[Brenda & Effie 00] - A Treasury of Brenda and Effie

by ed. Paul Magrs

  The only other customer was one of the waiting staff from the Christmas Hotel. George I think his name was. He had glanced at us as we entered, and it was clear he recognised us. We’d nodded vaguely in his direction, then made our way to the far corner.

  “Yes,” Effie said. “This time two different sightings in the space of an hour. Both agree the ghost is a man, and seemed to move with purpose. The first sighting was just along from the Lifeboat Museum. That’s three sightings all in the same area.”

  Effie sat back, pleased with herself, and her expression brightened even further as fresh pots of tea arrived, and two plates burdened with rather generous portions of cake. I lifted the lid on my teapot and stirred the leaves five times clockwise. Effie had broken off a piece of her cake and was tucking in when a young woman approached our table.

  “Room for one more?” the woman asked.

  There dressed in a rather gaudy, pale-blue rainproof was Nancy. Though I say so myself, she was rather plain looking, with long dark hair currently tucked away inside the blue hood of her coat. She had a vaguely Irish accent, though when pressed as to her origins avoided being too specific. I had to sympathise, so had never sought to probe further. Nancy was a recent arrival in Whitby, and had latched herself onto Effie. She was only young, not even thirty years old. Apparently, according to Effie, Nancy was a hedge witch in training, and recognised Effie as someone who could help with her studies of this ancient and noble art. My tea had brewed long enough, so I poured myself a cup while Nancy and Effie arranged a cup for Nancy and shared the other pot.

  “I’ve found out a few things,” Nancy said. She’d taken off the rainproof and now sat in a chunky wool jumper, her hair now free to drape itself across her shoulders.

  “Go on,” Effie said. I just drank my tea and considered which part of the Victoria Sponge to slice first.

  “Well. I did some reading at the library and found some interesting articles in the local paper from nearly forty years ago.”

  Nancy paused and fished a few sheets of folded paper from a coat pocket.

  “I photocopied the relevant pages. Look.”

  Nancy passed the folded sheets across to Effie.

  “I’m not sure where my reading glasses are,” Effie said. “Just give me the highlights.”

  If Nancy was disappointed it didn’t show. She took a sip of tea and began.

  “Nearly forty years ago a fisherman was lost at sea in a surprise gale. He was known as Red Peter, on account of his hair, you see.”

  Effie and I both nodded as Nancy continued.

  “Red Peter left behind his pregnant wife, and three months later she died giving birth to their son. That night people saw Red Peter’s ghost walking the quayside. They say he was looking for his family. The route he took runs past where the Lifeboat Museum now stands. I’m sure it’s him.”

  “So why has he chosen to appear now?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, but if I were to guess maybe he’s looking for his son. Maybe something has happened to the son.”

  “Does he have a name this son?” I asked.

  Nancy flicked through her papers sitting back dejected.

  “I thought I found a reference. Maybe it was Michael. Don’t worry, I’ll pop back to the library tomorrow. I’d go now but it’s half-day closing.”

  Effie nodded and smiled at Nancy. Personally I thought Nancy a little too serious, a little too happy to please. That’s young people for you.

  “I did think we could go out tomorrow evening,” Nancy said. “The moon is getting full, and it was a full moon when Red Peter’s ship sank. The day before St Valentine’s, just like two days’ time.”

  Effie nodded again.

  “I do think that’s a good idea, don’t you Brenda?” Effie asked.

  Too be honest I could think of more appealing ways to spend a cold and no doubt wet February evening, but we can’t all choose our destiny. If we didn’t keep Whitby free from unusual levels of supernatural infestation, who would?

  “Needs must,” I said. “Needs must.”

  We finished our afternoon tea and agreed to meet the following evening. Effie insisted I wear my new scarf, and if I say so myself it did add a certain air of sophistication. As birthdays go today had been most acceptable. Nancy left Brenda and I to it and we strolled to our respective abodes, reflecting on the quality of sponge cake and the challenges ahead.

