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

  BRENDA AND EFFIE FOREVER!

  PAUL MAGRS

  Proudly published by Snowbooks

  Copyright © 2012 Paul Magrs

  Paul Magrs asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  All rights reserved.

  Snowbooks Ltd

  email: [email protected]

  www.snowbooks.com.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  First published in print September 2012

  Brenda and Effie Forever! Digital download 9781907777905

  OTHER EDITONS OF THIS WORK

  Brenda and Effie Forever! Hardback 9781907777912

  Paperback / softback ISBN13 9781907777813

  OTHER BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR

  Brenda and Effie Forever! Hardback 9781907777912

  Brenda and Effie Forever! Digital download 9781907777905

  Resurrection Engines Paperback / softback 9781907777844

  Resurrection Engines Hardback 9781907777684

  Wildthyme Beyond! Paperback / softback 9781907777783

  Wildthyme Beyond! Hardback 9781907777677

  Wildthyme Beyond! Digital 9781907777790

  Enter Wildthyme Electronic book text 9781907777462

  Enter Wildthyme Hardback 9781907777042

  Enter Wildthyme Paperback / softback 9781907777059

  One

  QUELLE HORREUR

  I’m not sure where Effie’s popped off to.

  I’m quite happy to be alone this afternoon. I’m in the middle of the park, my favourite bit of Paris so far. I’m under the swaying trees on a sturdy metal chair, one of many left standing around here for the comfort of the folk enjoying the summer afternoon. I’ve got a little picnic and a couple of books but really all I’m doing is dozing peacefully and watching people ambling by. Quite a few others are sitting out, chattering away or reading. I’ve slipped off my sandals and I’m feeling the gritty warmth of the ground beneath my tired soles.

  Have I been here before? Effie asked a few days ago, about whether I’d travelled abroad much during the course of my very long life. I’m not even sure how far afield I ever went. My memory seems worse than ever these days. All those terrible gaps it has.

  Effie tells me that she has been here a number of times over the years. She’s very au fait with Paris. When her Antiques Emporium was in its heyday she would often come to peruse the flea markets and to explore the hidden-away junk shops on the Left Bank. I’m trying hard to imagine this younger, globe-trotting Effie. Undaunted by foreign travel or strange faces, gathering up exotic collectibles in her grasp and returning to North Yorkshire in triumph, bringing with her a whiff of sophistication and garlic.

  Strange to think of her like that. The Effie I have known for these past six years or so has been living a much more straitened, narrow life. To her a trip to Leeds is a big deal. But then, I can’t really go on about being adventurous when it comes to gadding about. Ever since I settled into my glorious B&B in Whitby, I haven’t really felt the need to go anywhere else. Once I was installed in my little palace by the harbour, there was no winkling me out. I had found my place in the world at last, after decades and decades – in fact, centuries – of wandering about like a refugee.

  But here we are. We two old birds. Us merry widows. We have taken it upon ourselves to gird our loins and pack our best outfits. We have sallied forth onto the continent for a few weeks of travel and relaxation. I am taking a holiday at last and it has been – so far – blissful.

  Of course, it’s a terrible risk, going on holiday with a companion. Don’t they say, that you never really know anyone until you’ve been on holiday with them? Seeing them every day, and eating every foreign meal with them? We’re both such private creatures in essence.

  I was pretty sure that Effie and I would have a fall out. At home we bicker quite a lot as it is. We go whole weeks without speaking sometimes. Yet the remarkable thing here is that there hasn’t been a cross word yet. Amazing! Over two weeks away from our own front doors and our familiar shores, and we haven’t had any kind of barney. Perhaps we are maturing at last?

  I’m mulling all of this over, and marveling that I can just sit here, eyes closed, bags on the ground at my feet, fading in and out of sleep… and not even imagining that someone is going to come along and disturb me.

  Time passes and Effie is still away, presumably traipsing around the jewellery exhibition she saw advertised earlier today. I listen to the background murmurs and cries – all in French, of which I can understand not a word. The air feels soupy and thick, but it’s not cloying. It’s warm without being oppressive. I don’t feel sticky or claggy.

