by Paul Magrs
Sometimes I pop on a fancy turban and sunglasses and nip out in the daytime.
I slink past Brenda’s B&B and hope that she doesn’t notice me. I don’t want to confront her. I don’t trust myself. What would I say or do? What is there to say? But no. She’s not bothered about looking out for me anyway. She never notices me slipping by her front door. She’s taken up with her fancy man Cleavis and this idyllic Christmas she’s intent on having. Days on end I reckon they’ve had of their Christmas idyll.
She’s a fool. He simply tolerates her for as long as she can be of use to him. He’ll betray her in the end. You mark my words.
Some days I head over to the Christmas Hotel. Angela Claus is upset that I am so deeply unhappy and the toll it takes on my inner life. But she marvels at my outside: my glowing skin, my lustrous hair.
‘I hardly got to know you when you were normal. But now we’re talking at last, and you’ve had this done to yourself.’ She shakes her massive head and sheds a tear.
I can’t comfort her. I don’t know how. My emotions feel frozen. There’s a pane of glass between me and this woman. Angela Claus looks at me and says: ‘My estranged daughter’s come back to me at last. But you’re neither dead nor alive, are you, dearie?’
Her face empurples and she smashes her fist on the arm of her motorised bath chair. ‘That Alucard! That damned Alucard! He’s to blame for this! He always is! Always! Thank God he’s gone now! Thank God he’s gone for ever!’
This startled me. ‘What. . .? What are you saying?’
‘I hate him. I’ve always hated him. I know him of old. He was no good for you.’
I gasped. ‘But. . . you were all sympathetic before!’
‘For your sake,’ she snapped. ‘Not his. I’m glad that he was blown to smithereens.’
I wasn’t best chuffed by her reaction. That visit ended quite frostily, for both of us. I was a bit tearful on the way home, as well as piqued. For comfort, it seemed, I couldn’t turn to Angela Claus after all.
With my aunties and Brenda out of the question, I’ve found myself drifting towards that bookshop and the new friend I’ve made there.
Marjorie Staynes at The Spooky Finger is proving to be a good listener.
She makes coffee and we sit in her back room amid the bonsai trees and the rare editions and I . . . I open my heart to her.
Isn’t that something? Effryggia Jacobs. Opening up her heart. Letting all the canker and gall spill out. To a complete stranger.
Like I say, I’m changing. Beyond all recognition.
Marjorie Staynes knits with glittering wool and listens very carefully. She’s fascinated by the tale of my life and misfortunes. She wants to hear it all.
All around us, Christmas is going on in Whitby. But we’re oblivious to that.
I tell Marjorie about my awful life and luck. And she starts telling me more about Qab.
Not just the books and the book group and all of that. No. Marjorie Staynes starts to tell me about the real stuff. The real Qab.
The details that only the initiated hear about.
The chosen ones.
28 December
Dear Kristoff,
There’s glitter all over my welcome mat. I haven’t bothered to hoover it up. Robert and that Penny. Brenda, of course. Shoving letters and cards through my box, they were, right up until the last minute on Christmas Eve. Begging me, beseeching me. Come and spend Christmas Day with us. Please don’t stay by yourself. Come to your friends.
Friends? I’ve got no friends.
I’ve sat alone in my home, reading further books by Beatrice Mapp. I bought them from The Spooky Finger, under Marjorie’s direction. I looked for the secret clues and the codes that underlie all the silly action adventure business.
Yes, yes . . . there’s more to these books than anyone knew . . . there’s a pattern here . . .
I hunted through the untidy shelves and overflowing boxes of paperbacks in my attics and spare rooms. Lots of stuff here I’ve never even seen. For years I’ve thought about having a good sort-out and getting rid of some of this junk. Something has always stayed my hand when it comes to the books. Perhaps the revenants of my aunts themselves.
It has snowed and snowed and snowed. Coddling us coldly in our tall, ancient houses.
I’ve been reading until my eyeballs ached and I can think about nothing but the sweltering jungles of Qab. The shining palaces and the underground fortresses. The world of Qab became more solid to me than my own four walls.
