by Paul Magrs
‘Very well,’ said the stranger. ‘Possibly the good gentleman is just evincing a certain patronising caution for your wellbeing. Perhaps he believes that ladies shouldn’t be out and about in the early hours, before the town has come properly to life. Could he, perhaps, be worrying needlessly?’
This was a cue for the night porter. He was gibbering and spitting, but he nodded quickly at the intruder. I couldn’t tell what had got him so worked up, but it seemed he would have agreed to anything. He just wanted us away. He wanted that man out of there.
‘Excellent,’ said the man. ‘Perhaps I should walk out with these two delightful ladies. Perhaps I should offer them my protection and lead them away from this place. There can be no possible objection to that, can there? No?’
The night porter shook his head, dribbling and drooling like an idiot.
There was a magnetism about the stranger. A powerfully intense force of personality. Was it something to fear?
Effie, too, was in a trance. But it wasn’t a fearful one.
‘Let us go, then, ladies,’ said the stranger, ‘and leave this place. I will walk you home and you can tell me what has transpired here this evening. I am sure it is quite a tale.’
The night porter stood by and let the three of us pass.
It was glorious, stepping out on to the prom in the early sunshine. I felt the tepid warmth on my face and breathed deeply. I watched the tall, dark man hook arms with Effie, and lend her his solid support. He flinched a little at the sun, but only for a moment.
‘You haven’t told us your name,’ I heard Effie say, as we walked away from the Christmas Hotel. I followed them, shambling, exhausted. I was a physical and emotional disaster area. I didn’t want any more adventures for a long, long time.
‘Haven’t I introduced myself?’ The suave gent laughed. ‘How remiss of me. My name is Mr Alucard. I’m new in town.’
Chapter Five:
A Fancy Man for Effie
I spent most of the next day asleep, catching up on all the hours I’d been involved in gruesome adventures. When I woke, something like a day and a half later, it was easy to believe that none of the business at the Christmas Hotel had been real.
I felt somewhat shamefaced about the escapade. What had we really accomplished? Effie and I had only just escaped with our lives. We hadn’t been able to save Jessie. We had earned the enmity of Mrs Claus. Robert was still there, at the mercy of his employer.
And my secrets were out. Mrs Claus had revealed she knew a disconcerting amount about me. She had toyed with me. And then I had confessed just about all to Effie. Should I have fobbed her off? I wondered. I’d gone too far in telling her so much. She would wake up, like me, with a pounding head and a confused, horrible impression of our adventures, and would pause at the thought of who and what I claimed to be.
Really? No, surely not. That’s impossible . . . isn’t it?
I stirred myself. I got myself together. I made myself ready to face the world. I examined my post in the kitchen as I ate my breakfast and gathered my wits. A postcard from Lisa Turmoil, making a tentative booking for herself and her fiancé. And another, more cryptic one, with a Scottish postmark, from the Greens: doing well, still on the run, grateful for my help and understanding, the risks I had taken for them.
I tried to phone Robert at the Christmas Hotel, but they wouldn’t connect me. I wasn’t sure whether they knew who I was or not. I didn’t even know if Robert was there. I’d slept all this time . . . They might have done away with him. I might be too late. But he could look after himself, couldn’t he?
I didn’t want to go back there. One escape from that place was enough.
Downstairs in the shop, I tossed a few provisions into a basket. I hadn’t shaken off a persistent, buzzing headache. It was like being a radio, tuned slightly wrongly.
Leena was too bright and smily as she rang up my groceries. ‘We haven’t seen you for a few days,’ she said. ‘We thought you might have been away.’
I shook my head as I packed my shopping bag. ‘I’ve had rather a lot of late nights recently,’ I said.
Leena laughed. ‘You pensioners! You live the life of Riley. Out every night, running about the place!’
I found this a bit irritating, to be honest. Leena is a nice girl, but inclined to be insensitively dim. I mean, it’s not as if I’ve been painting the town red. I tried not to scowl across the counter at her.
