The Odd Job (22 page)

“Piece of cake. We dust the top-floor bedrooms with the jacket, roll the skirt up in a ball, and let Mr. Jem sit on it for a while.”

“Yes, that would help. And I could wear those awful gray lisle stockings like the ones Great-Aunt Matilda wore, if we could find any. Do you think it would be tacky to sprinkle my hair with flour to make it look gray?”

“Very. You’d look like a case of galloping dandruff.”

“Well, I’ve got to do something. I do wish I could borrow that Queen Mary toque of Aunt Bodie’s.”

Charles was aghast. “Nobody in the world but Mrs. Boadicea Kelling could ever get away with a hat like that one. We can do better.”

“How, for instance?”

“The way will be shown. Have you any really beat-up old walking shoes? Or, better still, a pair of dirty sneakers with a hole in the toe?”

“Yes, Charles, as a matter of fact I do. I keep them in the trunk of my car in case Davy and I take a notion to walk out on the mudflats or into the woods. I think I washed off the leaf mold the last time I used them, but I’m not sure.”

“No matter. I can pick up some of that whitener stuff if they’re too ooky. But we probably won’t need it. Are we taking your car?”

“I’m wondering about that. Ira’s lining up a car for me but I don’t want him driving to Boston in it.”

“Then why don’t I get the sneakers out of your trunk and work a deal with a friend of mine who owns a 1975 Dodge sport coupe with racing stripes. You can be the little old lady who only drove it to church on Sundays. Now you’ve hurt your knee and can’t drive yourself, so I’m doing a good deed and taking you to stay with relatives. Okay, moddom?”

“Magnificent. Then why don’t you nip down to Charles Street and see what you can find at the thrift shop? They know you’re an actor, don’t they?”

“They do, they’re greatly impressed by me. Let’s see, we mustn’t do you as a freak. The object is to turn you into one of those elderly persons whom one sees but does not notice. It bodes fair to be an interesting challenge.”

“Just so you don’t get so caught up in your art that you forget what it’s for,” Sarah reminded him. “As a suggestion, you might look for a tired-looking silk blouse in some fairly revolting color, a hat with a brim that I can pull down to shade my face, and a pair of sunglasses. Perhaps a bar pin or an imitation cameo brooch, something old enough to be called a collectible. You’ll know. Will you be able to give me some wrinkles?”

“No problem. Then I’ll be off. Hasta la vista. Hey! Why can’t you just dress in some of Mariposa’s clothes and speak Spanish?”

“Because, Charles, in the first place Mariposa’s clothes wouldn’t fit me. In the second, I can’t speak Spanish any better than you can, and in the third I just don’t have what it takes to be Mariposa. I’m fairly sure I can act the part of an elderly woman from Beacon Hill and that’s as far as I’m prepared to go. Here, take fifty dollars in case you find something. Now scoot, I’ll clear up the breakfast dishes while I’m waiting for you to come back.”

Charles whizzed off, Sarah turned to Jem, who was sitting dutifully on her new flannel suit. “Oh dear, I’ve just had an awful thought. What am I to do about Anne? I suppose I’ll just have to stop at Ireson’s Landing and tell her.”

“Tell her what?” Jem squirmed around a little on his flannel perch to accelerate the process of antiquing, since he would soon have to go home to Pinckney Street for the clean white shirt and suitably mournful tie that Egbert had damned well better have ready for Jem’s in-and-out visit to Redfern’s office. Having dutifully dropped off the original Tawne will and avoided having to make up any lies with regard to his niece’s alleged demise, assuming that either Miss Tremblay or Redfern had seen and deciphered the false obituary, he would then come back to Tulip Street to be the firm hand at the helm and make sure there was enough gin aboard to weather the storm.

In the meantime, Egbert would be sorting out some clothes of Jem’s to bring to Tulip Street and gearing up to pitch in wherever he was most needed. All this organizing was not helping Sarah decide what to do about Cousin Anne and the chrysanthemums. Jem’s too-pertinent question was still unanswered; it would be most improper for Sarah to leave Anne and Mr. Lomax hanging.

“I’ve just got to tell her that I’m alive and trying to stay that way. I realize it’s putting a burden on you all, having to make ambiguous noises as to whether or not people should send condolences, but I do hope we can keep it in the family. Anne will have to tell Percy, of course, but Percy adores being inscrutable, so those two at least shouldn’t present any problem. I just hope this situation won’t drag on, I’d hate for Max to come home and find himself bombarded with questions about my funeral. Anyway, you’d better go do what you have to and I’ll hide under the bed until you get back here.”

