[Brenda & Effie 02] - Something Borrowed

by Paul Magrs

  ‘And then we’re at the station. You leap with surprising athleticism over your handlebars, leaving me to clumsily tie up our steed, and you bustle us through the turnstiles, flinging money at the ticket booth. “No time for messing about,” you’re yelling. “We have to be on the—”

  ‘The five to seven. It’s standing there, resplendent, on Platform Two. Gleaming and black and puffed up in streaming plumes of its own hot steam. The guard is ready to put his flags up in the air, doors are slamming, he’s about to give a sharp toot on his whistle and the engines are idling and ready to roar.

  ‘You’re shoving me across the platform, and we’re barging through well-wishers and wavers. But we’re aboard. We make it. I’m surprised at first. I’m not used to the plush confines of first class. It’s all gilt and gas lamps. Thick carpets and flock wallpaper. It’s a different world, up this end of the train. We pause in the corridor to catch our breath as the train shunts and pulls out of the cavernous station. We grin at each other because we’ve made it! We’ve actually done it! They are here somewhere, on this train. Edith and Freer are here, thinking they are safe. Thinking they are scot free. But we are on their tails. You and I grin at each other and my blood is surging like billy-o in my veins. I’ve not felt like this in years.

  ‘Then it’s time to get to business. We have to check out all the carriages. We have to find them.

  ‘We split up. You head up the train, and I head down towards the back. It’s a process of opening up each of the compartments and thrusting your head through the door. Glaring at each of the startled occupants in turn. I don’t allow myself enough time to stop and think. What am I doing? Making these well-heeled passengers jump up in alarm in their plush velvet seats. Here’s my ghastly, troglodyte face peering at them in the gloom and the flickflacking shadows as our train rumbles across the Fens.

  ‘The first few carriages are quiet enough. Three nuns sit quietly together in one. Then an old woman and her young niece. They are startled by me. But I’m ignored by the four gentlemen who travel together in the next compartment: one of them is a huge, bearded beast of a man, expounding in a loud, hectoring voice and getting the others all involved in a heated argument. I move on quickly down the carriages, till the passengers I’m disturbing start to become a faceless and unhelpful blur. In another compartment a very old woman in a dove grey suit is knitting away thoughtfully.

  ‘We have to get to Freer and Edith before we hit London and Liverpool Street station. Otherwise the metropolis will surely swallow them up. They’ll be like rats down a bolthole, taking Tyler’s book for ever.

  ‘I pause in a shadowy, curtain-swagged niche between compartments. Why am I so bothered about this? Why so worked up?

  ‘Because this, after all, is the reason I came to Cambridge. I know that now, as I struggle to calm down my ragged breathing and get a grip on my exhilaration. I was drawn to the old town, just to be involved in this escapade. Fate and sorcery. Something was acting upon me, without my even knowing it. I was destined to become embroiled in this very fandango! Me and Henry Cleavis, thrusting open carriage doors! Crying out our apologies and giving curt “Good evenings”.

  ‘Look at me, still in my housemaid’s uniform, with my hair all straggly and my stockings round my ankles – I’m an adventurous slut, hot-footing it to London, with the villain of the piece in my sights—

  ‘Ah. Did you hear? My hearing is rather better than most people’s, thanks to my unusual anatomy. A female voice. “William? Are you there?” Coming down the corridor, through the satin and velvet and quavering slightly, unsure of herself as the carriage sways on the tracks. “William?” Has he abandoned her already, then? I shrink back. I can’t let her see me. I nip back to the last compartment I peered into. The knitting woman tuts and stares, unsurprised, as I peer through the curtains. Outside, Edith Tyler is staggering along the way I have already come, clutching her case and sounding more and more desperate.

  ‘ “There’s always strange goings-on on this train.” The old woman behind me is shaking her head and sighing. “I hope that young girl comes to no harm. I saw the man she boarded with and he’s up to no good.”

  ‘I can only agree, wordlessly, with the old woman. She returns to knitting her bootees as I slip out, oh-so-carefully, after Edith. Edith must surely be wishing by now that she had stayed at home. You can tell by her pained, frightened tones above the clickety-clack of the tracks beneath us that she isn’t best pleased. “William? Won’t you tell me where you are?”

