Alysse Aallyn

Category: #BestRevenge

  • Secrets of the Self – how I became a warrior by Alysse Aallyn

    Cooperation –

      Becoming a warrior is rough. The only thing harder than becoming a warrior is NOT becoming one. Then you’re subject to the wild vagaries of circumstance. What you must do Is fight your way up to the controls and try to steer this thing in a safe direction. You won’t be able to do that without assembling a team, and teams rely on cooperation.

      My mother died of breast cancer when she was 70 years old – and my father lost his mind. This was a complete surprise to everyone. My father had always been the strongest, smartest, wiliest person in the room. He was especially good at Reality. As the captain of our ship he piloted us through storms, foreign borders, bizarre customs officials and threatening cops and robbers. He once jumped overboard with a knife in his teeth to cut our propeller free. He untangled anchor chains, rescued a man at sea, founded successful businesses, managed money and liberated cash from international banks. He didn’t believe in God, he was scientifically educated and intellectually up-to-date.

      My mother’s death was no surprise – she’d been dying for five years, up until the time the hospital sent her home and said they could do nothing for her. After the body bag left, my father’s first impulse was to kill himself by swimming as far out to sea as he could go. He was rescued by my brother-in-law, but he was still talking crazy. A helicopter took him to a hospital on the mainland where he was diagnosed with grief psychosis and briefly institutionalized while various medications were tried.


      I took him out for lunch one day and he asked to stop at the Kwik Check for a newspaper, running in by himself. In the car I went into a slow panic – what if he bought razor blades? Luckily, he didn’t, but that was the way we all had to think as I strategized with my three sisters. We took turns with him. We could see the medication – Thorazine – had debilitating side effects, so checked him into the Philadelphia Mood Clinic to see if they could do a better job. They could, using primarily talk therapy.

      Here my father fixated on getting married again, and as soon as he was out of the clinic he was stalking a variety of women, all of whom turned him down. Finally, he hooked up with an old friend of the family who was coming out of a bad divorce where her husband wanted Someone Else. She needed a Someone Else to shake in his face.

      She certainly was familiar – having attended all the same churches and schools that we had. But she was not like my mother at all – flat-footed where my mother was imaginative, plain where my mother was beautiful, astringent where my mother was warm. But my father certainly calmed down. Creepily, he put her in charge of everything. He began referring to her as “your mother”. None of us were invited to the wedding. Newly married, they went on a tour of all our houses where he carefully explained to us that we wouldn’t be getting anything in the will, because he’d already done plenty, plus he’d made our stepmother leave her job so she could tour the world with him and he had to take care of her.

      My husband said, Great! I’ll take it from here! One of my sisters said, “It’s his money, he can do what he wants with it.” Another was so depressed – “He’s abandoning us AGAIN” – she couldn’t speak. The third sister said, “We’re helpless, we can’t stop him.”

      I said, I was taught to speak truth to power. I was taught that resistance is not only not futile but mandatory. Guess who taught me that? My conscientious objector father, who went to Kentucky State Prison for his pacifist beliefs.

      I wrote him a letter in which I said half of that money was Mom’s and she felt an obligation to and love for her grandchildren and daughters. I threw in every moral rationale I could think of. Incredibly – considering the way he’d distanced himself from us – it worked. He said he would leave us a small amount at his death and put the bulk of the money in a trust that would revert to us on our stepmother’s death. He didn’t leave us as much as he promised, but the trust idea is a good one. Someday it might even come to pass.

      ON BEING DISINHERITED

      These are the tasks
      To be performed
      Without feeling;
      The snipping the
      Slashing
      The shredding
      The with-holding, the
      Bundling into bunches.
      You play the remote ogre
      And I’ll be the crying child.

      Why do partitioned pieces
      Melt before they touch?
      You fear to give;
      I am helpless to receive.
      Suppose we changed places.
      Would that explain
      Your fear of me?

    1. Secrets of the Self – how I became a warrior by Alysse Aallyn

      Memory –


      After the bank took our house, we moved into one of the vacant condos in their project. My mother-in-law sued us with a federal injunction that accused us of damaging her tax credits.

        Throughout this horrible state of affairs my husband kept hoping his mother would come to her senses. I consulted a divorce attorney but realized that I didn’t want a different husband, I wanted a different life. I wanted to return to the past, when we were happy and everything was possible.

        At this time, my own family sold our summer place in Maine and I gained a sudden influx of cash. I decided to use it to get my husband away from his mother and into a new life. There was certainly the possibility that he would feel obligated to choose her, because of his “sunk costs” or just feel emotionally unable to leave his situation.

