by Paul Magrs
I was found by the poorest of the poor. They were digging in the black muck of the mudflats for treasure. Kids. Urchins who lived in the warehouses, safe from the prying eyes of the law. It was they who saved me. They dragged my hideous carcass home. Thinking, maybe, they would sell me to the circus, or a freak show. I was certainly a curio. But they nursed me and fed me and they grew attached to me, this wretched gang.
I was their very own monster-woman; a full-grown baby from the infernal depths, and they wouldn’t have parted with me for the world.
I must have been with them for months. I don’t quite remember. My wits had gone. My memory had gone, almost completely. I had no idea where I had been fleeing from. Or whom. If someone had told me I had fled from Alucard, Mu-Mu Manchu and an alien creature made from bamboo, I’d have laughed in their faces.
Instead, I and my rescuers believed that I was a woman from the bowels of the earth. I was a monster forged in hell and spat out by the devil, into London. Those kids loved me for that. I was their talisman and their mascot. Their very own she-beast.
And if Henry Cleavis had died down there, I never knew. I didn’t even know who he was any more, so I could hardly feel guilty or concerned, could I?
I never even thought about that dear, befuddled face of his again until . . . until . . .
Until now.
These past few weeks. When I saw him again, across the dance floor at the Yellow Peril. And he brought my memory back. My memory came back bit by bit. It’s a slow process. I’ve been pulling myself together so carefully, so gradually.
And it’s only now that I’ve remembered the whole story.
That is how it was.
Now I know.
The whole adventure in 1946 has come back very thoroughly to me. The whole lurid and ghastly saga.
This night – the night before Effie returns from hospital – I’m supposed to be going out for a fish supper with Henry. I’ve smartened up and put on my lipstick. But I’m sitting at my kitchen table. And all these memories unwind. Everything from being on the train and looking up at Alucard as he baits Henry. Pursuing Freer through the East End. And winding up underground and being attacked and sucked dry and running for my life and being saved by children. All of it comes back. And how I failed Henry. How I thought he would be dead.
Henry! He’s alive! He saved himself!
And my heart leaps up. Even at this old news. News that’s sixty years old.
My Henry lives!
When I come to my senses, I see by the kitchen clock that I am very late. There’s all this banging at the door downstairs. I dash down and thrust open the door.
In an instant he can see by my face that I’ve had some sort of horrible epiphany. I grasp him to my bosom. ‘You’re alive! You’re alive! You didn’t die! They didn’t kill you!’
Henry is very confused by this at first. But he listens. He tries to soothe me. And gradually he realises what it is I have remembered, and what has put me in this state. He tries to tell me what I need to know. His voice is muffled in my chest.
‘I was quite used to violent muffle mumble scenes like muffle mumble that one. And, of course, I had a mumble muffle muffle about my muffle mumble person, so I whipped it out muffle mumble muffle Mu-Mu in the head. Good enough to muffle mumble facilitate muffle escape. It was mumble mumble who I thought muffle dead, Brenda!’
I don’t manage to take in all the details. Something about making his escape from that deadly underground pleasure palace of Mu-Mu’s. Henry had some kind of ornamental or ceremonial dagger secreted about his person. And he attacked Mu-Mu and caused some unholy fracas to break out. Hurrah! It was the kind of frantic to-do that Cleavis loved to be involved in. He gabbles away some more of the details – boasting, I do believe, about his fighting prowess – but I’m too busy hugging him and swinging him about in my tiny hallway. He’s like a rag doll in my arms. I’m gabbling like mad. I’m trying to explain to him about Alucard attacking me, the coward. Setting the Chinese on to me. Sucking my blood. Leaving me for dead. I want Henry to know that I never abandoned him. That I would never have done anything of the sort.
I stand Henry back on his own feet and he looks up at me. He doesn’t say much. He hardly says anything.
Suddenly I know there is understanding between us. It’s a very gentle, sweet feeling that rushes through me then. I feel very peaceful. It’s astonishing. This is what it feels like, to understand one another. It’s a very quiet thing.
He reaches up to hug me. He pats my broad back and I cry. I am only just absorbing the shock of our adventures, some sixty years on. All that horror is starting to hit me, full force. I sob and ruin my make-up and Henry pats me.
