by Paul Magrs
Evidently Effie had taken this as a compliment. I thought it made her sound like a nosy parker. Which she is, of course. ‘They aren’t unusual,’ I protested. ‘They’re just a bit naive and old-fashioned . . .’
‘I said I didn’t know. I hadn’t seen anyone unusual for days. I said that in a town like this people come and go quite often. The plain and ordinary, and the completely outlandish. It was hard to keep tabs on all the comings and goings. And, do you know, he offered me cash? He brought out a wodge of ten-pound notes and put them on my desk. That was for keeping my eyes peeled, he said. I was mortified.’
‘Did you give it back to him?’
‘Of course I did. I’m nobody’s spy. I asked him to leave my premises at once. But he gave me his card and told me he was staying at the Miramar.’
I shuddered. ‘That’s all we need to know about him, if he’s staying there.’
‘Quite,’ said Effie, still piqued to have been offered cash by the wretched man. We both disapproved heartily of the Miramar. It was a pink-painted, vulgar establishment a few streets away from us. As it was further from the sea and the centre of the town, it had to be a bit flash and glitzy to draw attention to itself. It had a beer garden, a nightclub in the basement and various other, even less salubrious features that its owner, Sheila Manchu, had taken pleasure in dreaming up. The most lurid tales filtered down into the town about goings-on at the Hotel Miramar.
‘He asked me to be on my guard. He said, “Watch out for a strange husband with a strange wife and two strange children, a boy and a girl.” He said, “They aren’t what they seem. Not by any means.” He said, “They have escaped. They have run away.” And - get this! - the kiddies weren’t the couple’s to take. They’ve stolen them. They’ve kidnapped them!’
I decided we had walked far enough along the coast. The wind was whipping up and the light was beginning to fade. It was time to turn back. I swivelled on the heels of my court shoes and fixed Effie with a determined look. ‘I don’t know who this dreadful man is, Effie, or why he’s impressed you so much with his silly, suspicious ideas . . .’
‘Hang on,’ she said, fishing in her shiny leather purse. ‘Here’s his card. “Frank”. That’s all it says. He’s scribbled the hotel number on it. But that’s all. How odd.’
‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘He’s the weird one. And I don’t believe, anyway, that it’s my guests he’s looking for. There’s nothing suspicious about them. You only have to look at them to see they all belong to the same family. Kidnapped the children, indeed! And, anyway, if a crime like that’s been committed, why aren’t the regular police going round asking questions? Hm? All he’s got to qualify him is a long coat and a hat like a detective’s.’
At this Effie fell quiet, and we ambled along in companionable silence. I was quite impressed with my own logic. Of course there was nothing in what this dubious Frank had to say. But, still, something - several things - was nagging at me. My paying guests were indeed out of the ordinary but not horrible, not weird or disturbing. I liked them. Suddenly I knew I would do anything I could to stick up for them. They were far too vulnerable.
‘What surname did they give you?’ Effie asked suddenly.
‘What does it matter?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘but you’ve never told me. You haven’t said their name once.’
I had to think. The truth was, I referred to them in my own mind by their first names and thought of them in their roles as father, mother, son, daughter, like archetypes, like Happy Families. ‘Green,’ I said.
‘Well, that sounds made up for a start.’ Effie snorted. ‘Green, indeed.’
‘No, it doesn’t,’ I contradicted. ‘People are called Green. It’s a name. They’re as entitled to be called Green as anyone else . . .’
‘I suppose you’d say the same if they were called Smith, wouldn’t you?’ Effie jeered.
She can be very sharp-tongued when she wants to be.
We wandered back to our houses and, really, I wasn’t that keen to spend the rest of the evening with her, but we had made plans to eat together at Cod Almighty. I might not want a further grilling from Effie, but I fancied some battered whitebait.
We went our separate ways for an hour or so to freshen up and change.
‘If he comes back,’ she said, as we parted, ‘if Frank comes back to my shop, I shan’t know what to tell him for the best.’
‘You’ll say nothing.’ I frowned, untying my headscarf irritably. ‘There’s nothing to tell him.’
