[Brenda & Effie 04] - Hell's Belles

by Paul Magrs

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘It’s your gentleman friend. He’s made you happy too. All the crew is talking about him. Some of them have met him and say he’s wonderful.’

  ‘Ah,’ she said. ‘Yes, well, he’s a very special person.’

  ‘But who is he? Someone you met here in Whitby? An old flame, maybe?’

  She tutted at him, smiling. But she was discomfited by the interest he was taking in her private life. ‘He’s a new friend,’ she told him. And she wouldn’t be drawn.

  Soon it was time to get back to work. They had shots to get in, making the most of the early morning light, as Karla’s character went traipsing around entranced in the ruins of the abbey, searching for the reputed gateway into hell.

  That lunchtime, Victor turned up to fetch her.

  He was in his mid seventies, Alex judged. A slight, bony figure, beautifully dressed in three-quarter-length frock coat and cravat. His face was pleasant but pinched. The skin was thin and he had the sensitive look of a nineteenth-century artist, perhaps, or a musician. His fingers were long and pale. They ought to belong to a great violinist. Or a surgeon . . .

  ‘My dear.’ He greeted Karla with a courtly bow. He had brought her anemones, a tangle of indigo petals and hairy stems. Karla took them and turned to Alex. ‘You were asking about him, Alex. Here he is. My new beau.’

  Alex shook hands with the fine-featured gent. ‘I’m Alex Soames, director of this piece.’

  Victor regarded him keenly. His thin lips twitched and there was a gleam in his pale eyes. ‘I have heard a great deal about you. And I am honoured to meet the son of the great writer, also.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Alex stiffly. He always felt awkward when people brought up his dad. If truth be told, Alex hardly remembered his renowned progenitor.

  ‘My name is Victor Frankenstein,’ the old man told him.

  Fish Supper

  Cod Almighty, the day after their return, and the two ladies were at their usual banquette.

  ‘I can’t stay out long, Effie. There’s so much to do back home.’

  Effie pursed her lips approvingly. It felt good that they were both back to their routines. ‘You say you’re packed out with guests for the weekend?’

  ‘Really, it’s no bother. And I can’t afford to turn custom away, can I?’ Brenda fiddled with the teapot and their cups and smiled as she thought of her B&B being filled with eager Goths, chattering excitedly about the coming weekend. They were particularly keen on the impending film-making at the abbey. Word had gone round on the Goth networks and websites that the film crew required willing and able extras for walk-on parts, and the Goths were all stirred up at the thought of that.

  Effie sipped her tea gingerly, all the while studying her friend. ‘But you’re exhausted, aren’t you? We’re both worn out.’

  Brenda nodded. ‘It’s not every week that you . . . you know, travel into the past.’ She lowered her voice. It would be awful if anyone overheard her, she thought. They’d think she was mad.

  ‘Time travel!’ said Effie. ‘I know! I can hardly believe it.’

  ‘I’d think it was me hallucinating if it wasn’t that we both remember being there.’

  Effie lowered her eyes to the gingham tablecloth. ‘And seeing what we saw. And who we saw.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  The waitress came bustling up and the ladies put in orders for their favourites: poached haddock for Effie, and a plate of crispy whitebait for Brenda. They began with very thinly cut slices of bread and butter, which they nibbled hungrily as they talked.

  ‘Well, we were definitely there,’ Brenda said. ‘I can even prove it.’

  ‘I don’t need proof.’

  Brenda told her. ‘I looked in my wall safe. You know, where I keep mementos and useful keepsakes from all my adventures.’

  Effie shuddered as a number of memories surfaced quite involuntarily. She recalled handling a rather nasty (though ultimately practical) monkey’s paw found in Brenda’s secret cubbyhole.

  ‘I found Karla’s papers,’ said Brenda. ‘The ones we took from her trailer and gave to the younger me to look after. I’d kept them in a special file for all these years, folded up inside a Woman’s Weekly from 1967 that I’d saved for a poncho knitting pattern I had my eye on.’

  ‘Any use?’ Effie asked.

  Brenda shrugged. ‘I was never a very good knitter, to be honest. And I don’t know what I ever saw in that poncho. Shapeless, horrible thing . . .’

  Effie rolled her eyes. ‘I meant Karla’s letters from the Brethren . . .’

