[Brenda & Effie 04] - Hell's Belles

by Paul Magrs

  ‘Oh.’ Effie looked uncomfortable as she realised what Brenda meant. But it must be pretty useful, having spare disembodied hands and things about the place. Perhaps that was how Brenda kept up with all her housework so brilliantly. That was why her guest house was so clean. She set the surplus bits of herself to work as she went out on beanos like this. But wouldn’t that frighten the guests? To come in and witness, say, a severed hand flitting about the picture rails with a feather duster? Effie found that she couldn’t ask Brenda any more about this. It didn’t seem like polite chitchat to her. She had been brought up to believe that occasions like these demanded nothing more than the smallest of small talk. ‘Well, you look marvellous, ducky,’ she told Brenda.

  ‘Cheers, lovey.’ Though Brenda couldn’t help wishing she’d cottoned on to this craze for fascinators herself. Quite a few women around the Christmas Hotel were sporting them that night. Ah, I’d probably be useless at getting one to stay put, she thought.

  ‘Oh, here are the girls!’ Effie said, nudging Brenda in the corset, which she couldn’t feel.

  ‘Look at you two!’ gasped Penny. She had all sorts of interesting woollen attachments coming out of her hair. She was dressed mostly in PVC and she stood about a foot taller than usual on the most impractical shoes Effie had ever seen. Standing in her shadow, Lisa looked fairly conservatively dressed. Until Effie saw that she’d had some movie magic make-up applied to her, in the form of a fake gash in her throat, and the handle of a pair of scissors sticking out of her neck.

  ‘Oooh!’ gasped Brenda.

  ‘That makes my blood run cold.’ Effie shuddered.

  ‘Great, isn’t it?’ Lisa grinned. ‘My friend Nigel from the crew does all their gory effects. I look like a hairdresser gone crazy, don’t I!’

  Brenda led them to the cocktail bar, where some of the older Goths glanced at the girls with great interest.

  ‘I do wish Robert was here,’ Brenda said.

  ‘Oh, so do I,’ said Penny. ‘He told me all about Goth weekend and what it was going to be like. I was looking forward to seeing what he’d come as.’

  Lisa tried to cheer them. ‘At least you’ve got us, Brenda.’

  Brenda laughed. ‘Yes! The young people!’

  Effie said, ‘And don’t we all look spectacular, as a gang. But you must be warned, girls. Whenever we come here to the Christmas Hotel, it tends to end in disaster.’

  Penny nodded seriously. ‘I’ve already witnessed that once, if you remember.’

  She glanced around. Brenda knew at once that she was looking for her other friend, who the two girls had arrived with. Michael, the young man Penny had been seeing something of recently, apparently. Brenda and Effie had caught no more than the merest glimpse of him as he came striding into the hotel foyer in a severe black suit, beautifully cut, and a pitch-dark silk shirt. He had waltzed off straight to the loo.

  ‘Your friend Michael’s been gone a while, lovey,’ Brenda told Penny. ‘Is he all right? I was rather keen on meeting him.’

  Penny frowned. She didn’t know what was going on with Michael. He was still in a very funny mood.

  Mirror Mirror

  In the gents, Michael was leaning over one of the basins. He was studying his reflection.

  ‘Come on, come on. Get a grip . . .’

  Tonight it was as if he hardly knew his own face. He was in a suit for once, looking quite different. Elegant. Everything about him felt different.

  As he gazed at his own face, he had a sudden flash of Robert’s face, overlaid, looking back at him. Beseeching.

  ‘You’ve got to help us,’ Robert was calling to him. ‘They’re going to cut us up! He’ll cut us up into pieces!’

  Michael turned the cold tap on full and splashed himself with freezing water. Trying to get some sense back. He didn’t even know Robert. How could he hallucinate him like this? So perfectly? What was going on?

  He wadded up paper towels and dried himself, shuddering. Struggling to regain control of himself. He had passed a hellish twenty-four hours. He had been plagued by demons. It felt like something was readying itself inside of him. Some vile thing. Preparing to break out of his body.

  When he felt a bit calmer, he checked his reflection again. He looked normal. No other faces lurking there, beneath his own. But he looked pale and blotchy. Terrible.