‘I think it’s them,’ she said. ‘The people he’s after. I think it’s your Greens.’
With that she went off to her dowdy junk shop. Really, Effie can be heartless at times. These are people’s lives! She likes to dabble too much. She enjoys stirring up trouble.
Anyway, I hauled myself up the passage to the side door, let myself in and knew at once that the family had returned. They weren’t noisy but I could hear them moving about and calling to each other between rooms. I was pleased that they felt more at home, able to be themselves. For the first day or so they had been like church mice. I like it when people relax and unwind a little. So long as they don’t go too far, of course.
I smiled at their carefree chit-chat and tried not to eavesdrop. I hurried up to my attic, made myself some hot masala tea and decided to catch the last few lazy rays of the sun by sitting out in my tiny patch of garden. So there I went, gallumphing down the stairs with my mug of spicy tea.
Outside, I cleared a few dead leaves off my deck-chair, which was still out from the summer. I sat under the interlacing branches of the beeches and sighed deeply, complacently. I’d been right to come outside. It might be the last of the sun till next year. I felt its warmth ease into me and I sipped my tea.
Sometimes, I thought, I wish Effie could be a nicer person. Sometimes, in fact, she was. This mug I was drinking from, with its sentimental message about friendship, caring and counting blessings, had been a gift from her. Just a few weeks ago she had presented it to me, like a prize. How proud I’d been. Like I had earned or won somebody’s friendship, which seemed no mean feat. Effie had been embarrassed, making her feelings known like that. She isn’t one for exposing herself.
I peered into my mug to fish out the teabag on its string. No harm in flinging it on to the flower-bed, I supposed. My teabag, my garden - it wasn’t really littering, was it? I did a kind of lasso thing with the string and flung it a little way. That was when I saw the squirrels.
I’m not ashamed to say that I gave out a loud, squawking scream at the sight of them.
My squirrels! My ludicrous, over-excited, madcap squirrels! They had kept me entertained for months with their rivalries and endless games of tag.
Three were curled up dead in the flower-bed. Another was lying - brazenly, tragically - in the middle of the lawn.
I screeched again, dropping Effie’s sentimental friendship mug.
I could hardly believe what I was seeing.
Each of my lithe, lovely, wholly domesticated squirrels had had its throat ripped out. Each lay with an expression of anguish and amazement on its bloodied, frozen face.
I didn’t tell Effie about the squirrels. I buried their poor, dear little bodies and tried to put their fate out of my mind. Who could do such a thing? Who would want to?
A dreadful suspicion was lurking at the back of my mind. I waved it away and refused to give it credence. Instead, I got ready to trot down to the prom with Effie so that we could enjoy supper together at Cod Almighty. Effie always dresses up to the nines when she goes out in the evenings, even there when there’s a good chance you’ll come home smelling of chip fat and batter. As I say, this is a small town and you’ll always see someone you know. Effie likes to keep up appearances, so I have to be smart to accompany her. She’s never said as much: I just know that’s what I have to do.
We took a table at the front of the restaurant so we could watch who was going up and down the prom in the lowering gloom.
I ordered the whitebait I had been looking forward to all afternoon, then seized up the tiny fish one at a time and crunched them whole with great satisfaction. Effie picked delicately at her plaice, nibbling at thin triangles of bread and butter. She has very dainty manners.
Her eyes widened when she noticed someone over my shoulder.
‘What is it?’
‘Don’t look now,’ she whispered. ‘Someone’s come in.’
Of course, when she said that the first thing I did was crane round to see. I always get a nasty crick in my neck doing that. I heard Effie sigh with impatience at my obviousness, but what I saw took my breath away. Jessie was being ushered in by her nephew, who was as solicitous and careful with her as if she was an invalid. As Jessie made her cautious way into the lino-floored room she presented a stark contrast with the Jessie we had seen flaunting herself with her trolley at the Christmas Hotel.
‘Her rejuvenation really has undone itself,’ Effie gasped.
