The Widows Club

“Have you left it to me in your will?”

“Of course not.”

“Then I don’t think so, thank you. As I said to someone-I think it was Reverend Foxworth-Ben and Ellie only have a couple of dozen bedrooms; I would feel I was intruding.”

Stuffing the telephone cord into my mouth, I clawed at the air. Calm again, I said, “So you couldn’t manage Christmas?”

“Let me check my calendar.” A pause. “No, darling, I have other plans.”

Good. I would invite Rowland and Miss Thorn.

* * *

Both declined with regret. Previous engagements. Ben’s father didn’t, of course, celebrate the twenty-fifth of December and explained over the phone to me that this was a very busy time for him, selling Christmas trees.

“On Christmas Day?”

“A lot of last-minute shoppers.”

“Any word from Mrs… Mum?”

“Paris got another card a couple of days ago.”

She had been absent almost a month and still no word for Ben. It really was awful, but when I tried to console him he got snappish, saying it was clear his mother did not wish to put him in the middle. How could a postcard put him in the middle?

Speaking of the mail, I had heard from my Chicago correspondent, Dorcas.

Dear Ellie old sock,

Best way to describe this place is tall and cold. Breath freezes to your face. But natives are charming. Get bombarded with such questions as, do we Brits have hot and cold running water? Inside loos? Can’t count the times I’ve been told I speak English frightfully well for a foreigner. Our monetary system also fascinates them. Want to know what’s a sixpence, a shilling and a farthing. Get frightfully disappointed when I say the old coinage has gone the way of the bustle. Now Ellie, no need to worry about Jonas, unless you are averse to baseball caps and TV dinners-only food the man eats anymore. You have my word-won’t let him out of the apartment until weather breaks. Enjoyed all news in your last letter. How is the household help situation?

Ah, yes. During the latter days of December we had received several applications in response to our ‘Help Wanted’ advertisement in The Daily Spokesman. The first woman, a Mrs. Philips, was aged. How would I ever be able to leave her alone in the house, let alone see her wheezing into her bucket? For her interview I sat her in the rocking chair, fed her lunch, and heard how she was working to buy a knitting machine, something she had always craved.

The next day I had one sent to her anonymously and proceeded to interview Mrs. Hodgkins, who was young and stalwart, but wanted to bring her boxer dog, Alfred. Personally, I didn’t object, but Tobias is rather given to these silly prejudices.

The upshot of these negative experiences was that when Mrs. Roxie Malloy presented herself on the back doorstep, on the twenty-seventh of January (Christmas had been pleasant but nothing to write about), I didn’t say the position had been filled.

“Well, what’s it to be, Mrs. H., am I to be left standing on the step like a milk bottle?”

Time is a great mellower. The memory of how she had taken an uppish attitude when Freddy threatened to jump from the tower on my wedding day had scabbed over.

Which doesn’t mean I clasped Mrs. M. to my bosom and begged her not to leave us till retirement. She entered the kitchen carrying an enormous bag containing “me supplies, Mum.” Off came her coat, revealing her tree trunk figure compressed into a bronze-and-black taffeta cocktail suit, its hem three inches lower at the rear. She wore stacked black suede shoes, and so many rings I doubted she could bend her fingers. While I put her coat on a chair, she toted the bag over to the table, stepped out of her shoes, and disparagingly assessed the navy Aga cooker, the wallpaper with its wheatsheaf pattern, and Ben’s beloved copper pans.

“Husband not home?”

“He’s at work.”

“Quite a superior establishment, this”-a hiccup punctuated this observation and confirmed my suspicion that she had diluted her morning orange juice with gin-“and in a fairly salubrious neighborhood, but we both know that anyone deciding to work here would have their work cut out for them.” Exhausted by the prospect, Mrs. Malloy sagged into a chair and lit up a fag.

“Work cut out for you?” The place gleamed. I had spent hours keeping everything shipshape for the stream of candidates.

“Got a lot of dust traps.” Mrs. Malloy waved a ring-encrusted hand past the greenery curtaining the window, to the shelf containing Ben’s collection of Victorian mixing bowls. “But should Roxie Malloy decide to take you on, you won’t have reason to complain.”

Picking up a wooden spoon, I struck out at an imaginary insect. “Mrs. Malloy, I am happy to discuss the position with you, but I do anticipate other applicants.”

“Don’t see them knee-deep at the door, do we? But suit yourself, Mrs. H.” She heaved to her feet and stubbed out the cigarette in a plant pot. “You won’t find many with my credentials. Two mornings a week I do the executive toilets at The Daily Spokesman.”

“The Daily Spokesman? You wouldn’t happen to know the Felicity Friend?”

Mrs. Malloy smacked her raspberry lips. “We have met in the course of my work; to say more would be a violation of me code of ethics. Three evenings I do the offices of Bragg, Wiseman & Smith, which tells you I can keep me eyes and hands to meself, all those documents sitting around; though who could make top nor tail of them I don’t know. That poor Lady Peerless. But I suppose these modern typewriters do Latin and such. And an old maid like her, she’ll have the hot chills for him.”

“Who’s ‘him’?” I asked, feeling horribly low.

“Mr. Greek God, Lionel Wiseman, but I doubt she’s got lucky. Not with him being married to the blond chorus girl-if they are married, which some in these here parts doubt.” Mrs. Malloy heaved a sigh. “On the subject of men-your husband isn’t the sort who makes a nuisance of himself, I trust?”

Here was my out. I heaved an echoing sigh.

“Unfortunately, Mrs. Malloy, you have touched upon the one drawback to this job. He will be home sometimes during the day. Cooking.” I made the last word sound as sinister as I could.

“Mrs. H., you don’t grasp my meaning.” Roxie Malloy adjusted the diamante clasp on her rope of pearls. “I don’t care a farthing what sort of floury muddle the man makes, so long as he cleans up after himself. Now was I married to the man”-she picked up a Victorian mixing bowl and inspected it-“I might feel all me femininity being sapped away, never getting to open a tin of peas. But what interests me is whether or not Mr. H. is given to lecherous advances. Having buried three husbands, I’m giving up men. Undependable lot.” She pinned me to the wall with her gaze. “So, give it to me straight, Mrs. H. Can you vouch for your man?”

“My husband is completely harmless.” The words came out like bullets.

“I’d guessed as much. Women aren’t his type… of vice.” Her eyelids fluttered. “But then-I’ve been known to bring out the beast in men a bishop would swear to. Still, I’ve put me cards smack on the table. And I’m giving you a month’s trial. Can’t say fairer than that, can I?”

“Well-”

“Only reason I’ve got any spare days is that one of my ladies, Mrs. Woolpack, has gone batty and is in hospital.”

And so she joined our happy home.

Of course, even with Roxie coming in two mornings a week, there was plenty to do in the house.

Every Thursday afternoon was aerobics class. Bunty had phoned me immediately after our curtailed lunch at The Dark Horse to solicit me as a pupil. When I had said that the Historical Society was more my speed, she had responded, “That lot! They weren’t born, they were exhumed; and their leader is Mrs. Bottomly!” The magic words.

Three years previously, a foray into the world of organized exercise had resulted in a week off work and a plea