[Brenda & Effie 00] - A Treasury of Brenda and Effie

by ed. Paul Magrs

  “Here we go again!” I said.

  Brenda's Bad Day

  Selina Lock

  Brenda was having a bad day. Not an axe-wielding bikers from outer-space type of bad day, but a losing your place in the book you're reading and having to repair the stitches that hold your left hand on to your wrist, kind of bad day. She decided she needed to get some fresh air.

  Effie was just tipping the remains of a clown ornament into the dustbin when Brenda emerged from her B&B next door.

  “Cooeee!” she called. “I was just going to come round and see if you fancied a walk down to The Walrus and The Carpenter?”

  Effie waved back.

  “I'll be right out.”

  A few minutes later the friends were ambling down towards Whitby town centre in the late summer sunshine. It seemed like it would be a lovely afternoon, but Brenda was still feeling a bit out of sorts. It just wasn't like her to make a hash of her hosting duties, but she did not want to seem like she had asked Effie out for tea just to moan. Instead she let the companionable silence continue.

  They arrived at the harbour crossroads to see a couple of men with their cars pulled over to the side of the road and long scrapes down both vehicles. A heated exchange could be heard, as each driver tried to blame the other. At least no one seemed to be injured, yet. Effie sniffed disdainfully at the drivers and the looky-loos that had gathered around the scene.

  “More tourists making trouble,” she commented.

  “I don't think so,” Brenda replied “I'm sure I've seen both of them drinking in the Bloody Corpse beer garden on a regular basis. In fact, I'd assumed they were friends.”

  They crossed over the harbour bridge and started making their way up one of the winding streets on the East side of town. Huffing slightly, Brenda realised what Effie had said.

  “More tourists making trouble? Not my guests, surely?”

  “No, ducky. Just some troublesome customers breaking things and then running off without paying. Just capped off a bad morning really.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, before that Aunt Petunia started howling outside my bedroom door, at five o'clock this morning. Five o'clock!”

  “Aunt Petunia? Howling?”

  “Yes, howling… like a dog. We don't mention her much. She had a habit of turning herself into a Yorkshire Terrier and napping by the fire. It was the only spell she was good at. She hardly ever manifests. No telling what's set her off.”

  “Do you think she senses some supernatural goings-on? Things have been quite quiet lately.”

  “No telling. With Aunt Petunia it could be anything from people rising from the grave again, or that she wants me to buy her a squeaky toy.”

  They passed a lady in her fifties storming out of a hairdressers with a massive perm that looked like a poodle on her head. Then, a gentleman in a tweed suit took a tumble on the cobbles, ripping his trousers open to reveal stockings and red lacy suspenders beneath. His face turned the shade of the suspenders as he scrambled up.

  Bad morning all around.

  At The Walrus and The Carpenter, their thoughts turned to tea and the tempting selection of cakes that awaited them at the counter. A jaunty little bell jingled over their heads as they pushed the café door open. The smell of scones wafted up to greet them. Brenda had once suggested to Effie that an old fashioned door chime would work well in her shop to let her know when customers arrived. Effie had simply raised her eyebrows and stated that she always knew when there were people in her shop.

  They settled into a couple of padded chairs at a corner table and waited for their tea to brew. Brenda played mother, pouring tea and milk carefully into their teacups, mindful of her earlier mishap, Effie set to buttering the enormous scone they were going to share. As they were exchanging news of various friends there came the unmistakable sound of breaking glass from the kitchen. This was followed by a small cheer from a group of teenagers by the window. A voice from the kitchen shouted about that being the third thing they had broken this morning and how it was coming out of the culprit's wages.

  “Oh dear, seems like we're not the only ones having bad mornings,” Brenda commented.

  “We?” Effie queried. “What happened to you?”

  “I woke up with one of my hands hanging by a thread. Then the guests' breakfasts went terribly wrong and I had to start from scratch. You know how I pride myself on my breakfasts. Then I spilt tea all over a clean skirt.”

  “Ummm.” Effie looked pensive and surveyed the other customers in the café. The teenagers looked happy enough chatting, between sharing the latest titbit on their phones. Most of the others seemed to be taking a welcome break from their daily routine, but a few of the regulars definitely looked a bit glum. Brenda followed her gaze and guessed her line of thought.

