by Heide Goody
“You need to chase me now! Skiddly bop-bop!”
Ella had never heard such an angry and petulant ‘skiddly bop-bop!’
“Come on then,” she sighed.
“Wheeee!” The creature ran gleefully through the forest of model buildings and Ella gave chase, not really sure what she was supposed to be doing, but keen to repay her obligation in the fastest way possible.
She ran past a house where an elf leaned carelessly out of a window.
“Got any shoes you want making?” he said. “Good rates.” He didn’t really sound as if his heart was in it.
Ella was genuinely surprised at the speed of the gingerbread thing, who kept looking back at her and whooping with joy.
“Run, run, as fast as you can, you can’t catch me, I’m the gingerbread man! Shabba!”
Ella abruptly stopped running. That feeling was passing through her again. The peculiar but pleasurable shudder of rightness that meant she was playing straight into Carabosse’s hands.
“No more. That’s enough chasing now,” she called.
“Aww!” The creature slumped visibly and wandered off down a side street, kicking a pebble as it went. “Poopy doo!”
Ella heard familiar voices ahead. They were coming from a relatively normal sized house of mud-caked stone that appeared to have a tree growing through it. Shitfaced was sitting on the roof of the house singing The Good Ship Venus.
From inside, she heard OCD talking.
“All I’m saying is that with us all working together we could straighten this town right out, instil some much-needed order. The cottage needs to move four feet to the left and the windmill, when we rebuild it, could do with coming across by about eight feet. I’ve made a plan. It’s going to tidy things right up.”
“Does your bastard plan involve Windy giving it a pebble dash finish?” asked Psycho. “Because it’s a distinct possibility now that he’s discovered he can make it go round with the power of flatulence.”
“I suppose it’s too much to ask that we do what we’re supposed to be doing,” said Passive Aggressive. “Namely, looking out for the girl?”
“I’m looking out, aren’t I?” yelled Inappropriate. “She’s nowhere to be seen. Only girl in sight is wearing a pretty dress and we all know our girl must have legs like a gorilla — why else would she dress like a man all the time?”
Ella took that as her cue to make a very brisk exit.
She hurried away down a different path, taking turnings at random. Her focus was on running away; where to could wait until later. She was therefore surprised when she passed through an archway in a wall to find herself standing beside a road. A real road: with white painted lines and cats’ eyes and everything and not at all like the tracks and byways she’d endured of late.
As she was wondering if she might be able to hitch hike home there was a blast of car horn and a Jaguar convertible screeched to a halt in from of her. She peered. It was Roy Avenant behind the wheel. She’d always thought that his car, with its open top and its leather seats, was both vulgar and ridiculous, but right now it looked like a wonderful mirage, shimmering in the Cotswolds sunlight.
“What on earth are you doing here?” she asked.
“You know, that’s a funny story,” he said, standing up to talk over the windscreen. “We’ve all been terribly worried about you, just disappearing like that.”
“Who’s we?”
“Well me, mostly,” said Roy. “Lily and Petunia are on some sort of starvation diet to get into their bridesmaid dresses. I found them both passed out in the plant pot section yesterday, but then one of the reps came round with samples of pork scratchings and they descended like a pair of crazed harrier hawks. Wonder he didn’t lose a hand. They went and hid afterwards in the Wendy houses, sobbing with the shame of it. I’ll never understand those two. So yes, I tried to find you, I tried to call you. I tried everything. Then I was just watching telly and suddenly I knew that I needed to come and rescue you.”
“Rescue me. I see,” said Ella, not seeing at all. “Do I need rescuing?”
“You might,” he suggested.
His boyish hopefulness made her smile.
“I think I’d quite like to rescue myself actually, Roy. But I am glad to see you and I would be very grateful for a lift home.”
“No problem.” He stretched over to open the car door for her. “I must say, that’s a very pretty dress you’re wearing,” he said as she struggled to get all her skirts inside.
Roy spun the car around in the road with unnecessary speed and powered northward.
