[Brenda & Effie 07] - A Game of Crones

by Paul Magrs

  Effie’s eyes flash. ‘Why would you think I need rescuing? I’m back with my father, in his home. He has brought me home. After all these years. Look at this place! Isn’t it wonderful? He owns all of this.’

  She gestures around, at the desolate wilderness. Harold and I exchange a glance.

  Effie pours out the tea, and I realise that there is a cup for each of us, even Harold.

  ‘The portrait didn’t do him justice,’ Effie says. ‘He wore evening dress and a dark cloak. Funny, strong and tender in the way he talked to me – and young! He looked about thirty, and saw nothing incongruous in meeting his daughter and she turns out to be a broken-down ratbag like me.’

  ‘He spent time with me, Brenda. Lovely time. Hours and hours talking to me. We went walking all around the town. I was so proud to be out with my handsome dad. He told me about his life and my mother and he told me he hadn’t even known he had a daughter. Not till very recently. My mother had kept him in the dark. They split up a very long time ago, and she left his magic realm…’

  ‘Is that why he was so young still?’ I ask. ‘Because he lives in this magic realm?’

  She pays me no heed. ‘He told me that he wanted me to come with him. Back through the picture. To this mysterious world he lives in. He says that here I can choose to be any age I want to be. I can live my life all over again. And I can make a better job of it this time.’

  ‘What?’ I gasp. ‘How does he know what your life is like? What’s wrong with it?’

  Effie smiles sadly. ‘It’s a life of dust and rubbish, Brenda. I never lived it to its fullest. Even I wouldn’t claim that. But here… here I get another chance. Look at me! Back in my prime! Transformed! Young again!’

  She holds up her wrinkled hands and pats her face. She looks like she’s in raptures.

  To me she looks exactly the same as she always does. The poor old thing has lost her mind. He’s robbed her of her wits.

  ‘Oh, Effie. Can’t you see? He’s hoodwinked you?’

  ‘You’re still an old woman! Can’t you even tell?’

  ‘No!’ cries Effie, standing up and scattering the tea things. Thunder rumbles overhead and there’s a lightning flash. ‘I’m not seventy-four! I can’t be! He made me young again!’

  I shake my head, ‘But he hasn’t! And anyway, what’s so great about being young again? You don’t have to be young to have a new start. Look at me!’

  ‘Ssssh! He’s coming! Listen…!’

  More thunder. More lightning. Yes, there is a sudden chill. A marvellous scent of winter spices on the air. And then he is amongst us. The Erl King. The Demon Lord. Just as beautiful and vital as he was in the picture.

  ‘Leave my daughter alone.’

  ‘She’s coming back with us. Back to Whitby.’

  ‘Who are you to tell me what’s going to happen? Who are you?’

  ‘I’m Brenda and I’m her new friend. And I’m telling you – you can’t just take her away. I don’t care who you are.’

  ‘Her mother tried to steal her away from me. All those years ago. She placed her in the care of those harpies in that rotten little town. I’m just reclaiming her.’

  Effie looks round sharply at this. ‘I’m not just a bag of old belongings!’

  ‘You belong to me. Effryggia, you must tell this… person to return to the land of the living and forget all about you.’

  Effie looks at me, all beseeching. ‘Maybe it’s for the best, ducky. My life there is over. I’m an old woman with nothing more to offer the world. At least here someone wants me…’

  ‘But you lied to her, master! You said she’d be young again! You offered her the Earth.’

  ‘Be silent! You have done your part.’

  ‘Did you lie to me, too? Will you restore my lives?’

  ‘Your reward is a good long rest. There will be no more lives for you.’

  ‘He lies to everyone! He’s a terrible person! Harold – you can come back with us.’

  ‘I can’t, Brenda. Without him I’m nothing. I can only live here… in this realm…’

  ‘Let them go, Erl King – or whoever you are.’

  ‘He doesn’t really want a daughter. He just wants her magic. She’s got powers… the likes of which she doesn’t even understand yet. That’s what he’s after…’

  ‘The Erl King becomes furious at Harold’s words. The cat has gone too far. There’s a flash of flame as Effie’s dad flings out his hand… and Harold is suffused in a deadly glare…’

  ‘Kill me! Go on! It would be a relief… after so long as your servant…!’

  ‘Harold…! No!’

