by RA Williams
‘Of Eleanor?’
The Belgian nodded.
‘Have I said as much?’
The Belgian shook his head. ‘Ah, you are so very much like him. Neither of you share your thoughts.’
‘While it could be said you wear your heart on your sleeve.’
Gaele guffawed. ‘I have an idea, Monsieur. I suggest we do not bash heads today, ja?’
‘I think it a fine idea if you would cease being so bloody irresponsible.’
The Belgian shrugged. ‘Are we eating?’
Mabel appeared from the pub carrying a portion of plaice and chips. Two pickled onions rolled precariously around the plate.
Mahmoud brightened. ‘I am.’
‘’ello Mssr Gaele.’ She plonked the plate down. ‘You wants some supper, an’ all?’
He eyed the plate. ‘Fish and chips, please.’
Nodding, she then asked Mahmoud, ‘Sauces, darlin’?’
‘Wouldn’t mind vinegar.’
She nodded, pausing before she turned to go.
‘I tried to give your roses a little drink now and again while you was away. I couldn’t get at them planters in the upper windows. Hosepipe ban. We’s desperate for rain.’
‘Not to worry, Mabel. I deadheaded this afternoon and gave them a good soaking. Persian roses are hardy.’
‘Bring me a bottle of champagne,’ Gaele butted in.
‘There’ll be no French bubbly for you. You’re on restriction ’til you settle up,’ said Mabel, casually brushing someone else’s crumbs from the table with her tea towel. ‘I got British bubbly on offer.’
‘What is that, dare I ask?’
‘Pints of Speckled Hen.’ She had a laugh at him.
‘God,’ he sighed.
‘Suit yourself,’ she added, disappearing into the door of the pub.
‘Pint,’ he shouted after her. ‘And fish and chips, if you please.’
Tucking a napkin into his collar, Mahmoud pulled his fish apart with his cutlery. ‘You won’t mind if I tuck in?’
Gaele pinched a chip from his plate. ‘Why must we eat in this midden?’
‘You don’t think it a manure dump when you’re pissed.’
‘There are splendid restaurants and ladies of high breeding to dine with on The Leas.’
‘Nobody asked you to come,’ said Mahmoud.
‘Yes, that is true. But I prefer not to dine alone.’
‘I have been dining alone the last four weeks.’
Cubby’s wife returned with a pint of bitter.
‘Your meal will be ready right soon, Mssr Gaele,’ she said.
‘Thank you, dear lady.’
‘You know what I like about you, Monsieur?’ she asked, wiping her greasy hands on a towel tucked into her apron.
‘What is that, my dear lady?’
‘Absolutely nuffin’.’ Mabel creased up, giving him a swat with her towel as she went.
The Belgian laughed as well.
‘See that?’ said Mahmoud. ‘You won’t get such personal service like that on The Leas.’
Gaele sipped his beer, wiping the foam from his lip with his sleeve. ‘Why do you drink this piss?’
Mahmoud rested his knife and fork on his china plate. Removing the napkin from his collar, he politely dabbed his lips.
‘Because it’s everything I love about England.’
The Belgian didn’t understand.
‘The pints, the fish and chips, mushy peas, onions pickled in vinegar, sitting outside a pub on a wooden bench like this with the fragrance of roses in the air on a delightful late-summer evening. This is what it is to be in Kent. This is what it is to be British.’
A pair of local scruffs staggered from the pub, rolled shags dangling from their mouths. One took a last drag before tossing it to the kerb.
‘Come along, you beer-sodden bag of shite,’ one said to the other.
‘That is too often what it is to be British,’ Gaele countered, giving the lads a look over his shoulder. ‘Oiks, the pair of them.’
‘And bless them an’ all, for they are indeed part of the Britain I so love.’
Mabel appeared with Gaele’s fish and chips, handing a bottle of vinegar to Mahmoud. He gave her a smile of thanks as she left, dousing the opened batter with vinegar before returning to his meal.
Gaele prodded his own. ‘I suspect there is a fish in here somewhere?’
‘So then,’ Mahmoud continued. ‘Tell me of your visit to Paris. What did you find?’
‘Nothing. There is nil Crimen activity in the hollow there.’
