by Paul Magrs
‘The meat is marvellous, Brenda. Are you sure you don’t want me to fetch you any?’
‘I’ll stick to my chickpeas and couscous, thank you very much.’
As the night advances, they are all up on their feet. Dancing the night away under the diamante stars. I demur, and Effie and Henry seem to bury the hatchet, getting up to have a bop in the cleared central space of the garden.
There is a dizzying, manic energy to the scene. A fizzing, spitting, highly charged ambience. I can’t quite put my finger on it. I sit here, trying to analyse it, in the shadow of the box hedges, on my creaking wickerwork chair.
And, as I sit there, a warm breeze comes shushing through the bushes. A gently exotic whisper, that seems spiced with the idea of distant lands. The party noise fades away and I hear instead other, less familiar noises. I stiffen and the chair creaks beneath me. The table crackles. It is as if the wickerwork is twisting of its own volition. A great shudder of foreboding goes through me. I don’t understand.
But then the party noise around me surges loudly once more. The breeze drops and those eerie sounds are blocked out by Boney M, I believe it is. Effie is standing beside me, grasping my hand, asking me to come and dance with them, which I do. I get up, laughing, and hook my bag over one arm, passing Effie hers. We join Henry on the dance floor, in the midst of the seething crowd. He is scarlet with effort as he tries to keep up with the dancing. There’s nothing I can do but fling myself into it. There’s nothing like a nice bop for casting out the cobwebs.
The three of us are there until three in the morning.
In the early hours Henry Cleavis and I are stalking through the plush corridors of Sheila Manchu’s hotel. The thick carpet muffles our footsteps and we’re being ever so furtive. It’s like a dream. It’s tinged with that woolly feeling of things being not quite right. These moments are suffused with taboo, somehow.
Henry’s in a red velvet smoking jacket and he’s holding a candle in a little brass holder. I’m in my best frock and I’m clinging on to his arm.
No sign of any other guests in the Hotel Miramar. It must be very, very late. We descend into the basement. Down the black staircase that leads to the Yellow Peril. The late night music has been silenced. The good vibrations have been stilled.
There’s nothing more macabre than a deserted night club, I decide, as we pick our way across the beer-sticky floor.
We find the door to Sheila’s office. Her inner sanctum. This is where Effie and I were brought that night – it seems so long ago now – when Sheila told us all about her poison pen letter. And we as good as promised to get to the bottom of that mystery. Well. We did. There’ll be no more nasty letters, at any rate.
But what are Henry and I doing, poking around in this place, and going through Sheila’s private things? He’s holding the dripping candle over her papers. He’s rifling through drawers and tugging at the filing cabinet. ‘It’s Mu-Mu’s papers we want,’ he says. ‘The papers he stole, all that time ago.’
This has me nodding in agreement. And there’s something I want to tell Henry now . . . something about stolen papers . . . but the thought is gone before I can vocalise it. This is like one of those horrible, treacly nightmares, in which you can’t quite master your own body or even your words.
Now Henry has found the shrine, at the very back of Sheila’s office. He thrusts open the doors to reveal the display of creepy souvenirs within.
It looks even worse in the dark, lit only by candle flame.
‘Good grief.’ Henry coughs, and almost drops his light.
Hidden right at the back, beneath the silken robe, is an extra surprise. The skull of Mu-Mu Manchu itself, glowing an unearthly green. Its sockets flash with malevolent power as the shadows scurry back and forth and a spider, disturbed by the light, plops out of his calm home within the boneless cavity of Mu-Mu’s nose.
‘How revolting,’ Henry comments briefly. And then, steeling his nerve, he thrusts his hand into the shrine. He starts poking about amongst the trinkets and the jewels, and all the leftover bits and pieces of Mu-Mu. What’s he looking for? What is he doing? I grasp his arm involuntarily, as if to stop him. It seems almost blasphemous, this rootling about in Sheila’s holy of holies.
Henry is staring into the blank black sockets of his ancient foe. ‘I beat him at last, Brenda,’ he whispers. ‘Now I can stare him in the eye, and there are no eyes there.’
