[Brenda & Effie 06] - Brenda and Effie Forever!

by Paul Magrs

  Perhaps I shall consider putting up my room prices. Effie has said for ages that I should. Attract a better class of clientele that way. In fact, she would be most impressed by this flood of fancy professors to my door. The sad thing is, there hasn’t been a chance for us to have a chinwag and to tell her things like this. I’m starting to wonder if there’ll be chance to have anything as mundane as a chinwag ever again…

  Late that night there’s a knocking. I freeze to the spot in the kitchen, where I’m counting teaspoons of hot chocolate flakes into a pan of simmering milk. It wasn’t the door downstairs. It was closer than that.

  Then I look at my kitchen window. The darkness beyond. And here, all these storeys up, there’s a small stuffed Panda glaring at me from the window ledge.

  ‘How on Earth did you get all the way up here?’ I gasp, shoving open the window frame.

  ‘Never mind that now! Just let me in!’ he wheezes. ‘I’m not very good with heights.’

  I watch, astonished, as the mouthy little creature hops off the window ledge and onto the draining board. ‘You climbed all the way up here?’

  ‘It seemed like the best way to get your attention to let me indoors,’ he snaps. ‘I can’t reach the doorbell, and my paws are too soft for knocking, and for some reason, my bloody mobile won’t charge. So – I clambered up the side of your building. By the way, you’d better do something about your clematis. It’s running wild round the back.’ He glares at me and then barks, ‘Come on then, help me down off the bloody draining board, would you? What’s that – hot chocolate? Good.’

  Soon enough we’re settled in the living room, facing each other across the coffee table. I’ve filled a thimble-sized espresso cup with frothy chocolate for him and he’s pleased. And then suddenly his expression changes. He comes over all doomy and gloomy as he stares at me in my housecoat and the curlers in my wig.

  ‘What is it, Panda?’ For someone with such minimalist features, he can somehow convey a great deal. Right now he’s looking worried and sorrowful and impatient, all at once.

  ‘I’ve got something absolutely dreadful to tell you,’ he starts, in his gruff and cultured voice.

  I straighten my back and prepare to hear the worst. Nothing can frighten me, I remind myself. After everything I’ve been through, there’s nothing that can put me off my stroke.

  Panda looks shifty, though. All of a sudden he can’t bring himself to tell me.

  ‘If it’s something bad, and it’s about me, then I really rather you’d tell me, Panda. Forewarned is forearmed, and all that.’ Now I’m feeling quite resolute and sure of myself. But what am I doing? Putting on a display of steadfastness for a small stuffed bear?

  He says, ‘Well, obviously, you remember how last night I smuggled myself into Effie’s handbag, while we were all at Cod Almighty?’

  I nod firmly. Yes of course I do. It was only last night. ‘And..?’

  ‘And you know how she went off home, taking me with her? Well, that was my plan. To get myself inside her house, and to find out what is up with her. Get us a little bit of inside information. I knew it was risky. I knew that, at any moment, she could realise that her bag felt slightly heavier and bulkier and then it would be a matter of moments before she discovered that it contained a living, thinking being. A wily agent, who was working against her and spying on her – and, not only that, but a secret agent whom she had known very well, back in her younger days. Just imagine what Effie would have thought, had she found her beloved Panda being all clandestine in her handbag?’

  I realise I’m going to have to urge him on with this account. ‘I take it she never found you?’

  ‘That’s right. She let herself into her home, hurried up the stairs, and slung her bag down in the fancy dining room. As soon as she was out of that room I let myself out of the bag and went to hide in the shadows of the room, congratulating myself all the while on getting there undetected.

  ‘And that’s when the gloomy ambience of the place suddenly hit me. Not just a gloomy ambience – a dirty one, too. Really, I think Effie’s house must be dustier and messier than even yours, Brenda. Neither of you two ladies are particularly house-proud, are you, dear?’

  I open my mouth to protest, but then Panda is off again. ‘Now this, is where it all goes a bit nasty.’

  A crackling sensation goes up my spine. Dread, I suppose it is.

