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

by Paul Magrs

  With a final flourish Penny steps inside the lacquered box. It’s a showbiz coffin. Danby flashes those blades under the stage lights and everyone gasps.

  Suddenly I am on my feet.

  ‘Stop!!’

  Everyone turns to look at me.

  ‘Stop this at once!’

  Even the magician’s spooky music ceases. There is a horrible pause as the whole audience stares at me. So do Mr Danby and Penny. They are frozen on the stage and looking out into the darkness.

  ‘I won’t let you do this, Danby!’ I start heading towards the stage.

  Mr Danby snickers. ‘Oh, ladies and gentlemen! We have an interruption from the audience! How wonderful! A heckler! Here she comes! Let’s have a big hand everybody… for Brenda!’

  Bugger me but they do! I get this huge round of applause as I lumber towards the stage. I look round and my friends are clapping, too. Effie is doing a slow handclap, though, and she is wearing this horrible grimace as she stares at me.

  Then I’m up on the stage. Under the bright lights. Confronting Mr Danby.

  I’m glad I wore my best new outfit, seeing as I’m on show up here. It’s a kind of smart little suit, sort of patchwork material in shades of purple velvet with gold embroidered stars.

  ‘Get out of that box, Penny,’ I say. ‘Step away from that bogus magician.’

  ‘Bogus, Brenda?’ sneers Danby. ‘What makes you say that? How do you know that I’m not a real magician?’

  ‘Ha!’ I scoff, suddenly aware that the audience are hanging on every word of this exchange. They probably think that it’s all a part of the act. ‘You’re never a real anything, Danby. Beautician, DJ, Ice Cream Van Driver, Magician. You are always a maleficent faker! Now, I simply won’t let you put this young friend of mine into that contraption of yours!’

  Penny tries to talk sense to me. ‘Brenda, it’s OK. He knows what he’s doing. We’ve rehearsed and everything…’

  But my dander is up and I shake her off. ‘If you’re going to put anyone into that magic box of tricks of yours, Danby, then it’s going to be me.’

  He appears to consider this, and turns to the audience for help, milking this scene for all it’s worth. ‘What do we think, everybody?’

  They yell back as one, ‘Put her in the cabinet!’

  I can hear Mrs Claus’ raucous voice louder than all the rest.

  I step willingly towards the magic box, which still smells of fresh paint.

  ‘Step inside then, Brenda,’ says Mr Danby. ‘Don’t be alarmed!’

  Then as I get inside he shoves his face into mine, hissing so that only I can hear: ‘Just how it was meant to be! This is just what we wanted! We knew you would push your beak in to rescue Penny!’

  ‘What?’

  But I’m too late. He clashes the door shut on me. I can hear it click into place. It’s locked solid. I’m in the dark.

  I hear the audience gasp in consternation and pleasurable fear. He’ll be wielding those flat guillotine blades again. Demonstrating their sharpness.

  The music starts up again. All melodramatic.

  All Gothic.

  Then, without further ado, Mr Danby raises the first guillotine blade.

  He slides it into the uppermost gap at the side of the box.

  The cold edge is level with my neck.

  He forces it through to the other side.

  WHAM.

  And before I know it… off comes my head.

  There is a great deal of blood and shouting and screaming from the ballroom. But after that I’m incapable of hearing anything at all.

  Five

  THE MIND / BODY SPLIT

  This is new, I’m thinking.

  I don’t believe I’ve ever been disembodied before. Because that’s what it feels like. That’s what it is; it has to be, hasn’t it?

  I’ve been rudely evicted from my own body.

  Here I go, spinning upwards to the gilded ceiling of the ballroom. The scene of chaos below widens, as ripples of shock spread out and I rise up, ever higher. I can see them all down there, horrified, frozen, as they realise what has transpired upon the stage.

  Mr Danby has sliced off my – pardon the French I picked up abroad – fucking head.

  There are no two ways about it.