  But when I open my eyes again I realise that I am being watched.

  There is a figure standing between the slender, greenbarked trees by the bandstand. He isn’t minding his business, like everyone else in the Jardin du Luxembourg. No, he’s looking right at me. As I stare back and lock eyes with him the intensity of his expression makes me shiver. And at that moment I realise who it is.

  It’s that man. The one who’s been tagging along after us all week.

  A rather short, unprepossessing figure with tangled greasy grey hair and a haggard expression. Always with a Gauloise drooping out of his sloppy mouth. He wears a suit, once stylish, plus carpet slippers. He walks with a tremendous limp, which could almost make you feel sorry for him – if he wasn’t busily stalking you.

  It was Effie who first became aware of him. It was on the Metro, last Tuesday, the very day that we arrived in Paris. We were tired and still dreaming about the fairyland of Venice that we had recently left behind. This man came lurching into our carriage and stared at us as he stood there, strap-hanging. He seemed to give a grunt of recognition, and both Effie and I turned away. Effie muttered something about him winking at her, or looking suggestive, but by the time I glanced back, he had gone, presumably hopping off at Notre Dame, while we continued on our way to our chosen stomping grounds in St Michel.

  We have been catching glimpses of this funny chap at other moments since. In the Marais, then gadding about in Montmartre, and then we saw him inching along on the highly-polished floors of the Louvre in his shabby carpet slippers. That time he had the nerve to mumble a ‘bonjour’ to us as he went past and we pretended to be engrossed in an Arcimboldo. That time, watching him go, Effie commented on his hump, which hadn’t stood out to either of us before. I felt a twinge of shame for scowling at one so afflicted. Neither of us wanted him to think that his physical deformity was the reason we spurned his winks and nods. I’d hate anyone to think that – after all the stick I’ve had over the years for the uniqueness my physical appearance. No, we gave him dirty looks in return simply because we thought he was a kind of pervert.

  And now here he is. When I’m sitting here on my own under the plane trees, still groggy from my nap in the sun. He’s leering at me and winking.

  I sit up and straighten my skirt and decide that I’m having no more of this.

  ‘Hey, you!’

  My voice sounds rather loud in the placid afternoon. Others turn sharply at my words. But I refuse to feel embarrassed. This fella has been plaguing us this week. He’s been like our shadow.

  ‘What do you want with us?’ I find myself shouting. In English and I don’t even know if he’ll understand.

  Wink wink, he goes again. I want to leap out of my chair and box his ears, the scoundrel.

 
But then I blink – and he’s gone.

  §

  ‘Oh, really, Brenda,’ chuckles Effie. ‘You’re on holiday now. You can afford to relax. There are no mysteries here. There’s nothing untoward going on.’

  I stare at her across the small café table and I can see that, far from convincing me, she doesn’t even believe herself. We’re having late night hot chocolate on the terrace outside Café Flore, and I’m just telling her about my run-in with that humpy fella in the park. Effie is keen to wave it away.

  ‘Coincidence,’ she says.

  ‘He’s following us. You know he is.’

  The hot chocolate arrived in a silver pot, brought on a silver tray by one of these very efficient waiters, who swish about snootily in their crisp white aprons. He held a little cloth round the hot handle of the pot as he poured foaming chocolate into our mugs and I was almost swooning with pleasure. To be waited on and treated like a queen! In this place that seems like the centre of the civilised world.

  Effie and I sit and watch the traffic ebbing back and forth, and the evening people strolling up and down so stylishly. She starts telling me about the exhibition she went to, and a few other things she saw this afternoon when we took a few hours respite from each other. But my mind is drifting away, and I’m hardly listening. I can still see that horrid, squinched-up face staring at me through the tree trunks. Winking at me so… lasciviously, was it? No, I don’t think it was that. It was a funny wink. A wink of complicity. As if, somehow, he knew more about me than I did him, and he was letting me know…

  Effie notices that I’ve gone off into some abstract realm and coughs loudly. ‘Shall I pay up? You look a bit worn out.’