  ‘He’s dead. The foolish creature.’

  ‘Is it true, father?’ Effie asks him. ‘What the cat said? You only want me… for my magic powers…?’

  ‘Of course not. You have no powers. None at all. I simply wanted my daughter back.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ says Effie. She’s shouldering her handbag and fastening up her coat. ‘I think you lied to me all along. So, I’m going home now. With Brenda. Back to my normal life.’

  Good for you, Effie! I feel like shouting. But I am still staring aghast at the smouldering remains of poor Harold.

  ‘Do you think I’ll just let you walk out of my realm?’

  ‘If you love me,’ Effie says. ‘If you ever loved me at all, then that’s what you’ll do.’

  ‘Love? What would you know about love?’

  ‘A sight more than you do, evidently,’ she says, very sadly. ‘After what you did to that poor cat, who never did anything but serve you. Now. I’ll be off then. And you won’t try to stop us, will you?’

  ‘Effryggia… Effie… I’ve wanted to see you again for all these years… I know I’ve got it wrong. I know I’ve done everything wrong… But, please. Stay here… with your old dad.’

  But Effie turns her back on the tall, dark man. She grits her teeth and starts walking away. ‘I’ll give your regards to mother, shall I? And my ghostly aunts? I’m sure they remember you. The man who ruined all our lives, all that time ago.’

  ‘Nooo..! Don’t leave me here!’

  ‘Come along, Brenda,’ she tells me. ‘He won’t stop us walking back out of the picture. He’s just a silly, sad old man. Don’t worry about him. Keep walking. And don’t look back.’

  ‘Effie! Stay with me! Please!’

  I have no choice but to follow Effie. We leave the Erl King shouting like a mad man in the middle of the moor. He’s impotent, robbed of the only thing that ever gave him power – the love and adoration of those around him.

  He stands in the middle of that murky moor, with his dead cat at his feet. Shouting after his only daughter, who shrugs her shoulders and grits her teeth.

  It’s a long walk back across those desolate, phantom wastes.

  The howling wind at our backs is still calling her name.

  ‘Effie…! I will come for you… again!’

  But he doesn’t do anything to stop us reaching the golden frame. Beyond it we can see the glow of Effie’s messy sitting room.

  We step through, and we’re home.

  ‘What a terrible man,’ she shudders. ‘I’m such a fool for ever listening to him.’

  I turn back to the painting and I’m not surprised to see that it’s turned completely dark. There are no figures to be made out. There’s nothing to be seen in all that gloom.

  Effie sighs and starts taking off her hat and coat. ‘Tea? Or something stronger, ducky?’

  ‘Sherry,’ I tell her.

  Effie smiles. ‘Thank you so much for coming to rescue me. I’d have been lost forever, without you.’

  I shrug. ‘My pleasure.’

  Then she says, ‘You know, Brenda… I have a feeling that this friendship of ours is to be a fateful one.’

  ‘Oh no!’ I laugh. ‘Do you think we’re going to encounter even stranger situations than tonight’s?’

  She shudders, but then smiles. ‘Oh yes,’ she says. ‘I shouldn’t be at all surpr
ised.’

  Bat out of Hull

  I’m up with the larks this morning, and doing my exercises. Running on the spot, touching my toes and doing star jumps. All the very exhausting things I have to do in order to keep this old body of mine in trim. I’ve put a nice couple from Todmorden in the Blue Room directly beneath me and I remember this too late. Goodness what they’ll make of all this thumping about from the attic.

  Next I’m clattering about making breakfasts. I like to fry up twenty eggs to utter perfection before the first of my guests emerge. Symmetrical golden yolks exactly centred, and then thirty crispy curls of bacon with a golden fringe of fat. I think I’m doing a good job here, looking after my guests as they pass through the doors of my B&B, wanting me to look after them.

  There was a couple this morning, asking me for recommendations. What did I think they should see of the town? The Abbey or the Museum? Was it worth taking a trip along the coast to look at Robin Hood’s Bay? And I thought – I’ve not even been here a season, and already I’m an expert. I know quite a lot about this town and what’s nice to do. Of course, there are secret things about this town that I already know, though I wouldn’t tell any of my guests about those, in case I inadvertently put the willies up them. I wouldn’t want them fleeing from my establishment without paying.

