by Paul Magrs
But Robert is sure-footed. He leads us through a bewildering maze of corridors and staircases. I lose all bearings in this world of patterned carpet and painted woodchip. One tatty Christmas tree starts to look like another and soon I’m starting to feel that even a building as big as this one cannot house this many passageways and rooms.
I remember once visiting Mrs Claus in her private sitting room. But I can’t for the life of me work out where those quarters were in relation to where we are now. We will simply have to trust that Robert knows what he is about.
Ah, but I’ve always trusted in Robert, haven’t I? Right from the start. From the first time I met him and he helped me out in my adventures.
Even as I think this, I can see the plain orange cover of ‘Tendencies’ in my mind’s eye, and I am reminded that the young man has betrayed me in a way that no one has ever done before. But right now is not the time to tackle him about it.
§
He pushes open her bedroom door with rather more force than I would have expected from him. He even gives it a hefty kick.
When all’s said and done, this is an old lady we’re disturbing in her bed. She might peg out in shock, the way he’s carrying on. The rest of us bundle into the bedroom after him.
We’re in a ghastly grotto where the walls are painted black and all the tinsel is gold. The bed and all its bedding are gold and black too, and it takes a few moments to pick out the pale, worried-looking face peeping out of the counterpane. Mrs Claus looks very vulnerable indeed without all her slap on. She looks like a grotesque baby with no wig or teeth. At the sight of us crowding around her bed she lets out a fearsome screech.
‘Gila and Penny, watch the door. If any elves come running, deck them.’ Robert reaches under the bed and snatches a baseball bat away. ‘You won’t be needing this, Mrs Claus. Here, catch, Penny. You’ll get no trouble if you wave this about.’
Mrs Claus is glaring at us with hatred from her luxurious nest. She grunts when she sees me, and fixes her gaze upon Robert.
‘What do you think you’re doing, you stupid boy? Did you miss donning your elvish outfit that much? You only needed to ask, if you wanted to come back to work for me.’
‘Shut it,’ he warns, and I’ve never heard Robert sound so butch, actually. Something has happened to him, probably during his visit to that other dimension.
‘Ooh, yes, Brenda,’ Mrs Claus goes on, mockery in her tone, growing more confident by the second. ‘He made a beautiful elf when he was here. So servile. So abject. He’d do anything his mistress demanded. Oh yes. And he was just as good a worker as that poor, hairy aunty of his… what was her name again?’
‘Jessie,’ Robert says thickly. ‘And you’re not even fit to mention that woman’s name.’
Mrs Claus laughs. ‘Oh, yes. Jessie Sturgeon, who came back as a womanzee. And then a zombie. Poor old dear!’
Robert takes a step forward, as if he’s about to strike the old woman. I grasp his arm, holding him firm.
‘Well, Brenda! I am surprised!’ she screeches. ‘Defending me from him when his dander’s all up and bristling on end! I thought this young man couldn’t do anything wrong in your eyes! I thought the sun shone out of his delectable little bottom, far as you were concerned!’
I sigh. ‘You talk too much, Mrs Claus. Come on, Robert. Let’s get her out of there.’
‘Wait!’ she cries. ‘What is it you want to do to me? Why are you here?’ Her pallid arms come out from under the covers and she starts flailing them about. She seems so helpless suddenly.
‘We’re sending you back to a place you visited a very long time ago.’
Her eyes narrow with great suspicion. ‘Where? What are you talking about?’
‘There’s a man there,’ Robert goes on. ‘An ageless, timeless, rather attractive man. The Erl King. He took you away to his realm once upon a time, when you were young and beautiful – however hard that is to picture now. But he seized you and kept you, but then you got away from him. You slipped out of his grasp.’
Mrs Claus looks stricken. ‘No! he didn’t want me! Not in the end. He was too fickle and crazy. He never knew what he wanted.’
Robert shrugs. ‘Nevertheless, he wants you back. I have seen him. He wants you to return to his world.’
‘No…’ gasps Mrs Claus. She’s shaking in her bed. ‘I can’t go anywhere! This is where I belong now!’
