Bull Running For Girlsl (26 page)

Once inside the station Calvin stopped running. The phantoms, Jean and the air raid warden, stood silently on either side of him.

“What now?” he demanded.

St Pancras Station; the location for the Spice Girls first music video, the movies
Batman Begins
and
Harry Potter
. Calvin Caldwell, psychic star of his own programme, felt as if he was well beyond what usually happened to him.

On the telly he was good at using clues, unknowingly given to him by his audience and the vague images that appeared in his mind. But today for the first time images were turning into something a little more solid and as a result he was genuinely afraid that he was going mad, at the worst, or at the very least was stuck with Jean’s doppelganger. To add to that, there was the new apparition of the air raid warden who seemed as resolute as the other to stick by his side.

Within seconds Calvin could hear the wail of air raid sirens and suddenly the air raid warden became more substantial—he flung Calvin to the floor, under the feet of the commuters who had just come off the two-forty-five train from Birmingham. The crowd looked on in astonishment as Calvin thrashed about on the floor in an effort to escape the arms of the still beaming, still unseen air raid warden, who was evidently as pleased as punch that he had managed to protect the man.

Only two people stopped to help.

“Hold his arms—he’s having a fit,” said a man carrying some parcels, who stared down at the medium.

Calvin struggled for breath, “You can’t hold my arms, someone is already holding them!”

“Hey—is that, that…Calvin—what he is called?” said the man.

“Calvin Caldwell,” answered a thin woman in a grey coat.

“Serves him right—come home to roost and all that,” replied the man.

“Look, can’t you hear the sirens?” Calvin shouted.

“Sirens? Sirens? Of course we can’t hear the sirens. There haven’t been any sirens here since the last war,” said the woman. “Poor chap, shouldn’t we just go along with him to calm him down?”

“Leave well alone I say. Dipsying about with all those spirits has turned him mental,” answered the man. “You don’t believe in all that rubbish, do you?”

“Of course I don’t. My mum does, though,” the woman offered.

The sirens, which were causing Calvin an immediate, great headache stopped and the air raid warden (still wearing a silly smile) released his arms. Calvin got to his feet.

“Oh dear, Mr. Caldwell, were you possessed?” said an elderly lady in red who had just joined the two bemused travellers.

“Not exactly,” he answered her.

Calvin headed for Europe’s longest champagne bar and ordered a bottle. He quaffed two slim glasses of the sparkling stuff before he realised that—he still hadn’t got his wallet. Crestfallen he poured another glass and glanced to his left. His taxi driver had hitched himself onto the stool and asked for another glass of his own. The bartender poured the cabbie some of Calvin’s champagne. He took a dainty sip and licked his lips.

“So, what now mate? I caught your little performance back there.”

“Performance. It wasn’t a performance. I was pushed.”

“Aren’t we all mate? Aren’t we all?”

Looking beyond the cabbie (who introduced himself as Quinn), Calvin could still see the beaming air raid warden who looked even more pleased with himself. On his other side stood Doppelganger Jean, but Calvin was even more surprised when he looked over his shoulder and saw the women from the studio; Brenda, and the other Jean, hurrying towards him. It was then when Calvin finally knew that he would never—ever—really have control of the situation.

“What do you all want?”

“I have got what I wanted!” beamed the air raid warden.

“What is that?” asked Calvin.

“To save you from the air raid.”

“But I didn’t need sav—” Calvin was talking to an empty seat. The bartender wondered if he should pour him another glass of champagne. Calvin noticed, and pushed his empty glass towards him. The bartender obliged. Refreshed for a moment Calvin looked at Quinn, and Doppelganger Jean.

“Don’t you think that I’m going anywhere until I get my fare,” Quinn warned him.

“I don’t think anything. I just want to know what’s going on.”

Calvin took another gulp of champagne and pushed the empty glass towards the bartender once more. Quinn, with a cheeky smile, did the same.

“You’re driving,” said Calvin.

“Not now I’m not.”

“Well, obviously not now, but in a minute you are.”

