by Paul Magrs
The fairy lights and moonlight, and the festive hullabaloo of Goth weekend’s Friday night came swirling into the dark, musty cell.
But Robert wasn’t taking any notice of outside yet. Robert was agog at the man on the settee. The man who was looking very pleased with himself.
Robert burst out laughing. ‘It’s you! You’ve come for us!’ There was a tinge of hysteria in his voice.
Michael laughed back. ‘It’s me, all right. Hop on board.’
Robert heard a noise beside him just then, from somewhere near the floor. A frightened noise. He looked and realised that the snivelling, snarling feral elf-boy and postman were looking with great interest at the new arrival. In the light flooding through the hole in the turret, the two servants were a grisly sight, matted with blood and God knew what else.
Michael stared at them. ‘Don’t bring them, though. What’s happened to them?’
Robert said, ‘I think their minds have snapped. Because of the things Karla has made them do.’
The two savage men slunk back into the shadows. Michael watched them, both fascinated and appalled. ‘What things?’
Robert coughed. ‘What they’ve done to Frank.’
Michael turned to look where Robert was pointing.
There didn’t seem to be very much of Frank left. It was hard to tell, in the distorting shadows, and with the moonlight streaming in. He could make out Frank’s twisted face, his limbs – some of them, anyway – sticking up at strange angles.
Robert decided that they needed to get a move on. ‘Here, help me out of these shackles. Help me lift Frank . . . and his bits.’
Michael hopped off the settee and peered down at them both. Was there much that could be done for Frank? He saw that the man monster was staring back up at him. Was that a pleading look in his black eyes?
‘I’m glad you came,’ Robert said.
Michael took his hands and examined the shackles. ‘Me too. For a while . . . I didn’t know that was what I had to do. I’d kind of forgotten who I was. I thought I was someone else. It’s hard to explain. But now . . . it’s all coming clearer . . .’ And then, as if to prove the sudden ease of things, he yanked apart the chains like they were made of coloured paper.
Yes, things seemed so much clearer to Michael. He was coming into the full knowledge of who he was. Of who he had been the whole time along. And now he could see that Frank could be helped after all. As the two men set about carefully carrying the ruined bits of Frank to the settee, Michael was beginning to realise just where he needed to take him.
Far, far from here.
Father, Dear Father
Brenda had been shooting glances at Karla’s table for two all the way through dinner. It was tucked away in the corner, presumably so that the hoi polloi couldn’t rubberneck the star’s tête-à-tête. But Brenda craned right round in her seat, unable to take her eyes off the pair.
Effie was losing patience with her. ‘Will you sit straight and eat your sweet, Brenda?’
There came a distant booming and crashing from elsewhere in the hotel. It sounded like bombs going off, though the majority of the diners – presumably quite used to games of bingone – paid the noise very little heed.
Penny jerked up in her seat. ‘What was that?’
‘Ugh, there’s always something going on,’ Effie scowled.
‘That sounded like something big,’ Lisa said.
Penny started to fret. ‘Where’s Michael got to?’
‘He’s been gone smoking for ages,’ said Lisa.
‘He’ll be with that Mrs Claus,’ Penny said.
Effie wielded her pudding spoon, saying: ‘No, she’s over there. Oh, hello. Who’s this?’
One of the elves had materialised at Brenda’s side. He bent to have a discreet word in her ear. The others watched a curious smile appear on their friend’s face. Brenda reached under the table for her handbag and stood.
‘Karla’s asked if I’ll join them for coffee and after-dinner mints.’
Effie was immediately suspicious. And just a tad put out. ‘What? Just you?’
‘Erm,’ Brenda said awkwardly. ‘To be honest, he never said just me, but . . .’
Effie flung down her spoon and her napkin. ‘Right. I’m coming with you. She might have planned anything, that one.’
‘Actually, Effie, I’d . . .’
‘Hmm?’
‘I’d rather face her myself. And him.’
‘Oh!’ Effie was caught in a crouch. She felt discombobulated. So Brenda didn’t want her support! She felt foolish for even offering, now. ‘But why? Who is he?’