  I am not really what you would call a squeamish woman, but I find I’ve got a sudden aversion to looking at the stage area. The velvet curtains come down with a heavy thump and the milling audience can no longer see the horrors under the lights. I swim lazily through the air and marvel that no one has seen me yet. ‘Look, look! There she is! She’s still with us!’ But no one does and I reason that I must be invisible. This is a true out-of-body experience. Somehow I’m languishing on an astral plane that I never really believed in.

  Hang on! I’m not supposed to have a soul! That’s what they always told me. That was the thing that truly made me a monster.

  And yet here I am, doing the backstroke through the hectic air while all at the Christmas Hotel go crackers. I can’t even pick out my friends in the melee below, and when I think on, it’s them I’m concerned about. Fancy sitting there helpless while their friend is beheaded in front of an audience. Mind, none of them were quick enough to do anything about it, were they?

  Elves have scattered. They are calling the police and trying to control the crowd. The emergency exits are open, the house lights are on. Best if everyone is ushered out. Best if the whole place is cleared. I catch a glimpse of Mrs Claus, whose chair hasn’t budged an inch. She’s dispensing orders and, when she’s finished shouting, she rubs her hands together. Gleeful. Satisfied.

  Then I am back-stage, swooping lower as they open the lacquered cabinet. Mr Danby is impassive as the elves drag me out of the box. Penny is still and stricken, in some kind of trance. She barely reacts as my lumpen form tumbles out, spraying gore everywhere on the varnished boards. My head’s quite separate and the expression on my face is one of astonishment. It drops to the boards like a wet football and bounces several times.

  Because I thought I was immortal, didn’t I? I thought nothing malign could kill me. I thought I’d wear down eventually, and maybe all my bits would pack up. But I never thought anyone could do me any serious harm. But he has. Danby, late of the Deadly Boutique, has succeeded in doing what I now see that he always intended to do.

  He has slain me.

  My body lies in ruins in its new velvet costume on the stage.

  Time moves very strangely on the astral plane. It zz’ssss, zig-zags, zooms and slithers. I’m discovering that now, as I watch the police turn up. The local constabulary have arrived in force and they are making sure the stragglers leave quickly. They don’t call an ambulance. They know nothing can be done for me. They have brought a van and will take me to their own mortuary, where I will be specially cared for.

  It seems the local police are prepared for the event of my demise. It’s very interesting. They seem to have a procedure for this. And what can I do about it? Nothing. I can only watch as they pick me up, throw a sheet over me and bear me on a stretcher into the night air. I’m helpless.

  But I’m still here. I’m set free and able to move about. As time moves on, I’m able to direct my movements and draw closer to people so that I can eavesdrop on them.

  I’m near Penny as she emerges from her trance. She’s befuddled and she has no memory of the evening’s entertainments. She just has a feeling that something terrible has happened. But by then the police have been and gone. The crowd has dispersed and Mrs Claus is pouring brandy into people in the main lounge. Penny just has a feeling of dread creeping over her, and she hurries away to change out of that sexy stage outfit. She doesn’t even know where Danby is. All she saw were the elves working to clean the pool of blood off the stage. They were cleaning up in a curious way: sponging up the blood first and wringing
it out into a funnel and a bottle. As if they didn’t want to lose a single drop.

  Penny totters off and I long to tell her what has happened; that none of it is her fault. And that I am still here…

  But my attention is snagged by the others.

  Effie, Robert and Gila are still here. Bless Robert, he has picked up my coat and my handbag. They are all standing, shocked, at the back of the hall. Everyone has forgotten them. They don’t know what to do. I watch my handbag stirring in Robert’s hands. Panda is stuck inside there. He won’t have a clue as to what’s going on.

  And Effie? She has a funny look upon her face. Not horrified, not distraught. No, she looks furious. At one point she gives the boys the slip and rushes to have a word with Mrs Claus.

  Robert watches her go and for once he feels completely at a loss. What he really wants to do is find Danby. He wants to do something awful to the little man. But there’s no sign of the magician now. I draw closer to Robert. I hover above his and Gila’s heads. I feel so graceful; there’s a lovely sensation to drifting about like this. In life I was so lumbering and heavy… this is almost bliss, this being dead.

