Aunt Bessie Finds (An Isle of Man Cozy Mystery Book 6) (21 page)

Bessie laughed.
 
“There
will be food,” she assured him.
 
“And drinks as well.”

“If you can manage a nice bottle of gin, I’d love a gin and tonic,”
Bertie told her, his eyes shining with anticipation.
 
“I haven’t had one since Christmas.”

Bessie nodded and added gin to her mental shopping list.
 
This little gathering was starting to
seem like an expensive proposition.
 
Still, she wanted to meet the
neighbours
; she
just hoped it would be worth the fuss and bother.

As soon as Bertie left, Bessie grabbed her handbag and headed out
to the nearest grocery store.
 
It
was just a short walk away, and Bessie was quite pleased with the easy
convenience of it.
 
While she was
walking, she made a quick call to Doona, inviting her dinner.
 
She felt lucky that Doona was not only
available but also happy to make the short drive to Douglas to see Bessie.

Mindful that she had to carry all of her shopping back with her,
Bessie limited her purchases to things she felt she absolutely needed.
 
Bertie had insisted that Bessie keep the
rest of the container of milk he’d brought, so she bought him a replacement
carton.
 
She also bought what she
needed for a simple dinner with Doona and a ready-made apple crumble.
 

She enjoyed her walk back to Seaside Terrace, in spite of having to
carry the shopping bags.
 
She’d have
to get a taxi or a friend to drive her when she shopped for the party,
though.
 
There was no way she would
be able to carry everything she needed for that, unless she made several trips.

Nigel Green jumped up when Bessie walked back into the building’s
foyer.
 
“Oh, you should have told me
you needed shopping,” he exclaimed.
 
“We have a service for that.
 
We could have picked up everything you need for you.”

“I needed the walk almost as much as I needed the shopping,” Bessie
told him.
 
“But I might have you get
me some things for Saturday.
 
I’m
having a little housewarming, or should I say, flat warming?
 
I do hope you and your mother will be
able to attend.”

“Oh, I’d love to come,” he replied, seeming overeager to
Bessie.
 
“But I’m not sure about
mother.
 
We’ll have to see how she’s
feeling, won’t we?”

“Will we?” Bessie asked.

“Well, yes, of course,” he said, frowning.

Bessie smiled to herself as she boarded the lift.
 
Back in her flat, she quickly put away
the shopping and threw the beef stew ingredients into a pot.
 
Once it was simmering nicely, she
settled down to write out invitations to her flat warming.

Hoping that she was remembering all of the names correctly, Bessie
wrote out the same invitation eight times and then addressed each
envelope.
 
After dinner, she would
go door to door and pass them out.
 
She’d only just finished the last one when someone knocked on her door.

“Doona, how wonderful to see you,” Bessie said when she’d opened
the door.

“You sound a little desperate already and you’ve only been here
since midday,” Doona replied, as she greeted Bessie with a hug.

“It’s such a huge change,” Bessie said.
 
“I feel a little desperate.”

“Maybe you should just move back to
Laxey
,”
Doona suggested.

“I have to give Douglas a fair try,” Bessie said firmly, as she
pulled Doona into the flat.
 
“Besides, look at the lovely furniture I’ve borrowed.”

Doona admired the pieces that Mary Quayle had lent Bessie with
genuine enthusiasm.
 
“I wish I had
rich friends who would lend me things like this,” she said, running her hand
across the luxurious sofa.

“I feel quite guilty about it,” Bessie admitted.
 
“Mary is really pleased that I might be
moving to Douglas for good and I feel bad that I’m deceiving her.”

“Are you certain there’s no chance of you moving for good?” Doona
asked.

Bessie shook her head.
 
“I can’t imagine living here permanently,” she told her friend.
 
“It doesn’t feel at all like home.”

“You’ve only just moved in,” Doona pointed out.
 
“Maybe you need to give it a chance.”

Bessie nodded slowly.
 
“I suppose you’re right, although I’d rather figure out what’s going on
that’s spooking Bahey and then go home.”

Doona laughed.
 
“I won’t
argue with that,” she told her friend.
 
“I’m really going to miss you.”

“But you’re coming with me to the barbeque at the
Quayles
’ on Friday and you’re coming to my housewarming on
Saturday,” Bessie reminded her.
 
“Honestly, I think you’re going to see more of me than normal in the
next few days.”

“Possibly,” Doona conceded.
 
“But it won’t feel the same.”

“No, it won’t,”
Bessie
agreed.

“I thought I’d be helping you move, as well,” Doona said as Bessie
went into the kitchen to start serving the stew.

“Spencer moved me over this afternoon,” Bessie explained.
 
“He fit everything in one trip.”

“That was kind of him,” Doona said.
 

Something in her voice had Bessie looking at her carefully.
 
“I thought you didn’t really like
Spencer,” she said after a moment.

“I don’t,” Doona said with a deep sigh.
 
“But it turns out I like being
chased.
 
It was lovely having
someone who wanted to be with me all the time, even if I did feel smothered by
it.”

Bessie shook her head.
 
“He’s not the right man for you,” she reminded her friend.

“I know that, but I miss the attention,” Doona replied.
 
“I miss having someone, even the wrong
someone.
 
I feel like I’ve been on
my own for a very long time.”

Bessie laughed.
 
“Speaking
as someone who really has been on her own for a very long time, a few years is
nothing.
 
You need to learn to be
happy by yourself and then, when you least expect it, someone wonderful will
come along.”