  “You don't think these little accidents and upsets are a coincidence, do you Effie?”

  “Well, given our history with creatures of the night, cursed films and all sorts of other unsavoury goings-on… it would be just our bad luck, if our bad luck were down to something more than a coincidence.”

  Brenda nodded glumly in agreement and carefully sipped her cup of tea. She replaced the cup equally carefully back in the saucer and looked longingly at the buttered scone.

  “Still, no point in wasting a good scone eh?” she commented.

  Effie wholeheartedly agreed so they spent the next quarter of an hour munching away and resolutely ignoring any tendrils of foreboding.

  It felt like they might have been exaggerating their feelings of misgiving right up until Brenda spilt the dregs of her cup all over her second clean skirt of the day. Then there was another resounding crash of broken glassware from the café kitchen. Effie and Brenda exchanged looks of resignation. They decided to head back to Effie's to look through the extensive selection of good luck charms her aunts had left her.

  Across the other side of the harbour, Pippa Acton, of Pippa's Perfect Parties, was having a surprisingly good day, despite her office being suffused with the aroma of stale fish and chips. That's what you have to live with when you can only afford to rent a room above one of Whitby’s many chippies. In the middle of the chaos, Pippa perched on a stool at a tiny table, tapping away on her equally compact laptop. Her freckles framed her grin as another good review of her latest party popped up on-screen. She toasted herself with a big mug of hot chocolate.

  “To me, with a little bit of help from the Romans!”

  She was amazed at how well the toga party had gone down with the Women of Whitby Society. It had been a hard sell to start with. When she had first mentioned togas, the President and the Secretary of the Society had pulled disapproving faces and muttered about them being the domain of American frat parties. To be honest, she was amazed that either of the redoubtable ladies had even heard of frat parties. It turned out that one of the younger members of the Society had subjected them to a rather ill-advised talk and film show on her love of eighties teen movies. Pippa had to do a lot of fast talking about honouring Roman traditions and learning about Roman culture in a fun and sophisticated way. Yorkshire did have a lot of Roman history to draw upon and the committee had been adamant that they did not just want another tea party. That was just so passé.

  Pippa had been ecstatic to land the job of organising the Women of Whitby Society's Annual Celebration, as it could pave the way to party planning for the upper echelons of Whitby's more affluent middle-class couples. As opposed to her current bread and butter of entertaining over-excited eight-year-olds and keeping their parents from downing too much pinot noir. To calm her nerves before the meeting, she had taken a stroll in the Abbey grounds. In the far corner of the ruins, light was glinting off a piece of metal. Pippa picked it up and found it was a reproduction of a Roman coin. The coin was decorated with a young man's profile with curly hair and an aquiline nose. He was wearing a winged headdress. She rubbed a bit of dirt off the coin and the idea of pitching a toga party popped into her head.

  A
dmittedly, once she had secured the job of planning the celebration she spent the next two weeks frantically researching Roman traditions and working out how on earth she was going to pull off the party. But pull it off she did judging by the website reviews and phone-calls she had received that morning. It looked like she would be running toga parties every night this week. Who needed sleep when you had a struggling small business to run?

  Pippa pulled back her long frizzy red hair and secured it with the nearest bit of ribbon to hand. Which happened to say 'Happy Valentino's Day' due to an unfortunate typo when ordering valentine supplies earlier in the year. She was valiantly holding out hope of finding a client called Valentino, or one that was a really big Rudolph Valentino fan. Otherwise she would be eating take-away on Valentino's Day paper plates for several years to come. She sighed, took a swig of hot chocolate from a 'Be My Valentino' red mug and went back to her toga party to-do list.

  Brenda rifled through the cupboard under the stairs, where she kept her cleaning supplies and a few of the more dangerous mementos from previous adventures. She was looking for her thickest housecoat-cum-overalls, as Effie had been adamant that she would need it for investigating the good luck charms. Effie had also ordered her to pick up her big metal teapot and cheapest tea bags. She could only assume that sorting through the countless boxes of possibly magical items would be dirty, thirsty work. She thought it was rather cheeky of Effie not to provide her own tea bags.