  ‘And then she evidently hears something. A noise she recognises. She straightens up and cocks her ear. She bolts forward. And I am behind her, in her shadow. But I’m too late to save her.

  ‘Like Edith, I can hear William Freer call out to her: “I am here, my darling. Compartment seven. Directly in front of you.” And I can hear Edith sigh with such relief. He hasn’t left her after all. She hasn’t been dumped. For a moment then Edith had thought that Freer had simply used her, abandoned her and taken the spoils. But they will travel to London together, after all. And he will love her for ever, as he promised. “William,” I hear her begin, in an upbraiding sort of voice I have heard her use many times before, “why did you leave me behind in the—Oh!”

  ‘And that sharp note of surprise in her voice. It’s almost alarm. What has she seen? I creep closer. She’s a dark, bell-shaped silhouette in the doorway. She sets down her case, and quickly tries to tidy her hair. “William? Will you introduce me to your friend?”

  ‘Company, I wonder? Someone else involved? And I take the risk of being seen. I stick my neck out of the darkness. I crane forward as Edith steps into the compartment. I glimpse her beloved, the traitorous Freer, gesturing to the man that Edith hasn’t yet met. His accomplice. His master, to whom Tyler’s manuscript has been safely delivered this night.

  ‘The way Edith touches up her tumbled locks like that, I can tell she finds this newcomer attractive. More dashing, even, than her lover Freer. Her tone goes gooey and girlish. “You never told me we would be accompanied on our journey to London, William.”

  ‘And then comes Freer’s voice. “This is Tyler’s wife, my lord. I have brought her with me, as well as the book. Clever, no? Impressive, yes? To whisk away the professor’s most prized possessions like this? All in one night?”

  ‘Edith slaps at Freer’s hand almost playfully. “Possessions,” she scoffs, and she doesn’t yet perceive the danger she is in. The danger that I now know she is in. For William Freer is presenting her, with real formality and aplomb, to the tall, chalk-faced figure who shares this compartment with them. “May I introduce to you, my darling, my master? This is Kristoff Alucard. Count Alucard.”

  ‘And a stunned Edith drops a curtsy at this point. She always was a snob. Felled by titles, honours, good breeding and manners. Stuff like that. Bit of a clumsy curtsy, if you ask me. And, at first, I foolishly think Count Alucard is darting forward in order to lift her back to her feet.

  ‘But he isn’t. He has jumped on her.

  ‘In those close, stuffy confines, he’s leapt at her throat. Like a lion on a gazelle, except there was no pursuit. Edith simply vanishes under him, as if she has fallen under the train itself. Freer squawks in horror and tries to shove the door closed.

  ‘But he has seen me! Freer’s eyes lock with mine, standing here in the corridor. Freer has seen me! He yells out in shock and I leap backwards.

  ‘And Alucard raises his face, all streaked with Edith Tyler’s gore. And I realise I’m a goner. They can’t let me get away now. Not after I’ve seen them . . . like this!

  ‘And I have to run! I have to run! I HAVE TO RUN!’

  I burst out of my trance. That’s the only word for it.

  Poor Cleavis has to deal with me. Shrieking and gibbering like the womanzee herself. I’m thrashing about in my armchair and Henry flaps about me in a vain attempt at pacifying me. But I’m wailing and moaning and it takes me some minutes to realise that I’m no longer back there. I’m no
t in 1946.

  I’m not racing towards the metropolis on an antiquated steam engine. I haven’t just seen my mistress’s pale, perfect throat ripped out. Or watched her lover Freer’s anguished, terrified expression as he saw it happen. And I haven’t just come face to face with the burning, feral eyes of—

  ‘Alucard! ’ I shriek. ‘Henry, it was him! He was there—’

  Then I’m up on my feet, swaying and gasping. ‘I had that wall inside my memory. I couldn’t see him. I couldn’t even remember that . . . he was there . . . at the heart of this thing . . . Alucard! ’

  Henry is rubbing my back and murmuring noises at my ear. ‘Can I get you anything, Brenda?’

  Soon we’re sitting at my kitchen table with a pot of tea. I calm down with the scent of cardamom and cloves. My head is still reeling with the vividness of being hypnotised. I can tell that Henry is somewhat surprised at his success, too.