  ‘Oh, yes. Sorry. They were spooky things indeed, in all this ornate handwriting. Giving her instructions and so on. They were behind her all right. Egging the woman on to have that affair with Fox Soames, and to dabble in the dark arts.’

  ‘Foolish woman. And she’s still doing it! That’s what gets me.’ Effie stuffed a whole lot of buttered bread into her mouth, rather crossly.

  Brenda admitted, ‘I feel a bit sorry for her. What chance has she ever had? Those letters were going back years. She’s been up to her eyes in satanic machinations since she was just a kid.’

  ‘Pah.’

  They quietened down then, as the waitress brought their dinner.

  Effie said, ‘I don’t have much sympathy, to be honest. Look at me. I was brought up to be a witch. I bet my aunties were just as fierce as these Brethren people. I hated magic. I still do. I wanted nothing to do with any of it, and so I defied them. I stood up for myself.’ She toyed with slivers of mouth-watering fish while she talked, eating very little as she dwelt on the past.

  ‘Not everyone has the same strength of character as you, Effie. Not everyone can stick up for themselves.’

  ‘Yes they can. If they put their minds to it. I’m nowt special. Everyone has a choice, Brenda, about how they’re going to live their life.’

  They ate in silence for a while, starting to enjoy their food and each other’s calm company. It felt good to be back doing something as ordinary as this. Sixties music was playing through the speakers, and Brenda found herself bouncing along in time, very gently, to Cilla Black as she munched and crunched her way through the whitebait. She had rather enjoyed the sixties. It had been quite pleasant, in a way, to return there, albeit to Wales.

  As they pushed away their plates, she said decisively, ‘We need to get on with finding the men.’

  ‘Where do we start?’ said Effie.

  ‘Penny says that Robert went looking into those DVDs and where they came from . . .’

  ‘Then that’s where we should go tomorrow. Those grisly old women in Save the Kiddies will know a thing or two, I imagine.’

  ‘And Frank!’ Brenda burst out. ‘Where did he wander off to, in his confused state of mind? You know, I’d be very surprised if his disappearance wasn’t mixed up in all of this.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Effie. ‘You’re probably right.’ But right at that moment Effie was thinking of her own man.

  ‘You’re miles away. What is it?’

  Effie looked her friend dead in the eye. ‘We haven’t yet talked much about . . . events in Wales. In the past.’

  ‘I can’t bear it,’ Brenda sighed. She looked very uncomfortable. ‘I couldn’t say anything when the two girls were about, Penny and Lisa. They’re both so cock-a-hoop that they saved us. Dragged us back to . . . reality.’

  Effie touched her hair. ‘I’m not sure I’d choose such a livid blue rinse for myself, but I’m getting used to it. It was kind of them.’

  Brenda nodded brusquely. ‘But they aren’t to know that they dragged us back at such a crucial moment.’

  ‘No.’

  Brenda’s face twisted in anguish. ‘I just wish . . . A few seconds more, and I might have been able to save Magda. I could have yanked her back to safety. I would have changed things . . .’

  Effie poured them the last of the tea. ‘It’s the past, Brenda. Perhaps it’s impossible to change.’

  ‘No. We got . . . behi
nd the scenes. We could have changed things. I just know we could have.’

  ‘But we didn’t.’

  Brenda nodded dolefully. She looked close to tears. ‘And things went on as normal. The climax of the film was shot, just as Karla and the Brethren planned. And in those last few seconds we were there . . . the devil really did come through, didn’t he? He manifested himself for all to see.’

  ‘No,’ said Effie.

  ‘But we saw him, Effie! I mean, I was caught up with poor Magda and all, but I could see enough . . . that swirling vortex of light, just like the gateway to hell we’ve seen before, and that figure starting to step out . . .’

  ‘It wasn’t the devil, Brenda. And he didn’t manage to get all the way out. He was furious. He was still trapped. He put on an impressive show, and scared the bejaysus out of everyone there, but he never escaped from hell. Not yet.’

  ‘Then who was it?’ Brenda blinked. She had no idea what Effie was talking about.

  Effie leaned in. ‘It was Kristoff.’

  Brenda blinked. ‘Your Kristoff ? Alucard?’