I think what a good man he is.
Chapter Five
Stitched Up
I’m like a burglar, messing about with someone’s desk and their private affairs. Even worse: it’s Effie’s desk, and Effie’s private affairs.
Here goes. I roll the sheet into the ancient typewriter. Clatter, squawk, squawk, the roller goes.
My breath catches in my throat. I hold it there, not daring to exhale, inhale, or anything at all. I’m trying not to knock into anything or to make any kind of noise, even though there’s no one else in this whole tall building.
What am I even doing here? What am I hoping to prove?
What I would really like would be for my suspicions to be wrong. I’d like to prove the very opposite of what I think is going to be the truth.
Quickly, I tap out a long lines of s’s.
SSSSSsssssSSSSSssssSSSS.
And it looks like one long hiss of disappointment. Or suppressed shock. SSSSSSSSsssss. I step back from the clattery machine and I start to breathe again, raggedly, and my heart thumps like crazy.
Oh, surely not. Surely she hasn’t. Surely she couldn’t have. But there’s the proof. The wonky s. Same paper, same typeface as my letter. Same as the others, too, I’m willing to bet. I’m staring at the evidence with my own eyes, and I’m still trying to convince myself otherwise.
Effie is the holder of all the secrets. The taunter of the shamed recipients. She’s the one who’s stirred up all the bother. She’s caused mayhem and tears and even murder. And she had the nerve to shove herself forward as investigator.
Effie is the author of those vile poison pen letters.
And she is my friend!
I know what Effie’s like. She can have a cruel tongue on her at times. She can be snitty and peevish and she’s been known to start fights. She’s hardly ever tactful at all, and people are used to her being rather cutting. But that’s just Effie. That’s how she’s apparently always been.
If pushed, I would say she’s a misanthrope. Borderline depressive, perhaps. Certainly a snob. But can I really picture her, hunched over her desk in the lamplight, at the top of her dilapidated house? Crowing with ribald merriment as she taps out these letters brimming with hatred and bile? Can I imagine her deliberately causing all this upset, all across Whitby?
The very idea makes me shiver.
So what do I do? Do I confront her? I know I have to. I have to know the truth now. But how can I turn on her, and start accusing her, when she’s fresh out of her hospital bed?
Bide your time, Brenda, I tell myself. Gird your loins and grit your teeth.
So here we are.
Effie is coming home and she’s wearing a turban of turquoise silk I bought her in town. I bought it before I tried out her typewriter and confirmed my darkest suspicions. I’m not sure I would bother now but, as it was, I went into the shop that I call the Posh Ladies’ shop. We’ve sometimes had a snoop round there together, in the hushed, sepulchral, luxurious gloom. We’ve marvelled at the garments and their prices. What a snooty bunch they’ve got in there, serving on. When we go in, Effie puts on a voice so lah-di-dah it could leave a scratch on glass. I just blush. I don’t feel I belong in there and I scurry out without buying anything. This time, though, I popped in and chose Effie a turban, as p
romised, to cover up the dressings and to protect her still-sore head.
And so I am there when she comes out of hospital. All the while I keep my thoughts to myself. These furious and mutinous thoughts beat at my brows like an oncoming migraine. Effie and her terrible missives!
Robert and I wheel her carefully out of the main entrance in a chair, towards the taxi. With her rhinestone-encrusted sunglasses and her glamorous headgear, she’s like a film star at Cannes, squinting at the curious world outside.
I must be compassionate, I keep thinking. My poor friend has been through a ghastly ordeal. She has been in a coma. She has been hovering in the netherworld between life and death.
Robert is very good. He is expert at manhandling elderly ladies into the backs of cabs. He keeps up a stream of friendly chatter as we get my friend comfortably installed.
Once we’re all sitting side by side on the plush upholstery, Effie turns to me and says: ‘You’re very quiet, Brenda.’ Robert is getting into the front, and giving the driver Effie’s address. ‘Aren’t you glad to see me?’ Her thin, pale face is set at a quizzical angle. I can’t see her eyes under those black glasses. Inside I am cringing. I stammer my reply and I give myself away immediately. Effie can see that there is something wrong.
