His day off! What luck! My breath exploded in a whoosh of relief as the receiver hit the cradle. What did I have to lose on entering The Peerless and making contact with one or more of its patients? Other than my life, that is. And if I played my part well, the part of a would-be patient checking out the nursing home to see if it offered the right… no, the wrong facilities, I should not only be safe, but informed. I smiled up at Abigail’s portrait. She appeared to wink, but it may have been a shadow hitting the portrait from the window.
There are advantages to having seen fatter days. I did not have to search far in my wardrobe to find a garment with stretch appeal. The dress which I held against me and surveyed in the mirror had huge white spots on a red background. Not ideal. With my coat gaping open, it would be possible to see me coming or going for miles around. But I decided I liked the dropped elastic waist more than I disliked the spots. Now-a major decision. Should I use a pillow? No, too big. A chair cushion worked but didn’t provide the look I wanted. I wished to appear so imminently pregnant that no starch-crackling nurse would dare raise her voice above a whisper to me. I wandered about the bedroom, practising maternity posture. What would make the ideal baby? Oh, for Dorcas! She would have come up with a bright idea. Bright, that was it! I sped along to my friend’s old room, sniffed the air nostalgically for a whiff of Athletic Woman’s Talc, and found the bag of balloons, the remains of those she had strung up for the engagement party. Dear Dorcas, everything in its place and a place for everything. I could almost hear her voice: “Frightfully spiffing of you to attempt this, old girl.” Mmmmm. She might not think it so spiffing if she came home from the States to find me not in my place.
The balloon looked great, but being light, it tended to shift. A problem easily solved by filling it with water. I decided against wearing it while driving the car. Into a carrier it went. On with my camel coat, over the shoulder with my bag, and down to tell Magdalene and Poppa that I had some shopping to do.
“Nice to have so much free time on your hands, Giselle.” Sunshine sparks flew off Magdalene’s knitting needles; the jacket she was making for Sweetie grew even as I watched.
It seemed a safe kindness to ask her to join me. Since the fateful evening at Abigail’s, Magdalene had stayed close to home, although she was no longer fanatical about locking windows and doors.
Poppa looked up from his cake carving and smoothed his bald spot. “Go, Maggie, why don’t you?” His voice sounded… creaky. And why wouldn’t it? He spoke to her so rarely.
The needles slowed.
“On second thought,” I said, feeling as if I had offered a sweet to a child and snatched it back, “it is still unseasonably chilly.”
“Wouldn’t do, then. Maggie’s always had a chesty chest.” Poppa cleared his throat and got back to carving.
As I crossed the courtyard to the car, I heard a creak behind me and felt a presence, but I didn’t slow my pace. I wasn’t going to give Tobias the pleasure of thinking he could scare me out of my wits, not that easily. And I wasn’t much concerned about the Raincoat Man. The average person only has the capacity to be petrified of one thing at a time. Besides, I had strong suspicions that the Raincoat Man was Butler, out on surveillance, even though he had responded to the suggestion with-“Me, madam? But I h’understood you to say the fellow had ’orrible teeth.” My one concern was that the balloon might burst before I got to The Peerless. Nose pressed to the steering wheel, I bounced down Cliff Road.
As I rounded the first bend, I spied Mr. Edwin Digby and Mother coming toward me. Her feathers had an icy gloss to them, and she was poking him along with her beak. Dropping down so that my knees grazed the car floor I concentrated on neither seeing nor hearing when Mr. Digby’s voice was blown in my face by the wind.
“Incomparable weather for a stiff neck, Mrs. Haskell.”
Ditto a stiff drink at The Dark Horse. I wished I didn’t have this sneaking liking for Mr. Digby. I wished I didn’t suspect him of being the evil force behind a murder network. I wished… that life wasn’t littered with foolish wishes.
The Heinz showed its true colours as I exited the village. Its whine turned fretful, eerily echoing the wind. A couple of times I swear it tried to go backward. But the secret was never to let it get the upper hand. I had just given the gear knob a vicious twist when I beheld the long, high wall of the nursing home. A yellow van inched around me, then a dark green car slashed past. The steering wheel vibrated in my hands, but my eyes were on the stone eagles atop the pillars. I passed through the entrance and down the avenue until-there loomed the mammoth stone house. At that point, I fervently wished the avenue could have gone on to John O’Groats.
I stopped, positioned the balloon, then drove forward a few more yards to park in the middle of the gravel semicircle. Sneakiness oft draws attention to itself, and if matters went awry, I needed to be able to leap from the top of that flight of steps into the Heinz. Telling myself that all the signs were favourable (the bloodhounds Sin and Virtue weren’t out and about today), I gathered my courage in my clammy paws, got my legs going, and lifted the door knocker. It fell like a lead… balloon. All too promptly the door opened. Facing me was a large nurse in a small frilly cap.
“May I help you?” She had eyes like pellets and a face which had been chiseled into shape. She breathed Detol the way Roxie breathed Attar of Roses.
Pressing both palms against the small of my back, I stepped inward, forcing her to step back. “I’m-Mrs. Heinz. You are expecting me, I hope? My doctor sent me to have a look at the place to see if I could be comfortable here during my confinement.”
The nurse stared at me. Had I blown it too soon by using a word no longer in maternity jargon? I moved my hands to place them protectively on the protrusion jutting through my gaping coat.
“We don’t confine people here.” The nurse’s face bleached out to match her white cardigan. “I don’t know what you’ve been told, but this most certainly isn’t a prison.”
“I can see that, indeed I think the place looks most inviting.” Taking another step forward, I fixed eager eyes on the black-and-white checkerboard floor, the white walls rising to a lofty and ornately plastered ceiling. The staircase, also painted white (criminally, in my opinion), rose at the end of the hall, facing the front door; it went up steeply for a dozen steps, then divided.
“Mrs. Heinz?” The nurse jammed the door shut. “Are you having a nervous breakdown?”
“What, in my condition!” I clasped a hand to my throat. “Dear Dr. Padinsky”-if he was good enough for Magdalene, he was good enough for me-“has warned me repeatedly that trauma of any kind could be hazardous to the baby, which is why he insisted I look this place over.”
“Mrs. Heinz,” the nurse replied in a harsh, cold voice, “how will visiting a nursing home for emotionally disturbed women help you to a problem-free delivery?”
A chair, painted white, was at hand. Legs spread, back arched, I lowered myself into it. “Don’t tell me,” I bleated, “that this isn’t Chitterton Fells Maternity Home?”
“It is not.” She had the door open. “You haven’t come much off course. Turn left on the Coast Road, proceed two miles, and you can’t miss it-a modern, red brick building.” She was close to smiling at the prospect of being rid of me.
“Why silly me!” I gave a light laugh which tapered off into a most satisfactory “ooo-ooch!” Gripping my hands to my balloon stomach, I rolled my eyes and lolled my head sideways.
Nurse let go of the doorknob in a hurry. “What is it? Do you think you are in labour?” Her eyes were almost kind, but I wasn’t fooled. That was a blackbird brooch protruding from beneath the white cardigan,