Aunt Bessie Considers Read online

  He paused there and Bessie could hear the low buzz of excited conversation as it swept through the room. Mack hadn’t exaggerated. If he was right and he’d uncovered evidence of a Roman settlement on the island, everything the historians thought they knew about the island’s history would have to be re-evaluated.

  “Well, that’s certainly stirred things up,” George whispered to Bessie. “Harold must be having fits in the back.”

  Bessie wondered how Harold was feeling. He’d spent most of his career looking for evidence of Roman occupation and it seemed like Mack had beaten him to the punch.

  She sighed. “Poor Harold,” she murmured to George. “He must be terribly upset.”

  “So where is it?” Harold let everyone know exactly how upset he was by shouting angrily from the back of the room.

  Mack grinned. “I’m sorry, but I’m not taking questions right now,” he said with a smirk. “After I’ve finished I would be happy to answer your questions, but for now I’d like to have a chance to conclude my remarks.”

  The whole room seemed to hold their collective breath as they waited to hear Harold’s reply. He simply muttered “whatever,” which felt somewhat anticlimactic.

  Mack smiled a nasty smile and continued. “There is no doubt in my mind that what I’ve uncovered thus far should be counted as among the most significant archaeological finds in the history of the Isle of Man. What’s even more exciting, though, is that I’ve barely scratched the surface. What I need now is funding and staff. I’d like to think that Manx National Heritage would be interested in funding a full-scale excavation at the site, and I hope they might have enough eager volunteers to help staff the undertaking. Of course MNH often struggles to find financing for their projects. I am, therefore, appealing to everyone in the audience tonight to consider assisting in some way with raising the necessary funds to make this dig a reality.”

  “I’ll fund it,” George announced from his seat. “You show me what you’ve found so far, and where, and I’ll fund a proper dig of the whole site.”

  Mack flushed. “That’s very kind of you, George,” he said. “I can’t tell you how delighted I am to hear that. On behalf of the entire Manx nation, I thank you most sincerely.”

  George snorted. “Sincerity isn’t his strong suit,” he muttered to Bessie quietly.

  “I had planned on using the rest of my time to try to persuade you all to invest in the excavation. That’s clearly no longer necessary, so I’ll just wrap up there,” Mack told the audience. “I need twenty minutes or so to gather my thoughts and go back over my notes before we have our question-and-answer session. I believe there’s some sort of collection of puddings on offer in the lobby.”

  Before anyone could speak, Mack gathered up his notes and disappeared through the door to the cuillee.

  As the cuillee door shut behind Mack, the room erupted. Bessie rose to her feet slowly, her mind racing.

  “Well, that was certainly something,” George said over the clamour.

  “It was indeed,” Bessie answered. “Poor Harold.”

  “Yes, rather,” George glanced around the room. “I think he must have already escaped,” he told Bessie. “I can’t see him anywhere.”

  “Maybe he wanted to be first at the ‘dessert bar,’” Bessie suggested wryly.

  “That’s probably it,” George laughed. “Nothing like a chocolate biscuit to make you feel better after your entire life’s work has just been snatched out from under you.”

  Bessie shook her head. “I think I’m going to go look for him, or maybe grab something sweet,” she told George.

  “I need to talk to a few people,” George told her. “I’ll catch you in a little while.”

  Bessie moved away, slowly ducking in and around the vocal crowd.

  “And I’ll save your seat for the question-and-answer session,” George shouted to Bessie.

  Bessie grinned and waved her thanks just before the crowd swallowed her up. She made her way towards the open doors at the back of the room, noting that Marjorie had already left the room as well. She couldn’t see Joe and Claire or Helen and Bambi either. Excited snippets of conversation washed over her as she travelled.

  “No, there’s never been any evidence….”

  “Harold Smythe is the real expert, of course, but Mack’s always happy to poke in….”

  “…been cultivating relationships with the farmers here for the last ten years or more. I can’t believe any of them would call Mack instead of Harold, but….”

