[Brenda & Effie 00] - A Treasury of Brenda and Effie Read online

  At this juncture the sea was glimpsed out of the left-hand window, affording a distraction. Shortly afterwards we were pulling into the car park by the harbour which, in the context of this website I feel bound to mention is very well-maintained. I could smell the tang of the fishing nets even before the coach doors opened. In spite of the company and the seven hours sat on a bus with no air conditioning, I felt a great uplift in my spirits. It felt almost like coming home.

  The rest of the coach’s occupants filed off after me. I was fleetingly disconcerted to see that the whole lot of them were dressed in matching white tracksuits, but the pleasure of bidding them adieu mingled with the warm sense of nostalgia in my breast, and I was whistling a bit of Gustav Holst when I first tramped up Harbour Street and beheld Brenda’s B-and-B.

  Brenda was human warmth personified. She met me on the doorstep, shading her eyes against the sun, and took my heavy suitcase (seemingly with no effort) before I had got my chivalric phrases out. She established my state of mind after the long journey, guided me to my room, indicated my tea-making facilities, pointed out my view of the Abbey from the bay window, and probably found out a dozen things about me I didn’t mean to say. A true marvel.

  Yes, you are, Brenda, if you’re reading this – and I hope so. A true marvel. And I am truly sorry for what followed.

  I was keen to explore the town, of course. At my age, it’s better not to sit still for too long. I hadn’t intended to go into Miss Jacobs’ antiques shop right away, but she happened to be on her doorstep and once I’d caught her eye – or she had caught mine – it seemed uncivil to walk past without having at least a momentary nose.

  I noticed the proprietor watching me from the shadows as I slowly made my way around the shop-floor, where rays of sunlight illuminated so many dust motes it looked like TV static. The majority of the shop’s wares was good, honest junk, but it was still good for a rummage, particularly a book of Images of Whitby Before and After where the After was irrefutably pre-decimal and brought back even more memories. I decided to make a token purchase of this tome, and so began a conversation that began with books, turned to studying, then the state of Higher Education, and finally somehow the halcyon days of Cambridge University in the 1950s. “I could tell just from a glance,” she said, almost smacking her lips, “in your bearing, and the way you spoke to Brenda, and the way you stood looking out of your bedroom window. Just at a glance, I said to myself, Effryggia Jacobs, that man is a Professor.”

  I conceded the point. “Off duty,” I clarified. “Seeking a holiday and nothing but.”

  “You mean you won’t be undertaking research while you’re here?” she said. “No archaeological digs into the ancient secrets of the town? No investigations in the weird happenings of Whitby?”

  “Not this weekend,” I smiled. “And you seem to know my subject rather well, Miss Jacobs.”

  “Well,” she said in something of a rush, “I mean to say, it is you, isn’t it? Professor Bernie Quakermapp?”

  “How nice to be recognised,” I said, gritting my teeth, it has to be said. You will have to forgive me, dear reader, but for a great many years such collisions with my admirers would rapidly turn to the same matters. An ineffable banging in the back bedroom, a local council project that seemed a bit shady, a family heirloom with a queer look and an even queerer provenance.

  “I never miss your broadcasts,” she replied. “Well, not if I could help it. I barely keep up with modern television at all, to be truthful.”

  “And your life is all the richer,” I reassured her. “Oh, there was talk of a semi-regular slot on The One Show in 2009, but nothing came of it.”

  “Disgraceful,” she sniffed. “We need people of your vintage and experience on the airwaves to restore it to its glory days. When I was young, a television broadcast was still magical: it was like a manifestation, communication from beyond! My aunts wouldn’t even have a set in the house. They said naught good would come of it.” She gave me a look. “Your documentary on that space capsule and that cabbagey Thing, I had to sneak out to the vicar’s house to watch. I told my family I was learning to crochet.”

  “Good heavens,” I replied, quite moved by her growing fervency.

  “They caught on, of course,” she said. “I missed most of the second one, investigating the mysterious factory. I had to ask my girlfriends to give me a precis. When it was on, I would lie down in the dark and imagine the television waves coming from London, flying over the house.”