        Through the nine years of our marriage we had found joy and release visiting his family summer place, StormFall, in the Berkshires, and it seemed to make sense to choose somewhere near there. Hartford was the nearest big city and Connecticut seemed halcyon and clean; almost a paradise in comparison with Philadelphia. The children were six and two at the time; as soon as I received my psychology degree from LaSalle U we took off to explore the Hartford suburbs. Manchester, “Silk City”; “The City Of Village Charm” seemed just perfect. I bought a cute little new townhouse and enrolled the kids in school. It took Toss only a few months to join me. He hired a lawyer to extract him from his partnership and he found a wonderful job writing for the Connecticut Lawyer. He stayed there twenty-three years! We were a happy family again.

        NEW HOUSE

        The pregnant car disgorges
        Us. It’s winter.
        We beat our gills as light
        As hummingbirds.
        In a town of green schools and
        Greener parks this
        New built house
        Gapes and swells
        To draw us in.
        There’s a science room and
        A writing room and
        A TV room and
        Rooms for children.
        We sleep aloft for safety
        High above the thorny osiers
        Unseen by the demon’s angry outriders;
        Cherishing a safe word
        She’ll never guess; it’s
        Love.

      1. Secrets of the Self – how I became a warrior by Alysse Aallyn

        Partnership –

          Right after our marriage, my husband went into partnership with his mother to buy two wrecked downtown buildings and turn them into condos. I was happy about this since I was already thirty years old and wanted to concentrate on starting a family. We moved into the recently vacated grandmother’s home – she relocated to a nursing home – it was a 45 minute drive from my mother In law’s house.

          I noticed right away that my mother-in-law was a contentious person. She flat-out contradicted people, turning social chitchat into argument. She talked so angrily and incessantly about her divorce you would have thought it happened yesterday, not ten years ago. Above all, she hated seeing other people happy and expressed constant envy, resentment and rage. She made regular false statements about herself as if challenging others to correct her, and she corrected me about my own areas of expertise where I could easily prove her wrong if I cared to. I didn’t care to – she was my mother-in-law, my landlord and my husband’s business partner. I just determined to see as little of her as possible. She liked argument, publicly humiliating the shy, frightened man she called her “boyfriend” and ruining countless holidays working hard to destroy his ego. (He had no visible ego.)

          This was unsettling, to say the least. My husband sank all his money into their venture, she kept the books and was supposed to pay him a salary – she never did. They worked hard to secure a construction loan and she used part of the money to buy her “dream home” which meant they didn’t have enough cash to finish the project. We began to get threats of lawsuits from the bank which stated that I, who was not a partner and had signed nothing, was also on the hook for the money. She had no regard for the truth and frequently claimed lying on sworn documents was a clever business tactic.

          My husband was better than this, tried to correct and help her and in turn was attacked by her. But he felt helpless – all his money was tied up and the condos were slowly being readied for sale. When I complained about her behavior he was worried I would “expose” her and make things worse. So our partnership, too, was threatened. They went into therapy together – she reading from a long list of criticisms of my husband and what a terrible person and partner he was. When I finally spoke to the therapist I discovered neither of them had mentioned the mother-son relationship (which they both considered humiliating.) ! Needless to say, the newly-informed therapist “got it” immediately. “Get the hell out”, he advised. (She never paid him and he joined the long line of suers against her.)

          We bought a modest house in a struggling neighborhood and began to upgrade it. We had two small children and I was finishing college for a bachelor’s in psychology. All the way along I asked for professional help trying to understand this weird woman who hated her own children, humiliated anyone who ever loved her and felt insulted by rescuers. It was my first experience of evil. The diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder was just being established and she fit it to a tee. The bank took our house. Ultimately I was able to convince my husband, who was contemplating suicide, that we needed to get away from her and sever all ties. He got a wonderful legal writing job that combined his best interests, we moved two states away and lived happily ever after except… there was always my husband’s pain. Having that kind of person for a mother.

          #Haiku: The Definition of Evil

          Lost souls
          Twist truth:
          “Trust” is “punish”
          “Wild” is “Poison”
          “Conserve” is “destroy”.

        1. Secrets of the Self – how I became a warrior by Alysse Aallyn

          Resources:

            To our father, we were the Four Princesses – Alyssiana, Genviana, Merrillana and Avrilana. He grew up with a mother, a sister, two brothers, a grandmother and four great-aunts in circumstances of extreme frugality in the Depression. Nonetheless, they were a family of snobs and social pretensions kept afloat by a “bachelor uncle” who made a fortune in the insurance business.

