[Brenda & Effie 07] - A Game of Crones

by Paul Magrs

  They tell me that they found a terribly old-fashioned toyshop, tucked away in the most obscure corner of that town. It was perched on a bridge high above a trickling stream. The two Marys ventured inside and they went back into a world of clockwork clowns, tin robots, wooden masks and puppets made from lustrous fur. The shop smelled wonderfully of wood shavings and something else… Gingerbread, says the older Mary. Snow on Christmas morning, says the other and they both laugh. They have bagfuls of presents for nieces and neighbours and they found the shop owner to be a wonderful old eccentric who has worked there all his life.

  I’m entranced by all of this. I’ve been to Robin Hood’s Bay with Effie and though I think we trotted along every hidden passageway I don’t recall a toyshop like this. Judging by the curios with which I’ve decorated the rooms of my B&B the two Marys believe I’d be delighted by Grenoble’s Toys.

  I make a mental note of the name and ask Effie about it later, when she’s dragging indoors antiques she’s been displaying outside her shop. A rail of cocktail dresses, a tailors’ dummy draped in beads and feathers, and an old gramophone that’s been playing crackly old tunes all afternoon.

  ‘They must have got it wrong, those two Marys,’ says Effie, pulling a face. ‘If it’s been there forever, I’d have known about it.’ Then she eyes me speculatively and asks if I’m ready for the evening’s entertainment. Then she’s dragging me indoors to inspect a vintage frock – it’s aubergine and covered in black embroidery. Even though it’s the size of a tent, when I try it on in her bathroom it still pinches under my arms.

  ‘It’ll be fine, just so long as you don’t do the actions to Agadoo on the dance floor. Go on, have it. It’s yours.’

  She won’t take a penny payment off me. That’s the thing about Effie. She might be shrewish sometimes but she’s kind deep down.

  Well, then I’m titivating myself. Bathing in scented oils and powdering myself like mad. I try not to look at the scarred battleground of my body as I stand in my bathroom. I blot all those markings away with talc. Then I tug on my dressing gown and sit at my mirror. It’s time to slather on layers of concealer, foundation and every unguent I can make stick. I ply on my finest lashes and finally brush up my towering beehive, laminate it with hairspray and place it ceremonially upon my head. Like a queen in Westminster Abbey taking delivery of her crown.

  Then I slip into the voluminous party frock and some suitably dark shoes with heels as high as I dare go. Not having a full-length mirror I make do with the one in the hall, peering at myself at odd angles and do you know what? I’m not at all displeased with the effect.

  ‘I knew you’d brush up well,’ Effie tells me when I go round. She herself is in a crimson wraparound number with a daring amount of somewhat crepey cleavage on show. She’s had something frizzy done to her hair. ‘By the way, have you seen this?’ She hands me the evening paper to look at while she goes round doing up her window locks. The headlines scream that the Crispy Cat has carried out its fifth murder of the year. One of the ladies from the Heritage gift shop at the Abbey has been found with her face chewed off.

  ‘Oh dear,’ I say.

  ‘Quite,’ says Effie, shouldering her clutch bag. ‘We should have dealt with that monstrosity when we had the chance, in the last episode.’

  Now we’re heading out the door for another night out. With a wild beast on the loose. A man-eater at that. Not that you’d find a lack of those on the dance floor at the Christmas Hotel…

  In the lavish foyer we run straight into the owner of the whole place. Attended by a horde of fit young men in tight-fitting elf costumes, Mrs Claus sits up in her wheeled bath chair looking like nothing else on earth. Her hair is fir tree green, teased to a point and studded with silver balls. Her frock is woven from strings of purple tinsel. Fairy lights bedeck every visible inch of her and her make-up is just like a clown’s.

  ‘Ladies! Welcome, dear ladies!’ she shrieks at us. Her voice could curdle advocat. ‘Take your places in the Grand Ballroom for the Barry Lurcher Experience!’

  We are ushered past the yuletide hag by her festive minions and taken deep inside the Christmas Hotel. There is a surging crowd of pensioners, all eager to see the show. Effie seems just as excited as everyone else, but I can’t see what’s to get worked up about over a puppet show. I’m still new here. Perhaps Whitby is a town where novelty is rare?

