by Olga Wojtas
“The things Mr Stoker wrote in that book,” said Dracula, shuddering. “I admit, there are certain members of the family who don’t behave well, but my mama certainly does not approve and we have very little to do with them.”
“Do they bite people?” I asked.
“I’d really rather not discuss it,” he said. “Suffice it to say there are lurid and scandalous descriptions in that … that book with which no self-respecting vampire would ever wish to be associated.”
This exactly mirrored the Blainers’ chagrin as a result of Mrs Spark’s pernicious work.
“Tell me about it,” I said.
He looked at me in incredulity. “Certainly not! Why would I repeat slanderous claims about my family?”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean you to actually tell me about it. It’s just an expression,” I explained. “I was indicating that I understood what you were saying. Some authors have absolutely no scruples, and I’m afraid sex sells.”
He winced. “The language he uses.”
Certainly the bit about Jonathan Harker waiting in languorous ecstasy, and the soft, shivering touch of the female vampire’s lips on the super-sensitive skin of his throat was very explicit. And as a feminist, I believe in equality of the sexes. This was no less exploitative because it was a male victim. I had previously judged the book to be a harmless Gothic horror, but I was radically revising my view of it.
“Please don’t be offended, but could I ask you a few things?” I said. “I’ve read Mr Stoker’s book and I think I’ve been guilty of making assumptions.” I hoped Miss Blaine wouldn’t find out. Her instructions to me before my first mission reverberated in my skull: “Never assume. When you assume, you make an ass of you and me.”
Dracula gave a weary smile. “I ascribe no blame to you, madam. Readers are credulous beings.”
I was going to protest that I was no mere reader, but a librarian. However, my professional certainties had been shaken by the discovery that I had been giving authority to a book written by a woman from Airdrie.
“I understand now that you left Aberdeenshire because it’s too sunny,” I said. “Is that because your powers dwindle in daylight?”
His lips tightened. “Madam, I can assure you that there is no diminution of my powers at any time of the night or day.”
I would have to remember that although he was the undead, he was the male undead. I’ve found that even the most right-on man gets a bit fretful when he thinks his powers are being impugned.
“So, what’s the problem?” I asked.
“I get a dreadful rash,” he said. “If I go out in the sun, within a few days I get blisters that just get worse and worse.”
“You poor thing,” I said. “You suffer from photoallergic eruption. Tell me, are you going to live for ever?”
“I don’t like to tempt fate but yes, probably,” he said.
“In that case, it’s a while to wait, but in the great scheme of things not that long – in about fifty years, you’ll be able to get corticosteroid cream that should help to sort things out.”
“How do you know?”
“It’s just informed speculation. I keep an eye on medical developments and you get a feel for these things. You’ll probably find the cream nips a bit when you first put it on, but persevere and it will almost certainly get better.”
He gave a shy smile. “Thank you. That’s very encouraging. Please, do have some more shortbread.”
I was happy to have as much as was on offer. He might not have mastered cheese-making, but he was an excellent baker. Once I had demolished another piece, I asked, “Can you turn into mist?”
“Can you?” he retorted.
I took that as a no.
But there was one question likely to get a yes. I remembered how he had gurgled when I mentioned how useful garlic was in treating toothache.
“Do you have problems with garlic?” I asked.
He shrank back, his eyes gleaming red. “Yes! I abhor garlic. I’ve never understood why people pollute their food with it. I believe in plain eating, madam.”
Including entire wild boar. I supposed if you were tearing apart animals in a forest, there wasn’t much opportunity to whip up a Cumberland sauce to go with it.
According to the book, there was something that was worse than garlic. I had put Madeleine’s crucifix inside my high-necked blouse when I went off to exhume Sylvain’s grave. Hesitantly, I pulled it out and held it for Dracula to see. “Does this bother you?”
He glanced at it in a long-suffering sort of way. “Really, madam. I admit that I do place more emphasis on individual spirituality than organised religion but I find the supposition that I would be repulsed by Christian iconography somewhat offensive.”
I began to wonder whether there was anything at all in the book that was accurate.
“About the earth in the coffin,” I said. “Not Transylvanian, then?”
“I confess I cannot understand why people have such an obsession with Transylvania, a faraway country of which I know little. No, madam, the earth was local to Port Erroll, it was familiar, it was comfortable, and the louts who stole my bed simply tipped it out somewhere. There is no respect nowadays for other people’s property. I’m glad to have my bed back, of course, but without the mattress, I shall continue to sleep badly.”
It was still a bit of a struggle coming to terms with this revisionist history.
“You actually lived in Slains Castle?”
“I was born there. My mama had always wanted to live by the seaside, and of course my papa agrees with whatever she wants.”
“Of course,” I said. I felt Dracula’s mama and Miss Blaine would get on well together.
“My parents had been looking for a suitable home for some time when they found the earl embarking on a building project; they paid him a considerable sum to include accommodation for themselves.”
“Ah yes,” I said. “The eighteenth earl remodelled the castle in 1836.”