“Nah, not me I’ve finished for the night now. Ted’s got the keys.”

“Who’s Ted?”

“The night shift driver.”

“When, in the name of henbane, hellebores and Hades did you give him them?”

Quinn looked at him thoughtfully for one moment. “Those first two are plants. They don’t quite go with Hades. Well…henbane sort of does because it is a plant used to create supernatural phenomena—but not hellebores. Now, if you had said in the name Hecate, Herodiades and Haborym—them being names and all—or Hell, Hades and, say—Hepatoscopy that might be okay…but that last one being divination through the liver or entrails from lizards, black hens, bats, toads and cats, perhaps not—”

“I like cats,” interrupted Brenda.

Calvin stared incredulously at them both as Jean, her white cheeks even whiter, stared at her Doppelganger self.

“What, in the name of—“ he hesitated and glared at the cabbie, “in the name of—
anything
, do you all want?”

It was Doppelganger Jean who broke the ice. “I want my life back.”

“To be done with it all,” stated Jean stated blankly as she twisted her wedding ring on her ever-thinning finger.
Funny
, she thought—
it has always been so tight before
.

“Revenge,” Brenda shocked them.

Everyone right down the bar, and the bartender, stared at little, mousey Brenda.

“I was happy for you Jean—happy to know that someday you would lose him too. You only wanted him because he was mine, but then you pushed me aside for too long. I knew that you would want me more after his death. I counted on it.”

“—to tell the both of you that I don’t think that I loved either of you at all,” said Stephen.

Amazed and bemused, most of them stared at Stephen. Actually, the bartender looked more bemused than amazed. Stephen then added, “well, perhaps Jean early on in our marriage.”

“Who the hell are you?” sputtered Calvin.

At this point the bartender, observing the fact that one of the gentlemen before him seemed to be conversing with the thin air, reached for another bottle of champagne, all the while trying to decide where he had seen this gentleman before. The bartender had been bored and
this
was the best entertainment that he had seen all day. He popped the cork and poured himself a glass whilst staring at Calvin—

“Can’t you place him lad? He’s that geezer off the telly, that fellah who talks to ghosts,” Quinn enlightened him.

“Oh, I knew he was,” said the bartender…unconvincingly.

“Look!” said Calvin, flustered and finally now feeling the effects of the champagne, “just what is going on?”

“If
you
don’t know, how do you expect us to?” said Quinn, pointing at the bartender and then at himself.

“Shit,” muttered Jean as she slowly faded away, to be permanently replaced by her far superior doppelganger, who then walked off arm in arm with Stephen; a Stephen—who, in actual fact, seemed far too solid to be a ghost?

“That wasn’t supposed to happen, this wasn’t supposed to have any happy endings for anyone except me,” Brenda protested as she stared openmouthed at the pair who seemed so happy together.

“What I want to know is—” said the bartender as he poured for himself (smiled at Brenda), and then poured Quinn another glass, “is—just
who
is going to pay the bill?”

Calvin put his head down on the bar and held it tightly in both hands.

“Let now your visionary glance look long,

On this your race, these your Romans,

Here Caesar, of Iulus’ glorious seed,

Behold ascending to the world of Light!

Behold, at last, that man for it is he,

So often foretold to your listening ears,

Augustus Caesar, kindred of Jupiter.

He brings a golden age.”

From
The Aeneid
by Virgil.

It slithered away from her with a tail the colours of gold, green, and blue. Although it was slippery she held it in her hand and looked at the wonder of it, before she placed the eager creature on the mustard green seaweed. It was a tiny version of her, complete with coppery hair that fell to its small waist. Soon there were more of them, a dozen in all, scaled from the tail to the neck, with arms and upper bodies that bore the traces of their affiliation with human beings. Their pale faces looked human but
human
they were not.

How could she keep them safe this time? They were so small but not entirely helpless. They were wildly curious and indifferent to the many dangers of the sea. Her cavern would be their sanctuary for a while but keeping them contained had always been a problem. Her last brood had fallen prey to sea-hunters and also her tiny creatures had fed upon one another to survive.

