Wicked Autumn (4 page)

The retirement years of the Batton-Smythes were not going well. These golden years somehow failed to give off the glow promised by the ads promulgated by retirement planners—ads where trim, well-preserved couples played golf together, merrily chortling as they ran their cart over the greens; where they took cruises to exotic ports in intrepid, devil-mind-the-cost fashion; or skipped playfully down sunlit beaches before returning home to the megamansions their carefully planned retirements had earned for them. Arthritis and other debilitating diseases were nowhere on the horizon for these sprightly, laughing millionaires with their costly dental veneers. For Wanda and the Major, the tiny irritations of a lifetime instead were on full display, proximity exacerbating them into character flaws of Shakespearian proportions, a tube of toothpaste squeezed the wrong way the catalyst for hours of huffy silence. Wanda, who had never counted patience as a virtue, was less qualified than most women to trot peacefully along in marital harness to the grave. In truth, she had long regarded the Major as little more than a buffoon, and she seldom troubled to hide her disregard from him or from her adoring (she imagined) public.

She also felt keenly the loss of status that seemed to accrue these days to military men, especially retired ones. Things were not as they once had been, when an officer, however incompetent, was automatically accorded some respect.

This was
not
how she had envisaged spending her golden years.

That night she would prepare the Major’s dinner with packets from the Marks and Spencer in Monkslip-super-Mare, and dream of a new life in Paris or Rome.

And why not?
she would ask herself. She could afford it.
She
had money—and she’d made very sure to keep it in her own control.

*   *   *

Half an hour later, Wanda Batton-Smythe was going about her business, and an odd sort of business it was. Wanda, who had too much time on her hands for anyone’s comfort, was known frequently to draw from her quiverful of clichés the one about not knowing where the time had flown, when in fact her day was no more than a round of visits to shops or meetings where her approach was viewed with a kind of instinctive dread, like the sighting of a pirate ship.

The days leading up to the Fayre had showcased Wanda in her busybody element to perfection. Built for warfare—low to the ground, wide at hips and shoulders—she altogether gave the impression of a German WWII tank rolling through a French village as a speechless and demoralized peasantry looked on.

Many noted (with a desperate roll of the eyes) that she seemed particularly rejuvenated this year, with a youthful spring in her step as she pounced on some unsuspecting volunteer or potential “extra pair of hands” to set up tables, sort things, and haul things about, only to have to haul them back again when Wanda changed her mind.

Having taken extra care with her makeup, she had also embellished her dress with an atypically chosen scrap of antique cloisonné jewelry pinned to an armored, rigid bosom, likened by more than one to the prow of a ship, parting the villagers as it sailed. The pink and red decoration clashed slightly with the print of her belted, crisply pleated skirt—again, that clash was atypical, for Wanda tended to dress in conservative fashions from the same catalog that might have been used by Buckingham Palace, had its inhabitants been given to ordering from a catalog. Her accessories tended to be safe choices, never remotely flamboyant; her shoes generally were Wellies or flesh-colored pumps with round toes and one-inch heels. The ever-present string of pearls, however, a wedding gift from her husband, was wrapped securely around her neck. People believed that she slept in them.

On her feet today, in a concession to the extra yards she would walk in the name of “rallying the troops” (her term), were sturdy brogues, suitable for mucking out a stables; she had tied up her hair in a large patterned scarf, such as the Queen might wear to walk the corgis at Balmoral.

The strain of responsibility for the Fayre was showing, it was whispered, as Wanda flitted loudly from pillar to post, and shop to shop, a busy bee collecting pollen. She lingered only at the village’s single cashpoint, where a queue had collected behind old Mrs. Barrow, who as always was befuddled by the machine’s operation but too distrustful to allow anyone to help her withdraw her twenty-pound note, then moved on for a brief stop at the newsagent’s. She rushed through her usual shopping chores, basket swinging briskly from her arm, a woman with far, far better things to do than collect the cod from the fishmonger’s and the tomatoes from the greengrocer’s.

“Here comes Her Majesty,” the candle shop owner murmured apprehensively to his assistant, on sighting Wanda’s approach. But Wanda’s first purposeful stop was instead at the Cavalier Tea Room and Garden, carefully chosen as a site of potential uprising and rebellion in need of quashing.