‘Look at Effie!’ she said. ‘She was dolled up last night in her finery. I’ve never seen her in an evening gown before. Jewellery. She even had earrings in, and I know she can’t bear them.’
‘Effie?’ I said. ‘Last night?’
‘She came here to give us a twirl, said she was off on a posh night out. She went knocking at your door to give you a twirl, too, but there was no answer.’
I’d still been fast asleep. Trying to knit myself back together, after the terror and upheaval of our narrow escape. How on earth had Effie managed to get out and about last night? And why was she dressed up to the nines?
‘She didn’t tell you, did she?’ said Leena, smugly. ‘She never told you she’s got a new beau.’
‘What?’
Leena giggled. ‘You needn’t look shocked! She isn’t that old. And Effie’s quite a handsome woman. She’s very smart.’
‘She’s got herself a boyfriend?’
‘Well, I think that’s pushing it. But she went out last night with . . . a gentleman caller, I suppose you might call him. Yes, that’s the right phrase. I caught a glimpse of him when he was knocking at her door. He’s very distinguished-looking. Dark and svelte.’
‘Svelte?’ I said. ‘She’s got svelte men taking her out?’
Leena was well and truly tickled by that. I was taking more umbrage than I should have done. I just couldn’t believe that Effie was swanning about the place when I still felt - even now - like absolute hell. Where did the woman get her energy?
I took my shopping upstairs and unpacked it quickly, thumping the tins and packages down rather heavily. Of course I knew who was calling on Effie. I knew who was paying court to her. It had to be him, didn’t it? She had turned his head. Lucky old Effie. She’d be cock-a-hoop, crowing about it for weeks. I thought about the way he had linked arms with her as we ambled down the prom after our escape the other morning. So! Effie had snared him, then. She was a proper siren!
I thought about the Effie I knew, having tea with me at the Walrus and the Carpenter. Explaining, in a hushed tone, how she had never really got the hang of men, never really given them a whirl. And how, now that she was so much older, she was sure that any temptation was behind her. She could see little use for them. It was a sweet, rueful confession she had made that day. Effie was an old-fashioned spinster. She supported herself. She needed no one else. She came from a long line of independent women.
But she had gone to the corner shop last night to give them a twirl. He was taking her dancing, she had told Leena. Effie, dancing about on the arm of a man!
A dark, dapper gent, impossibly handsome.
I was glad when the phone went, and I was glad it was Robert, speaking hastily and quietly, suggesting we meet in town for a coffee. Unfortunately he suggested a rather dingy, greasy place close to the prom - somewhere I would never normally go - then rang off abruptly. There was no time to suggest somewhere more salubrious.
I pulled on my coat, yanked on a headscarf against the November wind, and trotted down the hill into town. There was a biting edge to the air, a proper hint of winter. The seagulls sounded aggrieved as they hopped across the rooftops and soared into the hard enamel blue of the sky. The abbey was looking particularly fine in the sharp, cold light: a jagged silhouette. You could still trace the outlines of its tall windows, and where the missing bits should have been, even though it looked like a mouthful of broken teeth. I suddenly realised that, in all my months here, I hadn’t yet made the pilgrimage up the hill across the bay to visit it, or the church. I hadn’t toiled
up the hundred and ninety-nine steps. I wasn’t sure why. Maybe soon. There was something enticing about the place, and I could do with a good, exhausting walk. I imagined sitting up there, among the worn buttresses and graves, assailed by the winds and staring out to sea, having a lovely epiphany, all to myself.
In the meantime, I descended into the hurly-burly of the town. Everyone was already decorating their windows and shopfronts in readiness for Christmas, still more than a month away. The sight of tinsel and fairylights made me flinch. That hotel had given me an aversion to them that I hoped wasn’t permanent. It was as if its spirit of yuletide tawdriness had crept down the hill like sea mist to infect the town.
Robert was waiting for me in the greasy spoon. It was a poky place and I had to cram myself between the tables, which were full of people smoking. Rough-looking types, Effie would have said.
But it was good to see Robert. He was in his flying jacket again, all windswept and pink-faced. He looked as tired as I felt, though, and smoked a series of cigarettes as we talked.