  Breakfast done, I wave my various guests (from the Blue, Purple and Orange Rooms) off on their separate days out and then I turn to the mammoth amount of dishes that need doing. I’m interrupted by a phone call from Effie, who only lives next door, of course, but who tends to have long lie-ins reading Romance novels with the telephone to hand. She tells me her most shameful secret is to eat fancy chocolates in the morning as she sits there in her bed. Though you’d never believe it. There’s hardly a picking on the skinny old mare.

  ‘Brenda’s B&B?’ I put on my grandest phone voice, to make her chuckle.

  ‘Morning, Brenda,’ she says. ‘How are you feeling, ducky?’

  ‘Actually, rather better than I’ve any right to,’ I tell her. And I can tell from Effie’s voice on the other end that she’s feeling gruesome today. Last night was Cabaret Evening at the Christmas Hotel and we went along to see a popular local combo called Denise and Wheatley. They do numbers from the famous musicals. She sings and he accompanies her with his electronic organ and then they go into their exorcism routine, in which Denise has her demons cast out by her husband, who turns out to be a defrocked vicar. It’s quite a good show, though alarming the first time you see it.

  The disco was hits from the Seventies and it was Two-for-One on the spirits, so Effie and I got a bit unnecessary, having a bop and knocking it back like it was somebody’s wedding. Of course, I never really get drunk, and so the effects on me aren’t anything like what poor Effie has to endure as she lies there in bed with her bodice-rippers and her luxury truffles.

  ‘Oh, I feel proper nauseous,’ she moans. ‘Why ever did we say we’d go out again tonight?’

  Did we? I wonder. That’s not something I would usually do. Not these days. Not two nights on the trot. It sounds like I’m slipping into a dissolute lifestyle, gallivanting on week nights. I’m not sure that’s very appropriate for the respectable owner of a high-toned guest house.

  ‘You remember, Brenda. We made a promise last night.’

  I’m not sure I remember any such thing. All I recall is the usual festive hullaballoo of the Christmas hotel, and swarms of elderly fun-seekers in their party frocks, doing the conga and the Birdy dance. Oh, hang on – there’s a thought.

  ‘Don’t you remember meeting Barry Lurcher, Brenda? TV’s famous puppeteer from yesteryear? He took quite a shine to you last night. How could you have forgotten that?’

  All of a sudden – in a queasy-making dazzle – I’m having a flashback to the night before.

  Effie and I have just tottered off the dance floor following two back-to-back Barry Whites and a Donna Summer. We’re glowing with exertion and hurrying to our table, where we left our coats and bags unattended. Effie elbows her way to the bar though I actually think we’ve had our fill.

  At our table the two free chairs have been taken by a youngish woman who seems quite out of it, and a man with a vast belly and an impressively bushy beard.

  ‘My dear, we have occupied more than half of your table. I hope that you’ll forgive us.’

  I say, ‘Of course – so long as you haven’t been through our pockets and bags.’ He looks rather blankly at me and, though he doesn’t appreciate my sense of humour and has a thick Hull accent, I still think he’s quite a catch.

  ‘Going through your things! I should think not!’

  I just wish I wasn’t sneezing so much all evening. I’m wearing a new batwing jumper I’ve knitted in spangly black mohair and it’s playing havoc with my sinuses.

  ‘I am Barry Lurcher and this is Abigail, my darling wife and some time assistant.’

  ‘Oh,’ I say. And just as I am about to ask what he needs assistance with, I see that they have someone or something else sitting with them. It is a giant bat with overlarge ears and wings made, like the rest of him, out of somewhat moth-eaten black felt and fun fur fabric. I remark on the bat and the creature swings round its head to glare at me. It has fearsome green eyes and a livid red mouth full of needle-like teeth. I give a jump and then I realize that it’s only a puppet. The man’s arm is wedged up the creature’s backside.

  ‘This is Tolstoy. The Long-Eared Bat. Star of stage and screen for more than forty years.’

  ‘Goodness! What a sweet puppet!’

  ‘Shush! Don’t go calling him sweet!’

  ‘Who’s this mouldy old ratbag? She looks like a zombie drag queen!’

  I draw in a sharp breath.

  ‘I think Tolstoy likes you!’