‘Good. Best we have a look in on the London hollow soonish. Expect it to be the same, but could do with a check.’
Gaele shook his head as he ate.
‘I stopped in at Highgate Cemetery a month ago. All quiet there as well.’
‘And the other matter?’
‘I met Commodore Wimbourne’s colleague in the French military. He claims France is well prepared for the Germans, should they come.’
‘When they come.’
‘Ja. When they come. The French have built a series of casemates and bunkers along their eastern border with Germany. They call it the Maginot Line. They say it is impossible for the Boche to breach it.’
‘And what do you think?’
‘I think it is not so different from those redoubts that the British you love so much built on the Western Heights: fixed defences. An obsolete form of warfare.’
‘I don’t know if having an association with the commodore is wise,’ Mahmoud said, finishing up his plate. ‘It complicates matters.’
‘At this moment, perhaps. But a year from now?’ The Belgian continued poking about in his batter, looking for a fish.
‘Are there not military intelligence chaps for this sort of thing?’
‘Is that not the whole point of military intelligence? To avoid letting your adversaries know you are preparing for them?’
Mahmoud had a think.
‘What concerns me is the idea of the commodore and, worse still, those he serves, connecting the dots leading to us.’
‘Which is why I involve myself,’ Gaele continued. ‘I am expendable, am I not?’
‘What you fail to realise is that all of us are expendable.’
‘But I am an inconsequential Belgian civilian with a special gift for smuggling people to and from the Continent without attracting attention.’
‘France is not our adversary.’
‘Indeed not. But they drink wine and eat cheese while our mutual enemies grow stronger.’
‘You think Germany will knock right through them, don’t you?’ Mahmoud asked, crossing the knife and fork on his now empty plate.
‘I don’t think this, I know it. The question is: will they stop at the English Channel?’
‘That is a good question.’
‘Perhaps the commodore can be found useful to us, ja?’ Gaele asked.
‘Perhaps,’ the Persian conceded. ‘Perhaps.’
‘Even I admit to being uncomfortable with his bunker so close to our passages,’ said Gaele.
‘It’s been sorted.’
‘Sorted?’
‘Eleanor.’
‘Ah, I told you. I told you.’ The Belgian smiled.
‘She is more resourceful than even I could guess.’
‘I like this woman. She is arrestingly open.’
Gaele pushed aside his plate, offering Mahmoud a cigarette before lighting his own.
‘There is something I find curious, though.’
Mahmoud shrugged a reply.
‘This morning in the hollow. Just after you asked for your tennis ball to be returned, Eleanor said…’
‘“I got the message”.’
‘Ja. What message were you sending? If you really wanted to keep Eleanor far from Balthasar, why offer up such a plum clue?’
‘For the same reason you did.’
Gaele leaned back on the bench and stared at him. ‘Do you think he has told her?’
‘I don’t know.’ Mahmoud took a drag from his cigarette.
‘What if she were to do as he wishes?’
‘She might get herself buggered.’
There was no hint of remorse from Mahmoud.
‘You realise Elle is no simple buck-toothed girl from Luxembourg,’ said Gaele, but then did not continue.
‘Ask me,’ said the Persian. ‘Ask me.’
The Belgian sighed, giving him a hard stare.
‘Ask me,’ he said yet again, wanting so, so much to answer.
Gaele finally continued, ‘We must consider her refusing him.’
Mahmoud exhaled, watching his cigarette smoke mingle with the Belgian’s as it drifted into the diamond-clear evening sky.
‘She might get herself buggered,’ he said again, with just a hint of satisfaction.
❖❖❖
Elle dropped the candle.
Its hot wax spilled out onto the hard-packed earthen floor, snuffing out the flame. Fumbling for the remaining candle still burning on the ledge, she squinted through the flickering shadows, picking out Balthasar’s silhouette at the deep end of the void. In his arms, he held the wilted remains of Emiliana. Tenderly resting her in the sarcophagus, he pulled her mouldy cassock over her.
If Elle had not witnessed the aberration, she would not have believed it. Despite the warning, she wasn’t prepared for what had just happened, let alone what she had done.
