‘We are not going to be attending an educational lecture at the Hever Castle in Kent on Anne Boleyn and then proceeding onwards to a tour around all of the other surrounding haunted castles, are we?’
‘Oh good gracious, oh heavens darling, don’t be terribly ridiculous, you screaming genius.’ Seraphina laughed.
‘Every single time!’ Bethany cried, shamed with herself. ‘That is every single time I fall prey for such foul trickery.’
The four of them; Frankie, Trevor, Seraphina and Bethany, sat in the carriage of a train around a table. The chandeliers hanging above them and the gems of the little lamp by their side twinkled and jingled as the train meandered across the countryside. Smoke wafted out the window from Trevor’s thin black cigar and Seraphina’s cigarette; amongst the smokers adding to the mechanical thrusting puff of the train.
Seraphina looked to the girl beside her as she took a sip of her martini. ‘However you thought I would be able to sit longer than fifteen minutes to listen to some old dusty owl harping on about a woman who wasn’t cleverly womanly enough to kill the man first, is beyond me.’
Bethany looked over the rim of her teacup to the two consulting boys opposite her. ‘And you two were in on this ploy?’
‘Naturally.’ Frankie replied, swirling his brandy in hand and watching the rest of the passengers.
‘Well, where are we actually going for Halloween?’ Bethany sighed.
‘We shall be attending an underground rave. If you’d used that rather prim mind filled to the brim, you would recognise some of the passengers of these particularly lavish carriages are housing some of the older boys and girls of Eton and the Academy in its swelling lungs bound for exuberant fun.’ Seraphina threw her hand across the air in front of her like a swan wandering the riparian. ‘I’m very well aware that secret parties aren’t very vogue right now, but wild bohemian parties of the Soho beatnik era are reviving along with modern times. Trust me, in less than a decade a secret kiki like this will be sizzling with galore.’
‘If it is so very clandestine, how have you heard of such a party brewing?’ Bethany asked. ‘I might have suspected something such as this to take place rather than such an educational festivity.’
‘Well, it’s all very secretly whispered about like gorgeous espionage. Isn’t that marvellous? It is usually illustrated fliers written in code or trendy radio hosts giving coordinates on the night the fabulous ball is to take place. I, however, heard of it through secret body language.’
‘Secret body languages…tell me more.’ Frankie inquired, edging across the table to disengage from discussing the dynamics of Vincent Van Gogh’s passionate madness in his removal of his ear by his own doing with Hamilton and the disturbingly delightful true tale of A Ring a ring O’ Roses based on The Black Plague.
‘Well, I was in Soho the other night. I had a shoot reimagining a spread inspired by Twiggy and I met up with my old chum Delilah after her night with a member of a rather infamous band living on Denmark Street. We went to The Marquee for some drinks and music. Whilst there, this rather quirky gentleman who was the absolute image of Buddy Holly had sauntered towards us with a delightful, delicate swagger.’ Seraphina continued, waving her glass in mid-air to a waitress. ‘Though one should know that in Soho everyone acts as if they have beautifully known strangers for an absolute lifetime. Rather than speak, he squeezed his nose gently with one hand and placed the other over each of our mouths in turn.’
‘What an odd thing to do.’ Bethany Holiday pondered as her Caesar salad arrived.
‘That’s exactly what I thought but before I could have flayed the little chic geek alive, Delilah had squealed with sudden delight. She immediately had begun to inquire where and when it was; whatever it was.’ Seraphina responded as her third martini was placed before her. ‘I was instantly enthralled with fabulous fascination. It wasn’t before long that it was exposed as a secret underground party initiation and invitation. I cued into the radio station frequency written on the flyer for an Anne Boleyn museum on Halloween night by the date and time given on it for the exhibition. Following the numerical prices for tickets and merchandise as the radio frequency, time and date to listen to the radio host; entirely poppycock to anyone who would happen to find and pick the flyer up without the knowhow in a quirky café by the name of Top Cat which is where I snatched it.’
‘An underground party.’ Bethany felt the words in her mouth and narrowed her eyes. ‘I’ve heard of secret parties before, but this doesn’t mean we have to climb down a grimy grate in the street to get to it, does it?’
‘Absolutely not. It isn’t one of those parties. It is underground in the sense that only collective ears have heard. It shall probably be in a disused ruin of a manor or a forgotten mansion of some sort.’
‘Isn’t it very illegal though? I imagine as such since it is so secretive.’