‘Robert! Brenda!’ Penny is calling from the sitting room. There is real alarm in her voice. ‘I think we’re about to have company!’
‘Elves?’ shouts Robert. ‘Just belt them with that baseball bat…’
‘You can’t make me go anywhere I don’t want,’ says Mrs Claus. And there is a deadly determination in her tone.
‘You must come with us,’ I tell her.
She shakes her head. ‘No way.’
And with that, she produces a golden gun from under the bedclothes and aims it straight at me.
Eight
BLOODY HELL
I’ve been rendered flaming unconscious! What an awful thing to do to me on what’s likely to be my final day in this mortal realm!
When I come to I’m lying flat out in a place that smells of old timber and mouse droppings. I sit up shakily, rubbing my painful head. It feels like someone cracked me right on the bonce with something extremely heavy.
When I look around I see that my young friends are with me, and we are in an attic. We are high atop the Christmas Hotel under lock and key. The attic stretches out all around us, running along for hundreds of yards of beams and joists. There are boxes and cases and decrepit mannequins forming frightening shadows everywhere you look.
‘Oh dear, Brenda,’ sighs Panda, looking down on me from a pile of mouldering hatboxes. ‘Our kidnap attempt didn’t go very well at all.’
‘We were stupid,’ Penny sighs. She looks as if she has been asleep, too. Her hair’s all mussed up and she looks piqued. ‘Fancy thinking we could get away with that.’
‘I wasn’t to know she kept a pistol under her bedclothes!’ Robert protests.
‘You were supposed to have all the insider knowledge,’ Gila tells him caustically. The two of them exchange a venomous glance.
‘This is no good,’ I say, still feeling rather woozy. ‘Fighting amongst ourselves won’t help us. We have to find a way out.’
Panda looks upwards. ‘There’s a skylight straight above us. We could smash it and climb across the rooftops!’
The rooftops! Now I’m suddenly reminded of my idea for getting rid of Mrs Claus. Even in our most despondent moment of defeat, I’m feeling perky again, and that my idea might just be workable.
Then Penny says, ‘Look out the skylight – look where the sun is, in the sky!’
‘Of course it’s in the sky!’ sighs Panda.
‘I mean, its position…! It’s almost gone. It’s starting to get dark…’
‘How long have we been asleep?’ I ask.
Robert looks at his watch and pulls a face. ‘It’s after ten in the evening!’ He stares at us in horror. ‘They must have injected us with something… We’ve been unconscious for most of the day!’
‘My last day on Earth,’ I say. Then I feel cross at myself, for sounding so pitiful when I should be leaping into action. ‘Well, that can’t be helped. We just need to find a way of fighting back with a bit more alacrity, that’s all…’ Now I’m on my feet, striding about. ‘Is the skylight locked?’
Robert clambers onto a tea chest to test it. ‘Locked solid.’
‘Then we need to smash it,’ I muse, casting about for inspiration. ‘Here, this old mannequin. Feels like she’s got a solid metal framework inside. Let’s all lift her together and smash our way through…’
It takes some doing, because the thing is even heavier than I thought. But soon we are hoisting and thrusting in concert and the elegant lady’s hea
d is battering against the dirty skylight. The mannequin is wearing some very froufrou 1920s outfit and it’s going to get ruined in this escape attempt. Her hat is already in bits, and her fur stole has flown away. Then: SMAASSHH. CRASSSSHHH. We all jump backwards as the shattered glass rains down into the attic. We cheer as the fresh air comes pouring down on us and we can suddenly hear the sea and the gulls and…
Something else.
‘I can hear them!’ I cry, delighted. ‘I can hear the mermaids singing, each to each!’
Panda frowns. ‘What? What are you on about, Brenda? Sounds like a lot of nonsense to me!’
‘Sssh! Listen!’ Then, Gila, Penny, Robert and Panda all freeze where they are and crane their necks. ‘Can’t you hear them? Singing like that?’
Slowly, realization dawns on their four dear faces.
‘I can hear!’ gasps Robert. ‘Their voices are so high-pitched… it’s hard…’
‘It’s the mermaids!’ Gila beams. ‘I was right! They are here!’