  He returned to the hotel foyer. He caught up with the others at the bar.

  Penny made hurried introductions and he tried to smile and say nice things about Brenda and Effie’s outfits. But everyone could see his mind was elsewhere. Penny leaned in and hissed, ‘Look, are you all right?’

  Effie shoved her nose in. ‘I don’t think he is right at all, Penny.’ Then she looked over her shoulder at Brenda, mouthing: ‘Drugs – or worse!’

  Brenda squinched closer (cursing her corselette as she did so). ‘What is it, Michael?’

  Penny said, ‘He says he keeps having these odd episodes . . .’

  Brenda put her hands to his face. He was burning up. His tangled black hair was wet with sweat and cold water. He looked up into her eyes, and what she saw there made Brenda gasp.

  Michael looked like a lost soul. He was adrift in some kind of nightmare. He had no idea what was happening to him. Brenda recognised that expression on his face at once. It reminded her of those moments she experienced now and then, in which her elusive memories came back to her. When the pictures and voices in her head became as real as – and then more real than – her present surroundings.

  To her, Michael looked beset by memories he didn’t even recognise as his own.

  Effie pursed her lips worriedly. Was this troubled young man going to put the kibosh on the whole evening’s do? She turned to Penny and Lisa. ‘Perhaps one of you girls should take him home. He shouldn’t be out in a state like this.’

  ‘I will,’ Lisa offered.

  There was no way Penny was letting Lisa tootle off with Michael alone. She said, ‘No, it’s all right. I’ll—’

  Then Michael spoke up for himself, in a suddenly much stronger, more determined tone. ‘I’m okay here. I like it here.’

  Effie pulled a face. ‘You do?’

  Michael smiled at her. It wasn’t a very nice smile. Snide, Brenda would have called it. Like he knew something Effie didn’t. He said to her, ‘You should like it here too, Effryggia.’

  ‘I beg your pardon, young man?’ Effie snapped.

  ‘You should like it here.’ He curled his lip at her.

  Effie frowned heavily. ‘Me in particular? Why me, in particular? I think it’s a dreadful, gaudy place.’

  ‘But someone very close to you . . . someone . . .’ He coughed, and shuddered, and seemed less certain again. Whatever had seized control of him was relenting.

  ‘What’s he talking about, Brenda?’ Effie had lost all patience with the strange young man. ‘Can you make sense of this?’

  Brenda glugged the last of her drink. ‘What is it, lovey? What are you trying to say?’

  Michael stammered and shook. He was back to himself. The weird fit had passed. ‘I don’t know. I knew something then, but it’s gone . . .’

  They were interrupted then by a huge round of applause.

  A crowd was gathering around two figures as they swept through reception, then the bar, and towards the main dining room.

  Karla paraded graciously, resplendent in black, a black veil, a tiny, elegant hat perched on top. At her side was her new gentleman friend in a black velvet frock coat. He looked proud as a strutting peacock, Effie thought.

  ‘The woman herself,’ Brenda murmured as they watched.

  Penny said, ‘Well done on the hair, Lisa.’

  ‘Thanks, Penny.’

  Effie gasped. ‘You did her hair? Up in her suite?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Lisa nodded, looking pretty chuffed with her own handiwork. ‘She’s all right, really, for a movie star. Quite down to earth, actually.’

  ‘You’re big pals with her?’ asked Effie sharply. Sh
e felt like Lisa had been holding back on them a little with this information.

  ‘I wouldn’t say that, exactly.’

  Effie was persistent. ‘But you’re well in with her? Maybe you could get us into her rooms, should we need to steal into them to investigate.’

  ‘Well . . .’ said Lisa, not at all keen.

  Penny was about to comment to Brenda, sotto voce, on Lisa’s obviously protecting her own professional interests, when she turned round and suddenly realised that there was something wrong with the woman. ‘Brenda? What is it? Oh God, now she’s gone funny as well . . .’

  Effie looked up sharply and saw the same thing. Brenda’s face had gone slack. She was staring straight ahead. Right across the room. She hadn’t moved for ages. Ever since the arrival of the queen of Goth weekend. Effie tugged at her velvet sleeve. ‘Brenda? Brenda, snap out of it, ducky!’