‘Bethany, of course it is illegal. That is why it is so secret and that is why it is so very gorgeous of an idea. It also halts the ability to allow entrance to any undesired admittance.’ Seraphina sighed theatrically. ‘Rules were made to be broken by boys with vivacious hearts and by girls with silvery wayward souls.’
‘And it shall be fancy dress, I suppose? I didn’t bring a costume with me. I brought luggage to be worn at educational conferences and lovely scary tours.’ Bethany said as she passed the rest of her salad to Frankie as not to have his stomach so full with only a breakfast and luncheon of rum. ‘Had I known I’d have-’
‘Protested urgently.’ Seraphina interjected. ‘Which is why we told you the universal lie of the flyer, delicate dove. I have a full wardrobe precisely for fancy dress. It’s like we’re children again, and you are my human doll fit for dressing up for tea parties on a Sunday. It shall be absolutely delightful.’
Bethany Holiday coyly eyed up Seraphina in her lacy black dress that fell to her pearly thighs high enough to give a cheeky glimpse of her garter above her black stockings, as scarlet as her lipstick mouth. A black headband displayed the large plume of a feather of magnificent violet and teal colours amongst the smothering blonde hair. An aroma of perfume surrounded her in her racy evening flapper dress; adorned as if she was making her way towards a casino or a jazz show a great handful of decades ago. This wasn’t her Halloween costume.
Seraphina moved her locks of pearls around her neck to conceal her cigarette holder in her brassiere. She had plucked a dress from the 1920s to wear in another decade much later, intent on enjoying herself by flouting conventional standards of behaviour within the very dress that was made to do such a thing.
‘You do make me worry from what I have witnessed within your treasure chest of garbs.’ Bethany sighed warily. ‘And put that bejewelled hand down. You’d better eat something before you have another cocktail or it’ll be Russia all over again.’
‘Who gives a rat’s arse how cold you’ll be, if you look bloody brilliant?’ Seraphina shot back as she took the olive out of her drink and put it into her vibrant red mouth. ‘Breakfast was divine.’
This had caused Bethany Holiday to laugh, and it was laugher they endured all the way up to the train stopping at the platform of Paddington Station taking a further train to Rye; a little rural village outside London.
They stood there for one moment carting their belongings about them; the four of them looking in several directions as the older attendants of their schools disappeared amongst the flock at Paddington.
‘And where are we off to now?’ Trevor muttered as he flicked a cigarette onto the train tracks of the very small boxed platform. ‘This place looks like a location build by a child on their toy playset with miniature toy collectables from cereal boxes overdosed with childish cocaine.’
‘I’m not entirely sure. I shall consult the flyer.’ Seraphina announced as she began to rummage amongst one of her three bags. ‘We haven’t to be at the event at Finglas House until six o’clock.’
‘That means we have seven hours to murder violently.’ Trevor announced as he pulled on a pair of dark sunglasses over a pair of dark eyes, beneath the bleak morning sun. ‘You have brought us to a place too early causing us to linger.’
‘I thought lingering was when you are at your wondrous best?’ Seraphina retorted.
‘And what about the bed and breakfast I booked in Hever? Since we won’t be attending Hever Castle for the terribly interesting Anne Boleyn museum, I’d need to give them a ring to cancel our reservations.’ Seraphina sighed. ‘Where are we to sleep tonight?’
‘Sleep?’ Seraphina cackled wildly and incredulously. ‘When the sunrise arrives come tomorrow’s dawn, only a few shall choose to leave.’
‘We’re booking a place to sleep if I get to a have a say in at least something, and that is that Seraphina Rose.’ Bethany Holiday warned as she fixed at her large sun hat. ‘There, look at that tourist stand beside the bench. There is a brochure for The Olde Moat house; a bed and breakfast, it looks supremely charming.’
‘Yes, let us go and pick a nice bed and breakfast in this town of Rye. Perhaps I’ll take a nap for an hour or so.’ Trevor announced.
‘Perhaps it shall be one for forever; a girl can hope.’ Seraphina muttered as she lifted up one of her bags and motioned for Trevor and Frankie to take one of the remaining two. ‘Anyway, let us leave this Godforsaken platform. We bloody look like The Railway Children.’ And she swept by them down the concrete steps to enter into Rye.
