[Brenda & Effie 07] - A Game of Crones

by Paul Magrs

  And then, still half-garbed as a gypsy, our mutual friend Himself gave a theatrical bow and turned on his heel. Would you believe it, Doctor Watson? He flew out of that Christmas Hotel without a single further word.

  And I suppose he will be back with you now, Doctor. You will be reading this over breakfast. Perhaps reading this final missive aloud to him, as you scratch together your bachelors’ breakfast and use the last of the damson jam I left out for you. Never fear, I will be back in Baker Street by tomorrow evening, to clear up the mess you have both undoubtedly made of the place.

  Tell Mr Holmes that my sister and her partner in supernatural investigations both thank him profusely for his help in the case of the Eyes of Miimon and the Giant Finnish Squid and the Exorcists at the Christmas Hotel. Tell him from me that I will resist, in future, the temptation of ever again taking a relaxing fortnight by the sea.

  Yours,

  Mrs Hudson.

  From the Journal of Dr John Watson.

  November, 1925.

  That is the end of those letters which, now that I am reminded of them, strike as queer a chord in me as they did back then, some thirty years ago.

  We were all so young in those days! Mrs Hudson included. Now she lives at the home of Professor Challenger in Norfolk, where she acts as his housekeeper and occasional companion on his bizarre adventures. All of a sudden I find myself keen to take a train journey to a reunion with Mrs H and a meeting with the formidable Professor. Perhaps there really will be something in this business of the Finnish stones, found hidden in the eyes of a giant squid all those years ago.

  Won’t Mrs Hudson be surprised!

  Yes, in fact, since I’ve nothing planned for the rest of the week – whyever not? My beloved wife surely won’t mind if I go gallivanting in search of new adventures.

  I shall make the journey at once and report back fully, later on.

  NOTE, LATER ON:

  What followed is, of course, a tale for another day.

  A ghastly tale for which I don’t feel the world is yet ready.

  The Arabian Nighties

  Effie is right, of course. Things are clearly in decline when Pound Shops start opening up on your high street. Now, you know me and I’m no snob, but it was such a shame to see the old fishmongers go. And then the fancy frock shop, Hildred’s, on Silver Street – which catered for, as Effie always puts it – the more select end of the market (i.e., her). All these nice, family-run businesses are vanishing forever from our town centre and they’re being replaced by establishments that Effie says she wouldn’t be seen undead in.

  I don’t mind them as much, however, even though I do know that Pound Shops and Bargain Emporiums and the like are shabby replacements for proper shops. I find myself keen on the little bargains you can sometimes pick up in there. Me with my penchant for foolish geegaws and unusual ornaments – I’m quite happy browsing my way round the cut-price shelves.

  Effie despairs. Today she rolled her eyes at me when I produced the jumbo polyester nighties that I picked up in ‘SAVE SAVE SAVE!’ One pink, one yellow and one in baby blue. She sneered at the labels, the stitching, the material – which she said was scratchy and nasty and bound to make me sweat like pig all night. ‘I don’t care if they’re in just your size, Brenda, and I don’t care about the miraculous price. They’re vulgar, nasty and cheap. And don’t stand too close to your gas hob while wearing one of the horrid articles, either, or you’ll go up in a sheet of flame.’

  We were sitting in our favourite café at the time and I started to stuff my nighties back into my shopping bag. I was feeling rather embarrassed, to tell the truth. She’d made me feel I’d wasted my money on rubbish.

  Effie has impeccable taste, did I ever tell you that? Actually, I shouldn’t be sarcastic because, really, she does have rather good taste when it comes to couture, her with her turbans and capes and snugly-fitting suits. I go galumphing round in rags, compared with her. I always look like nothing next to Effie, is how I always feel.

  ‘You should splash out a bit more and buy yourself nice things,’ Effie tells me, sipping her highly-sugared Assam and glaring at me over the rim of her china cup. ‘Spoil yourself. Don’t buy cheap things.’

