Suds In Your Eye Read online

  Suds in Your Eye

  Mary Lasswell

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Books by Mary Lasswell

  SUDS IN YOUR EYE

  HIGH TIME

  ONE ON THE HOUSE

  WAIT FOR THE WAGON

  TOONER SCHOONER

  LET’S GO FOR BROKE

  The characters in this book are fictitious; any resemblance to real persons is wholly accidental and unintentional.

  For

  LASS

  Chapter 1

  MRS. FEELEY was dividing the calla lily bulbs that multiplied so rapidly beside her garden wall. Every so often she raised up and craned her neck, partly to relieve the strain in her back, but mainly in order not to miss anything that might be going on around the neighborhood.

  There she was again! Must be looking for rooms or something, because she had a folded newspaper in her hand. Mrs. Feeley had often noticed the tall, stately woman who was making a house-to-house canvass of Island Avenue. Looked like an awful re-fined woman, too. You could always tell a lady, Mrs. Feeley decided, even from far. She was most likely a pensioner of some kind. They were always looking for cheap places to live; some of them lived real nice, but Mrs. Feeley knew one that lived in a chicken coop, and then there was that old maid who lived in an abandoned monastery until the cops found out about it.

  The tall woman was different, somehow. She had an air. Mrs. Feeley couldn’t quite decide whether she was a retired school-teacher, or maybe a milliner. No…she wasn’t flashy enough to have been a milliner. And her face wasn’t severe enough for her to be a school-teacher Mrs. Feeley had never read Socrates’ remark about the thin lips of old school-teachers, but she had her own ideas on the subject.

  All at once it came to her!

  ‘I’ll bet my bottom dollar she’s a music teacher! She’s got that dreamy look!’

  Mrs. Feeley dug furiously at the callas now that the problem of the tall woman’s probable occupation was settled.

  Miss Agnes Tinkham continued to walk along Island Avenue slowly. That is, until she saw the wall. Then she came to a dead stop. It was the most spectacular wall she had ever seen: it was made entirely of beer cans.

  ‘My, my!’ mused Miss Tinkham, unconscious that she spoke aloud. ‘What an extraordinary structure!’

  A head covered with a riot of short white curls appeared from behind the wall and a grubby paw wiped the sweat from bright blue eyes. The face was small, round, and well tanned. It would not be long before the nose and chin met.

  ‘Talkin’ to me?’ When she smiled it became evident that Mrs. Feeley didn’t have a tooth in her head.

  ‘I was just admiring your wall; such an original idea!’ said Miss Tinkham, flashing a little cattily her own slightly yellowed, but perfectly sound teeth.

  ‘I guess there’s not another like it in the whole world,’ the owner admitted modestly. ‘Them beer cans kep’ pilin’ up so fast I never closed an eye till I figgered out some way to use ’em up. I seen you walkin’ around here before. You don’t live around here, do you?’

  ‘No, unfortunately for me! I’d like to, though. Such a lovely view of the bay! I feel I’d be happy in this atmosphere.’

  ‘You would? Well, the atmosphere ain’t so hot when the tuna factory’s goin’ full blast. Island Avenue ain’t what it used to be. There’s nothin’ here now but a few Filipinos and Portygee fishermen. Used to be a lotta Japs, but they moved ’em all off since the war. ’Course there’s me an’ my junk yard…we been here thirty-seven years!’

  Miss Tinkham was duly impressed.

  ‘Then you own all this?’ With a wave of her long slender hand clad in a pink rayon glove she indicated the lots on which were located a junk yard made up mostly of old cars, sinks, and bathtubs, the riotous garden, and a structure which had obviously been a store at one time, judging by the two show-windows, one on each side of the door. The building boasted the same kind of false front the stores had in the cowboy pictures Miss Tinkham sometimes saw at the fifteen-cent matinees.

  The building had been thickly daubed with pink kalsomine, but through the paint the name ‘Noah’s Ark’ was still visible high up on the front. Both sides of the house were obliterated by flowers. On one side giant California sweet peas in wild profusion of color and bloom towered far beyond their wire supports. Bougainvillea swirled madly up the other side and over the roof. It was not the screaming, tooth-rasping magenta variety that is all too common, but a rare variety, deep, rich burgundy in color.

