by Paul Magrs
It was as if they were mithering and muttering on the walls. Agitating against the musty flock wallpaper.
I didn’t throw up, but waves of nausea were crashing through me, like the sea at high tide, flung up against the rocks of the bay. I needed to lie down.
Woozily I let myself out of the lav. I was ready to dash past the portraits and not listen to them. But he was standing in the corridor, waiting for me. He smiled broadly when he saw me. ‘Are you feeling poorly, Brenda?’
His voice was so rich and thick. It was like that rosemary and honey glaze on the crisp flesh of the lamb. I nodded. ‘I’m not used to drinking.’
‘Really? I had gained the impression that Effie and your good self were gadabouts, running round the town after dark like the Merry Widows of Whitby.’
I bridled at this. ‘We aren’t big drinkers. Not at all. And, besides, we aren’t always out . . . enjoying ourselves.’
‘Ah, yes,’ he said. ‘So I gather. You also get up to some rather unusual business, don’t you?’
He was blocking my way. I wouldn’t be able to get past him without expressly asking. Or squeezing by. I didn’t want to do either. Where were his gentlemanly manners now?
‘Has Effie told you about everything?’ I asked.
‘Not everything,’ he said. ‘Not by any means. Enough, though, to intrigue me.’
‘Yes,’ I said, staring at those emerald eyes. ‘You do seem very intrigued.’
‘Deadly Machines and simian women,’ he said. ‘The descendants of an extra-terrestrial. Cannibal pensioners and eternal Christmases. Ghost-hunts. It’s all very, very fascinating.’
My eyes were fixed on his. I was frozen to the spot.
‘And you, Brenda. What a woman you are.’
‘Am I?’ And now I felt queasy in a wholly new way.
‘I could have spent several lifetimes searching the world for a woman like you. A unique woman like you.’
At first I didn’t get what he was on about. I blinked. I played his sentence back in my head. I still didn’t get it.
He took a step closer. ‘I mean it, Brenda.’ He drew his lips together, luscious, berry red. ‘I’ve never met anyone like you. Never in my long, long, lonely life.’
And that was when the penny dropped. Right there, in that narrow passageway. Under the glare of Effie’s dead aunties. The shock of realisation went straight through my heaving gullet and right into my heart, making that poor, tired organ pound so hard that I was deafened for a good minute and a half.
The next day - drear, drizzly, me with a hangover and severe misgivings - was Jessie’s funeral. I felt terribly alone. Effie couldn’t understand why I kept myself apart. As far as she knew, the dinner party at her place had been a huge success: I had accepted and celebrated her new relationship. So why, today, did I sit apart in the church, all hunched over in my best black coat with a hat pulled over my eyes? Why, on the endless yomp up the hill, my first trip up those hundred and ninety-nine steps, to the church overlooking the town and the bay, did I struggle along on my lonesome? I could feel Effie puzzling and perplexing at my back, as she strolled along on the arm of the man she loved. Why had I gone taciturn again? Why had I only given them a polite nod, a sickly smile?
Truth was, I couldn’t bring myself to be anywhere near that dreadful man. I’d slap his face. I’d end up telling Effie what he’d done. I’d cause an almighty row bang in the middle of poor Jessie’s funeral, and that just wasn’t on. The old devil would deny it, of course. He’d stand there all cool and say, ‘What? Me? Make a pass at her?’ And he’d look me up and down - ironic, disgusted. They all would. No one would believe me, least of all Effie. I’d lose her as a friend because she’d think I was trying to poke a spoke in the wheels of her love.
There weren’t many people at the funeral. I trogged up that hill in the company of hotel guests, chambermaids and Christmas elves. Robert led the way up the sharp, curving incline. At first hardly any words passed between us. I kept remembering how he had taunted me in that nasty café. Needless and cruel. What was it he’d said? How big your ears are, your teeth. Like I was a monster who could gobble him up.
As we rounded the headland, the sea was several hundred metres below our feet. A sheer drop. Crashing and booming. It sounded like applause. A slow handclap to accompany the cortège. Dispiriting, bleak. I reflected that I had managed to spoil my new friendships in Whitby. Already. Usually it took longer.
