Mum's the Word (29 page)

“Goodness!” How I longed to return to the life of sanity among the Mangés. If only Henderson Brown would come in looking for that paperback book he had been reading earlier,
or even Ernestine—eager for a brag session about Bingo. I began to dread that Theola Faith would expect me to sit up with her until Mary returned, and at the same time, I felt under an obligation because of my mother. “Didn't you ever like your daughter?” I heard myself ask.

“Darling!” Miss Faith's smile kept sliding off her face as she struggled to sit upright. The silver hair drooped over one eye. “After I got over the shock of finding I was pregnant—and the lucky father a name to be pulled out of a hat—I decided I might enjoy the Madonna role. I was amused when I felt life. And when she was born, I saw the marvelous possibilities of those adorable mother/daughter outfits. I bought some wonderful hats. I worship hats.”

I pressed my hand to my middle. “What went wrong?”

“Mary was born a pain in the tush. Forever crying—worse when I was exhausted from being on the set all day. She'd go to Begita, my maid, sooner than me. Her eyes would look out of that tiny face and I knew she didn't like me. And once she could talk …” her hand flopped against the cream silk bosom “… all I ever got was
whining
. People speak about mismatched marriages all the time!” The fabled voice lurched from high to drowsy deep. “What of a mismatched mother and daughter? Believe me, darling! I did my best for that kid. I kept out of her way. As I said—cats are easy and pigeons … even better. Derby and Joan!” With a swoop of her arm Theola Faith staggered to her feet. “Your typical Hollywood marriage! Derby has had a thing going with a tweety pie named Sabrina for years. That dumb bird Joan turns a blind eye. Amazing, isn't it, that such a gem of sleaze never made the
Peephole Press
.” Fingers pinching the hem of her skirt, she locked her wide smile in place. “Always had pigeons. Asked my daddy for a kite for my fourth birthday and he gave me my first pair. Said the sk–sky was now my back yard. Used to think there was no place like Mud Creek.” Her voice went into a slow slide and faded out. For a few seconds I thought she was asleep on her feet. But she trailed over to the sofa and draped herself upon it, clutching the edge to keep from sliding to the floor.

I pictured Mary coming in to find Theola collapsed in a drunken stupor, and I found I hated the idea for them as much as for me. I had no wish to feature (even with a name change)
in
Monster Mommy II
. I know this sounds silly, but I do have an affinity for cats, and looking at her now, standing over her, I could understand why Theola Faith had been called Kitten Face in her heyday.

“How did you get to be a movie star?” I prodded.

“Darling”—she didn't open her eyes—“where've you been all your life? Don't you read the tabloids? I was discovered on a bar stool at the Lucky Strike. So they say! And it was rumoured that
Melancholy Mansion
was filmed here to indulge one of my whims. Truth was Rick …”—half word, half hiccup—“… Ricky Greenburgh, the director, needed to shoot cheap.” She lolled sideways, one leg dangling ungracefully—a shoe pivoting from her stockinged toes. Her thick mink lashes fluttered closed. “Mendenhall had been on the market since … the world began. Ricky bought it for a song and, when we were done filming, gave it to me. Not a bad guy, Ricky. He could have lef … left a rose on the pillow.”

Removing her shoe, I eased her leg onto the sofa. Silver hair cupping her cheeks, she didn't look like a monster. She was still talking softly. “Haven't been down here in years. But like to know Mendenhall is waiting. Pepys and Jeffries come sometimes … see to maintenance. Mary didn't stop at throwing the book at me … invaded Mendenhall … claimed Ricky once said … was for her.”

Something brushed my leg. Charlie Chaplin Cat. He pounced onto the sofa and macho purring blended with Theola Faith's snores. I was at the door when her drowsy, deep voice startled me. “How is my Mary?”

Not knowing what to say, I was glad she immediately rejoined Charlie in their duet and even more relieved when the door cracked into me and I was looking into the eyes of love.