‘Of course I’m glad you’re out and you’re better again,’ I say, sounding nervously insincere, even to my own ears.
Effie squinches up her mouth and starts bragging. ‘It was touch and go, the doctors said. Apparently they are all amazed by me. I am some sort of medical miracle. Fancy that! Me!’
We fall quiet. An awkward quiet, I think. The taxi shunts through the town traffic, all the winding way down the hill to the harbour. Effie takes huge lungfuls of sea air, as if she has been away for months. Then she is tense and keeps glancing at me. I know she wants us to be alone. She wants to quiz me.
And I want to quiz her, too, don’t I?
As we get into the thick of town and we can hear the gulls screeching over the harbour mouth, we pull close to our little row of houses. And now I lean across and tell Effie what it is I have decided to do. I tell her in a voice that will brook no dissent: ‘You are not seeing to yourself. You will need some help about the place. For a few days, at least. I’m going to help. I’m moving into your place for a couple of nights.’
Effie glares at me for a moment, and then relents. She shrugs. ‘Whatever you like, Brenda,’ she says. Then she adds, more quietly, ‘I’m very grateful.’
I’m taking over a bundle of bedding and all the things I’ll need for a few nights away from my home. I’m starting to wish I’d never offered to stay now. And I really hope my allergies don’t flare up while I’m there. Effie’s place can be dusty and – I have to say – quite grimy. It’s strange to me, how someone so proper and fussy can live the way she does.
What a dreary house it is! Crammed with all the leftover tat from her witchy forebears. It’s quite a struggle, with all my pillows and continental quilt, to get through the rooms to the upper floor. En route I knock over a couple of what I’m sure Effie will claim were very dear knick-knacks.
She watches me as I make up a bed for myself in the small room next to hers. She’s gone quiet, now that we are alone. Shy, almost.
As I’m stretching out sheets and acting so breezy, I’m wondering what it’s going to be like, sharing each other’s company like this. I’m feeling awkward around her, and not just because my man friend shot her in the head.
I finish up and resist the temptation to have a good go round with the Hoover and the furniture polish. I settle us both in her meagre kitchen and brew us up a pot of tea.
‘At least,’ Effie says thoughtfully, stirring her cup, ‘while you’re staying here, you won’t be bothered by your . . . nocturnal visitors.’
I just boggle at this. I hadn’t even thought of that. And, while the truth of what she’s saying sinks in, I’m also stung by the suggestion. That I’m here out of self-interest. How dare she!
‘The thought hadn’t crossed my mind,’ I say stiffly. ‘Like I say, I’m here to help you manage.’ Then I distract us both, telling her I thought I’d make my famous lamb stew for dinner, with lots of fresh rosemary and thyme and peppery dumplings. Effie nods her bright blue turban dazedly, as if she’s not at all bothered.
‘Sounds very nice,’ she says. ‘Are your hauntings still as bad?’
‘I suppose so,’ I say.
‘You should get them looked into. Like I did last year. Get an exorcist, or a cable TV show or something. Professionals.’
‘No thanks,’ I tell her, with a tight smile, and gollop down the last of my spicy tea, which makes my eyes smart.
‘And what about your other haunting? Your other visitor, eh? Are you seeing much of him?’
Of course she means Henry. But I don’t want a row with her. I certainly don’t want her to make me choose sides. And I could imagine Effie doing just that. ‘It’s either him or me, Brenda. You can’t have us both in your life. You should choose either your dearest friend, or the horrible old man who shot her.’ It would be impossible.
‘Speaking of Henry,’ I suddenly start. ‘He met Mu-Mu! We both did, in a manner of speaking. Ages ago. 1946. My memory has started to come back.’
‘Who?’ says Effie tetchily.
‘Mu-Mu! Sheila’s husband. We were both in the clutches of Mu-Mu in Limehouse!’
‘Oh yes?’ Effie smiles sweetly and sceptically.
‘But it’s true. I remember most of it now. We were trapped down there and there was all sorts going on. It all came back when Henry stirred up my memories, and put me in a trance . . .’
Effie sits up in alarm. ‘What? He did what?’
‘He hypnotised me, to unearth my—’
‘You fool, Brenda! How could you trust him? How could you let him tamper with your mind?’