Rye was as charming as The Olde Moat house. Cobbled streets swept down braes like blocks of chocolate slabs, chased by rippling rivers in delightful burns folding like molten silver above trout and pastures of grass and hedges circled the thatched little village town like plush carpet. Three of them had found it heavenly charming, whilst Trevor Hamilton believed it to be where elderly people came to die.
The four of them meandered through the town, passed apothecaries, thatched roofs, canal boats and suspecting visitors. A farmer had given Seraphina a disapproving and simultaneously appreciating eye as she marched through across the war memorial in the very centre and he wandered onwards to walk his grass chowing goat. A flock of women had gathered just outside the vegetable shop clutching bottled milk, pumpkins, eggs and jam jars and nattering furiously. They had stopped, aghast and mouths agape as Seraphina Rose sashayed by them with her head held high and slipping on sunglasses as she looked upon them, their eyes zigzagging from her toes right up to the plume upon her head as they clutched their stricken hearts. To them, Satan had stridden from Hell in high heels with the singular intention to sin.
‘You in the headscarf, excuse me.’ Seraphina called to the woman; allowing her suitcase to crash to the ground as she strutted towards them. ‘Is there a taxi service about here or must we straddle a ram out to our destination of The Olde Moat house?’
The woman physically blessed herself as she looked upon Seraphina. The woman was moments away from reciting passages from the bible to exorcise her as she looked upon the steeple of the sacred grounds spearing up behind Seraphina.
‘Young Alfred Tambling-Goggin just across the way there on that bench will take you to your destination...’ The woman pointed with distaste and they turned to see a young gentlemen smoking on a bench beside the war memorial, finishing up by muttering under her breath to her friends, ‘no doubt a wretched godforsaken place I’d imagine for such a harlot.’
Seraphina ripped around from looking upon the man. A bejewelled finger of her own rubbed along her ruby red painted lips. ‘I’m very glad to see that you’re replenishing eggs, Madame. It is rather obvious that yours have surely shrivelled and dried up.’
Seraphina strode away; leaving the woman horrified in her wake. She flipped her blonde hair around in a flurry to look to the gathering of hens. ‘Hold on very tightly to your husbands, ladies. An amusement park has arrived in town and it shall be the most enticing thrill ride of their mundane lives.’
She left them to cluck and splutter as she hurried over to Alfred Tambling-Goggin as he finished his cigarette. In accordance to Frankie’s deducing, he seems to have left this town for some time perhaps to venture the city or a university. His skin was burnt beneath a sun that caused for his dark hair to gleam black, his muscles formed in farm labour but his body was decorated in tattoos that showed he had left such a reserved community for a spell.
‘You shall take us to The Olde Moat house, yes?’ Seraphina was saying has he directed them towards his car; a gold Vauxhall Viva. He watched her purposely nudge Bethany away from the passenger seat; in which Beth had already no intentions of getting into, as Seraphina took her place upon the Queen throne and the Vauxhall revved out of town.
‘Alfred Tambling-Gogging, what a mouthful of a name. We shall have to correct that. Alfred shall be changed to Alfie.’ Seraphina was calling from the front seat as she rolled down the window and lit a cigarette. ‘I shan’t be having Tambling-Gogging as a last name, and so Alfie you shall become a Rose.’
Oh, if she didn’t have a wonderful way with men and words, Frankie amused as he watched the fields filled with bountiful farm life gush by and the clouds swirling amongst the azure blue above and mused that there was no greatest artist than the sky. The man was ever so smitten with her in an instant, if a spider could charm the fly. He was trying to remain the cool, trailblazer with a ridged edge; the wayward renegade of a town filled with town girls as he looked out his own window, happening to take consistent glances at her. But she was a city girl and they gobbled village boys as after dinner mints, as she remained staring out her own without looking to him for some time with her head tilted back to the breeze, talentedly.
‘Where are you off gallivanting tonight? You can’t be coming down for the scenic view from Rye or celebrating Halloween in small, dingy pubs.’ Alfred Alfie Tambling-Gogging muttered as he popped in the car lighter. ‘I’ve spotted a few outsiders about the village this morning, few of your folk. There must be something brewing in the air.’
‘Oh you’re a clever one, Alfie Rose.’ Seraphina responded, finally looking to him as she cast her head against the headrest. ‘There is a very delightfully sneaky party to be attended this evening at Finglas house a few miles from here. Would you care to come along, Alfie?’