  Brenda made a queer choking noise. Then she gasped out: ‘Him! Karla’s man friend.’

  Effie nodded rapidly. What was the matter with her? ‘Yes, yes, like in the paper we saw . . .’

  A funny look came into Brenda’s eyes. Something Effie had hardly seen before. Brenda was misting up. Was she about to blubber for some reason? Surely not. She said: ‘But . . . but . . . seeing him in the flesh like this . . .’

  Effie clutched at her friend. ‘Tell me, Brenda. Tell me what’s wrong!’

  ‘It’s such a shock. It can’t be . . .’ Brenda reeled.

  What could she smell? Under the spices and booze of the Christmas Hotel. She could smell the salty winds off the coast. She could smell the past. The dark and bloody past. She could smell the charnel house. The workshop of filthy creation.

  Suddenly Brenda had a whiff of her own past. Of the earliest things she could remember at all.

  She could smell . . . home.

  A Familiar Settee

  In the event, the evening progressed quite smoothly. As Bloody Banquets went, it was a triumph.

  Brenda’s party took up their table in the far corner of the dining room, well away from the star attraction, Karla and her new man.

  At one point, between courses, Effie suggested they nip out and ransack Karla’s suite. It couldn’t hurt, surely?

  ‘We’d be noticed,’ Brenda said tersely, her thoughts still distant. ‘We can’t do it.’

  What was Effie hoping to find there anyway? But Brenda knew Effie. She relished a surreptitious poke about. She liked to call it investigating, but it was nine-tenths nosing around.

  They were served bloody-red roast beef, bitter dyed-green Yorkshire puddings, purple gravy, black peas. Mrs Brick in the kitchen had really gone to town, but the lurid colours made her food pretty unappetising. Everybody cooed over each Gothic side dish, but mostly they got left.

  Mrs Claus herself made an appearance for the main course, decked out in Gothic black. She waved cheerily at their table. Michael’s spirits seemed to lighten at the sight of her, Penny noticed, and he appeared to expect her to stop by their table – but she didn’t. He looked curiously deflated. He told Penny he had a rotten headache starting up. He really couldn’t eat any more of the multicoloured stodge coming out of the Christmas kitchen.

  Outside, between courses, Michael leaned against the cool stone at the front of the hotel and smoked a blissful cigarette. Glad to be away from all the chattering old ladies. Their intrigues and mysteries. Here he could simply watch the bay and the sea curdling and churning.

  Town was busier than most Friday nights, of course. Over the harbour, the church and the abbey remains were floodlit. Goth visitors were scurrying and swooping about in full vampire drag, enjoying themselves enormously. Over that way the film crew were working hard to rig up the location, ready for Saturday night.

  Michael took another deep pull on his cigarette and noticed something odd on the other side of the road. On the grass, almost hidden in the shadows, was an elegant plush settee.

  Funny thing was, it was familiar to him. He blinked. It was still there.

  An enormous wave of tiredness came over him. Wouldn’t it be lovely to just go and sit on that settee for a moment?

  So he did.

  It felt like it was made for him. The springs rumbled gently as they accepted his weight. The horsehair inside bristled as if the whole thing was alive. Like a steed.

  Suddenly he heard Robert again: You must come to us . . .

  And he had this weird moment when he could remember – not imagine, actually remember – kissing Robert on this very settee. Bracing the slighter man’s weight against him. His tongue touching Robert’s teeth. But he’d never kissed him, had he? That was ridiculous . . .

  Then the settee shifted slightly of its own volition. It bucked a little, as if readying itself. Despite himself, Michael gave a short yelp of shock.

  A few dressed-up passers-by had stopped to watch him, assuming this was some form of typical Goth weekend street theatre. They even clapped as the settee floated upwards into the air. They applauded as if this frankly impossible thing was only to be expected in Whitby on a night like this.

  Michael clung to the arm of the sofa and tried not to scream in terror. It rose as high as the second floor of the Christmas Hotel. From here he could see into all the lit windows – not that he was looking. He was concentrating harder on keeping a grip on his velveteen mount.