  I try to stroke his face, to whisper in his ear. But Robert can neither feel me nor hear me.

  I leave him and the lizard boy together and time does that stretching thing. They are suspended there, standing by an absurd potted palm in the corridor outside the lavish ballroom.

  I pursue Effie.

  Effie’s moving very quickly on her skinny legs. Her heart’s full of confusion. Her face is twisted up with remorse. She enters the bar and soon she’s got her mother in the corner. She grabs Mrs Claus’s chunky upper arms and won’t let go of her.

  ‘Why?’

  Mrs Claus won’t have Effie getting upset. Nor will she have her spoil the festive atmosphere in the bar. ‘I did it for you, Effie, dearie. Can’t you see?’

  ‘I know you did. That Danby wouldn’t have had the bottle to do such a thing of his own accord.’

  ‘Look at it this way, Effryggia. It’s done now. It had to be done, and now it’s done. It’s over with. She’s gone. Just as they told you it had to be. And look at it this way, it takes the onus off you, doesn’t it?’

  Effie stands there. The shock of the evening’s events is only just catching up with her. ‘But you’ve done it wrong, mother! It’s all wrong! The Brontes… they said it had to be accomplished in a very particular way… you just… you just chopped her bloody head off!’

  I feel very cold and hollow, floating above them. To hear that they have discussed my demise prior to this night’s events. And that Effie had plans of her own for offing me. It’s almost too much for the recently-deceased to take.

  ‘You should have left it to me to deal with,’ Effie spits at her mother.

  ‘I thought I was helping..!’ Mrs Clause protests.

  But Effie turns on a heel and leaves her mother with her elves.

  ‘Effie!’ Mrs Claus calls, and realizes that she has gone too far this time, meddling in her daughter’s life.

  §

  I have got to clear my head. I streak upwards, out of the festive bar, through four storeys of bedrooms, straight up through the Christmas Hotel. As I pass, certain sensitive souls in the rooms shiver as they sense my passing. An elf in the airing cupboard even cries out in shock as I swim by: he must be psychic.

  But I need to get outside. Even though I know I won’t feel the fresh air and the sea spume on my face, the illusion will be enough. I float through the attics of the hotel, which are chockablock with curios of an extra curious nature, and then I’m barreling through the skies above the West Cliff. I’m over the monuments on the clifftop – the Whale’s jawbones and the statue of Christopher Columbus. I rise and rise, and the seagulls can sense me. They halt in mid-air and swerve away from my invisible presence. Can seabirds be superstitious?

  I rise and rise and from up here I can see all of town, as if in a fisheye mirror. There’s the abbey across the way, and the craggy cliffs and the church, and the steep zigzag of the 199 steps. People are still going up and down them, sightseeing even this late at night. Of course, life goes on. All there’s been is a tragic accident at the Christmas Hotel. Word will spread, it’ll be in the papers, and people will tut. But that will be all.

  I head for the police station, taking a few wrong turnings as I go. I’m still getting the hang of directing myself through the air. I have to think in three dimensions – and time, too, as I hover and glide. It’s not as easy as you think.

  In the brick-walled cells of the police station I’m surprised to see they have Danby already under lock and key. I never noticed them dragging him away. But there he sits on a stained bunk, with his head in his hands, still in his showman’s garb. When I pass through his room he looks up sharply, and frowns. He must be more sensitive than anyone knew.

  But I don’t care about him. I always knew he’d get his revenge upon me one day, and now he’s managed it. I couldn’t care less what fate awaits him now. I’m more interested in sinking through the concrete to the lowest level of the little station, where in a dank room they have fixed up a makeshift morgue.

  DCI Aickman – with whom I’ve had dealings in the past – is standing over the table. Another man is wielding a large camera. A flash goes off repeatedly as he focuses on what lies upon the table.

  I creep closer to look. I know what I’m going to see, and I know it will turn my intangible stomach cold. But somehow I have to look. I have to see myself lying there, to know that it’s all true. It has really happened.

  But I turn away suddenly. I can’t take it all in. I can’t look at that face and its ghastly expression, or the raggy ends of flesh that Mr Danby’s miniature guillotine left.