‘I would be there in a heartbeat only...’ Alfie replied as he looked to her, staring at her features for a moment long enough for Frankie to feel uncomfortable with his driving skills. ‘I have a girlfriend.’
‘I have three wine stoppers with real diamonds on top.’
‘Sorry?’ Alfie replied, perplexed.
‘Oh forgive me.’ Seraphina continued with fluttering eyelids. ‘I thought we were spouting about useless, nonsensical things that didn’t matter.’
‘Leave the poor young man alone, Rose.’ Trevor muttered from the backseat. ‘I’m sure your Venus Flytrap shall find ample prey come the evening.’
‘Get back into your coffin, vampire!’ Seraphina spat back at him just as they pulled up across a moat and careened in along the driveway of a thatched and bountiful cottage. They stepped out eagerly from the car after Frankie forked over some notes and coins to put as much separation between Trevor and his cousin as possible.
He glanced up upon the whitewash walls as sheep bleated from a pen nearby.
‘This looks quite like a fairy-tale.’ Seraphina mused, as she looked upon her surroundings with a jingling of a galaxy of jewellery that she was armoured in. She snipped the head of a blue hydrangea growing by the side of the cottage. ‘I’d be very wary if I were you, Hamilton. This may become your very own gingerbread house for you to begin the origins of your villainous reign. After all, you are the remains of the little boy that once set a snare by the plate of cookies to capture Santa Clause so that he wouldn’t reach all the little girls and boys around the world in time whilst you pilfered their Christmas presents.’
‘States the girl who was just almost burnt as a witch and wench upon the town pyre by the townsfolk.’ Trevor sneered casually as he looked upon the building with distain, as if uncomfortable in such a quaint scene and idyllic sunlight as if Poe had written a children’s tale and he was the mould that was inserted awkwardly and growing from it.
‘Could the pair of you perhaps…I don’t know…sheath your tongues for a little while just so that we may have at least an enjoyable festive holiday?’ Bethany replied to them both; grasping a tight hold on Seraphina’s tongue that was beginning to conjure.
‘It isn’t supposed to be festive. It is supposed to be grim, gruesome, morbid and macabre.’
‘That is quite enough use of the word macabre, Hamilton.’ Frankie muttered as he shouldered his bag and looked upon the bed and breakfast. ‘I would cease with the over usage of the term before Poe rises from his grave just with the purpose of slapping you so very hard across the face with a copy of The Raven as Vincent Price applauds.’
They wandered in through the door to the melodious jingle of a bell above and begun their pleasantries sent along the way to the elderly couple that ran The Olde Moat cottage who greeted them at the counter installed beside the stairway. There was a signing of a guestbook, a registry and the exchange of money as Trevor lingered in the corner of the oak kitchen beside a rocking chair, caught wandering amongst the honey sunlight streaming through like something unnatural that had infested it – a long smear of tar poisoning the golden glorious light that the other three guests of his company bathed in harmoniously.
‘Absolutely delightful, I say. Indeed.’ Seraphina was calling as she swept herself across the island counter to the hobs to run her hand along the curtains. ‘Absolutely delightful décor, I simply adore tartan.’
The little elderly couple – Mr and Mrs Rhodes – were as pleasant and as sweet as syrup swirled amongst porridge in the morning. They had cheeky banter, inquiring about relations and relationships between their new four youthful inhabitants and comparing Seraphina to a young Lauren Bacall and Cybil Shepherd dotingly as she lapped up their attention.
They sat around a table in a quaint little dinner room filled with chintz furniture eating porridge, sausages, bacon, omelettes, chocolate éclairs and Lamington squares and custard; left to their own devices and undisturbed by anyone else dining with bed and board.
‘This Finglas House…’ Bethany pried as she tapped her spoon against her teacup. ‘Is there anything interesting about it historically? I can only imagine so if it has been left to ruins to be swallowed up by time. What sort of family blood did it belong to? Who owned the residential property? How did the family lose the manor? Are they a notorious sort that we may have heard of? How rich is their blood? How old is the place? How old is their blood?’
‘You’d make a fine detective, Holiday.’ Seraphina replied as she gorged on an éclair and flashed her eyes flirtatiously across to Beth. ‘One simply doesn’t know just as simply as two doesn’t know. I do not know much more than you other than two things. Firstly, the house has been renamed aptly for tonight, it shall hereby be known as Hotel California. Secondly, costume must be specifically themed. So, apologies my darling but neither of those answers questions for your British inquisition. You may suss out more within your own inspection upon your arrival.’
