by Paul Magrs
Astonished, we watched Robert scurry round the desk and away into the main dining room to do her bidding. All of the elves were over-anxious to please her. Effie and I exchanged a glance.
‘Ladies,’ Mrs Claus simpered, ‘we must hurry and take our places. Otherwise we will be left with no dinner. That lot through there are like gannets.’ She trundled off, the elves marching alongside her.
‘They’re scared of her,’ Effie said.
‘They certainly seem to be.’ I frowned. ‘Even Robert, and he’s so sensible.’
‘I wonder what’s going on.’ Effie shuddered. ‘I hate this creepy place. It used to be so classy when I was a little girl. My father used to bring me for tea on my birthday. She’s spoiled it. She’s made it gaudy and sickly . . .’
I followed Effie into the dining hall, where the walls rang with false jollity and edgy jubilation. The heavy scent of gravy hung in the air as the waitresses went round with their trolleys. Effie was right. Under the gilt and the crêpe paper, something was rotten and wrong about the Christmas Hotel. But perhaps that was another mystery. For another day, maybe.
I enjoy a good game of bingo. I was well aware of Effie’s scorn as I brought my dabbing-pen down on my numbers. I was within a whisker of winning one of the later games and, I must admit, I got quite carried away, wailing in disappointment when someone called, ‘House!’ just ahead of me.
‘Well,’ sniffed Effie, ‘I’m glad that’s at an end.’ She had done nothing but complain all evening. The peas had been cold, the pie too hot so that she’d burned her mouth. The game had been simplistic, and then it had gone too fast so that, what with her arthritis, she couldn’t hope to keep up.
‘Didn’t Robert do a good job calling out the numbers?’ I nodded at him, still standing behind the glass tank of coloured balls.
‘Is he a nancy-boy?’ Effie asked loudly. ‘I’ve nothing against them, mind you. He seems to be that way, doesn’t he?’
I found myself blushing, and hushed her. ‘Don’t be so rude.’
‘There’s nothing rude about it,’ Effie protested. ‘It’s just a statement of fact. I’m sure he wouldn’t be offended.’
‘Oh, I’m sure,’ I said. ‘Nancy-boy, indeed! What an awful thing to call the lad.’
Effie pursed her lips and glared at me. ‘Not all of us are ashamed of what we are, Brenda,’ she said, in a much lower voice. ‘Not all of us keep a tin lid on things.’
I turned away from her abruptly. She was being very peculiar. I didn’t know what she meant. Was she still talking about Robert? Or was she trying to tell me something about herself ? Or . . . No. She was having a dig at me, wasn’t she? She was referring to the way I don’t talk about myself. Where I’m from. Who my people are. Who I really am.
Oh, Effie. I can’t tell you. You wouldn’t like it. You’d never believe it. You’d think you were best friends with a crazy woman.
I saw then that Jessie was coming over to us with her trolley. It was time for coffee and she had sought us out, bringing the silver pot and china cups. She had come to show herself off to us. Slinkier and younger than ever.
We gasped. She did a twirl, and the two of us sat there agog. We weren’t faking it. We didn’t have to pretend or flatter her. Our mouths hung open in shock and awe, and Jessie laughed. She tossed her head and laughed joyously.
‘But . . . Robert said that, this time, there was less of a change,’ I stammered. ‘He said he saw you when you came back from the boutique at lunchtime. He said you were disappointed because the change was less marked.’
Jessie shrugged gaily. ‘Yes! That’s how it was at lunchtime. But . . . it’s like Mr Danby explained to me. As the treatments advance, sometimes they’re slower to take hold. Well! I had a little nap in my room. I drew my curtains, lay down on my bed and fell into a perfect, most relaxing sleep. And when I woke up, just in time for my shift . . . this was how I found myself.’
I looked at Effie, who was as astonished as I was - disturbed, too, as if she was witnessing something that couldn’t be true.
‘I’m in my twenties again! I look no older than twenty-three! ’ Jessie started to pour our coffee. ‘God bless Mr Danby.’ She sighed. ‘Bless him and his magical contraption. He’s been sent as a blessing to us. To make our lives perfect and complete! How much we owe him! He’s a boon to all womankind!’
