[Brenda & Effie 04] - Hell's Belles

by Paul Magrs

  Brenda shushed her. She had a feeling that Karla was on the verge of laying herself bare – even more than she already had in the movie itself – and Brenda was going to learn something vital, she just knew it.

  The questioner had mumbled something else; Brenda had missed it. Something about a then relatively recent movie. There had been scandal and controversy.

  ‘There is always scandal for my pictures,’ Karla said. ‘They thrive on it.’

  ‘Yes, but this was a different kind of scandal. Some say that Get Thee Inside Me, Satan was doomed from the outset. Even before the tragic death of Magda Soames, or Fox Soames, or the director or the producer or anyone else.’

  Karla’s eyes widened slightly. The pulse in her delectable throat quickened. Even through the poor quality of the ancient film, it was possible to see that the actress was fighting her true feelings down. ‘It is true. Quite true. We were lucky to get out of that valley in Wales alive, the majority of us. But I feel that the . . . evil tendrils of that movie . . . the wickedness that swirled about us the whole time . . . it will never let us go. Does that sound melodramatic?’

  ‘It sounds like you’re building up the hype,’ chuckled the interviewer.

  ‘No,’ Karla snapped. ‘I am not. That film has been banned, has it not? After people died at late-night showings. After further deaths. I tell you, that film is cursed. It is pure evil, distilled on to celluloid. It should never have been made. And now, luckily, three years on, it is no more, I hope. The company is trying to recall all copies, so they can be buried safely, away from the viewing public.’

  ‘An overreaction, surely,’ the interviewer said. ‘Are you certain this isn’t about garnering yet more publicity?’

  Karla looked very pale. ‘You weren’t there in that valley. No one who was there will ever forget it.’

  The interview segment cut off abruptly, sending them back to the lurid animated menu. Brenda was quite still when Effie turned to look at her.

  ‘Hecate!’ Effie exclaimed. ‘I believed her. She certainly looked like she meant what she was saying. She isn’t that good an actress!’

  Brenda looked bleak. ‘I wish I could remember more. I was there . . . I remember things happening. Looking after Alex. Hiding in my dinner-lady caravan. I remember that night with the lightning and the noise . . . like the valley floor itself was cracking open and . . . I don’t know! I can’t recall the rest!’

  ‘Knowing you,’ Effie smirked, ‘I can’t believe that you would have just hidden away in your caravan. You’d have been out there in the thick of it.’

  ‘I wish my memory worked better,’ Brenda sighed. She went over to the DVD player. ‘Well, that was a bit more interesting.’

  ‘Hmmmm . . . The way she talked about the curse and all,’ Effie mused. ‘She looked genuinely fearful, didn’t she?’

  ‘That was just a few years after making it,’ Brenda pointed out. ‘It was still fresh in her mind. What is it now, forty years? The fear must have faded. Or she must be more desperate. More hard-up, perhaps. Maybe she’s forgotten, too, just how bad it was that night in North Wales. Or maybe . . .’ She tailed off, picking up the disc that they had borrowed from Robert’s safe.

  ‘Yes?’ prompted Effie.

  ‘Maybe she’s being coerced into taking part in this remake,’ said Brenda. ‘Maybe she’s being moved about the chessboard like the rest of us, and is in charge of her own destiny about as much as we are.’

  Effie was eyeing the disc of Get Thee Inside Me, Satan as Brenda shunted it into the machine. ‘Are you sure you’re wanting to watch this now?’

  ‘I think we have to. If we are to understand . . .’

  ‘Maybe we should wait until daytime,’ Effie said. ‘We’d be less tired. We could concentrate better.’

  Brenda shook her head. ‘I want to know what it’s all about. Tonight. This film that shouldn’t even exist on disc. We have to find out, Effie. We must be brave.’

  Effie smiled wanly. ‘Shall I make some tea first, before you start it up?’

  Brenda nodded. ‘Spicy tea, please, Effie.’

