Suzanne Beecher

Dear Reader,

Sometimes I'm quick to judge. It came with the original Suzanne model and even though I've spent a lot of time through the years making improvements, I've never been able to completely get rid of the nasty trait. But at least I don't indulge as much as I used to because I've discovered "middle ground."

I grew up in a black and white household, people and the situations they found themselves in were labeled good or bad. There wasn't any in-between.

But when I'd been out on my own for awhile, I noticed that other people seemed to have more tolerance than I did. They weren't as quick to judge someone or a situation, and oh, how I wished I'd experienced that kind of grace in my life. So I decided on a different approach. Instead of labeling good or bad, the first place I'd head for in my mind was "middle ground." It wasn't easy, but every time I started thinking judgmental thoughts, I'd catch myself and interrupt with a "perhaps" instead.

Perhaps the woman was so rude because she's worried about her son. Perhaps the guy in front of me is driving 15 miles an hour, in a 40 mile an hour zone, because he's on his way to his grandson's birthday party and he's balancing a 3-layer cake on the seat beside him.

Yes, I got to thinking that it might be an easier life for me and the people around me, if I dropped the good and bad characterizations all together and realized that most of the time, people are traveling in the "perhaps" lane of life.

Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.

Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@firstlookbookclub.com

P. S. This week we're giving away 10 copies of the book A Murder For Miss Hortense: A Novel by Mel Pennant. Click here to enter for your chance to win. 

1

The Pardner Lady Is Dead

On the morning Blossom brought the news that the Pardner Lady, also known as Constance Margorie Brown, was dead, Miss Hortense had not long finished watching 'Kilroy' and was in the back garden pruning the Deep Secrets. Her bloodred roses, which she had planted a lifetime ago, were put there to stop her forgetting something that was, by its own nature, quite unforgettable. The sun hadn't yet risen to its highest point, and as she knelt down, it filtered in through the leaves, playing a kind of peekaboo against her back.

Blossom, who said she had rushed off the number 64 bus and all the way to Miss Hortense's home, could barely get the words out: "Dead! And I never saw it!"

She carried the news all the way from Bridge Street Market, where she had been in conversation with Mr. Wright. That was the Mr. Wright who Blossom had once said favored Engelbert Humperdinck, but, apart from the light skin and sideburns, Miss Hortense couldn't see the resemblance. It was Mr. Wright who saw the ambulance as it pulled up at a quarter to seven outside Constance's home, number 52 Percival Road, which was the house on the corner. The ambulance didn't leave until something like 8:15 a.m., which meant, according to Mr. Wright, that they must have been working on her hard. Mr. Wright, as they knew, lived in the council flats opposite, so although he didn't quite have direct access into Constance's front room, if he went out on his balcony (which he did upon hearing the sirens and seeing the flash of blue lights) and stood with his neck tilted heavily to the side, he could just about see into the front right corner of Constance's bedroom.

Blossom took a deep breath and stopped fiddling with the chiffon scarf that hung unevenly about her neck. There was a slight tremor at the corner of her mouth. Blossom was a woman who didn't step out of her yard without two layers of foundation and several pins in her hair. Her nails were always immaculately polished in a magenta pink. But on that morning, something had gone wrong, and one eyebrow sat higher than the other and her skin tone was uneven. She licked her lips and continued.

Constance, like Miss Hortense and Blossom, lived by herself, although unlike them, Constance had children—a son and daughter— but Mr. Wright was quite sure that it was 'she' in the body bag that was zipped up all the way to the top. "Body bag" was whispered by Blossom, and she crossed herself before repeating the words and then crossing again, despite the fact that Blossom wasn't a Catholic or in any way a follower of any religion—except, if there were such a religion as Love Thy Money, then it's fair to say that Blossom would have been a very devoted member.

Blossom was quite sure that the information she had was correct. There was no mistaking it. And then, just like that, when she'd got it all out, Blossom deflated like a balloon and nearly lost her footing on Miss Hortense's doorstep because it was 'a shock'. The shock of having Constance be quite alive and full of life, taking up even more space than was strictly necessary, for so many years, to the unbelievable realization that she had now become a Hope No More.

For once, this was not a death that Blossom was claiming she had foretold. That was what the "I never saw it!" bit was about. Blossom generally knew everything that was going to happen after it had happened, but she was particularly accurate when it came to death.

"I can't believe it," she said again, the sweat dripping from her brow. It was normally at least an eighteen-minute walk from the bus stop to Miss Hortense's, but this day, according to Blossom, she made it in four and a half minutes.

There was nothing for it but to let Blossom in and get the little glasses from the cabinet and pour the neat white rum, Wray & Nephew, all the way to the top of each.

"I . . ." said Blossom, gripping the glass hard. But nothing further came out. It was rare for Blossom to be without words. It had happened only once before, in the summer of 1968, after her second husband, Lester (the one with the funny eye), hit her and she had boxed him so hard that he flew across the room and hit his head on the sideboard. She had rushed all the way to Miss Hortense's then too.