Brenda had a very funny look on her face. She looked vulnerable to Effie. Sort of soft-looking. Effie could sense that this was all about to go to the bad. Brenda said: ‘I’ll tell you when I get back. I’m not sure. I just have a very funny feeling in my water.’
Brenda’s friends watched her amble over, squeezing between tables and chairs, easing herself towards the quiet corner: the bay window table where Karla and her elegant man friend had a view of the dark skies above the West Cliff.
Karla stood to greet her new guest. ‘And so here she is. At last!’
Brenda’s guard came down a little as she nodded at the film star. ‘Good evening, Karla.’
She looked at the man-friend, scrutinising his face as she waited to be introduced to him.
Karla shook her silver mane in admiration. ‘You, my darling Brenda, look just the same as you did forty years ago, practically.’
‘And so do you,’ Brenda said.
‘Rubbish. But we’re both pretty well preserved. And here we are again! How strange, that you should be living in the very town where we are shooting our little movie.’
Brenda raised an eyebrow. ‘Not really. You were drawn here by the same forces that called out to me, several years ago.’
Karla sat down again, and urged Brenda to take her seat. ‘Oh really? And what would they be, precisely?’
At last Victor spoke up. He never raised his voice. He purred at her.
‘Karla dear. Let her sit. Relax. Have some coffee.’
‘I will,’ said Brenda, plumping herself down on the spare chair. She stared at the elderly man. She tried to look into his eyes, but they were cast down as he poured their hot, dark coffee.
Karla said, ‘Brenda, this is my friend. I think you’ve met before?’
Brenda swallowed drily. She tried again to look into his face, but it was as if he was avoiding her eye. She asked: ‘It is you, then?’
Then he looked up. His eyes were silver. Conflicted. She felt they were honest; that they looked straight into her. But there was summer lightning in those eyes, too. There were emotions that were twisty and complex. Things she would never understand. As he spoke, she found herself trying to hold his gaze; to fathom him out. ‘I knew you’d know me,’ he said. ‘Even after all this time. And you hardly saw me, back then. I wasn’t sure you would know my face.’
‘I know it all right. Father.’
Victor chuckled. It was a chilly sound. ‘You know me. I am pleased. You call yourself Brenda, I believe.’ He offered her cream out of a solid silver jug.
‘You never gave me a name.’
‘Didn’t I? I gave you so little. Sugar?’
Brenda felt herself tearing up. She wanted to grab this man. She wanted to dash his brains out. She felt like smashing his fine, thin skull against Karla’s smug face and destroying them both at once. She felt her palms itch and her fingers twitch. She felt violence breaking out in her like the tide rushing in. ‘I . . . I don’t know what to say to you. I’ve imagined seeing you. Dreamed about it. How can it be true? How are you here?’
‘That is something I owe to Karla, here.’
Brenda darted her a look. This could only mean bad things. What was Karla messing around with? She asked him, ‘What did she do?’
Victor said, ‘The necessary magic.’
Karla loaded her coffee cup with coloured cocktail sugar. Pink
and purple cubes trailing bubbles as they dissolved. ‘It’s all down to the Brethren. They told me what to do.’
Brenda gripped the edge of the table to hold herself back. ‘They always tell you what to do, don’t they? You’ve been under their spell for years.’
Karla trilled with laughter. ‘And you’re so superior? What are you? Just some meddling, oafish—’
Victor looked upset. He put a delicate hand to his forehead. ‘Ladies, please. I can’t have my two best girls squabbling.’
‘She brought you to life using magic?’ demanded Brenda.
‘I want you two to get on with each other,’ said Victor softly. ‘It’s important to me. I love you both.’
‘Love?’ cried Brenda. ‘You don’t love me.’
‘Brenda, please . . .’
Brenda felt her voice rising in pitch. The louder she got, the louder she felt she could become. Suddenly there was all this noise in her. After a lifetime of keeping schtum, of keeping mum, suddenly she felt like she wanted to yell and scream.
