The Disenchanted Widow (30 page)

Rose was thinking on her feet. She snatched up the copy of the
Vindicator
with both hands, wrapped it hurriedly about the falsies, effectively relieving Ned of the burden. Her heart was pounding. She held the paper-wrapped bundle at arm’s length, as though its contagion might infect her, and let it fall in the grass.

Where had the disgusting things come from? Had a bird dropped them? Unlikely. She looked up at the top story.

And spied Veronica.

The piglet’s head was jutting out over the window ledge of the Turret Room. As Rose watched in dismay, the animal moved its head from side to side, ears flapping. Its piggy eyes were searching for something down below. Rose guessed what that something might be. She was appalled.

“
Gusty, are you up there?
” she roared.

There was no answer. Veronica stared down at her, blinking rapidly in the sunlight.

“Where is he?” She looked back at Ned.

To her disgust, the old man had lifted off the newspaper and was down on his knees. “I think it’s one-a them brassy ears but with a—”

“Don’t you dare touch them things!” She snatched up the rubber boobs and wrapped them more tightly in the
Vindicator
. “They’re goin’ on the hearth fire this very minute.”

Up above, a window was banged shut.

“Whyn’t ye say Gusty was up there?”

“I thought I tolt ye he was fixin’ the roof.”

Rose glanced down the yard. “Where’s his truck then?”

Ned searched for the answer in the garden grass.

“I don’t know what’s goin’ on in this house atall, atall!” She thrust the scandalous parcel under her arm. “But the Divil himself is in it. Father Cassidy will have tae come and bless the place. The
people were right tae say this was a bad house. There’s no religion about it. Brassy ears indeed!”

Mrs. McFadden turned on her heel and marched inside to incinerate the breasts and have it out with her errant cousin.

Chapter thirty-four

T
he piglet, ears flat, curly tail held high, bolted from the Turret Room and down the stairs, squealing like the Banshee of Beara at a Hallows’ Eve moon.

“I wanna word with you, Gusty. And I want it now.” Rose’s voice rising up from the stairwell, words slicing the air like scimitar blades.

Ah, Jezsis!

He tore off the jewelry, peeled off the dress, threw the bra and falsies into the closet. No time to lose the girdle and finicky suspender belt. They’d have to stay put. The boots and baggy boiler suit would cover all.

He hauled them on.

“Gusty, do I have tae climb these stairs with me bad legs or what?” Rose’s voice more shrill now, querulous, stabbing into his ears.

Christ! What if she
did
climb up?

He dashed to the door. “I’m comin’ now!” he shouted, stalling her, buying precious time.

He scoped wildly about the room.

The cosmetics!

Open pots of rouge and tubes of lipstick littered the dressing table. He lunged toward it, tripping over the gout stool, wrenched
open the top drawer, and swept the lot into it. As he slammed it shut, a tacky pantomime dame—rouged cheeks, croquet-hoop brows raised in painted surprise—stared back from the mirror.

Bloody hell! The makeup.

No soap or water in the room. He seized a fistful of brocade drape and used it to rub it off.

He dashed down the stairs.

“Now, Gusty, you come in here this minute.” Rose stood in the mouth of the kitchen door, feet planted firmly, arms folded tightly across her chest. “I need a private word with you.”

He followed her meekly. Slid into a chair by the scrub-washed table, adjusted his big spectacles, uncertainty holding sway.
Christ, what if she notices some of the makeup? Maybe the curtain didn’t get it all off. How the blazes am I gonna explain that?

The odor of burning rubber hung on the air. A spluttering and spitting from the coal-banked hearth told him that Lucien-Percy’s funbags were being unceremoniously cremated.

No big deal. He had a couple of spare sets upstairs.

“Now, that pig o’ yours just dropped a pair-a things on top of Ned and me. Things that only the Divil himself would have about him. You’re up tae something up there, and it’s got nothin’ tae do with fixin’ a roof, if truth be told.”

Gusty, face burning, feeling as frantic as a ferret in a footlocker, tried to remain calm. He gazed past her out the window to see a neighbor, Dan McCloskey, chopping wood in a far field. The
thuck, thuck
of his ax reached into the room. God, if he could just be out there, like him. He concentrated on Dan, bent like a birch branch over the labor, and tried to summon forth a plausible explanation.

