position with you, but I do anticipate other applicants.”
“Don’t see them knee-deep at the door, do we? But suit yourself, Mrs. H.” She heaved to her feet and stubbed out the cigarette in a plant pot. “You won’t find many with my credentials. Two mornings a week I do the executive toilets at The Daily Spokesman.”
“The Daily Spokesman? You wouldn’t happen to know the Felicity Friend?”
Mrs. Malloy smacked her raspberry lips. “We have met in the course of my work; to say more would be a violation of me code of ethics. Three evenings I do the offices of Bragg, Wiseman & Smith, which tells you I can keep me eyes and hands to meself, all those documents sitting around; though who could make top nor tail of them I don’t know. That poor Lady Peerless. But I suppose these modern typewriters do Latin and such. And an old maid like her, she’ll have the hot chills for him.”
“Who’s ‘him’?” I asked, feeling horribly low.
“Mr. Greek God, Lionel Wiseman, but I doubt she’s got lucky. Not with him being married to the blond chorus girl-if they are married, which some in these here parts doubt.” Mrs. Malloy heaved a sigh. “On the subject of men-your husband isn’t the sort who makes a nuisance of himself, I trust?”
Here was my out. I heaved an echoing sigh.
“Unfortunately, Mrs. Malloy, you have touched upon the one drawback to this job. He will be home sometimes during the day. Cooking.” I made the last word sound as sinister as I could.
“Mrs. H., you don’t grasp my meaning.” Roxie Malloy adjusted the diamanté clasp on her rope of pearls. “I don’t care a farthing what sort of floury muddle the man makes, so long as he cleans up after himself. Now was I married to the man”-she picked up a Victorian mixing bowl and inspected it-“I might feel all me femininity being sapped away, never getting to open a tin of peas. But what interests me is whether or not Mr. H. is given to lecherous advances. Having buried three husbands, I’m giving up men. Undependable lot.” She pinned me to the wall with her gaze. “So, give it to me straight, Mrs. H. Can you vouch for your man?”
“My husband is completely harmless.” The words came out like bullets.
“I’d guessed as much. Women aren’t his type… of vice.” Her eyelids fluttered. “But then-I’ve been known to bring out the beast in men a bishop would swear to. Still, I’ve put me cards smack on the table. And I’m giving you a month’s trial. Can’t say fairer than that, can I?”
“Well-”
“Only reason I’ve got any spare days is that one of my ladies, Mrs. Woolpack, has gone batty and is in hospital.”
And so she joined our happy home.
Of course, even with Roxie coming in two mornings a week, there was plenty to do in the house.
Every Thursday afternoon was aerobics class. Bunty had phoned me immediately after our curtailed lunch at The Dark Horse to solicit me as a pupil. When I had said that the Historical Society was more my speed, she had responded, “That lot! They weren’t born, they were exhumed; and their leader is Mrs. Bottomly!” The magic words.
Three years previously, a foray into the world of organized exercise had resulted in a week off work and a plea for forgiveness to my body. But as this new year got underway, I was determined to make good. If I could once learn to hop and bob in time with the rest of the group and stop smacking the woman next to me in the face with my foot each time I did a leg lift, I would be a marginal student. Bunty was an exuberant teacher. The rest of the class found her instructions easy to follow. I found the sight of her legs kicking to the ceiling demoralizing. All I wanted was to pull in, firm out, and be able to eat a little more, so Ben wouldn’t look so wounded when I tried to hide the potatoes under the parsley sprigs.
All of Bunty’s students were to be in the burlesque routine she was planning for the middle of May, benefits going to the St. Anselm’s youth group. And I was assigned a starring role, one which had the advantage of keeping me offstage much of the time. I was to leap out of a cake and cry, “Ta-Ta!” in the scene entitled Bachelor Party. The cake would supposedly have been baked by Ben. A little free advertising, which a good wife could not refuse.
Another plus was that I got to know Ann Delacorte better; she did wardrobe and sets for all the St. Anselm’s productions. She loved theatre, which helped in this case because for some reason she did not love Bunty Wiseman.
Ann appeared to have only one friend, Millicent Parsnip, the tabby woman who had been with Amelia Bottomly on the train. And although no one could replace Dorcas as a confidante, I needed a woman to talk to. The marriage manuals, I was discovering, often focused on the obvious, and I already possessed the sophistication not to wear rollers, a face mask, and flannel pyjamas to bed or devour onions by the plateful-even though they are low in calories and make a pleasing change from naked lettuce. Where I needed instruction was in how to deal with the revelation that after only a few months of marriage Ben did not think of me exclusively twenty-four hours a day. Equally saddening was my own growing indifference. I found I no longer begrudged him the occasional drink with Freddy at The Dark Horse. And on those evenings when he retreated to the study with his recipe collection, I could quite happily occupy myself with a book or sketch pad until it was time to go upstairs and fill my bath with Essence of Orchid. Was it possible that after four months our marriage was developing middle-aged spread?
I didn’t verbalize all this to Ann or confide in her my concerns about my missing mother-in-law or remark that Ben put the shutters down when I brought up the subject of his parents’ separation. Rather, Ann confided in me, taking my mind off myself, giving me a sense of perspective. On Thursdays, after aerobics class, she would accompany me on expeditions for Abigail’s accoutrements. Usually we took her cute bottle-green Morris Minor, because I had still not persuaded Ben to bury Heinz and get a new vehicle. But on an afternoon in mid-April, I drove because Ann’s car was in the garage.
“If we can make it to the village,” I assured her as we lurched through the church gates, “we should be all right. Usually when the sweet old thing conks out, he does so during the first five hundred yards.”
“Nice, though-having a convertible.” Ann put on a pair of dark glasses and hugged up the collar of her beaver coat.
Gracious, as usual; Ann knew this car did not convert. Its roof was permanently compressed into accordion folds. Ideal for Ben with his claustrophobia.
“Ellie, do you have to stop in at Abigail’s and get that sample of tile for the ladies’ room from Ben?”
“Actually, no.” I downshifted. “Ben vetoed… I mean, we mutually agreed last night that I should look for something more restful in colour.” Biting my lip, I stared through the windscreen. All euphemisms aside, Ben and I had verged on a quarrel the previous evening. I hadn’t been able to get through to him that we didn’t want the customers taking forty winks while freshening up. At one point I had come close to raising my voice, above the level of what it was already raised; but then, bathrooms had become something of unhallowed ground for us. Twice that week I had caught Ben removing my still damp hose from the towel rail in the bathroom, and once I’d nabbed him in the act of stuffing them in a drawer. The wrong drawer!
“I was just trying to be helpful, darling,” he’d said with that innocent look on his face.