by Paul Magrs
‘I think we should stop them,’ I say.
‘How?’ Sheila says nervously. ‘It’s got out of hand. They won’t listen to us. I should have known. I should never have bought that . . . that garden furniture.’
I look at her. ‘You know what’s causing this, don’t you?’
Sheila shakes her head mournfully. I grasp her by the feathery sleeves of her satiny frock, and I drag her to the emergency exit. I kick open the door and tug her out into the dark garden, where the noise is rising even more hectically. The records have stopped playing, and it’s the guests making all this manic kerfuffle. I can hear Effie’s voice still screeching: ‘Build him! Build him!’
‘Tell me what’s behind this, Sheila,’ I say warningly. ‘What is it about this garden furniture of yours?’
Sheila whimpers. She’s got the gin bottle tucked under her arm. It slips and crashes on the paving flags. ‘I can’t explain! I can’t tell you!’
‘You better had, lady.’
She stares into my face. Her eyes are swimming with tears. ‘We should destroy the garden furniture. Before it’s too late. He is coming.’
‘What are you talking about?’ I am having to shout now, over the noise of the crowd. They have joined in with the rhythmic, primitive chanting started by Effie: ‘Build him higher! Build him! Build him! Build him up!’
‘He’s coming after me! He wants revenge!’ Sheila is shrieking and attempting to free herself from my grasp. She stumbles on the bottle she’s broken and I can see she has cut herself. She’s desperate to be away. Her dress rips in my grasp.
‘Sheila, what are you on about?’ I bellow, right in her face. I chance my arm. ‘Is it Mu-Mu? Is it Alucard?’
She twists about and shakes her head. ‘Noo! Nooo!’ she cries.
And then, suddenly, all of the banging and hullaballoo of construction abruptly stops.
Something is happening. I let go of Sheila and hurry round the box hedges. I still keep out of sight of that demented crowd. I peer round and they are all gathering about and murmuring at their seemingly completed handiwork.
It is an effigy of something that is not quite a man. They have built it incredibly quickly and accurately. There is something superhuman about what they have accomplished here, and they are suitably pleased with themselves.
I stare at the thing. It has a recognisable, if rudimentary, semi-human shape. Its head is huge and hollow and its thick arms are upraised, stretching out. There are two black holes for its eyes. And it is all made out of twisted, splintered, spliced-together wickerwork.
Effie and the others are clustered about the effigy. They raise their arms in supplication.
How have they managed it? How have a ragbag assortment of Whitby residents managed, in less than an hour or so, to rig up this bamboo monstrosity? The statue has a weird look to it. Its dark, hollow eyes draw me in. Its clumsy hands seem to be reaching out to me.
Sheila totters up behind me on her bleeding heels. A chill silence reigns through her beer garden. She brushes past me. ‘Sheila . . .’ I hiss.
But, like the others, Sheila is beyond sense now. She mutters: ‘Goomba . . .’ in a low voice. She shuffles ahead of me, to be with the others.
‘Sheila!’ I cry out. ‘What did you say?’
‘Woorrrshiiip hiiimmm . . .’ Sheila groans. Then she is lost in the mêlée of her party guests.
The rest of them are taking up her eerie, ecstatic chant. ‘Woorrrshiiip hiiimmm!’
‘Sheila!’ I yell, as she is swallowed up in the crazy, candlelit gloom.
Did she really say the name I thought she said?
Of course she did. I should have known by now. I should have realised. And now there is no doubt, as the beer garden resounds with the mindless cries of the party-goers:
‘Gooommmbaaa! Gooommmbaaa! Woorrrsshiiip Gooommmbaaa! ’
Now they are all swaying. The wax tapers spit tall flames. Shadows dance and flicker across the hulking wooden brute of an effigy.
And I turn and flee.
I’m bustling through the dark spaces of the lobby of the Miramar. Someone catches me up in their arms and I shriek. Of course, my nerves are completely jangled by now. I pummel at the chest of whoever is holding me, but their grip is firm. ‘I think she’s doolally like the rest of them,’ says Henry.
‘Surely not,’ says Robert, steadfast, standing behind me.
I’m so relieved it’s them I could cry. ‘I’m not doolally! I’m okay! It’s me, Brenda!’