  Mrs. Feeley turned and surveyed her domain.

  ‘Yeup! Me an’ my husband opened this junk yard thirty-seven years ago, may he rest in peace. It was his idea to name it Noah’s Ark on account o’ you could find two of every thin’ inside!’

  ‘‘What a clever man he must have been! Do you communicate with him often?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Through a medium, of course. My dear, I was at a perfectly marvelous séance up on University Avenue last night; any number of believers had their loved ones materialize for them! Such a comfort! I talked to the spirit of my dear Mimi, my little white poodle that was run over last year!’

  This business was getting out of hand. Mrs. Feeley wanted badly to change the subject without offending this fascinating creature who was so willing to stop and talk; but Father Deal had given her hell when she followed Mr. Feeley’s wishes and had him cremated. On top of that, she had gone to work and buried his ashes right here in her own garden where he had wanted to lie, instead of in proper consecrated ground. But spiritualism! That was going a bit too far, Mrs. Feeley thought. She was literally back to the wall.

  ‘You’d never believe the time I had fillin’ them cans with sand! Got me a funnel an’ stuck it in the hole, an’ filled every one of ’em! Then I laid me some boards an’ poured me some concrete, an’ stood the cans up in it an’ let ’em set! Then I went to work an’ piled one row atop another with more cement between till it was high as I wanted an’ I’d used up all my beer cans!’

  ‘I don’t see how you ever had the patience!’

  ‘It was a job, all right; but I think it looks right pretty with them iceplants growin’ outa the top row. They’s ten thousand beer cans in that wall!’

  Miss Tinkham was overcome with respect for anyone who could get on the outside of that much beer.

  ‘Inspired, my dear; simply inspired! Not to mention the expense!’

  ‘’Course the cans wasn’t all mine. Some of ’em me an’ Old-Timer—he’s my workin’ man—picked up an’ hauled from the dumps. But it was right after Mr. Feeley was took, an’ I think I’d a went crazy if I hadn’t a had that wall to build!’

  ‘It is terrible to be lonely. I know. You really should come to the Rosicrucian Society with me this afternoon! They will keep you in touch with your dear departed!’

  ‘Hold your hats, boys! Here we go again!’ said Mrs. Feeley to herself. ‘What was you doin’ round this way?’ she asked a trifle abruptly, in her anxiety to steer the conversation away from the shoals of the occult. Her visitor’s reply gave her ample time to study the lady at close range, for Miss Tinkham’s conversation was punctuated by slow graceful turns of the head, gestures, smiles, and sighs. Mrs. Feeley decided she was pushing seventy…not a day younger.

  If Mrs. Feeley had been a sculptor she would have said Miss Tinkham’s bo
nes were beautiful,

  especially those of her face. The planes and contours were delicately modeled. She had a triangular depression between well-marked eyebrows, a piquant delta that gave her a wide-awake enthusiastic expression.

  Mrs. Feeley thought she had a horse-face and awful long teeth, but her own, she added in all fairness. Her clothes were badly out of date, though nice and ladylike, dripping with long strings of beads and numerous chains. But was the Dutch cap of net embroidered in sequins quite the thing for a morning stroll? At any rate she had nice legs, and was certainly a lady.

  ‘As a matter of fact,’ Miss Tinkham was rambling on, ‘I was looking for a different place to live; more congenial surroundings, you know! My present landlady has no regard for the finer things. A crass materialist, my dear! She says the house is being sold, but the truth of the matter is she simply wants to get rid of her present roomers and rent the rooms to defense workers at three times the normal price!’

  ‘Ain’t it a shame?’ Mrs. Feeley clucked. ‘I hope the price ceilin’ falls on their lousy heads!’

  ‘That Oriental fellow across the street had some very nice rooms, but he said the oddest thing to me: he said I was too old to get a room in that house! I just can’t think what he meant!’

  Mrs. Feeley snorted and opened the gate.