“Ben!” His hair was rumpled, his collar askew, he was Samson ready to bring the temple crashing down. To me he had never looked more beautiful.

“I'm going to kill you,” he snarled, crushing me in his arms. “During our five minute break, I rushed up to our room to check on you and found your note. I almost went crazy thinking of you.” Kicking the door shut, he thrust me from him and cupped my face with his hands.
“How did you get across the river? I hope you didn't hitch-hike?”

“Nothing that foolish,” I reassured him. “I took one of the rowing boats.”

“You what?”

“Never mind, all's well that ends well …” I trailed off lamely, my eyes now looking toward the sofa.

“Yes, Theola Faith!” Ben lowered his voice a notch. “Jeffries collared me with the information that you were in here with Monster Mommy.”

“There's quite a simple explanation.” Taking a deep breath I set to telling my tale. The hard part was confessing the truth about gate crashing the bowling banquet, but I couldn't have lived through the rest of our marriage keeping that kind of hideous secret.

When I had ended, my love worked a hand over his face. “My God, Ellie, if I had known what you were up to, I would have asked Valicia X to bend the rule about candidates not being allowed to leave the island so I could go in search of you.”

“And what would you have done if she had refused?”

“My dear”—he kept one eye on Theola Faith—“that's one of those testing questions—such as, would I marry again if anything happened to you?”

“Well, would you?” I pressed my fingers lovingly to his throat.

“Only if the woman had one foot in the grave and one hand on her cheque book. Shush!” He pressed a hand to my mouth. “The important thing now is to get Mommy out of this house before her daughter returns. Jeffries and Pepys are all of a twit. They have their jobs to consider as well as their Mangé loyalties. Believe me, a bloody scene between the Faiths is something they wish to avoid at all costs. They have pleaded with Valicia X. The upshot is that Jeffries and I will take Theola Faith back to Mud Creek in her speedboat, and Pepys will follow with the cabin cruiser.”

I picked at a thread on his jacket. “Valicia X must see you as a knight in shining armour.”

“Ellie, please! The last thing I desire is to win Mangé points because the woman is susceptible to my dashed devilish charm.”

“Hmmmm!”

“Enough of us, my sweet! Pepys and Jeffries await.” He crept toward the sofa. “Do you think I should try tossing the star over my shoulder without waking her?”

No chance for me to respond. As he bent over Theola Faith, she rose up like a drowned being from the deep and coiled her arms around his neck. “Ricky my beloved!” Her silvery hair fell away from his face. “You have come back to me. Take me! Take me now to our own private heaven! Make your Kitten Face young again!”

“Oh, cripes!” Ben muttered.

Jeffries gloated from behind me. “Looks like things may work out easier than we hoped.”

Out in the hall a door slammed. Damn! As my cousin Freddy would say, never count your chickens until they are in the deep freeze.

The dream was as sharp-edged as the last one. The walls of the narrow staircase closed in on me. I heard water flushing somewhere in the house in St. John's Wood. I smelled fish. That oily mettalic smell that lingers after kippers. The Bundys on the third floor were very fond of fish. Old Mrs. Bundy: the grump. Always pounding her broom on the ceiling when Mother pirouetted with a thump! My father, magnanimous in his smoking jacket, would insist, “Ignore her, my dears! Are we not all entitled to our eccentricities?” And so we ignored, until that time when Mother had insisted the pounding sounded different. We had marched downstairs to discover Mr. Bundy stricken with a stroke and Mrs. Bundy in too much of a state to make it down to the pay phone in the entry hall.

My legs were giving out. I didn't have the energy for the rest of the climb. But I had to reach the fifth floor. Somehow it seemed sly not to tell Mother that Theola Faith had descended upon Mendenhall and that Ben & Co. had spirited her off the premises without colliding with Mary. The banging door had been a false alarm, only Pepys coming in from checking the boat's fuel situation …

I reached to touch the door of the flat. My laboured breathing was entirely the fault of the stairs. Nothing at all to do with the question I intended to put to Mother. If she and my father had found fame/land/fortune in America,
would they … would they have remembered to send for me?