‘We know that.’ Henry chuckles. ‘Quickly. We have to get out.’
‘I know!’ I gasp. ‘Have you seen what’s going on out there?’
‘I told you it was all headed somewhere spooky,’ Robert says.
‘They’ve got a big wickerwork effigy . . . and Effie is behaving in the oddest manner . . .’
The noise at our backs from the beer garden is even fiercer still. ‘There’s nothing we can do about them tonight,’ Henry says. ‘I suggest we make our escape before they realise that we haven’t been . . . put under the influence, as it were.’
‘But Effie . . .’
‘She’ll be all right,’ Henry says, though how he can be sure I really don’t know.
And so we make our escape from the Hotel Miramar and the lurid spectacle of pagan rites in its back garden. It’s not even all that late, I realise, as we scurry through town, down the hill towards my place. The three of us catch a few funny looks from people out and about on the streets. We must look wild and white-faced with shock.
Weirdly, one thing I’m pleased about is that Henry and Robert seem to be getting on. They must have settled their differences. This, I realise, as we huff and puff our way to my B&B, is extremely important to me. These are the two men of whom I am fondest in all the world. They are like my little surrogate family of men, and they make me feel very secure – all of these being rather novel feelings for me. I’ve not had much chance to rely on anyone much in the past. But here they are – co-operating – and sort-of rescuing me from the infernal rites at the Miramar. And Robert is talking to Henry, even though Henry shot his Aunty Jessie.
Henry’s got hold of one of my arms and it’s as if he’s frogmarching me home. I feel the pressure of his grip on me and I can’t help but have a flashback to waking up with him in his old vest. Inappropriate just at the moment, I know – but I think all that primal heat and ceremony has got into me just a little.
‘Goomba, Henry!’ I suddenly cry out, in the middle of the street. ‘Did you hear them? They were all chanting “Goomba”!’
Henry is grim-lipped. ‘I did indeed.’
‘Goomba’s the name of the . . . thing that Mu-Mu had hidden away under Limehouse.’
‘Quite,’ says my companion tersely. ‘But I don’t think we should be discussing this out on the street.’
‘Oh,’ I say, ‘of course.’
We’ve reached my house. I fumble in my bag for keys, reflecting that Henry is so much more professional in his investigations than Effie and I are. Professionalism takes some of the fun out of it, I think.
Robert follows us into my dimly lit hallway. ‘Brenda, would you mind putting me up overnight? I don’t want to go back to the Miramar while they’re all acting up like that. God knows what they’ll get up to.’
I’m flicking on lights and thundering up the staircase, leading the way into my palatial home. It’s so good to be in, with the door locked behind us. Safe in my B&B while Whitby goes mad around us. ‘Of course!’ I cry. ‘You must both stay here as my guests. There is no way on earth I’d let you return to that madhouse.’
I bustle them into my kitchen and get the kettle going. I also fetch down the brandy and slosh it into three green glasses. I reckon we’ve all had a shock. I pass the drinks round and heave a deep sigh. We are safe, but I wish Effie was here with us. She would love all this. Escaping and sitting up late to make plans.
‘Who wants an egg sandwich?’ I ask, and they both do, having missed out on the barbe
cue part of this evening.
And so we sit up in the kitchen, eating, talking, drinking and trying to make plans. We go on, making less and less sense, until we are too tired to focus any more. And then I show my boys to their rooms, which are all perfectly made up, of course, and ready for new guests. Robert thanks me profusely, and Henry raises a quizzical eyebrow at the doorway of his room.
I slap him firmly on the back. ‘In you go, lovey.’ And I send him on his way. ‘We’ll talk more at breakfast. Eight o’clock sharp. We’ll get to the bottom of this Goomba business once and for all.’
As I head up to my attic, the air is heady with fried egg sandwiches, brandy, spicy tea, and talk of bamboo deities from beyond time and space.
I sleep pretty well, considering. I’m a bit woozy when I hop out of bed and swing into my usual star jumps and sit-ups. But I remind myself that I have my two impromptu guests to look after. Breakfast to make! Plans to get under way! And I’m excited, even though something terrible is going on just up the hill, and Effie seems to be in danger.