‘They took Jessie’s body away,’ he told me. ‘The funeral’s next week. It’ll be quiet. Maybe you and Effie . . . ?’
‘We’ll come.’
‘Heart failure, they said. Stress from the machine, the make-overs.’
‘You don’t believe that, though?’
He seemed confused. ‘I don’t know any more. The other day I’d have believed anything, but . . . Mrs Claus is so plausible. She wants to protect us. She means well. We’re her staff . . . and we’re like her extended family. I don’t believe she would really harm us . . .’
I was amazed by his volte-face. ‘That’s not what you were saying the other day, Robert.’
He looked me briefly in the eye. ‘Mrs Claus has explained things to me. All that business about pies and cannibalism, it was ridiculous. How could I ever have believed such a thing?’
‘So you’re going to stay there? At the Christmas Hotel?’
He spread his hands helplessly. ‘Where else can I go? Where else do I belong?’
‘But what about the missing elves? The other day, you were convinced that—’
‘That was the other day, Brenda. Mrs Claus has explained everything to me. These boys come and go. Some are here illegally. They stay for a bit, then drift off. They don’t have any consideration for anyone. I was . . .’ Now he couldn’t catch my eye and stared into his glass cup of frothy coffee. ‘I was quite wrong to suspect Mrs Claus of the worst. She does her best for everyone at the hotel. Those who submit to her care and love, take part in her festivities, they’re safe. They will always have a home. Some people fling that back in her face. They’re so ungrateful. And for a woman with a heart as big as hers, that’s really hurtful.’
‘Robert! I can’t believe I’m hearing you say this.’
‘It’s true, Brenda. My auntie Jessie was an unsatisfied soul. She was never quite happy. I was just lashing out, blaming anyone to hand . . .’
‘Robert,’ I said, determinedly, ‘you know as well as I do that that hotel proprietress is a wicked, conniving slug of a woman. She’s a monster! She’d have done away with us all, if she could have got away with it. And I don’t believe that we’re safe from her, now. She’s demonic, man!’
Robert stared at me levelly. ‘No, Brenda.’ He sighed, and lit another fag. ‘She has explained to me about you, too.’ He shook his head. ‘Who are you to call other people monsters, to talk about who is demon-possessed?’
I was screwing up a paper napkin. I wanted to be out of there. His voice was too loud, even in the café’s genial hullabaloo. ‘What has she told you about me?’
His eyes were searching my face now, incredulous, appalled. It was the kind of unflinching glance I’ve always dreaded, hated and kept away from. I never thought Robert would look at me like that.
‘You must be almost two hundred years old,’ he said.
‘Almost,’ I said quietly.
‘Your hands are so big. One larger than the other.’
I looked down at them, shredding a paper napkin. ‘Two different donors, I suppose.’
‘You walk with a slight limp. One leg is longer than the other?’
I nodded. The left is slender and elegant. A dancer’s leg. The right isn’t at all like that. If I tried to dance, I’d list in endless circles.
‘What big ears you have,’ he said. ‘What big teeth.’
‘Stop it, Robert,’ I burst out. ‘Stop it!’
This wasn’t him speaking. It couldn’t be. It wasn’t like him at all. I hadn’t known Robert long, but I could trust him. He wasn’t cruel. It was her, speaking through him. Mrs Claus. She could control what her elves said and did - I grasped that suddenly, in that dingy caff. The thought was horrifying. I stood up abruptly. ‘I’m going.’
He shrugged, puffing at his cigarette.
I went on: ‘And you can tell your precious Mrs Claus, that I’ll find a way to sort her out. She’s not getting away with this. Ruining people’s natures. Spoiling their lives. Sooner or later I’ll get her.’
Robert rolled his eyes. ‘She’s safe. She’s not scared of anything. Or anyone.’
I picked up my bag and tied on my headscarf. ‘Just pass on the message, Robert. She doesn’t know yet what I’m capable of.’
‘Whatever,’ he said carelessly.
