Aunt Bessie Finds (An Isle of Man Cozy Mystery Book 6) (16 page)

“Maybe you won’t have anything appropriate, anyway,” Bessie said.

“Wait until you see what I have,” Mary said with a smile.
 
“I probably have more than most small
furniture stores.
 
You’ll be hard
pressed to convince me that none of it will work.”

“The flat isn’t very large,” Bessie said.
 
“I won’t need much and I guess small
pieces would be best.”

“George has given me the specifications for the flat,” Mary told
her, patting her handbag.
 
“I have a
tape measure as well, so we can measure everything and be certain it will fit.”

“You’re very efficient,” Bessie said admiringly.

“I do this with the children all the time,” Mary explained.
 
“
Georgie
and
Diane like to change their house around almost as much as George does.
 
And I’ve already told you that Elizabeth
changes her suite almost monthly.
 
It will be so nice to think of someone using the furniture
who
might actually appreciate it.
 
The children are too spoiled.”

“But how nice for them to not have to worry about buying expensive
furniture pieces when they need them,” Bessie commented.

“I’m sure it is,” Mary replied.
 
“But it also means they don’t understand
the value of such things, either.”
 
Mary sighed.
 
“But today
isn’t about complaining about my children.
 
Are you ready to go?”

“Let me just grab my handbag,” Bessie replied.
 
She stuck her head in the small
downstairs loo and checked her hair.
 
It looked fine, but she added a quick coat of lipstick to her lips
before grabbing her bag and rejoining Mary.

“All set,” she said.

Mary was driving a large luxury vehicle and Bessie felt rather lost
in the huge bucket-style leather seats.

“My goodness, I think this is the most comfortable car I’ve ever
sat inside,” she told her friend.

“It is rather nice,” Mary said absently.
 
She pulled away from Bessie’s cottage
and headed north.
 

“I never did ask where you store all of your furniture,” Bessie
said.

“There’s a huge facility in
Jurby
that we
use,” Mary replied.
 
“We started
with two units and we now have an entire row of six.
 
I told George we aren’t renting any
more.
 
We’ll have to start selling
or donating some of our things once we fill up the last unit.”

Mary took the coast road into Ramsey while the two chatted about
Mary’s grandchildren.
 
From there,
she headed west across the island and Bessie enjoyed looking at the farmlands
and wetlands as a change of scenery.
 

“I don’t know why there aren’t more direct routes to places on the
island,” Mary said as they followed a particularly circuitous road through the
countryside.

“I suspect if someone set out to build the roads today, they’d do
them very differently, but many of these roads were originally nothing more
than paths through the country.
 
In
those days no one could have imagined the motor car, let alone planned for it.”

Mary laughed.
 
“I
shouldn’t be impatient, I should be enjoying the scenery.”

“And watching for wallabies,” Bessie suggested.

“Pardon?”

“Wallabies,” Bessie repeated.
 
“There’s a small but thriving population of wild wallabies in this part
of the island.
 
Apparently a
breeding pair escaped from the wildlife park and they and their descendants
have been living out here ever since.”

“When did they escape?”

“Sometime around nineteen-seventy,” Bessie replied.

Mary laughed.
 
“I was
expecting you to say something considerably more recent.
 
I guess the park has stopped trying to
catch them, then.”

“I guess so,” Bessie said.
 
“Last I heard they estimated the population as somewhere around a
hundred animals.
 
As far as I know,
there aren’t any plans to try to round them up.”

“Now I feel sorry for the ones in the park itself,” Mary said.
 
“I took my oldest grandson to see them
the other day, but I didn’t
realise
they had wild
relatives so nearby.
 
I’d love to
see them.”

“I gather they’re nocturnal,” Bessie told her.
 
“I don’t know many people who have
actually seen them in wild.”

“It’s still quite amazing,” Mary replied.
 
“It makes me happy for some strange
reason.”

Bessie smiled.
 
“I’m
awfully glad I told you, then.”

A few minutes later they turned down a long and narrow road.
 
As the land was very flat, Bessie felt
as if she could see for miles.
 
There seemed to be nothing around anywhere.
 
In the far distance, she could just make
out several large single-
storey
buildings.
 
As they got closer, she saw that each
larger building was divided into several smaller, numbered sections.
 
Each section had its own garage-style
door.

“Ah, good, Jack’s already here,”
Mary
said
as she pulled up in front of one of the buildings.
 
Bessie looked at the large truck labeled
“Island Movers” and swallowed hard.
 
Maybe she was moving sooner than she
realised
.

Chapter Eight

Bessie followed Mary out of the car.
 
“I didn’t even know this was here,” she
told the other woman.

“It’s fairly new, but as everyone in the world tries to accumulate
as much as they can, such facilities will be probably start popping up
everywhere.”

Bessie nodded.
 
Having
“things” seemed to be the trend at the moment, even if the “things” in question
were fairly useless or did nothing different from some other things you already
had.
 
That was quite different to having
lots of
books,
of course there was absolutely nothing
wrong with having lots of books.

