Femmes Fatal (9 page)

“Didn’t Mrs. Malloy show?”

“Yes, but she was feeling poorly … and had to leave early.” I was bracing myself to tell him that I had gone with her to Fully Female when he began loading the dishwasher. I knew how he hated having his concentration broken during said procedure. Heaven forbid that a cereal bowl might end up in the wrong slot.

“Ellie, don’t think I’m criticizing—”

“Perish the thought!”

“—But you might try making lists.”

I continued wringing nappies as if they were chicken necks. “I suppose your mother …”

“Well, you know Mum—a perfectionist.”

“To the death!”

Yanking the plug out of the sink, I listened to the gurglings—so reminiscent of a person, preferably male, being choked to death. And to think I had been ready to rebuild myself from the ground up in the interests of making this marriage work. Well, no dice. Mrs. Malloy would have to be a big girl and go to her first Fully Female meeting alone. Tomorrow morning I would telephone Bunty and …

My thoughts came to a screeching halt. I’d gone to wipe my hands on my apron and found I wasn’t wearing
one. It was back at Bunty’s house, wadded up in the clay urn by the waterfall—with Mrs. Malloy’s gun in the pocket.

“What’s up, Ellie?”

“Nothing.”

Dumping the nappies in the wash basket, I looked around the kitchen. What a transformation! In five minutes flat, Ben had rendered order from chaos. Every surface was wiped clean. Foodstuffs were returned to the pantry and the ironing board banished to its cupboard. Not by a grease spot on a shirt cuff did the man betray that he was reduced to being a skivvy in his own home; in his elegant grasp the broom might have been a silver-topped cane.

The smile Ben bestowed upon me would have once turned my heart to pâté. “Why don’t I pour us both a glass of white wine before dinner?” His eyes strayed to the cooker, standing wantonly idle.

“Frozen dinners all right?” Crossing to the freezer, I removed a tinfoil package. “How do you like your meat thawed, dear?”

It was a moment of such exquisite fragility that it took only a whimper filtering through the intercom from one of the babies to shatter the mood.

“I’ll go up to them,” he said.

“The steak tartare will be ready when you are.” My smile stuck to my face the way the frozen package stuck to my palms.

“Forget it. We’ll pig out on cheese and crackers at the Hearthside Guild.”

Blast! Ben was out the door before I could explain that the stupid meeting had completely slipped my mind. Surely he could understand there was no way on God’s green earth that I could be at the vicarage by seven. Even if Freddy could be cajoled into watching the twins for the second time in one day, I wasn’t up to the rigors
of making myself presentable for the Reverend Rowland Foxworth. No way could I lose two stone in an hour’s time. Ben would have to go on his own, that was all there was to it. As program chairman for the Doting Dads Committee, he’d undoubtedly have such a thumping good time he’d never miss me.

Putting the meat back in the freezer compartment, I spied the Fully Female manual on top of the fridge where I had stashed it on coming home. All the while I’d had it in my handbag I’d felt … undressed. Now here it lay, flaunting its black-and-white cover while I went hot and cold thinking that Ben might have seen it and leaped to the idea that I was some sort of pervert. The last thing I needed with the nappies still to hang out was to have him flat on his back moaning “Take me.”

But even as I was having these unwifely thoughts, I was flipping the Fully Female manual to Chapter One.

THE MATING GAME

Ladies, are we sitting comfortably on the edge of our seats? Then we’ll begin with a little story based on the life of yours truly—Bunty Wiseman. And don’t any of you fellow females go getting ideas that this publication was ghostwritten by the chappie who writes those pork belly ads for Hoskins the butcher. These words of wifely wisdom are all straight from the horse’s mouth. Now, as I was about to say before I rudely interrupted myself, Lionel Wiseman of Bragg, Wiseman & Smith, Solicitors at Law, married me—a blonde bombshell, young enough to be his daughter—while the town’s back was turned.

Talk about a modern-day fairy tale! You bet your brassieres it was! I began my stage career as
a kiddy dancing on the bar of my Aunt Et’s pub, The Pig & Whistle, in Luton. At twenty-something, there I was, kicking up my heels in a dinner theatre production of Tin Can Alley at Gravesend, when one night in strides this bloke who looks like Cary Grant, talks like the BBC, and wears custom-made socks. After the show he comes knocking on the dressing room door. Would I care to join him for a spot of supper? His Jag awaits outside and he names a nightclub where a glass of water costs more than a four-course dinner.

