by Paul Magrs
Penny slurped a pint of snakebite the barmaid had brought her. ‘The Seven Books of Hyspero! I was obsessed with those books as a kid. I read them again and again. I was convinced it was real, that land. I used to look for ways to get there all the time, just like the kids in the books did. Through secret doorways and windows. But it never worked for me.’
‘I never read them.’ Robert said. ‘I remember there being a cartoon on one Christmas.’
‘His writing days seem to be behind him,’ I sighed drunkenly. ‘He’s just a killer now. A slayer of monsters.’ Then I realised that I didn’t want to be talking about Henry bloody Cleavis any more. ‘Look, why are you asking me all about this? Ask Brenda! And in the meantime, I want another gin!’
I finished my drink noisily, waving for another. Robert looked disapproving again.
He went on with his explanations, ‘The thing is, Penny, you see – the Smudgelings were a kind of book group, as we know. They got together to share their new chapters and read to each other in Cleavis’s rooms in his college. But they were also something else. Something undercover. They were a secret vampire- and demon-hunting squad. They went after covens of witches and black magicians. They scoured the country investigating evil deeds and supernatural mysteries.’
Penny’s eyes lit up. ‘I wish I’d known this earlier. There’s so much I’d like to ask him about.’
‘He tends to vanish into the night when his work is done.’
I burped. ‘I hope he’s gone already. Brenda can do better than him.’
‘It really gave Brenda the hump last time, the way he nicked off,’ said Robert. ‘She thought there might be something . . . you know, between them. But off he went.’
‘She’s a fool to herself. And an accomplice to murder. I hope all her spare parts rot and drop off. Look, is there any chance of another drink, shall I just expire of thirst?’
‘No more for you, lady. You’ve had quite enough.’
I gasped at him. ‘What? How dare you?’
He ignored my protests and went on, ‘Mind you, Brenda said earlier today that Henry’s sticking around for a while. Definitely. His work here isn’t finished. So she’s glad about that.’
Penny’s eyes were wide. ‘What else is he after? Is he going to stake someone else?’
Both the young people turned to stare at me. I pulled my scarf up more snugly around my neck. Bloody bite marks. Were they on show? I’d been too slack. Way too slack. I’d put myself in danger. Just being out here. Out in public.
‘I don’t know,’ said Robert. ‘He plays his cards close to his chest. Maybe it’s to do with the Limbosine. Or Hans Macabre. Or any of the other monsters still lurking about, at large in town. Someone said Mr Danby was up to his old tricks.’
‘Who?’ said Penny. ‘Mr Danby?’
‘Just another old enemy. But the truth is, we don’t really know what Henry Cleavis is up to.’ Robert was looking at me steadily. Giving me a special message, I suddenly realised. Warning me. Telling me I’d best lie low. Or maybe even get right out of town. That would be the best thing. Surely.
‘He’d better watch himself,’ I found myself saying, slurring for the first time that night. Oof. I felt gyppy all of a sudden. ‘It’s him who’d better watch out. For me.’
‘Brenda said something about hypnotism. He’s working with her. Prying into her memories.’
‘No good will come of that,’ I said, hoisting myself awkwardly off my bar stool. ‘The silly old cow should know better. She doesn’t want him poking about in her head. He’ll bring out something she won’t want to know. You mark my words!’ Then I swayed on the spot before them. I had a raging thirst. But not for gin. ‘I’ll bid you young people good night.’
And before they could say anything else, I was off. All that rubbishy Christmassy music and the tawdry decorations were making me feel most peculiar.
I slammed through the doors of the Miramar bar and trotted through the beer garden, making unsteady progress back to the street and the sharp decline to the snow-shrouded harbour.
I had business to attend to.
It was a number of quiet streets later that I saw the young couple arguing. Oblivious to everyone, they were tearing at each other – verbally – in the middle of the road.
I paused in the doorway of a charity shop. Smirking at their fight. Probably about something very silly. It certainly sounded trivial.
