Well, I never! I mean, it’s not like Effie’s shop was actually dirty as such. But it was certainly chaotic. Haphazard. People used to politely say that she was the artistic type. Not like me. I took real pleasure in cleaning and sorting and ordering things in my little B & B. I could scrub and scrub to my heart’s content and enjoy every second of the work just as much as the moment that I step back from it all and look at what I’ve achieved. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, they always say. And it’s hard for someone else to imagine how important that is to a creature without a soul. But looking at it now, Effie’s shop put my place to shame.
I saw Neville the part-time photographer straighten his knees and back and, spotting my opportunity in the pause, I called over to Effie,
“Well done, Effie, love! When did all this happen? You never mentioned anything!”
“Oh, erm, hello Bren,” she mumbled back at me. “Well, I didn’t know myself until just the other day.”
“But I’ve never seen the place look so immaculate.”
“Yes, Effrygia has really stepped up her game this season,” clipped Mother Dolman, the head of the Whitby W.I. “Now, should we head inside the shop for the next part of the prize giving? I’m sure young Neville has other chores he has to get off to.”
Tagging along at the back of the gaggle of Witches, I snuck in with them to see what would happen next. I was truly dumbstruck by the state of the place. It was clean and sparkling, yes. It looked like everything had just had a fresh coat of paint and a spruce up, yes. But it was more than that. Usually, Junk Shops were like going into an Aladdin’s Cave, with random bits and bobs piled up to head height and further. Half the fun was rooting through these piles in the hope of finding treasure underneath the dog-eared paperbacks and back-issues of The Beano and cracked plates and polyester ties, with no rhyme or reason as to how each item found itself in one particular corner of landfill or the other. But now, every item had been cleaned and catalogued. It was all ordered and stacked in clear lines with signs at the top of every shelf telling you exactly what you’d find below. Neatly organised and not a trick missed, all gleaming bells and whistles. There was even a Bells & Whistles department!
The next part of the W.I. presentation, of course, involved cake. After posing for Neville the part-time photographer whilst a ceremonial slice was cut, the rest of a lovely light Coconut Sponge was passed around. Not one to pass up a piece of cake, I happily helped myself, despite my growing suspicions. The great and good of Whitby W.I. nattered away with their cakes carefully balanced on little paper plates, occasionally taking a controlled nibble. But Mother Dolman and Effie and gradually more and more of them directed pointed stares at poor Neville as he merrily munched away, delivering crumb after crumb to his chin and shirt-front and, eventually, Effie’s once-immaculate carpet.
Cake eaten and photos in the bag, proceedings drew to a conclusion.
“I just want to thank all of you for coming to my prize-giving,” Effie announced. “And know that you are always welcome in my humble little shop.”
Following the train of people on their way out, I could have sworn that I saw something dart across the floor just in the corner of my good eye. You know, the blue one. But when I looked closely there was nothing there. Something didn’t seem right, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Then, out in the fresh, salty air, each of us going our separate ways, it struck me. There was nothing there. No crumbs or anything!
Now, I’m not usually the suspicious type. I like to keep myself to myself and let other people enjoy their lives whatever way they want. But as I headed off down to the sands for a stretch out I couldn’t stop thinking about Effie and her newly immaculate shop. I felt good for her, don’t get me wrong. She was my best friend in this close-knit little town and the Municipal Awards were a big deal in their own way. Scientists got Nobels, actors got Oscars. If you put your heart and soul into your nice little shop, you’ve just as much a right to dress up nice, with a great big hat, and get a bit of recognition. But it just wasn’t Effie. My god… the straight, neat lines of stock were like something out of a supermarket.
So I made up my mind. As a concerned friend, there was clearly only one course of action I could take. That night, shrouded in darkness, I’d break into her shop.