  “What about the one with the buried canister with the goblin Things inside?” I asked her. “I have to admit that’s still my favourite.”

  “Oh, it was brilliant,” she said. “Absolutely horrifying. Never bettered.” She beamed at me. “Why ever did you stop broadcasting after that?”

  This was hardly my favourite topic. “There was a Thames TV special in 1979 about UFO’s…”

  Miss Jacobs wrinkled her nose and professed herself chary of what she referred to as ‘the other side’. The conversation came back to my Whitby trip, and what sights I ought to see while I was here. It was at this point that she volunteered to be my guide for the duration of my visit, to see me safely through the nice parts of town and avoid the less nice ones.

  “It’s a wonderful town,” she said, “but it draws some mighty odd characters, believe you me. Safe to stick with a local girl.”

  She asked nothing in return but the chance to hear more about my life and stories of the travails of Lime Grove and Broadcasting House. (She also fastidiously charged me for Images of Whitby Before and After.) For myself, I was pleased to have a companion, particularly one who evidently knew the town well and acquitted herself rather nattily, all told.

  We didn’t attempt the 199 steps that day. When you’re knocking on for a century, and your knees are barely a tenth of that, you know not to take the proverbial. We simply went down to the beach and watched the light fade over the glittering water. Miss Jacobs said nothing more about the weird happenings she’d alluded to, seemingly respecting my wish for some quiet. Yet my imagination was whirring away now like a film projector. Was there some weird secret behind this quaint seaside town, I wondered. Were there Things at large here too?

  Might this be the point at which my oft-ridiculed 1979 Thames Television special earned some vindication?

  I bought her a ’99 with a flake from the little ice-cream shop, Cold Comforts (reasonably priced, heavy-handed with the chopped nuts) and Miss Jacobs surprised me on the front.

  “You were meant to come back here,” she said. “This is where you belong. Not that dreadful, common metropolis. No, you were always destined to come back here – to Whitby – to us.” Her eyes were turned toward the cliffs. She had a faraway expression, like someone listening intently to the wireless. When I thanked her, she looked momentarily discombobulated and departed for home, a few recommendations notwithstanding.

  I dined alone that night at one such recommendation (Cod Almighty: very clean, overlooks the promenade, doesn’t stint on mushy peas) chewing over her words. That night, I dreamed of Miss Jacobs in minty white on the headland, pronouncing over my film career while giant old BBC cameras wheeled heavily in the darkness.

  Next morning, a nasty surprise awaited me in Brenda’s dining room.

  “Ay oop!”

  “What a fabulous coincidence! All part of the old town’s wonderful magnetic tides!”

  Hunched over their tea, their tracksuits glowed dully like evil woodland fungus. Brenda, leaning in to bestow veggie breakfasts upon them, was slightly forcing a smile.

  “We didn’t catch your name yesterday, Professor.”

  “You are a Professor, aren’t you?”

  “We’re the Neill’s. Nigella –”

  “—and Keith.”

  “Bernard,” I said, eyeing my black pudding. “Quakermapp.”

  “A name to conjure with!” said Mrs Neill, meaningfully. “I believe there’s a chapter on you in Wherever I Lay My Atlantis. Isn’
t there, Keith?”

  And so on, for the duration of their faux-sausage.

  “Shall we wait until you’ve finished, Professor?” asked Mr Neill. “There’s a gathering in town to trace ley lines. We’ve got a spare OS map you can use.”

  “Very kind,” I said with effort, “but I have something of an appointment with a friend of mine, and I expect she has her own itinerary.”

  I saw Brenda’s troubled expression as she cleared away their plates.

  “A lot of mumbo-jumbo,” I reassured her. “Magnetic tides, I ask you!”

  “Oh,” she said, “I’ve had more than my share of culty people staying with me over the years. I pay them no mind.”

  “As for ley lines,” I said, “I thought that craze went out with Edward Heath.”

  “So you’re off on a day out with Effie Jacobs,” Brenda said, seemingly not listening to me at all. “She happens to be a friend of mine. You move fast, don’t you?”

