The Scourging of Poor Little Maggie

This is Eleanor Berry's thirteenth book, originally entitled By the Fat of Unborn

Leopards. It opens with the police, trying to unravel the bizarre and mysterious

contents of two underground rooms, in a house cursed by years of misery.

Thirteen-year-old Maggie Frake is a millionaire's daughter and an only child.

Despite her ardent attempts to hide her wealth from her poorer school-fellows,

her veil of secrecy is removed, and she is the victim of mass inverted snobbery

and horrific cruelty, which even at its worst, only partially cracks her brave,

plucky psyche.

She has three episodes of happiness in her short life.  At school, she falls in

love with Simon who dies of meningitis.

Her most significant suitor is the world-famous, tormented Dr Epstein by

whom she is besotted. When his dark secret in connection with leopards is

exposed, he dies mysteriously in a power boat crash. Maggie is then the tragic

victim of a sadistic national vendetta.

Her third and last lover prefers to be known simply as "the Frenchman". He

brightens her dour life by living with her for three months.

The story reaches a surreal and horrifying climax. Despite the grim subject

matter, the narrative throughout is laced by hilarious, rich, if somewhat black

humour.

So strange were the circumstances the police had been called to investigate,

that four officers arrived in a panda car which screeched to a halt outside the iron

gates, churning up the gravel. They sprang out of the car, leaving all four doors

open, contrasting with the draconianly secure premises they had been called to.

They were Detective Inspector Massey, a robustly built, notoriously rude,

bald-headed man of medium height, Detective Constable Bush, who was short

and stout, Sergeant Webster and PC Probie.

Massey beckoned his men to move faster and rang a big brass bell which had

to be pulled.

A male voice, sounding like that of a cockney, who had adopted an

exaggerated upper class accent, shouted hysterically "Who goes there?" on the

intercom.

"Police," answered Massey.

The voice was that of a butler called Spearpoint. He had served in the gaunt,

forbidding house for a considerable time.

The iron gates swung open, making a creaking grating noise. Massey

wondered why the occupants of such an affluent property had not had the hinges

oiled.

"Back in the car!" he ordered.

The car sped through the gates in second gear, giving the impression that its

driver it had no respect for the gearbox. The police went up the long drive,

reaching a speed of 50 m.p.h., and stopped abruptly outside the front door of the

house.

Just outside the house, was a covered area supported by four blackened pillars

which had once been pale grey. At their bases, were two life-sized, stone lions of

the same colour, their manes covered with pigeon waste.

The off-white chipped front door had a big brass pull-bell beside it, like the

bell at the side of the iron gates.

Massey advanced towards the door, as the three other officers shuffled behind

him like inhibited ladies-in-waiting.

The door was opened hurriedly by Spearpoint, the butler. He was over six

foot tall with a broad forehead, thinning dark hair, streaked with white and small,

unwelcoming, pale blue eyes, which glittered coldly like pieces of polished glass.

He had on a starched white jacket, a white shirt and a black bow tie.

He said nothing but motioned the police to come in with a curt, beckoning

gesture.

"Are you Mr Spearpoint?" asked Massey.

"Yes. It was I who called you out when I found what I saw."

"Show us the way to where the trouble is," said Massey.

Again, Spearpoint failed to speak. For some reason, there was no electricity in

the house. He led the police through a series of gaunt, high-ceilinged ground

floor rooms in which pieces of furniture were covered with dust sheets. He

carried a lantern.

He showed the police up a spiral, black-bannistered staircase to a dark, narrow

corridor, with tiny windows.

At the end of the corridor, were two small bedrooms, the most important

consisting of a double bed, covered by a brown bed-spread. The curtains were of

the same colour, making the room look gloomy. The walls were covered with

thirty-five photographs of a smiling, handsome young man, with swept-back,

thick brown hair, a widow's peak and brown eyes. He was wearing a soldier's

uniform. The pictures contrasted pleasantly with the dourness of the room.