‘I hope . . .’ I looked at him, but yet again he refused to meet my eye ‘. . . I hope that soon you’ll feel a bit more like yourself.’
But as I left that café I felt that the old Robert must have gone. Vanished into the ether with his poor aunt. All that was left was this nasty-mouthed replacement, in thrall to the wicked Mrs Claus.
I walked heavily down our busiest shopping street. I didn’t care who saw the tears rolling down my face. I must have looked very peculiar, with the wind whipping my clothes as I bawled my eyes out.
Just shows. I should never have let myself get attached to someone. I had come here intending to keep myself to myself, to slip through life almost unnoticed. That’s the safest way. Instead, I had opened myself up. I had let myself start to care.
They all let you down, in the end.
Cod Almighty. The following evening. Effie was treating me. No expense spared. I could order the most extravagant thing on the menu, she said. It was my treat. I deserved it after all the recent ructions.
‘You know me,’ I said. ‘My tastes are simple.’
Effie raised an eyebrow, and it stayed up until the waitress had taken our - modest - order. Effie knew I was being a bit short with her. I didn’t mean to sound as I did. What was the point of being in a sulk with everyone? But, try as I might, I couldn’t pull myself out of that mood.
I watched Effie take very thin triangles of bread and butter and nibble at them thoughtfully. ‘I hope you aren’t angry with me for some reason,’ she said.
‘Of course not,’ I said, colouring. ‘I’m just tired. That business at the Christmas Hotel wore me out more than I’d thought. And Robert’s reaction, of course . . .’ I had already told Effie about his weirdness in the greasy café. She was as astonished as I was - or so she said. I knew that, really, she had always thought Robert an untrustworthy type. But that was just prejudice. He was better than that, I knew.
Effie went on: ‘You see,’ she said, ‘sometimes it’s hard to get it right. In a friendship, like we’ve got. When things change or shift slightly . . .’ She thought she was being tactful, angling the conversation round to the way she wanted it. I knew exactly what she was up to. But I wasn’t going to help her out.
‘What’s changed?’ I said. ‘Oh. Here’s our chips.’
When our main courses were set before us, and we were fiddling with vinegar and the squeezy plastic tomato, Effie burst out, ‘I shouldn’t like it to get in the way of our friendship. And spoil things. I wouldn’t like it to be - as they say nowadays - an issue between us.’
I speared several whitebait with my fork. ‘You don’t want what to be an issue?’
I crunched down hard on my first mouthful of fish. Then I stabbed more on to my fork, wielding it like a harpoon. ‘I haven’t got a clue what you’re on about.’
‘Oh,’ she said sharply. Then she caught my eye. ‘Oh, you. You’re teasing me, pretending not to understand. You know exactly what I’m talking about.’
I picked up the fattest chip and dunked it in ketchup. ‘I don’t! Really! You might as well be talking Japanese. Get to the point! Spit it out, woman!’
The waitress was passing. ‘Is everything all right?’
Effie nodded quickly, and waved her away. She leaned closer across the table. ‘I’m talking about my new . . . gentleman friend.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Right. I thought you were.’
‘You see, it’s become rather serious.’
‘Serious?’ I frowned. ‘Really? How long have you known him?’
‘You know perfectly well, Brenda. You were there when I first clapped eyes on him. And you were there when he rescued us from the Christmas Hotel. It’s only been a matter of days, but I feel I have to tell you that things have moved on rather swiftly. Feelings have been running very high indeed.’
‘You make it sound like a fever.’
‘Not for no reason.’
I put so many chips in my mouth that it hurt when I swallowed them. ‘Anyway,’ I said, ‘he didn’t need to rescue us from the Christmas Hotel. And he didn’t really. I would have got us out of there, no bother. Even if he hadn’t turned up. What’s his name, anyway?’
‘Kristoff.’
‘Very exotic.’
‘He is.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘I wish you both every happiness.’ I sounded so stiff! I wanted to shake her. I wanted to scream in her face: Don’t trust him! I’ve got a terrible feeling about this! He gives me the willies - just thinking about him!