  I’m out of there. I dive and soar upwards through the building, and out across the town. If it was under better circumstances, all of this might be a pleasant, even thrilling, experience. But it isn’t. I don’t feel like Peter Pan, or Wendy, gliding past the creamy moon over Whitby. I feel hollow and bereft. I feel as if I will never be able to talk to my friends ever again.

  All at once, I feel that I need to be home.

  So many rooftops below me. Some shrouded by trees in full bloom, some hidden in the deepest shadows of the night. Can I even find my own roof? A wave of panic hits me. Am I already starting to lose my memories? Perhaps, with no physical self to hang onto, my identity is already starting to erase itself… I can’t even find my way home…

  But, no! There it is. Standing proudly, the tallest building in our street after Effie’s ramshackle home. Brenda’s B&B. No need for fussing with keys or stairs, or anything prosaic as that. I slip in through my attic window, straight into my sitting room.

  I can’t even put the lights on, or fill the kettle. I can’t touch or feel or leave an impression on anything. I sit quietly on my settee and wait, and think. Of course, I’m not even really sitting. I’m in a sitting position, keeping my mind concentrated on not sinking through the floor. This is like treading water in the middle of the ocean: that’s what life without a body feels like.

  Plans. I need plans. I need to know if this… spirit of mine… this supposed soul (it sounds silly even as I think it) can be reunited with my body.

  And I need to think more about this business of Effie. Her mother told her that she had taken the onus off her daughter. She had organised my death herself. Now Effie wouldn’t have to do it.

  Panda was quite right in what he reported from next door. Effie’s was indeed sent by the Bronte sisters to kill me. Me! Her best friend!

  A cold feeling goes right through me. How could she? How could she even consider such a thing? And what for?

  Ah, but the Bronte sisters were powerful, weren’t they? They could do allsorts of magical things. Mind control and coercion are surely not beyond their gifts. Effie is probably a pawn in their game. They can make her
do just what they like.

  But why? What would my death accomplish? Why would those literary siblings wish me slain? And how would they even know who I was?

  This is too much to take in. It’s all too horrible to go over and over, trying to make sense. Especially for the recently beheaded.

  Just then I hear the door opening downstairs, voices, and people coming up the stairs. I freeze at once. I don’t have guests staying at the moment, do I? Just as well, really. But no, it isn’t guests. It’s Robert and Gila. Robert’s got my coat and bag. Both boys look shattered and shocked by the night’s events.

  They flick on the lights in my living room and look around glumly. Robert seems as if he’s about to burst into tears. I want to get up and hug him. Tell him it’s OK. I’m still here. A little less manifest than usual – but still here. Still me!

  Bless them, they decide to make a spot of spicy tea, as if the pungent scent of ginger and cloves and garam masala could conjure up my spirit one more time. It’s very touching to watch Gila put the kettle on and fill the pot. Robert hangs up my coat and puts my heavy handbag on the breakfast bar, where it twitches and bulges.

  ‘It’s that Panda she’s got in there,’ Robert tells his boyfriend.

  ‘You’ll have to let him out and explain what’s happened,’ Gila says. ‘It’s only fair. Just because he’s a stuffed toy, doesn’t mean he didn’t have feelings for her.’

  Robert unzips the bag and Panda wrestles himself free, rather crossly. He clambers onto the breakfast bar. ‘Did I hear you call me a stuffed toy?’ he shouts at Gila.

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry.’

  ‘Just watch it, reptile boy. Look, you two, what’s the big idea? How come I’ve been stuck in that bag all night? I thought we were going to some cabaret thing? And what was all that screaming about earlier, eh?’ He glares at the two boys beadily.

  ‘Oh, Panda,’ says Robert, sitting heavily on a breakfast stool. ‘I don’t even know where to begin.’

  Panda’s looking furiously impatient. He boggles at the boys and swivels round. He stares straight at me, his black ears twitching. ‘Well, Brenda, dear? Is there any explanation? Can you tell me why you’ve had me cooped up in your handbag all evening? It wasn’t very much bloody fun, you know!’