“Well, it’s like this,” he began, “Veronica found them pair-a things up in—up in the roof space, and—and when I went tae
grab them, begod if she didn’t shoot past me intae…intae one-a the rooms, and—and threw them out the windee. They musta been lyin’ up there from Kilfeckin’s day ’cos I never seen them afore.”

“I hope ye’re tellin’ me the truth, Gusty, ’cos if you’re not, I’ll have tae get Father Cassidy tae come and put the holy watter on ye here and say a Mass.”

“No call for that, Rose. Swear tae God! I’ll soon be finished up with the roof anyway.” He saw Dan straighten, chuck the split wood onto a trailer, swing up into the tractor seat. Gusty placed his palms on the table. “Needa be gettin’ ready for the Cock this evenin’. Time’s goin’ on, so it is.”

“You just sit your ground there, Gusty.” Rose was grim-faced. “I’m not finished with you, not by a long sock.” The image of Mrs. Hailstone’s briefs was flapping wildly in her head, like a flag atop a tyrant’s palace. “That’s not the only thing I have tae discuss with ye.”

She rooted in her handbag. Since finding the unmentionables on the barn step, she’d carried them round with her, wrapped in brown paper for modesty’s sake. Heaven forbid that Paddy should come across them.

She placed the package on the table.

“Now, don’t ask me what they are. ’Cos I think ye know only too well what they are. It’s a piece of that Mrs. Hailstone’s underwear, if I’m any judge. I found them out there on the step the other day. And don’t tell me that ye don’t know how they got there, for they didn’t get there without a pair of hands. And don’t blame Veronica this time, for she doesn’t have hands. Your Uncle Ned doesn’t have the legs to climb up that hill to Dora’s. Not that he’d ever feel inclined tae do such a thing, even if the legs were working proper. So that only leaves
you
, Gusty.”

He twisted in the chair. The tight girdle was hot, the suspenders digging into flesh unaccustomed to feminine restraints.

“W-well, I can explain how that pair-a things got there, Rose.” A small popping sound from the grate, a spew of sparks, and the last of the Jean Harlow contraption was roaring its way up the chimney. “I—I was clippin’ the hedge round Dora’s rosebush when I found them lyin’ in the field. They must-a blowed off the hedge when she put out the washin’, like.”

“And whyn’t ye put them back on the hedge then?”

“Well, I was gonna, only…only…” Gusty struggled, saw Dan McCloskey firing up his tractor, ripping out of the field. “Well, I was gonna, as I say…but then…but then the rain came on. Aye, the rain came on…and…and…” He stuck a finger in his ear and rotated it wildly, as if the action might trip the switch in his brain marked Ready Excuses. “And they would of got wet…aye, they would of got wet. Her car wasn’t about, so I knew she wasn’t in. So I put them in me pocket and I was gonna put them back on the hedge today. They must-a fell out of me pocket and I didn’t see them, like.”

Rose was shaking her head slowly. “This is a terrible business, Gusty. For if you started consortin’ with the like of that Mrs. Hailstone, you’d be a laughin’stock.”

“There’s no fear of that, Rose. She wouldn’t look at the like of me anyway.”

“Well, ye better let it stay that way. Uncle Ned doesn’t need no annoyance at his time of life.”

Rose got up, satisfied she’d had her say. “Now, this comin’ Thursday ye’re takin’ me and Ned tae Killoran. A friend of mine’s got a new job at the Kelly Arms in the kitchen. Do Ned good tae get outta the house for a glass of stout.”

“I’m in the Cock on Thursday afternoon,” Gusty lied, factoring his latest diversion, the Turret Room, into his hamster-wheel routine.

“I’ll have a wee word with Etta then. Lorcan can fill in for—”

“No, that’s all right, Rose.” It was best to agree with her and end his agony. “I’ll take yis tae the Kelly Arms, no bother.” He shot up quickly from the chair, his bum, paralyzed in the elasticized girdle, itching for relief.

“And as for that Mrs. Hailstone’s underwear,” Rose continued, “I’m gonna have tae give them back to her meself.”

“Aye, I better go up and get meself ready,” Gusty said, backing painfully out the door, sweat flying off him.

He gripped the banister—an iguanodon with the palsy—letting out oath-freighted sighs as he climbed.