“Let’s just start in here and work our way down the row,” Mary
suggested, waving towards the first door.
 
“I wish I could say that the units are
organised
in some way, but they aren’t, and I can’t for the life of me remember what’s in
any of them.”

Mary pulled out a ring of keys and flipped through them.
 
Bessie could see that they were all marked.
 
She joined Mary in front of the first door.

“Ah, here we are,”
Mary
said, holding up a
key.
 
She inserted the key into the
padlock on the door and unlocked it.
 
One of the men from the moving truck quickly came forward and slid the
overhead door up for them.
 
A light
flickered on inside the unit and Bessie nearly took a step backwards as she
tried to take in the vast quantity of furniture that was crammed into the small
space.

“There is rather a lot,” Mary said, her tone apologetic.
 

Bessie shook her head.
 
“Most of these pieces look like antiques,” she said.
 
“I can’t possibly borrow anything this
valuable.”

Mary stepped forward and then wandered back and forth, looking into
the room.
 
“I think this is all the
furniture from George’s mum’s place,” she said eventually.
 
“That would make sense, since we moved
back over here to look after her when she was, well, rather ill.
 
We stayed with her for a short while,
and then, when she passed away, we bought our house.
 
George didn’t want to use any of this
furniture in our new place, so we put it all in storage.”

“I see.
 
Well, it simply
wouldn’t do for me to borrow it then, would it?” Bessie asked.

Mary shrugged.
 
“You’re
more than welcome to it,” she said.
 
“Especially that armoire at the back.
 
I really hate that armoire.”

Bessie looked at the piece and laughed.
 
“It is somewhat, well, ornate,” she
said.
 
“I’d rather not borrow it,
thanks anyway.”

Mary nodded.
 
“I keep
trying to get one of the boys to take it.
 
I keep hoping that their kids will destroy it.
 
It was one of George’s mum’s favourite
pieces, of course, so we can’t just get rid of it.”

Bessie looked again at the overly decorated piece.
 
“It really isn’t to my taste,” she told
Mary.

“That’s because you have taste,” Mary replied with a laugh.
 
“Let’s move on; there will be more
suitable things here somewhere.”

An hour later, Bessie was exhausted, but it seemed like Mary was
just getting started.
 
They had made
it as far as the fourth unit and Mary plunged inside while Bessie looked
hopelessly at the two moving men.

“You must be bored paralytic,” she remarked.

“I never complain about getting paid to stand around,” one of them
told Bessie.

Bessie flushed.
 
She
hadn’t even thought about it, but of course they were getting paid, and since Bessie
was the one moving, she would be the one paying their bill.
 
She strode purposefully into the unit,
determined to find what she needed and put the men to work.

“Here, Bessie, what about this?” Mary called from the back of the
room.

Bessie carefully picked her way through the packed piles of
furniture and boxes until she found her friend.

Mary was standing in front of a three-piece suite in a sandy brown
colour
that Bessie instantly loved.
 

“Sit down and see how it feels,” Mary suggested.

Bessie sank down on the sofa and sighed.
 
It was even more comfortable than it
looked.
 
“It’s wonderful,” she said.

“I remember it being rather nice,” Mary said.
 
“We had it in the little sitting room
off the master bedroom suite.
 
I
can’t think why we got rid of it.
 
It must have been when we had the new carpets laid.
 
George insisted we replace all of the
furniture when the new carpets were put in.”

“I can’t imagine getting rid of this lovely couch,” Bessie told
her.

“There are matching tables and lamps,” Mary said.
 
“I’ll have them load up the lot.”

“Are you sure?” Bessie asked.
 
The reality of the situation seemed to hit her suddenly and she felt
very nervous about borrowing all of the beautiful and undoubtedly expensive
furniture.

“You’re doing me a
favour
,” Mary
insisted.
 
“I hate the thought of it
all just sitting here going to waste.
 
If you do decide to buy the flat, you can purchase it from us or I’ll
take it all back, whatever you like, but for now, while you’re just renting,
there’s no point in buying lots of furniture, is there?”

“If I do decide to buy it, I’ll have to move my furniture from the
cottage there,” Bessie told her.

“Oh, I guess I thought you’d keep the cottage anyway,” Mary said.

Bessie smiled.
 
“I can’t
pay for the flat if I don’t sell the cottage,” she pointed out gently.

“Oh, of course,” Mary said, her cheeks turning pink.
 
“I don’t know what I was thinking.”

For a moment Bessie wondered how it would feel to be rich enough to
have storage units full of furniture and the ability to buy a spare flat or two
just because you wanted them.
 
She
shook her head.
 
She wasn’t rich,
but she was definitely comfortable and from everything she’d seen in life,
extra money brought a lot of extra troubles.

She and Mary made their way out of the unit and the two movers
headed in.
 
While they carefully
loaded the suite, with its matching tables and lamps, onto their truck, Mary and
Bessie moved on to the next unit.
 