When Balthasar dislodged the spike, the Jungfräu – reconstituted as it was – released from the corpse’s heart. No sooner was it out than the entombed remains lurched upright. Eyes encrusted with centuries of dross cracked open, as gnarled hands took hold of the edges of the sarcophagus, brittle forelimbs balancing. Balthasar retreated, small stones on the floor crunching underfoot. Alerted, the fiend turned, a grimace cracking the petrified skin about its lips.
‘Balthasar,’ it croaked.
‘Christ,’ Elle muttered. Neither of them heard her, their eyes remaining fixed on one another.
‘Emiliana,’ he said, his voice wavering.
At the mention of its name, the fiend became self-aware. Looking downwards upon itself caused the mouldy wimple to fall from its dander-encrusted hair, exposing bare bone beneath.
‘What hast thou done?’ it rasped forlornly.
Balthasar remained still.
‘I hear the banshee,’ it uttered, struggling to climb from within the sarcophagus. ‘Her suffering eternal.’ It stood, atrophied tissue creaking. ‘Thou brought upon me this curse.’
‘Emiliana,’ he repeated. ‘Do not.’
‘Thou defiled me. Turned me. I am Guilty.’
Elle’s eyes darted from the beast to him, awaiting a response. Some reaction, at the least. But there was none.
Then Emiliana attacked.
Knocked hard against the wall, Balthasar lost his grip on the spike. It disappeared in a cloud of dust kicked up in the tussle.
‘Thou does love me not,’ Emiliana protested hoarsely. ‘Balthasar, you love Siobhan.’
Taking hold of its emaciated arms, he attempted to fend it off. Such a bag of old bones could not have been strong, but it pushed him back, talon-like fingernails slashing his cheeks. Wheezing at the sight of the blood spouting from his wounds, Emiliana pounced, sucking furiously from his split flesh. A grotesque kiss.
Fissured skin instantly puckered and bubbled, Balthasar’s blood reviving the fiend, causing its anaemic moans to become wretched screeches as its erupting flesh plumped and grew smooth. Rising robustly, Emiliana appeared suddenly less bestial, face feminine, lovely even. But from its delicate mouth came an unholy hiss. Spiny canines pierced swollen gums, discharging a greasy ichor.
Still Balthasar refused to restrain Emiliana.
Elle saw something glint at the very edge of her candlelight: the spike. As she reached towards it, Balthasar sharply warned, ‘Don’t touch it.’
The fiend turned, jaundiced eyes locking onto her. A frightful squawk filled Elle’s ears, like gulls in distress.
‘Thou shalt have him not,’ Emiliana shrieked as it attacked.
Elle dithered. It proved to be a costly mistake. The fiend knocked her aside with a single swipe. Elle’s cracked ribs protested as she was slammed against the wall. Slumping to the floor and unable to breathe, she watched the fiend turn on Balthasar again. There came a frenzy of strikes. His shirt was torn and flesh slashed, blood flowing from it. Emiliana drew close, face gurning as it fed on him.
At that moment, the spike pierced Emiliana’s back, just to the left of its stickleback spine and right of the scapula. As its tip embedded itself in Emiliana’s heart, the fiend went rigid, arms flailing as it hopelessly tried to twist round to pull the spike out. A melancholy howl filled the void as Elle shoved it ever deeper; her bare hands weltered with putrid discharge foaming from the wound. Throwing Emiliana to the floor, Elle watched the fiend convulse in a mad seizure, arms and legs beating against the earth, sending the gold fillet in its hair flying, slime spewing from Emiliana’s mouth as it soured.
‘Get away from her,’ Balthasar spat, voice filled with rage. His powerful hands took hold of Elle, roughly casting her aside. Emiliana withered. Festering boils appeared and began to suppurate as it dragged itself towards Balthasar, leaving a trail of sick behind. Hands outstretched, the suffering fiend cried out. Taking one of Emiliana’s withering hands in his, Balthasar witnessed its end silently. Cruor-filled tears streamed down Emiliana’s face as it waned, choking out words, lost in its atrophying face.
A final twitch and Emiliana perished. Again.
Bundling the remains in his arms, Balthasar slowly returned Emiliana to the sarcophagus. Lifting the gold fillet from the earthen floor, he tucked it gently into a lock of its brittle hair.