Not wholly, though. She still looked younger than she had a fortnight ago, before all the unfortunate business with the boutique had begun. But something extraordinary had happened to her. She was shorter and hunched. Her hair was coarse and shaggy and, if I wasn’t mistaken, it was poking out of her sleeves, though she had tried hard to cover it up. Her face was decidedly simian, with a heavier brow and jutting jaw. ‘What has she done to herself?’ I murmured.
Effie’s lips were as pursed as I had ever seen them. ‘I think we both know the answer to that. And who and what was to blame.’
Jessie’s nephew, Robert, was pretending breezily that nothing was wrong. He spotted us and asked whether he and his aunt might join us. He was aware, as we were, of other diners muttering as they observed this little scene. Obviously Robert felt he needed allies.
Effie beckoned them over.
Jessie was in a red anorak and Robert had to persuade her to take down the hood. She glowered at us and wouldn’t join in with the conversation. She looked as if she wanted to get up and run home - and who could blame her?
‘Isn’t this nice?’ Robert grinned. He was as well scrubbed as ever, and was wearing a black polo-neck sweater. He ordered, and their cod and chips arrived swiftly. I must say, Cod Almighty serves the best fish and chips I’ve had anywhere. Everything’s so fresh and perfect: the fish arrives in a glistening cardigan of perfect batter; the chips are golden, fat and scrumptious. When I’m there, I’m swimming in a trance of vinegary pleasure.
But Jessie poked desultorily at hers. You could see she was utterly depressed. She picked up the occasional chip and chomped it, revealing alarming teeth.
Effie and I exchanged a worried glance.
‘Brenda’s got new house guests this week,’ began Effie, brightly, to distract us all. Then she launched into an exaggerated description of the Green family, which amused Jessie not at all, Robert only mildly, and succeeded in irritating me. She made them sound like weirdos. She made them sound supremely suspect, and I was worried that other diners might overhear her ringing voice.
‘I wish you wouldn’t, Effie,’ I said reasonably.
‘What?’ She tutted loudly. ‘Brenda’s grown rather close to them, I fear, which is hardly professional. Where would we be if we all developed a close personal attachment to those we do business with?’
‘Sometimes it can’t be helped.’ Robert piled chips into a sandwich. ‘It happens all the time at the hotel. When you’re looking after people, you can get fond of them.’
Bless him.
But Effie rolled her eyes at us. ‘Well, I think Brenda’s getting herself in too deep with some funny characters.’ Then she went on to tell the tale of Frank, the supposed detective, and how he had come snooping round.
Now she had caught Robert’s interest. His aunt merely stared at Effie and me across the table and spoke her first word that evening: ‘Gloop.’ It was a melancholic utterance.
Effie stared at her in surprise and dismay. ‘Yes. Well,’ she said, dabbing her thin lips with a paper napkin, ‘I have formed the opinion that this too-nice-to-be-true Green family of Brenda’s is, for some reason, on the run. They’re fleeing from the authorities.’
‘Oh, come now, Effie,’ I said. ‘You’ll cause trouble for everyone with that tongue of yours.’
She shook her head steadfastly. ‘I believe Frank was correct. That couple have kidnapped those children. I believe they’re all trying to evade capture. And you, Brenda, are harbouring them.’
‘Rubbish!’ I said - rather savagely, I fear.
‘Gloop,’ said Jessie, in response to the antagonism hovering about our melamine table.
I hefted myself off our banquette. ‘I’m going to powder myself.’
‘Your nose, Brenda,’ Effie corrected wearily.
I never have got the hang of that euphemism.
I went to the lav, anyway, and sat there thinking for a few minutes. Could there be any truth in what Effie was saying? I hated the thought of it. Could my instinct about people be so wrong? Surely not. Usually I was dead right. As with my other senses, I had almost supernaturally heightened intuition. I had warmed to the Greens immediately. Could they really be the opposite of what they seemed?
With a heavy heart I returned to the dining room, and cursed my extra-keen hearing, which allowed me to pick up Effie and Robert’s conversation as I squeezed down the aisle: ‘. . . And I’ve never heard her mention any other friends, except the ones she’s made here since the beginning of this summer, or any family. She’s never even said where she hails from . . .’
Effie was rattling away, thinking aloud.