  ‘Of course, I know Effie’s house and its ambience of old,’ explains Panda. ‘Remember? I started my real life there, back in the time of Effie’s extreme youth. It was the first home I ever knew. Anyway, in those days, the tall house by the harbour was a place of noise and life and the cackling of a whole family of witches. There was a gaggle of witchy aunts around Effie and the place was warm, secure, impregnable. Now, in comparison, it’s a dreary place. And Effie’s aunts are disappointed, I think, in the life that their grand-niece, their brightest hope, has made for herself. Her aunties are still present in that house, Brenda. They are watching her every move.’

  ‘I know,’ I tell him. ‘I’ve heard quite a bit about Effie’s still-present aunties over the years.’ And, I don’t go on to say, they’ve never had a nice word to say about me, as it happens. They seem to collectively look down upon Effie’s best friend and fellow investigator, and that’s always rankled with me.

  ‘Having smuggled myself into the dowdy corners of Effie’s habitation,’ says Panda. ‘I became aware that the ghostly aunts were alert to my presence. They were rather surprised to witness my return. ‘Please, please,’ I begged them in a whisper, ‘Please don’t tell her that I’m here. I want to help her. And I can’t if she discovers me here. Please!’

  ‘And the aunts ignored me. They never said a word, and I took that as tacit agreement. Or perhaps I was just beneath their notice, or beneath their contempt. But next thing I knew, I was observing a very disturbing scene that was being played out in the dining room earlier this evening. As soon as Effie turned up in her jogging suit, bearing her meager repast of a Cup-a-Soup in a Royal Wedding mug, I knew something was going to happen. There was a weird stirring in the air…

  ‘And bloody hell, but wasn’t I right? As I watched unobserved from behind a vast aspidistra in a brass pot, Effie sipped bad-temperedly at her instant soup and waited for her aunts to manifest themselves at their places around the table.

  ‘Suddenly, there they all were. Maude, Beryl, Natasha and Eliza. The aunts who had brought Effie up so carefully, so long ago. They were watery, gelid, floating presences in that dusky air tonight. I got the feeling that they were semi-solid, not quite ghosts. They were almost physically present there in that room. And there were other, wispier, more evanescent beings seated at chairs further down the long table, and others, probably from further back in the witchy dynasty, lining the walls: standing room only.

  ‘Then Effie began to speak. She talked in a steady, exhausted voice. She put down her Cup-a-Soup and let it go cold on the tablemat in front of her. She talked about the trip you and she took to Haworth, and recounted various moments from your ludicrous adventure. Her aunts tutted here and there during the telling. I get the feeling that none of them wholly approve of the situations Effie and your good self make a habit of getting into.’

  ‘You can say that again,’ I sigh. ‘And what did she tell them? Stuff she hasn’t told me?’

  Panda nods solemnly. ‘Yes, well, you know what Effie is like. It takes her all bloody day to get to the point. But, as she recounted the tale, she came to the part about her mysterious private meeting with the Bronte girls.’

  ‘Girls!’ I snort. ‘Those heinous spectres haven’t been girls for donkeys’ years. Almost as long as me! They’re succubi! Incubi! Harpies!’

  Panda frowns. ‘This is the important bit, dearie. Let me get to it.’

  ‘Go on then,’ I urge.

  ‘Well, there’s all this fuss and flurry over the fact that t
he Brontes returned the scrapbook of pages from the Books of Mayhem to Effie. The aunties are ever so excited about that. A shiver of power and excitement zips about the room. But then they realise that they are being given these pages for a reason. And it must be a reason to do with this coming time of danger and tribulation. So the excitement dampens down and the ghosts turn thoughtful and muted.

  ‘And then,’ says Panda, eyeing me strangely. ‘Effie comes out with something else. Her voice rises in pitch and she sounds dreadfully strained. She announces to the roomful of ghosts that the Brontes told her something else, while she was there with them, in the secret chambers beneath the parsonage and churchyard in Haworth. The Bronte girls imparted to Effie a secret that had held for over sixty years. All that time ago, when they trained her, they had planted a little surprise inside her mind. A post-hypnotic suggestion. And now, with a casual click of the fingers from Charlotte Bronte, the secret was unlocked. While Effie was down in the caverns again, where she had once learned to be one of Charlotte’s Angels, she was reminded of something. Something that burst horribly into life within her head. A mission she had been given long ago.’