It had just gone one in the morning when I slunk out of my B & B and crept down the cobbled street to next door, as delicately as my mismatched feet would allow. The night’s fat, full moon was wrapped in thick cloud as I groped towards the door handle of the shop. In my long life, I’ve been many places and done many things. I’m old enough now to honestly say I don’t regret any of it. And sometimes slightly murkier parts of my past still come in handy. Like that heady spring in Paris at the turn of the last century. By day, long, romantic walks along the Seine with that lovely Monsieur Lupin. And by night, his delicate touch taught me a great deal.
Like how to pick a lock in 30 seconds flat!
Safely inside the shop, I slowly shuffled forwards, trying to get my bearings. The silhouettes of stands and shelves morphed in darkness, confusing me. I could have sworn I saw something moving around in the black. Then a shuffle and a bump. I froze! I definitely heard something that time.
And as I stood stock still, the clouds outside slowly drifted over, revealing eerie moonlight that crept through the shop front’s wide windows, along the floor, up over me, lending my petrified face further pallor, and out to the centre of the shop. The source of the bump revealed, I hate to say it, but I let out a little high-pitched scream. There in front of me, reaching up to push a broom nearly twice his own height stood a spindly little man, no more than three foot tall and naked as the day he was born, his pert, downy posterior glowing in the moonlight. He turned to look at me. Paused. And then the little nuddy fella screamed too.
We stared at each other in the moonlight, hearts pounding, eyes fixed, neither of us daring to move: frozen like rabbits in headlights. From up above us, a series of distant clatters came closer, tracing a pathway down and towards us. Then, the door at the back of the shop was flung open and flooded the room with electric lighting, framing Effie in her best crinoline.
“Brenda! What on earth are you doing!? Hob, are you ok?”
“You know him?” I began to ask, but was cut off by the Nocturnal Naturalist himself.
“Hob hadn’t had such a freight as that in many a long time. Why! ‘Twas enough to put ol’ Hob off chores.”
“Effie, I’m sorry but I knew something was wrong when I saw your shop the other day. Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”
Effie, back tight and straight, looked as if she was about to throw me out of the shop. Can you imagine? My best friend booting me out onto the cobbles! But, after a tense moment, I saw her shoulders slump and the fight drop out of her.
“Go on then, Hob. You might as well tell her everything.”
The little nude fella looked back and forth between the two of us, then cleared his throat and started his story. “Hob lived peaceful life down Beck Hole,” he began. “Hob’s pottered on there for such a long time. Tidying up the old Leighton place and tending to the Quoits pitch. Leave Hob the odd saucer of cream or a little wedge of cake and Hob’ll get on with it. Such a peaceful place, Beck Hole was.” The poor little fella had a wistful look about him as he spoke. A teardrop gathered in the corner of his eye and a stalagmite of snot lengthened from his disproportionate nose. “So peaceful. Until Mr Stahlman moved in, that is.”
“Stahlman?” I queried.
“Do you not read the local papers, Bren? Eddie Stahlman and that frickin’ fracking company. They scared Hob here half out of his wits. But he’s happy here now, helping out around the shop. And that’s all there is to it.”
I admit I wasn’t as religious a reader of the Gazette as some. Just, there’s only so many Village Fete announcements and articles literally about the price of fish that a girl can take. But I knew what fracking was. And I realised straight away that a Hob getting
scared out of his home could be the least of our worries. There and then, I decided me and Effie would help Hob out, whether she liked it or not. “Hob, we’ll get you your old home back, don’t you worry,” I boldly promised.
“But he’s fine here,” Effie insisted.
I stood my ground. “No, he’s not. Beck Hole’s his home and no one has the right to force him out of it! It took me a long time to find somewhere I could feel that I belong, where I feel that I’ve got a purpose. But I finally found that in this little town of ours, and wouldn’t shift now for love nor money. Hob’s got that in Beck Hole, and this Stahlman character can’t take it away from him.”
After a bit more grumbling, Effie either came round to my way of thinking or got too desperate to get back to her beauty sleep to put up more of a fight. Whichever it was, we agreed to meet up first thing the next morning and give Eddie Stahlman a piece of our minds.