As Jessie dropped the sugar cubes into our cups and poured the cream, I couldn’t help thinking, It’s driven her crazy. The shock has sent her insane.
‘But it can’t be right, can it?’ I said.
We were walking along the prom again. It was our usual route, down from the Christmas Hotel to home, though we usually followed it at tea-time, before night had fallen as drastically as this - the stars were gloating over the pulsing, endless sea.
Effie was steeped in thought. She shook her head to clear it and smiled grimly. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Indeed. It can’t be right.’
‘There has to be a catch,’ I said. ‘I don’t for a second begrudge Jessie her good fortune - I’m delighted for her, in fact. But what’s happened to her simply can’t have happened. It isn’t possible. There has to be some kind of drawback . . . or payback . . .’
‘Quite,’ said Effie. ‘The world doesn’t work like that, does it? She can’t just divest herself of all those years. She can’t just turn the clock back. It’s like fiddling with the gas meter - you’ll be found out. We only get one go on the merry-go-round. And she’s kidding herself if she thinks she can keep on galloping.’
‘Still,’ I said, ‘she did look marvellous.’
‘A miracle, she calls it.’ Effie sighed. I glanced at her as we trundled along. She was grimacing. Her face was hawklike, white as a sheet in the moonlight.
‘She says Mr Danby was an angel,’ I added. ‘An angel sent to improve us all.’
I saw fury rise in Effie’s face. ‘He’s nothing of the sort. That’s blasphemy, Brenda. She’ll see it in the end. She’ll regret all of it . . . in the end.’
I wish I’d never mentioned the angel thing. That religious talk can get Effie really fired up. As I said earlier, I can do without the religiosity, thank you very much. My father was obsessed with the idea of God. With the idea of being God, mostly. ‘Did you hear all the old women cooing over her?’ I said. ‘She even got a round of applause. She’s a walking advertisement.’
‘That’s what worries me,’ Effie said. ‘They’ll be flocking.’
Now we were at the bottom of the hill, right on the sea front. This was the quickest way back, but it took us through the roughest part of the town centre. Here, the amusement arcade was still open, pouring its gaudy golden light into the bay. The music was cheap and tinny, and we could hear the crash and tinkle of silver and copper, clunkily mocking the noise of the sea.
‘We should have gone the longer way round,’ Effie said, eyeing the young people clustered at the entrance. They were loud and loitering by the pinball machines and those things with grabby mechanical arms and fluffy toys. Effie shrank from their boisterousness, but I was thinking, Oughtn’t they to be loud? When else could they be loud, other than when they were young? And where else, in our tiny backwater town, were the youngsters able to make some noise, kick up some fuss? Good luck to them, I thought, as Effie and I took tight hold of our handbags to march firmly and bravely past Aladdin’s Cave.
I didn’t say any of these things to Effie, of course. She thinks I’m much too liberal in my outlook. She says she believes in Victorian values.
I don’t. I didn’t like them much the first time round.
‘It’s all right,’ I told Effie. ‘The kids can’t even see us. We’re invisible to them, two old dames. Anyway, what would they want with us?’
Effie pursed her lips. She was about to reply - sardonically, if I knew anything - when suddenly she stopped dead in her tracks. We were directly opposite the arcade entrance and she was staring intently at it across the road. ‘Look!’
I saw immediately who
she was pointing at and instinctively - with the well-honed instincts of now-seasoned investigators - we drew into the shadows.
Emerging from the shabby razzmatazz of the penny arcades was a dapper, fair-haired little man. He was accompanied by five extremely short women. They were a familiar but unprepossessing bunch, all still wearing their pristine coveralls. All six were gabbling excitedly in their weird language. Effie and I watched, astounded, as they linked arms and made off down the road, towards Cod Almighty, the chip shop at the end of the prom.
We stood there, frozen.
Until the moment - as Mr Danby and his harem slipped into the chip shop - when he turned and, very deliberately, waved at us. From all that distance away, he fixed us with a twinkling, ironic grin, and gave us a jaunty wave. And his simian assistants, giggling, did likewise.