            My father came into the capital from his trust fund when he was 25 (I was born when he was 31) built us a house and rented out surrounding properties. He went into the construction business with an architect friend from college, then into the laboratory development business with one of his tenants. He replaced his blue-chip stocks with high-flying ventures like Xerox and Sony, which in the sixties was like coining money.

            By the time I was 11 he quit his job and went into philanthropic work in Africa. I was concerned that we would be “poor”. I had already seen the stark divisions in my Ohio hometown and I never aspired to shift to the other side of the tracks. He told me not to worry, but when I saw the desperate refugees from a war-torn country he was trying to help, I had to worry.

            My father had a yacht built, my beautiful mother bought high-end clothes, they invested in art and traveled all over the world, but one by one his daughters fell off the gravy train. We went to boarding schools and approved colleges, shopped at re-sale stores and were discouraged from thinking of ourselves as “rich.”

            My father bought a house in a 50 acre park (in the middle of the city!) and slowly filled it treasures acquired abroad. I felt guilty for all the money he gave me and aspired to pay my own way. I was relieved to dodge college – that was a big price tag.

            I achieved an artist husband like myself – a touring musician with a wonderful sound who could play anything. We bought a house in the woods and I settled down to write. I figured we were set. But I had confused “intrinsic” with “extrinsic” values which can be easily swept away. I didn’t have “resources”. When my “house of cards” collapsed I found myself sitting in a temp office, paid minimum wage, waiting in case someone wanted to hire me for my only known skill: typing.

            HORROR STORY

            Lubricity
            Darkens into sweat;
            We face each other
            Across the cooling dinner,
            Night by night
            Stiff as andirons
            Masterpieces seen best by candlelight
            To hide the cracks,
            Well-meant improvements by
            Another’s hand.
            A well-matched pair.
            A fountain sings but
            One tune only. It didn’t look this way
            Proceeding forward.
            Backward is a different view.
            I could have sworn that we’d last longer.
            I caught flak from my mother,
            Who cast a role in Wuthering Heights;
            Preaching doom
            In guise of cheer.
            All I wanted was
            Sufficient light
            To read my tarot; recycled
            Tea leaves brewed
            From your used bathwater.
            The leaves are dank and do not speak.
            I shiver with cold and you
            With anger; a
            Brace of disappointments.
            Speechless.
            There’s still too much
            We can’t admit.

          1. Secrets of the Self – how I became a warrior by Alysse Aallyn

            The Shadow –

            Is there justice…or not? The Shadow says there isn’t. The Shadow passes over us, enervatingly, sapping our vitals, suggesting, “What’s the use?” If Jesus is right and “By their fruits you shall judge them” then the Shadow’s apparent desire is that we lose hope and focus and accomplish nothing.

            This is such a devastatingly undesirable outcome it is obvious that the Shadow is to be resisted with all our strength. Warriors reject The Shadow.

            But Jesus also says, “Resist not evil” because evil wants you to play with it. How resist non-forcefully?

            I would say through the exercise of our creative – i.e. positive – gifts. This is why I study evil, tease it, laugh at it, explicate it.

            The Gruesome Gourmet

            My mother loved corpses


            Folded in with the custard; she


            Smoked out the kitchen like a witch


            In Macbeth.


            Taylor’s Toxicology shared shelf with


            Julia Child; Mom often


            Talked Trotsky over


            Soft-boiled eggs. She


            Smeared more Mercurochrome


            Than was strictly necessary


            On juvenile cuts; dabbed with dilated pupils like


            An artist in mayhem or an MGM makeup man


            While Dad ate mute


            Pacifist chili from cans in his room


            Re-reading KonTiki.


            I became vegetarian.


            It’s true what they say about


            Becoming your past;


            When I hear “Lizzie Borden”


            I remember –


            I think of mutton for breakfast in


            Sticky red sauce.

          2. Secrets of the Self – how I became a warrior by Alysse Aallyn

            Danger

            Antioch Columbia decided it didn’t give grades, a fact my father, who was paying for it, found unsettling. They also told me if I wanted a class on Women’s Lit I would have to teach it myself. I could handle that, what I couldn’t handle was my writing teacher’s outspoken preference for and devotion to Bruce Vill. He ‘writes like an angel,” she said. He was also a successful musician and disturbingly handsome. Horribly, I married him. But nothing shapes a warrior like suddenly finding herself in the wrong camp.