At the top of the hill the church waited for us. They had driven the body the long way round. A pink Cadillac - of all things - was parked beside the stately hearse. We arrived just in time to watch Mrs Claus being hoisted out of it by her elvish lackeys. She was in a huge white fur coat, trying to look solemn, but nothing - not even a burial - could suppress her crazed jollity. I didn’t want a confrontation with her today. I scooted past, and into the church, hoping she hadn’t noticed me.
What a strange bunch we made, half-filling that small church, coming to pay our respects to Jessie. The vicar was a spindly little man, who licked his lips nervously when he stood in front of the cheap coffin and surveyed us all. I wondered what he was thinking. Even to my eyes, we looked like a bunch of freaks.
He went through his spiel, stammering and coughing, and more people arrived. To my chagrin, Mr Danby and three of his simian assistants, walked in and loped into a back pew. I wanted to shout, ‘He’s to blame! He’s the one who killed Jessie by starting her on those treatments in that diabolical machine!’ But I suppose that’s hardly the sort of thing you can say in church. Even I - godless Brenda - know that much. I glared at Mr Danby, though, across the backs of the pews. His nasty wet too-wide mouth grinned back in reply.
Music was played after the short service: a very small woman at the organ diddled out an unhymnlike tune. As we filed down the aisle, for our appointment at the graveside, Robert was suddenly beside me. Evidently he had seen my bemusement at the music: ‘It’s a liturgical rendition of “Yes, Sir, I Can Boogie”. It was Jessie’s favourite song. She always stood up for it on the holidays we took together. She was a proper seventies disco chick.’
I stared up at him. He was handsome in his black suit, his hair combed out of its usual trendy tangle, talking to me in his normal tone. None of the spitting venom of the other morning. We stepped out into a bracing wind, and struggled through the long grass. Under the low chatter of the others, I was delighted to hear him say, ‘I must apologise for the other morning. I must have been out of my mind. I didn’t mean any of the things I said. I didn’t know what I was on about.’
I nodded, surprised, but before I could speak there was a delay in the proceedings: Mrs Claus’s motorised scooter had broken down on the gravel path. The burial would have to wait until her elves had sorted it out.
‘It was to do with Jessie’s death, I think,’ he went on. ‘And, of course, finding her like that, all frozen. I should never have turned against you, Brenda. I lashed out. I wanted to hurt someone . . .’
‘I can take it. I’m quite resilient, you know.’
‘And I really do think that . . . because of what goes on at the hotel, sometimes my mind isn’t my own. Like the others, I fall under Mrs Claus’s influence . . .’
‘You still believe that?’
He breathed in deeply, his eyes scanning the graveyard. ‘Oh, yes. Up here, away from the tinsel and baubles, I can start to see sense again.’
Then it was time to gather at the grave, to listen and watch Jessie lowered into the black hole. Curious spectacle. Each time I attend a funeral I get nightmares about being buried before my time. Waking up and finding myself buried alive. They are extraordinarily vivid dreams, almost as if it had actually happened to me in some former life. Perhaps it had. Perhaps bits of me had been taken from graves, shaken off, dusted and put to use again. I don’t know. Patchy, as I say, my memory. I don’t really know where I’ve been. All I know is, these parts have been mine longer than they were anyone else’s, and I put them to the best use I
can.
Dreadful thoughts to be having at a graveside.
‘Mrs Claus is inviting everyone back to the Christmas Hotel,’ Robert whispered, ‘for sherry and the funeral baked meats.’
That nearly had me throwing up into poor Jessie’s grave. Last night’s rich food was still weighing heavy inside me. And the very thought of meat at the hotel - after Jessie’s accusations - made me heave. ‘I don’t think so,’ I said. Also, my recent escape from that place was fresh in my mind. If I went in, would I ever get out again? But surely Mrs Claus couldn’t misbehave herself in front of the whole funeral party. Today she looked harmless, sitting by the vicar, respectable, even, blubbing at the passing of a true and trusted employee.