No answer to my knock. And small wonder. Noise poured like smoke under the door. My first suspicion was a party. But when I got my ear tuned in, I realized this was the hurly burly of everyday living. The smell of kippers was gone, replaced—Olé—by the aroma of something wild and Mexican. Had Mother given up ballet for the evening? Would I find her playing a cutthroat game of Monopoly with Daddy? Or would she be wearing the rosy chamber pot on her head, the shaggy bathmat tossed across her shoulders, while she stalked the flat doing her impersonation of Aunt Astrid at Ascot?

The door swung inward … Oh, no! Surely my eyes deceived me. Our flat had been invaded by another family. A mother wearing a bib apron was chasing around with the Hoover. A father sat, feet on the fender, reading a huge story book to children of assorted sizes, all with round, rosy faces and wearing hand-knitted cardigans.

A red-headed pudgekin pointed at me. “Mummy! Daddy! Is she a ghost?”

“Sorry!” I said, “I once knew some people who lived here.” Turning stiffly, I went back downstairs into sleep.

I awoke feeling I had developed curvature of the spine overnight and that a hundred watt torch was being shone relentlessly in my eyes.

“Ellie …” That was Ben speaking and the blinding glare was the sun. “… are you all right?”

“Why?” I struggled onto one elbow.

“Sweetheart, it's gone noon.” He sat down on the bed, causing it to pitch leeward. My insides went into a heaving roll and, gripping his hand, I eased back down.

“Morning sickness back again. As your mother said in her letter, you get a day or so of feeling good just so you can remember what it felt like. Darling, return to your Mangé meetings and let me die … I mean lie … in peace.”

He patted my hand. “This is my lunch break and I intend to spend every minute with you. Would you like me to fetch you up something? How about a nice poached egg?”

“Please!” I begged. “If you love me, don't mention food. Tell me about Theola Faith.”

He went to cross his legs, saw me wince, and in slow motion lowered his foot to the floor. “I aided in getting her to the cabin cruiser, but once aboard she became so … aggressive with me, insisting that she show me the sights …”

“Of Mud Creek?” I had thought I was having trouble keeping his face in focus but I now realized he had been avoiding my eyes.

“Her bedroom, to be specific. Damn it, Ellie! I don't know what I do to bring out the beast in women! Do I have Eligibility Escorts tattooed across my brow?” Standing, he dug his hands in his pockets and glared miserably out the window at the choppy waters around the island.

“Darling, no!” The room felt as though it were being shaken like a mat. Somewhere in the house someone was running the Hoover.

“The result was Jeffries decided I was more hindrance than help. She said she'd take the cabin cruiser across, Pepys would follow in Miss Faith's boat, and I came back ashore. So no Mangé rules were bent. You were dead asleep when I came up.” Head down, he paced toward the fireplace. “Sweetheart, there is something I should mention …”

“Yes?” Were we finally getting to the climax? The lowdown on why he had turned shifty-eyed?

“When we gathered downstairs this morning, the comte and Solange were gone. Their room is empty. Understandable they would wish to leave without any fanfare; the only question being who took them ashore. Pepys and Jeffries denied doing so, Valicia X was as curious as anyone, and … what did come as something of a shock …” He dropped down beside me and gripped my hand, his lips pressed together.

“Yes?” I gripped the headboard but couldn't keep the bed from going around.

“Lois and Henderson had done a bunk too.”

The bed stopped with violent suddenness. That left only Bingo and Marjorie Rumpson for Ben to compete against, I thought, and instantly felt ashamed. This Mangé competition was turning me into an animal. “That doesn't make sense. The comte was disqualified for endangering Joan's life, but Lois Brown was still in the running, wasn't she?”

“A prime contender, I would have said.”