  Effie dashes among the cabaret tables to make sure we get a decent spot, fairly near the front. After a warm-up act from a poor impressionist on comes Barry Lurcher with his doleful-looking wife. She’s wearing a magician’s assistant type bikini and I reflect that all those sequins aren’t doing anything for her hangdog expression.

  Barry’s act turns out to be music hall stuff – daft old jokes and ancient routines. Despite myself, I am kept in stitches throughout, just like the rest of the audience. Barry has a wicker hamper, from which processes a host of animal puppets, each with their own personality. Each of them banters with Barry, but the obvious highlight is when Tolstoy the Long-Eared Bat emerges from the darkest recesses of that hamper. Under spotlights the bat looks more fiendish than ever. He engages in nasty repartee with the audience – making individuals stand up so he can heap insults upon them, much to the hilarity of everyone else. Effie and I sit in a state of pleasurable near-panic, hoping that Tolstoy won’t pick on us.

  ‘What a marvellous audience you’ve all been tonight! Thank you so much for being terrific good sports! We’re very grateful, aren’t we, Tolstoy?’

  ‘I’ve seen more life in a flaming morgue! Look at the state of you lot! What a bunch of frigging stiffs!’

  It doesn’t matter how rude Tolstoy is, the audience just laps it up. Barry Lurcher takes his bows to thunderous approval.

  ‘Go and boil your heads, coffin dodgers!’

  Then – miraculously! – comes the highlight of the act. We are all astonished and dumbstruck. It happens as Barry finishes taking his elaborate bows. He holds up the devilish bat, who flexes out his tattered wings – wider than a good-sized brolly. Then he flaps them and takes off into the glittering air. Tolstoy flies unaided up into the rafters…

  He circles the ballroom three times and we all hold our breath!

  ‘Look at me, you scabby old buggers! Just look at me go! Ha hahahahaha! How do you think we’re doing this, eh? With strings? With smoke and mirrors?’

  Then he’s dive-bombing the audience. He swoops and makes lightning raids on particular tables. Screams ring out and glasses are smashed.

  And I just know Tolstoy is going to come for me. I steal a glance at the stage, where Barry is beaming at his charge’s naughtiness.

  ‘Look out below…! Hahahaha!’

  Effie is elbowing me like mad. Next thing I know those satanic eyes and the rest of the puppet are upon me. He’s caught up in my beehive, slashing with his grinning mouthful of teeth. My hands grasp his furred and matted body. He feels surprisingly substantial and strong. Even muscular, beneath the dirty fun fur fabric.

  The rest of the ballroom is silent for a moment, and then they all roar with laughter at my predicament. Effie tries feebly to help, but is rewarded by a slashing wing in the mush and falls backwards onto her chair.

  Tolstoy is like a maddened beast, lashing out feverishly. A whole hank of my wig is between his jaws and I can see he won’t let go. I won’t give him the satisfaction of screaming. This is starting to seem like a struggle to the death. All played out against a soundtrack of mocking laughter.

  Then – finally – there comes a cry from the stage.

  ‘That is enough! Tolstoy – leave the poor old thing alone!’

  The horrid claws relinquish their grip at once. I fall back on my chair, aware at once of the mephitic stench of the bat. Brimstone and fag ash. My eyes go a bit swimmy, but I’m aware of the beast flapping across the ballroom, to alight gracefully like a kestrel on Barry Lurcher’s arm.

  ‘A big hand, ladies and gentlemen! Let’s have a huge round of applause for s
uch an amazing sport! Wasn’t she extraordinary?’

  A blummin’ spotlight comes on me just as I’m straightening my hairdo, which is in tatters. I’m still struggling for breath, but luckily the lights go down and the disco starts. This allows Effie to help me to the Ladies so I can repair myself.

  I am at the sink, shaking. Effie makes me sip her vodka and orange.

  ‘Eeh, that wasn’t funny, was it? Are you okay, ducky? You look a bit – well – green.’

  ‘It was the shock, that’s all.’

  ‘I’d have had conniptions if he’d come after me like that. You’re a brave woman, Brenda.’

  Then she’s hoiking out her make-up bag and fussing at my face. I flinch when she touches my skin. I don’t want her feeling the puckers and gathers of my scars. ‘It’s all right, Effie. I can manage.’