‘The ghosts of the mermaids,’ I frown. ‘I believe that Mrs Claus has systematically hunted down the mermaids that were infesting all her plumbing, and she’s had them all killed and fed to her guests, as linguini, fish soup and scampi in a basket.’
Penny is making gagging noises at the memory of the seafood linguini.
‘Now their ghosts swarm endlessly above the Christmas Hotel,’ I continue. ‘They mass there with the souls of those who met unfortunate ends under this very roof. They hang like a cloud of dark intent, and they want revenge on the woman who presides over this terrible place…’
‘Brenda, you’re fantastic!’ Gila bursts out. ‘You’re going to get the phantom mermaids to help us!’
‘If I can,’ I say.
‘What are they singing?’ asks Penny, frowning in concentration.
‘It’s the first track of Abba’s album, ‘The Visitors’,’ Panda tells her. ‘Which, incidentally, has always been a favourite of mine.’
Just then, there’s a loud banging at the sealed hatchway leading back into the Christmas Hotel. For a fleeting second I want it to be Frank who, having discovered that we’re being held captive, has come to liberate and forgive us. The banging on the hatchways is certainly loud enough for it to be him.
‘W-who is it?’ I cry.
Then we can hear the jangle of heavy keys in the padlock. Then we hear frustrated swearing from a voice we all know very well indeed.
‘Effie! Have you come to rescue us?’
The hatchway flies open and the door hits the floor with a resounding crash. Effie’s skinny shoulders and livid-looking face suddenly pop up.
‘You tried to drag my mother out of her bed! She says you were going to kidnap her!’ Effie’s voice has gone shrill. It’s almost off the scale, and this is the most indignant I have ever seen her.
‘Get off your high horse, Effie,’ Robert snaps, in this new, rather fierce manner of his. ‘There’s no use getting sentimental about the evil old trout. She pulled a bloody gun on us!’
‘Only to defend herself,’ Effie growls. ‘I’ve told her why it is you want to kidnap her, and she’s horrified. She’d rather die than go once again to that place that you lot went to.’
‘It was the bargain!’ Penny says. ‘We promised the king of the Faeries. If we don’t do as he asks… the repercussions could be terrible.’
‘I don’t care,’ Effie shouts. ‘I’m ashamed of you lot. I promised my mother that I’d never let you lot harm her or send her away. She knows you all hate her, and she’s frightened of you. Really, deep down scared.’
‘Effie!’ I gasp. ‘She organised my beheading! Who should be the most scared?’
‘She’s just an old woman,’ says Effie. ‘I will not let you drag her around and deliver her into the arms of some monster.’
‘He’s not some monster,’ I remind you. ‘The king of that realm is your father, remember?’
She shakes her head. ‘He’s no father of mine! I’ve never even seen him.’
‘Forget about that for now,’ Gila says. ‘Let us out of here, Effie. Please! Stand aside!’
‘NO,’ she shouts. ‘You know what? I think, in my considered opinion, that it’s best all round if you lot stay up here.’
‘What?!’ cries Robert.
‘You can’t leave us up here, like prisoners!’ bellows Panda. ‘Effie, listen to me! You left me behind in awful conditions once before…!’
Effie produces her mother’s golden gun and waves it around casually. We are all shocked by this. My best friend. Holding me at gunpoint. ‘Brenda,’ she says. ‘You can stop talking in Panda’s voice now. It’s ridiculous, a woman of your age. You and I both know perfectly well that he isn’t real…’
Panda takes this very moment to summon up all of his fury and frustration. He darts across the wooden beams, draws back his velveteen fist, and punches Effie right up the hooter.
‘Is that bloody real enough for you?’ he asks her.
Effie screams and, in her shock, she squeezes the trigger. A shot goes off and it echoes horribly in the confined space.
‘You almost took Gila’s head off, you soft cow!’ Robert yells.
Gila slumps to the floor. The stench of gunpowder almost makes me throw up. It’s the shock, as well.
‘Panda’s real?’ Effie says. ‘I thought it was a joke, a trick…’
He fumes. ‘Why on earth would it be a trick?’
‘Panda..?’ she says, quietly.
‘I feel very let down by you,’ he tells her.