I’ve been eating hardly anything. My cupboards are bare. I slide out now and then under cover of night and slake my avid thirst. I went for a lock-in at the Demeter a couple of times, where the old boys and the newly formed Walkers still gaze at me in admiration.
I could get used to this, I thought, those nights. Being looked at like this. I’ve never elicited that kind of attention before.
Another reason I couldn’t change my mind and rush to be with my so-called friends at Brenda’s house. Not just that I could never forgive them for dispatching you, Kristoff. Also, I was looking younger than ever.
They’d take one look at me and smell a rat.
During the quiet nights of Christmas week, I would stare at my reflection in the searing light of my bathroom. The harshly unforgiving northern light poured through the pebbled window.
There was no hiding it. I looked as if I hadn’t even hit thirty.
If I’d gone round Brenda’s for a festive tot of sherry and a mince pie, she’d have been on my case. In the Demeter the men talked about Cleavis stepping up his campaign against the Walkers. Striding about town at night with his carpet bag of weapons. Not much luck yet, but people were rattled.
So I couldn’t go near Brenda, her fella, or any of my former friends.
With my heightened senses I could hear them carousing in her attic next door. The silly records, the hissing of the turkey roasting in her range. The tooting of kazoos and even the rustling of paper streamers.
I am becoming more sensitive by the day. Quiveringly alert.
When I went to visit Marjorie Staynes, on one of these inbetween days, to discuss the hidden story of the books of Qab (I’ve read a further six of them during the days of Christmas), I could hear the boys upstairs.
The young assistant Gila had taken Robert up to his room above the bookshop. I heard their stifled undressing and their rolling around and doing all of their disgusting business, where they thought no one could hear. But I could. I heard them whispering afterwards. I knew they were spying on me, and Marjorie. They were perplexed that I was visiting The Spooky Finger but not my friends.
I wonder if Robert knows the truth of what Marjorie told me, just that day. The truth about his new boyfriend.
That Gila comes from Qab itself.
She had brought him to our world from a world a very great distance away. The true world of Qab. That’s why he’s greenish round the gills. The reason he looks like a reptile is because that’s what he is, partly. He’s an alien being.
How I relished the thought of dropping that bombshell on Robert. You’ve got yourself another weirdo fella, sorry ducky. A lizard this time. From another world.
That might simmer down his ardour.
But these are all petty concerns.
‘It really is possible, then?’ I asked Marjorie. My voice had gone dry and scratchy. ‘To go from . . . this world to that one? And vice versa?’
‘Of course.’ She looked like an old Buddha sat there by her cash desk. An old Buddha with a perm and a huge pile of knitting. Infinitely wise.
Why do I feel this new friend of mine has all the answers? I just know she has, somehow. Something powerful about her. Strange. I’m not one to give in so easily to another person’s willpower or personality . . .
‘Of course,’ she went on. ‘Most people aren’t advanced enough, by any means. You have to progress along a certain path. Not many do. Only then can you . . . break through.’
I was gawping at he
r in the semi-dark of her bookshop. That weird incense and mist all around us.
A thrill went through me. I knew in a trice that given half a chance I’d go there. I’d go to Qab. No worries. I’d have to see it for myself.
‘Many fail,’ said Marjorie. ‘Many just can’t make it. Many – even when they are told the truth about Qab – refuse to believe it. If even one soul in a reading group comes to believe and tries her hardest to break through, then I consider mine a job well done.’
I drew in my breath sharply. ‘You mean that’s what the book group’s for? Like a cult? To bring in new members?’
She nodded, glancing up from her knitting. ‘And you’re my most promising member, Effie. You’re the most promising initiate I’ve seen since the group I led until last year in Kendal. Of course, that lot went to the bad, in the end. But they were advanced. Oh, indeed. They were almost through. We almost made it. But . . . petty jealousies. People turning back at the very last moment. Losing their nerve. It was sad. Very sad. What a waste. So . . . I’ve had to start again. Right here. Here in Whitby and The Spooky Finger. And you, my dear.’