  ‘Poor you,’ she sighs. ‘You know, something always happens at the Christmas Hotel. Oh, sometimes you can have a right nice night out. Other times it’s like there’s something in the air. Something… evil.’

  She goes on, ‘And it was literally in the air tonight. Tolstoy is much nastier now than he used to be on telly. It’s like the mouthy, moth-bitten puppet of yesteryear has turned spiteful and bitter.’ She empties her glass. ‘I suppose that can happen to the best of us…’

  But why would Tolstoy want to pick on me, I wonder? I remember Barry’s attentions of the previous night. Now they seem more sinister than flirtatious.

  I tell Effie, ‘It’s no ordinary puppet, you know. How on earth did he get it to fly like that? And do everything it was doing?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ says Effie. I can see in the mirror that her eyes are lighting up. She can scent a mystery through all the vodka fumes.

  ‘It was like a creature possessed,’ I say. ‘It was like fighting for my wig with a demon from hell.’

  We exchange a half-worried, half-excited glance. Then a toilet flushes and some tipsy old dear comes out of a cubicle, making for the sinks. We put our conflab on hiatus. It won’t do if word gets out that we investigate supernatural shenanigans. It’s the kind of gossip that can easily spread.

  But we both have an inkling that the famous puppeteer Barry Lurcher is consorting with dark forces.

  ‘Let’s get ourselves home,’ Effie says decisively. ‘I think we’ve had enough light entertainment for one night.’

  I take Effie’s advice and have a quiet day. I wave off my Todmorden ladies, having fed them a vegetarian smorgasbord and I have no more guests until Friday.

  Effie and I take a walk four miles along the cliff tops to Robin Hood’s Bay. She regales me en route with tales from her childhood. When she used to come here with her aunts it was a lot wilder. They’d pick up ammonite fossils and shards of jet. ‘Did you know jet was meant to ward off demons, Brenda? It was said to emit vapours inimical to those of a satanic bent.’

  ‘Perhaps we should stock up,’ I suggest, only half-joking. In my dreams last night I was plagued by the flapping of velvet wings.

  As we get to the hillier parts of our walk I am wishing I’d put on stouter shoes. The wind gets whippy as we toddle through the steep town, past cheery shops and bunting-strewn pubs, past displays of shark jaws, buckets and spades and sun-faded post cards.

  I’m starting to shrug off my residual nightmares and enjoy that nicest of treats – the unplanned day off.

  We sit on the beach with parcels of steaming fish and chips. Effie produces a hip flask of sweet sherry from her bottomless handbag.

  I breathe in the whole horizon. All the fibres of my being are thrumming with something very like atavistic joy. I want to run about in the damp brown sand and into the freezing, foaming shallows of the sea. Effie counsels caution though, since it all looks a bit slippy. She’s known a few come a cropper in Robin Hood’s Bay.

  We set about an afternoon’s perusal of the quaint shops in the confusing alleyways. We duck under stone arches and creep along ginnels and I keep banging my head on hanging flower baskets. I’m wondering about somewhere for a cuppa when I realise I’m facing the bow-windowed front of an old-fashioned toyshop with a display that’s been lovingly assembled. This is it! Grenoble’s shop, just as the Marys described it – with toy soldiers and biplanes and teddies and locomotives. Effie totters up and has a look.

  ‘I don’t think I was very keen on toys when I was a girl,’ she said. ‘There wasn’t much money for fripperies back then.’

  ‘The sign says it’s been open here since 1818!’ I gasp. ‘It’s been here forever, just like the Marys said.’

  Effie’s not that interested. ‘Where shall we go for tea?’

  When I open the door there’s a volley of tinkling bells and I have to hunker down to get inside, a bit like Alice squeezing into Wonderland.

  All I see at first inside are wooden shelves stacked to capacity with coloured boxes. Then a mechanical humming bird whizzes past my head. When my eyes make sense of the place I realise I can see goggling glass eyes staring at me from every vantage point. The room is crammed with dolls, puppets, stuffed animals.

  There is a ravishing smell of fresh paint and wood shavings, but also a hot tobaccoey scent – of ginger and rum and sunsets. Far away places, all caught up in the curling blue smoke.

  The source of the aroma is a rumpled old man wearing a fez, crouching on a pouffe. His jeweller’s eyepiece makes him look alert and suspicious. He’s whittling a squirrel out of soft wood with a brutal-looking chisel.