  ‘I can! Cribs! That’s all them houses is! Dirty cribs! You don’t want nothin’ to do with them, m’am! Come on in! We might’s well talk sittin’ down!’

  Miss Tinkham followed her down the path like a person attending the annual convention of the Loyal Buddies and Kindred Spirits Society. She was amazed to notice as Mrs. Feeley waddled ahead of her that her tiny feet were bare; cute, sunburned feet, like a little girl’s, Miss Tinkham thought. Nothing like her own gnarled and twisted extremities. Miss Tinkham’s mother had hated what she called her daughter’s indecently large feet, and had set about remedying the calamity by the simple expedient of always buying her daughter’s shoes two sizes too small. Somehow Mrs. Feeley reminded her of a grandmother Teddy Bear as she rolled along clad in a pair of chunky, extra-wide brown denim overalls, worn over a man’s blue denim shirt with the collar open and the sleeves rolled up.

  ‘There! Set a spell!’ Mrs. Feeley patted the bench cordially. The arbor was dripping with yellow roses. To the right of it stood a black-and-white bull with flaring nostrils and waving tail. It was remarkable how lifelike these plaster garden ornaments could be! Miss Tinkham wished they had not been quite such realistic sticklers for detail in the case of this particular animal, and turned her eyes away modestly to admire the gaudy plaster Indian chief that stood at the other end of the arbor. He was much nicer.

  ‘What green fingers you have, dear lady! The magic touch!’ Miss Tinkham sighed wistfully as she looked around the lavish yard. There was scarcely a foot of soil that was not a mass of color. There were scarcely any green leaves in sight: every plant seemed to have turned all its energy into bloom. Even the few feet of ground that had been conceded grudgingly to the path added color; every flagstone was painted a different color.

  ‘Yeup! Flowers is my passion!’ said Mrs. Feeley, looking about her admiringly. With her a straight line was ever the shortest distance to something she wanted to know, so she turned to her guest and asked:

  ‘What business you in, may I ask?’

  ‘The business of enjoying life, my dear; enjoying life!’ Miss Tinkham replied, with a dazzling smile right into Mrs. Feeley’s fascinated gaze.

  ‘Nice work if you can get it!’ said Mrs. Feeley admiringly.

  Her guest clasped her hands together over her belt-buckle, elbows well turned out in most approved Chautauqua fashion, and without further warning burst into song:

  I love life! I want to live!

  I-e-e-e! Lo-o-o-ve! Li-i-ife!

  ‘Saints preserve us! Ain’t that grand? I knowed you was a music teacher! I could tell!’ cried Mrs. Feeley.

  The wobbly, breathy soprano sent little chills and thrills of delight up and down Mrs. Feeley’s well-upholstered back. Whatever Miss Tinkham’s singing lacked in purity of tone and smoothness of vocal line was more than made up for by the fire and vigor of her delivery. She was still puffing slightly from the effort when Mrs. Feeley asked:

  ‘Was you ever on the stage?’

  ‘Never, my dear,’ replied her companion a bit sadly. ‘Of course, there have been offers, but nothing I cared to accept! My true field was teaching music…twenty-two years of it. The beautiful pageants and cantatas my pupils have produced! But that’s all forgotten now! These young people want to learn to play jazz by ear in six easy lessons. Not that I’m complaining, you know! “It’s cheerio, my deario, that sees a lady through!”’

  ‘Well, now, that’s a real nice way to look at it! But you know, nobody’s got to go hungry in this state! You could put in for the pension soon as you been here five years. Forty dollars a month they gets, almost! I can’t get it myself on account o’ bein’ in business; not that I make more’n a few dollars a week, but it keeps me from qualifyin’, as they calls it.’

  ‘Oh, yes! I know about the lovely pension, but one has to be sixty-five years of age! Just think how many years I’d have to wait!’

  Mrs. Feeley had always known there was no fool like an old fool, but she politely refrained from saying so.

  ‘Besides,’ her guest continued, ‘I don’t think I should be eligible for the pension because I have a tiny income from the rent of a little house back home. First of the month, I’m rolling in wealth! Wine, a cheap movie, a little pair of earrings from the Thrift Shop; but the going gets pretty thin by the end of the month!’