  ‘We left him in hell, remember? On two occasions now. And he wants out, doesn’t he? Oh, it makes perfect sense. And he looked so incensed, Brenda. He caught a glimpse of me too, staring back at him, which gave him quite a turn.’

  Brenda looked at her friend. Could she really trust what Effie thought she had seen? Clearly she wanted that figure to be Alucard more than anything, but really . . .

  ‘I know how sceptical you are, Brenda, when it comes to anything about my Kristoff. I know you’ve got all kinds of grudges against him.’

  Brenda repressed a shudder at the diabolical man’s name. ‘I suppose you . . . erm, love him and everything, Effie. But he’s tried to kill me and suck out my blood on numerous occasions down through the years, as I’ve explained to you before. I knew him decades before you ever did and you just won’t listen to me; he isn’t to be trusted.’

  ‘He was coming through . . . in order to help us,’ Effie insisted, with a wild look in her eye. ‘He wanted to save us all!’

  Brenda snorted. ‘Rubbish. Since when did that cadaverous dandy ever do anything to help anyone else? Never!’

  Effie glowered and set her mind to dividing up the bill. Brenda tactfully dropped the subject of her man-friend. Though she did wonder for a bit how time worked in hell. Could Alucard really try to escape through portals elsewhere in time as well as space? In Brenda’s own not inconsiderable experience of similar matters, she had found that time moved very oddly in the region popularly thought of as hell, so maybe a cameo appearance from Alucard in 1967 wasn’t quite as unlikely as all that.

  As they shrugged into their good winter coats, Brenda was examining a copy of the local rag, The Willing Spirit, which someone had left on a neighbouring banquette. The cover showed colour photographs of Goth visitors swanking about on the prom and in the streets. The banner headline read, ‘Whitby Welcomes Back the Goths’. Brenda wondered whether she had the heart to wear the outfit she had planned for herself. This was the first Goth weekend she had felt like dressing up and joining in, and to her surprise, Effie had promised to do the same thing. But had recent events put them off donning their finery this coming weekend?

  She flipped through the newspaper to find a double-page spread of pictures covering the filming of the remake of Get Thee Inside Me, Satan. There was an interview with the enthusiastic director, Alex Soames (‘Bless him!’ Brenda thought), and glossy glamour shots of the buxom Karla in a variety of famed Whitby locations. She looked every inch the vampish star.

  ‘She really doesn’t seem to have aged at all since we saw her back in 1967.’ Brenda frowned.

  ‘ “Film Location Exclusive,” ’ Effie read, over her shoulder. ‘ “Hollywood comes to Whitby. Great Excitement about Saturday Night Climax: Celebrity Black Mass and Witches’ Sabbat Planned as Culmination of Goth Weekend Extravaganza. See page six for exclusive competition.” ’ She tutted. How common.

  A shiver went through Brenda. ‘So . . . it’s happening again,’ she said. ‘We’re going to have to be there when they shoot the ending of the film for a second time.’

  ‘Who is that old man?’ Effie asked suddenly.

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘There. By the looks of things, Karla’s hooked herself a fella, soon as she’s got here.’

  ‘What?’

  They pored over the photo that appeared under the subheading: ‘Love at last for lonely vamp lady?’ Karla was on the arm of a very pale, skinny old man. He was a smart-looking gentleman, Effie thought. His silver hair was swept back from a high, intelligent brow, and he wore a silk cravat, which was something Effie always liked to see. Karla had picked herself up a bit of class.

  ‘“Who is the Elegant Mystery Man?”’ Effie read aloud.

  Brenda fell silent as she studied the small article intently. Then she crumpled the paper and stuffed it into her bag. ‘I want to examine this in greater detail at home,’ she said gruffly, and led the way out of Cod Almighty.

  Effie followed on, wondering why her friend’s mood had changed so quickly. You never could tell with Brenda. Sometimes even the slightest thing could send her on the turn.

  Turmoil on Her Nerves

  Lisa Turmoil was nice and everything, Penny was sure. But as they sat at the bar in Spector that night, the hairstylist was getting on her nerves.

  The place was swirling with Goths and every surface was shuddering with the deep, pounding bass of the music, which, if Penny was honest with herself, she didn’t like much at all. But Lisa was being so sniffy and skitty about the Goths around her that Penny felt she had to defend the whole Goth thing: the look, the lifestyle, the preference for horrible music.