If Jem thought she was being funny, he was dead wrong. Sarah tried to work off her nerves on the house, which had got decidedly scruffy under bachelor management. She’d made an impression of sorts on the downstairs and was wondering what to do about beds when Egbert arrived with a packed suitcase in his left hand and a couple of Jem’s suits in a plastic cleaning bag over the right arm. He deposited his cargo in the downstairs bedroom that Jem was using and gently but firmly took charge of the housekeeping. Sarah was beginning to feel redundant when Charles dashed back from the thrift shop, lugging a recycled paper bag of the large size.

“By George, we’ve got it! How’s this for class?”

He delved into the bagful and hauled out a dejected, high-necked silk blouse in a blotchy pattern that wavered between blueberry and pomegranate, a few unlovely trinkets, two pairs of gray lisle stockings still hermetically sealed inside a brittle cellophane wrapping that must have lain for too many years in somebody’s grandmother’s bureau drawer, the sunglasses that Sarah had stipulated, and a faded purple felt hat that clashed just enough with the dyspeptic blouse to set one’s teeth on edge.

“Magnificent, Charles, you couldn’t have done better. But what about my hair? Weren’t you planning to go to Fuzzleys’?”

“No, I’ve had an epiphany. Remember that long gray beard I wore as Noah in that ‘Back to the Ark’ skit at the Children’s Theater? All we need to do is—hang on, I’ll show you.”

Charles adored beards with a passion. He bounded up from his basement lair carrying a wild mass of gray false hair, turned it upside down, fitted it around Sarah’s face, anchored it there with a stretchy black bandeau—probably a pair of Mariposa’s bikini panties, Sarah thought hysterically—and stood back to appraise the result.

“Not bad. Now do we cut or do we pug?”

“Oh, dear! I hate to spoil Noah’s beard.”

“Fear not, milady. No sacrifice is too great.”

“If you say so, then. I vote for cutting, mainly because I don’t have the right kind of hairpins to pug with. You’d better spread some newspapers under my chair before you begin snipping, Egbert just finished mopping the floor.”

Presumably all the wearables at the thrift shop had been cleaned before they were put out for sale, Sarah was in no position to quibble. She excused herself long enough to put on the dejected blouse and the skirt that Jem had so kindly antiqued, then came back to take the chair under which Charles had spread yesterday’s newspaper as directed.

“All right, Charles, go ahead. Do your worst.”

Charles’s worst was remarkably good. Having swathed his patroness in a tablecloth to keep the clippings from falling down inside the blouse, which hung a little too loosely on Sarah’s delicate frame, he went to work. In a matter of minutes, he had hacked off just enough of Noah’s beard to achieve the fashionable blue-jay’s-nest effect that Great-Aunt Matilda had been wont to produce for herself with one of Great-Uncle Frederick’s pearl-handled cutthroat razors and a misplaced faith in her own skill at barbering, rather than squander a few dollars at the hairdresser’s three or four times a year.

And now for the makeup. Here was where Charles really shone and Sarah did not. By the time his sticks of greasepaint had done their unlovely job, he had obliterated the roses from her cheeks, dimmed the sparkle in her eyes, and, while not actually manufacturing wrinkles, managed to create an illusion that wrinkles were there. Even Max Bittersohn might not have recognized this haggard crone as his wife, or wanted to.

The gray lisle stockings had presented a problem. Like most women of her generation, Sarah had gone directly from socks to panty hose. She knew little of garter belts, less of girdles; she had, however, seen some John Held drawings of jazz-age flappers with their stockings rolled just above or just below the knees. After a brief period of experimentation and with the help of two sturdy elastic bands, she was able to master the principle well enough for the purpose.

The fact that the stockings bagged was in this case an asset. Great-Aunt Matilda’s had always bagged, so did Aunt Appie’s and dear old Anora Protheroe’s. Not Aunt Emma’s, of course; that gracious lady was still the essence of chic and would probably faint on the spot if she were to walk in just now and see what was happening to her favorite niece.

Having wrecked her face, Charles was smearing horrible yellowish greasepaint on the backs of her hands, picking out the veins in an unwholesome blueish shade and adding brown liver spots here and there as the whimsy took him. Sarah wondered how she’d be able to wash her hands without ruining the effect, then she remembered a pair of plum-colored nylon gloves that Theonia used to wear with her bag-lady disguise. These could be taken along for emergency use, they would go quite nicely with the hat and the blouse, although they might seem a trifle on the dressy side for the muddy sneakers with the hole in the toe.