  We amble back to the hotel through the winding streets of St Germain. Even this late the bistros and restaurants are teeming with people eating and laughing and going about having a good time. There’s a festive atmosphere and it only reinforces that fact that suddenly, this evening, I am out of sorts. That Peeping Tom has put me in a funny mood.

  Effie assumes it’s down to the fondue we shared earlier which, she confides, is repeating on her, too. Now she’s totting up how many days of freedom we have left, before we must board the train and then the plane home to the North of England.

  ‘Two?’ I sigh. ‘Is that all? That’s hardly anything.’ It seems impossible to imagine going back to my very ordinary routines. Opening up the doors of my B&B once more and fixing breakfasts and making beds. It all seems too far away. As Effie pauses to look at postcards outside a shop I’m trying to summon up the exact memory of the smell of Whitby. The brine and the mist and the fish and chips… I catch a whiff of it. But only a tiny hint of a memory. Just a few weeks away can erase everything I know about home.

  Effie pays for her postcards and her eyes light up at a new idea. She wants us to wander down to the river, to the baton mouche that’s moored opposite Notre Dame. It’s become one of her favourite things – to round off the evening with a glass of pastis at a table atop that boat, bobbing gently on the dark, unfathomable waters of the River Seine. The cathedral is vast and pale above us. We stare at its gargoyles and lofty towers, but its somberness never affects our mood when we have our cloudy, licoricey liqueurs and all the colourful lanterns are lit. It’s a highly romantic spot and sometimes it makes you wish you were here with a nice fella, rather than your best female friend, who’s sitting over there, undoubtedly thinking the same thing. Effie spends her time on holiday – when she’s not busy organizing our activities – looking wistful.

  Just then she gives a moan. She’s looking past me to another table on the prow of the boat. There aren’t many customers here tonight. Whoever it is must have been there when we arrived. Even so, from the way Effie’s looking, I know who it is.

  ‘What’s he doing here?’ I say. ‘How did he know we’d come here?’

  Effie purses her lips. ‘That means he’s been watching our every move. He knows that this is where we come for our little nightcap most evenings.’

  ‘You’re right,’ I gasp. ‘He’s looking over.’

  We turn away.

  We drink our drinks with a little more haste than usual and study the gargoyles on top of the cathedral.

  Next thing we know, he’s got up and he’s heading over.

  ‘Oh help,’ says Effie. ‘It’s me he’s got his eye on, you know.’

  I don’t know how she arrived at that conclusion, but there’s no time to quiz her. Suddenly the fella is at our table, giving us ‘bon soir’ in a cigarette-roughened voice.

  We both turn to look at him. A tangle of grey, greasy hair. A shabby suit. Tab end hanging out of his mouth. At least he isn’t leering this time. He looks a bit nervous, actually.

  ‘What is it?’ says Effie, in her most queenly tone.

  He tries out a few halting, English phrases. ‘So sorry to interrupt, ladies…’

  If he had a cap on, he’d be doffing it. Already my heart is going out to him, the way he’s deliberately humbling himself like this. He looks like he hasn’t got two ha’pennies to rub together and seen this close, his hump looks more of an encumbrance than ever. He seems bowed under the weight of it. I tell him, ‘That’s all right. What is it you want from us?’

  I can feel Effie shooting daggers out of her eyes at me. She thinks I’m sounding far too friendly. As ever, I’m the one being soft, and probably getting us both into hot water.

  ‘I have a friend,’ the man says. ‘He has sent me to fetch you.’

  We both stare at him. This wasn’t what we were expecting to hear at all. Effie was prepared for some clumsy chat-up line and was ready with a dozen nasty rebuffs. But it seems that it’s not on his account at all that he’s here before us, or that he’s been trailing us around the city in recent days. Now he’s fumbling inside his tatty jacket, feeling for something.