I try her number on the phone, and there’s no answer. A jolt of guilt goes through me. How could we have run away last night, and just left her there?
As I sit in my claw-footed tub in gallons of steam I stew it all over.
And there’s that voice again: ‘Free me, Brenda. You are the one who knows. You must find a way . . . to freeeee meeeeee.’
I shake my head to clear it. Goomba’s voice is calling out to me – to me specifically – just as he did all those years ago in Limehouse, as Henry and I approached the lair of Mu-Mu Manchu. But just as I didn’t understand then, I’m mystified now. How can I free Goomba? And would that be such a good thing anyway, given that he’s got everyone in his thrall and behaving extremely oddly?
I simply have to face the day and see what it brings, that’s all. I’m sure we can get it all sorted. No reason why not.
Porridge and bacon and scrambled eggs. The boys staying with me are bound to have healthy appetites. As I busy about and cook for them, though, they slurp hot sweet tea and bicker about the shooting of Jessie the womanzee. It’s good that they clear the air at last, I suppose.
And there comes all this knocking at my side door.
‘Effie!’ I gasp, dropping the hot frying pan and rushing for the door. She has made it back! My heart leaps in relief and I stumble down the stairs.
‘Where have you been, lady? We thought we were going to have to send for—’ I fumble with locks and bolts and throw open the door. But it isn’t Effie. It’s Sheila Manchu in her tattered night attire, and she looks devastated. ‘You look terrible, woman. You’d better come in.’
So now she is sitting at my kitchen table with a mug of tea. Her nails are all broken, I notice as she curls her fingers round the mug. Her hands are dirty with mud from her garden and they seem to be stuck with splinters of wickerwork.
‘What’s going on at the Miramar?’ Henry asks her gently. He’s got just the right tone for this subtle sort of probing.
She looks at the three of us and her eyes fill with panic. ‘He wants to kill me! He won’t stop until I’m dead! It’s all about me! That’s why he’s here!’ She sploshes her tea on the tablecloth.
‘Start again,’ Robert urges. ‘Who do you mean? Who wants to kill you?’
‘That thing,’ she spits. ‘Says it comes from the dawn of time. From beyond time and space. That’s the one. It’s come after me, it has. It’s bided its time and it’s found me at last. And now it’s here and it’s taking over all our minds . . .’
‘Not ours,’ Henry says proudly. ‘I don’t believe it’s taking over any of our minds. What is it, exactly, this force from beyond time, hm?’
‘Goomba,’ she gasps, as if the word is being dragged out of her. ‘It’s some kind of god, Mu-Mu used to say. And it is in the garden furniture! It’s in the tables and chairs!’
Robert’s eyes widen at this, I can see. All three of us are prepared to accept what she says, though, however outlandish the tale. We have seen too much to start doubting now.
‘And they have smashed up the furniture and made it into an image of their god. Goomba! Goomba has risen again, in my accursed beer garden!’ Sheila’s voice rises to a shriek at this point. Robert leans round to pat her back.
‘How did this . . . spirit, this entity . . . get into the garden furniture?’ Henry frowns.
Sheila struggles to regain her composure. ‘My fault. It’s all my fault. You see, I didn’t make sure . . . I didn’t do a good enough job . . . of having him destroyed in the first place.’
I make us a second pot of strong tea as we all settle to hear Sheila’s dreadful story.
‘Remember, Brenda, when I told you how I was the very young bride of Mu-Mu Manchu. I was seventeen and, by then, in the early seventies, he was well over a century old. But I didn’t care! I loved him for who he was. His tremendous intellect and his magnetic personality. He was cankered and disappointed by then, of course. His career hadn’t worked out quite how he had hoped in that, truth be told, he wasn’t God-Emperor of the entire western world. And, unfortunately, everyone in Christendom wasn’t actually kneeling at his feet and doing all his bidding.
‘Looked at in one light, Mu-Mu was just a sad, skinny old man living in his secret hideaway under the streets of Limehouse. He wasn’t even getting a pension from the British government. Everyone had forgotten about him. When I first met him, he was wasting away.’
I think – with a shudder – of that glowing skull in Sheila’s cupboard-like shrine in her office.