  At the door Bessie glanced back into the room. She didn’t recognise any of the people who were now surrounding George. The room was slowly emptying as it became obvious that Mack was serious about taking a break. When she turned around, she didn’t see anyone she knew in the foyer either.

  When Bessie spotted the table laden down with puddings, she was glad she’d managed to beat the crowd, though. She grabbed a small plate and selected a delicious-looking chocolate brownie as well as a miniature Victoria sponge and a pair of chocolate éclairs. She picked up a hot cup of tea with her empty hand and looked around for somewhere to sit.

  The foyer was now beginning to fill up as people streamed out of the lecture hall. An open door on the opposite wall caught Bessie’s attention. She headed towards it. Inside the small lecture hall, the Kinvig Room, which would be used for other talks later in the weekend, tables and chairs had been set up in small groups that would lend themselves well to conversation. Bessie stepped gratefully into the room, eager to put her plate and drink down and then enjoy her treats.

  Once inside the door, she realised that the room wasn’t empty. Marjorie and Harold sat side by side in one corner having what looked like an intense conversation. Bessie coughed loudly as she took another step into the room. Two heads snapped in her direction. Bessie forced a smile onto her lips.

  “I hope I’m not interrupting,” she said. “The door was open.”

  “It really shouldn’t have been,” Harold said crossly. “Everyone will start coming in to eat their pudding if we don’t shut it.”

  “That was kind of the point,” Marjorie said on a sigh. “We wanted people to have a place to sit and chat with their ‘dessert.’”

  “Whose idea was this ‘dessert bar’ anyway?” Harold grumbled. “What’s wrong with having a ‘pudding bar,’ that’s what I want to know.”

  Marjorie laughed, but it sounded forced. “We invited the participants to make suggestions as to what they’d like to see at the conference. Our one American participant suggested a dessert bar and it sounded like a good idea. Who doesn’t like cakes and biscuits, after all? ‘Pudding bar’ just didn’t sound right somehow,” Marjorie shrugged.

  “I think it’s lovely,” Bessie said soothingly. She slid into a seat in a group of chairs near the others, close enough to talk with them, but far enough away that she hoped it didn’t look as if she was intruding. She took a big bite of an éclair and grinned at the pair. “And it’s delicious.”

  “Come and join us,” Marjorie invited Bessie, as a few other people began to wander into the room. “We were just plotting how best to kill Mack and get away with it. I’m sure you’ll have some useful suggestions.”

  Bessie moved over to join the pair, shaking her head as she did so. “You shouldn’t even joke about such things,” she told Marjorie. “I’ve been far too close to murder lately and it isn’t funny, not in the slightest.”

  Marjorie flushed. “Sorry, Bessie,” she murmured. “It’s all just so awful.”

  “It is that,” Bessie agreed. “How are you feeling?” she asked Harold.

  “Totally destroyed,” Harold told her. “I’ve spent my entire career chasing Roman remains and a lot of my time and energy has been devoted to establishing good working relationships with the various farmers on the island. I’m beyond devastated that one of them went to Mack instead of me with his find.”

  “Any idea who it was?” Bessie asked.

  Harold shook his head. “I t
hought I was aware of everyone’s plans for new construction through the end of the year,” he told Bessie. “I wasn’t aware of anyone planning a new barn on an old field.”

  “So how did Mack find this guy?” Marjorie demanded.

  “The only thing I can figure is that he found some recent comeover who bought a farm and is making changes. I try to keep up with the new owners, but sometimes it takes me a little while to get in touch. I’ve been so busy with the conference lately that I must have missed something. Mack must have slipped in and caught the guy before I had a chance to talk to him.”

  “There can’t be that many people from across buying up Manx farmland, can there?” Bessie asked.

  “You’d be surprised,” Harold answered her. “With the banks expanding so rapidly, lots of families are moving across. And at least some of them are considering small farms rather than life in a housing estate in Douglas. Lots of larger farms are being broken down into smaller plots. I doubt many of the new residents will even bother to farm the land; they just want the extra space. Maybe they want to keep a horse or two for their spoiled daughters, that sort of thing.”

