by Paul Magrs
But then old Mr Pineapple’s voice rings out behind us. ‘Excuse-moi ladies. But I’m afraid that I simply can’t just let you walk out of here…’
There is an awful note of threat in his voice.
We turn round to look at him and he’s up on his feet, smoothing down his purple kaftan. Spoiling for a fight.
Effie glares at him. ‘You don’t have to do this.’
The hunchback looks embarrassed. M. Ananas advances on us menacingly.
‘If that’s the way you want it,’ says Effie. ‘So be it.’
As you may already know, Effie and I often get drawn into fights – actual, physical punch-ups and brawls – rather more often than we’d like. Rather more often than is seemly for ladies of our age. But it seems to be an occupational hazard that, every now and then, more civilised forms of communication break down and we are forced to resort to drastic measures. Especially when it means saving our own necks or escaping from some foul villain’s lair.
And so this is what happens tonight. It really seems as if the two strange gentlemen have decided that they will keep us prisoner, acting upon instructions from creatures who should, by rights, be their enemies. What cowardice! Caving in and obeying the commands of Walkers! Luring women into their flat and trying to do away with them!
Perhaps not do away with them. I don’t think the two of them are actually trying to murder us as they set to and engage in physical struggle with Effie and myself. At first it’s a clumsy kind of tussle, like a rather aggressive tea dance, with Ananas grabbing my forearms and the hunchback trying to get poor Effie in a headlock. For a few moments we are a heaving mass of elderly and infirm humanity with arms waving and thumping and windmilling in the gloomy air, and sensible shoes striking out to bark shins.
I manage to get a few good thumps in, crumpling our host’s creepy mask beyond repair. Effie seems to have the other one’s arm twisted up round his humpy back, so she’s not in any danger. There’s quite a lot of noise, but it’s being drowned out by a particularly loud bit in the film next door.
‘Why are you doing this?’ I yell at our enemies. ‘Why are you doing what vampires tell you?’
M. Ananas lashes out with one hand, clattering me in the face, which makes me hear the bells of Notre Dame for a few moments. Where he hit me the flesh stings but it’s cold rather than hot. The flesh of his claw-like hands is deathly white.
Before he can try to land another slap I leap forward and, without even knowing what I’m going to do, I seize hold of his paper bag and rip it off his head.
He screams as if I’ve chopped his whole head off.
To be fair, it’s not a pretty sight. His flesh is scarred and burned and he’s only got one eyeball sticking out of his bony old sockets. He’s also got an unspeakable comb-over, but that’s the least of his problems. He’s fish belly white and, I think, some kind of ghoul.
He twists away, grabbing a sofa cushion, which he covers up his face with. He hurries away, sobbing madly.
Effie and M. Banane have ceased their struggles, startled by the blood-curdling howls I elicited from our host. They both stare – Effie in admiration, the hunchback in horror. He hurries to comfort his distraught chum.
Effie dusts her hands quickly. ‘I think we can slip out now, don’t you?’
She always tries to look so cool and unflustered after a fight, but it’s usually a sham. Her colour is up and she’s panting.
I make a move to follow her.
But there is a click.
We turn to see that the hunchback has got a revolver out of a drawer in the bureau. He’s got it trained on us and there’s a wild look in his eye. ‘I’m sorry, ladies. We cannot let you leave like that.’
And that’s how we come to be tied up, bound and gagged in the attic above their apartment.
§
Several hours we are up in this cool, musty and not too spacious place. We knew we were in one of those attics high above the Seine and that made it even worse. At this point in the evening we should be strolling along the river, without a care in the world. Instead we are trussed up, back to back, with someone’s bundled up socks in our mouths.
Just as well we can’t talk, really. The recriminations and arguments would just be the icing on the cake.
Both of us are separately wishing – equally fervently – that we’d gone nowhere near this apartment tonight.