  To Effie’s eyes, Brenda looked haggard and drawn. She was fretting over Frank, of course. Neither of them had mentioned Brenda’s wandering husband all night. Effie had tactfully avoided the subject. But he was never far from Brenda’s mind, she could tell. She mulled it all over as she dug around in Brenda’s cupboards for the aromatic tea she favoured. One thing Effie was sure of. That brute didn’t deserve a woman like Brenda.

  Casa Diodati

  Karla’s dinner with her director was at an upmarket hotel across the harbour on the eastern side of town. Casa Diodati’s discreet entrance was hidden in an alleyway. Very exclusive. Karla was delighted to have a car sent for her, and to be delivered to the upper restaurant, which was tasteful in dove-grey and magenta plush.

  Now she was gazing out at the whole of the town. From here she could see the West Cliff and her turret at the Christmas Hotel. There she could make out a chink of light that she knew was her attic.

  Alex handed her the menu.

  The two of them were hardly aware of the waiting staff. There didn’t seem to be any other punters. This was a private dining room for the star.

  She surveyed her director. His wavy, slightly fluffed fair hair. The incipient corpulence. The edge of nervousness about him as he fussed. She found it all pretty pleasing. Oh yes. This was the kind of life she could get used to again.

  He was treating her with such decorum and tact. It was all so refined. Terrines and soufflés and sorbets. That kind of thing on the menu. It put Karla back in mind of her lovely glory years. Such a long time ago. When she was passed around among the movers and shakers as if she was made out of crystal.

  She could have wept, just thinking about that. How she had fallen. How she was almost always on her own nowadays; how rare it was that anyone took any responsibility for her.

  But now wasn’t the time to dwell on her tragically humdrum everyday life.

  Alex coughed and they toasted each other. ‘This film,’ Alex began, and he started to talk about how he saw their joint venture. Gradually it dawned on her that he loved the film. He loved the story, the script, the character. Everything about it was important to him.

  She had been worried that she was going to be appearing in some kind of spoof. There was a current vogue for remaking the old classic horrors and slyly sending them up. Making them look deliberately stupid. Karla, of course, had never taken herself very seriously, and was as good at making fun of herself as the next bisexual vampire lady. But . . . but she didn’t want to be part of something that set out to trash her life’s work. Those sixties and seventies movies had been her lifeline for donkey’s years. She respected them and the professionals who had made them, and their loyal audiences. Naturally, she couldn’t have afforded to turn down this starring part in the remake, but she’d really rather not – if possible – make a mockery of the whole Get Thee Inside Me, Satan legend.

  She needn’t have worried. Now Alex was talking about the earlier film, and indeed all of Karla’s past successes, with a breathless enthusiasm. With the glint in his eye that she recognised. Aha! she thought. She had his number now. Of course! He was a fan. High-powered, successful, brilliant he may be – but he was a fan nonetheless. Suddenly she saw that he was determined to make the picture that would do justice to Karla’s talents at last.

  ‘Those movies you made, they’re wonderful,’ he was telling her. ‘But they could be even better, you know. If they were remade with proper care and love and attention. And using today’s expertise and knowledge and special effects. A little touch of contemporary sophistication and magic: that’s what those great stories need. Back then, in the sixties, they were turned out so quickly, so carelessly . . .’

  ‘It’s true,’ she said. ‘We did Carnival of Flesh in two weeks flat out. I was a shadow of my former self by the end of that fortnight.’

  ‘So,’ Alex smiled winningly, ‘I think we
could make something really special here . . .’

  Karla suddenly saw the little boy he must have been. A needy child, perhaps. Keen to say the things that would win the attention of the grown-ups. Over-eager, almost, to say just the right thing.

  But there was something else in his expression.

  Something in the way he was looking at her. She’d been looked at like that before. Fox Soames had looked at her like that. And now his son was echoing his expression, all these years later.

  Oh, she could always put men into her thrall. She could enslave them, all right. But which of them came willingly into her arms? Truth was, hardly anyone.

  Don’t kid yourself, Karla, she thought. This young fella-me-lad Alex is only buttering you up. Making charming small talk as you rummage through your moules marinière and tweeze their firm jaws apart. Dripping garlic juices and cream. This is just his job. He has to appear dedicated and keen.