  That night I have to confess I slept rather badly. At the time I assumed it was the consequence of the over-consumption of Victoria Sponge, but given the events that followed, I now realise it was my sub-conscious mind desperate to warn me of dangers ahead. Maybe it was also trying to give me a clue; if so it failed to do so.

  At a quarter to three in the morning, I was sitting in my reading chair, trying to get comfortable. I was sipping a cup of camomile tea, trying to settle my stomach, which was churning away inside of me as though it was trying to escape its confines. I tried to make sense of a confused set of images.

  There’d been a pretty young girl, her name escaped me but I knew we’d been friendly. It felt as though it were some years ago, but the visions in my tormented mind gave no further clue.

  There were piles of washing. Sheets, shirts, piles of clean clothes stacked in a damp, soulless room lit by an electric light swinging loose on a frayed cord. I felt as though I’d been washing or ironing or maybe just counting the sheets. There was a sense of other presences, of older women, of the pretty young girl. Was there a bridge? That didn’t seem quite right. Try as I might I could pull no more from the visions.

  In the end I decided enough was enough, and there was no use dwelling on yet another disturber night’s sleep. It was too early to start cooking breakfast for the few guests in my B&B, so instead I decided a second cup of camomile would suffice to restore my mood. If only things were that simple.

  It was two nights later when Effie, Nancy and I patrolled the streets surrounding the Lifeboat Museum. The weather had held back and in my stout shoes, new scarf and second-best raincoat were snug enough against the cold evening air. Effie and Nancy insisted on pausing at various street corners to set what they called spirit traps, little alarm bells that would let them know of anything supernatural had passed by. The setting of these traps seemed to involve a random selection of herbs, incantations and gestures. Effie and Nancy might have been schoolchildren playing some strange game, but they both acted like this was a serious matter, so I kept my counsel to myself.

  So far they had spotted nothing. I have to say I wasn’t surprised, and made a mental note to suggest to Effie we avoid taking up all the evening with such ideas in future.

  “I think Red Peter has chosen another place to haunt today, if you ask me,” I said. Effie nodded without speaking. “What’s the latest he’s appeared before? If you ask me we’ve done enough for one evening. If he doesn’t appear tonight, we can always try again next year.”

  “You might be right,” Effie agreed with me. “Still another half an hour can’t hurt, can it?”

  “The moon is still rising,” Nancy said, not looking directly at me, her head turning like a small bird’s as she scanned the almost deserted streets and seemed intent of summoning the long-tormented spirit of the long-dead fisherman by will-power alone. “Maybe if we split up?”

  We carried on for another fifteen minutes when Nancy waved at us from across the street where she was examining the neglected graveyard of a disused church. Effie didn’t notice, so I hissed loudly.

  “Effie. Effie.”

  She turned and looked back in my direction. I pointed across towards the church where Nancy was waving us across.

  “I’m sure I saw something ethereal crossing the graveyard,” Nancy said. “I think this may be the church Red Peter used to attend. Come on.”

  The young woman didn’t wait, just went on ahead to the church door. She stopped and began incanting as Effie and I drew close. Neither of us had seen anything, but Effie was happy to take Nancy at her
word and I was grateful of the chance to get indoors. The sky was clearing and I was sure the air was turning cooler. No doubt we’d get frost again in the morning.

  “She’s good,” Effie said to me with a sense of pride.

  I made a throat clearing noise, nodded briefly and pulled my coat and scarf closer. The night definitely felt colder. The full moon shone directly onto the church door and made Effie’s face seem strangely drained of blood. It was a good evening to say inside and seek the comfort of a hot toddy. Moonlight was not a look that suited Nancy. Perhaps I should say something.

  Effie and I pushed a small iron gate fully open and crossed the graveyard. Effie paid no heed to her surroundings, whereas I was rather keen to avoid some of the litter strewn across the paths. It seemed the regulation groups of cider-drinkers and revellers had been using the place for their own purposes. I didn’t look too closely, and joined the others at the entrance.