It was all Elle could do to keep the bile from rising in her throat, such was the vulgarity of what she had just witnessed. Despite being cast aside with such malevolence as to knock the breath from her, she felt something else. Something shameful.
She felt arousal.
Balthasar stood, turning to her.
‘What have you done?’
‘What? What is it?’ she asked.
‘You grasped Jungfräu with your bare hands.’
She sat in the armchair by the window, staring at him. Although his face was shadowed by the moon outside, she saw enough in it to know he struggled with a sorrow greater than the sad remains of St Emiliana. Stifled as he might be, the rigidity of his lips revealed how broken he was.
She looked at her hands. She had washed and scrubbed them until they were raw. Rubbing her thumbs and index fingers together, she thought about what Jungfräu had done to Emiliana. Perhaps she had just got lucky. But she didn’t believe in luck any more than she believed in coincidences.
‘Emiliana was innocent,’ Balthasar said, breaking his silence. ‘She tried to protect me.’ Hanging his head low, he sat quiet for a little while before saying, ‘And for that, I killed her.
‘After what I’d done to her, I returned to the Western Heights, to the banshee’s vile hollow, praying for an end to my bereavement. I found the ancient crypts of the necropolis still. Siobhan gone.’
He continued gazing out of the window of the house on The Bayle, his face a portrait of tired resignation.
It was clear that Emiliana occupied the place where his mortality once lived.
‘Why do you suppose Siobhan fled?’ Elle asked.
‘I can’t say,’ he replied, his expression ascetic now, any previous vulnerability suddenly vanishing. ‘You cannot imagine what it’s like to understand little more than loathing.’
She didn’t reply; she wondered if he loathed Siobhan, or himself. She opened the leaded windows fronting the street. A gentle breeze brought some relief from the tension in the room. From the direction of the harbour, she heard the distant squawks of seagulls. She wondered if Max and Moritz would visit.
Balthasar recoiled from the sound. ‘That noise disturbs me.’
&nbs
p; She turned from the window.
‘It’s just seagulls, Balthasar,’ she reassured him, sitting again. ‘And you are home.’
‘Home,’ he repeated, leaning back in the old settee, looking about the lounge. ‘From the night I murdered Emiliana seven centuries ago, I lived alone here.’
‘You didn’t murder her. That was Siobhan’s doing.’
‘It’s naïve of you to think there is a difference.’
Lifting his head, he settled his eyes on the humble fireplace, its mantel surrounded by plaster and whimsical wallpaper in spring hues.
‘This house. So cold. Empty. Greying with the years.’
Rising to his feet, he moved away from her.
‘I tried starving myself to death. I didn’t eat nor take drink for months. I became a living skeleton.’
He stopped before the old fireplace, resting a hand upon the cracked wooden mantelpiece.
‘I threw myself from the cliffs. Landed on the rocks below Shakespeare Cliff. Shattered every bone in my body. The Channel waves washed me away. I couldn’t swim, but neither could I drown.’ He turned to her. ‘All good men do die. It is truth. Yet mortal death is not a right for me, Eleanor. You see, I’m the son and the heir of nothing in particular. My existence not worth a tuppence. Not until I came to terms with what I became. What I am.’
‘You are Balthasar Toule?’
‘He died the night I accepted Siobhan’s gift.’
Crossing the lounge, he muttered something about tea, before disappearing down the back hall to the kitchen.
Elle followed him to the kitchen door, through which she heard the clink of china cups and saucers. Gently pushing the swinging door open, she found him standing at the sink, back to her, shirtsleeves rolled back. He turned on the tap. Old plumbing banged before water spat into the sink. A seven-hundred-year-old noble busying himself with domestic chores. The ordinary for a man anything but.
He opened the window above the sink, tossing a couple of butter biscuits onto the sill outside, which were immediately pounced upon by a pair of fat seagulls. Max and Moritz wolfed them down and then looked up at him, cooing.
‘Naughty lads,’ he muttered as the kettle on the Aga began to whistle, frightening them off. He turned to Elle at the door. Caught spying, she took an embarrassed step back.
‘Tea is on,’ he said, removing the kettle from the cooker. An uncomfortable silence followed as the whistle died away.