by Paul Magrs
Effie thinks I’m a marvel - she’s told me so - for the way I’ve kept my youth and vitality. I know she means it must be compensation for being so plain. ‘Rather plain’ is the worst thing I’ve heard Effie say about a woman. She has no compunction about passing comment in public on people’s looks, even within their hearing. She has the blithe air of someone who was beautiful in her youth, and can’t understand how others may be upset by having their appearance remarked on. She’s a subtle thinker, Effie, but she doesn’t understand feelings.
And yet she has never asked about the scars on my face. Perhaps she is too polite. Not being the type to stare into mirrors, I forget they’re there. For whole days at a time I can forget how I look. I enjoy running my fingers along their puckers and gathers, but I try not to do it in company, because people seem to find it disconcerting.
I have always used a lot of makeup. There is something satisfying about piling on layers of paint and grease, knowing that you’re still the same person underneath, even in disguise. I have always found it steadying to know myself exactly.
These were the lines my thoughts were running on, that Monday evening, as I set about my chores. My hands were rough and crabbed with scrubbing and my knees ached from the lino. I had my bath in my claw-footed tub, up in my attic, and I relaxed at last, and found myself dwelling on these selfish and self-absorbed thoughts.
It was Jessie who had put me in this frame of mind, regressing herself and making herself over. She had become a better woman.
That’s what I’ve spent my long, long life doing. Learning to be a better woman.
After I hoisted myself out of the bath, and when I was all cosy in dressing-gown and slippers, with some oily black jazz LP going round and round, crackling away, I allowed myself a little weep. It’s not often I indulge myself like this, believe me. Sometimes it all catches up with me. My life’s been quite harrowing. I’m so grateful that I’ve landed in this safe new harbour.
But sometimes I still have a little cry.
I am alone on this earth. No siblings or children to divert or confuse me. I have only ever been perfectly myself, alone. And that perfect self takes the eyelashes and sticks them on with glue; each black lash long as a spider’s leg. And she washes, combs and fluffs up her various wigs. I have always wanted to blend in, to be one more barely visible woman.
I always imagined I could draw nearer to the world of human beings and believe myself part of it.
Here I am in Whitby. The homely, caring bed-and-breakfast lady with the air of quiet authority. When I first came here I listened to the screaming, wheeling gulls. From the jetty I watched the shot grey silk of the perplexing sea. I could smell the vinegary warmth of the fish and chips that the holiday people on the prom were eating. I might have thrown in the towel right then.
What am I? A freak of supernature. A thing of shreds and patches. I might have killed myself long ago. But I haven’t.
As you may have guessed already, I’m extremely proud of my B-and-B. It cost me an arm and a leg. I’d been saving for years and years. I began with nothing: a few silver coins that I deposited several lifetimes ago, or so it seems. And I went wandering, looking for a place to settle. By the time I found this house, my savings had grown. I had sufficient.
I have three guest rooms, and my own small set of rooms in the attic. This house and Effie’s ancient family pile next door are set on one of the most sloping, perilous streets in our town. Effie is further down the hill and has a ground-floor entrance. My downstairs is a small grocery belonging to an Indian family. Quite handy.
I like being slightly higher up. I love living in the eaves - the old mad woman in her spruce, tidy attic. I have a tiny garden where I grow geraniums, and I can poke my head out of the skylight and get a glimpse of the turbulent sea, the rocks and the abbey.
This is my little queendom. Whole days can pass when I don’t see anyone, and that doesn’t bother me a jot. I’m quite happy entertaining myself and doing my chores.
That Tuesday was one of those distracted, solitary days. I polished, baked and hummed little tunes. And then, in the early afternoon, the phone rang. Guests!
It was a polite young woman, who said she was a researcher on a cable TV show.
‘A TV show?’ I frowned.
‘Yes. I wrote to you, remember? I asked about booking three rooms for our crew at the end of the month.’
Of course. Now I remembered. The TV people at the end of the month. I hadn’t replied to her letter. I’d let it slide. I didn’t want showbiz people poking around in my place. Filming things and asking questions.