I watched the woman getting the last word and stomping off. Leaving the tall young man in stung silence. He was exasperated. As she disappeared round the corner, he swore loudly. Just one word. An explosive shout. He ran his fingers through his long dark hair and let out an inarticulate moan.
I waited till I was quite sure there was no chance that his young woman would return. He was on his own. Possibly with nowhere to stay for the night.
Oh dear. He looked like a stranger in town. Abandoned at Christmas. A lonely puppy.
I eased out of the charity shop doorway. I slunk under the Christmas lights. I stepped across the snow towards him.
‘Yoo hoo?’
He looked up suddenly, hopeful at first, then suspicious.
And then something else. Intrigued, I think.
I gave him a warm, welcoming smile.
30 December
Dear Kristoff,
Last night there was another book club meeting. Marjorie Staynes says she wants to keep the momentum up. She’s done this kind of thing before, and she says if you have too much of a break, people forget and they wander away. The New Year could start and her members might lose their enthusiasm for coming to The Spooky Finger.
It turned out to be a much-depleted meeting. A mere handful of us, compared with the previous week. But that was fine. It felt more intimate, more serious. This was the hard core. The lights were lower, the attitude more focused.
It hardly seems any time at all since I first attended and first heard about Qab. But thanks to the books supplied to me by Marjorie, and those I have discovered in my own attics, I now feel myself something of an expert on the laws and legends of Qab.
Marjorie served Madeira and seed cake. There wasn’t a scrap of Christmassy tat there in the back room of The Spooky Finger. Christmas isn’t something our book club leader is content to waste time on. Good for her. She sat with a politely disdainful grimace as the other women discussed their Christmases and how busy they’d been.
There we were: the inner circle of the book group. The ones not put off by another book by Beatrice Mapp.
Penny was there. Her eyes lit up at the sight of me. I was feeling a bit hung-over still – very unlike me – after my evening at the Miramar, and I brushed off her feeble attempts at communication. I noticed her, upon arrival at The Spooky Finger, scanning the shelves for Henry Cleavis’s children’s books.
A few other women, no one I know by name. Apart from Leena, from the shop beneath Brenda’s guest house. Funny, fervid look in her eye. As well as being an awful gossip, Leena is very faddy. She’s obviously got herself carried away with the idea of Qab. But then, haven’t we all?
Marjorie Staynes led us into a quiet discussion. This time there was no hilarity and no embarrassment. We were talking as if this book – The Sisterhood of Qab – was a groundbreaking work of genius. A significant text in the history of mankind.
At one level I can hardly believe I’m going along with such a preposterous thing. In the end, these books are just escapist nonsense. The very first one I read, for example, was a story in which a bunch of not very appealing characters squabble and battle their way across a prehistoric sort of planet. There are dinosaur things and quicksand and exploding tortoises. Oh yes, really. And eventually they come to a city where they are forced to undergo a series of awful challenges in order to be allowed to live freely in the world of Qab.
Most of the books have the same rudimentary plot, I’ve found. There are some very rude bits in them too. I suppose that’s why it’s a cult thing. Everyone’s reading for the kinky bits.
But still. Maybe I do them a disservice. There’s some philosophy there as well. And some politics and feminism. And some magic, I happen to believe. Something deeply spiritual.
At least it’s about women getting the better of men. All the most interesting characters are women, which is unusual for this kind of book, I understand, from my fellow-book club members. The men are just . . . I suppose you could call them sex toys. It’s a bit like reading Tolkien rewritten by Jackie Collins. Not my kind of thing at all, I thought at first. Though I finished it to the end. And then scoured The Spooky Finger, Whitby library, and my own book-lined attic for other novels by Beatrice Mapp.
I wish I could ask you about this, Kristoff. I know you believed in other worlds, tangential to this one. Of course you knew about other planes of existence. You took them in your stride. We’ve even been in one together. But this . . . primitive jungle world, with its multifarious carnivorous life forms and its race of servile lizard men . . . its warrior women all wanting to be queen, and the terrible queen who rules over them all . . . What would you say about that?