  No. She knew that there was more to it. He really meant what he said about her movies. He really did want to put her back on top.

  She squeezed a lemon wedge, studying his expression as he focused on his own food. He caught her sceptical glance and winced. Then he smiled warmly at her.

  ‘I mean it, Karla. I think you are a genius on screen. I want the world to know how good you are.’

  Her heart thrilled at that.

  The rain was rattling at the windows now. A storm was coming in across the headland and high winds were bowling down Church Street below. It wasn’t until now that she noticed it.

  People had laughed at her. A camp classic: that was what she was. A bit rude, a bit saucy. Flashing her knockers in every film she was in. Past it now, of course. Sometimes people marvelled that she was still alive. Guest star spots on The Little and Large Show, Crackerjack, Celebrity Squares.

  If I was French, she’d often thought, I’d be in arty movies. They’d see my brilliance. I would be a cult of a different stripe. I’d be celebrated properly. This was an old refrain. One that had kept her awake many nights in Cricklewood, poring over elderly scrapbooks.

  Did she feel like she was seducing Alex? Enslaving him? No. Not tonight. Not this time. It was the other way around tonight. Karla felt like she was the one who was being reeled in. It was so unusual for her. It was very nearly exciting, to be the one not in charge.

  Suddenly she burst out, ‘Drunk! You’ve made me drunk! I never get tipsy!’

  But she was now. Two bottles of Prosecco they’d gone through. In what seemed like a flash. And here came dessert wine.

  Under his fascinated stare and his helpful pauses she attacked her sticky toffee pudding with gusto and found that she was telling him too much. All her bloody awful secrets. Making an exhibition of herself. But did she care? Not tonight. Not in the slightest. She found herself opening up to her director’s gaze.

  She talked about her childhood. Her young womanhood. About being taken to live in Kendal during the war. A child evacuated out of the back-street slums of Salford. And how she had been placed with practising witches who had drawn her into their strange cult. Dancing and making merry in the wintry woods at night. How she had been inculcated. The foul blessing put upon her. Or the curse. The spell that had brought her fame and attention. Had made her looks last seemingly for ever, or at least well past their sell-by. That spell had kept her flesh supple, fresh, keen.

  She talked about the genuinely dark powers she had pledged her soul to such a long time ago. When she was still a girl.

  She even spoke about her fears. Her feeling that she would never escape the men who controlled her destiny.

  ‘Who?’ Alex frowned, and cracked the caramel topping of his crème brûlée.

  ‘The Brethren,’ she said. Their eyes locked. She shivered. She never said their name aloud. Never to outsiders. She went on, in a lower tone, even though they were alone in the private dining room. ‘Your father knew all about them. He always said that he wrote his books about satanists and witchcraft and black magic cults in order to warn the world. He used to say that there were shadowy organisations in the background in every country, working ceaselessly to make the devil master of the whole world.’

  ‘And this all started for you in the Lake District?’

  ‘There are dark powers everywhere,’ Karla said. ‘And their followers are everywhere too. Even a cosy place like Kendal. Or Whitby. Your father knew all about where the true dangers lurked.’ She scraped up the last of her sticky pudding regretfully.

  ‘Yes, he used to tell everyone who would listen,’ Alex said. ‘It was his mission in life. I think . . . I think he had been part of one of these cults, back when he was young and silly. It scared him. He saw it as his duty to protect the world.’

  ‘And the message is still carried on. By you, his son, remaking this movie. Warning the world about dabbling with dark powers.’

  He was studying her. ‘And you? You really believe in these forces? That you are at their beck and call? You really sold your soul?

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘I know I did.’

  He blinked. He looked shocked. Karla necked her hot, bitter espresso and wondered if she had indeed said too much. She would scare him off. He might get some young, nubile actress to replace her. Someone without baggage. Someone who hadn’t actually sold her soul to the devil.

  After dinner they took a little walk.