‘You see, everywhere seems to be booked up that weekend,’ the researcher girl was going on. ‘It’s one of the big pagan festivals or something, so all the B-and-Bs and hotels in your town are chock-a-block . . .’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘they would be.’
‘So we thought we’d check back with you to see if your place is available.’
I twiddled the phone cord. ‘Oh, go on, then. I suppose I can fit you in. Three rooms, you say?’ Business was business, I reckoned. I needed to make a living.
‘Three rooms,’ she said. ‘There’s the presenter, Eunice, and a girl who does hair and makeup. And Brian, the psychic.’
‘The what?’
‘The psychic. You know the show, don’t you?’
‘I’m afraid I don’t.’
‘We’re on cable. It’s the one where they spend the night in a haunted house and film themselves in infrared getting more and more scared, and trying to call up the spirits of the dead. Manifest Yourself ! it’s called.’
‘What?’ My heart was thudding alarmingly in my chest. ‘You’re not planning on doing . . . a whole lot of unsavoury practices round my house, are you?’
The researcher chuckled. ‘To be honest, I think it’s a lot of nonsense. Brian fakes it half the time when he cracks on he’s possessed. But it’s a popular show. There’s a hunger for this kind of spooky stuff.’
‘I know.’ I nodded. ‘But you didn’t answer. I asked if you were investigating me . . . my house.’
‘Oh, no.’ She laughed. ‘Next door. Some old junk shop that an old dear owns. She called us in.’
‘Effie?’ I exclaimed. ‘She called you in?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said the girl. ‘She was very keen. Quite a fan of Brian the psychic, she is. And she reckons there are some queer old spirits round her place.’
‘I see,’ I said. I wondered why she’d never told me about them as I took down further details in my green leather guest book. I made the researcher girl spell out every name, including the name of the show. Manifest Yourself ! it was called, apparently. ‘With an exclamation mark,’ the girl prompted. ‘It’s important. It puts across the wonderful sense of urgency that Brian and the team conjure up.’
‘Hm,’ I said. ‘I must say I don’t hold with dabbling in this kind of thing. I’ve seen some nasty things happen in my time.’
The girl shrugged this off. ‘Like I say, it’s all faked. It’s only showbiz.’
And then she was gone, having booked the team in for the end of the month. It was still a couple of weeks away. Maybe it was nothing to fret about.
I flung on a housecoat and hurried downstairs to the alleyway. I was going to beard Effie in her den. What was she up to, inviting TV shows and not telling me?
It was dusk. A fine, clinging mist was snaking up the cobbled alley, and when I turned into the sloping main street I saw that it was inching its way in thick scarves and smothering all in its path. I gave an involuntary shiver as I turned to Effie’s front door and rapped on the thick glass.
The shop was dark. Was it closed? I’d lost all sense of time. I peered inside at the battered copper kettles, cracked ceramics and mottled books in tottering stacks. Filthy old place. I wished she’d get shot of it. It should have been a house make-over show she’d invited, not ghost-hunters.
As I thought that word, ‘make-over’, another shudder went through me
, as if someone had walked over my grave.
Effie was out, that much was certain. I’d given her bell a good old ring. There was no way she’d not have heard it. She was out somewhere for definite. Out in the descending fog and the indigo twilight. I don’t know why . . . but that made me a little nervous on her account.
And I was right!
I should trust my instincts after all these years. When my hackles go up, and all the hairs on my back stand on end, it’s a sure sign that something horrible is going on somewhere close.
Poor Effie was having a terrible time just a few streets away, in premises hidden up an alley called Frances’s Passage.
Effie had snuck out to visit the Deadly Boutique. She had gone investigating alone.
It was only much later in the evening that I got to hear about it.
I was dozing in front of my little fire that night when there came all this hullabaloo from the alleyway. Someone was banging at my front door, just about breaking it down. I came to with an almighty jolt and staggered, all befuddled, down the stairs. My dreams had been as lurid and odd as ever and I hadn’t had a chance to wake properly.