They said it wouldn’t work. But we had the last laugh, Li and me. Everywhere we looked someone was getting divorced, while we kept right on living the Arabian Nights fantasy. Then came the day when the gal with the X-rated smile became a woman with a mission.

An acquaintance of mine—we’ll call her Mrs. A—cornered me at the check-out lane at Tesco’s and poured out her heart. Seems her marriage was in big trouble. Other Woman trouble. And it didn’t take a degree from Oxford to see why. Mrs. A hadn’t a clue how to keep her man’s hormones hopping. She’d never owned a black garter belt or peekaboo undies. Sex was something a man needed, sort of like a dose of salts to be dished out once a week on Fridays along with a bath and a clean set of underwear. Poor Mrs. A. She used “those times” to plan her meals for the following week.

Trust me, I was shocked! I hadn’t known there were women still living in the Dark Ages, women who still did their big nude scene in the dark. I gave Mrs. A some little tips, one being not to throw away that old electric toothbrush, and she was so well satisfied that she mentioned me to Mrs.
B, and before I knew it, I was swamped by women all yearning to be the Happy Housewife.

So what do you think, Fellow Female? Are you ready to trade in that old body for a new one? Are you willing to become the woman he always wanted? Do I hear a resounding yes? Hurrah! Then we begin. Now. At once.

Before you can do nice things for your husband, you have to do nice things for yourself. First, mix yourself a drink. Two tablespoons of Fully Female Formula combined with eight ounces of water or fruit juice …

“Ellie?” Ben’s voice exploded around me.

“What?” Clapping the book shut, I tried to stuff it under my waistband—completely futile and unnecessary because my spouse hadn’t joined me in the kitchen. From the acoustical reverberations, he was yelling over the banister rail.

“I phoned Freddy and he’ll be over in half an hour to watch the twins. Isn’t it time you were getting ready?”

Something had changed for me in the last few moments. I wasn’t suddenly afire with renewed passion. What I felt was a stirring of sweet memory—of the days when the mere touch of his hand was enough to make me long to toss my smalls in the air. I couldn’t stand there with the Fully Female manual in my hands and tell him I wasn’t going to the Hearthside Guild meeting. It would have been tantamount to saying I was too busy to go to church while clutching a Bible.

“I’ll be up to change in a minute,” I called, before heading into the pantry. There I shifted aside the flour bin and biscuit barrel as if they were the secret panel to a priest hole and brought out my lifetime supply of packets of Healthy Harvest Herbs and jars of Fully Female Formula purchased during my interview with
Bunty Wiseman. With what I had paid for me and Mrs. Malloy, I could have purchased a new body for each of us, but she had said she was sentimental about hers. I rehid the herbs, along with all but one jar of Formula. I mixed my two tablespoons (vigorously, as instructed) until the grainy texture turned glutinous. Ah, fibre! With book and glass in hand I mounted the stairs to the bathroom.

Lesson One, Fellow Female. I want you to think of your bath as a lagoon that you are going to bask in—not a place to boil like a ruddy lobster. That’s the ticket, lots of lovely warm water. Now pour in a good slosh of Fully Female Fantasy …

By the time I had unearthed bottle of same from the towel cupboard and turned off the taps, my glass of Fully Female Formula had set solid. Should I unmold it on the soap dish and pretend it was a mousse? A finger-dunk taste settled the matter. Toss this one down the toilet and start fresh tomorrow. Sliding into the scented water, I experienced a moment of pure peace as it lapped over my chest. My hair had come down and was floating on the surface. I felt like a water nymph fated to dwell here until Prince Charming came riding around destiny’s corner. Was it possible that Ben and I could rediscover the old magic?

Reaching out a soggy hand, I picked up the manual and continued reading where I had left off.

Submerge, mermaid. Feel the movement of the water as you shift beneath its warm weight. Let it roll with you. Let it mold itself to your body until the ripples become his hands caressing your moist flesh …

“Ellie?” Plaintive voice at the bathroom door.

The mood was broken. My hand came sloshing down on the groping bathwater, sending a six-foot spray hurtling toward the ceiling.
Plonk
went the book to the floor.

“What now, Bentley?”

“Where are my good socks?”

“Your what?”

“The ones Mum knitted for my birthday.” The door cracked open, then closed again as if he feared the worst—a flannel in the face or the news that I had put the socks in the drier and something bigger and woolier had gobbled them up.

“In the usual drawer.”