As we headed our separate ways, Hob went back to his chores, sweeping and dusting and polishing into the wee hours. “Hob, Hob, Hob, Hob, Hob…” he murmured to himself as he pegged away.
The next morning I was up and out even earlier than we’d agreed, a slight nervousness adding an agitated pace to my ablutions. I shuffled about on the pavement in front of Effie’s shop waiting for her to join me, until just ten minutes after the time we’d agreed upon she sauntered out into the morning sun. We headed down to the bus station and began our epic journey to get to a village nine miles out of town. The bus was running later than Effie, and my nerves built up with every passing second. I tightly held the exact change in my hand, feeling the coins getting sweatier as the bus became later. Standing there, I repeated the name of the type of ticket I was going to ask the bus driver for under my breath like a mantra. When it finally arrived, Effie’s attempt to pay with a ten pound note was refused and I had to hurriedly count change out for her too. But, at least we were underway, slowly creeping out onto the moors.
As we crawled up Blue Bank, signs at the side of the road advised caravan drivers to abandon hope. Then, a little way past its peak, we were unceremoniously dumped at the roadside and began the final part of the journey to Beck Hole by foot. Approaching, I could have sworn that I felt a buzzing beneath me and had to stop to steady myself once or twice.
Once there, there was no mistaking where Stahlman was holed up. The old farmhouse that must have been Hob’s refuge for so long was now the centre of an industrial operation the dale had never seen the like of! Giant HGVs with hulking gas canisters on their backs lined the one-track road. An assortment of vans were parked up at precarious angles on the bank. And crowning the scene, a sign next to the farmhouse pronounced in big, friendly red letters – ‘Moorland Energy Solutions: Industrial Hydraulic Fracturing For Shale Gas Extraction With A Heart’
“What a state they’ve made of it!” Effie proclaimed. “It’s worse than when your Frank turned back up and started trampling all over the place.”
“You see. It’s not just that little Hob who’s being put out by this. We need to get in there and find Stahlman now, before this goes any further.”
But little did I know, Stahlman was about to find us.
As we crept around looking for a way in, we were set upon by a pair of brutes in High Vis. They grabbed us both by the shoulders and roughly dragged us along. Shook up, it was difficult to take things in. Their hard hats and lanyards made them look like ordinary contractors. But, trying to inspect them more closely whilst being man-handled, their skin had a strange green tinge to it; random bits of fluff protruded from points on their face; and their teeth seem slightly too big and, well, made of plastic.
We passed another green contractor, this one even hairier, stood about having a fag at the back entrance to the farm. Then, dragged inside, we were unceremoniously dumped on the floor in the centre of a vast, stark control room.
From the outside, the farmhouse looked as it had for hundreds of years: local stone, the edges softened by time. But inside was another story all together. The walls and floor were all stark, bright white. Grand computer banks were dotted around with disco light buttons and knobs. Men in white lab coats poked at them and scribbled on clipboards in silence, the only noise the otherworldly whirrs and blips emanating from the machines. And in the centre of the room on a raised plinth stood who could only be Eddie Stahlman. His lab coat was worn loosely over a well-pressed suit. Slicked-back hair and a neatly trimmed goatee framed little piggy eyes that rendered any effort he put in redundant. This was the man that had driven Hob from his home and, it was dawning on me at the time, could possibly do even more damage than he could ever realise.
“Ladies! I’ve been expecting you!”
“How on earth have you been expecting us?” said Effie matter-of-factly. “We didn’t even know we were coming ourselves until first thing this morning!”
“If it weren’t you, it would have been somebody else. I’ve always known the Anti-Fracking Lobby were after me! Luddites! Ill-informed fools! Well, no matter. There’s nothing you can do now.”
“What are you talking about, lovey? We’re just here to see if ol’ Hob could get a quiet corner of this farmhouse back.” I tried calming him down, but his piggy eyes were bulging even further out than before. Something told me back then that this was not a man with a full set of marbles. Maybe it was the stare. Maybe it was the beads of sweat popping out of his forehead. Or maybe it was the way that he thought fracking in a National Park was a fair and sensible thing to do.