  Mrs. Feeley could well imagine how it did, as she sometimes had trouble herself getting enough cash together to buy food, after the beer was paid for.

  ‘The trouble with me,’ her guest continued, ‘is that I always buy hyacinths to feed my soul, no matter how low my funds are. A string of beads or a new scarf brightens the whole outlook for me! Anyway, the world is full of dear kindred spirits if one only holds the right thoughts!’

  Mrs. Feeley did not quite follow all her guest’s references, but she was a fascinating talker, anyway.

  ‘Bein’ as you’re a music teacher, I reckon you can play the pie-anna,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, yes, indeed! I’m a little out of practice not having an instrument of my own; I’m lost, simply lost without one! But you know what landladies are! Do you play, Mrs….I didn’t get the name?’

  ‘Feeley…Mrs. Annie Feeley! The only instrument I play is the Irish Steinway,’ and she went through the motions of a person using a washboard.

  ‘That’s regal, Mrs. Feeley! Simply regal!’

  ‘I got a pie-anna in the house, if you’d care to try it. Come from the hotel at Agua Caliente, it did. Mr. Feeley couldn’t get a buyer for it on account o’ it was painted red. The front’s missin’, too; but they say it did cost a lot when it was new.’

  Miss Tinkham was already on her feet like an old war horse at the scent of battle. She followed Mrs. Feeley into the house. As they entered Miss Tinkham saw that the bay windows were filled with magnificent gardenia plants in full bloom. When she remarked on the size and number of the blossoms, Mrs. Feeley said:

  ‘It’s on account o’ them’s south windows. Them flowers is worth a mint o’ money, too. Many’s the case o’ beer they brung me! What would you say to a nice cold bottle o’ beer, Miss…I don’t know your name!’

  ‘Miss Agnes Harriet Tinkham, and I’m delighted to know you! Did you say beer? Dear Mrs. Feeley, have you ever read what H. L. Mencken has to say about beer? Ah, there’s a man! And I’d love a bottle of beer!’

  Mrs. Feeley didn’t need H. L. Mencken or anybody else to tell her about beer, and she trotted off to get it.

  Miss Tinkham looked about her at the peculiar dwelling into which she had strayed. She always trusted her horoscope, and hadn’t the stars predicted contact with a new and delightful affinity today? Obviously Mrs. Feeley hadn’t had h
er advantages, but in this world a nice, friendly woman who would share her cold beer was worth any number of women who could speak Esperanto and discuss the works of George Bernard Shaw.

  The house consisted of one large room. The only light that entered came through the bay windows, the front door, and the back door directly opposite it. The side walls of the room were still covered with the shelves that had held the stock before the store had been turned into a house. In a front corner near the window, Mrs. Feeley’s large and ornate brass bed occupied the position of honor. Near it was a bureau, a platform rocker, and a small round table. At the other end of the bed was another huge rocker upholstered in red leather. Pushed as close as it would go to the shelves that lined the opposite wall stood the piano. The ancient upright had been rejuvenated by a coat of violent red lacquer; judging by the stains on the keys and the number of cigarette bums, it had come out of some bar. The front of the piano was missing entirely, both above and below the keyboard.

  ‘Set down and drink your beer!’ Mrs. Feeley urged hospitably. Miss Tinkham didn’t need much urging. In her haste she swallowed the first mouthful too fast; her haste resulted in a long-drawn burp which she struggled valiantly to conceal.

  ‘Excuse me!’ she apologized.

  ‘Think nothin’ of it!’ said Mrs. Feeley. ‘It’s stronger than water that raises the wind!’ While putting her guest at ease Mrs. Feeley was thinking: Ah! Drinking beer on an empty stomach! Just as I thought! Not a penny to bless herself with in that fine bead bag!

  She trotted to the back of the room and came back with a big red can of crackers under her arm, a hunk of jack cheese in one hand, and a knife in the other. She plumped them down on the table and whacked off a slice of cheese, which she passed to her guest on a cracker.

  ‘Here!’ she said. ‘My guts generally starts growlin’ ’bout this time if I don’t have my little mornin’ snack!’