‘Themed, you say? And what are your costumes, may I ask fearfully?’ Bethany prodded over the rim of her cup.
‘You must attend as vintage and broken toys from dusty chests in attics.’ Frankie answered as he spread his raspberry jam and cream across his muffin. ‘I shall be a bent Nutcracker soldier, and Hamilton is a crooked Jack-in-the-Box.’
‘And you and I, Seraphina?’ Bethany said. ‘Dare I ask what we shall be?’
‘You shall be a cracked porcelain doll and I a broken ballerina from a jewellery box. We four are also most aptly dressed for the occasion.’ Seraphina responded as she took Frankie’s muffin from his plate and took a bite.
‘How very feminine a costume. I daren’t believe it’ll strike fear into too many hearts.’ Beth said. ‘I should only imagine that we’d be dolled as girls tonight, so very girlish rather than garish.’
‘We will be frightful, eerie and proud. We shall be hyperreal, hauteur beauties. And of course you shall wear your femininity stamped upon you tonight of all nights and every night. You shall wear it like blazing armour. It is a sword, a shield and a dutiful strike. And you will be powerful and fearful as a girl shall be.’ Seraphina replied wistfully. ‘Take me as an example. Putting me in a dress does not mean that I shan’t have the ability to absolutely annihilate a boy and polish him off my heels. Do not be ashamed of earrings, stilettos and skirts. A wolfish and conniving whispering man is but a sheep in a suit. That is your armour beneath the red lipstick of your war paint. We are warriors in pearl gold.’
‘I’m sure dear Marilyn Monroe would have found that absolutely delightful and glib.’ Hamilton mumbled tediously as he slouched an arm over his knee; rose by sitting perched at the rim of his chair. ‘Do we have to sit and listen fastidiously to a lecture arisen from the last dregs of the second-wave feminism or may we actually begin to enjoy ourselves?’
‘Norma Jean had an exceptionally high IQ; the woman was on the verge of being a screaming genius.’ Seraphina gave a harsh tut and rubbed the back of her fork with a thumb menacingly. ‘Do not infuriate me now Hamilton, you caustic cataclysm of self-annihilation.’
Frankie licked his thumb comically and turned a page of his book from where he sat leant against the wall. ‘Can we, actually? Or at least may we speak of something that doesn’t so openly damn the other.’
‘Yes, indeed we can.’ Seraphina replied sweetly as she leant forward to look upon the cover of his book. ‘I’d imagine the four of us as prominent characters from Sherlock Holmes, so you seem never so far from indulging in us. In myself you have Irene Adler; The Woman who epitomizes her entire sex. In Hamilton; of course, you have Professor Moriarty; The Napoleon of crime. In Bethany and yourself, you both offer a mixed moiety between you both that does not differentiate you from making up a concoction of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor John Watson together.’
‘All very well, my dear.’ Frankie responded thoughtlessly. ‘Let us go to our rooms then.’
He trudged his belongings in after Hamilton as the girls danced their way across the halls to their own confinements gleefully, set to meet within the hour. As he began to remove his cricket jumper beside the floral print bed he had chosen, Hamilton had cast his collection of Beats Poetry onto it and had placed himself at hand to help him in the removal of his clothing.
‘What do you think you are doing?’ Frankie snorted, amused.
‘I’m rather bored.’ Hamilton replied sulkily as his hands began to put themselves to work at Frankie’s leather belt. ‘I’m setting out to amuse myself for the hour to pass the time.’
‘Do you truly believe I am going to be participating in any of that sort with you? Especially since Bethany Holiday resides so close.’ Frankie responded, though he found he did not move his hands to refrain the other boy, preoccupied with his arms trapped and suspended in the removal of the cricket jumper.
‘If I recall correctly Carrozza, the participation of being risky amongst the risqué is more your sordid forte rather than my own.’ Trevor replied silky. ‘If one remembers truthfully the evening I had that meeting with the Thespian troupe about the Christmas play and you had wickedly busied yourself beneath my desk. I have never acted a passive face so well in my time upon the stage; worth accolades when pleasurably pleasant spasms took to my thighs.’
‘I thought the agreement was to never speak of past wicked deeds as if each of them were a drunken spell. I’d have a ledger to fill with your sleazy pastimes.’ Frankie muttered; a warning strained beneath his tongue. ‘If so be it, bolt the door.’