Now both of them fell silent as they contemplated what it meant for the Pardner, indeed for them all, now that the Pardner Lady was dead.

2

No Place for Our Money

The Pardner had begun on the night Hortense first met Blossom, a miserable Friday evening in the summer of 1963. Despite the season, clouds hung in the sky like they had dropsy and there was a chill that ran right through Miss Hortense's bones. Errol had come to find her after he'd heard she'd moved to Bigglesweigh and had insisted she leave her box room to join him at a blues dance. "Come na, man." Although she didn't mind a good party, it was her sister who had loved them.

Hortense and Errol hadn't seen each other since the spring of 1958. On the night he came to find her, she was soon to turn twenty-nine and was thicker-set with a more ample bosom and wider hips. But, despite nearly three years in England, her skin tone, a deep, dark mahogany, hadn't lost any of its depth. He was twenty-seven, but still the same scrawny pipsqueak. She noted, however, that his copper hair no longer sparkled. He had just acquired a wife called Precious, and very shortly before that, a daughter, both of whom Hortense had yet to meet. As they walked side by side, they talked briefly about Hortense's sister Evie. Evie, whom she followed to England in September 1960. Evie, who was lost to her.

"Is just how it is here," he tried to rationalize. "Na worry 'bout it." "Well, I going find a place for the two of we and the pickney," said Hortense, giving away more than was characteristic. "I going tek her and me nephew away from that man."

As they arrived at Blossom's little house, a brass horn rose to greet them, and Hortense shook out her headscarf to the pulsating "Madness" of Prince Buster.

A sudden commotion came from further inside the house. In the front room, a small table was squashed in the middle, with a man sat at each of the four sides, staring each other down. Behind the men was a gathering of people watching the unfolding drama, including a woman the color of yellow yam with a mouth full of little shark teeth, whom Miss Hortense would later come to know as Constance Margorie Brown. She was peering over shoulders.

"Rahted! How him do it?" said a man stood next to Constance. He had noble, chiseled features as if carved from the granite of a gravestone. This was Mr. McKenzie. He shook his head. "That na make no sense. Brown can't play."

"I win. Fair and square," said a man sat at the table with a prom- inent forehead and slicked-back hair who turned out to be Mr. Brown, Constance's husband. He rose, not very far, to his feet—he was a short man—and gestured to the dominoes tiles on the table, all akilter now.

"Is I win! You fe give me my winnings."

Another man at the table rose slowly. He had broad shoulders and a fighter's ready stance. This was Fitz.

"Is dere anyone here who this man don't owe no money to?" asked Fitz to the room.

Someone in the corner shouted, "Brown owe the whole world to rahted," and Mr. Brown, with his big forehead, seemed to shrink into the carpet, before sliding towards the door.

Miss Hortense watched as whatever smile Constance Margorie Brown had previously disappeared. She leaned away from her husband as he passed her on his way out, her shark teeth revealing more of themselves.

"See the real player deh so," shouted a large man with a funny eye, sat at the table.

His name was Lester, but that wasn't the name Miss Hortense had for him. He motioned, with a bulbous finger, for Errol.

"Come now," Errol said, turning back to Hortense and easing both of them further into the room. "Hortense a go tek me place," he shouted across the crowd. Errol was practically pushing Hortense towards the space Mr. Brown had left.

The Bullfrog (the name Hortense had for the large man with the funny eye) said, "No."

So Errol fished in his pocket and took out four single-pound notes and a handful of change, which he counted and put on the table. 'Slam.' "All right, then," said the Bullfrog. "Come na, darling. I going tek you money," he taunted Errol and the third man at the table, whose name was Bigsy. "I going whip you backsides tonight."

Hortense shook her head at Errol, removed her coat and sat at the table. To her right, Fitz—she could smell the spice in his aftershave. To her left, Bigsy. In front of her, the Bullfrog, breathing heavily.

They were playing the dominoes game Six. In order to win, you needed to win six games in a row. One break in the pattern and you started back at square one. The game could go on for hours. Hortense rolled up her sleeves. The Bullfrog said in Errol's direction, "She know how fe play?" Hortense looked across at him. He was an ugly-looking man if ever she'd seen one. She put down her handbag and picked out her seven bones, the tiles she was going to play with.

The first five games were taken by the Bullfrog. He belched into the room. A smile played at the corner of his wet mouth as he eyed the money on the table.

When the Bullfrog was about to play his first domino of the sixth game, Bigsy deployed the common tactic of distraction and shouted towards the kitchen. "Dee? Tell them what happened to you at the bank."

His wife, Dimples, a sickly-looking slip of a woman with no dimples in sight, emerged from the kitchen a few moments later. "Well, on Monday, I went to the Royal National Bank," Dimples began into the room. Her voice was watery. She frowned, and Miss Hortense spotted the dimple for the first time.

(continued on Tuesday)

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