What was all that warning about? What were the two silly fools playing at? And why on earth are they doing what the vampires told them? Are they that scared of those nasty cadavers?
The hunchbacked M. Banane at least had the decency to look embarrassed when he bundled us up here and tied us up. He made a few pathetic excuses about how they had to do the bidding of their masters.
‘Masters!’ gasped Effie. ‘So then, you’ve failed at guarding your gateway into hell! You’ve let those creatures come and go as they will…’
And the hunchback seemed rather upset, refusing to say anymore. He secured us a bit savagely and left us up here with no food nor water nor nothing.
Still we can hear those screeches and murmurs from the cinema next door. Even more loudly, actually. The attic we find ourselves in seems to serve that building too.
This gives me an idea, which I try to communicate to Effie by means of a special code we have devised for situations such as this. It involves tapping out a rhythm on the nearest hard surface.
Effie listens and concentrates. ‘What?’ she shouts, through her gag. ‘I can’t understand! I don’t know what you’re saying!’
So much for the code.
As the hours go by it grows chillier up here. The light turns grey and then the shadows grow longer. There is a single skylight and through it we can watch the stars appearing.
How many hours have we been here? We listen to the music of the movie below swelling and repeating itself. We hear the mildewed organ of M. Ananas work its way through what seems like the entire repertoire of French operettas and popular songs.
All the while my mind is roving over the possibilities. What do they think they are going to accomplish? What do they intend to do with us? They can’t just leave us up here forever, can they..? Is it really that vital that we never return home…?
At this point I am interrupted.
There is someone above us, on the skylight. He lands there, nimble as anything, light as a feather. And he is staring down at us and laughing.
§
‘Oh dear,’ says the vampire, in heavily-accented English as he lets himself into the attic. ‘Those two fools were only meant to warn you. I do not know why they have trussed you up like this.’
He stands before us in nineteenth century evening dress, with a cloak and everything. He is the kind of handsome that makes you wince and almost look away.
‘There was a fight,’ says Effie. ‘I’m afraid we ended by duffing up your craven chums quite badly. They were asking for it.’
The vampire has ungagged and unbound us both by now and we’re rubbing ourselves ruefully and starting to wonder what he will do with us.
‘They weren’t supposed to get into any fight with you,’ he sighs. ‘Their instructions were quite clear. They are such a pair of fools. Too old for their job, really.’
Effie is brushing herself down. We’re both covered in dust from the attic. ‘We’ll be off then, if that’s everything.’
I can see right away that the vampire isn’t finished with us. His eyes blaze briefly as Effie totters towards the hatchway.
‘One thing that pair had right,’ he says. ‘And that is that you two must not be allowed to return home.’
Effie swings round on her heel. ‘But why? No one has explained that to us yet.’
His face darkens. ‘We have only had a glimmering of what the future holds. All we know is that something will happen in Whitby that will
be calamitous to my kind.’
As he stands there talking, I notice there’s a kind of green tinge to his flesh. Is he the oldest vampire in Paris, I wonder. Is he the one whom M. Banane described? For all his charm he’s far scarier than those two downstairs. Suddenly I feel a bit disturbed. ‘What are you going to do with us?’
He says, ‘Quite simply, you will disappear. Just two ordinary English ladies on holiday – there will be fuss at first, but then it will die down. You have no dependents. No families. You will vanish, and all your belongings will disappear also from your hotel. The manager will claim that you paid your bill and checked out. But you will have slipped away without a trace.’
I gulp, feeling mesmerised by those icy blue eyes of his, reflecting the starlight at us. ‘Where will we be?’
‘Down in the catacombs,’ he says. ‘There is always room for a couple more down there, beneath the streets of Paris. It is quite snug and cosy, and we would make you welcome. You will join us in our ancient dwellings and live a very comfortable life, I think, as befits ladies of your eminence and vintage. But – and I cannot stress this enough – you cannot go home.’
I am silent, taking this in. His words have the force of inevitability about them. Suddenly I feel that we’ll never escape his seductive clutches.