  ‘I’ve nothing here for old women.’

  He gives us a glance that takes Effie’s breath away, she says later. In fact, she adds, the whole place makes her feel very creepy indeed.

  ‘Can’t we just browse?’ I ask. ‘Everything’s so marvellous and olde-worlde!’

  He shrugs malevolently and Effie and I set about peering into cabinets and displays. We ooh and ahh over tiny robots beaten out of tin and toy mice decked out as Victorian gents and ladies. Crystal swans and geese and rubber clowns queue up for rides at a steam-powered fairground. There are no prices on anything.

  ‘Too expensive for you. All this stuff isn’t for you. What do old women like? Knitting and watching the wrestling and discussing death and disease and their horrible relations. You don’t know anything about fun. You’ve forgotten what it is, haven’t you?’

  Effie is examining a Tomb of the Pharaoh playset and she gasps at his rudeness.

  ‘What would you know? Nasty old man. I don’t call that very nice customer service.’

  Then he turns that clockmaker’s eyepiece on me and it looks kaleidoscopic.

  ‘And what about you? Why are you hanging about with a dry old stick like her? You look much more interesting than her. Who are you?’

  Effie gasps.

  ‘Brenda, I think he’s making a pass at you. I suggest you get behind me and that we make for the door.’

  But I am a bit mesmerised, to tell the truth.

  ‘Tell me, my dear? Whoooo aaaare yoooouu?’

  I’m teetering on the point of telling him exactly who I am. Then, just in time, I pull myself back from the brink. His attention is snapped off by the doorbells. Someone is coming in.

  ‘Come on, Brenda,’ Effie urges. ‘There’s something unwholesome about this place.’

  But we are brought up short when we see who is entering the shop. It’s Abigail Lurcher, Barry’s catatonic wife. She’s in a nasty tracksuit and her hair’s in a scrunchy. She flinches visibly at the sight of us in this cavern of childish things.

  Effie nudges me and surreptitiously points out what Mrs Lurcher is carrying. The shopping bag is crammed full with the ratty, furry form of a lifeless puppet. The end of a tattered wing flopping over the top tells us that Abigail has brought Tolstoy with her.

  Effie and I bustle back out of the shop because it’s time to take our cream tea. As we sip our heavily-sugared Assam we stew over our most peculiar visit. Effie loves a mystery even more than I do.

  Late afternoon has us meandering the country roa
ds back to Whitby. Cutting through the churchyard of St Mary’s and down the 199 steps. I pick up some groceries and a bag full of minty chocolates from the chocolatier. We’re both exhausted from all our walking and we say goodbye happily outside our neighbouring homes.

  At last I can draw the curtains and slip on my housecoat, lock the doors and relax. Nina Simone on the turntable and sherry in a schooner with a heap of magazines and a couple of murder books Effie has pushed on me. I fall asleep in my chair and don’t even wake when my reading matter falls onto the carpet. The gramophone needle hisses at the end the record and I don’t turn a hair.

  I carry on dozing. Or do I?

  Do I instead stand up, all of a sudden, at eleven o’clock? Do I swap my slippers for shoes and pull on my good woollen coat? And then do I go stamping down my stairs, letting myself into the side passage, locking my Guest House behind me?

  I might be dreaming but the sea breeze feels real. It doesn’t wake me, and nor does the noise of the late night revellers I encounter on the sea front. The amusement arcades are as garish and grotesque as real life as I march past them. I find I am walking stiffly, mechanically. Does this look peculiar to passersby?

  I can’t stop myself stepping onto the pier, where it’s much less busy and well lit. The noise of the sea blocks out every other sound. A shaft of fear goes through me as I realise I can’t see the end of the pier. I have a horrible, confusing memory of somebody once trying to drown me. Strong, familiar hands attempting to hold my head under choppy, freezing waters. Waters just like these.

  Right now I want to be back on my green bobbly armchair in my cosy attic. What on earth has possessed me to send me out here, this late at night?

  Almost at the end of the pier, cloaked in darkness. Looking back at the town I see the tallest cliffs on either side and the lights of hotels, looking suddenly hellish rather than welcoming. Suddenly my head is spinning. It’s as if my mind has come loose. There’s a terrific flash of pain.