In the daytime here everyone looked respectable. You’d never think there were such things as magic, evil, disaster and danger. In the clear and logical daylight, it was as if only I believed in such things. And yet, when night came to Whitby, it seemed that the whole place went bonkers.
As we dispersed, Robert patted my arm and said he was due to help serve the funeral tea. He kissed me, and hoped to catch up with me later. I had to agree and forgive him. I needed all the friends and help I could get. I wanted to tell him about Effie and her beau, the situation developing there.
I realised then that I was staring rather hard at her and Kristoff. She pulled a funny face at me. She was irked because I’d been so standoffish all morning. Then I heard Kristoff say he was popping into the church to use the loo, which offered us a few moments alone together. I sidled up to her reluctantly as he slipped away.
‘We went to so much effort last night,’ Effie said, affronted, ‘and how do you repay us? Gallumphing out like that! Dragging on your coat and dashing out into the night - and then, today, giving us the silent treatment! Come on, Brenda, what’s your problem? You enjoyed dinner last night. You had a lovely time. You said you accepted our relationship. You said you liked Kristoff. You even toasted us!’
Put that way, her complaints seemed reasonable. In her position, I’d have been cross with me, too. But Effie didn’t know the half of it. She didn’t know what that man of hers was like. She was an innocent. He was preying on her, making passes at me. He was wicked and she would never see it.
If I told her, she would despise me. I knew that much - I know how these things work. She would think I was trying to break them up out of sheer spite.
‘I can’t tell you, Effie,’ I said. ‘Not yet. But . . . I was enjoying myself last night. I was having the most lovely time. I was pleased to see you so happy. I couldn’t have been more delighted for you.’
That arched eyebrow of hers went up. ‘And then?’
‘And then . . . something happened. To change my mind.’
‘What?’ She was really annoyed with me. ‘What happened? I deserve an explanation.’
‘I can’t tell you,’ I said uselessly. I darted away from her. I had made the situation ten times worse. I should have kept my gob shut. I scurried back into the church. I needed the loo, too, to splash some cold water over my scalding face. To sit quietly for a few moments. It was downstairs in the crypt.
And so was Kristoff.
As I stared at my dripping face in the bathroom mirror, I realised I had to confront him, in the cold light of day, and ask him, what he had thought he was doing. What had he meant by those cruelly suggestive remarks last night?
I dashed out, hoping to catch him before he returned to Effie.
But he was taking his time. He wasn’t in the gents - I checked - so I scouted out the rest of the crypt. And that was when I found the dark little door at the back. A stone staircase led down into the moist, wormy, earthy blackness, and my feet made quite a lot of noise on the steps. I cried out as I stumbled. I was no good at creeping up on people.
Candles had been lit on an abandoned old altar, and a coffin was laid out, open-topped, satiny plush, all luxurious, in a weirdly obscene parody of the funeral service we had attended above ground. And Kristoff was leaning casually against the altar. He looked mildly annoyed at my sudden entrance.
‘You shouldn’t be down here, Brenda,’ he said, his voice velvety rich.
I felt as if I had been buried alive with him - the thought was almost enough to get me hyperventilating. ‘I won’t be long,’ I snapped. ‘I don’t want to waste too much time on you.’
‘Charming!’
‘All I want to know, Kristoff, is what you thought you were playing at last night?’
‘I was playing at being your gracious host, Brenda, and I thought I was making a good job of it.’
‘You made a pass at me in the hallway! Right under poor Effie’s nose!’
He drew himself up. ‘I’m sure I did nothing of the sort.’
‘You most certainly did!’
‘I’m afraid your fevered imagination has betrayed you, Brenda. You are quite mistaken, my dear. Perhaps that is what you wanted to happen, but nothing could be further from the truth.’
‘Rubbish!’ But my mind was ticking back over those scenes last night. Could I have been mistaken? Could I have made a fool of myself, both then and now? But last night had become a rush of blurred and confusing images already, and I couldn’t be sure of anything. ‘You kept saying you found me fascinating and intriguing,’ I burst out. It sounded pretty pathetic as an accusation, I know.