            Your Sideways Smile

            I heard you singing and remembered

            All the things that you’ve forgotten.

            I see you clearly like

            A fish in a hailstone.

            See your hands, so

            Long for a man I always thought

            And your upper lip too short

            Like a lion’s in fact

            You have an animal presence

            Placing no trust in words

            No trust in love

            Acting after marriage like

            We’d never met –

            Creating islands undiscovered in

            Worlds unreachable.

            You were the joke

            I didn’t get;

            Blowing your smoke endlessly

            Between us

            Refusing to forget or

            Forgive that essential fragility

            Marking us human;

            Fated as you were

            Always to surrender

            To the scornful cries of your

            Invisible hecklers.

          3. Film Review: The Crown VS Saltburn

            Film Review – Scammers Get Scammed – Saltburn VS The Crown

            Well, it’s finally happened – The Crown has fallen in love with its subjects and a syrupy lot of over-privileged spoiled babies they are. When the nausea rises to projectile-vomiting level, try Saltburn, Emerald Fennell’s revenge on all twits everywhere.

            There’s an obvious reason Fennell can’t call this new enterprise Promising Young Man to remind us of her magnificent first outing, Promising Young Woman ,because its subject, Oliver Quick, is pure evil. And that, of course, is the problem with this movie. If there’s anything more sickening than the self-confident blathering of nitwits, it’s the triumph of evil. No thanks! Sadly, it ruins the film because it “jumps the shark” into unbelievability. The twits certainly can become silly enough to be overtaken by the more intelligent but the sad truth of reality is, there’s always someone smarter and meaner coming along.

            One of my great pleasures, as a Plot Maven, is re-writing bad endings and Saltburn’s is easy. Aristocrats of the Saltburn type are surrounded by servants whom they vigorously try not to see. But the servants see them. Try Joseph Losey’s magnificent The Servant as a helpful restorative.

          4. Devoured Heart – romantic suspense by Alysse Aallyn

            Chapter 44. A New Life

            Candi admitted everything. According to the newspapers, who disclosed much more than the police, “Scorned Girlfriend Plots to Confront Wife.” Candi admitted only that her plan was to “get the truth out of Scarlet,” but Miss Bottomley started screaming when Candi entered the house – “I couldn’t shut her up and I just panicked.”


            Mrs. Pourfoyle was indicted for “Malice Murder” – a capital offense. The murder weapon – brought by Candi all the way up from Wyvern House – was a table leg she wielded as a club.

            Candi’s husband David announced he was standing by her. “Husband Claims Home-wrecking Cad Manipulated Lovelorn Girl.”


            Was Ian the one who really wanted Scarlet dead? That was David’s argument! Would Ian be indicted? And how long would the generous, the fantastical, the life-altering disposition of Miss Bottomley’s estate remain private knowledge?


            For these reasons and many more it was no surprise to receive a call from Scarlet’s solicitor, Pelham D’Arcy.


            “Ian agrees to sign the divorce agreement we propose, without changes.”


            “Well, that’s a relief.” Scarlet sighed.


            “He’s worried about being indicted for “transferred malice murder.”


            “You mean they think he suggested killing me to Candi? I’ll never believe that.”


            “The press is painting him as a lady-killer. He’s concerned about losing his job. A quick divorce removes his motive and makes him an eligible bachelor.”


            Eligible Ian. Didn’t women flock to “lady-killers”, no matter what devastating facts they knew? Perhaps, thought Scarlet with her newly-acquired cynicism, they flocked BECAUSE of the “devastating facts.” Doesn’t every woman long to reform a roué? Horribly, I did, thought Scarlet. I fell for that. But she was a different person now. Still, the world thronged with eager victims. Ian wouldn’t be alone for long.


            “When’s he going to sign?”


            “It’s contingent on meeting you alone. I told them it would have to be at our offices.”


            “All right. Let’s get it over with.”


            “I suggest you wear your police whistle.”


            Could Pelham be serious? Surely Ian wouldn’t try anything violent – but she knew he would expect to physically touch her and she shrank from the thought. She knew him that well.


            “Is that a serious suggestion?”


            “I’m very serious. If you don’t bring it, we’ll have to bell you like a cat.”


            “I’m sure Enid will let me borrow it. If he signs, then where are we?”


            “Then we get a decree nisi, which is provisional for one year. They usually rush these things through to get it out of the papers but it depends on the judge. Every now and then you get a Huey.”


            “What’s that?”