“Have you got a phone with you?” Ella asked.
“What?” he shouted back over the roar of the wind.
“A phone! Mine’s dead!”
“Sure.”
Ella dialled her father’s number. It was unobtainable. She rang his house instead, but that went to voicemail.
“Dad, it’s Ella. Um, first thing, I’m all right. Don’t know if you’ve been worrying. If you have then… don’t. If you haven’t then don’t start. But the thing is…” She paused to marshal her thoughts but there was no making sense or order of what she need to say. “Thing is, I think that mum might still be alive. My mum. Natalie. Um, yes. Well, we need to check this out, so you might want to delay the wedding. Ring me when you get this.”
Roy looked across at her as she ended the call. “Want to talk about it?” he asked.
“Not really. I’m not sure I really understand what’s going on if I’m honest.”
“It sounds unusual,” said Roy diplomatically.
Ella sighed deeply and looked at the road ahead of them.
“So tell me how you knew where to come and find me?”
“It was in the paper,” he said.
“In the paper, huh? Don’t throw it away. I might want to see that.”
Roy nodded and then pointed ahead. “Look. Someone’s dumped a horrible old car in a hedgerow. How irresponsible.”
“Terrible,” Ella agreed.
Roy dropped Ella at the family home in Nether-cum-Studley. She was looking forward to a hot shower and being able to bolt the door against any fairy tale intrusions, but when she got inside, she found her future stepmother in the kitchen pacing the floor, a glass of fizz in one hand and the open bottle in the other.
“Is everything all right?” said Ella.
“Oh, well if it isn’t Little Miss Wedding–Wrecker! What the hell are you wearing?”
“It’s a dress.”
“I can see that. Why are you wearing —” Myra stopped herself. “I heard your phone message. Have you actually gone insane?”
“No.”
“Is this a prank?”
“No.”
“Then, for pity’s sake, what is going on?”
“Myra, I’m really sorry if you don’t like the idea of postponing the wedding but —”
“But nothing!” Myra advanced across the floor, wagging her finger. “I don’t know what’s got into you.”
“Nothing’s got into me. It’s just that some… new information has come to light.”
“Are you perhaps jealous of the love and affection Gavin now lavishes on me?”
“I’m not jeal—”
“We have such passion!” Myra’s voice cracked with emotion, and she sighed, her whole body deflating. “Such passion. I had treats lined up for him this week, this final week. Like an advent calendar with a special outfit or a, you know, toy behind every door, leading up to the main event.”
“Riiight.”
Myra’s eyes closed. “Do you know how my body reacts when he touches me? Do you know how his caresses make me feel inside? When his hand slips between my —”
“Myra! Please! I understand that you miss him.”
“But you want us to cancel the wedding?”
“Not cancel. Postpone.”
Myra gave a sudden nod. “I understand.”
“You do?”
Myra smiled. On the face of a woman so
domineering and brittle, it was a disconcerting expression. She took down another glass from the cupboard and poured a glass of fizz.
“It’s the seating plan, isn’t it?” she said, offering the glass to Ella.
Ella took the glass. “Er... what?”
“You’ve not done it. You’re ashamed. You’re too proud to admit you need help. I understand. You can be honest with me. We’re friends, aren’t we? Cheers.”
Myra raised her glass. Ella automatically did likewise but didn’t drink. She looked at the glass. Visions of Myra talk to strange young men on the dance floor and the dwarfs’ dire warnings flitted unhelpfully through her mind. The fizz of the yellow drink. Was that bubbles? Or was that a dissolving poison?
“I’ve got a seating plan,” she said.
“It’s not ticked off on the group to-do list,” said Myra.
Ella rummaged around in her corseted cleavage and whipped out OCD’s plan.
“Look! I’ve got the plan. Here.” She smoothed it out on the kitchen table. “I’ve done it. See? I want you to be happy, I do.”
Myra gave her a shrewd look. “Has he put you up to this?”
“Who?”