For the next couple of days or so I tried to put the Deadly Boutique out of my head. As I was going about my daily business, though, I’d get flashbacks to the smug, simpering faces of the awful Mr Danby and his primate women on Wednesday night. It was plain they were ne’er-do-wells - and flaunting it. Only Effie and I could see the truth of this. But what could we do?
The Gazette carried an interview with the slimy owner of the boutique. That idiot of a journalist, Rosy Twist, was fawning all over him. ‘Women have a duty to stay young and beautiful,’ he was quoted as saying. ‘I am their humble servant. I have been sent to help them.’
But why here? Why this small town?
As the weekend approached I kept my eyes and ears open as I moved about the town, buying groceries and scouting about. I saw a number of changed women, all looking pleased with themselves. It was quite alarming, all those clear complexions and newly fresh faces. I don’t want to exaggerate - there weren’t hundreds of rejuvenated women - but there were enough for it to be remarkable. For it to be obvious that the Deadly Boutique was doing a roaring trade.
On Saturday morning I bumped into Robert in Woolworths. I was helping myself to the pick-’n’-mix. A small vice of mine. Every Saturday morning I’ll fill a large paper bag at the pick-’n’-mix counter, grabbing handfuls of chocolate limes, mint supremes, sherbet fizzers and anything else I fancy. My hands are rather large and I end up with quite a collection of sweets, usually.
‘Hello,’ he said politely. At first I didn’t recognise him without his elf costume. He was in a rather battered flying jacket trimmed with sheepskin. He looked rather fetching. Turns out he’s an aficionado of the pick-’n’-mix counter, too. Liquorice allsorts are his thing. ‘I’m looking for something to take Jessie,’ he admitted, as we queued to pay. ‘She’s in the doldrums today.’
‘How come?’ I said. ‘She should be on cloud nine! She was the belle of the ball at the pie-and-peas.’
Robert’s face darkened. ‘She’s holed up in her room. She reckons . . .’ He looked incredulous. ‘She says it’s backfiring. She says she’s . . . shrinking. Withering up.’
‘What? ’
‘It’ll be all in her head, though,’ he added, more hopeful than convinced. ‘She’s always been paranoid about her looks.’
‘She’s shrinking?’
‘I haven’t seen her. She won’t let anyone in. But it can’t be true, can it? It’s impossible!’
The girl at the counter put my sweets on the scale. I’d pick-’n’-mixed even more than usual. ‘But what happened to her at the boutique was impossible, too,’ I said.
‘You think she might be right? That it is backfiring?’ Robert seemed appalled.
I nodded, thinking, How nice to have a nephew who really cares about what happens to you.
We parted at the main doors of Woolies. ‘Do you think she’ll see visitors?’ I asked.
He shook his head. ‘But I’ll ask her. She’s very fond of you and Effie.’
‘We’re going to get to the bottom of this awful business. We’re going to sort this Mr Danby out,’ I said.
For a moment Robert looked at me searchingly. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I believe you will.’
I realised that I’d come out that morning without applying my makeup as thickly and as comprehensively as usual. As he gazed into my face in the harsh light of the morning, I flinched. He would see the full extent of the scarring on my neck and temples under the thinnish foundation. What would he think? Car accident? Botched face-lift?
But he was discreet and said nothing, just turned away to carry his sweets and newspapers back up the road.
At home, I sat in my favourite bobbly green armchair in the attic and wolfed my pick-’n’-mix absently, stewing it all over.
I took a call about a booking for next week. Guests! A whole family, coming up from Norfolk. Sounded rather nice. Quiet. They’ve got two youngish children, which I’m not too keen on. But so long as they behave themselves . . . They arrive on Tuesday.
I let things wash back and forth in my head, munching sherbet fizzers, deciding on my next move. Then I was sitting bolt upright. I’d decided what to do.
‘This time I’m going there,’ I told Effie.
She scowled. ‘Where? What are you talking about?’ She was sitting in the gloomiest recess of her junk shop, at the cluttered old desk at the back. It was hard to get to through the tottering stacks of rubbish, especially if you’re my size. Now she was rolling her eyes and seemed less than pleased to clap eyes on me.
‘To the boutique,’ I hissed, through clenched teeth, although there was only one other customer present to hear me.