            “It’s Bob’s and my shorthand for an impossible judge. I must say the publicity makes this very unlikely.”


            “Why’s that?”


            “It’s an open secret that everyone hates our divorce laws. Literally everyone. They’re just on the verge of either breakdown or reform.”


            Scarlet shuddered. So many things you didn’t think of when you stood before the altar, wide-eyed and innocent!


            “I’ll bring the whistle,” she promised.


            She took care to wear it well-concealed. No point red-ragging Ian. She had never figured out his level of self-control. Was everything he did well-planned, or was he ruled by a raging id? Well, thought Scarlet, I don’t care. I don’t have to care. She imagined a future of trying to explain to Nick why Daddy did the things he did. Why he wasn’t like Pom. Adorable, sensitive, reliable Pom, who talked things out, who listened, who cared. Who changed, day by day, evolving to love better. To live better.


            Ian looked different. Older, battered, his eyes bloodshot. Scarlet thought she smelled whisky underneath the cigarettes. Was he drinking every morning now, or was it just because he was seeing her? His suit hung on him in a peculiar manner, as if he had given up on any real nourishment. He and his solicitor, Mr. Jellicoe, whose suit also was ill-fitting, could have been a vaudeville act – one so fat and the other starving-lean. Then again, perhaps Ian just wanted Scarlet to feel sorry for him.


            Mr. Jellicoe seemed very obliging and impressed by his surroundings. He shook damp hands all around.


            Ian looked at Scarlet with deep hunger. I’m the one who “got away”, she thought. The only one. She was glad of the whistle.


            They were guided to the Partners’ Room. At ten in the morning, no sherry was on offer. Ian refused everything, even water. Scarlet accepted a cup of tea to have something to do with her hands, until she noticed they were trembling. Then she set her teacup down hastily.


            Pelham made a point of seating them at opposite ends of the table. He closed the door softly.
            Ian began. “Scarlet, I want to let you know how sorry I am.”


            He waited for a moment as if to allow her to speak. But what could she say? She had already decided there was no point in being accusatory. When he was her ex-husband and the “occasional” father of her child perhaps they could concoct a relationship. At the moment, the situation was hopelessly fraught.


            He spoke again as if covering her silence. “I never guessed…what she’d do. I didn’t listen to her natterings.”


            There went her resolve about accusations. She was just too angry. The words boiled out of her.
            “You treated her like a joke, but the joke is on every one of us. Poor Candi wanted to be treated like a wife without realizing how cruel you are when you’re sure of someone. You ignore them, you devalue them. You fobbed her off with lies while you went your smug and merry way. I think you secretly enjoyed making her crazy. I think you wanted to see just how crazy she would get. Makes it easier to get rid of them, doesn’t it?”


            She half-expected him to fire up or at least smile that he’d gotten her goat but he hung his head like a shamed schoolboy. Scarlet struggled to contain herself. After a moment, he spoke.


            “Don’t compare yourself with her. You’re nothing like.”


            She could see the oil bubbling beneath his surface. Planning, planning, all along. He schemed to flatter her, fawn on her, throw himself on her mercy. He was testing, testing, for any way in. She should never have bothered giving him her honesty. It was all a game with Ian, and any game with Ian was just too dangerous. She summed up as best she could, “No one likes being lied to. A word of advice: it torpedoes relationships.”


            He rose.


            “You’re right, I’m wrong. I managed everything badly. I want to turn over a new leaf.”


            She rose as well, feeling a bit panicky. Was he planning to chase her around the table?


            “There’s Nick,” she said finally.


            “Of course, there’s Nick. But we won’t be together – with him – all the time.”


            Creepy! We’ll never be together with him at all. If I can help it. She summoned up her strength.
            “I don’t see that. I’m afraid we have little in common.”


            “How can that be? Don’t you remember the two young Oxford students working on St. Euphrosyne, with all our hopes and dreams and ambitions?”


            “I do,” she said. “I thought you didn’t.”


            He seemed calculating as to whether he could to rush her. He leaned forward, light on his feet.

            She pulled out the police whistle.


            At the sight of it he sat down heavily and put his head on the table.


            “Oh, Scarlet, Scarlet.” He began to weep.


            She felt stunned. She had never seen him cry. She was surprised it was even possible. Could he be faking this? Then she suddenly realized with a flash of insight that, from her point of view, the problem wasn’t that his emotions were false, but that they were ephemeral.


            “I’m sorry, too.” She advanced toward the door. “Haven’t we said everything?”


            He looked up, tear-streaked. “Do you hate me?”


