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Murder by the Sea

Dear Laura

My first email from new home! Have moved into the Retirement Village and must say view of ocean is lovely but difficult to see over mountain of packing boxes surrounding me. Will plough on. Talk soon. Love as always.

Julia

P.S. Neighbour in villa behind me has offered to set up Skype for me. Though you know I have never really moved past postcards as a means of communication! What if I forget to turn it off when I’m doing my yoga and I go virus?

Dear Julia

Well I’ve given you a week & hope u have sorted out boxes, and it’s called “viral”, dear. But I agree seventy year old grans doing Downward Dog pose wouldn’t be a good look, though my husband might think so – you remember Dudley? (He’s the latest at number four.) Unfortunately Dud by name and dud by….well you know…let’s just say his doodle turned out to be more of a diddle. Still he has his own teeth and leaves the toilet seat down. You know what they say – you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink a Bacardi and Coke.

Sorry u can’t Skype. How’s the social life in Wrinklies-by-the-Sea? Many men?

Xoo Laura

Dearest Laura

It’s called “Willows on Sea” you silly woman. Though there are plenty of wrinkles about the place I’ll grant you that.

You and Dudley must drive down and visit. Can’t say I understand your alcohol reference. And I can’t understand why you didn’t “try before you buy” with your latest husband. You usually do.

It’s a very nice Village. There are quite a lot of widows in the complex. Not many unattached men. Mrs Hilary Howfinger-Pfrunder, my next door neighbour – I kid you not, that is really her name – pronounces it “naice”. The place is “naice” and the people are “quaite naice”.

Anyway Barry – man behind me - is coming over this afternoon to teach me Skyping or however you say it.

x Julia

Dear Julia – I’ll not comment on your having a man behind you after only a week in the place. Ha ha! Or should I say LOL (that means laughing out loud –the grandkids are teaching me Textspeak). Let me know when ready for Skype call. Must go, Dud has taken up yet another hobby, this time he’s set up a beehive out back. I just have to run him down to the doctor’s. His face is swelling up a bit and his lips look like he’s had botox. I don’t think he’s quite got the hang of it yet. Silly man.

Laura

P.S. “Try before I buy” – I like that but let’s just say I gave it a drive around the block but not across the Nullarbor and back. I think his gaskets may be going.

Dear Laura,

I hope that Dud’s okay. You had better take good care of this one’s health. If you lose another husband people are going to think you are downright careless.

I’m very worried and I don’t know what to do. Barry from the back came around and set up my Skype then went back to his place and skyped me as a test. It worked well except he’s a bit on the short side and mostly all I saw of him was the top of his bald head but then I got a call on my mobile and I left my computer on thinking it was just the carpet people about the quote I wanted or one of those selling calls, insulating your letterbox or installing solar panels on the doghouse or something. But it turned out to be Aunt Mavis and you know how she is. She drones on and on and I don’t have the heart to interrupt her – even if she actually could hear me.

Really, she could ring the Time Clock Man and talk at him because she takes no notice of what I have to say! But at 98 you never know when she might go and it might be the last time you talk to her (or try to) so you don’t want to be rude.

Anyway when I came back about half an hour later I noticed the little blue light on the computer was still on so I looked at the screen and I was still connected to Barry. I thought I’d turned it off or it would just have a sleep or whatever it does and I just don’t know what to think. Maybe I imagined it. That doesn’t really happen does it? I hope you are home and can let me know asap.

Julia

Dear Julia

What doesn’t really happen? Honestly old girl you are getting vaguer than ever. Are you taking your Ginseng tablets? I think you may have Bumfuzzle Brain. Thank you, Dud is ok. He’s covered in calamine lotion. His face looks like a pink watermelon with a blowfish mouth. I can’t laugh in front of him so I go out the back to have a ciggie and a chuckle.

Laura

Dear Laura – sorry – what I SAW was Barry killing a woman!!!!!!!

x Julia

P.S. I thought you gave up smoking!!!!!!