No matter. The persona that Sarah had adopted was too old, too lame, and far too cranky to give a rap what she looked like. She tried on the jacket to her gray suit, decided it could use a little more antiquing, and asked Egbert if he’d mind walking over the lapels a few times. As always, he performed capably and added a few specks of lint from the dry mop for good measure.

The strategy was all worked out, the forces deployed, there was nothing for Sarah to do but go. She didn’t want to be recognized by any of the Tulip Street neighbors, so she slipped out the basement door carrying her black Boston bag and Great-Aunt Matilda’s cane, and meandered through alleys and byways until she got to Park Street by the circuitous route that Aunt Caroline had worked out many years before and took the subway to North Station.

Her timing was just about perfect. She joined a scattering of other people waiting to be picked up with their belongings and had just enough time to start looking impatient when Charles drove up in his borrowed car, sprang out to take her bag, and assisted her into the back seat where she could ease the wounded knee that was throbbing from her longish walk and the subway stairs that she’d had to climb.

It would be lovely to see Davy. Sarah wondered if he’d recognize her under the makeup; she hoped he wouldn’t find her disguise too frightening. If he did, she’d just have to wash her face, thus destroying Charles’s artistry but keeping her son’s tender psyche intact. Actually she shouldn’t have much trouble putting her face back on if she had to; Charles had made up a package of cosmetics and a list of instructions on how to use them for the proper effect.

“You wanted Ireson’s Landing first, right?” Charles said as he nosed his friend’s car out into the much-reviled Boston traffic.

“Yes, Charles. I haven’t called Anne but she’s sure to be there. I just want to see how the plantings are coming along and explain why I’m wearing this Halloween outfit. Then you can take me on to the lake. Miriam Rivkin will give us something to eat, after that you’ll be free to go back to Boston and get rid of this car. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t use mine while I’m away, I just didn’t want to be seen with you for your own protection. I’ll call the house if I need a ride.”

It would be perfectly safe for Sarah to telephone to the Tulip Street house. At one time, the library had been bugged, but that would not happen again. Brooks Kelling had taken care of any such attempts by installing a tape on which he had tastefully combined the buzz of the bumblebee, the whine of the mosquito, and the stridulating of the industrious cricket, all of these amplified to eardrum-shattering level. Anybody who tried any tricks on the historic Kelling brownstone—and there was no doubt that such things had been attempted at various times—would have got back his bugs a thousandfold, and an earache to boot.

Now that they were across the Tobin Bridge and heading toward the north shore, Sarah could feel herself beginning to relax. She took off her left sneaker and propped up her aching leg with a couple of pillows that Charles’s friend must have left in the back seat. They weren’t particularly inviting but she was in no state to be picky. She pulled her faded hat brim farther down over her eyes and wondered how, or whether, she could make Anne understand why she’d been forced to masquerade as some long-forgottęn chip off the old Kelling block.

By the time they reached Ireson’s Landing, Sarah had a nice little speech all thought out. And Anne was present to hear it. Her car was parked at the top of the drive, she was standing not far from it with a cream-colored chrysanthemum plant in one hand and a pale-yellow one in the other. Mr. Lomax’s truck was not to be seen, but a pervading odor of fish indicated that he hadn’t been gone long.

Enough plants were already in the ground to show what was being created here. Instead of trying to impose her own will on the rough, stony hillside, Anne was working along with the terrain, letting a narrow gulley become a path leading to an expertly blended tapestry of bloom around a weatherworn boulder, pulling the eye to a clump of young birches among which a random setting of bronzy chrysanthemums blazed in startling contrast to the slim white trunks. Nothing was too overdone or too sparse, neither too flamboyant nor too subdued. Really, the woman was a wonder. Sarah put the sneaker back on, straightened her wrinkled skirt, and waited for Charles to help her out.

It wasn’t until Charles slammed the car door after Sarah that Anne roused herself from her reverie and walked over to see who had arrived. “Oh, how do you do? I’m sorry, I wasn’t expecting anyone but the man who brings the fishheads. You’re—wait, it’s been so long, but I’d know a Kelling face anywhere. Ah, I have it! You’re Aunt Calpurnia from Virgin Gorda. What a lovely surprise, I do wish Cousin Sarah were here. This is her house, you know, they tore down the old one. I’m Percy’s wife, Anne; I’m sure you don’t remember me.