  Nancy turned the handle and opened the church door. We entered.

  Although deserted, the church had suffered little vandalism. Some of the windows were cracked but, apart from the total absence of furnishings, the building appeared as though the absent clergy had but popped out for a refreshing glass of sherry. It was cold though. I could do with a sherry myself. Purely for medical purposes.

  More mysterious were a set of red candles arranged around the floor, surrounding two charcoal circles drawn with strange dark runes. Each was almost eight feet across, and a sinister sensation of crawling fingertips made its way up my spine. My first thought was they might be Egyptian, but I saw they looked more like scratchings. Something Viking perhaps? Past memories danced somewhere just offstage.

  “Witch circles,” Effie said. “We should destroy them. Evil things.”

  I nodded but I’m ashamed to say I let Effie take the first step towards the dark markings. She bent towards the nearest as Nancy started to chant. Effie looked up, her face puzzled, then a sudden blast of air swept across the room. It left the candles and charcoal circles untouched, but blew into Effie and slammed her across the room where she smacked into a wall and slid to the ground. She had her head twisted to one side, and lay there like a discarded sack. Was she still alive?

  I turned to face Nancy, who chanted again. Before I could move another muscle I felt a cold fire and a sensation of dizziness. I was floating, drifting up into a murky cloud, below me was my body, like some child’s toy dropped as its owner gets distracted by ice cream or some other treat. My body looked vulnerable and I looked most uncomfortable. I watched as Nancy grabbed my wrists and dragged me into one of the charcoal circles. My coat smudged the markings as it crossed the lines. As she pulled my comatose form, her hair fell forward revealing a mark on her neck. A mark burned into her skin as though three fiery fingers had pressed hard into the flesh and left a mark.

  I also noticed a nail stuck in the sole of my right shoe. That would be a devil to get out later. If there was a later…

  I remembered now. I was in Dublin, or rather just south in Dun Laoghaire. I don’t remember when I’d travelled to Ireland, nor how long I was there. The year was 1964, maybe a year later. One of the girls, Joan, was screaming from the infirmary at Patrick Street Asylum for fallen women. Joan was a pretty girl, the same pretty girl from my recent dream. I now remembered we’d struck up a friendship of sorts just after she’d arrived.

  “So what are you doing here?” Joan had asked when we first met.

  “Ironing, just like you will be once you settle in.”

  Joan smiled, her pretty face lit up yet her expression had a certain steel.

  “I meant why are you here, not what are you doing?”

  I stopped my ironing. I was in small chamber to the side of the furnace room in the basement. My hands were suited for folding and holding the heavy iron, and I didn’t mind the heat from the nearby fires.

  “There are worse places,” I said.

  Joan snorted.

  “Really. Worse than this hell hole.”

  I shook my head.

  “Don’t let the nuns hear you say things like that. Just keep your head low, nod and don’t attract their attention. I’ve seen some things. You won’t be here forever, and at least you’re inside.”

  I let my words hang. Joan seemed unmoved. From the look of the tight buttons on her tatty cardigan she was six or seven months pregnant. It was mid-winter and she would be better off in here, in the warm, than on the streets, or wherever she had been.

  She saw me looking at her swollen belly.

  “Not the best place for a baby,” she said. “Those nuns won’t beat me like the others.”

  I shook my head in sorrow. The arrogance of youth never ceased to sadden me. I was a volunteer at this place. I helped with the washing, supervised the girls and even did some gardening. For that I had no money, but a place to be, to hide. I had a room and some privacy. Beyond that I wanted for little. Joan was waiting for me to ask more but I just picked up oldest, heaviest iron and continued my work. Joan smiled and went on her way.