  When was that decided? It was his idea. Had he even asked her? Or had she just taken his arm as her evening wrap was placed over her shoulders by invisible hands. She had merely acquiesced to his more forceful will. They took a gentle walk up the hill, even though it was raining. Karla felt she was under some kind of spell. She was heavy with dinner, gravid with sparkling booze. Her head swam with the thought of future glories. She could be a star again. The star she was always meant to be.

  Alex led her along. Alex wanted to see the abbey.

  Quite honestly, Karla could have done without hauling herself up the 199 steps at that time of night, but she didn’t want to sound old and complaining. She wanted to seem fit and willing, and eager to do exactly what her talented young director told her.

  He was going to make a star of her again. And this time she would get her dues. The world at large would see how marvellous she really was.

  Up at the abbey, he explained a little about how the film would climax. She listened to roughly half his words as the wind turned wilder, ripping them away. Something about sacrifice. Chanting hordes. Blazing torches. The gateway into hell.

  Oh, the usual stuff. Wasn’t it the climax of everything she got involved with? Didn’t every party end with her stripped bare on a cold, hard altar, waiting for the knife to fall? Didn’t she always get sacrificed sooner or later?

  And yet somehow Karla felt different this time. What was the matter with her? She even felt a bit . . . scared somehow. But she couldn’t back out. Not now. She had never backed out of anything. Nothing ever scared her. Nothing ever fazed her. She was a pro! She was the original vampire lady! And she could do anything!

  That fannish, fervent expression was back on Alex’s pale, unlined face. He was obsessed with this project. He had been subsumed by the story and by the ideas behind it. Get Thee Inside Me, Satan had taken over his life. A novel his father had written while his mother was pregnant. A novel his father laboriously typed in one room, drinking champagne through the night, smoking fat cigars, while Magda lay in another room, heavy with the child that would become Alex. It was as if the story had tapped its way into his infant’s soft skull. Semi-formed bones had echoed with the tip-tapping of the typewriter keys, drumming the tale into the very core of his being.

  Karla stood in the long wet grass, surrounded by the crumbling stones, and listened to Alex bang on and on about how it was all going to be.

  The Story of Mrs C

  Penny was sitting at the glass-topped bar at Spector.

  Michael was pleased because the bar was busy, Whitby’s trendier crowd being supplemented by a number of technica
l people from the film. Penny recognised them at once.

  Here I am, having a drink in a bar filled with film people, she thought. She was on nodding acquaintance with all of them, and kept hoping that someone might invite her over to join their table.

  Principal photography – as they called it – had begun today, and everyone seemed in a pretty good mood about it.

  She watched Michael work, strutting about behind the long bar in his immaculately pressed white shirt.

  During a rare lull, he came over to slouch across the bar and chat with her.

  ‘So you never saw Karla after all?’ she asked teasingly.

  He gave a mock scowl. ‘There was so much going on. What with all the upheaval and that man being taken off to hospital . . .’

  Penny nodded. She was considering having another cocktail. She liked watching Michael whisk them up, fussing on with all the ingredients.

  ‘And to think you went around with that old woman all night – for nothing!’

  He shrugged. ‘Mrs Claus is a very interesting woman, once you get talking to her.’

  Penny was surprised. She said, ‘Robert and all his friends can’t stand her. They say—’

  Michael interrupted. ‘Yes, she says she finds that rather upsetting. She isn’t sure what she’s done to make them hate her so much. All she wants is for people to be friends.’

  ‘The others were saying how wicked she is . . .’

  ‘I never saw her being wicked,’ he said. ‘I saw a very lonely, rich old woman, who has had a hard life.’

  ‘I see.’ Penny pulled a face. He was sounding far too attached to the sinister Mrs Claus for her liking.

  ‘All that Christmas stuff,’ he went on. ‘Don’t you think it’s a bit sad? A bit desperate?’

  ‘It’s a gimmick. That’s all it is. The hotel where Christmas never stops. It would drive me mad, but it seems to work for some people.’

  He shook his head, his dark locks tumbling about. ‘No, no, no. I think it is sad. A desperately unhappy woman trying to bring some cheer and goodwill into the world. Fiercely hoping and wishing it was a happy Christmas all the time. It is upsetting, really.’