We were in a tight spot, but me and Effie had both been in tighter ones over the years. And if there was one thing I’d learned it was this: the stupider, richer and more dangerous the man, the more they liked the sound of their own voice.
“You can’t fool me,” he howled. “You’re out to get me, just like the rest of them! But it won’t work, do you hear!? Ever since I was a small child, I’ve know this was my destiny. To follow in my father’s footsteps and take up his Great Work. But now, I’m ready to do even more than that. I will emerge from his shadow and everyone will know the name Eddie Stahlman! Not ‘Gassy’ Stahlman or ‘Stink-Breath’ Stahlman; Edward Horatio Stahlman!! And the unlimited power that my gas offers will usher Britain into a new Golden Age!” Bits of spittle were starting to form at the side of his mouth by this point, but it seemed rude to interrupt when he had such a flow going. “You see, ladies, I’m unfettered. I have free rein to do as I like. Back in the ‘70s or ‘80s or whenever it was, small-minded bureaucrats and so-called scientific ‘advisors’ would block you at every turn. Going on about environmental impact and the risk of giant explosions and other such rubbish. Or even worse, Trade Unionists! Whining on about Health & Safety. Calling everybody out at the first sign of weird green slime! Nothing but a barrier to progress!!”
“Those advisors might have been on to something, you know,” I interjected. “Especially round here. I’ll admit it, I’m not just here to get Hob a quiet spot back, although he does deserve that. There are things about fracking in this spot you haven’t considered.” I looked at him pleadingly, but Stahlman wouldn’t even meet my eyes.
“No, my dear. Nothing can stand in the way of progress. And now, it is time to frack again.” He gazed off into the distance, lost in his own hyperbole. I’d seen that look before, in my father’s eyes. It was there in photographs of him as a young man. So sure, so definite of himself. And I remember the look was still there just after he pulled the lever to switch me on. And I remember how that look slowly faded, turned to horror as I stretched out for the first time, as I reached to him and tried to call out with a second-hand tongue.
But he was wrong. I hadn’t been a mistake. I was no monster. It had took me a long time to find my place in life, perhaps even into my twilight years before I really found somewhere that needed me – although who’s to say how long these old parts will keep on going for? But I was needed. Whitby needed me and I couldn’t let Stahlman carry on with his plan.
I made a break for it, wrenching myse
lf from the grip of the green contractor in High Vis and lurching towards where Stahlman stood, big red lever in hand. He saw me coming and yanked the lever towards himself, but I grabbed onto it and pulled it back. We tussled like that for what seemed like an age, pushing and pulling, locked in combat across an over-sized switch. Eventually, Stahlman resorted to playing dirty, as his type always do. The little sod kicked me in the shin! As I hopped about holding my leg, Stahlman gave me a shove and I was over on the floor. The lever fully descended and the frack began.
The ground shook beneath us and the walls of that old farmhouse which had stood proud for centuries seemed to wobble like a half-inflated bouncy castle at a Church Fair. I dragged myself up off the floor and grabbed Effie by the shoulder. We zig-zagged our way out of the farmhouse and ran as fast as we could up out of Beck Hole and back onto the Moors road, the ground tremoring beneath us the whole way.
Steadying ourselves against each other, we took in the view across the coastline and into the town. It’s amazing how quickly a place can get into your bones. Usually, if I’ve been away, even just to York for posh afternoon tea and the shops, this view would fill me with warmth, whatever that biting North wind was doing. But then, it filled me with dread. The whole landscape seemed to shake and swell. Dark, stormy clouds loomed in the sky. And behind the gap-toothed ruins of the Abbey, a deep red light gushed forth from the ground. It was just as I feared. Fracking in Whitby had affected the Bitches Maw! Now, the Maw gaped open wider than it ever had, and who could know what horrors it would bring forth?
[Brenda & Effie 00] - A Treasury of Brenda and Effie Page 2