Read Online The Widow's Club by Dorothy Cannell - Free Book Online Page B

would stop toying with me like this.”
    The tissue box came down on his head. “I meant that the owner of this car is a front seat dumper and we’ve squashed his—”
    “Her. The owner of this car is a woman.”
    “Forgive me, male … person, but you cannot so assume on the basis of one pink cardigan.”
    “Ellie, an Englishman’s car is his castle. Only a woman would drive around in this state of chaos.” As if to prove his point, he picked up an earring and tossed it from hand to hand.
    I took slow, deep breaths. Remember, Ellie, how far he has come in terms of eradicating chauvinistic leanings since first we met. “Darling, don’t you think that remark is just a teensy bit sexist?”
    “Absolutely. Women get housework up to the chin; they don’t have anything left over to give to the car. Whereas we males”—he thumped his chest—“find fulfillment for our domestic urges in shining up leather and spitting on chrome in an area the size of the old tree house.”
    “Mm!” I was only slightly mollified. A name tag on the woolly hat read Beatrix Woolpack. “Would you please budge? You’re sitting on more stuff.”
    “Ellie, leave everything. She’s more likely to notice if—”
    “Just look at this piece of paper! It’s all crunched up, as well as being decidedly damp.”
    “Ellie, let’s go. We didn’t take a year’s lease.”
    “One minute.” I was smoothing out the scrap of paper. “What if this is something important and you’ve got the writing all smeared? One quick peek and … oh, splendid! Just a shopping list and still legible, I think.” Tilting my body closer to the window I read out loud.
    “Two tins cat food, twenty Players, one hair tint (Wistful Fawn), dog biscuits, one-quarter pound tea, steak and kidney pie, frozen peas, milk of magnesia—”
    Ben’s voice broke into my ear. “Ellie, this comes as a hideous shock.”
    In this light I doubted he could see that I was blushing. Even so, I held the paper in front of my face. “You’re right! I should have told you before we married that other people’s shopping lists hold this kinky fascination for me.”
    “Ellie, you can read the labels on people’s underwear for all I care. What appalls me is my abysmal naiveté. I never realised that civilized people actually consume shop-bought meat pies.” Ben tried to take the list away, but I held on to it.
    “Therein,” I said, “lies the fascination of shopping lists. They tell us all sorts of things. For example, the owner of this car is a middle-aged female (no one under fifty wants to be wistful); she smokes (cigarettes high on the list); she is a pet owner, does not like to cook, suffers from constipation, is disorganised—”
    “You got that from the state of the car.”
    I tut-tutted. “The items aren’t categorised. The pet foods should be together, ditto the chemist items.”
    Ben leaned against me and continued reading the list. “Instant caramel blancmange.” His tone was one of extreme revulsion. “Whatever happened to good old-fashioned crême bruleé?”
    “Dear, dear!” I skimmed to the bottom of the paper with one eye, while watching the window with the other.
    Porridge oats, one lamb chop—obviously single; my guess was a widow—three wild mice.
    My turn to shudder. Surely if the cat’s owner could eat convenience foods, Puss could be persuaded to do likewise.
    “What’s wrong?” From the sound of him, Ben was still dwelling on the decadence of caramel blancmange.
    I moved his finger up a notch to the offending item. His dark eyebrows drew together, but he shrugged. “Nothing wrong there. I happen to prefer white, because of the greater scope for play, but everyone to his own taste.”
    “Taste!” I twitched the list away, staring at that mouth which I had so recently kissed. “Sweetheart, you are joking?”
    “Do I ever joke about food?” Ben drew the list back from my nerveless fingers and laid it on the seat. “I concede that wild