  “I still don’t understand why anyone would call Mack rather than you,” Bessie said. “Everyone knows you’re the expert on Roman finds on the island.”

  “What scant few there are,” Harold grinned without humour. “I guess I might not be the expert any more, anyway.”

  Bessie sat back and watched the room slowly fill with people carrying plates full of treats. To her mind anyway, the ‘dessert bar’ was a huge success, whatever anyone wanted to call it. She smiled as Joe and Claire walked in, still deep in conversation. Helen strolled in by herself and quickly joined a small group of people that Bessie knew she’d met but couldn’t instantly identify. After a while George came in, surrounded by a crowd of people who appeared to be hanging on his every word.

  “They can’t all be looking for funding, surely,” Harold snarled.

  “Don’t be too sure,” Marjorie replied. “I don’t know many academics that aren’t pretty much constantly on the lookout for new sponsors for their research. George only has himself to blame, announcing that he’d fund an entire excavation for Mack like that. I wonder if he has any idea what that’s going to cost him?”

  A few moments later Bambi wandered in, empty-handed and looking lost.

  “Oh, for goodness sake,” Marjorie said. “She looks like a lost puppy.”

  Bessie laughed. “I’ll go rescue her,” she offered. “I think someone ought to. She does look quite lost.”

  “By all means,” Marjorie told her. “I haven’t got the heart for it.”

  Harold laughed angrily. “Don’t look at me,” he said gruffly. “I’m still trying to work out how to kill her lover.”

  Bessie shook her head and then rose slowly. She’d emptied her plate and drunk her tea; it wouldn’t hurt her to be nice to the young woman.

  She smiled as she walked towards the pretty blonde. Bambi was looking around, as if trying to find someone. “Are you looking for someone special?” Bessie asked when she reached the woman.

  “I thought maybe Mack had come in here,” Bambi replied. “I knocked on the door to that little room where he went, but he didn’t answer. I figured he must have gone to get a cookie or something, but I don’t see him anywhere.”

  “I haven’t seen him,” Bessie told her. “I don’t think he wants to come out and face questions at this point.”

  Bambi sighed. “I should just go back to the hotel,” she said. “It isn’t like all of this is my sort of thing anyway.”

  “I didn’t think you looked like a historian,” Bessie said. “So why are you here?”

  Bambi sighed again. “Mack promised it would be fun,” she told Bessie with a pout. “He made the island sound really cool and exciting as well, but so far all I’ve seen is the airport and the hotel.”

  “Mack’s talk was certainly exciting,” Bessie replied. “What he’s found is hugely important for the island.”

  Bambi yawned. “History isn’t really my thing,” she shrugged.

  “So what is your thing?” Even as the words left her mouth Bessie worried that she’d be sorry she asked.

  “Fashion,” Bambi answered, her eyes sparkling with sudden enthusiasm. “I’m hoping to study fashion design, marketing and merchandising soon. I’m planning to have my own label one day.”

  Bessie nodded. She knew nothing about fashion, but it seemed just possible that young Bambi was more than just a pretty face. “I’m sorry,” Bessie blurted out before she could stop herself. “But is Bambi your real name?”

  The young woman laughed. “You mustn’t tell Mack,” she said confidingly. “He thinks my parents are these wild, bohemian, counter-culture figures who named me after a Disney character or something. My real name is Margaret. I was named after that prime minister woman, but I hate it and I never use it.”

  “You were named after Margaret Thatcher?” Bessie asked.

  Bambi laughed again. “That’s the one. My dad’s a huge fan of hers, but I don’t do politics.” She grinned at Bessie. “I absolutely refuse to remember the woman’s name, mostly to annoy my father. I suppose I’ll outgrow it some day.”

  Bessie laughed. She was starting to like young Bambi in spite of herself.

  “But I thought you were American. I didn’t know Americans followed British politics.”