            She was startled. She had hated him. That feeling was ephemeral. “No.”


            “Will you tell Nick to hate me?”


            Now she felt irked. “Of course not.”


            He gazed at her slyly.


            “Aren’t you afraid he’ll look on me as the fun dad, the devil-may-care seducer who knows how to get whatever he wants?”


            He’d been arguing inside his own head, cruelly mimicking her voice.


            “I’ll take my chances.” Nick would know Pom. He could choose; trustworthy love or untrustworthy disappointment. Choice – once well-informed – is up to each of us.


            “I’m forgiven?”


            This was strange. Odd word from a self-confessed unbeliever. The trial hadn’t even been held. Was he planning to call her as a character witness?


            “Not yet,” she said briskly. “You haven’t signed this document.”


            She put a hand on the doorknob. “Aren’t we done here?”


            He seemed almost confused, as if she’d spoke an unknown language. He rose awkwardly, holding out his hand. He had the sense to say nothing.


            She took his hand slowly and he immediately grasped it with his other one, as if he wanted her to feel his strength.


            She realized she just didn’t like the man.


            She turned away. She wrenched her hand back and, very unwillingly, he let it go and picked up the pen.


            Then she opened the door upon her new world.

          5. Devoured Heart – romantic suspense by Alysse Aallyn

            Chapter 53. Shattered

            Dawn was just breaking as Scarlet came home. She took a long, hot bath and dressed, but the warmest sweaters and tights could not block the chill that had settled in her bones. The kitchen had become a crime scene. Enid switched her sphere of operations to the tiny kitchen off the ballroom. She could toast bread. Milk could be placed against the cold windowsill to keep it fresh.


            Scarlet crawled into bed with Nick. He still was healthy, wide-eyed, fresh, new and needy. He had no idea how horrible the world really was.


            “She’s gone,” Scarlet told Enid. “The brain injury was just too awful.”


            “What made you wake?”


            “I’m not sure. I had a dreadful dream. Something about Miss Bottomley lost on a raft. I must have heard a sound from downstairs.”


            “Miss Bottomley screamed. I heard it too. That dreadful woman must have attacked her to stop her noise.”


            Candi had lots of reasons for attacking people. All given to her – thought Scarlet grimly, by my dear husband.


            The policeman climbed up the stairs to see the women. He didn’t look like a detective but more like a department store floorwalker with his shiny bald head and a sharp-cut suit.


            “Scotland Yard,” he introduced himself. “Inspector MacBlythe. May I get the details of your story?”


            “We’ll meet you in the sitting room,” sighed Scarlet. She climbed reluctantly out of bed and walked to the chintz settee she had so admired just a few brief weeks ago. She had thought she knew trouble and sorrow then, but in reality she had been only too naïve in the ways of misery. Fatally so. How could she could have ever guessed what depths of viciousness simple selfishness and greed could release!


            The Inspector was not as surprised by the existence of a night guard as the bobby had been. “This place is a treasure house,” he said. “It’s at least a two-man job.”


            “I wish we’d thought of it,” Scarlet wept. “The security man seemed so confident.”


            Enid freshened the tea.


            “What connection are you to Mrs. Pourfoyle?” MacBlythe was coming to the meat of the matter.
            “When I found out she and my husband were having an affair I told him I wanted a divorce. She quit her job and moved into our country house – at least that’s what my solicitor tells me. But last week she came up to London and threatened me as if I was the one blocking the divorce. But Ian’s been the blocker. It seems he’s got other girlfriends, one actually living with him in his flat. Again, according to my solicitor.”


            MacBlythe took down all Pelham D’Arcy’s and Ian’s information, and moved over to Enid. Nick began to cry and Scarlet gladly sprang to her feet to remove him from the room.


            Pelham called when the police had finished with him and requested an interview – “you and Enid both.”


            “Oh, good,” said Enid. “I don’t want to be alone. Let’s have dinner out, afterwards.”


            “I’m too tired for anything but fish and chips,” said Scarlet, who really didn’t want to see people.


            “That’s fine with me.” Dear Enid, obliging as always.


            Bob Thomas and Pelham met them in the Partners’ Room, which had a long table, imposing portraits and deep comfortable wingback chairs. Nick slept angelically in his carrycot. Scarlet imagined someday trying to explain all this to him.


            “Well, this is a terrible thing,” said Bob Thomas, pouring tea all around. From an antique silver set, Scarlet noticed. She and Enid refused sherry. “Is the woman mad?”