  ‘What mission?’ I ask, feeling that somehow, I already know. But please don’t let it be true. Don’t let it be the very thing that’s just occurred to me. That would be the worst thing possible.

  ‘Effie is a sleeper agent,’ Panda tells me tersely. ‘And she has been one since she was eleven years old. She’s under the baleful influence of the Bronte sisters and her mission is a ghastly one. But it’s something she has been programmed to do. And the time is now.’

  ‘What’s her mission?’ I say in a voice hardly more than a whisper.

  ‘Oh, my dear Brenda. Effie has been programmed for most of her life to wait for this particular time, this particular moment – and to kill you.’

  §

  After he leaves me I’m sitting here thinking. I sit alone in my living room, taking it all in. I realise I’m shaking. The house is quiet around me, apart from the odd creak and, of course, the occasional tap-tap-tap from the attic storage space above. Very faintly I can hear the sea, down in the harbour.

  Panda has withdrawn for the night. ‘Where shall I sleep?’ he asked, and I just waved him away. Anywhere. Take any room you like. I can’t even think just now. So he trotted off, almost happily.

  I’m left thinking, how can he tell me, so easily, that Effie’s intending to do me in? And, anyway, who is this creepy little stuffed creature thing? Who’s he to tell me malicious stuff like this? He might have got the wrong end of the stick…

  Is Panda all he seems? He could be anything. An evil spirit possessing the velveteen fabric and the stuffing within. His could be a demon soul peering out through those glass button eyes. He could be a devil doll, intent on mischief. He could be messing with my mind just for fun. Because he can’t be right, can he?

  How could anyone ever persuade Effie to kill me?

  But then, if she truly was a sleeper agent, and the instruction was placed within her subconscious all those years ago, then maybe there’s no escaping this destiny. She would have no volition, no control over what she might do then.

  I fall asleep on the sofa, fully-dressed, with my wig still in curlers. Can you believe it? It’s like real life is breaking down all around me. Real life in which people go to bed properly in their nightgowns and don’t sit up all night fretting that their best chum’s gone and become an assassin.

  Effie is powerful. Now and then I have caught a glimpse of her reluctant magic. She holds it back and uses it only when it’s strictly necessary. My passport, for example. She conjured the physical object out of thin air, but not only that, she created an identity and a history for me, too, so that I would be able to travel abroad. With just a small spell she summoned into being a kind of legitimacy for me. What else is she capable of? I’ve only ever seen her powers used in the cause of good.

  In the night’s remaining hours I dream about ninja Effies. High-kicking and sword-wielding Effies. Swishing and slashing their way through armies of zombies. I see Effie flying through the night winds and shrieking with malevolent delight. She flies on a broomstick and her complexion’s gone green. She spews ectoplasm for fun and spits hissing venom in the faces of her friends.

  I wake at nine with an awful headache. When I shuffle about my house I find there’s been a new dust-fall and that Panda is missing. He’s not in any of the rooms he could have chosen. He’s crept away in the night. For a moment my heart feels somewhat lighter at this. So he’s not trustworthy after all. He’s spread poison and skipped away. So I shouldn’t believe a word of his revelation, should I?

  After breakfast I have to visit my attic. I need to recharge myself. I won’t go into details here, but I have a few repairs to effect on this tired old body. The spare parts I need are hanging in the attic eaves, waiting for me and twitching. I need some brand new spare parts, really. There’s only so often that you can shuffle these gory fragments around. Especially with some of the trickier internal organs – it’s the law of diminishing returns. You can hang them up to recharge like you’d plug in your mobile phone, but with each replacement and switch you still know that they’re running down. Sometimes you just have to face the fact that you need new parts. And I think that time may be coming soon. It’s fifteen years since I had to go stealing. That’s the longest it’s ever been.