“And what about my taupe striped shirt?”

“In the ironing basket.”

“Ellie, I have begged you—
pleaded
with you—not to put my shirts in the basket! Is it too much to expect you to hang them up?” Footsteps stomping down the stairs.

Emerging from the bath as wrinkled as the damned shirt, I faced facts. I had a lot of chapters to go in this Marriage Makeover and—if my watch wasn’t telling bald-faced lies—about fifteen minutes in which to ready myself for the evening soiree. Decisions, decisions! Should I French braid my hair or make do with a quickie knot? Could I spend the entire evening with my cheeks sucked in, while maintaining a flow of social repartee?

Rap rap on the bathroom door, but thank heaven for small mercies. It was only that
homme horrible
, Cousin Freddy, whose voice filled the silence left humming when I unplugged the hair dryer.

“Mary Poppins reporting for duty.”

Hands trapped in my hair, which fell down faster than I could put it back up, I pictured him leaning
against the door, perhaps wearing his Viking horns, a gleam in his eye, and a gloat to his lips.

“Favour for a favour, Ellie, old chum. Understand you were rushed when you got back this afternoon, but do spill the beans. How was your session at the sex clinic? Anything deliciously ribald to report?”

“Shut up, Freddy,” I said, wrapping myself up in a beach towel, “I have no intention of discussing any of this with you, except to say that … should you happen upon any jars of Formula in the pantry, they are not for the twins.”

“An aphrodisiac, eh?” His voice, thrilling to every syllable, crept up behind me as I was hiding the Fully Female manual behind the toilet tank. “Word from the wise, old dear, they can be kind of dangerous.”

“What could be dangerous”—I glowered at the door—“would be your saying anything about this to Ben.”

“He hasn’t suggested you sign up? The whole town is buzzing about this thing.”

“Not a word.” Removing a hair clip from my mouth, I paused for a moment, wondering why Ben hadn’t said boo.

Ben and I motored in his car, a vehicle of uncertain parentage, along the ridiculously short distance of Cliff Road to the vicarage. Wheels spitting up gravel, we roared into the churchyard, sending a scurry of birds into twittering flight among the cowering tombstones. St. Anselm’s church came at us in a rush of bell tower and stained glass. The interior was lit up like a Christmas tree.

“Ben, do you think we’re to meet in the church hall instead of the vicarage?”

He didn’t answer. An instant before hitting either of the cars already parked on the narrow path that looked as though it belonged inside a maze, he swung the Heinz 57 left, through a two-inch gap in the shrubbery. We ground to a halt on a stretch of crazy paving, with a birdbath hunched in one corner.

Ben’s hand went to his throat.

My sentiments exactly.

“Damn tie! Makes me look as though I’ve gained ten pounds.”

Of all the insensitive clods! I froze him with the sort of stare my Aunt Astrid bestows on anyone who laughs at her jokes before she gives the nod. “Have no fear, Bentley, my darling! You look radiant as always.”

Switching off the ignition, he clenched his manly jaw. “I worry that I have bitten off more than I can chew, in agreeing to be program chairman. You’re sure this tie strikes the right balance between responsible leadership and fellowship?”

“Perfectly.” With all due duplicity I hadn’t the foggiest idea whether he was wearing paisley or stripes. While I had fought my way into my clothes, Ben had blocked the mirror, looking for all the world like a Regency dandy left to tie his own cravat because his valet was smitten with the pox.

“Ellie, I’m also having second thoughts about the speaker. Have I violated the ethics of my position in making a unilateral decision on tonight’s topic?”

“Perhaps if I knew the identity …”

“Of the speaker?” My trusty program chairman gripped the wheel and shot up in his seat. “I am not at liberty to tell you that! Not ahead of the other members. To do so would be to indulge in as nasty a bit of nepotism …”

And for this I had abandoned my darling babies? Disembarking, I slammed the door and was brought up
short by my raincoat belt … and the sight of a figure bolting down the steps of the church, which was now—as befitted a Monday night—steeped in darkness. A hurry-scurry of footsteps coupled with noisy sobs. And in the flare of light from the open car door I beheld the gaunt figure of Miss Gladys Thorn. Her arms embraced a shuffle of papers, some of which had been caught by the wind and whirled about her head like disembodied white-gloved hands, biffing and bobbing. Pathetic creature! Her lank hair broke free from its clips. Her spectacles were askew. Behind the thick lenses her eyes bulged like mushrooms.