Following this speech, she returned her full attention to her knitting. Clack, clack, clack as my senses reeled.
A cult! A cult! She was saying that she is forming a cult!
And I like it. Bereft, alone, it’s all I have. And I am in love with the idea of it.
‘We need you, Effie,’ said Marjorie Staynes. ‘You’re just the kind of person the cult of Qab needs. And Qab itself needs you desperately.’
‘I . . . I could go there? Really?’
‘Oh yes,’ smiled Marjorie. ‘With a little work. With a little initiation and so on. But first we must advance our cause. Bring in other members. Before we can send you there, we must observe the rituals . . .’
Send me there!
Oh, Kristoff . . . what am I getting myself into?
Something wonderful, I can tell.
I long to tell you all about it. I know you’d be amazed by all this, just as I am.
But I have no one. Not even my aunts. They’re keeping away from me. They stay in the shadows and the portraits and ignore me, for the first time in my life.
I am alone.
And dreaming of Qab.
When I left Marjorie’s shop the other day, with further books and a head buzzing with new ideas, I turned to see Robert gazing out of Gila’s window after me. I flashed him a dangerous look. Who was he to keep tabs on my comings and goings? Who was he to judge me? He vanished back inside that darkened room.
29 December
Dear Kristoff,
I needed to get out for a while.
All this dwelling on my sadness. All this dreaming of elsewhere.
It was last night. Days and days after Christmas. I felt I’ve been hiding away enough.
I slipped up the hill to the Miramar. I sat at the bar with a gin and tonic. Foolish, really. As if I wanted to be discovered by my erstwhile friends.
And sure enough, there was Robert, suddenly at my elbow. Looking concerned, he was.
‘Brenda’s in bits.’
‘Now there’s a novelty.’
He sighed. ‘You know what I mean. She’s cut up about you. Worried, Effie. You’ve not said a word. You’ve kept out of everyone’s way.’
‘Oh yes?’ I eyed him beadily.
I could see he was shocked by my appearance. Even bleary-eyed and a bit tipsy, I knew I looked magnificent. I’d popped on one of my vintage frocks. A 1920s number belonging, no doubt, to one of my aunties. It was black and glittering with sequins and beads. I had a little turban thing on too, exquisite with feathers.
‘We’re all very worried about you,’ he said sternly. I only look about his age. Young Robert. I began to wonder what his blood might taste like, just for a fleeting moment.
I was distracted then, watching the other revellers at his bar. They had set up an impromptu singalong. A ghastly bunch of raddled pensioners. Their flesh revolted me. Their whining voices were like nails scraping down my back. I frowned and waved to the barmaid for another gin.
‘How many have you had?’
I shrugged. ‘Does it matter?’
‘I’ve never seen you like this.’
‘I’ve never been like this.’ I thrust out one supple arm suddenly, to take in the rowdy set intent on murdering ‘White Christmas’. ‘Look at this lot. They’re all so blindly happy.’
‘So? It’s still just about Christmas time. There’s nothing wrong with that.’
‘I mean all these people. Everyone. Everyone in town. Celebrating. How dare they celebrate? Why should they be happy? When death and disaster are all around. Just waiting to claim them. How dare they be happy when my lovely man has gone?’
He didn’t know what to say to that, did he? He looked flummoxed. ‘Brenda told me about it. About that night, and what Cleavis did. I’m sure she never knew, Effie. I bet she couldn’t have known what Henry was planning.’
‘Pah!’ I crunched an ice cube between my teeth. ‘Oh, she knew all right.’
Robert tried another tack. ‘Perhaps he’s not dead? Look at how he’s survived in the past. He’s been staked before, hasn’t he? He’s been sent to hell again and again.’
I narrowed my eyes. ‘And hell is just a few hundred metres below our feet. It’s trying to drag us down – all of us - all the time. As we well know, eh, ducky?’ I laughed bitterly. I was getting to enjoy giving vent to my bitterness. I did the laugh really well. ‘So what’s the point, eh? If that’s where we’re going anyway. And if it’s not so different to here.’
‘All we can do in the circumstances is get on with it, Effie.’