  I explained some of the circumstances of our meeting, which mollified my hostess somewhat. I went on to assure her I had no romantic ambition for the weekend, and saw nothing of the kind on her friend’s part either. I didn’t mention her outburst on the seafront – I wasn’t sure what to make of that myself. We were only seeing the sights, and perhaps puzzling mutually over some of the town’s ‘weird happenings’.

  “There’s none of that sort of thing here, to speak of,” she said.

  Perhaps you really believe that to be the case, Brenda. In which case, prepare yourself for a shock.

  I was grateful to be released to meet with my guide. It was deeply impressed upon me that this pair was bosom pals, and that my step was very much being watched. I made a small joke to Miss Jacobs along these lines and she smiled.

  “Just because I’ve been seen with the occasional gentleman that Brenda doesn’t quite approve of,” she said, “she treats me like a girl of nineteen. If she’d been watching television in summer 1953, she’d know we’re communing on a purely cerebral level.”

  Though she made no objection to me treating us to a cream tea at Bathory’s tearooms (barely altered from my visits as a child, though queues are likely). We talked about her life and mine, with sunshine blasting through the window. It was heaven, though what with the scones and hot tea I felt quite woozy by the afternoon. We sheltered from the beautiful weather in the town museum, but it was a while before my vision returned to normal. For some time, I was moving in a world of vague shapes, strange shadows and little puppety faces.

  We were alone, of course. Everybody else was sunning themselves outdoors. Just we two old codgers, probing into history as, undoubtedly, no other person had done before. At this juncture Miss Jacobs disclosed a secret side of her person once more.

  “You won’t be leaving us, will you, Professor?” she asked. It was a perfectly reasonable question, given the nice time we were having, but I was disconcerted nonetheless.

  “My coach is due to go back tomorrow afternoon,” I reminded her.

  “But you can’t,” she said, “not after seeing the town again like this. In all its splendour. We have arranged it, Quakermapp. We have laid it all out at its most beautiful for you.”

  “You’ve certainly given me some happy memories,” I said, wondering what Brenda would do to me if she could see us now.

  “If you return,” she said, “it must be with lights. Cameras. Action!”

  “Easier said than done.”

  “But you must do it,” she urged, turning toward me. Her voice was loud, her eyes wide. “You must tell our story. Ours, yours, the town of Whitby. The story of Hilda! It is your destiny!”

  “Would you like a glass of water, Miss Jacobs?” I asked her.

  “What?” She shook her head, put a hand to her cheek. “You’ll have to forgive me, Bernie, I was rabbiting on and not really thinking straight. What was I saying?”

  I walked her back to the front desk and procured a small glass of tap water from the young lady posted there. I should add before I go much further that the museum is definitely worth anybody’s time, a real treat to visitors young and old, and that Senior Citizens get in with a reduced entry fee of £4.00. But I digress.

  Back in town, Miss Jacobs permitted me to amble around the shops while I turned her words over in my mind. Far be it from me to theorise with only a modicum of information, but I was fairly certain by this stage that my friendly and youthful companion – not to say ‘fan’ – was unbeknownst to herself possessed by a spirit from the very dawning of the town. What was there to know about Saint Hilda? Details were scarce, I thought, just a hagiography from the Venerable Bede and a snatch or two of Anglo-Saxon desiderata. It went without saying that an interview with this holy lady would be of interest to a global audience: it might even catch the eye of Melvyn Bragg. But would it amount to exploitation of Miss Jacobs?

  And why had she manifested herself before me like that in the gift shop of the Whitby Museum?

  I cornered the good lady in the Esoteric section of Endover Books. “Miss Jacobs,” I said, “What do you know of the history of this town?”

  “You’ll have to narrow it down a bit,” she said.

  “Have you ever,” I entreated, “felt a kinship with a particular figure from the past?”

  She gave me a very funny look. “I hope you’re not getting familiar, Professor,” she said.

  “Whitby’s past, that is,” I went on, aware that she might have been unconsciously attempting to distract us from our investigation.

  “Have you got a bit addled with all this sun?” she asked. “Shall I take you home?”

