Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth. (Photo: Macmillan) When an elderly neighbour is found dead, no one suspects a thing – until they uncover 81-year-old Elsie’s true identity: Mad Mabel, the youngest Australian in history to be convicted of murder, more than 60 years ago. Here is an excerpt from Mad Mabel.
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My name is Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick and I am eighty-one years old. I want it on the record that I don’t look eighty-one. Not because I’m particularly attractive or youthful-looking – on the contrary, I’ve seen hairless mole rats more attractive – but because if storybooks are anything to go by (and I, for one, believe they are), eighty-one-year-olds are frail, birdlike creatures with silver hair who call people “dear” and go inside the bank to speak to an “actual person” rather than use the much more convenient ATM. At six feet tall with broad shoulders and a sturdy backbone, no one would ever accuse me of being birdlike – unless the bird in question was an ostrich. My hair is reddish-grey, and I call people “dipshit” with far more regularity than “dear”. Most importantly, I adore the ATM. Who wouldn’t? I’m eighty-one years old, and I don’t want to spend the precious time I have left in a stuffy, air-conditioned room talking to a power-tripping branch manager called Barry through plexiglass.
I digress.
I’ve lived on Kenny Lane for close to sixty years. Kenny Lane is a peculiar little cobbled street on the periphery of central Melbourne, made up of the back doors of restaurants and half a dozen single-fronted terrace homes, each adorned with intricately tiled porches and wrought iron fences in varying states of disrepair. The tiny front gardens tell diverse stories: mine meticulously tended with blooming roses, the rest ranging from untamed beauty to sparse weed patches. Parking is limited to a single row along one side, and any non-resident who dares to park their vehicle in these public spots is destined to suffer the wrath of Mrs Nguyen. (I’ve yet to see a person make this mistake twice.)
There’s the usual assortment of neighbours: Peter Pantages (aka Pete the Greek) at number 1; Joan Waters (litigious, and a real piece of work) at number 3; and Roxanne (sex-crazed single mother), and her evil seven-year-old spawn, Persephone, at number 5. On the other side, there’s me at number 2; Old Ishaan (my nemesis) and his deranged Chihuahua, Nugget, next door at number 4; and the Nguyens – very nice couple so long as you don’t utilise the public parking on Kenny Lane – at number 6.
The houses are close enough together that I could throw a tennis ball back and forth with residents opposite me if I was so inclined, which, needless to say, I am not. In fact, beyond the necessary interactions of neighbours – accusations of stealing space in each other’s rubbish bins, lobbing dog droppings over the fence when Nugget does her business in my front garden, and shared complaints about the dreadful postman Dwayne – we don’t interact at all, which is exactly how I like it.
It’s a funny little street, to be sure. But it’s home to me. The only real home I’ve ever had. And while I consider myself flexible about a lot of things, I’m not flexible about Kenny Lane. In fact, I’ll tell you something for nothing: The only way anyone is going to get me out of this street is in a mahogany box. An extra-long one.
I am dangling a Lady Grey tea bag in hot water when I see it. From the kitchen I have a direct eyeline down the long corridor to the front door, under which I see a protruding piece of paper.
“Well, well, looky here,” I say to Daphne, who sits patiently at my round table, waiting for her cuppa. “Must be another letter from Joan.”
Joan at number 3 is sixty-odd, has a neat grey bob, polished black orthotic footwear, and darting, suspicious eyes. Since the day she moved in, I’ve been receiving notes underneath my door: about my porch security light shining into her bedroom window, about the placement of my rubbish bins, about my roses creeping too far over the fence line into the laneway. If I wasn’t so full of myself I might have feared she didn’t like me. Joan’s nephew, she is forever at pains to point out, is a partner in a law firm. She’s managed to include this detail in every one of her letters.
Your nephew sounds marvellous, I replied to her last note. But I’m assuming he’s going to be a little young for me, and besides, I’m not looking to date at this time.
Daphne snorted her tea when I read that out to her.
In the year she’s lived on the street, I’ve never heard Joan speak. Not a word. Each time I shout, “Good morning,” she scurries away like a rat in a sewer. I suppose Joan is more of a pen pal than a neighbour.
“I wonder what I’ve done this time?” I say.
“Perhaps she’s discovered our cannabis racket?” Daphne muses.
“You don’t think she knows a lawyer, do you?” DM
Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth is published by Pan Macmillan. It is available at a retail price of around R395.