“Gavin. He is spending too much time with that crime lord in his castle. You would never think he’s about to get married.”
“Crime lord? Dainty?” asked Ella. “Dad’s still at Thornbeard House?”
“Where else?”
“Yes,” said Ella. “I thought I saw him there.”
“You’ve seen him?”
“I saw a castle…” She shook her head. “I’ve not been able to get hold of him.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear he’s ignoring you as well. I was beginning to think that he’d just got cold feet about the wedding, but I’m sure he wouldn’t ignore his precious daughter on purpose.”
Ella tried to let Myra’s vicious rant wash over her, but that last barb proved too much.
“Myra, I’m not trying to come between you. I know you’re starting… planning to start a life together. And I know you’d much rather I wasn’t here. I know you want my bedroom as a dressing room.”
“Well yes, it’s hardly appropriate for you to still be living with your father at your age. What do you want from life, hmmm? You know you live for other people at the moment, don’t you? You should stand on your own two feet.” Myra’s expression softened slightly. “Listen, I know that probably sounds harsh, so I’ve sorted something out for you. How would you feel about moving in with Petunia? You girls have so much in common! I can tell you that Petunia’s thrilled at the idea, she’s talked non-stop about all the girly things you two could do together.”
Ella’s horror was so complete that she was unable to form words. The idea of being thrown out of her childhood home and sent to live with someone who signed a petition to protect coral because it was her favourite shade of lipstick was so completely abhorrent that she was struck dumb.
Myra mistook Ella’s silence for submission. Myra patted her on the arm.
“I can understand that this isn’t easy for you. Take comfort in the fact that we only want what’s best for you. Drink up.”
Ella twiddled her glass stem. “I’m not sure I’m in the mood for drink.”
“Oh, but this is the good stuff, dear. Your dad wouldn’t be half as discerning. But then he has had some last-minute nerves. Who wouldn’t? Marriage is such a life-changing undertaking.”
“It’s just words and a piece of paper,” said Ella.
Myra humphed. “In that case, he has nothing to worry about. He can’t hide out at that crime lord’s castle forever. He will come back soon enough.”
Ella sighed. “Myra. Mr Dainty isn’t a crime lord.”
“Of course he is. You only need to hear his voice on the phone. He’s some dodgy-dealing foreign type. I’m sure he’s a perfect beast. How else does someone with an Eastern European accent end up owning a castle in England, eh? Mr Dainty, huh? Clearly a false name. Now, drink.”
Something clicked in Ella’s brain.
“Oh, crap.”
She put the glass down, flipped the wedding plan over again and looked at OCD’s scrawled note in the corner.
Mr D — wealthy with aristocratic lineage, Bloody Chamber Gambit? Red Rose Gambit? Mr D = perfect beast. Good “persuasion” potential - hold GH until needed
Mr D, a perfect beast. Hold GH until needed.
“Gavin Hannaford.”
She now knew why her father wasn’t answering calls. She also knew that it wasn’t an option for her to lock the door against the fairy tale onslaught. She had to get out there and fight it to get her dad back. She grabbed a bag and flung some clothes into it, trotted downstairs and called over her shoulder as she went out to her car.
“I’m going out, Myra, and I’m taking the car.”
“But your drink…”
“Can wait.”
“And you’re going out in that dress?”
“If I must,” she said defiantly. “I’m off to Thornbeard House.”
Chapter Nine
Ella flung her bag into the back of her own car — her clean, green, nearly carbon-neutral machine — and set off with more determination than planning towards Thornbeard House. She didn’t have much of an idea where it was but her dad had said it was on the south Devon coast and that gave her at least three hours of motorway driving time to contemplate a fuller plan.
As she drove, she tried to audit her feelings, hoping to deduce whether this course of action was complying with Carabosse’s fairy tale trickery or fighting it. Certainly, Ella’s fairy godmother would have wanted Ella to be at her dad’s wedding to either dance with her Prince Charming, or engage in a life or death tussle with her ‘wicked’ stepmother, both of which seemed good enough reason to stay away. However, it was clear that Thornbeard House was the potential backdrop to other narrative gambits. Maybe it didn’t matter which way she ran; she would always be running towards her fate.