*   *   *

Years before, Elka Garth had renovated the old communal bake house into a tearoom with adjoining bakery, thereby continuing the building’s centuries-old role at the center of village life. On offer were—among a dazzling array of temptations—Elka’s specialty scones with strawberry jam and Devonshire cream, although she also offered gluten-free, low-fat alternatives for the health conscious.

The villagers would gather in the Cavalier (the name reflecting on the service, it was said), where news was exchanged twice a day, recalling the heyday of the Royal Mail. Coffee in the mornings (elevenses), and tea and buns and scandal each afternoon at four. Nonstop flow of information and disinformation in between, with doorstep sandwiches for reinforcement.

The seating by the windows overlooking the High was at a premium and thus much in demand, for some of the best news (no one would ever think of it as gossip) could from that vantage often be witnessed
in the making(!)
. They had a virtual, unrehearsed reality show of village life at their fingertips.

This Royal Mail efficiency applied, of course, to men as well as women, although the men tended more toward the twin outlets of the Hidden Fox and the Horseshoe for the dissemination of news. Indeed, if the Cavalier was the source of gossip, the pubs served as a sort of surround-sound enhancement, with speakers on either side of the village to ensure efficient distribution. The hair salon and barber’s, being on side streets, were a vital adjunct to the process.

A more efficient method for Wanda might have been to wait for elevenses at the Cavalier, where she could attack her audience en masse as they were trapped behind cake plates, fingers slippy with buttered scones. But Wanda, superb tactician that she fondly believed she was, thought the time was ripe for what she called (to the cringing dread of her subjects) “the personal touch.” Today’s target was one of the essential players in Wanda’s drama: Elka Garth.

So this morning, breaking all protocol and short-circuiting the usual lines of communication, Wanda entered the Cavalier early to tackle the owner about various bits and bobs of crockery and equipment she wanted donated for use at the Fayre. Elka Garth, emerging from the back in a waft of just-baked cookie dough, would readily have volunteered both her coffee urn and her goodwill, but she was more than usually put off by Wanda’s officious manner. There was a history behind this, as there so often is behind otherwise inexplicable conflicts. Elka’s son Clayton, admittedly a somewhat slow-witted child, and Wanda’s Jasper had been at school together, and Elka had never forgiven Wanda’s tendency to boast whenever Jasper won that year’s prize in finger painting, penmanship, personal hygiene—whatever it was. The more so when Elka’s son began going to the bad in his teen years, culminating in a short jail sentence for drug possession. Clayton now reigned, the embodiment of scruffy indolence, behind the counter on the odd day when he could be induced to help his mother.

No one knew of his troubles at first but Wanda, who heard of them from her son, and who “happened” to mention it to Miss Pitchford, retired schoolmistress and legendary repository of knowledge of village doings, who “happened” to mention it to half the village before a month was out. Telling Miss Pitchford anything, as Wanda well knew, was tantamount to taking out an ad in the
Monkslip-super-Mare Globe and Bugle
. Mrs. Garth never forgave Wanda, nor did she feel forgiveness was required in such a situation. But as a sensible businesswoman, in the name of keeping village strife to a minimum, she was civil to her. Just.

Elka now eyed Wanda with masked disfavor from behind thick glasses and said evenly, “What time do you want it all brought round, then?”

“Oh, have Clayton drop it off by nine the day of. How lovely it must be for you to have your son at home. Such a help to you, I’m sure.” Wanda gave her a beam of fierce good cheer, knowing full well that thirty-year-old Clayton lived with his mother not out of preference—his or hers—but because he was both untrainable and unemployable and had little choice in the matter. What little assistance he was able to offer his mother in the tea shop was more than offset by the cost of broken crockery and customer complaints.

He had been a late, much-hoped-for child, so his later disappointments were the more keenly felt and were exacerbated by the early death of his father. Elka’s good-natured face, as round and pudding-like as some of her tearoom offerings, now creased into a vinegarish expression. It was as if she had slipped on an ill-fitting mask.