Effie sighed. ‘I do wish you’d stop bursting in here, Brenda, and telling me what you’re going to do. Why do you have to go gallumphing about so dramatically all the time?’
Effie can be quite short-tempered and sour-faced when she’s working in the junk shop. It’s like she’s a different person, operating under the weight of all that accumulated bric-à-brac. She didn’t choose this life. She feels she inherited it, yet she’s done nothing to alter it. Instead she’s grown rather bitter and she’s best avoided during opening hours.
But today I knew I had to tell her.
‘I’ve phoned up. I talked to that awful man and I’ve made an appointment for myself.’
Effie looked me up and down. ‘For a make-over?’ I knew what she was insinuating - that I could do with one. I blushed. She was being cruel. That was Effie all over. She would never say it outright, but she could imply it with a raised eyebrow.
‘That’s the pretext and the excuse,’ I said. ‘I’m just going so I can get inside the place. I’m infiltrating it. Tonight.’
Effie was twiddling a propelling pencil. ‘I see. What about me?’
My turn to raise an eyebrow. Not as elegantly as Effie, perhaps.
‘What part do I play in this little escapade, hm?’ She had lowered her voice so that the only other customer - the Reverend Mr Small, poking about in the crockery - couldn’t hear.
‘I didn’t think you’d want to go back there!’
‘I don’t.’ She sighed impatiently. ‘But we’re a team, aren’t we?’
That was good to hear. I smiled.
‘Oh, don’t come over all mawkish, Brenda. Just tell me what time and what the plan is.’
‘But they’ll recognise you! After all, you were the woman the machine didn’t work on.’
‘So?’ she said. ‘I’ll just say I got claustrophobic and went doo-lally. I’ll say I’m with you to hold your hand because you’re a bit nervy. They won’t suspect a thing.’
‘Hmm,’ I mused. Mr Danby sounded a wily one to me. But Effie was right. We were better off going together.
When I told her what Robert reckoned was happening to Jessie, Effie became even more determined. ‘Shrinking?’ she gasped. ‘Withering up?’ She shook her head sadly. ‘No good will ever come of this. Jessie’s overreached herself.’ She stood up and straightened her smart woollen jacket. ‘I’m going to shut the shop. We’ve got to prepare ourselves. We’ve work to do.’
‘I knew it! I told my helpers this morning. I said this would happen
. I knew you’d return to our establishment. May I take your coat?’
Effie looked the wheedling little man up and down. Utter disdain. ‘No, you may not.’ She clutched it tighter and glanced in my direction. ‘This time it is my friend who requires . . . your attentions.’
‘Aaaah,’ said Mr Danby. He licked this thin wet lips and feasted his piggy eyes on me. I stared back at him, all the while taking in the details of the boutique. Everything was as Effie had described: the weird shaggy walls and the rubber plants. ‘And your name is . . . ?’
‘Brenda,’ I said. ‘I don’t have a surname.’
Effie looked at me sharply, as if to say, ‘What subterfuge is this? No surname?’
But it was quite true. I don’t.
‘Quite so,’ said Mr Danby. ‘And will Brenda be requiring a full make-over?’
I snorted. ‘What do you think?’ I said, with more bravado than I felt. ‘Look at me! You’ve got your work cut out for you here, Mr Danby.’
‘Quite so,’ he said again. He was making notes in a tiny book and tapping his pencil against his teeth. ‘You are a magnificent specimen, my dear.’
Effie looked shocked, both at his forwardness and his verdict. I blushed, of course, and thanked him.
‘You are very well built,’ Mr Danby added, catching my eye. I turned away.
‘Look here,’ Effie butted in. ‘Will I be able to sit with my friend when you put her inside that nightmarish contraption in the back room?’
Mr Danby grimaced. ‘That “nightmarish contraption” is nothing of the sort, Ms Jacobs. It is a highly sophisticated and unique device. There is nothing nightmarish or truly deadly about it whatsoever. Oh, yes, I know of your suspicions and your strange ideas regarding me. But, sincerely, all I wish is to bring a little light, life and youthfulness into the lives of you ladies. There is no wicked masterplan. No nefarious scheme.’ He chuckled.