‘Look, look, please listen,’ she says. ‘If I lock you up here… all night… why, then, you’ll be saved, won’t you, Brenda? The Brontes won’t be able to find you up here, will they?’
We all look at her and suddenly see how, in her own, loony way, Effie is right.
She’s trying to protect me.
But that’s not good enough for me. I don’t want protecting. I can look after myself. I have to look after myself.
‘No,’ I tell her. ‘I want to get out of here. Right now.’
Effie bites her lip. ‘I’m sorry, Brenda.’ Then she vanishes below, pulling the hatchway closed after her. Before we have time to jump, she fastens the locks solid again.
Panda swears, of his own volition, of course.
Then Robert yells out, ‘Gila!’
We all turn round and see that it wasn’t just the shock of the gunshot that made the lizard boy drop to the floor. We edge carefully forward to see him and there’s a strange hot smell of alien blood. He lies half in the shaft of sunlight, half in darkness. We all edge closer and see there’s a gaping wound in his chest. The bullet has gone right through him and his thick reptile hide.
‘No...’ says Robert in a desolate voice. ‘She hasn’t… she can’t have…’
Gila grips his arms. ‘She has, Robert. But… it was an accident. Effie didn’t mean to.’
Panda suddenly sees that, really, he is to blame for this. ‘Oh no,’ he says in his gruff little voice.
I creep closer. ‘Robert, how bad is it?’
‘Pretty bad,’ Gila says. ‘I can’t feel most of my body…’
Penny grips my arm hard. Harder than she means to, as if she’s holding onto life itself. She doesn’t say anything, which is rare for her. She’s frozen in shock.
There’s green blood pumping out of him. I can see it now. It’s the source of that hot, soupy smell. There’s too much blood. All of a sudden I know that he’s a goner.
‘Gila?’ Robert whispers harshly.
‘I-it’s different for my kind,’ Gila says. ‘We don’t fear death like you mammalian types do. I think we’re more sensible about the whole business.’
‘You’re not going to die,’ Robert insists.
‘I think it’s to do with the way w-we can replace our own li
mbs and so on, when they fall off… We know that life is fleeting and that our own s-selves are replaceable by others of our kind…’
‘You aren’t replaceable,’ Robert says fiercely.
‘Oh, I t-think I am,’ gasps Gila. His breath is coming in shorter bursts. That delicate greenness of his flesh is becoming more lurid. It is an unhealthy colour. I can see that he doesn’t have long.
‘Oh, Gila, you’ve been such a help to us,’ I say, and then feel silly for saying it. Like I’m talking to a cleaner or something. But it’s true. He’s the most unassuming of my young helpers, and really, the most conscientious. Just look how persistent he was with investigating those mermaids.
He looks into my face as if he understands what I mean. In his death throes his eyes have become more lizard-like and inhuman. As if, at the last moment, his reptilian nature is reasserting itself. His hide looks thicker, more scaled. ‘Thank you for letting me join your gang, Brenda,’ he says quietly. ‘If only for a little while. I have been… so happy here in Whitby.’
‘Oh my god,’ Penny whispers. ‘He’s really going, isn’t he?’
‘Penny…’ he says. He fixes his gaze on her. ‘You mustn’t worry about me or miss me. Really. And listen, I can still help…’
‘Don’t talk,’ Robert says. ‘Don’t exert yourself…’
‘I’ll try to help you all,’ Gila says. ‘I can… really… once I’ve left this place, this body… I can talk to the spirits…’
‘The mermaids?’ I gasp.
He nods, painfully. His eyes are fading. ‘We leave our physical forms very quickly and efficiently…’
‘And you can talk with them? The spirits that circulate above the rooftops of this hotel?’ I ask, with hope rising in me.
‘Brenda!’ Robert says. ‘Leave him alone!’
‘But don’t you see, if he can talk to them…’
‘He isn’t going to die!’ Robert shouts.
‘I am, Robert,’ Gila says. He looks up at his friend steadfastly, trying to hide the pain in his face. ‘I’m really sorry. I can’t hang on…’
All at once, Gila is dead.
‘No,’ whispers Penny, still gripping onto my arm.