‘How dare you talk about love to me? I never knew such a thing existed till many years after you ran out on me. Not until I’d wandered in the world alone . . . lost . . . and eventually someone showed me some simple human kindness. I wandered into the home of some poor Scottish farmers. Peasants. Theirs was the first kindness I’d ever experienced. They fed me. Gave me a bed for the night. And I was overwhelmed. I never knew people could be kind to each other.’
Victor longed to get up and hold her. Shush her. Stop her from making a spectacle of herself. ‘Brenda, you must understand that back then, when I was a young man, I was crazy with my own success, my brilliance. Can’t you imagine? What it was like . . . to have created life. The only man in history to have accomplished such a thing—’
She cut him dead. ‘I remember that you tried to kill me. No sooner had I drawn my first breath, you changed your mind. You looked at me with abhorrence. With fear and distaste.’
Karla was working her way through the devilish petits fours, licking her fingers as she broke in: ‘I heard that he pulled you all to pieces again and tried to chuck you in the sea.’
Victor snapped, ‘Where did you hear that rubbish?’
‘Can’t remember.’ Karla shrugged. ‘But you weren’t happy with the way she turned out, were you?’
Victor glared at his new lady love. ‘It wasn’t like that. I was mad in those days. You have to understand. Frank had chased me across the countryside, dogging my every footstep. He had blackmailed me into making you, Brenda. He had forced me into creating a mate for him.’
Karla took the last of the chocolates. The other two were too worked up to mind. ‘I was sure I’d heard that right. That you chucked all her bits in the sea.’
Brenda ignored the old floozy. She said in a dangerously low tone to her father: ‘You couldn’t extinguish that scrap of consciousness that was me. Once you had brought it into being.’
Victor gave her a watery smile, ‘I’m glad of that. Of course I am.’
‘I lay there in a terrible state. You had gone. Fled.’
Victor nodded. ‘It was his face. Frank’s face. Taunting me at the window of the castle where I was working. His face suddenly popped into view, spying on me. Horrible, leering brute. He looked so pleased with himself. So eager and excited at the sight of you as you neared completion. That’s why I took leave of my senses, Brenda. And did what I did.’
Karla piped up, in a voice rich with melted truffles: ‘I never knew my father.’
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’ Brenda snapped.
‘Nothing,’ said Karla. ‘I’m just pointing it out. In a way, you’re lucky. You can forget about the past. Let bygones be bygones. You can get to know him again. You’ve got that chance. Not everyone gets a chance like that.’
Victor smiled. His new love had said something sensible at last. Perhaps they could get through to Brenda. Calm her down. He told her, ‘Have your coffee, dear. And a chocolate.’ Then he noticed that Karla had nobbled them all.
‘I don’t know,’ said Brenda. ‘This is all a bit much.’
‘I know, daughter.’
‘It was only last year that Frank came back into my life.’ Brenda looked down into her coffee, the confusion plain on her face.
Karla said, spitefully, ‘I gather he’s done a moonlight flit, though?’
Brenda stared mutely at her for a moment. Then she said, ‘If I thought for even a second that you had something to do with Frank’s disappearance . . .’
Karla smiled sweetly and stickily. ‘Yes, dear? Are you threatening me?’
‘Ladies, please!’ Victor burst out. His nerves were at breaking point by now.
But Brenda hadn’t finished warning Karla. ‘And Robert. If you’ve done anything to him, either . . .’
‘What would I want with those silly men of yours?’ scoffed Karla. ‘I think you’re a little paranoid, Brenda. Really. Blaming everything on the newcomer to town. I wish you could have been more welcoming.’
‘I wouldn’t put anything past you,’ Brenda told her.
‘Charming! But what would I want with men belonging to anyone else? When I have my own wonderful fiancé right here beside me?’
Brenda – who had just taken her first mouthful of coffee – choked at this. ‘What? Fiancé?’
Victor realised that it was time for the announcement. Karla had jumped the gun. ‘We are going to be married, Brenda.’
Karla could barely contain her glee. ‘What do you think about that? I’m going to be your stepmother, Brenda!’