Lamia would bring them food for a while but then the lure of the open sea, with a thousand different enticements, would be too much for them and they would be gone.

A snowstorm reared its head, unusual for any time of year in that part of the world, and headed towards the island where lay her cave. A ship was heading her way too, and that meant food for the Lamiae; her children would not go hungry as they writhed and explored the swells of water that threatened to send them crashing against the cavern walls.

“Eleven, only eleven now,” hissed Lamia to her offspring. Small, sly faces with eyes the colour of green ice laughed back at her as she offered her breast to each in turn. She would have to get food for them before the storm, as they grew too quickly to be only fed by her, and besides they latched on to her too savagely with their sharp needlepoint teeth. She would not leave them in the cavern with the threat of being pummelled against the rocks. In her lair she had a fisherman’s net that she gently lay and bound the baby Lamiae within, placing them above the water in a niche far from the cavern’s entrance. In a flash of coppery green Lamia swam deep under water, out of the cavern, leaving her infants screaming behind her.

The ship had anchored in the natural harbour and seemed to be safe from the rising storm.

It was a dark night with no visible moon and young Jack, a young man so very far away from home, was on watch. Young-Jack-Slack-Jack. Without a brain-in-his-head-Jack. Jack who stared open mouthed at the siren vision of green who licked the salt from his neck, pressed her writhing hips against his and drew him closer to the waves as they crashed over the deck. Her mouth held his as they rolled in the black depth of the sea, until Jack was dead.

Lamia took Jack to feed to her children. She feared that they would be all dead by the time she returned but only one more had been lost leaving ten to take part in the meal. Jack’s body floated face down in the water and the offspring fought over him, plucking the eyes from their sockets then sinking their needlepoint teeth into his flesh; Lamiae with the faces of angels and the tiny teeth of piranha fish. The offspring who, in their feeding frenzy, ripped some of their own siblings apart until their mother put a halt to the bloody banquet and wrapped the little darlings back in their net.

Skylla and Cethos were the worst. They fought all the time and both were strong. Skylla had the advantage, for circled around her waist were six long-necked dog-fish heads. Each with a mouth and triple row of sharp teeth.

The snowstorm subsided and the ship left the harbour, sadly lacking Jack, and a week went by.

The six Lamiae that were left grew quickly and were soon the size of yearling seals. How they loved their underwater world, playing tag in the giant kelp and tormenting their mother.

Lamia never slept and was too afraid to do so in case the remainder of her brood became victims to the sea, or worse.

They took on all manner of creatures in their feeding frenzies. The six of them were growing very strong and ventured further each day. No creature was safe from them. They attacked dolphins, sea turtles, and even sharks. Soon their appetites turned, to take on a more bizarre nature. They had a distinct desire to mate with mankind. They swam up towards the fishermen’s boats and openly taunted the men as they hauled their catch on board.

They were the sirens of the sea and called humankind to the rocks on which they perished, and Lamia was proud of her children.

Then came a night when Lamia saw the ghost of her sister Dido, Queen of Carthage, amidst flames that melted into the green-grey depths, and she knew her sister was dead. In her madness Lamia thrashed her serpent’s tail and her screams could be heard on the decks of ships above as men put down anchor for the night.

Lamia craved revenge, and upon one ship in particular. It was the ship that sailed on proudly, guided by Jupiter. This ship did not put down its anchor. It was the ship that belonged to Aeneus, he who had deserted Dido and been the cause of her death. Lamia swam beneath the bow of his ship and shuddered her green scales with excitement and loathing.

Iulus heard an unearthly cry from the sea and joined his father on deck. The air grew cold and Iulus did not see a column of green sea mist rising from the sea, a phantom of shimmering green that swept across the surface and to the side of the boat, behind the bow.

“Father, what was that cry?” asked Iulus.

“Nothing, just some creature of the sea or the howling wind, no more,” replied his father Aeneas. “Get some sleep, Iulus. I will take this watch myself.”