            “Temporarily maddened,” contributed Pelham, who was more accustomed to the vagaries of divorce.


            “Well, she’s committed murder, is what she’s done,” said Bob Thomas.


            They all agreed it was an unconscionable thing as they sipped their tea. There was a knock on the door and Pom thrust his head inside.


            “Pom, I’m in a meeting!” gasped Scarlet.


            “I asked Mr. Bronfen to join us,” said Bob Thomas. “Tea? Sherry?”


            Pom accepted a small sherry. He sat next to Scarlet and held her hand tightly, under the table.
            “All three of you – Mr. Bronfen, Mrs. Rumson and Mrs. Wye – are beneficiaries under Miss Bottomley’s will.”


            Light burst onto Scarlet when she realized, he is talking about me! She had forgotten she was Mrs. Wye. Suddenly she was on a par with Lady Lechmere in her attorney’s eyes. She had been upgraded.


            “Oh, my goodness,” she gasped. “But won’t they contest it?”


            “Who?” inquired Bob Thomas calmly. “There are no interested parties. She was literally the last of her line. The property would have reverted to the Crown.”


            “Mr. Inkum-“


            “Mr. Inkum would not dare. The papers he attempted to get Miss Bottomley to sign were so outrageously self-interested he would be drummed out of the profession if anyone complained.”


            Reality began to sink in. She sadly recalled Miss Bottomley’s delighted exclamation, “Do you know, I am a very rich woman?”


            Pom and Enid and Scarlet gazed at each other, dazzled.


            Bob Thomas cleared his throat. “There are six trusts concerning real estate, art, publishing and commercial properties. Mrs. Wye is the discretionary trustee and I am the advisor.”


            And he proceeded to explain.

            Scarlet was openly clutching Pom’s hand as they staggered out of the lawyers’ office.
            “I’m gobsmacked,” said Enid. “What a lovely human being she was.”


            “And how we’re going to miss her,” gasped Scarlet.


            Pom guided them into a nearby bistro – “do you like pizza? You must try it,” and ordered a bottle of chianti.


            “To Miss Bottomley’s foresight and generosity,” toasted Pom.


            Nick’s eyes were big as he looked from each to each in the candle flame.


            “But we couldn’t protect her!’ sighed Scarlet. “It’s because of me she’s dead, don’t you see?”


            “How could you ever have guessed that Candi would do such a thing?”


            “I couldn’t!”


            “Any thug could have broken in and attacked poor Miss Bottomley at any time. She could have been assaulted on the street! She was all alone before we came.”


            “But the time was so short. Too short.”


            “Time is always too short,” said Pom and he squeezed Scarlet’s hand meaningfully.

          6. Devoured Heart – romantic suspense by Alysse Aallyn

            Chapter 52. The Snarl Behind the Smile

            That very night Scarlet had the strangest dream. She was picnicking with Pom – a Watteau-like scene of countrified perfection. They lolled on a riverbank, dressed in party clothes with the best offerings of Fortnum & Mason spread out at their feet. But it seemed however much they laughed, lifting their glasses to each other, some desperate dread lurked right below the surface. Suddenly in the stream beside them Miss Bottomley appeared on a raft. Night-clothed, disoriented and woebegone she lifted up her hands in supplication before being swept away. Neither Scarlet nor Pom could react. Scarlet felt her clothes an enormous weight, her limbs immobile, she could not even force her lips into a scream. The terror was so immense Scarlet struggled to wake up.


            “This must be a dream,” she told herself, and so it was. Scarlet fell back against the pillows as exhausted as if she’d been fighting, not sleeping. Yet she felt some relief. She had been given another chance. She must not waste it. What had she forgotten? It was something connected with Miss Bottomley. Her preoccupation with Pom was causing her to neglect Miss Bottomley. Something – something – she forgot to do. But as so often happens, the dream words melted away on the sand before she could read them.


            Was Miss Bottomley calling out for her? There was only one way to find out. Scarlet struggled into a dressing gown and slippers and hurried down the stairs.


            She heard it before she saw it, pushing against the baize kitchen door — some desperate struggle in the lighted kitchen. Scarlet braced her body against the door to see a slight figure kneeling over Miss Bottomley with a flail, beating and beating. Blood was everywhere, swirling patterns rising and falling to the very ceiling. The room stank like a charnelhouse.


            Scarlet sprang forward, grabbed the black clothed creature whose eyes beneath a ski mask swiveled up to confront her. Those eyes – mad with rage – were Candi’s eyes. Scarlet tore off the mask to reveal Candi’s demonic face. Candi shrieked – “You!” and attacked her.


