‘An Elderly Lady is Up to No Good’ by Helene Tursten
“An Elderly Lady is Up to No Good” by Helene Tursten is a tiny book of delightful stories about a widow and her two daughters who live in their building for seventy years. Maud still lives there alone now and adores freedom and no idle chatter.
A celebrity has moved in there recently, the daughter of famous parents who had no time for their daughter. Her mother died recently in an auto accident, and the daughter begins using drugs and goes to a rehab clinic. Her father, the widower, later marries a woman forty years younger, and soon a baby is on the way. Speculation wonders if the wife’s death is an accident or suicide. As the baby ages, she, Jasmine, writes her autobiography and it sells off the shelves rapidly. Jasmine buys an apartment in Maud’s building and enlarges it for her art studio. She creates huge works of color, photos, fabric, and bone, all of its trash in Maud’s opinion.
One day Jasmine comes to Maud’s apartment and invites herself in. She gives Maud a bag of leftover champagne and caviar from the party Maud had missed, and marvels at the size of Maud’s apartment, over one thousand feet. A hug gave Maud the creeps. A week later Jasmine shows Maud her studio and invites her to an exhibit she’s having soon. Maud reverts to her “old lady” self but Jasmine says she’ll pick her up in a cab. Jasmine pushes herself onto Maud by making coffee for her in Maud’s kitchen and frequent hugs. She realizes Jasmine wants to move into her apartment, although Maud has lived there for eighty years or more. Maud goes to Jasmine’s apartment where Jasmine shows off her kitchen with its induction oven and the bathroom with its Jacuzzi. Then she shows Maud her major art piece, a huge wood and steel wheel, called “Phallus Hanging”. It falls on top of Jasmine and the next day an ambulance appears and a body is on a stretcher and that is the end of exchanging apartments for Maud.
In the next story, an elderly lady can’t decide where to go on vacation as she’s been all over the world. After her parents die Maude suggests to her sister they take in borders to make ends meet. But her sister refuses, doesn’t want strangers in their house. Maud keeps up with the news on her laptop and sees her former fiancé Gustaf, is about to marry Siv Hansson, a former student of Maud’s who at school was a neerdowell and now is a porn star. Maud decides to go to a certain spa and stays at a hotel overlooking the lake. She goes for all the treatments: facial massage, manicure, pedicure, the heated pool, and sauna. At dinner the first night she spies her ex-fiance Gustaf seated with Siv Hansson, now known as Zazza Hendrix. Maud goes down to the pool and places her robe in a locker. She holds a long stick as a cane and limps into the warm pool water. Zazza and her friend go into the sauna, then
Zazza goes to the bar and brings back two beers, balancing them carefully. But Maud pokes Zazza with her stick and she falls into the cold pool, hitting her head on the pool’s edge, killing her. Maud feels no sadness but books a trip to Sardinia and to a new spa there. She suddenly adores spas.
Maud seeks peace at Christmas time although her parents would throw big parties, especially on New Year’s Eve with delicious food, tall candles, and champagne.
But when her father died that all ended and her mother died too. People give Maud their seats on the bus when she enters with her walker and open the doors for her. On Christmas Eve morning she goes to the little store around the corner and buys various appetizers such as cheeses, crackers, and a loaf of bread. When she asks the young man behind the counter for a slice of ham he refuses and she stabs him with a big safety pin and he goes to the staff room to calm down. She tells the owner she wants a slice of his cooked ham. Later she carries her wheeled walker upstairs although she’s almost ninety and she settles into her favorite chair and thinks about the problem.
She hears the couple upstairs fighting and that’s the Problem. When the paramedics arrive the husband says the wife fell down the stairs. Maud is appalled by this lie. She can smell the alcohol on his breath when he greets her. When the husband comes onto the landing in the dark hallway Maud pushes her walker into him and he falls down the open stairway with a loud crash. It’s Christmas Eve but a policeman comes to investigate the accident. Maud says the stairs are dangerous, and that her sister fell down them. A neighbor says that was thirty-five years ago and the policeman nods in sympathy at her confusion. She returns to her comfy chair and the peace and quiet of Christmas Eve.
In the next adventure for Maud a body is found at her apartment when she returns from a trip to Croatia. She doesn’t know how the man got in as all the doors are locked and sheets cover the windows as work is being done on the building. Maud has lived with the body of the antique dealer for four days at this time when her old friend, a former detective, comes to see the crime. The antique dealer had seen the silver candle holders and a small silver goblet that he examined and liked. She now wants to go to South Africa and to stay at top hotels, luxury all the way as she’s not getting any younger. She hits the antique dealer on the head with the fireplace poker and places it in her father’s golf bag in the cellar. Off to South Africa!
How does Maud get away with all her misdeeds while using a walker and being deaf and eighty-nine years old? Find out in this small book filled with intriguing stories on the new fiction shelf of your local library. You’ll get a laugh out of it. Author Tursten was tempted by stories of women as murderers rather than men.