Wanda’s usual braying confidence faltered, but only for a moment. Elka’s goodwill—or, failing that, at least her full participation in the bake sale stall—was crucial to the success of what Wanda thought of as “her” Fayre. Softly, softly, then. Swatting away the mosquito of Elka’s displeasure, Wanda added gushingly, “I have always thought him a most handsome lad. It takes some of them time.” Here a rueful, all-girls-together shrug. “Don’t I just know it!”

“Clayton will be there,” Elka replied, smiling the smile of a woman whose jaw has been wired shut. “And on time. I’ll see to it.”

“Oh, one more thing,” said Wanda.

“Ye-e-ess?”

“More fairy cakes!” said Wanda brightly, as though it were a thought newly minted, rather than part of a carefully staged campaign. “They were wonderfully popular last year. Oh! And more biscuits like we had at the meeting the other night—people liked those so much. Need I remind you: it
is
all for charity.”

If there was one reminder of which Elka was by now thoroughly sick, one reminder she did not need, it was that her free labor, outlay, and expense were all for charity.

“Yes, I know.” Again a form of smile, lips taut as wire pulled back from still-gritted teeth. Elka, who tended to sample her own wares when under stress, pulled a cranberry muffin from the display. She began chewing, jaws slowly working over the muffin as she kept a watchful eye on Wanda. Elka did not offer her a sample, and Wanda (wisely, for once) decided it was best to choose her battles.

There was a mirror in back of the pastry case over which they talked. Wanda, catching sight of herself, patted one spring of her tightly wound hair back in place under her scarf. Apropos of absolutely nothing, she said, “In my youth, people told me I looked like Joan Crawford.”

Elka might have been wondering who Joan Crawford was, or trying to peg the resemblance (which, it has to be said, was extremely slight. One might grudgingly have admitted they shared a heavy hand with the dark eyebrow pencil). Her own brow creased, Elka said, “Was there anything else, Wanda? Because if not…”

Wanda, never one to take the hint or to realize one was being offered, said, “Just be there.” She gave Elka something between a gracious nod and a saucy toss of her head, and took herself off.

CHAPTER 5

… and About

A master of the surprise overland attack, Wanda, exiting the Cavalier, made a sudden, unexpected detour in the direction of the greengrocer’s. Spotting her too late, Guy Nicholls, who owned a restaurant in Monkslip-super-Mare but did his shopping for fresh produce in Nether Monkslip, had attempted to nip back into a small alleyway between two shops, but to no avail.

Lily Iverson, seeing this, herself ran for cover into a lane beside the greengrocer’s. The Vicar, emerging from St. Edwold’s, also had a near miss. Lily, peering around the corner, thought she could almost see the hand of a merciful God emerging from the clouds overhead: Wanda at that moment had eyes only for Guy Nicholls. The Vicar had been spared.

Guy, looking distracted, seemed not to realize he was still wearing an apron, having just stepped out from his restaurant for a moment, as he thought. With a cry of triumph Wanda hailed him, crossing the High to waylay him in his tracks; with hawk-like grace she swooped, pouncing on her victim, and nearly pinning him to the wall. In a heavily flirtatious way, she began to grill him about the drinks, biscuits, and sandwiches his restaurant would be donating to the Fayre. Her message for him was the same as for Elka:
More. Give me more.

Suzanna Winship walked by just then, on her way to take a pair of shoes in for repair. This day she wore a fluorescent blouse under a gray sweater with matching skirt, and progressed slowly in her usual sultry saunter, unconsciously or otherwise channeling the girl from Ipanema, a walking revival of the sounds of the bossa nova era. Obligingly, Guy gave her a wink and used the distraction to make a neat sprint away from Wanda—but only after having agreed to everything she wanted.

It was all done so smoothly, Wanda, admittedly not the most aware of people, didn’t seem to notice she’d been given the brush-off. She gazed admiringly at his retreating back.

*   *   *

Awena stood at the counter of her New Age shop, unpacking the latest shipment of crystals (for once carefully packed, so as not to become a box full of glass shards). Her face reflected thoughts of the recent Women’s Institute meeting, none of them happy thoughts, a frown marring the classic line of her generally serene profile. She recognized that Wanda was a ridiculous person. She also recognized that didn’t prevent half the village from wanting to throttle her on occasion. It presented a nice challenge to someone like Awena, who struggled to maintain a balance and a flow in all the areas of her life.