Saving the World Again
Walking back with the girls later that night, Brenda was uncharacteristically quiet.
After Lisa and Penny had peeled off, back on their way up the hill to the Miramar, Effie tackled her friend.
Brenda sighed deeply. How could she explain that whole conversation? How to describe what had gone on? It was the least expected but most ardently desired reunion of her life. And it had all gone so badly wrong, was how she felt. As they tottered up the steep hill under the horse chestnuts, she told Effie, ‘I didn’t want to say anything about it in front of the other two.’
‘They wouldn’t understand. Young people like that.’
‘Come and have tea, Effie,’ Brenda said.
In her attic over spicy tea, Brenda brought Effie up to date with what had been said during her talk with Victor and Karla. Effie swallowed down her surprise and listened, her eyes opening wider and wider.
‘I have to admit, he was quite charming,’ Brenda said. ‘He was lovely to me, in fact.’
‘What? Brenda . . . he’s smarmed all the sense out of you! How can you believe him?’ Effie watched Brenda stirring her tea round and round, looking down all the while. ‘And anyway, can it really be him? Are you sure? She might have just paid some actor friend of hers . . .’
‘No, that’s definitely Victor Frankenstein. Even saying the name makes me shudder. I really feel that he wants to make things up to me. I felt his kindness . . . his concern for me . . .’
Brenda looked up to see Effie looking quite frosty and sceptical.
‘Rubbish. He looks like a calculating old bastard to me. I was watching keenly, and I think he looked shifty.’
Brenda wondered. Maybe Effie’s suspicions were right. Was she being a fool to herself ?
But . . . did she also feel that curious sense of coming home? Of belonging? Maybe she was giving herself up to that feeling too easily, too readily? If she had been a different kind of person – a person more like Effie, perhaps – she would have fired off a million questions at this man who claimed to be her father. Where were you? How can you be here? She deserved answers from him. And yet, faced with Victor at last, she had demanded so little of him.
‘This is all down to those Brethren people,’ Effie said darkly.
Brenda thumped the arm of her chair. ‘But why are the Brethren so keen on resurrecting my father? If that’s what they’ve done
. If all of this is true. What can they possibly want with bringing him to face me again?’
She stomped off to fetch the brandy. She’d had enough tea by now. Effie hoisted herself over to the record player, thinking it might be nice to have some soothing music. Suddenly she felt a little foolish in her vampire outfit. Her batty cuffs trailed over the record as she slipped it from its sleeve.
Effie thought about Victor and how she had watched him from afar. She had observed nuances in that conflab that Brenda, closer to, had completely missed. Effie could see the way he been hunched forward, avidly, in his seat. She had been able to see that pinched look on his face. An expression that was meant to be caring, but which from Effie’s vantage had seemed almost cruel. It was a greedy look he had worn when he was sitting opposite his so-called daughter.
He had been studying Brenda as if she wasn’t even human. To him, she was just a marvellous machine. A work of art. Something he felt proud of. But not something he loved. Not like a father would.
The needle hissed. Billie Holiday came on, bless her.
But what did Effie know about fathers anyway? she mused sourly. Or mothers, for that matter? She had no idea about any of that sort of business. She was the eternal orphan. And the thing was, she had always thought Brenda was the same. Except now a dad had manifested himself out of the ether for her. Was Effie envious? Was that why she ate her ginger snaps and supped her tea so crossly that night? Glaring at Brenda and wishing she could see sense and send off the old man with a flea in his ear?
Brenda was blind. Foolish. She couldn’t see that whatever Victor promised, it would all be for his own benefit. He wasn’t thinking of Brenda’s happiness, Effie was sure of it.
But she knew that if she said any more about it this evening to Brenda, she’d cause a row between them.
‘Best go,’ Effie said, declining Brenda’s offer of a nightcap. ‘We’ve a busy night tomorrow night.’
‘Oh. The filming.’ Brenda didn’t sound at all keen.
‘Did you say anything to Karla about it?’
‘Err, no . . .’
Effie frowned. ‘You didn’t warn her? Tell her to stop?’