‘Get on with it, he says!’
‘Look, life hasn’t been a breeze for me either, you know. Since being here in Whitby, I’ve lost my Auntie Jessie.’
‘Her!’ I scoffed.
Now Robert was starting to look depressed. Well, good. I’d dragged him out of that silly high-spirited festive mood. He went on glumly, ‘I lost both my parents when I was a kid. I know what loss is like.’
Typical. He was making it all about him. Well, he wasn’t alone in the misery stakes. I trumped him at once. ‘I never even knew my parents. They buggered off. Left me with my aunts. They just put up with me. But I never really fitted in. I’ve never really had anyone – ever! – who was there for just me . . .’
Robert stared at me. Still discomfited by my renewed youth and beauty. He said quietly, ‘Have another drink, Effie.’
I was inconsolable, though. ‘Alucard. He was there for me.’ The gin was having a profound effect. Oh, Kristoff! Why didn’t you warn me that alcohol is worse for vamps?
‘Brenda was there for you more than he ever was.’
‘Don’t say her name to me!’
And then that receptionist arrived. Penny. That tactless girl who wears all the black. She looked approvingly at my vintage outfit and then alarmed when she got a closer look at how drunk I was. How wonderfully young-looking I was, too.
‘Hiya, Effie.’
Robert told her, ‘We’re getting drunk.’ I thought it was sweet of him to include himself. Make me look less of a drunken freak.
But why would I care what this gormless girl thought? That’s one of the problems with Whitby. Small pond. Big fish. I need to be away. Elsewhere.
You were going to take me, my love, weren’t you? Away from all of this. Those gorgeous old haunts of yours, where you still kept apartments. Cobwebby and forgotten. Sealed away from prying eyes. Your home in Venice, deep below water level. Your home in the Marais in Paris.
I should still go. I should leave as soon as I can.
I felt a new resolve grip me. I should go. Go go go.
I caught a jungle scent then. A whiff of wild creatures and virgin forest. I could smell a new world opening up for me. Far from here. Incalculably far. Its sultry breath was in my nostrils, all of a sudden. My cool flesh went all goosebumpy. How I longed for some warmth. Some sun on
my milky skin.
‘You young people don’t understand about anything.’
Penny said, ‘I don’t pretend to know everything. Especially in this weird town. I’m right out of my depth here.’
I found myself nodding at her approvingly. There was something sensible about her after all. Only the wise can admit to knowing hardly anything.
She went on, ‘But I do understand that this fellow of Brenda’s, this bloke she’s got staying with her, old Professor Cleavis . . . he’s somehow done away with your boyfriend.’
‘Kristoff Alucard. Say his name, girl.’
She looked superstitious and shy.
‘Saying his name aloud won’t summon him up,’ I told her. ‘God knows, I wish it would.’
‘Cleavis m-murdered your lover. In a restaurant. In public. And the body turned to dust. And Cleavis got away with it’
I sneered. ‘Exactly. That’s what he does. He’s a demonhunter. Did Robert tell you, he once shot me in the head? When he was trying to get a clear shot at Robert’s Aunt Jessie?’
Robert nodded. ‘It’s true. Cleavis is remorseless.’
Penny was looking aghast by now. Evidently no one had told her the full story. Typical!
Briefly Robert tried to explain who Henry Cleavis actually was, and some of the circumstances of his own first meeting with the wicked man. I scowled all the while and then I broke in.
‘He’s just another fancy man of Brenda’s. She’s got them coming out of the woodwork all the time, that one. He’s someone she knew back in the 1940s, apparently. Though why he’s never aged is beyond me. Something about an elixir of life he once found in Africa. Probably something dodgy.’
Penny was looking at us both rather oddly. ‘But how can he be a . . . killer? He’s the same Henry Cleavis who wrote the books about Hyspero. Brenda told me. The fantasy books for kids. . .’
‘That’s the one,’ Robert said. ‘He was at Cambridge. He was part of that group of scholars who all wrote books set on other planets and in fantasy lands. The Smudgelings. Reginald Tyler was another one. He wrote The True History of the Planets.’