  She carefully carried the full teapot up the narrow staircase of Effie's house. She followed the sound of Effie's voice calling “Yoo hoo, I'm in here,” and finally found her in a dimly lit back bedroom. Effie stood amid a cluster of half-open jewellery cases, wooden boxes and a stack of drawers. She pointed to the bedside table, which looked like it had been cleared by sweeping the contents on to the floor. A single, dainty china tea cup sat ready.

  “Sit yourself down on the bed and pour yourself a cuppa. Then we can get started,” Effie said.

  Brenda eyed the rickety wooden bed and gingerly sat down. She braced herself in case the antique could not take a woman of her heft, but the mattress springs merely groaned in response.

  “Get started with what?” Brenda asked.

  “Our experiment. To find out which of these good luck charms work,” Effie replied. A look of anticipation played across Effie's face. It rather reminded Brenda of a dog waiting to chomp down on a bone. The thought of being the subject of experimentation sent shivers down Brenda's spine. She had been there before. Good job she trusted her best friend.

  Two hours later Brenda still trusted Effie, but if she made her drink one more cup of tea then she might just take a swing at her. Or rather, attempt to drink, as most of it had ended-up soaking her overalls. Anyone would think that Brenda had never learnt to drink properly the amount of times she missed her mouth, or managed to pour the now tepid liquid over herself. She knew she was clumsy. Non-matching body parts did not make for the most co-ordinated system, but this was just ridiculous. Over the course of the afternoon, Effie had made Brenda wear several mangy rabbit's feet and tacky four leaf clover brooches. A weighty horseshoe and several small pieces of bones that reportedly had once belonged to someone sainted, famous or brave. Any number of random necklaces and a feather headdress. Each time she put a new charm on, Brenda had to take a sip. As soon as Brenda spilt the tea Effie would discard the object she was wearing.

  Effie was now studying the two black pendants that had allowed Brenda to drink a whole cup without dumping the contents down her tea stained housecoat. They were both chunky carved jet ovals. Each had a face carved upon the surface. One had a rather friendly expression with a crooked nose, uneven eyebrows and slightly upturned lips. The other had obviously been wrought with more care and skill. It showed a woman wearing an intricate headdress, with waves of curly hair framing a face with a Roman nose. Effie rummaged through the pile of discarded objects and stripped the black velvet ribbons from a couple of Victorian amulets. She restrung the jet pendants and handed the wonky faced woman to Brenda. Brenda mused that she could take offence at being given the less valuable necklace, but she found her pendant rather charming.

  “I think the good luck charms will work better if the pendants are matched to the wearer's personality.” Effie stated, avoiding looking Brenda in the eye.

  Brenda just smiled. Her friend could be a bit selfish, but was always there for her in a crisis.

  “Whatever you think best, lovey.”

  The ladies tied their pendants around their necks and nodded in satisfaction.

  “Meet you out front at dusk to do some investigating then?” Effie asked.

  Brenda nodded. Then headed back to her guest house to dry off and put her tea drenched overalls in the sink to soak with a spot of Vanish.

  Pippa dumped her bags full of party paraphernalia in the middle of the hall used for town council meetings. She took a swig of coffee from her 'Happy Valentino's travel mug and surveyed the room. She mentally arranged furniture and wall hangings. She decided the guests should be able to see the Roman backdrops as they entered the room. Plus, it was de rigueur in Roman times for guests to be seated in order to see new arrivals, assuming there wasn't a Roman garden for them to gaze upon instead; the scraggy bushes surrounding the smokers shelter outside the windows didn't quite count. She rubbed the reproduction Roman coin in her pocket and smiled.

  While Brenda was being drenched in spilt tea, Pippa spent the afternoon trying to make the uninspiring function room look like a Roman banqueting hall. First, she had to direct a reversing lorry down the narrow street outside, then chivvy the delivery men into unloading the chaise longues and large square table she had hired for the night. The delivery men scarpered before she could get them to arrange the longues in a semi-circle around the table, but a bit of brute force soon took care of that.