It’s a few seconds before I realise that Effie is poking around in her handbag and producing a stake. It’s her favourite: the one she fashioned out of a wooden meat tenderizer. She keeps it about her person for emergencies such as this, though how she got it through airport security, I have no idea.
Then she is flinging herself at our suave oppressor and I think she actually gets quite close to plunging it into his frilly shirt.
But naturally he’s too strong for her. He grasps her skinny wrists and it’s clear he could break them like chicken bones. He lifts her off her feet and I am paralysed for a moment. I stagger forward clumsily, and try to pull her away, and land him a few blows with my evening bag, but we don’t stand a chance.
Things go a bit hazy for a while, I have to say.
He swings into action and steals us away. He seems to tuck us both under his arms, our size and struggles notwithstanding. He grabs us and plunges back up through the skylight and into the night.
My feet hardly touch the floor. The dark winds stream past us and the smells and lights of Paris are a bewildering blur as he hops and skips and jumps across those elegantly tiled rooftops. He laughs for joy as he drags us about the place. We’re like two stunned rabbits stowed under the hunter’s cloak as he makes his dash home to prepare them for the pot.
However could we have got ourselves into this?
All our years of experience in dealing with dark forces. Why do we always go galumphing right in?
His name is Nicolas. He tells us this as he bounds from roof to roof across the Latin Quarter. He is indeed the oldest, most revered vampire in all of France.
We leap deep chasms of noisy, colourful streets. Locals and tourists are still milling, still surging, still enjoying themselves. The pleasure boats are on the river and the monuments are glowing brilliantly in the night. But here we are, clutched by cold dead fingers around the scruffs of our necks.
Effie has gone very quiet. Her earlier bravado has fled.
Is this going to be where it ends for us? We’re going to be dragged into the catacombs with all the other monsters and forgotten forever. We’re going to elude our destiny in order to gratify the Walkers.
But I can’t put up with that. I can’t give up everything I’ve worked to achieve for all these years. And I’m not giving up without a fight.
So, it’s somewhere opposite Notre Dame that I make my stand.
Nicolas is dragging us across the rooftop of a tall building that houses a famous bookshop. I dig my feet in. I catch hold of a crumbling chimney pot with both of my nimble, one-time dancer’s legs. I cry out loud at the pain as I hold on tight and Nicolas keeps on running. His claws are like pincers on me, shredding the flesh as he’s forced to let go. He’s shocked I’ve managed to slip out of his grasp. So shocked he drops Effie like a sack of potatoes.
The two of us are free! Rolling about on the flat bit of a slippery roof, but we’re out of his hands now.
‘Brenda!’ Effie gasps, winded. ‘Well done!’
There’s no time for self-congratulation, though. Nicolas has recovered from his surprise that any woman would have the temerity to break out of his clutches. He swings round in mid-air – briefly illuminated by the arc lamps from the boats on the river. Then he’s coming after us again. I’ve ripped a TV aerial out of its fixings and manage to thrash him with it, several times, before it falls to spindly pieces.
‘I’ve offered you an eternal life of peace and comfort and contentment!’ Nicolas bellows at us, his satin-lined cloak streaming out behind him. ‘I’ve offered you safety in your wellearned retirement!’
Effie screeches at him: ‘But can’t you see, you silly man? We don’t want to bloody well retire! And you can’t force us to!’ Saying this, she is fiddling with a hip flask and I think, surely she can’t be that desperate for a drink.
But it’s not Bombay Sapphire. It’s holy water from the font at St Mary’s in Whitby. The church on the stormy headland where Alucard first set foot in England.
She dashes it into the vamp’s handsome face.
It hisses like acid, very satisfyingly, and he screams. His lovely flesh curdles and sings.
‘That’s good stuff, that,’ says Effie, as he crumples to his knees. His face is steaming and melting and I can’t help feeling a touch of sorrow for his beauty. He’s writhing about on the roof tiles going, ‘Please stop, please!’