  “My dear,” I said, “you know me and my work. You will know then, my long standing with Things unknown, Things uncanny and definitely Things unearthly. Things have been my downfall, or at least Thames Television and a further string of influential producers and executives who recognised my special relationship with Things. My special empathy for Things. My intimate knowledge of Things –”

  Miss Jacobs staggered against a bookcase of Mills & Boon. “Professor!” she gasped. “Will you control yourself?”

  “And I sense Things reaching out for me now,” I said. “I can almost see Things! Feel Things! Touch Things!”

  “I knew it!” said a voice behind me. It was Brenda! She must have followed us around town, and then watched us through a carousel of Pan Books of Horror. Before I knew it, she had hold of my collar and seemed about ready to fling me out of the window.

  We were interrupted by the noise of shouting in the streets, and by the bookshop owner, keen that we should share the sight he was seeing. Brenda released me, and we all hurried outside, where a troop of tracksuited folks were dancing their way up the road, blocking traffic and pushchairs and all sorts.

  “Join us!” they cried. “The lines converge at sea! Tomorrow we greet the apotheosis! Things will never be the same again.”

  “It seems some people can think of nothing but Things,” said Brenda, scowling at me.

  Miss Jacobs interceded on my behalf. She told her friend about the heat of the day, the funny turn she had suffered in the museum, about my long history with rending the veil between the known and the unknown.

  “Oh yes,” said Brenda, “I know the sort alright.” She looked somewhat regretful of her strong arm tactics, however, and apologised to me profusely. “There’s evidently something in the air,” she said. “These daft beggars in sportswear have been turned by it. Perhaps I have too.”

  It was impossible now for me to explain to either of these ladies that one of them was the reincarnation of the original abbess of the town. Perhaps had I tried a little harder, things might have turned out differently. But I don’t believe so.

  “What’s to be done with all these religious types?” asked Miss Jacobs. “You don’t think they could be onto something, do you?”

  “It’s entirely possible that there are ley lines converging on this place,” I said. “And who knows, certain magnetic foci not previously detected?
Perhaps that is why there are so many odd tales about this town.”

  I saw my ladies exchange a look at that. More sceptics! Ever since I made a few grand claims, live and pre-watershed, I’ve been dismissed as a nincompoop and a fantasist.

  “I wouldn’t pay them any heed,” said Brenda. “Leave them to their foci. They’ll not hurt anybody with it.”

  I wasn’t so sure.

  After bidding my ladies adieu, I had a quick pie and peas and turned in early. I didn’t want to run into the Neill’s on Brenda’s bathroom landing. It was queer, sitting up in bed, reading my Images of Whitby book, listening to the cultists perform their bedtime ablutions in the neighbouring room. In the attic rooms above, I knew Brenda was sleeping peacefully, but Miss Jacobs and I stood poised, tiptoe on the brink of some outrageous magical mystery: something that connected both of us, the ancient Saint Hilda, these strange apocalyptic southerners and – Things!

  That night I had further untoward dreams. I saw the ley lines of Whitby glowing white in the darkness like a landing strip, and Effie Jacobs mouthing something I couldn’t catch. I saw the monastery completed! But was it a vision of the past or the future?

  Next morning, I was up and doing good and early. Not early enough, unfortunately, to evade the Neill’s. They were attacking Brenda’s meat-free Full English with a calm satisfaction that I found almost sinister.

  “Happy day, Professor Quakermapp,” said Mrs Neill. “Will you be joining our merry band today?”

  “I’ve some postcards to dispatch,” I said. “But I must say, I find your manoeuvres most interesting.”

  “But of course you do,” said Mr Neill. “Are we not joined in the same great magnetic pull of this magical town? Don’t you think it’s destiny that we were brought here, this particular weekend?”

  “I don’t believe in destiny,” I said. Politely, but loftily, I think.

  “But you believe in PreDestination, surely?” said Mrs Neill. “The website that takes you places you don’t know you need to be?”

  “The wireless powers of the internet have drawn us all together,” said her husband, dabbing HP sauce off his chin with a napkin. “That we may be transported into the great beyond.”