  Ah well. One problem at a time. And I needn’t fill you in on the grisly details of what I had to stitch today. Suffice to say I sorted myself out and effected the repairs that were necessary and now I feel a bit stronger and ready, perhaps, to face the things I need to.

  §

  I meet Robert that afternoon for a stroll about, and to pick up a few bits and pieces from the shops. He’s intent on talking through this supposed crisis in his love life, and I’m ashamed that he notices my mind is elsewhere.

  ‘You’re not really listening, are you?’

  This is us in the wet fish shop, where the windows are adorned with the terrible rictus smiles of shark jaws. I’m picking out the ingredients for a fish pie I want to make, and Robert has been trying to tell me about his fluctuating feelings for Gila.

  ‘He’s just too alien,’ he ends up saying, haplessly. ‘There’s too much space between us. Too many differences for us to really get on…’

  ‘Hmm.’ I pay up and bundle away my wrapped parcels and we amble into the cobbled lane outside. The little market is on and I need fresh vegetables and fruit. One of the ways I cope with oncoming tribulation is by cooking and feeding people. I’d rather go into battle – or whatever it will be – well-nourished. So I’m fondling squashes and aubergines while Robert tells me more about his affair with the lizard boy.

  ‘I don’t think we’re compatible. And the sex is a bit weird. Have you ever had sex with a lizard person?’

  I really have to think about this. I also think he’s being a bit personal. I try to duck the question and pick out a hand of bananas. ‘It’s such a shame. I thought you were getting on so well.’

  ‘We were. But he’s so distant… emotionally cold, really. He doesn’t laugh much. Cold-blooded, you see?’

  I frown. I don’t think this can be right. I think Robert is painting Gila to be someone I don’t recognize. I haven’t spent masses of time with that boy from Qab, but I do know he’s funnier, warmer, altogether nicer than what Robert’s claiming. ‘Ah,’ I say, realizing, ‘You’re just trying to excuse yourself. You’re making him sound worse so you can wriggle out of things. So you don’t feel guilty for carrying on behind his back.’

  Robert pales slightly as I pay for my veg. He’s holding my shopping bags and looking ashamed. ‘Am I that transparent?’

  ‘Only to me, lovely,’ I tell him. On we walk, and I study my scribbled list. ‘Anyway, who is this other man you’ve been seeing? What’s going on there? Is it anyone I know?’

 
He turns even paler. ‘Er, well, yes, actually. You do, as it happens. He’s kind of an old flame of mine.’

  There’s a distant noise inside of me. A rumbling disquiet. It’s the creaking of the ropes that support huge bloody alarm bells inside my head. ‘Who?’ I demand, drawing him into a side alley, to his surprise. He’s not expecting me to look so fervent, I think.

  ‘It’s the man on the settee. The flying settee. Remember? That beautiful, dark, dapper man I was seeing a year or two ago. He used to come flying out of the night and wait for me. And he’d whisk me about the skies over Whitby and the North Sea on his upholstered steed…’

  ‘And he’s come back to you, you say?’

  ‘I watched the sky one night last week. Gila was asleep. Snoring through his gills. I sat on the window seat of my room, right at the top of the Miramar. And I saw it. That plush velvet chesterfield sofa, sailing past the full moon in silhouette. And my heart went mad, Brenda. I know now what it was I was wanting. I was wanting him back. The man on the settee. The Erl king. The Faerie king. Whatever you want to call him. And he came back to me. He came to find me, Brenda.’

  Robert is gabbling away. Shoving in these poetic phrases as he goes. As if he thinks a bit of fancy talk could save him. As if waxing rhapsodical would make it all the more palatable. But it doesn’t. That won’t wash with me, and he knows it as he surveys my expression. I don’t look as chuffed as he does about the return of that weird stranger from the alleged land of Faerie. That seductive monster caused enough bother, last time he deigned to visit our town.

  His reappearance can only mean further disaster, I’m sure of it.

  §

  We don’t get the chance to go any further into his state of mind. It’s clear to me that Robert is in the grip of what I would call erotic delusions. Just as Effie was, a little while ago, over her vampire chap, Alucard. As we know, that came to a terrible, disastrous climax, and I’d hate to see Robert go the same way.