  I sigh because, to be quite frank, money’s a bit tight just now. The same wave of economic depression that has sent the fortunes of some of the older, specialist shops in town tumbling has affected my guest house, too. Bookings are down for the coming months – even into the summer season – and I’ve been forced to advertise all kinds of special offers and knock-down rates just to keep my head above water. I haven’t explained any of this to Effie. The two of us never talk about money, as it happens. No doubt she’d find such talk just as vulgar as my polyester nighties. Not for the first time I wonder where she gets all her money from. That dusty old antiques emporium can’t be making much. She never seems to sell any of that precious, chipped and shop-soiled tat she’s got heaped up in there. Perhaps she simply magicks herself wads of cash when she needs it? Perhaps somewhere in her old aunties’ books of spells there’s arcane instructions for the spontaneous generation of endless wealth?

  I’m obviously looking at her speculatively because she gets annoyed. ‘Don’t you go into a sulk with me, lady!’ she croaks. ‘Sometimes you need telling these things. If you want to be a lady like I am – and I trust that you do – then you must listen to my advice.’

  I’m really not sure that I’ve ever said I wanted to be a lady like Effie is. All I’ve ever said is that I’d like to fit in, here in the town of Whitby, where Effie has been a resident all her life and where I came, after a long and busy life, in order to retire.

  I can’t promise the snooty old witch that I’ll give up shopping in the cheap shops. I find that I can’t give up rummaging in those places at all.

  Especially that particular one. SAVE SAVE SAVE. It’s exerting a special kind of fascination on me. They get deliveries almost every day and there’s always something novel and new and unexpected popping up on their shelves.

  I don’t try to explain things to Effie. When she’s already made up her mind it’s all in one ear and out the other.

  It’s my turn to pay the bill and I wince slightly at its size. They’ve recently done up our favourite café on Church Street. Out went the faded chintz and the gingham tablecloths. Now it’s all upcycled Victoriana and twisted driftwood nailed to the walls and tasteful white fairy lights. And they’ve doubled the cost of their comestibles. No wonder I’m having to economise!

  On our walk home to Harbour Street we discuss our pending cases. There have been sightings of a ghostly ice cream van on the West Cliff again and that can only mean one thing. Hans Macabre is up to his old tricks, possibly. And there is a poltergeist – by all accounts – on the Sandsend Funicular, several miles up the coast, which Effie has offered to investigate (I’m not keen. I can’t abide poltergeists. They’re so rough!) Also, there’s a very curious case in the offing to do with a hotel that prides itself as the place that the Reverend Charles Dodgson used to stay, back when he was writing ‘Alice’s Adventures.’ I haven’t had all the details yet, but the little I’ve heard from my partner in creepy investigations seems to beggar belief. Anyhow, we’re past mistresses by now at handling and organising several cases at once, and a vague timetable is drawn up between us even before we reach the street where my B&B and Effie’s ramshackle house stand cheek by jowl in the long shadows of the late afternoon.

  The next morning I’m in SAVE SAVE SAVE without even thinking about it. I’ve got a trolley and I’m cruising up and down the aisles, full of purpose, my head jangling with the pleasant, tinkly music they play in order to put you at your ease. The place is packed. Word is spreading, it seems, about the strange and unusual bargains to be had in this the newest of Whitby’s bargain stores.

  Already I’ve picked up some lovely new bathmats in multi-coloured wool. And some toilet pedestal rugs. And a two-thousand piece jigsaw with a lovely picture of all the rooftops
of this very town. I like a good jigsaw to while away a quiet evening at home. I’ve snagged three bottles of Romanian sherry at an astonishingly low price (what’s a couple of years out of date between friends?) And I’ve got a few tins of cocktail fruit (at least that’s what I think it is). The writing on the label is some language I’ve never seen before.) Then I’m in my favourite aisle, which is devoted to luxury household items. Today I’m looking at incense and oil burners and all those things that give your home a special, aromatic ambience.

  I’m opening little bottles of oils and sniffing the contents. Sandalwood and musk, jasmine and lavender. All of them are lovely. I could have a different scent in each room of my B&B, how about that? I could theme the rooms around the scents, perhaps, and give them all a bit of exotic allure, summoning up the atmosphere of faraway places…

  Which to have in my own little hideaway at the top of my house? Vanilla and cocoa bean? It would make me crave chocolate bars all day long. Strawberries and cream? I’d be wanting to eat cheesecake in the middle of the night. What about this one..?