But surely, she thought, an obvious sign that she was on the path Carabosse had laid for would be the appearance of the dwarfs or the bluebirds to shepherd her towards her destiny. And the fact that the bluebirds did not appear at every critical junction on her journey was therefore somewhat heartening, although motorway speeds were probably too challenging for birds, even annoyingly chirpy Disneyfied bluebirds.
Nonetheless, she entertained herself en route by imagining what their tweetnav (which didn’t take long to morph into twatnav) instructions would be.
“Turn left into the Red Rose Gambit because you’re clearly too stupid to think for yourself,” she squeaked. “Carry straight on to the life of a simpering princess because you need a man to come and make your life complete.”
A short distance beyond Exeter, with no bluebirds to steer her, Ella was forced to pull in at a garage and seek help. She searched through the road atlases in the garage shop but, finding no evidence of Thornbeard House anywhere along the south coast, had to ask the attendant behind the counter. The attendant had clearly run out of fucks to give long, long ago — particularly when it came to lost women in ridiculous dresses.
“Do you know where it is?” she asked.
“What?” said the attendant, her eyes fixed firmly on the silent TV at the end of the counter.
“Thornbeard House,” said Ella.
“Have you seen this?” the attendant nodded at the news channel. “The Prince of Wales, the Duke of Cornwall and the Duke of Rothsay have all disappeared in a mysterious dancing incident.”
“All of three of them?”
“And their families.”
“Fascinating. Now, can you help me?”
“Help you what?”
“Find Thornbeard House!”
The attendant finally shifted her attention to Ella.
“You off to a wedding or summat?” she said.
“Yes,” Ella lied, swished her dress as evidence and then did her best impression of a distraught woman about to lose it big style. The attend
ant chose the course of least resistance and googled it on her phone.
“Never heard of it,” said the attendant, “but this website says it’s near Staunton Tracey,” and then proceeded to give Ella directions.
Ella drove on, slowly now as she entered the narrow deep lanes of south Devon. She was forced to stop and ask for directions again at the White Hart pub in Staunton Tracey and then, with evening approaching, she continued south and, a mile later, found the driveway turning as described.
The drive took her over a bone shaking cattle grid then climbed steeply up a coastal track. On the one side, gorse bushes growing above the road scratched the side of her car, and on the other side the world dropped away down to a rocky shoreline. Ella hoped that she didn’t meet another vehicle coming down, even a child’s bicycle. The drive ended at a set of tall iron gates and she pulled up, wondering how to get someone’s attention. She stepped out and went to the gate. It was locked although without padlock or chain on the gate. There was a small lodge house beyond the gate and she called out but had no answer.
The gates swung open, although there was nobody in sight. Ella returned to her car, drove through and, after following the winding thread of driveway for a considerable distance, past near-fallen trees and through muddy gullies, parked the car in front of Thornbeard House. She stared at the building in front of her. The word house was a misnomer. This was to most houses what a rainforest was to a bonsai tree. To the north side, tall mullioned windows gazed down on the terrace and sweeping lawn. To the south, turrets and towers staggered in crazy stepped and ivy-bound layers towards the cliffs and the sea.
Between the two halves of the house, , the front door, which she could have comfortably got the car through, stood open. A servant in a waistcoat and striped morning trousers bowed deeply.
“Good evening, Miss Hannaford,” he intoned.
He had a faint accent, not quite Eurovision, not quite Bond villain. His mournful basset hound face perfectly suited his butler attire, but the livid pink scar bisecting his left cheek and that accent (not quite Eurovision, not quite Bond villain) instantly re-categorised him as something much more sinister. Henchman, back street knife-fighter, mercenary. Or maybe he’s just had a really unfortunate encounter with an angry rodent, she told herself. No point jumping to conclusions.