  ‘It’s rather as I suspected,’ he tells me at last, crunching into a ginger snap. ‘I um. I sort of knew about Alucard’s involvement. I wanted to see if you remembered.’

  ‘You knew?’ I burst out. ‘Why didn’t you warn me?’ And now, when I squinch up my eyes, I can feel myself frozen on the spot again, staring into their compartment. All the plush streaked with Edith’s blood. How those two evil men ignored my shrieking. Freer clasping his lover. He made feeble attempts to revive her, but he must have known she was dead. Freer, I think, had quite lost his mind in the moment that his master turned on his mistress. Freer was a gibbering wreck from thenceforth.

  He and Alucard slid open the black window and between them they bundled Edith’s body out into the rattling night. THUMP, THUMP, THUMP as she bounced along the tracks at speed. Away down the embankment into darkened fields like so much old rubbish. Alucard had got what he wanted from her.

  I HAD TO RUN! I HAD TO RUN! I was face to face with Alucard and I had to run!

  ‘You know Kristoff Alucard?’ I ask Henry quietly.

  ‘My dear.’ He laughs softly. ‘I have been a member of the Smudgelings since the late thirties. We have been doing battle with the forces of darkness for over seventy years. Of course I have known Alucard. I knew him even before he adopted that ludicrous anagram. Our paths have crossed again and again.’

  ‘He was here,’ I say. ‘Last year. But I didn’t remember him. Not at first. He . . . seduced my best friend.’

  ‘Effie?’ Henry is incredulous.

  ‘She has a house filled with old books. Rare texts. Things that don’t exist anywhere else in the world. Magic things. That’s what he was after. And a lot of good it did him.’

  ‘It makes sense,’ Henry muses, ‘that he would return to Whitby. It was his first home in England, back in the 1890s. He has strong connections here.’

  ‘Well,’ I say, slurping my tea. ‘He’s gone now, anyway. Gone for ever. Effie and I saw him dragged off into hell.’

  ‘Really?’

  My head’s all fuddled. ‘I can’t talk about it now. Too tired and shaken up.’

  ‘Yes, of course, my dear. Um. But if you have any knowledge of Alucard, you really must let me, um, know.’

  I stand up and gaze down at Henry’s bald head. I’m a bit cross with him now. He drags me through that hellish trance, and now he’s still telling me what to do. Well. I’ve made my mind up. He’s not getting anything else out of me. At least, not tonight. Is that why he’s here, I wonder, as I wash out our cups, and the teapot. Is he in Whitby on the trail of Alucard?

  He touches my elbow. ‘You look scared,’ he tells me. Of course I deny it. ‘The things you were dredging up are bound to be disturbing,’ he adds.

  ‘I saw Edith Tyler murdered,’ I tell him, my voice breaking now. I feel as if I’m about to burst into tears. This is ridiculous. Making a fool of myself. I’ve seen much worse things. Why are these particular memories getting to me? ‘I can’t get the pictures out of my head . . .’

  Then Cleavis is hugging me. He has to reach right up to my neck. His arms are skinny and too short to go round me. He’s straining upward like a wallflower trying to catch the sunlight. I don’t care though. I’ve not had a cuddle like this in a long time and he means well. When he leaves go at last I feel a little better, and Henry asks me: ‘Do you want me to stay?’

  I flutter and stammer like a young girl. ‘Oh, I’m all right, really . . .’

  ‘I can sleep in the chair, there, if you have a rug to go over me. Obviously I’m not suggesting anything improper.’

  A small shaft of disappointment goes through me as I go to the cupboard for spare pillows and covers. Of course we wouldn’t be improper. Of course not.

  But I’m glad Cleavis is going to stay with me. And stand watch over me through the night.

  We take affable turns in my bathroom and he exclaims over its luxuriousness, its spotlessness. We tiptoe about with toothbrushes and towels and we’re gentle with each other. I put on a soothing James Last record as we prepare to bed down for the night. And, at last, I lie under all my heaped blankets and I can hear him stirring across the other side of my attic room. And guess what? I love hearing him breathing there, and moving about, and settling down. I love having him with me as we say our good nights.

  I ran to Cleavis for comfort, reassurance and safety back in 1946, as well.