  Next, she bribed the building caretaker with cake to help her put up the Roman themed wall hangings. Admittedly, the caretaker claimed a fear of heights, so it was Pippa who found herself up the ladder asking “Is it straight?” Then there was a frantic call from the caterer to say they had run out of olives. “Could she be a dear, and pick some up?” This necessitated Pippa visiting every food shop in Whitby to buy all their tiny jars of olives. By the end of the afternoon, the hall was decorated to within an inch of its life. A Roman fresco backdrop and seating festooned with cushions, allowed the guests to recline while eating. A table groaned with a veritable Roman feast (minus the sow's udders and flamingo tongues) and copious bottles of Italian wine. The cloakroom was bursting with robes and togas for the guests to dress in.

  She straightened the stack of paper, designed to mimic Roman curse tablets, on a side table. The top of each curse sheet was decorated with the portrait of the young Roman man with the winged headdress who had inspired the theme. Absent-mindedly she tapped the symbol as she took a final look around the room. Then she slumped onto one of the couches and contemplated the limp chicken sandwich she would just have time to eat before the waiting staff arrived.

  A little while, later Brenda and Effie met up as planned. Brenda arrived armed with a torch, binoculars, and a few slices of Battenberg in case they got peckish. Effie, armoured with the look of a woman on a mission, wore a pair of dainty antique opera glasses dangling around her neck. Several residents of Whitby knew better than to get in Effie's way when she had that look on her face. Luckily, Brenda was one of the few that would dare Effie's wrath if needed. The best friends marched off down the hill towards the bridge over the harbour. The lovely sunset over the North Bay went utterly unnoticed, as a new mystery to solve was a much more enthralling prospect.

  It was less enthralling after they had walked around several parts of town without so much as a sniff of a clue. Though they did find a few more people having a run of bad luck involving traffic cones, chilli sauce and an irate chihuahua. Eventually, they decided their only remaining course of action was to check on the Bitch's Maw, the gateway to hell they were sw
orn to protect, or to protect people from.

  They were both a little out of breath and glowing by the time they made it to the top of the hundred and ninety-nine steps and past the church to the Abbey. The shadowy arches were like old friends now, as they made their way towards the Maw. As they walked along the cliff path Brenda noticed flickering lights on the Western pier.

  “'Ere, Effie, I think there's something going on over there,” she said, pointing across the bay.

  “Hopefully not those re-enactors trying to have a Viking funeral,” Effie replied.

  She lifted her opera glasses and peered through them. Brenda adjusted the knobs on her more powerful binoculars. She zoomed in on the light and was confronted with a flaming torch. She gasped and instinctively backed away. Her wonky memory chose that moment to start bombarding her with snatches of scenes past. The whiff of burning wood, people looming out of the dark, their faces illuminated by flickering flames. Shouts of “Burn the monster! Burn her! Burn her!” She back-peddled faster, hit her ankle on a rock and went sprawling on her buttocks with a squawk.

  Effie wheeled round at the sound. Her eyes were obscured by the tiny opera glasses. She let the glasses fall back around her neck, where they clanked against the jet good luck pendant.

  “You all right, ducky?” she asked as she rushed over to Brenda. “I could've sworn these charms were warding off the bad luck.”

  Brenda flapped her arms towards her friend.

  “I'm okay. Just my past lives catching up with me again. I don't have the best track record with mobs bearing flaming torches.”

  Effie helped heave her friend to her feet, nearly over-balancing herself in the process.

  “I don't think they're much of a mob. I'm pretty sure that's the Mayor and several of the town council. All decked out in ridiculous costumes.”

  Brenda dusted herself off and retrieved her binoculars. This time, she zoomed in on the figures on the opposite pier. She could make out Mayor Bramble, a lady of a similar build and age to Brenda, wearing a toga. The classical lines of the toga were slightly at odds with the shiny mayoral chains she still wore around her neck. It was rumoured that she even wore them to bed, though there was some debate over whether she wore them in the bath. Brenda looked at the other figures and realised Effie was right. It seemed the town councillors were having a night on the town dressed as Romans. They were brandishing flaming torches and carrying what looked like scrolls.