Dracula gave me a startled look. “Madam, that was less than seventy years ago. I’m not a child. I’m referring to the ninth earl building New Slains Castle in the sixteenth century.”
I tried to recover from my blunder. “And do your mama and papa get on with the current earl?”
“It’s quite a big castle,” said Dracula. “The families don’t get in one another’s way. Of course, Mama and Papa spend a lot of their time in the octagonal room, hanging upside down from the ceiling.”
This conjured up quite a startling image until I realised what he meant.
He gave a sigh. “Actually, it’s a little bit awkward these days. Part of the reason I moved here was, as you know, because of the dreadful Aberdeenshire sunshine. And partly it was because I felt that at my age I should have a place of my own, rather than living with my parents. But over the years, the earls seem to have forgotten our arrangement. Now they seem to think the castle is…” he dropped his voice, “…haunted.”
“They think you’re ghosts?” I asked.
He gave a despondent nod. “Whenever any of us tries to engage them in conversation, they scream and run away. That’s why I enjoyed chatting to Mr Stoker so much.”
“He knew you were a vampire?” I asked.
“Of course. I told him my family had lived in the castle since the sixteenth century.”
I could see that Bram Stoker might not necessarily equate “family” with “mum and dad”.
“How exactly did you introduce yourself?”
Dracula thought for a moment. “We met in a corridor. I remember him bowing and saying, ‘Good day, my lord,’ and I said, as I always do, ‘Oh, please don’t call me that. I don’t think it’s right to use a title that’s been conferred through an accident of birth,’ and he said he would be very uncomfortable calling me anything else. He told me he was manager of the Lyceum Theatre in London, but he was writing a novel about vampires while he was on holiday, and I said if there was any help I could give him, he only had to ask.”<
br />
“Did he ask?”
“No, but I told him anyway.”
Bram Stoker had mistaken Dracula for a member of Lord Erroll’s household. And when Dracula started bending his ear about vampires as they walked along Cruden Bay beach, Bram just thought it was the usual meaningless waffle of the upper classes rather than pure gold, first-hand information. And he had preferred the balderdash of a woman from Airdrie.
“Dracula,” I said, “I don’t think Mr Stoker knew you were a vampire.”
He was yawning, so loudly that he didn’t hear me. He settled himself in the armchair and closed his eyes. This was awkward. I had been hoping for a lift back – I would never find my own way through the forest, and I would have to wait until dawn before I could navigate Madeleine’s route.
“Would it be all right if I stayed?” I asked diffidently. “I’ll leave as soon as it starts getting light, and I don’t need any breakfast or anything. I’ll get some cheese at the festival. Do you have a spare room by any chance?”
It was quite a sizeable castle: he must have several. But he didn’t respond. He was snuggled up in the vast leather armchair, fast asleep. Ermintrude, lying at his feet, was asleep as well.
I found a footstool under one of the occasional tables, which let me stretch out, and nodded off.
***
I was wakened the next morning by Ermintrude indicating that she wanted to go out. I took her downstairs to the garden, after which she bounded back up to rouse Dracula.
He blinked when he saw me. “Have you been here all night?” he asked.
I had a suspicion his mama would definitely not approve.
“It’s all right, I sorted myself out,” I said. “And now I’m off to the cheese festival. Thanks for your hospitality and for rescuing me.”
“I’m planning to go to the cheese festival as well. Perhaps you’ll allow me to escort you.”
I hoped he didn’t think we were now an item. But going with him would be quicker than going on my own.
“I’ll get back in the coffin,” I said.
He tried and failed to hide his expression of alarm. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible. I’d prefer to keep it safe here. Losing my bed once was a misfortune: to lose it twice would look like carelessness.”
The Importance of Being Earnest had premiered in London in 1895; I wondered if Dracula had been in the audience.
But he was giving one of his small coughs. “I shall be delighted to have you sit on me.”
Toothcracker McMonagle very nearly went into action. Fortunately, I saw from his expression that the remark had been made in all innocence. And before my eyes, he transformed himself into a massive wolf. Minutes later, we were hurtling through the forest, me clinging desperately to his shaggy grey coat. He careered to a halt just before the trees began thinning out, and I toppled into the undergrowth as he became himself once more.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, helping me to my feet. “I’m unaccustomed to passengers.”
He was wearing a double-breasted black frock coat and a black silk top hat. He looked very dashing, but nobody else in the village dressed like that.
“Do you have anything more ordinary?” I asked.
“What do you mean?” he asked, taking the black muffler out of his pocket and winding it round his face so that only his eyes were visible.
“You just look a bit unusual.”
“You think they might not admit me to the festival?” he asked anxiously, and the next moment he had disappeared completely. I looked around for mist, even though he had claimed that wasn’t in his repertoire. Something brushed past my hair. Something with a cute wee brown furry face. I hadn’t realised that bats flew in daylight, but Sans-Soleil’s daylight was as close to night as you could get.
I made my way to the main square, my airborne companion alongside me. Trestle tables had been set out all round the village square, covered in white linen cloths. But nothing else was on them. The villagers were standing around in disconsolate little groups. Their gloom was evident from the fact that they weren’t even looking at Madeleine, who was standing observing the scene with grim satisfaction.