  As soon as I close my eyes I am back in my trance. I dreaded this, and knew it would be so. I burst out of my dreams of the past, shrieking and scared. But almost immediately I am back there. Backing away. Turning to run. Watching with appalled fascination as William Freer disposes of Edith’s body and Alucard turns to me . . .

  I run for my life. I pelt heavily down that narrow corridor, rucking the carpets, almost slipping. The guttering gas flames throw nightmarish shapes about me and I can hear Freer and Alucard yelling.

  Alucard! He came after me. Haring down the length of that train. I was shrieking and disturbing all the other passengers. I wanted them to come out of their little rooms and see. The best way to put him off the chase and impede him, I thought, was to publicise him. And let everyone know he was here in their midst . . .

  Alucard! A legend amongst monsters. Here on this train. The evil force behind this scheme, this adventure in which Henry and I found ourselves involved.

  I whipped round as I moved from one carriage to the next – and saw that he had pulled down another window and I just caught a glimpse of his ankles disappearing into the patent black night. He slipped out like a shadow, like an eel shimmying swiftly into subaqueous realms. This disturbed me more than if he had just been running after me, somehow. He was out there, clinging to the thin metal skin of the train as we hurtled towards London. He could slip back in at any of the windows. He could find me and get me. I was a goner, I knew. After what I had seen . . .

  Other passengers were coming out of compartments now, roused by my shrieks of alarm. They clustered and they besieged me. And I remember talking like one who had lost her wits.

  And Henry was with me once more. He took charge of the situation immediately, throwing his arm about me and bundling me down the train’s length, in the direction of the buffet car. Here it was warm and consoling and I could pretend I hadn’t seen anything terrible. But I had. I knew I had, really, even as Henry poured me tea and wielded the sugar tongs (four, five, six sugar lumps for shock). He gazed at me earnestly and asked what had happened.

  And all I could focus on was the rhythmic thumpety-thump of the rails on the tracks beneath us. Like the thumping of Edith’s body being flung out and bouncing off the sides of the train and on to the swift, dark hardness outside. Thumpety-thump. Like my own second-hand heart, so jarred and alarmed I felt it would never go back to its normal pace. Thumpety-thump. Thumpety-thump. The bone china rattled on the table in front of us. The cutlery tinkled to that same rhythm. Henry was looking at me and he seemed scared, as though the look on my face told him I was going to start screaming once more. Thumpety-thump.

  Alucard was standing behind him.
r />   Of course, my own screams wake me again. And Henry jumps out of my armchair and dashes to my side.

  ‘Oh, Henry, you’ve shaken me up proper, hypnotising me like that. I can’t help remembering now, all the things I suppressed . . .’

  He murmurs and pats and I realise he’s saying something banal like, ‘Better out than in, old girl.’

  ‘Alucard walked into the dining car, easy as you like,’ I said. ‘He came in and stood behind you, as if nothing was amiss. Do you remember?’

  Henry nods grimly. ‘I do remember. But I think we should stop thinking about it all tonight—’

  Thumpety-thump.

  ‘What was that?’ I gasp.

  Thumpety-thumpety-thumpety thump.

  The noise from my dream. A dreadful pulse. The clanking of pistons. Of blood pumping out of severed arteries. How has this noise got outside my head? How is it here – so loud – in my attic?

  Henry grips my arm. He’s heard it too. How could he not? And he’s scared as well.

  Thumpety. Thumpety.

  Tappety tap. Tappety tappety trip-trip-trap.

  Then suddenly I know. I even relax a little, when I realise what the noises are. My usual late night visitation. My ordinary hauntings.

  Tap tap tap tap. Out on the landing.

  ‘Can you hear them?’ I ask Henry.

  ‘Of course!’ he hisses. ‘What is it? Do you have guests staying . . .?’ But he knows I don’t.

  ‘This happens almost every night,’ I say, sounding far more nonchalant about it than I feel. ‘These noises come. They come in the room—’

  And, as if on cue, the door squeaks and moans and the tapping noises approach us through the gloom. Warily, though, as if they are aware of the extra presence of Cleavis. Trip-trap-trap.

  ‘Oh, my God,’ Henry says thickly. ‘How can you stand this? How can you?’ He grips my hands. ‘Can’t we do something? Surely we can sort this out?’