  Also, Lisa had got on her nerves for criticising her back-combed hair.

  ‘God, you’ll ruin the condition of it. What have you got in it?’

  ‘You have to do it up like this at Goth weekend,’ Penny told her. Lisa herself was looking straighter than straight, in her jeans and a plain white blouse.

  ‘And what’s that dye you put in it?’ Lisa touched Penny’s hair and made her new friend flinch. ‘It’ll all drop out.’

  Penny bit her tongue. She was still grateful that Lisa had managed to bring Brenda and Effie out of their comas. But gratitude only went so far.

  Of course, the worst thing that Lisa was doing was flirting with Michael.

  The manager was swaggering up and down the long bar at Spector, keeping an eye on his staff and making the whole first night of Goth weekend go with a swing. He had come dashing in late, Penny noticed, and taken charge with a slightly manic air of forced compentency and breeziness. After her recent experience of stepping into a position of authority, she knew that wasn’t the best way to get the most out of your staff. The other bar staff were glowering at his back, she noticed. Michael ignored this, and every now and then would spare a few minutes to lean across the bar and chat with his ‘two best girls’, as he’d taken to calling Lisa and Penny.

  I like him, Penny thought, but he’s a bit patronising. And a bit intense, too. He’s never been the same since he started going to see that awful hotel owner on the West Cliff. Mrs Claus. There’s something funny about all that. Anyway, at least tonight he’s in a lighter mood.

  Or so she thought. There was still a lot on Michael’s mind. There was still a lot troubling him.

  ‘Wow,’ Lisa was saying, ‘Maybe you’re, like, psychic, Michael?’

  He nodded solemnly. ‘I’ve been wondering about that.’

  I’ve missed something! Penny thought. She had been sucking her drink up through a curly straw and thinking about the whole Michael situation, and now she had missed what he was confiding to Lisa. ‘What? Why is he psychic?’

  ‘Well,’ Michael said, frowning, ‘it’s just a feeling. But ever since I’ve been living here in Whitby, these past few weeks, I’ve been having . . . not exactly dreams. Or day-dreams, even. I’ve been having weird thoughts and sensations.’


  Lisa smirked. ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘That’s pretty typical of Whitby, I gather,’ said Penny. ‘I should tell you about some of the things Robert’s told me.’

  They looked at her expectantly.

  ‘I meant, some other time. Tell us about you, Michael,’ Penny urged him. ‘What it is you’ve been experiencing . . .’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know really.’ Now he was looking a bit embarrassed for having begun the conversation. ‘I feel like I’m not completely here. Or I’m stretched thin, somehow. I’m living two lives, is how I feel. I’m here . . . and I’m elsewhere, somehow, living another life.’

  ‘Really?’ smiled Lisa, bugging out her eyes with interest. ‘That’s pretty wild.’

  Penny turned to him earnestly. ‘I knew there was something! I could tell you’ve had something on your mind. Something troubling you.’

  Michael shrugged ruefully. ‘I thought I was . . . I don’t know . . . being abducted by aliens or something. I was losing time. I’d wake up and hours would have passed. I thought I was having past life regressions at one point.’

  Lisa became animated. ‘Maybe you are. That happened to my Auntie Linda. She went up on stage with a hypnotist once and he took her back to the time of Queen Victoria. She used to be in music hall back then, it turned out, and she was on the game, too. Anyway, after that she kept slipping back all the time, even when she never meant to. It became like a habit with her.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s that.’ Michael frowned.

  Penny glared resentfully at Lisa. What was she doing, banging on about her Auntie Linda? Michael was obviously worried about something. And he had chosen this moment, in all the noise of Spector, to unburden himself to them. She suddenly wished Lisa wasn’t there.

  Michael sighed deeply and carried on. ‘Ever since I came here . . . Somehow the very atmosphere of this town has dredged up strange feelings I’ve had all my life.’

  ‘Yes, it can do that.’ Lisa nodded. ‘There’s magic here. Devilry, I’d say.’

  ‘I’ve always felt, I suppose, that I belong elsewhere,’ Michael said. ‘But most kids do, don’t they, when they’re growing up?’