“That sounds good,” Doona said.
 
“But there aren’t any guarantees, and
I’m not getting any younger.”

“No, but if you learn to be happy on your own, you won’t care if
someone special doesn’t turn up,” Bessie replied.
 
“Anyway, you’re too special to be alone
forever.
 
Someone out there is
looking for you, even if he doesn’t know it yet.”

Doona sighed.
 
“I hope
you’re right,” she said after a moment.
 
She took a deep breath.
 
“Okay, sorry, how are you?
 
How are you finding the new flat?
 
How are the
neighbours
?
 
Has anything strange or unusual happened
to you yet?”

Bessie laughed.
 
“I’m
not sure I can answer all of that,” she said.
 
She set two very full bowls of stew down
on the small table.
 
“I’d offer you
wine, but you’re driving,” she said.

“I’d better have a fizzy drink,” Doona replied.

Bessie got them each a can of something fizzy and brought them to the
table with glasses.
 
“Let’s eat
while I try to remember and answer everything you asked,” Bessie said.

“This is delicious,” Doona told Bessie after her first bite.

“It isn’t bad,” Bessie said with a shrug.
 
The flat’s cooktop was much more
efficient than her old one at home, and Bessie had already
realised
that she was going to have to pay more attention to her cooking until she got
used to the difference.
 
No doubt
the modern fan-assisted oven would bake very differently to her much older
model at the cottage as well.
 
She’d
put the apple crumble in to warm; now she got up to check on it.

“What’s wrong?” Doona asked.

Bessie explained about the differences in the old oven at her
cottage and the much more modern one here.
 
“But the crumble looks fine,” she told Doona as she sat back down to
finish her stew.

“Oh, good,” Doona replied with a smile.
 
“It’s an apple crumble kind of night.”

“But you were asking about the flat and my
neighbours
,”
Bessie recalled.
 
“The flat seems
fine, so far.
 
It’s going to take a
lot of getting used to, but I’m determined to think of it as an adventure.
 
Nothing unusual or strange has happened
yet, at least not that I’ve noticed.
 
As for the
neighbours
, why don’t you come with
me after dinner and you can meet them for yourself.”

“What you are doing after dinner?” Doona asked.

“I thought I’d hand deliver the invitations to Saturday’s party,”
Bessie answered, her eyes twinkling.
 
Whatever else, she was excited to start trying to figure out what was
happening that was upsetting Bahey.

After generous helpings of apple crumble with cream, Bessie and
Doona quickly tidied up the tiny kitchen space.
 

“Well, that didn’t take long,”
Doona
said,
as she put away the last of the dried dishes.

“No, it seemed to go faster than at home, but I’m sure it’s my
imagination,” Bessie remarked.

“Or maybe it’s because it was just the two of us, and in
Laxey
you often have Hugh and John over when I’m there as
well,” Doona suggested.

“That could be it,” Bessie agreed.
 
“Shall we play postman, then?”

“Lead the way,” Doona invited.
 
“I’m almost as excited as you are to meet everyone.”

Bessie knocked on
Bahey’s
door, but no
one answered.
 
She shrugged at
Doona.
 
“Maybe she’s at Howard’s,”
she suggested.

“Ah, Bessie, you didn’t move in today, did you?” Howard demanded
when he opened the door to his flat a moment later.
 
“Bahey and I would have helped, if you’d
let us know.”

Bahey walked up to the door, a glass of wine in her hand.
 
“Bessie?
 
I thought you were moving in
tomorrow?
 
Did I get it wrong?
 
We would have been happy to help.”

“I was going to move in tomorrow, but then I had an offer of help
today so I decided not to wait,” Bessie explained.
 
“I was just dropping around with invitations
for my housewarming on Saturday afternoon.”

“Oh, but come in and have a glass of wine,” Bahey suggested.
 

“I really need to get these invitations out,” Bessie demurred.
 
“And I have a friend with me as well.”

“Well, pass out the invitations and then come back,” Howard said
firmly.
 
“And bring your
friend.
 
We have plenty of wine.”

Doona spoke from behind Bessie.
 
“I’m driving, or I’d take you up on that
for sure,” she told the man.

“Please do stop back,” Bahey said to Bessie.
 
“I feel as if I haven’t seen you for a long
while.”

“Well, the good news is, I’ll be right next door, at least for a
while,” Bessie told her.
 
“Anyway,
I’ll stop back after I’ve been around the building.
 
We have a lot to talk about.”

Howard shut the door as Bessie turned to number nine.
 
“I met the woman who lives here
earlier,” Bessie told Doona.
 
“She
wasn’t terribly welcoming.”

She knocked on the door with more enthusiasm than she felt.
 
After a moment, the door swung open as
far as the security chain would allow.

“I still don’t have any milk,” the woman told Bessie through the
crack.

Bessie forced herself to chuckle.
 
“I’m just dropping off a party
invitation,” she told the woman.
 
“I’m having a housewarming on Saturday so that I can meet all my new
neighbours
.
 
I’d
love it if you could come.”

“I suppose you’ll be expecting fancy presents,” the woman
sniffed.
 
“I’m on a very tight
budget.
 
You probably won’t be
wanting to invite me now.”

Bessie shook her head.
 
“I don’t want presents,” she replied.
 
“In fact, I said that very thing on the invitations.
 
I just want a chance to meet everyone in
the building.
 
I’ve lived alone in a
little cottage in a somewhat remote area my entire life.
 
I’m looking forward to having
neighbours
and getting to know them all.”