Penny went on a bit about being a kid and loving the kind of books that effortlessly transported the reader to another world. She even brought up Henry Cleavis and his books at this point. She dropped in a bit of gossip for the others. Did they know that Henry Cleavis was the man currently stepping out with Brenda?
Brenda wasn’t at book club, of course. Better things to do, evidently. I felt vaguely disappointed not to see her. I got a twinge of sadness as I thought about sitting in her attic, not so long ago, and the supper she cooked for her young friends and myself. But I mustn’t let myself get fond and nostalgic. There has been a breach. Those days have gone for ever. After what she and Cleavis did.
Yawn. Blah blah. Penny was going on. I could see that Marjorie Staynes’s polite smile was becoming fixed and strained. After some effort she got Penny to put a sock in it, and then it was Leena’s turn. She went on about how she’d never really been a fan of ‘this kind of book’. Fantasy, I suppose she meant. But then she said how she had been dreaming every night for almost two weeks about becoming a warrior queen in the world of Qab. She laughed.
‘Ridiculous, isn’t it? My Rafiq thinks it’s hilarious. I tell him, watch out, buster. If we lived there, in Qab . . . Do we say “in” or “on” Qab, by the way, Marjorie? I suppose it’s the difference between it being a planet and a . . . land. A dimension of, like, alternate existence. Oh! Listen to me! With all the lingo! Anyway, so I say to Rafiq, if we were there, you’d be my servant! You’d have to do everything I said! It’s, like, a feminist Utopia or summat!’
We all chuckled at this. Mrs Brick, the chunky cook from the Christmas Hotel, gave a nasty gurgle of appreciation. From what I hear, she’s already quite used to having slaves to do her bidding.
‘Anyway, Rafiq thinks it’s all ridiculous,’ Leena went on. ‘He’s dismissive. Just like he was when I went off to do watercolour painting, and creative writing. And when I joined a women’s group and had my consciousness raised. That were years ago, mind. I think my consciousness has slipped down again a bit by now.’
Leena finished this speech and looked around for approval.
Then Marjorie spent the rest of the meeting unfolding a particular idea of hers.
We listened avidly. This was special. We felt intrigued and privileged. She told us that she had run this kind of affair before. A book group. And they’re fine, in as far as they go. But she is particularly interested in women who are interested in Qab.
What if . . . what if we did here what she had done in other towns, at different times, hm?
Marjorie squinched up her face with pleasure. She giggled, relishing the moment.
We all felt that she was on the brink of letting us into a wonderful secret. We all crept forward on our wooden chairs.
That pale-greenish boy, Gila, was going round collecting up plates and cake forks. Marjorie told us to pay him no heed. Gila knows all the secrets. We were to think of him as just a servant. A piece of the furniture.
‘What I was thinking,’ Marjorie Staynes purred, ‘is that we set up a separate weekly group. One dedicated to the study of Qab. What do you think? We can let the book group discuss what it wants. Other books. Dead and buried, musty old books. Things that the other women want to read. But then, secretly, on a different night, we will be a sisterhood of Qab. Meeting to talk about these still living works of Beatrice Mapp. Well, ladies? What do you think?’
The six of us raised a cheer at this. We loved the idea immediately.
‘Tuesdays,’ said Marjorie Staynes, as she prepared to break up the meeting. ‘And maybe I can dig out some of the Qab costumes that my previous sisterhood made. They ran up some lovely garments. Nobody quite got the wear out of them. . .’
Garments? Costumes? In the past, this might have put me off.
We issued into the snowy night. All the inner circle of the Qab sisterhood and myself.
I took off swiftly, hoping that Penny wouldn’t catch up with me as I shuffled on the perilously impacted slush of Silver Street and LeFanu Close. No such luck.
‘I went to the toilet again,’ she told me, when she drew level.
‘Oh yes?’ For a moment I couldn’t imagine why she was telling me this.
‘I had another look at that painting. The one of the lake. The one my handbag fell in. I tried to push my fingers through the glass again.’