Unbeknown to him, Rose had padded into the hallway and was tracking his progress. There was something funny about Gusty, and she was concerned. What was that black stuff under his eyes? Was he not sleeping? Or maybe it was the oil from the dry-rot can. And them cheeks were far too red to be sunburned. Was it the blood pressure? And he couldn’t sit still in the chair. Could it be the piles that were tormenting him and he was too embarrassed to say?

“Are you all right, Gusty?”

Startled, he turned.

“Naw…aye.” Then, in a flash, the perfect excuse: “It’s that oul’ bicycle of mine. I’m not used tae her yet.”

Chapter thirty-five

B
essie hung up the phone, having informed Father Cassidy that she wouldn’t be in until late afternoon. She couldn’t face him. Not yet, anyway. The risks were too great. It’s just a headache, she’d told him, and assured him she’d be fine. He’d been most sympathetic. “Take the whole day, Elizabeth,” he’d said. “I’ll manage.” Naturally she hadn’t mentioned the real reason—the aftereffects of having spent most of the previous night at the police station. He’d find out about that soon enough.

She’d sent Herkie to the shop on the pretext of buying milk. She needed to be on her own, to think things through.

She crossed to the record player. A bit of music might soothe her nerves. She unsheathed Tammy Wynette’s
20 Greatest Hits
and lowered the stylus onto the vinyl. In moments the crackling static was giving way to one of the country star’s plaintive laments.

In the kitchen she tried to calm herself by making tea. The familiar ritual might clear her head, because she had to think—and think fast. The unexpected spiral of events had wrong-footed her completely.

When she and Herkie got home from the station, she’d turned the house upside down, looking for the passport and license. In
the early hours she’d scoured the car, too. Nothing. The only place left was the parochial house. She’d have to go there when Father Cassidy was out of the way and do a thorough search. At three in the afternoon on Fridays he did his visits to the sick. That took him a couple of hours.

She loaded a misshapen raffia tray with the tea things. The tray had sentimental value, having belonged to her mother. Poor, long-suffering Hilda. She’d tried her best, had battled through against the odds, but her heart had given out in the end.

Strains of “I Don’t Wanna Play House” were drifting in from the living room. Bessie felt tears well up at the poignancy of the lyrics and the thought of her poor mother. She’d cooked and cleaned for most of her life. The raffia tray, which she’d made herself, held the promise that perhaps, given half a chance, she could have put more of herself out into the world.

She carried the tray through to the living room and sat down. I need a whiskey, she thought, pouring the tea. In the past, Dr. Montgomery had given her sedatives to get her through the rough patches. But there was no Dr. Montgomery now. There was no support whatsoever now. All the props had been kicked away with Packie’s death and her decision to do a runner.

She could phone Mabel McClarty at the bakery, of course; Mabel was also “bad with her nerves” at times and would maybe have a tranquilizer or two. But the thought brought another set of problems into play. Mabel didn’t drive, and there was no way Bessie could visit her. The raging face of the Dentist flashed before her. No, Belfast was no longer home. It was a bitter memory. A wound that had yet to heal.

The past held no solutions. Deep down she knew that. Going there only threw up the usual snarl of misery and regret. As for the present, well, who in this village could she turn to? The only woman she’d spoken to at length was Mrs. McFadden, and Bessie
had ended up insulting her when she’d come a-calling to the parochial house with the fruit loaf.

She’d virtually no female friends. In truth, there wasn’t much for other women to like in Bessie. Her looks made her a threat on sight. She knew that. Gusty Grant? Not the brightest bulb in the chandelier. How could she trust him? Besides, the price would be having to sit through a drink or a meal with him. The very idea was too unattractive to contemplate.

The only option left was to pack up the car right there and then and get the hell out. But without a driver’s license or passport, and only sixty pounds—the amount she’d managed to save to date—she would not get far.

She drew deeply on the cigarette as her gaze roamed the room. Out of necessity she’d not been able to take many of her own things from Valencia Terrace. The only bit of furniture, if you could call it that, was the record player. Dead Dora’s abundance of dusty old effects reminded her of her own lack. She couldn’t decide which state was the more desirable: too many possessions or too few.

The song ended.

A hissing pause.

Then a melody she didn’t much care for: “Run, Woman, Run.” Apprehension gripped her. The song title was urging her to action. She drained the teacup, crushed out the cigarette. Went to the record player and silenced Tammy. The cops knew where she lived. They could come and arrest her at any—