I sniff sadly. ‘That’s the great thing about longevity, Henry. Like mine – or yours. You get to outlive your enemies. Though Mu-Mu, of course, lasted quite a long time himself.’
‘But he’s gone.’ Henry sighs. ‘He went without ever succeeding in conquering the whole of the western world. Oh, you may chuckle. But he came rather close, on more than one occasion. He had terrible powers. Otherworldly powers we just didn’t understand at the time. Something . . . from beyond . . . a force . . . that he was learning to harness . . .’
Someone has come up behind us. When they speak, suddenly, it makes the two of us jump. Henry’s arms lash out spasmodically, knocking several of the holy relics off the shelves.
‘What are you doing here? Why have you come here?’
It’s Sheila Manchu. Looking stricken and wild in her satin nightdress. She’s all fluffed up with feathers and indignation. Her mascara is smudged by sleep and her hands are hooked like talons, reaching out to rip us to shreds.
‘Run!’ yells Henry Cleavis, and we both try to dodge the widow’s savage onslaught.
As we pelt out of there, and dash back through the sepulchral gloom of the Yellow Peril, the reality of it all is melting away as a deep, throbbing voice comes into my head. It resounds there, as if my own skull was as hollow as that of Mu-Mu Manchu.
‘Freee me, Brenndaa. Now you have a chance of freeing meee again. Last time you failed. I have come again, Brenndaa. You must . . . you will . . . freee meee.’
And some time later, I sit up in bed. Suddenly, shocked.
The voice ebbs away. But I definitely heard it. It was definitely there, communicating with me, as I slept. My heart hammers like mad.
Where am I? I’m sitting up in bed. My bed. It’s my own bed. I’m home. I’m swathed and sweltering in my own sumptuous bedclothes. I’m safe at home. It’s morning. None of these nightmares or messages or whatever they are can touch me now. I’m at home. Safe in this sanctuary of my own. Good.
Then I turn, realising that the mattress is sagging a little more than usual. I turn and see – with a small gasp of horror – that Henry is lying there, curled up beside me, fast asleep and in his vest.
All I can do is get on with my day.
This is a slack time, and there’s no one staying at my B&B, thank goodness. I don’t know what my paying guests would make of my having fancy men staying over through the night. But I’ve new people arriving in the middle of next week, and I have a fair amount of preparation to get under way. Today I’m cleaning down my kitchen and nothing – not even last night’s various adventures – is going to deter me.
So there I am, down in the kitchen, on my hands and knees, scouring the tiled floor. I’m scrubbing away in order to keep my mind from ticking over, too. I don’t want to think too much just yet. I certainly don’t want to start going over last night.
Henry was in my bed! I woke up with him in my bed! In his vest! What did we do? Anything?
There’s nothing I can do to stop the horror of that thought crowding into my mind. I scour and bleach and clean and polish, and still those rumbling, purple clouds come rolling across my horizon. Tempting thoughts. Intriguing thoughts. Horrible thoughts. What did we do? What happened? Why can’t I remember?
Quite some time after I’m up and about, I hear signs of life from upstairs. Henry stomping around my attic bedroom. I try to block out those noises as he clatters and bangs about in the unfamiliar space. He’ll be all headachy and swimmy, just as I am.
And I wonder if he’ll be wondering what happened as well. Or possibly he will r
emember. And I just know I won’t be able to face him or look him in the eye, when . . .
He puts his head round the kitchen door.
‘Er. Hello. I. Um.’
I’ve got my bum in the air. Hardly dignified. I jump up and spill the frothy water across the tiles.
‘Oh. Good morning. Tea, or, er, coffee?’
He looks at me bleakly. ‘No. I’ll go. I. Um.’
‘Yes, all right. I.’
We look at each other. There’s about twenty miles and six decades between us. We stand there, frozen by the sight of each other.
‘Did we?’ I ask.
‘No,’ he says. ‘Um. That is. Um.’