‘I fell in love with Mu-Mu, and he did with me, instantly. I gave him a new lease of life, he said. I was young and spirited – I was waitressing in Soho. Nasty, tacky little clip joint. I was keen to get out of that world. Mu-Mu’s faded glamour and his apparent riches fired my imagination. In him I saw escape from my tawdry lifestyle. But he was stuck in a rut, down there, under the ground, down in his cavern. He was letting his bitterness overtake him.’
Henry butts in gently, pushing her on in her tale: ‘And Goomba?’
‘I tried to talk my beloved into coming away from London. Leaving the dirty old Smoke behind. It was 1974. There was nothing left there for us. I talked up Yorkshire to him. The clean, healthy living. The lovely countryside. The views. I brought him some brochures down, and Mu-Mu seemed quite interested. He started to think seriously about what it might be like to retire to Whitby. Whitby was my suggestion, by the way. Little did I know what Mu-Mu knew about the place: what small sparks of recognition it fired in the mind of my godlike genius lover. But, of course, Mu-Mu remembered Tyler’s connection with Whitby. How the professor had been inspired by this place to write his opus, unlocking the secrets of the galaxy.
‘This strange town on the north-east coast, Mu-Mu knew, was rife with cosmic murmurs. It was a storehouse of secrets he would dearly love to crack. And so Mu-Mu listened seriously as I described how we would run away together to the seaside, and open a hotel.
‘ “But my dear,” Mu-Mu confided in me one day, “we cannot leave these catacombs. Goomba is here. Goomba has been with me here, hidden from the world, since I first arrived in this country, at the very end of the last century.” I frowned at this. “So?” I asked. I was a brash girl. Nothing scared me. “That bamboo plant?” I laughed. “Are you saying you’d throw over all our plans because of a plant?”
‘I knew the plant in question and I hated it. Mu-Mu treated it with such reverent care, I thought it was ridiculous. It was the only thing about my beloved mastermind that irritated me. He had let this bamboo plant grow out of all control. It filled one entire room inside his underground palace, and he had his minions and lackeys tend it with such elaborate care that it made me almost envious. Imagine! Me! I was jealous of an out-of-control house plant! Even more ridiculous, I thought, was the way Mu-Mu named it “Goomba”, and talked about it as if it was a member of the family.
‘ “It’s out of control, Mu-Mu. You’ll never be able to
transplant it. It simply can’t come on the van with the rest of our stuff. It can’t come to Yorkshire with us, to our new life. It will just have to stay here.” Well, I thought I was talking common sense. But Mu-Mu burst into frantic tears! I had never seen him like that. So inconsolable. He sobbed like a maniac. “Goomba! I will never leave you!” he cried and I tried to shush him to no avail.
‘I thought that my poor dear megalomaniac had, with his great age and disappointment, become rather feeble-minded. My incredulity grew as he explained to me that his overgrown bamboo plant came from another dimension, beyond time and space, and was possessed of tremendous power. And, if Mu-Mu could only unlock the secret of that power, then he was still in the running for the exalted position of God-Emperor of the entire planet Earth.
‘I looked at him. His livid green eyes were as serious as I had ever seen them. I took a deep breath and I was, if I’m honest, sad for myself, mostly, in that moment. My hubby-to-be was bananas, and that was a hard truth to swallow.
‘I patted him gently on his egg-like skull, and I tried to console him. I tried to convince him that I really didn’t think his bamboo plant was going to help him rule the world. “But Professor Tyler knew!” Mu-Mu seethed, twisting about in my embrace. “He knew the secrets of Goomba! I’m sure he knew how to control him! How to use his powers!” Well, back then, I didn’t even know who this Tyler was that he kept referring to. I know now, of course, that he was the man who had written all this guff about Goomba and various other gods from far-flung dimensions. Well, I wished he’d never bothered. My lovely man friend was obsessed with this bamboo demon. And my plans for a nice retreat to Yorkshire and a hotel of my own were completely scuppered, so long as Mu-Mu stayed fixated on this Goomba malarkey.
‘The hotel of my dreams – the Miramar – wouldn’t be on the market for ever. I kept travelling up to inspect it. I examined it and I dreamed and I was in a lather of frustration at Mu-Mu and his silly plant. And all that – as I saw it then – mystical twaddle.