‘I’m sure there was nothing untoward—’ But now I’m stammering and sounding foolish and I’m floundering helplessly beneath Effie’s withering gaze.
‘He is a man on some kind of mission, is Cleavis,’ Effie says. ‘He’ll stop at nothing – hypnotism, brainwashing, murder – in order to get what he wants.’
‘Surely not . . .’
Effie snorts and tosses her head. Suddenly she looks very dignified and beautiful. And I am beneath contempt. I sigh.
‘All that hogwash about Mu-Mu,’ she snaps. ‘Can’t you see, Brenda? It’s probably all made up, by him. It’s all my eye and Peggy Martin!’
I’m not sure who Peggy Martin is. Then I realise it’s some weird, idiomatic phrase of Effie’s. I hate her now. I get this pent-up force of irksomeness rearing up in me and I have to have a go back at her. ‘It was all real, Effie. Real as you and me sitting here talking. We had the most glorious adventure in Limehouse in the forties. And I’ll tell you something else for nothing, missus. Your fancy man was there. Kristoff Alucard. And it wasn’t very pretty. You wouldn’t be half so keen on him if you’d seen the things he was up to. He was depraved and wicked. He attacked me! He drained me dry!’
Effie stiffens in her chair. Now she looks furious. ‘Brenda,’ she warns.
‘He abandoned me and, now I think on, it was down to him that Henry and I were separated for all those years! Your precious feller ruined my life, in effect! And here he was last year, flaunting and sashaying about, cracking on that he had mended his ways. Being all nice to me. All sweet-talking to you. And he must have known that my memory was gone. That I couldn’t remember the blood-curdling things he had done to me . . .’
Well. I must have gone rather shrill and hysterical. Effie feels she has to lean across and slap my face. She’s got very dainty hands but by jingo it stings. I shut up.
‘You asked for that, Brenda. Bad-mouthing Kristoff. He repented of his past sins. You’ve no right to drag them up now. Not when he’s not here to answer you.’
‘Ha!’ I bark. ‘He’s in hell! That’s where he is! You make it sound like he’s gone on a cruise to the Maldives or
something! He’s in hell, Effie, and I hope they’re making him pay down there.’
Effie grinds her teeth. ‘I think, some day, we’ll all have to make a visit there, won’t we? And we’ll all have to pay, eh, Brenda?’
Stand-off. We’re glaring at each other across her mucky kitchen table. There’s a deadly pause. Then the invalided Effie sags back in her chair.
‘Oh, dear. It’s made me feel faint, all this gnashing of teeth. I’m going for a nap. The doctors told me not to upset myself. And you’ve got me all worked up, Brenda.’
Instantly I’m shamefaced. Fancy us, fighting over men. It’s ridiculous. ‘I’m sorry, Effie,’ I mumble.
‘Never mind, my dear,’ she says weakly, and then I have to help her to her room. She weighs nothing in my hefty arms. I install her in her bed and promise to wake her for dinner. Then I dash out of the place to buy the makings of my stew.
My dinner is a huge success. Even if I say so myself. And I have to say so myself, because Effie won’t. She doesn’t pass comment on anything. Not even what a relief it is, eating proper food again. My gorgeous lamb and dumplings, all herby and melt-in-your-mouth. Here’s this old dame, she’s been on a saline drip for days on end. She’s been wasting away, turning stringy and thin, and that can’t have been much fun. Can’t she summon up a bit more enthusiasm for all my delicious, steaming, molten veg, dolloped with piquant mint jelly?
But no. Face like a slapped bum all the way through. We finish up with jam roly-poly and custard – all hand-done. Not a smile cracks her mush. We sip Madeira out of little crystal glasses I found in one of her many armoires. Still she keeps quiet and she’s studying me, I feel, across the lavish dinner service.
‘All right, lady,’ she says at last. ‘Out with it.’
I’m flabbergasted. I’m siding up as she says it, and I have to set the dishes down in astonishment. ‘What?’
‘Something’s on your mind. Under all your helpfulness, your concern and your care and attention, there’s something preying on you, Brenda. Something to do with me. You’re furious with me, aren’t you?’