‘I thought we hadn’t.’ I nod, and smile awkwardly. Of course nothing mucky went on. I’d have known. Of course I would have. It’s over twenty-five years since any man’s had his paws on my body. It would come as a right shock if it happened again. And I would know if he’d been anywhere near.
Still we stand there, mortified at the sight of each other. I’m thinking of him lying there in his slightly yellow vest.
‘I’ll go. Um,’ he says, and he is gone.
When I hear the door slam downstairs I dash straight to my phone. Effie answers first ring and she is agog.
‘He’s just left,’ I tell her.
‘What? Oh, Brenda!’ she cries, but I can tell she’s amused.
‘Nothing happened!’ I protest. ‘And the weird thing is . . . I don’t remember anything at all. Last night . . . sort of . . . frizzled away in my memory. One moment we were dancing around together and . . . then . . .’
‘Quite,’ says Effie. ‘I suppose it was those noxious cocktails your chum Robert started bringing us from the Tikki Bar.’
‘Perhaps,’ I say, though it doesn’t feel as if I was particularly drunk. No, this is something else.
‘I’m calling a meeting,’ Effie says briskly. ‘Because I can’t hang about listening to your terrible gossip all morning. I’ve work to do. What about seven tonight at Cod Almighty? My shout.’
It’s not often she offers to pay. I agree hurriedly and she’s off the phone in a flash. Well. Effie’s back to full strength, it seems. There is something all fired-up and zestful in her tone. Her night out seems to have done her a lot of good.
I wish I could say the same about me. I feel strung out and wrung out. My whole battered body feels as though it wants to yawn. No, it’s not quite that. I feel thinned out . . . and hungry, somehow. Hollowed out. I am . . . yearning for something or other. I’m not sure what it is. Oh, dear. Best to blot it all out. And immerse myself in kitchen cleaning. That’s the best way.
I’m just about to start again when the phone gives its shrill ring. I can’t afford to ignore it, in case it’s a booking. But it’s Robert, whispering mysteriously at the front desk at the Miramar.
‘Did you feel it?’ he asks.
‘I’m not sure what you mean.’
‘Last night it was more potent than ever. The air itself seemed thick with it.’
‘I’m not sure,’ I say. ‘I certainly felt something. But all in all, it was a very pleasant evening.’
‘It’s getting stronger, whatever it is,’ says Robert, and he sounds as disturbed as I’ve ever heard him. ‘A kind of . . . voodoo thing . . . in the air.’
‘A voodoo thing?’ I laugh.
‘Voodoo,’ he says firmly. ‘And I don’t like it one bit.’
Effie has never done this to me before.
I sit there in my hat and coat, full of hell. I’m in our specially reserved booth at Cod Almighty, and I’m there with ten minutes to spare. I’m still there forty-five minutes later, in case the poor old thing is running late. But, no. She’s stood me up.
This has never happened before.
What if something’s happened to her?
I make my excuses and shoot home. Raf and Leena from the shop under me are locking up early and leaving. ‘We’re off to Sheila Manchu’s barbecue,’ Leena tells me. She’s all done up in a new sari, all wafty sea green and gauzy.
‘You’re vegetarians!’ I say, but they shrug and bustle off happily.
When I get in, my phone is going. ‘It’s Robert, Brenda. I’m sorry to ring you, but it’s Effie. She’s here at the Miramar again and she’s got a weird fervid glint in her eye.’
‘Fervid?’ I don’t like the sound of that at all. ‘Is Henry there?’
I can feel the frost in Robert’s tone at the mention of my beau. ‘I haven’t noticed him. I think you’d better get up here, Brenda. People are starting to act rather oddly.’
I don’t get a chance to ask him, in what way odd, exactly? Lucky I’m in my glad rags already. I smarm on a bit more lipstick and I lock up again. My blood is thrumming with excitement as I hurry back out, and up the hill towards the Miramar.
When I arrive I find that things are proceeding a little differently from the way they were last night. There is still the same warm, welcoming atmosphere. The same blazing candles and fairy lights. The music is still pounding away, from speakers hidden in the hedges. The griddle is going and the bar is busy but the main difference is that the wickerwork tables and chairs are empty. People aren’t sitting nicely at the new garden furniture and waiting politely for the evening to begin. They are already up, out of their places and in the middle together.