            The club slipped from her hand and fell to the floor while the women struggled in a desperate embrace. Scarlet felt strong, but stupid and slow – the other woman was wiry and crazed.


            “I’ve got to knock her out somehow,” Scarlet thought and with all her power forced Candi’s head against of the cast-iron Aga stove. Again and again she cracked it until Candi went down.


            Then she heard a siren, ear-splitting – and saw Enid aghast in the doorway.


            “What happened? I pressed the panic button!”


            “Call for an ambulance – Miss Bottomley’s been hurt.”


            Before she attended to Miss B she must hogtie Candi with kitchen clothesline – no risking another assault. Candi seemed completely out of it but she was breathing.


            Miss Bottomley’s eyes were open. She was wearing the cursed red anorak over her nightclothes – bitterly Scarlet rued their casual swap. How much trouble this had caused! She had already received one warning about the dangerous potentialities of clothing confusion but she’d failed to grasp its meaning.


            “What happened?” gasped Miss B. “Did I fall?”


            Scarlet, hot with tears, pulled her wounded employer into her lap and began rocking her like a child. “You’re going to be all right,” she chanted. “We’re taking you to hospital.”


            The night guard appeared in the doorway, his mouth agape.


            “What happened?”


            “Somehow this woman got in and attacked Miss Bottomley. Enid called the police and ambulance.”
            “Oh, my lord,” said the poor man, “Must have been when I went to the phone for hourly report.”


            Miss Bottomley gasped and gurgled. She clutched Scarlet’s hand so hard it was difficult to surrender her to the medics. As Scarlet climbed into the ambulance she could hear the night guard explaining to anyone who would listen, “I had to make my report.”


            Why hadn’t she been informed that his post would be unwatched for minutes every hour? It was ludicrous! She grabbed his arm.


            “Don’t you dare let the attacker go,” she commanded. She didn’t trust him anymore, but at least Candi seemed immobilized. Scarlet could hear the police siren, but the ambulance couldn’t wait.
            Rocking back and forth she asked herself, Why had it occurred to literally no one, that a single guard couldn’t possibly cover the entrance? What about bathroom breaks, not to mention the hourly reports from the corner phone the client had not even been informed about? She gritted her teeth, but the person she most blamed was herself. She could kick herself for not thinking it through.


            How easily we accept reassuring appearances without enquiring deeper!


            At the hospital, Miss Bottomley was rushed away and Scarlet was given a blanket to cover her bloodstained nightclothes. She longed for the comfort of Enid’s presence but knew Enid must remain at Norfolk Crescent for Nick. She’d have to get through this alone.


            “May I speak to you, ma’am?”


            It was a London bobby, helmet removed, holding his notebook.


            “Sure,” said Scarlet in her exhausted American drawl.


            “What occurred precisely? Best you can recall?”


            “I must have heard something. I really don’t know why but I got up, thinking Miss Bottomley –“


            “The injured party?”


            “Yes. She’s my employer. I thought she needed me. When I ran downstairs I heard them struggling. This woman Candi Pourfoyle must have come through the back entrance – there’s a guard on but he says he was making a phone call.”


            “There’s a guard?” interest in his gray eyes.


            “Well stone masons are building a new entrance at the back and there isn’t a door so they set a guard there. But he’s no good!” She bit her thumb angrily. “I wish I’d known he was going to be no good.”


            “Cup of tea?” A sympathetic sister approached.


            “Yes, please.” Scarlet accepted the white china cup – you could see the sugar they’d sloshed in. It was lukewarm but enormously comforting.


            “You recognized the attacker?”


            “Candi Pourfoyle, I told you. “


            “And she is?”


            “My husband’s girlfriend. I don’t know if she thought Miss Bottomley was me or not – poor Miss B. was wearing my anorak – but Candi would have to come through the kitchen and Miss B often fell asleep sitting by the Aga –“


            “Hold on now, please. What exactly did you see?”


            “They were both on the floor. Candi was beating her with a club – blood everywhere. I pulled her off, knocked her out and tied her up with clothesline. Enid heard the ruckus and called police.”


            “You knocked her out? Did you have a weapon?”


            “No. I wish I had. But I bashed her head against the stove.”


            The bobby patted her knee. “That’s a ghastly experience,” he said sympathetically. “Dreadful.”


            And it’s only going to get worse, Scarlet could tell from the doctors’ faces as they pushed through the operating theatre doors. She stopped trying to be strong and burst into tears.