I went to join her. She looked me up and down. “Another night out?” she said. “There still isn’t a rebate.”
“I wasn’t expecting one,” I said. “I’ve come back for the cheese festival. It is today, isn’t it? July the fourteenth.”
“The cheese festival is on July the fourteenth,” she confirmed.
I looked again at the trestle tables, covered in white linen cloths and nothing else.
“There is no cheese,” I said cautiously.
Ten
Madeleine nodded. “There is no cheese.”
“Where is the cheese?” I asked.
She gazed round her, giving her Gallic shrug. “Where is the cheese?”
I could feel my patience wearing thin. “Do you know where the cheese is?”
She gave me a hard Paddington Bear stare. “Do you know where the cheese is?”
The parrot thing really was very irritating. I wasn’t surprised that Miss Blaine got tetchy with me. Something brushed past my hair with a peevish squeak and disappeared into the distance. Dracula was tetchy too.
There was a small platform between two of the tables for the MC. The mayor, visibly trembling, sidled into the square and stepped onto the platform, to be greeted by loud booing.
“We’ve been waiting for ages! What’s the hold-up?” shouted a villager.
“I … that is … I…” the mayor stuttered, his louchely attractive face paler than I had ever seen it. “The … I…”
“We’d pelt you with cheese if we had any,” shouted another villager.
“Let’s pelt him with something else,” a third suggested.
The boos resumed. The mayor held up his hands in a plea for silence, and the booing diminished slightly.
“Yes, the cheese…” he said. “I … that is … yes, the cheese…”
Someone took off a sabot. It seemed more than likely that the pelting-with-something-else was about to begin. I leaped onto the stage and addressed the crowd in the prefect’s voice that could carry to the back of the bike sheds.
“Citizens! The mayor has had the brilliant idea of doing things slightly differently this year in honour of Sans-Soleil becoming an international tourist destination. I myself have come all the way from…” I didn’t want my message to be diluted by a debate over what did or didn’t constitute a nation state. “…from across the Channel.”
Muttering, tinged with curiosity.
“Some of you may have noticed that Paris is currently hosting the summer Olympics.”
The muttering was now matched by spitting.
“And anything Paris can do, Sans-Soleil can do better, am I right?”
The response this time was a roar of approval.
“So, citizens, the mayor welcomes you all to the inaugural Sans-Soleil Sans-Fromage Olympic Games!”
The crowd burst into loud applause. I did a quick mental run-through of how I could organise things.
“The Paris Olympics,” I said, and waited until the spitting stopped, “have only sporting events. But the Sans-Soleil Sans-Fromage Olympics are superior in every way since they encompass sport, cuisine, agriculture, the fine arts, maths and music.”
The great thing about isolated Alpine villages in 1900 is that the inhabitants have excellent practical skills. We had the village square and nearby pastures set up for track and field events in next to no time. They were raring to go, and despite their pallor, they had the physique of people well-used to manual work. I would have expected them all to have rickets because of the lack of sun, and I could now understand their obsession with cheese. They would have to eat industrial quantities of it to get the requisite amount of vitamin D.
I was anxious to have gender-neutral races, but the villagers were having none of it. The crêpe-tossing race was strictly women and the sack race was all men. The latter was si
mple enough, although I started hyperventilating at the sight of the hessian sacks, and the mayor had to take over.
But the crêpe tossing was satisfyingly multidisciplinary. I ascertained that as the villagers had all been waiting since the early hours for the cheese festival, the cows had not yet been milked. Making crêpes required milk, and there was universal excitement when I pointed out that the villagers could now keep their milk since requisitioning was no longer necessary. It crossed my mind that the undertaker and cheesemonger was nowhere to be seen, but I had better things to do than to worry about that.
“So, we’ve to get back home, milk the cow, make a crêpe, and come back here for the race?” a villager asked.
“Exactly,” I said.
“But that’s not fair! Some of us have further to go than others.”
“And that’s why,” I said, “we will have a handicap system to ensure a level playing field.”
Another villager squinted at the pastures. “But they’re not level,” she said.
“It’s just an expression,” I explained. “I mean there will be equal opportunities.”
I signalled for the schoolchildren. “Run and get your slates. I have a sum for you.” It was only as they scampered off that I realised they were one child short. The wee scone. Something caught my eye. There he was, in a chalet overlooking the main square, his face pressed against the window, and a tear trickling down his cheek. I signalled for him to come down and join us. He pointed at himself in a questioning way and I nodded. A few moments later, he was standing at the top of the steps of his chalet but showing no sign of coming down. I crossed over to him.
“I’m setting a maths question. Don’t you want to join in?”
“Yes,” he said in a small voice, “but I can’t. The policeman said I wasn’t allowed to come to Cheese Day.”
“This,” I said firmly, “is not Cheese Day, but the Sans-Soleil Sans-Fromage Olympic Games, and I am personally inviting you to take part. Now go and get your slate.”