Now, I’ve been English for a long time, and I know that it takes several hours and a good few drinks for the English to abandon their reserve and to actually enjoy themselves. Something, I know, is definitely up.
They aren’t dancing, however. That isn’t why the barbecue guests are thronging in the central area of the beer garden. They seem to be working together, busily, on the dark lawn. I recognise a few faces: the butcher and his wife, the Reverend Mr Small, Raf and Leena. There must be about thirty-odd of them, pitching in and . . . building something.
Is that why they are here? To do some kind of DIY? It seems rather improbable. But here they are. Spread out on the lawn with a whole host of tools and heaps of old wood. Banging and tapping and hammering bits together. The noise is quite fearsome. Clattering and banging in time with the Stones’ ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ – which, in itself, isn’t massively consoling.
No, it isn’t just any old heaps of old wood they are using. These aren’t old planks and bits of furniture from inside, as I first suspected. They are using the wickerwork furniture. They are hammering together the spanking new chairs and tables that Sheila Manchu has only just purchased. Sheila will go crackers! What do they think they’re doing? Mindlessly smashing and splicing together chunks of woven bamboo.
They are building something.
I turn and suddenly I see the rest of the barbecue crowd, amassed by the bar. They are holding up their frothing cocktails, apparently saluting this impromptu DIY. I crane my neck to see my friends.
And there is Effie. She is right in the thick of it, wearing her turban and another exotic dress from her bottomless wardrobe. She looks feverish and golden in the guttering torchlight. I can hear her now, exhorting the DIY people to work faster, faster.
‘Build him! Build him!’ she is hissing at the party guests.
I don’t like the look of this at all.
I veer away from the lot of them, hoping not to be seen, and hurry towards the Hotel Miramar itself. I need to find someone with sense. Robert, or Henry. Surely they can’t have succumbed to all this fervid voodoo mind control nonsense?
At my back, as I scurry away, the rapping and tapping of DIY and the low, chanting murmur of the crowd is starting to drown out the speaker system.
Sheila Manchu is at the indoors bar, looking shaky and mixing herself a very tall glass of gin and tonic. She looks as smudgy and wild as she did the last time I saw her. Her white hair hangs in unruly tatters and, at first, she seems relieved to see me. Which I’m glad about. I’m a bit embarrassed about her finding Henry and me poking about in her holy of holies. She hurriedly pours me a drink of my own.
‘What�
�s going on?’
Sheila gives a very fake laugh. ‘Oh, I think it’s just a bit of fun, really. They’re making something. I don’t know what it is they’re up to . . .’
I glare at her suspiciously. She is trying too hard to seem unconcerned. But they are destroying all her expensive garden furniture out there. She has thrown open her beer garden and her guests are going bonkers. What is the matter with her? I watch her narrowly as she glugs down the gin.
‘Sheila . . .’ I say. ‘They seem possessed. And Effie is out there, behaving very strangely indeed.’
‘Have you asked her why?’
‘I didn’t want to,’ I admit. ‘She has a funny glint in her eye.’
‘Fervid?’ Sheila asks worriedly. ‘Hm. I’ve seen this before.’
From the bar area we can see the picture window in the conservatory. I stare for a bit at the weird scene out there. The party guests are redoubling their efforts, knocking bits of wickerwork together and passing them over for further work, as if there is some grander design they have in mind. As if there is some final shape for their unwieldy jigsaw pieces to take on.
‘What are they making, Sheila? What are they doing?’
Sheila looks stricken. ‘I really don’t know. I think they’ve flipped.’
Now the bigger wickerwork pieces are coming together, bang in the middle of the lawn. Sheila and I drift closer to the window, in order to see. The people out there in the gathering gloom look like ancient Egyptians toiling to put up the pyramids. Or children building up a bonfire . . . piling and piling the wood into a heap . . . or nailing together the pieces for a home-made crucifixion . . .