How to Murder Your Mother-In-Law by Dorothy Cannell

talking to him!” His life partner included me in her glare. “If he wants to walk out on me after nearly forty years, let him! Or better yet, he can share a taxi with Bea. From the way she’s been carryingon all night, that’s what she’s been hoping for all along.”
    “Mags, that’s ridiculous!” Tricks managed to look demure as a virginal sixteen-year-old.
    “You’re a liar!” Racing across the room, Mum flung the door wide open, sending Mrs. Malloy, who was coming in with the coffee cups on the trolley, into a tailspin. “But what I say, Bea, is he’s all yours. Snores and all. I wouldn’t marry Elijah Haskell now if he were the last man on earth!”

I was all for ending the evening by sticking my head in the oven. But Mrs. Malloy put the nix on that nifty idea in a hurry.
    “Not in my nice clean kitchen, you don’t.” She dumped her damp dishtowel on the pile by the sink. “Now, let me see if I’ve been hearing straight: Your in-laws aren’t married and never was?”
    “There was the problem of religion …”
    “So they went ahead and lived in sin?”
    “We can’t know all the ins and outs …”
    “No need to be crude, Mrs. H. It’s Mr. H. I feel sorry for, poor lad—the product of a broken home. Put himself to bed, has he?”
    “He went up to check on the twins.”
    “Crying himself to sleep, more like!” She reached for the dishtowel to dab her eyes. “And when
I’m
to see my bed, I’m sure I don’t know.”
    “One of us will take you home,” I promised. “Youdo see it wouldn’t have done to send you off with Dad and Mrs. Taffer?”
    “The poor man could have done with a chaperone, if you ask me! He’ll be in a vulnerable state, and that woman’s a barracuda if I ever saw one. I wonder you didn’t feel you was contributing to the delinquency of a pair of senior citizens, lending them Mr. H.’s car.”
    “What else could we do? Mum ordered Dad out of the house. It was clear they both needed time to cool off. My hope is that he’ll come back tomorrow morning with his cap in one hand and a bunch of flowers in the other.”
    “Dream on, Mrs. H., that man is as stubborn as a donkey at the seaside. But don’t you worry about taking me home. You need me around for moral support, and I’m not one to desert a sinking ship. I’ll spend the night at no extra charge.”
    “I don’t know how to thank you.…”
    “You could start by making me a cup of tea.” Mrs. Malloy planted herself on a chair and pried off one shoe with the toe of the other. “And you’d better add an extra spoonful of sugar to calm me nerves. I keep thinking about them two driving in that old crock. Ten to one it will break down out there in the back of beyond. Mark my words, he’ll be forced to spend the night with
that woman
in the backseat. And being a gentleman of the old school, he’ll feel morally obliged to marry her come morning whether or not her father comes after him with a shotgun.”
    “You and your lurid imagination.” I managed a feeble laugh. But I must admit that while waiting for the kettle to boil, my mind concocted a Technicolor scene of Dad and Tricks driving down Cliff Road in Ben’s pride and joy, Heinz, which for years had been held together with Super Glue and threats of the Great Scrap Yard in the sky. It was a convertible whose top at one time wouldn’t close, until Mr. Fixit remedied the problem, so that afterwards it wouldn’t open. Heinz was like a faithful old dog who knew only one master.Ben had only to climb aboard and it was off and running, but Dad might have trouble getting it into second gear without one or two of the wheels falling off.
    Over the shrilling of the kettle I could hear Tricks’s cooing voice asking Dad if he couldn’t go faster so she could feel the wind racing through the crack in the window to ruffle her stubble hair. I pictured her turning towards him, her eyes—along with the tassels on the Indian muslin dress—dancing. Dad would do