  ‘Look here,’ snaps Effie. ‘What do you think you’ve been up to? Popping up all over the place. My friend here has been quite alarmed by your various sudden manifestations.’

  ‘Pardon,’ he mumbles into his fag end. ‘But I had to be sure, you see.’

  ‘Sure of what?’ Effie frowns dangerously.

  ‘I had to be sure you were the two that he wants to see.’

  ‘Who’s he?’ I put in.

  And at last, with a flourish, the little fella produces a crumpled card from inside the tattered lining of his jacket. He holds it up before our eyes.

  There’s a name in some scrolling fancy type, and an address on St Andre de Beaux Arts. Not too far from our hotel, as it happens. The name on the card is M. Ananas.

  ‘Mr Pineapple?’ Effie barks. ‘That’s a fake name if ever I heard one.’

  The hunchback looks at her and I could swear that he seems hurt by her dismissive manner. I’ve seen others stung by Effie’s caustic disregard. He’s staring at her woollen costume, cape and fancy little hat with something approaching awe and I wonder whether she might not be correct in her assumption that he’s got a crush on her.

  I finger the card and ask, ‘This Monsieur Ananas. Is this the one who wants to see us?’ I enunciate carefully and rather loudly.

  Our stalker nods and grins at me. His teeth are ruinous and I can see Effie flinch at the sight of them. ‘Tomorrow. Tomorrow at seven. He wishes for you to visit him.’

  Effie and I exchange a glance. Danger signs are going off in my head. There are warnings flashing about all over the place as we look at each other and raise our eyebrows.

  When I turn back to the dishevelled emissary I gasp because he’s already gone.

  ‘Assuming our agreement,’ Effie points out, and knocks back the last of her pastis.

  §

  It’s cost us rather a lot in single person supplements, but Effie and I decided not to share twin bedded rooms on this foreign jaunt of ours. Effie is very keen on her own personal space, having lived alone so long,
and I have such an elaborate routine for pulling myself together in the morning and making myself up, that it hardly seemed fair to inflict that on another person, no matter how good a friend.

  Also, we didn’t want there to be no escape from each other. So, each morning, we meet at breakfast time, and I’m the one who’s late, always arriving just as Effie is sinking her dentures into the extra chewy croissants and sipping on the strongest, blackest coffee she can get.

  Our hotel’s dining room is tucked away in a side alley, between a raucous Irish pub and an art house cinema. As we eat our muesli each morning there’s a bloke swabbing down the steps at the front of the cinema until they gleam. I feel a kind of kinship with him. He reminds me of all the time I spend doing ordinary domestic tasks when I’m not on glamorous holidays. Effie tells me to stop staring so hard. She says I’m ‘man mad’, which is a joke, because it’s her – as we know – who has a keen eye for the gentlemen.

  ‘Speaking of men,’ she says, setting down her huge coffee cup. ‘What are we going to do about our strange invitation?’

  For a moment I don’t know what she means. Then I remember our encounter on the baton mouche in the shadow of the old cathedral. ‘We can’t go, can we? We can’t go knocking on the doors of strange men.’

  ‘I don’t see why not,’ Effie muses. ‘Aren’t you intrigued?’

  We fall quiet then as the waitress brings us some yoghurt and honey. She insists on calling yoghurt ‘fresh cheese’, which nearly puts me off. She smiles and moves away, and Effie moves in closer. ‘There’s definitely something worth looking into, the way that humpy fella’s been dogging us.’

  ‘We don’t want any adventures,’ I tell her. ‘Not while we’re on holiday.’

  She glowers at me. ‘That’s what you said in Venice, when you dragged us away from that strange woman in the funny little glass shop…’

  ‘What? That old gypsy woman?’

  ‘She said she had a message for me.’

  ‘Oh, they always say that, Effie. It’s just a way of getting your money off you.’

  Effie shook her head. ‘There was more to it than that. You know there was. She had something very important to tell me.’