  I inhale deeply from a stoppered bottle I’ve found right at the back of the shelf. Unlike the others it’s dusty and bright green in hue. It doesn’t seem to belong to the rest of this consignment of aromatic oils. What is it…?

  I freeze in my tracks as the strange scent makes its way up my hooter.

  It’s the most gorgeous smell I’ve ever experienced.

  It’s like… yes, it’s like those faraway places I was only just thinking of. It’s like the spices in a Moroccan bazaar, or the tang of the fanciest bottle of vintage wine from the deepest cellar in the world, and there are hints of an oasis in a desert and ice caverns deep underground… It’s very strange, but there’s a bursting of all these images in my mind as I take in a great lungful of the scent. I realise that my tired old heart is going like the clappers and I can see black circles ahead of me when I look up and for a terrible moment I believe I’m about to pass out. Whew. I pop the stopper back on quickly and look for a price.

  £1001.00

  Surely that has to be a mistake?

  I grasp hold of the arm of a young lad who’s stacking the shelves in the next aisle with last year’s Christmas Selection Boxes. When I drag him round to see the green glass bottle of aromatic oil he’s as perplexed as I am by its label. ‘One thousand and one pounds?’ I scoff. ‘I thought this was the shop where nothing cost more than a pound?’ I can hear a note of concern in my own voice, as if I’m worried that I’m not going to be able to purchase the oil and leave this shop empty-handed.

  The lad fetches his manageress. Miss Timperley, her name badge says, and she frowns at the bottle and its label. ‘I’ve no idea what it is,’ she says briskly. ‘But of course it doesn’t really cost that much.’ There’s a whiff of the glorious scent lingering on the air and she pulls a face as if it’s disgusting to her. ‘Here, take it. It doesn’t belong here. It’s not something we sell. I don’t know how it ended up on our shelves. Take it for 99p with my compliments.’ Miss Timperley just about throws it back at me.

  Well, there’s a good result, I think, hurrying back to choose just the right oil burner and some night lights.

  That evening I light the candle in the burner and I open the green bottle and savour the smell all over again as I tip a couple of spoons’ worth into the ceramic dish above the flame. As the oil warms the aroma grows even stronger and sweeter, and more complex and subtle… It ensnares me and I feel as if I’m on the brink of some tremendous new thought or revelation. I feel exactly like I do when some cobwebby chunk of memory is restored to me and I slip into one of my immersive flashbacks from my lurid past. But this time I don’t. I just stand there, swaying in front of my wall unit, high as a kite on my burning incense.

  Effie’s loud banging at the side passage door brings me back to my senses. I hurry down to let her in.

  She takes several long, disapproving sniffs as she follows me up the stairs. I don’t have to look at her to know she’d be wearing an expression that could curdle milk. It’s exactly the look she gets when someone’s trodden in dog mess and tracked it onto the carpet.

  ‘Eurggh, ducky,’ she grimaces as we enter my attic rooms. ‘What the devil’s that infernal pong? Ooh, dear me. That’s turning my stomach, that. It’ll bring on my migraine. Whatever is it? You haven’t been smoking drug-flavoured cigarettes, have you?’

  I roll my eyes at her and pop the kettle on. I’m in a more mellow mood than usual and not even Effie’s snide remarks can put my back up tonight.

  ‘Your pupils are dilated,’ she tells me. ‘And you’re wearing a very slack expression, Brenda. Whatever have you done to yourself?’

  I shrug and look at her. She’s unloading a sheaf of notes and newspaper clippings from her handbag. Now here’s a funny thing. There’s a shimmering purple glow all around her. There are silver lightning bolts shooting out of her head. All of that bristling irritability of hers. Effie’s endless irascibility. For some reason I can see it all, in gaudy multi-coloured emanations all around her skinny body. I gasp out loud. ‘Effie! I can see your aura!’

  She looks extremely startled by this.

  And that’s when I flomp backwards onto my green bobbly armchair and, according to her, I’ve fainted.

  My dream doesn’t last very long, but it’s very colourful and rather hectic.