I flung open the door on to darkness, and Effie was standing there, pale with shock, her eyes all red. ‘I’m a vain, stupid woman,’ she wailed, and burst into tears. ‘I’ve only just escaped with my life, Brenda!’ Then she fell into my arms. She was only the weight of a sackful of leaves.
Questions could wait. I hoisted her easily up to the attic, where she was soon installed in front of the fire. After some moments I had it blazing again, putting some colour back into those cheeks of hers. Effie slugged back the brandy I gave her and asked for more. I’d never seen her drink so much, and I’d never seen her cry.
Another shudder went through me. Foreboding. A not wholly unpleasant tingle of foreboding.
At last Effie glanced at me and fixed her watery eyes on mine. ‘We must put a stop to them, Brenda,’ she said. ‘They’re up to no good whatsoever.’
I already knew who she was talking about. ‘You daft old mare,’ I cursed her. ‘You went there, didn’t you? By yourself. That’s why you called yourself vain. You went to the Deadly Boutique tonight. For a secret make-over!’
Effie stirred in her armchair. I’d given her the most comfortable seat in the house but I wasn’t sure she deserved it. Sneaking about by herself like that. Investigating things on her own. I thought it was understood by now: we would only investigate these matters together. We needed each other to depend on. We needed back-up.
But then . . . This investigation wasn’t the only thing Effie had planned alone lately. I was reminded, suddenly, of Manifest Yourself ! and how she had arranged to hold a televised seance and ghost-hunt in her house - all without informing me!
What kind of friend was Effie turning out to be?
I could feel my battered old heart steeling itself against her. But then I looked at her pouchy, tear-smudged face and relented. Poor old dear. I think she’d realised she’d bitten off more than she could chew. Next time she’d make sure Brenda was with her. No fear.
‘What happened?’ I asked.
Effie gulped. ‘Oh, Brenda. It was awful.’
For a moment I thought she was going to cry again, but she swallowed it down. She was wearing her best woollen suit and had pinned her favourite brooch to the lapel. This added to the pathos somehow, as if she had wanted to look her best even when she arrived at the Deadly Boutique. ‘What did they do to you, Effie?’ I urged.
‘I didn’t give them the chance to do much at all,’ she said. ‘As you can see, they didn’t have time to make me over and do whatever terrible thing they’d planned. I haven’t suddenly shed twenty-five years, like poor old Jessie, thank goodness.’
‘Start at the beginning,’ I told her.
Effie drank the rest of her second medicinal brandy and considered. ‘I didn’t mean to go there. I hadn’t made an appointment or anything. I just took a little wander down the prom this afternoon, before the sea mist came in, and I thought . . . well, it wouldn’t hurt to have a look at the outside of the place. To check in case there was anything suspicious about it. You have to admit, Brenda, we were both pretty intrigued yesterday afternoon, what with Jessie and all. If you’d been out today, you’d have done the same as me . . .’
I harrumphed. ‘I wouldn’t have got myself into trouble. I’d have had more sense than that, I hope.’
‘There was no escaping it!’ Effie gasped. ‘Really! The things they’re up to! It’s wicked. They won’t rest until - until - every woman in town has had a make-over . . . and been put into the Deadly Machine.’
Effie was jumping ahead of herself again. I glugged us out another shot of the old brandy and found that it soon straightened out the narrative.
Effie told me how she had ventured up the shady, cobbled alleyway - almost unwillingly - as if she was acting under some weird influence. That put me in mind of what Jessie had said: that she had been mesmerised by the boutique’s owner. Drawn away from the straight and narrow of her late-afternoon constitutional, Effie had strayed into Frances’s Passage. On the way, she passed a young woman in a plastic mac. She was pulling the collar up round her ears and her rain hat down over her eyes. She was scooting past Effie as if she didn’t want to be observed quitting the Deadly Boutique.