  Over the rest of December and January I got to know Joan a bit more. She avoided the worse jobs and most of the beatings. The nuns tended to punish her by making her fast and locking her away to pray. When she left a room they made the sign of the cross. They looked like they wished she had never come among them, and couldn’t wait for her to give birth so she would be gone. They thought Joan was being punished; she enjoyed the peace and the chance to avoid the never-ending drudgery of the laundry. I did my best to support her. I couldn’t sneak food into her cell, but when she was released I made sure I had some bread left over from my own supper to give her. She never thanked me, but from the way she pressed one hand to her belly as she wolfed down the scraps I gave her I knew she appreciated the gesture. That was thanks enough.

  She kept going right to the end. I remembered one time in early February when she was dragging a heavy basked of clothes along the tired stone corridors of the asylum. One of the newer nuns, Sister Imelda was scolding her for blocking the corridor.

  “Maybe if you fed me enough, I’d be quicker with the basket,” Joan said, scowling up at the woman who was maybe in her late twenties, no age to lock yourself away from the world.

  “You’ve as much food as you deserve.”

  “It’s not me I’m thinking of, it’s the child. His father won’t be happy when he finds out how you’ve been treating me.”

  I watched as Sister Imelda crossed herself and took a step back. She’d only recently joined us from another asylum in Cork.

  Joan smiled, a cruel yet sad gesture of defiance.

  “Have they not told you?” Joan asked. “Shall I tell you of my dream? A poor virgin girl like the one you worship, asleep in my bed when a dark figure appeared like a vision. I was ill and week for three weeks before I found I was with child and my parents turned me out for dallying with the Devil.”

  “You shouldn’t say such wicked things.”

  “Who’s the wicked one? The hungry girl slaving away in your laundry or the fat nuns keeping her starved for her own good?”

  Sister Imelda had no answer, crossed herself again and turned away seeking solace elsewhere.

  Joan laughed.

  “You should be careful,” I said, coming out from the shadows where I’d stood as I witnessed the exchange. “She might believe you, and then what?”

  “Believe,” Joan said, “what’s to believe? Isn’t it all God’s will, good or evil?”

  She sat back, breathed and the angry defiance she’d shown the nun left her.

  “I don’t suppose you have a piece of bread on you?” she asked.

  “I’m sorry. Maybe after lunch. I’ll come and find you?”

  “Thank you.”

  I wanted to say more and perhaps I should have. Joan was determined to make things difficult for herself. She hated the church and the nuns, but goading them as she did could only end badly.

  It was the night before St Valentines before Joan’s tor
mented body yielded to nature. I found her at the bottom of a flight of stairs, delirious. Her waters had broken and she was in pain. I was the one who carried her to the infirmary. I was the one who shamed the nuns into helping her give birth. This they did only after copious amounts of holy water had been scattered here and there. As one of the nuns, Sister Amelia, sprinkled the water I was sure she thought it might burn Joan’s flesh as it splashed over her. She was disappointed. As for me, I was careful not to let any of the liquid make contact with my own skin. It’s hard to forget certain things.

  I spent seven hours in the room with the nuns and Joan as the pretty young girl screamed, and screamed as though summoning the very devil she claimed had left her with child. The air was scented with carbolic, which didn’t quite block the smell of mould from the room’s corners. With each scream Joan grew weaker, as though the sounds were her soul being torn from her weakened body. In the end she went silent. I knew from one look she would scream no more. Even her previous good looks were gone, the distress of childbirth robbing her of her youth. The nuns muttered a prayer, more holy water was scattered and Sister Amelia lifted a small silent shape in one arm and murmured before she saw me and handed me the lifeless bloodied form of a baby girl.

  “I’ve named her Brigit,” Sister Amelia said. “She is out of our hands.”

  Sister Amelia almost dropped the child as she passed her to me, and I saw the familiar contempt most of the nuns had for those who stayed in the asylum. I carried baby Brigit from the room and a fire of anger burned inside of me. At least she could be cleaned, and dressed. I held her tight and felt the remnants of her mother’s warmth fade from her body. This was wrong. My own birth was more unnatural than any these nuns might imagine. For a long moment I thought of shouting my secrets out for all to hear, to shock these nuns that they might take pity on poor Joan and her unwanted child. My instinct for survival took over and the moment passed.