  The settee hovered, quivered. It was looking for something. And then Michael knew. It was hunting Robert. It was taking him to find Robert. They were going to rescue him. That was what they were doing.

  And in a flash it became clear to Michael.

  This is who I am.

  I’m the daring young man on the flying settee.

  The Rescue

  In the attic they were whispering again. No one held captive up there knew anything about the festivities several storeys below. This evening was progressing just as all the recent nights had.

  Robert was asking Frank about the man who had visited, claiming to be Frank’s long-gone father. ‘Do you believe him?’

  ‘I have to.’

  ‘I wouldn’t if I was you. Look at his past record.’

  Frank didn’t even want to talk about it. He grunted. ‘I have no choice. He said he’ll help me.’

  ‘Do you really believe that? Look what he did to you before. And to Brenda. It was worse for Brenda.’

  Frank snapped, ‘What do you know about it, anyway?’

  ‘I know plenty,’ Robert shot back. ‘Brenda’s told me all sorts of things about her past. And your past.’

  ‘Frank thinks she ought to keep her gob shut. We should be having secret lives, her and me.’

  Robert sighed. There was no point in the two of them arguing about it. He heard the weight of sadness in Frank’s voice – of decades of sadness – and let the matter drop for now. He tried a different tack.

  ‘Anyway, what makes you so sure it’s really him?’

  ‘It is,’ said Frank. He was lying in the shadows and so it was hard to see his expression. Not that Frank ever gave much away with his face. Just looking at those rough-hewn, inscrutable features made Robert’s feel sore, almost. Frank’s visage was waxy, stiff. As if the nerves and sensitivity had died long ago.

  Robert still wasn’t convinced that the man claiming to be Victor Frankenstein wasn’t someone just having them on. An actor or someone. He said, ‘It’s Goth weekend. Everyone out there is dressed up as something or other.’

  ‘I know it’s him.’

  Robert tried to inject some common sense. ‘Then how is he still alive? When’s he from? When did all this happen?’ He could hear the exasperation in his voice: the pent-up result of days under lock and key. He took a long, deep breath, and it felt like he was drinking in those deep blue shadows. The creamy, lemony light of the moon came drumming down on his tired skull as he tried to think straight. He spoke slowly, mulling it all over. ‘The turn of the eighteenth century, wasn’t it? Mary Shelley published her novel in . . . when? Eighteen eighteen?’


  Frank stirred with interest and irritation. ‘Mary Shelley? Novel? What are you talking about, Robert?’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing for you to fret about. Anyway, your dad shouldn’t be alive. Dad. He’s not your dad.’

  Frank snorted. ‘He’s the closest Frank has. And Brenda has. And I would know him anywhere. And he will help me. Restore me. He’s the only one who can . . .’

  Robert urged him, ‘Just be careful Frank. I don’t believe him.’

  ‘Be careful, he says!’ Robert recoiled at the bitterness in the big man’s voice. ‘What do you care? You’ve always hated Frank. Ever since he came back on the scene. You’d rather Frank had never come back.’

  CRAASSHH!

  There was something outside. High up on the outside of the turret. It was something large and heavy, smashing itself against the slates. The narrow turret shuddered under the sudden impact.

  The elf and the postman had been sleeping on the floor, closer to the sounds of impact. Now they were awake and they were whimpering like dogs. The smashing noise came again and again. Something was battering its way into the tower.

  ‘What the . . . ?’ Robert struggled to stand as the floor bucked beneath him.

  CRAASSHH!

  The noise came twice as loud. Something outside was redoubling its efforts.

  ‘What?’

  Frank hadn’t moved. It was as if he had given himself up gladly to whatever terrible thing was going to happen next.

  What did happen next was completely unexpected. Even by Robert, who had been silently praying for such an intervention.

  The force from outside smashed a sizeable hole straight through the slates, bricks, lath and plaster of the turret. The air filled with noise and ancient dust, but not before Robert saw who it was behind it all.

  Their attic prison was being ram-raided by a flying settee.

  Soon enough, the onslaught was over and the sofa drifted into the garret quite calmly, settling carefully before them on the wooden boards. Everything went very quiet and still for a moment.