Dear Julia

Stop !!!!!ing at me. Breathe slowly dear. Tell me exactly what you saw. Sorry our phones are on the blink, or I would call you. As for smoking, the patches give me hives and the gum sticks in my dentures but I’m down to half a pack a day and I can still go out in public not looking like I have teenage acne or mumbling because my teeth are gummed together.

Laura

P.S. I can drive over to the farm next door and phone you if you are desperate.

Dear Laura …..Sorry, sorry. It was just such a shock. I was just about to yell “Yoo hoo, Barry” when I saw him on the screen, in the next room – his not mine. He had his hands around the neck of this poor woman and he was yelling “You stupid …itch” You know what I mean. The “b” word. Then I just slammed the lid of my laptop down. What will I do? Call the police?

x Julia

Dear Julia – are you sure? You don’t want to go accusing people of murder in your first week of living in Wrinklies by the Sea. You might get a reputation! But seriously I think you have been watching too many of your Miss Marple DVDs. I told you to stick to Bridget Jones and David Attenborough.

Dud says he’s given the beehive away but is thinking of getting a pig to fatten up for the local show. He’d like to get roosters but all that shouting about virility at the crack of dawn would give me the sh…runs. They can’t even lay eggs, the useless sausages. What have they got to crow about? Men!

Laura

Dear Julia

Are you there? I haven’t heard from you for two days. Getting worried. Let me know what’s happening.

Laura

P.S. Dud got a pig from one of the farmer’s down the road. It’s a British White. Follows Dud around like a dog. I wanted to call it “Bacon Sandwich” or “BLT” but he’s called it Howard and put a leopardskin print collar on it. I’ve cancelled my library book order for “101 Ways of Makin’ Bacon” as I can see where this is going. Bloody pig will probably outlive us.

Dear Laura

Sorry not to have been in touch. I just didn’t know what to do. Maybe I imagined it all. I haven’t really wanted to use the computer. I stuck an incontinence pad over the blue light thingy on the laptop. Don’t laugh, the post it note kept falling off and I wasn’t sure if Blu Tack would have some sort of effect on the computer. Well you know I was never any good at Science at school. Sister Catherine and all her test tubes and nasty experiments. And before you ask I don’t actually USE the incontinence pads. Aunt Mavis gave me some last Christmas wrapped up with one of her famous fruitcakes and a cake of Sunlight Soap. Well, it beats boxed handkerchiefs I suppose.

I tried to make some subtle enquiries around the complex about Barry but didn’t come up with much except he’s a widower – though no one could tell me what his wife died of because it was before he moved here. Also he had something to do with amateur theatricals. Someone told me he drank but then in the next breath she said she had it on good authority that the new woman who moved into Villa 6 was a raving drunk and since that’s me I don’t think I’ll rely on her for information.

I’ve asked myself what Miss Marple would do – don’t laugh. Look at all those murders she solved just by sitting around knitting. But I don’t knit and I can’t really sit outside my Villa with my giant jigsaw puzzle on a stand waiting for clues and that’s about the extent of my hobbies except for the yoga. And really you should try Downward Dog….it’s a very relaxing stretch. Though perhaps not after you have been eating baked beans if you know what I mean.

I’ll keep you informed.

x Julia

Dear Julia

Sister Kitty Kat – I’d quite forgotten that old snaggletooth. I suppose she’s long gone now. Probably up in Heaven ordering the Angels to speak clearly and checking the hem length on their robes.

I think I will leave the yoga stuff to you, dear. Though after all the good you said it was doing for your back I got a book from the local library – it was called Tantric Yoga for Beginners. Sister Kitty Kat would not have approved I can tell you. Dud said he was game and so we tried one of the “poses” but I think it must have lost something in the translation because we both ended up at the doctor’s and the physiotherapist the next day. Had to tell them we did it moving a bookcase. Don’t think they believed us. That book cost us $250 in medical bills.