I looked at her sharply. Why does everyone think they’ve a right to go investigating? ‘And?’
‘Nothing this time. It was just a normal picture. I think. But there’s something weird, don’t you think? About that whole set-up? Marjorie Staynes and this Qab business?’
‘I thought you believed in it!’
‘I’m infiltrating,’ Penny told me. ‘I guess you are too, eh, Effie?’
‘No,’ I said curtly. ‘I’m fascinated by the whole thing. I want to see what truth there is in it. And I need something, don’t I? Something to fill up my lonely nights. I need something I can believe in, don’t I?’ I sounded devilishly sarcastic. Penny looked like she didn’t know how to take me.
‘Robert’s getting pretty serious with that lad Gila,’ Penny added, just before she turned off, up the hill, towards the Miramar. ‘Funny tonight, seeing Gila being such a slave to Marjorie Staynes. I guess that’s just his job. Robert says he’s not felt like this about a bloke in ages. They’ve got something special, he says.’
I pursed my lips. ‘I’m sure I don’t want to hear anything about it. Anyway, that young man is green. His skin looks a bit scaly to me.’
‘I’ve said something similar, but Robert won’t have it. Says the poor lad’s got a skin condition. But Gila’s telling him funny things. Things that Robert doesn’t know whether to believe or not . . .’
I frowned at her. How indiscreet was this young madam? Why was she telling me all this business? Isn’t Robert supposed to be her friend?
Penny went on, ‘Gila keeps telling him that he comes from a different world. He has come to Whitby and this world from an immense distance. Across time and space and God knows what else. He’s been telling Robert that he comes from Qab. The world of Qab. For real!’
Penny was breathless with excitement. She was standing there wild-eyed under the street light.
And then I knew why she was telling me all this. We are bonded in our membership of the hard core of Qab. Whatever our subterfuges and investigations, both Penny and I are more than a little fascinated by the idea that this world somehow truly exists.
I didn’t tell her that I already knew all of this. I didn’t tell her that Marjorie let me into these secrets some days ago. I didn’t let on that Marjorie thinks me trustworthy, and advanced.
Advanced in the ways of Qab.
I didn’t say anything more to Penny.
The girl turned on her clumpy heels and without a further word hurried back towards the gaudy hotel where she works.
And I returned to my lonely hou
se, to mull it all over once more.
New Year’s Eve
Dear Kristoff,
It pops into my head.
Suddenly, without warning.
It’s the early hours. I’m up, sleepless, trying to clear my mind of thoughts as I wander about the cluttered rooms. I’m looking at knick-knacks and gewgaws.
I’ve spent my whole life looking at knick-knacks and gewgaws. My life’s been bound up in bric-a-brac. I was born into a house of antiques and brought up by old ladies. The first smells I remember are lavender, beeswax polish, toxic hairspray and mothballs.
I’m rifling through old drawers and gazing at my aunts’ jewellery. My own tastes range into the theatrical, the clunky and the showily fake. My aunts, on the other hand, preferred the authentic, the classy, the real. Quite a small fortune is stashed away in these drawers.
I’m keeping them for best, I suppose. All this silver and gold. These emeralds and rubies. And then I catch my breath. My best? When’s that? Have I missed it already? Surely it’s been and gone and I missed it all? And all this expensive tat was just here, going unworn.
Gloomy thoughts at six in the morning on New Year’s Eve.
The windows are opaque with snow. It’s going to be one of those stretched-out, blank New Year’s Eves. My nerves are worn thin. I am exhausted, I realise.
Moving about outside, getting from place to place to do simple things every day, has been a struggle recently. An expedition.
My blood feels sluggish and coagulated in my veins. My own blood feels like it’s flowing so slowly, it’s turning back the other way, like a broken clock.
That’s when the thought came to me: in the early hours of this morning.
Kristoff – I let them have your ashes.
I fainted on the spot on the night they murdered you, and they led me away from the scene of the crime in that swanky restaurant. They brought me here and I was unconscious and it was only the next morning that I could take everything in and realise you were gone.