‘Does it matter?’ Robert said. ‘She’s just Brenda, isn’t she?’
‘Yes, but don’t you see? She’s very eager not to pry into the background of these Green people, and that might be for the simple reason that there’s something in her own background she doesn’t want looked into. She seems nervous about the whole idea of people’s pasts . . . It’s as if she has something to hide, as if she has reason to evade attention . . .’
‘Gloooop,’ said Jessie, firmly, as if to warn them that I had returned from the ladies.
And, indeed, I had. I ambled those last few steps to our table, my face burning with confusion and shame. How could you, Effie? I wanted to shout in her face. How could you say those things about me to other friends of mine? How could she air her nasty suspicions like that? So casually. So blatantly and lubriciously. As if it were a game. As if people’s feelings didn’t matter to her one jot.
She, too, was blushing, I noticed, as I sat down. Did she know I’d overheard? Did she have a conscience after all?
I nibbled miserably at the last of my whitebait. They were cold and bitter now, and I wanted to go home. The evening was a rotten failure. My best friend thought I was strange and had suspicions about me. She was just tagging along with me because she thought there was some mystery in my background, getting a thrill out of the idea.
Well. I was damned if she’d ever find out what my secrets were.
I stood up heavily, made my excuses and pulled on my coat.
‘You’re going?’ said Effie, brightly. ‘But there’s cake and custard and—’
‘I’m tired,’ I said.
‘But—’
‘Good night, all,’ I said curtly.
‘Gloooop.’ Jessie nodded.
I left them in Cod Almighty. Now they could talk about me, behind my back, to their hearts’ content.
That night I tossed and turned unhappily in my huge, rumpled bed under the eaves.
My bedroom is luxurious, like a Bedouin tent, all gauzy drapes, muslin and tapestried cushions, little mirrors sewn into the fabric, tassels, plush and velvet. It’s my gorgeous retreat from the world. But even all that decadent voluptuousness couldn’t tempt me into sleep that night.
I was dwelling on Effie’s betrayal. Her sharp, whispered ‘Shush, she’s coming back from the lav.’
How nasty. I wouldn’t have minded if she had been planning a surp
rise party or a present. But no. She was gossiping, telling tales. She was speculating about why I didn’t fit in.
I turned my pillows over as each side grew hot, hard and annoying. I lay this way and that, and still those awful thoughts came tumbling through my head, like the coloured balls bouncing in the bingo machine at the Christmas Hotel. I couldn’t shake them out.
I had been such a fool, these past few months, even to imagine for a second that I fitted in. Oh, I’d gone traipsing around, doing the things that ordinary people do, wearing the clothes they wear, saying the things they say. But somehow it was never a convincing performance. Not to myself. You aren’t an ordinary woman, Brenda. You aren’t a natural being. I’d taunt myself like that. How can you hope to fool anyone? They can all see through your disguise, you know. Of course they can.
They can see the pallor of my skin. They can see my scars - I know they can.
They can see where the joins are.
But I would hope - I’d fool myself, sometimes for days at a time - that I was fitting in, that I was getting away with it, that I was living a life like everyone else. My evidence was in things like . . . having a best friend. Effie had accepted me. She understood me, I’d thought. And she had respected my reticence about my past, about all my life leading up to the moment of my arrival in Whitby. She never trod over the line in the sand. She was unquestioningly my friend.
I’d thought I had Effie’s unconditional love.
I decided there was no point thrashing around in my bed, bullying myself into sleep. I’d get up and sit at the kitchen table. Hot milk and walnut cake. That was the only thing for it.
Love! I pulled on my dressing-gown. Effie didn’t know the meaning of the word. I felt foolish now. Friendship to her meant having someone to gad about the town with. A companion. Not someone you need to be loyal to. Someone you could bitch about as soon as their back was turned. Love!
I wondered if I needed to put my wig on just to sit in the kitchen. I glanced at the clock. Three forty. None of the Greens would be up, surely. I’d do without. Who cares? My head already felt too hot. My brains were already cudgelled. I’d sit there bald. Let them all come and see, if they wanted to.