‘Really, my dear,’ he sighed, ‘I have Effie. Why would I want anything to do with you? Forgive me, but you hardly compare well against Effryggia.’
I blushed crossly. But it was true, I knew. And that, honestly, was what had puzzled me, too. If he had Effie, why was he murmuring sweet nothings to me? I’d put him down as a serial adulterer. The type with no taste or self-control, doing it for kicks.
‘Anyway,’ he went on, ‘I do find you fascinating, Brenda. But not in the way you suspected - or hoped.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Professionally,’ he said. ‘That’s how I’m speaking. I find you fascinating, professionally speaking.’
I knew it! My heart set up a frantic tattoo. He was a doctor, a surgeon, a vivisectionist. One of that coldly calculating breed. That was why I had felt his blazing eyes on me - weighing me up, slicing me apart. Wanting to know what was inside me. How I was put together. I have had that kind of unflattering attention all my life. I am used to those stares.
‘What are you?’ I asked, in a small voice.
He chuckled.
‘And what are you doing, mucking about down here, anyway?’ I asked, aware again of where we were. I felt claustrophobic.
Kristoff spread his hands and laughed. ‘This is my bachelor pad.’
I backed away, stumbled, righted myself and continued backing away.
Kristoff carried on laughing. He didn’t move from his spot by the altar.
‘What do you want of me?’ I gasped, finding myself at the stairs. I’d turn and run at any second. I’d be up in the church in just a few moments. He couldn’t come after me there, could he?
‘What do I want of you?’ He considered. ‘Quite a lot, Brenda. Quite a lot is required of you, dear. But not just yet. The time isn’t right. Soon, though.’
I wasn’t sticking around for more of this.
I should have. I should have got the truth out of him while he was down there, charging his batteries in his bachelor crypt. But I turned abruptly and fled.
Later that afternoon I was turning over thick clods of earth in my garden. I relished the exertion, puffing out steam and working up a sweat. It would be one of my last chances to tend my flower-beds before winter stole in. Of course, I kept well away from the rockery.
I felt a prickling at the back of my neck, straightened, and there was Effie.
‘Do you think I could have an explanation?’ she said.
‘Effie,’ I said, ‘I don’t want to talk about it now.’
‘Yes, you do, madam,’ she said. Then her face softened. ‘Is it because you think I’ve told Kristoff all about you? All your secr
ets and your history?’ She shook her head pityingly. ‘Of course I haven’t, Brenda. What kind of a monster do you think I am?’
I hung my head. ‘I thought the two of you had been giggling about me behind my back.’
‘It’s rather hurtful to hear,’ she said, ‘that you would think that.’
‘Love changes people. You’re so much under his influence.’
‘Rot,’ she said. ‘I’d never betray you, Brenda.’
‘But he knows, Effie! He knows all about me. Where I come from . . . what I am . . .’
‘Not because of me,’ she said. ‘I’ve never said a word.’
I led her indoors and out of the freezing mist that was creeping up the hill into my garden. I would make us spicy tea, and it would be just like before. Before a devilishly handsome man had come into our lives.
‘He keeps saying things to me,’ I said, as we settled at my kitchen table.
‘Things?’
‘About how he’s . . . intrigued by me. Fascinated.’
Effie raised her eyebrow. ‘Really?’
‘It’s very peculiar.’
‘He has some peculiar enthusiasms,’ Effie murmured. I was interested that she wasn’t suspicious or envious. It didn’t occur to her that her boyfriend might have made a pass at me, that he might fancy me. That idea didn’t appear to enter her head at all.
‘And what’s he doing hanging about in the crypt of that church?’ I enquired. ‘He was skulking in there when I went to the lav.’
Effie cradled her mug. ‘He was picking up some of his tools and materials. He’s doing historical research down there. Didn’t he tell you?’
‘He said the crypt was his bachelor pad.’
Effie laughed. ‘I think he just about did live there before he met me. He’s rather obsessed with his work. Tombs and inscriptions and whatnot. Ghoulish, morbid stuff, I call it. I mean, the dead are dead, aren’t they? They don’t need us poking through their business.’ She looked at me. ‘Why? What did you think he was doing down there?’