But Effie is pitiless, sprinkling the last few drops on him.
Then she takes a few steps’ running jump and boots him hard in the doings.
Nicolas flies backwards off the roof.
Screams. Crashes.
And eventually – thud.
We totter forward to see he’s fallen all the way down to the pavement below. His broken body is spreadeagled amongst a gathering of horrified booklovers. Moments ago they were hunting through the bargains in the barrows and shelves outside, and now they have a broken monster in their midst. There’s all sorts of hullaballoo down there.
Effie and I look at each other, clinging to the edge of the roof.
‘That was a close thing,’ says Effie mildly.
§
All we can do is hope that we’ve hurt him enough to put him out of action long enough for us to get away. We know we haven’t killed him. A dash of holy water and a plunge down five storeys isn’t enough to do him in.
Effie finds the little door that leads back into the building and we hurry downstairs, through a shabbily eccentric place that seems to be both secondhand bookshop and travellers’ hotel. There are a few startled faces as we hurtle down flights of stairs.
Both of us are in shock. We still can’t quite believe that we have got ourselves away from that monster. Who knows what sort of fate we have avoided.
We hurry out of that bookshop quickly, dodging the crowds gathered around the unconscious vampire.
‘We should stop and stake him,’ I suggest, as Effie bustles us along.
‘In front of everyone?’ she scoffs. ‘Then we’d be in a pretty pickle. No, we just have to hope that we’ve hurt him enough to think twice before tackling these two old dames again…’
And then we’re free: hurrying down the road beside the river, back to our hotel, with its fake baroque opulence and its tiny lift that smells of cat wee.
§
Next morning is our last in Paris, and maybe that’s a good thing.
‘We don’t want to offer them any more opportunities,’ Effie says solemnly, as she spoons up her ‘fresh cheese.’
I’m just nibbling on the end of a dry croissant.
Last night’s misadventures have left me a bit queasy. I think about lugging my case onto the train to the airport and I feel tired at the very thought.
‘At least they won’t come after us in the daytime,’ I say.
‘All that about vampires and daylight is a myth,’ says Effie. ‘You should know that. It’s just that they prefer the nighttime. The day is for catching up with beauty sleep.’
I pull a face. It’s not so long since Effie herself was traipsing about in the night and sinking her fangs into lithe young men. She needn’t think I’ve forgotten where she gets all her knowledge from.
Our plane’s not till the afternoon. Before we leave the city, there’s one more thing Effie thinks we should do. Naturally, I’m hoping it’s a quiet couple of hours in the Jardin du Luxembourg, or another stroll through the Tuilleries, but no.
It’s a return visit to those two so-called gentlemen who live in the apartment high atop St Andre de Beaux Arts. I’m not at all keen, but I suppose Effie’s right. Those two owe us an explanation.
So we find ourselves pressing their buzzer in the mid-morning sun, and get no reply. Effie harrumphs and tries out a rare bit of her magic. She twiddles her fingers and the main door of the apartment block springs obligingly open.
We toil up the stone staircase which is drenched in pale light from above at this time in the morning. It’s like those rays from the skylight are rinsing the place clean of its taint of monstrous evil.
Soon we’re standing on the top landing, right where we were at seven o’clock yesterday evening. That seems so long ago now – and, in retrospect, like a time of incredible innocence, when we didn’t even know that the vampires of Paris had ghastly plans for us.
I notice that the houseplants are gone from outside the door. Well, maybe M. Banane has taken them in to give them a drink. Then Effie is pounding on the blistered black paint of the door. No answer.
‘They probably know it’s us,’ she frowns.
After a couple more tries at polite knocking, the two of us put our backs into it. I’m terrifically strong when I need to be and, with Effie’s help, I’ve soon got the door smashed in. It’s hanging by its security chain as we step cautiously into the apartment.