  First of all I feel I’m floating high above the rooftops of Whitby, staring down at the glittering expanse of the North Sea. I’m noting with interest all the delicate pleats and folds of the coastline and the welcoming maw of the harbour, where ships of all sizes are vying and jostling on the choppy waters.

  I appear to be floating on a magic carpet of some description. A quick, panicked glance reveals to me that it’s one of the rag rugs I bought for the bathroom floor. It seems to have developed amazing powers and has no problem transporting me through the turbulent skies. Ooh, the clouds are bonny tonight. Thick magenta and Prussian blue with golden trim. We’re flying into the last of the sunlight.

  The bath mat is a bit larger than the one I splashed out on today. It’s large enough to contain not only me, but a somewhat oversized duck, too. It’s an exotic-looking bird, with tufted feathers of orange and gold. It’s staring at me beadily and doesn’t seem at all perturbed to be perched here on a mat with me.

  ‘Hello,’ I say.

  The duck quacks solemnly.

  And it’s at this point that Effie slaps me hard about the chops in order to bring me round.

  She brings me a steaming mug of spicy tea as I struggle to sit upright in my armchair.

  ‘Well, you went peculiar,’ she says crossly. ‘Mucking about with funny scenty things. It was probably narcotics, I shouldn’t wonder.’

  I sip my tea and realise she’s opened all the attic windows to let the fresh sea breeze seep through.

  ‘Where have you put my oil burner?’ I ask, sounding shrill. ‘And the little green bottle?’

  She narrows her eyes at me, and plonks her skinny bottom on my settee. ‘The oil burner’s in the dishwasher. And don’t worry. I didn’t throw out the bottle, even though I felt I ought to. It made you pass out, Brenda! It must be something a bit funny…’

  ‘It… It has magical properties, certainly… but not wicked ones. They’re benign, I’m sure…’

  She starts flicking through her clippings and her investigation ring binder and simply tuts at me in a sort of ‘we’ll see, won’t we?’ fashion. ‘The thing is, ducky. We can’t be too careful… with the likes of Mr Danby still at large, and Mrs Claus up to her old tricks, and these reports of Hans Macabre... Lots of our old enemies are still out and about and intending us harm, Brenda. Brenda? Do you hear me..?’

  It was her calling me ‘ducky’ that broke my dream. Suddenly I could see that exotic-looking duck again, sitting on the bathroom mat and glinting its clever eye at me.

  ‘Y-yes, yes, I’m fine. I’ll be more careful.’

  But as we go through
her notes and newspaper articles again, I’m thinking about that strange oil and the hypnotic properties it seems to possess…

  Much later, when Effie totters off home, tipsy on several Romanian sherry nightcaps, I hurriedly get myself ready for bed, flinging on my night-things and slathering on face cream and then fetching out the burner from the dishwasher and starting to burn the midnight oil.

  I sit by the window that overlooks the whole town and the gorgeous dark that hangs above the stark headland and old Whitby Abbey. I sit with my journal open but I don’t write a word. I breathe in the queer incense and let my mind relax… wondering where it will wander this time?

  I don’t even hear the crashing and banging of all the bins from down in the alley. This, I learn later, is all to do with Effie and an untoward encounter that had everything to do with the Romanian sherry she had consumed. Its specific and not altogether unpleasant tang on her breath had summoned attention from an utterly unexpected quarter. But more of that later.

  For now, let me present a picture of myself in my attic at night, wreathed in that heady scent.

  Amongst my many bargains from SAVE SAVE SAVE were several bottles of cleaning agents, much cheaper than I’d ever had them from my usual supplier. One of them was one of those bottles shaped in such as way as to allow you to squirt detergent up inside the rim of your lavatory: very useful. A Toilet Duck, I believe they are called.

  Before I know it I’m in the kitchen – feeling a bit woozy – rummaging through my still-unpacked shopping bag and fetching out that toilet duck. Why hadn’t I noticed this before? All the writing is funny and foreign. This isn’t any old Toilet Duck after all.

  It’s a magic Toilet Duck.

  I unscrew the cap and give it a little squeeze.

  There is a whoosh of green, pine-scented smoke. It churns and plumes before me, and smells ever so fresh. And then the duck is standing on the kitchen table, squinting shrewdly and looking just like he did in my little reverie earlier.