There, Mary found a small bedroom set that was perfect for the
cosy
bedroom in the flat.
 
“There’s a bed frame, two chests of
drawers, a bedside table and a wardrobe,” Mary showed Bessie.
 
“What do you think?”

“I think it’s perfect,” Bessie said, admiring the solid oak
furniture.
 
“I just hope there’s
room for it all.”

Mary took out her measuring tape and measured the pieces, making
careful notes.
 
Then she pulled out
the specifications for the flat.
 
On
a piece of scrap paper, she quickly sketched the room with the furniture in two
different arrangements.

“It would all fit if you arranged it either of these ways,” she
told Bessie, showing her the drawings.
 
“Or you could do something else altogether.”

“You’re very good at this,” Bessie said.
 
“I think that’s perfect.”
 
She pointed to one of the sketches,
which seemed to best suit the room’s layout.

“That would be my choice,” Mary agreed.
 
“You’ll get the best light from the
window if you do it that way.”

The movers had joined them and now Mary pointed out which pieces to
take, giving one of the men her sketch.
 
“This is how it should be arranged in the flat,” she told him.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

Bessie and Mary moved out of the way while the two men got to
work.
 

“That isn’t a bad dining table,” Mary said, pointing to a small
table near the door.
 
“It has four
chairs that match.
 
I think it used
to be in one of the children’s rooms, although it is full-sized.”

“It looks just right,” Bessie agreed.
 
She couldn’t help but feel as if she
should have simply stayed at home and let Mary furnish the flat for her.
 
Not only did Mary have wonderful taste,
Bessie didn’t feel as if she should argue since Mary was doing her such a large
favour
in lending her the pieces in the first place.

The dining table and chairs quickly joined the rest of the choices
on the truck.

“Is that it?” Bessie asked, feeling as if they’d been there for
many hours.

“What about kitchen things?” Mary asked.
 
“I have boxes and boxes full of plates
and glasses and flatware.
 
You’re
welcome to whatever you’d like.”

“I was simply planning on taking my everyday plates and glasses and
whatnot,” Bessie replied.
 
“They’ll
only fill a couple of boxes.”

“I suppose,” Mary said.
 
“Although I do have a set of plates that I’d love to lend to you.
 
I’d consider it an enormous
favour
if you could manage to break every single plate, cup
and saucer in the set.”

Bessie laughed.
 
“Let me
guess, you inherited them from your mother-in-law.”

“Exactly,” Mary laughed.
 
“And they’re absolutely ghastly.”

“Then I definitely don’t want them,” Bessie said firmly.

Mary sighed.
 
“Oh, well,
I tried.”

With the last of the furniture loaded up into the moving truck,
Bessie and Mary climbed back into Mary’s car.
 

“We can follow them into Douglas and make sure they put everything in
the right place,” Mary suggested.
 
“And then I’ll buy you dinner to celebrate.”

“I think I should buy you dinner,” Bessie objected.
 
“I can’t imagine how much it would have
cost to purchase all of that furniture.
 
And the pieces you’re lending me are so much nicer than what I would
have bought, as well.”

“It’s nothing,” Mary said, waving a hand.
 
“I’m glad to help, really I am.”

Even though Bessie knew that Mary was sincere, she still felt a bit
guilty.
 
“At least let me buy
dinner,” she repeated herself.

“If you insist,” Mary said with a laugh.
 
“Maybe I’ll have someone drive us and
then we can have a bottle of wine or two as well.”

“That sounds perfect,” Bessie told her friend.

The moving van pulled away and Mary followed them.
 
They drove back across the island to
Ramsey and then headed across the mountain road into Douglas.

“I never get tired of the scenery,” Mary told Bessie as they turned
the last corner on the mountain road and Douglas lay before them.

“Me either,” Bessie replied.
 
“I don’t come over the mountain all that often, but whenever I do, I try
to
memorise
the views.”

Mary laughed.
 
“I do
that,” she said.
 
“But they’re ever
so much more spectacular in real life than in my memory.”

“Especially when the sun is shining,” Bessie added.

The two movers had made better time than Mary and they were already
unloading the furniture when Mary and Bessie arrived at
Seaview
Terrace.
 
Mary pulled into the
building’s small car park and she and Bessie made their way inside through a
door that was again propped open, presumably this time by the movers.

“Ah, Mrs. Quayle, what a pleasant surprise.”
 
The building manager jumped up from his
seat and rushed towards them.
 
Bessie
took a step backwards as the man approached.

Mary smiled tightly.
 
“Mr. Green, how nice to see you again.
 
You’ve met Bessie
Cubbon
,
haven’t you?”

“Oh, aye, well, just a bit, when she came to look around, you see,”
he said, thrusting his not entirely clean hand at Bessie.
 
Bessie shook it reluctantly.

“I didn’t know she was a friend of yours, though, or I’d have made
sure she got the VIP treatment, you know?” he continued.

“I should have thought all potential purchasers would get the VIP
treatment,” Mary said coolly.
 
“Regardless of who they know.”