So how is the sleuthing going? Any more info on Barry the Beast? Really I am sure there is some simple explanation. Does anyone know if he has a lady friend? Maybe if he’s ‘theatrical’ they were practicing for a play.

Best..Laura

P.S. Howard the Pig now has his own special home that Dud has built him – this was before we “moved the bookcase” – it’s called, wait for it, Castle Howard. Even has a little flagpole on it. And a moat. I hope none of the neighbours come by and see it.

Dear Laura

Tantric yoga. What a hoot! Goodness. Not really what I meant by taking up yoga!

Well, actually I have made some more enquiries. You know. Casually. But now I think some of the ladies think I have the hots for Barry. Quite untrue. I am perfectly happy as a Single Lady. I have my children and grandchildren. Did I mention that Lily is on her school basketball team now and Joshua still loves his dinosaurs? It just worries me about what I saw. Or thought I saw. I don’t know. What do you think I should do? Go round there? Just ask him?

x Julia

Dear Julia

Are you nuts? Ask him what? “Oh that’s a lovely bougainvillea you have growing in your garden and by the way, did you murder a woman the other day?” I don’t think so.

Lovely to hear about Lily and Joshua by the way. You are very lucky having grandchildren who are still little. Though I suppose I do have Dudley. And now Howard! You wouldn’t believe the size of him already. I think Dud is feeding him growth hormones. All he talks about is next year’s Agricultural Show. Dud that is. As far as I know Dud hasn’t taught Howard to speak yet. But he does play music to him every day. He claims that Howard likes jazz best. A pig that likes jazz!

Back to Barry the Beast, just go round there and chat. What can it hurt? You are the best wiffle-waffler I know.

Flutter the old eyelashes and hang on all his words. He’s bound to let something slip. Happy sleuthing.

Laura

Dear Laura

Well, it’s done. I went round there. I took a plate of my chocolate brownies with the macadamia nuts. You would have been proud of me. I kept it all very casual. Talking about what job my husband did before he died and how Lily is starting ballet and loves to go to live theatre. All just general stuff.

Barry made me coffee. Really, quite good coffee. Then I asked if I could use the bathroom. They do that on all the police shows. But of course there are usually two of them and one keeps the suspect talking while the other one goes everywhere BUT the bathroom and has a look around and discovers – well, something incriminating. So I had to go to the bathroom and flush the toilet and run the tap. He does keep his bathroom lovely and clean. Unusual in a man his age.

Sorry – I can hear the phone and it’s probably Aunt Mavis so I have to go. Talk soon.

x Julia

Dear Julia May Stephens

How can you leave your story there? WHAT HAPPENED?

Laura

Dear Laura

Well it wasn’t Aunt Mavis but a lovely man is going to come around to see me about solar panels. Or was it insulation? Anyway you won’t believe what happened. I tried all the doors of the rooms but only one was locked. And then Barry caught me trying to open it!!! He came up behind me and asked if I wanted to see inside. Well, I really did so I said yes. I knew it was going to be gruesome and I had on my new Nikes so I was all ready to run screaming once I had the proof. And there it was. The murdered woman. I recognized her straightaway.

Except it turned out to be a mannequin dressed as a witch. I was so embarrassed!

He decorates the Village’s community club for Halloween. He said he’d had a lot of trouble with her head falling off. Isn’t that funny? Her name’s Endora. Barry’s been in the theatre for years. Really he is quite a nice man even though he is bald as a golf ball.

I’d better go now. Barry’s invited me down to help decorate the hall. Happy Halloween.

x Julia

Dear Julia

Only you could make a murder mystery out of a mannequin.

Are you up for a visit? I’m leaving Dudley. I went to take a bath last night and found the tub full of baby crocodiles. He’s talking about a crocodile farm. Enough is ENOUGH!

See you soon, love always, Laura.