  “My mother is American,” Bambi replied. “Daddy is British. After they split up, when I was five, I got bounced back and forth between them every few months, so I’ve had a fairly peripatetic upbringing.”

  “That must have made attending school difficult,” Bessie commented, fascinated by the woman who looked and acted like a dumb blonde, but used words like “peripatetic” in casual conversation.

  “I bounced back and forth in school as well. I did boarding school for a few years, which was better, because it gave me some continuity, but then mum decided that she missed me too much and I was back to being dragged about by her whims.” Bambi gave Bessie a wry smile. “She was between husbands, you see, and she hates being alone. I got dragged back to New York for a few months, until she met her next victim, er, I mean, love of her life. Then I was shipped back to daddy, who never knew what to do with me, either.”

  Bessie shook her head. “What a horrible way to grow up,” she said with genuine sympathy.

  Bambi shrugged. “It wasn’t all bad. School wasn’t any fun anyway, and I was well and truly spoiled by both of them. Really, it’s just now that I’m an adult that they don’t know what to do with me.”

  “I thought you said you wanted to go into fashion.”

  “I do, but daddy doesn’t agree and won’t pay for school. I’ve been doing some modeling, but it’s unbelievably dull.”

  Bessie found herself glancing at the girl’s ample frontage before she could stop herself.

  Bambi laughed. “No, I haven’t been doing topless stuff,” she told Bessie. “Just a little bit of this and that. I haven’t taken my top off yet. Daddy would go mad.”

  Bessie struggled to find the right reply to that. Before she could manage it, Bambi continued.

  “Would you believe me if I said they were real?” she asked Bessie.

  “No,” Bessie blurted out.

  Bambi laughed loudly. “Oh dear,” she said. “Actually, they were an eighteenth-birthday present from my mum,” she confided to Bessie.

  “Pardon?” Bessie demanded.

  The girl laughed again. “My mum thought I’d like them, and sometimes I do, but they do rather get in the way as well.” The girl shrugged. “Daddy had just taken up with a nineteen-year-old page three model and mum thought getting me a boob job would be a hilarious way to embarrass him.”

  “Your mother has a strange sense of humour,” Bessie commented.

  Bambi grinned. “She does at that,” she agreed.

  “What on earth did your father think?” Bessie couldn’t help but ask.

  “I�
��ve no idea,” the girl shrugged. “He’s never said a word to me about it. Anyway, he’s furious with me at the moment.”

  “Do I dare ask why or is that prying?”

  “He hates Mack,” Bambi replied. “Mack is about his age, you see, so daddy thinks he’s only interested in me as a trophy girlfriend. Daddy knows all about that.”

  “You don’t agree with your father about Mack?”

  “I don’t care,” Bambi corrected her. “Mack’s fun to be around, well, most of the time, and it isn’t like I’m going to marry him or anything. We’re just hanging out.”

  “And it’s always fun to annoy your father, isn’t it?” Bessie asked shrewdly.

  Bambi blushed. “I’m hoping, if he gets annoyed enough, he’ll give me some money to leave Mack,” she whispered to Bessie. “Then I can head back to New York and start fashion school.”

  Bessie swallowed a dozen replies. She’d talked to a lot of children from dysfunctional families in her many years on the planet, but Bambi was in a league of her own.

  “Anyway, you haven’t seen Mack, then?” Bambi asked, dragging the conversation back to where it had started.

  “Not since he left the podium,” Bessie replied. “Did you say you knocked on the cuillee door? Maybe he didn’t hear you knocking?”

  “I banged pretty loudly,” Bambi told her. “And I called his name. It’s only a small room and anyway, I tried the door as well. It was locked.” She sighed. “Maybe he was ignoring me.”

  “Surely not,” Bessie said in surprise.

  Bambi blushed. “We, um, haven’t been getting along really well since we got here. I think he’s sorry he brought me and I know I’m sorry I came.”

  “That’s a shame,” Bessie told her. “It’s going to be a wonderful conference, but only if you’re at least a little bit interested in the subject matter.”