  Barry is beaming at me through his beard and then Effie joins us, bringing vodka and limes. She looks puzzled at first and then she claps eyes on the amusing bat.

  ‘Oh my goodness! Tolstoy!’ she squawks, thunking the drinks down on the table and spilling some.

  ‘Christ! Here’s another frazzled old floozy. What are you doing, Barry? Can’t you get any younger ones?’

  ‘There aren’t any younger ones here, I’m afraid, Tolstoy old chum. Just a load of old women.’

  ‘At least you could pick out some with big knockers. Look at these two! Pitiful!’

  Well, I’m too shocked to speak. This puppet is saying terrible things. I mean, of course, this man is saying terrible things through his puppet. I’ll say this much for Barry, though. You can’t see his lips budge an inch when Tolstoy is talking. Abigail sits there, simpering into space, ignoring all of us. I turn to Effie and see a look of enchantment on her face. She cracks out laughing at every horrible word Tolstoy says.

  ‘Oh, he’s just the same!’ she chortles. ‘Still the same cheeky old bat!’ Then she reaches out to tickle behind one of the puppet’s ears. He doesn’t look all that clean to me, as he wriggles about, enjoying Effie’s attention.

  ‘Look, Brenda,’ she grins. ‘Don’t you remember Tolstoy? From Children’s television all those years ago? He was so rude and naughty!’

  ‘It wasn’t that many years ago! Up yours, Missus!’

  ‘I’ve never really been one for watching much telly,’ I say. I don’t mean to sound so stiff and disapproving. I’ve just never heard of this puppet before.

  ‘We won’t hold that against you, my dear.’

  Effie pipes up, ‘I’ve been one of your fans for decades, Mr Lurcher. But what are you doing in Whitby?’

  So Barry Lurcher explains that he and Tolstoy are the new cabaret attraction here this month. Mrs Claus has splashed out on talent that’s actually famous, it seems. Effie looks thrilled, but I can’t say I’m impressed.

  ‘Ooh, when’s your first show?’ Effie asks.

  ‘Tomorrow evening! Tolstoy and I will make our Christmas Hotel debut at the Witching Hour! Will you two lovely ladies promise to be there?’

  Effie claps he
r hands together. ‘Oh, of course! Won’t we, Brenda?’

  ‘Your chunky friend in the nasty jumper doesn’t look so sure!’

  ‘Tolstoy! She’s just well-built.’

  I fix them both with a beady stare. ‘You don’t know the half of it, chum.’ And it seems to me that the long-eared bat’s eyes glint at me with extra malice.

  ‘I shall look forward to seeing you then.’

  So that’s how we end up promising, though it’s the last thing I feel like doing. Traipsing up the West Cliff for another raucous night out, all for the sake of a rude hand puppet.

  ‘It’s not about the puppet,’ Effie guffaws down the phone. ‘Don’t you think the Puppet Master had his eye on one of us?’

  I’m scandalised. ‘He’s married! His wife was sitting there at the table with us!’

  Effie sighs. ‘I read an article in a mag at the hairdresser’s. All about how his is a loveless marriage in name only, according to insiders. Apparently the spark went out long ago and now she’s just the assistant.’

  Effie seems very well up on showbiz gossip. In the end I give in and finish off the phone call wondering what on earth I’m going to wear. I arrived here in Whitby with one bag of clothes so I’m not over-endowed with gladrags. Most of my things got left behind. In my last place. When I fled. But I’m not thinking about any of that now.

  The day passes pleasantly enough and I’m in a kind of trance as I go round with my duster and the ewbank. There’s something soothing about mundane tasks. I feel like I’ve been doing them for two hundred years or more, and that’s a lot of dust and muck to dispose of, when you think about it.

  It’s a mild afternoon so I go out with a mug of tea and sit in my small patch of back garden. It’s adorned with some daemonic statues and boxed in by hedges and here I can sit and listen to wood pigeons and watch squirrels.

  I’m interrupted by my couple from Todmorden. Both ladies are wearing sun hats and carrying bagfuls of souvenirs from their day out. They join me for a cuppa in the sun and they tell me about the junk shops they’ve visited in Robin Hood’s Bay. It’s a quaint town, built on a very steep piece of shoreline, and the streets wind about each other in complicated tiers – rather like an Escher print, as the younger of the women points out. It turns out they’re both called Mary.