And there was the establishment. The black and gold enamel paint of its elaborate sign still looked wet and fresh. The front windows displayed nothing but an extravagant spray of tropical flowers. Effie peered through the distorting glass and found herself staring at a livid green caterpillar - a disgusting thing - inching its horrid way inside the dewy whorl of a lily. It was munch-munch-munching through the fleshy hood. ‘I’ve never seen such unnatural-looking blooms,’ Effie told me.
It was while she was thus bent over, peeping into the front bay, that the insinuating voice came over her shoulder: ‘If Madam would like to step this way?’
Effie is susceptible to flattery.
That quiet voice went on: ‘It is quite obvious that Madam takes great care with her appearance. Her grooming is immaculate. She looks splendid. However, there is always something that a humble artist, such as myself, can suggest. If Madam would like to step into my boutique . . .’
Listening to all of this, I was wondering if Effie wasn’t building up her part. Immaculate grooming, indeed. Not that it wasn’t true. But trust Effie to feed herself little compliments while she was still supposed to be traumatised.
She turned to see a dapper, quizzical little man standing in the alleyway, blocking her exit. He had thinning, sandy hair, gold-rimmed glasses and a weak chin. His lips, she said, were very wet. He wore a trimly cut suit and a tailor’s tape measure hung round his neck. He looked harmless.
‘I am Mr Danby.’ He smiled, then bowed, which made Effie feel bizarrely powerful. She felt as if she towered above him. ‘Welcome to my Deadly Boutique.’
‘Why “Deadly”?’ Effie found herself asking, as she allowed herself to be propelled into the dim interior.
‘Oh,’ Mr Danby chuckled, ‘a silly whim of mine. It simply describes the effect of the new look we will give you. You will - as the saying has it - “knock ’em dead”.’
Effie was glancing at her new surroundings. It was certainly elegant and plush, with more of those flowers. The sofas were leopardskin and the walls and floors were carpeted with shaggy black fur. It felt thrillingly decadent. There was, as far as she could tell, none of the usual paraphernalia associated with a beauticians’: no mirrors or sinks, hair-driers or cupboards crammed with powders, paints and unguents.
‘I’m not sure,’ she said, to Mr Danby. ‘I’m not at all sure why I came here. I was intrigued, you see. We met a friend of ours - Jessie - and she’s been a visitor here, at the Deadly Boutique. Your, ehm, treatments, whatever they are, seem to have done her a power of good . . .’
‘Ah.’ Mr Danby was flipping through a book of handwritten notes on the glass-topped counter. ‘Oh, yes. Mrs St
urgeon. I remember. She was one of our very first clients. We did a rather good job on her. I recall being particularly proud of Mrs Jessica Sturgeon.’ He gave an oily laugh - whether at his own cleverness or at poor Jessie’s unfortunate surname Effie couldn’t be sure. ‘I am pleased that Jessie is spreading the word,’ he added. ‘I shall have to arrange a reduction in price for her when she returns tomorrow for her next treatment.’
Effie was surprised. ‘She isn’t finished?’
‘Not quite. She needs a few more sessions so that we can be sure that the work we have begun on her . . . achieves perfection.’ He clasped his tiny, pink hands together and smiled at Effie. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘I think we should stop talking about other people, Ms Jacobs. I think we should concentrate on you. You have seen what we are capable of here. Just imagine what we could make of you . . .’
Effie paused. She was trembling. ‘Did you notice?’ she whispered. ‘He knew my name. He seemed to know all about me. He knew what I hate about my . . . body, and he also knew what I take a secret, foolish pride in. He was an insinuating little toad. And yet as he spoke to me - in these personal, intimate terms - about my nose and my neck, my complexion, my neat little ears, my legs and my . . . my bust, I felt lulled and drifted off . . . into a trance. I was being hypnotised, Brenda! Right there and then in the Deadly Boutique! That slimy little devil was putting me under!’
There were gaps in Effie’s recollection of her bizarre experience at the Deadly Boutique. As she told me the tale, she twisted her face and pulled at her wispy hair with the effort of remembering. Try as she might, she couldn’t fully penetrate the fog in which Mr Danby had ensnared her.