The shutters and curtains were closed, as if the room had been uninhabited for

a long time.

The bed was not in its usual place. It had been pushed to a corner of the room

as if someone had wished to gain access to something underneath it. As

Spearpoint came closer with the lantern, he saw an opened trap-door with an

upright metal ladder beneath it.

Spearpoint advanced towards the trap-door and climbed down the ladder,

holding the lantern in his left hand, steadying himself with his right.

"It's all down here," he said with a clipped, exaggeratedly upper class accent.

"It's not far down. You'd better come after me once I'm at the bottom so that I

can hold the lantern for you."

Spearpoint walked towards the other side of the room and raised the lantern

with an unpleasant, secretive smile. He moved the lantern slowly from left to

right, enabling the police to see what they had to be shown.

At first, they were astounded. Massey, not known for his sense of humour,

looked across the room from left to right, winced briefly as his eyes focused on

the right side, and suddenly collapsed in paroxysms of uncontrolled laughter.

Bush, too, was convulsed and could hardly stand up. Sergeant Webster

scratched his head and uttered the single words "cor blimey!" at the top of his

voice, but PC Probie wiped his forehead with his handkerchief, shocked, and

totally unamused, unlike his colleagues. He went closer to what he had been

brought to look at. He timidly stretched out his hand, half intending to touch what

he saw, and withdrew it.

Appalled, he stepped backwards towards the bottom of the ladder, and

supported himself on one of its rungs.

"This is so bloomin' insane, it just isn't funny," he muttered.

"Who is this man lying on the floor in a ball?"

"He's a Frenchman, sir," replied Spearpoint as mundanely as someone saying

what day of the week it was.

"Would you be more specific," said Massey.

"I am afraid I know nothing about him, sir, other than that he came to this

house and stayed here. I don't even know his name. I have always preferred to

disassociate with the business of anyone coming here, and indeed anyone living

here. It's a place renowned for unbelievable unpleasantness over the last few

years, and the only reason I have stayed here for so long is that I am too old to

find employment elsewhere, and too young for a pension."

"You British are cruel!" bellowed the Frenchman, who was sitting handcuffed

in the police van. "You were cruel to the burghers of Calais whom you stripped

of their dignity and dragged before you with nooses round their necks. It was

only because the English queen threw herself at the feet of her husband, King

Edward III, that he relaxed his cruelty and released the burghers.

"And you burnt Joan of Arc!" he added as an afterthought.

The medical secretaries working in the asylum were taking one of many

breaks.

Karen, the workshy typing pool supervisor, ogled the Frenchman and pushed

the other girls aside. A further wave of insanity surged through him. He went

down on his knees, forcing the two officers on either side of him to do the same,

and sang the Marseillaise a second time while all the girls giggled, Karen said,

"See? I was right when I said he was a Frenchman. He's even singing his

bloomin' national anthem, now!"

Within ten minutes, Bramwell, the chauffeur working for the national

newspaper proprietor and his wife, came to the front door and rang the bell.

Spearpoint ushered him in to the William Kent drawing room, where Tessa was

cradling the dog. Relations between Tessa and Bramwell, were informal since he

had worked for her parents since she was born.

"I'm so 'appy 'ee's been found," said Bramwell, who walked towards her to

caress the dog. He picked it up and there was an eerie silence.

"Er, Miss Tessa?"

"Yes, Bramwell."

"That's not Tyburn. That's a bitch!"

"A bitch? I don't understand. It was my husband who found it and brought it

home."

"I'm bowled over, Miss Tessa. I know Mr Frake is a gentleman of many

talents but where knowing the difference between a dog and a bitch is concerned,

I fear they lie elsewhere."

Footnote: The above incident occurred in the life of Berry's family, sometime

during the 1960s.

All identities are withheld, except for that of the dog, Tyburn. His real name

was Rex.

Simon, Maggie and the Brigadier were in the dining-room at the Ritz.

"I've realized something," said Simon to Maggie. "That's our family doctor

sitting at the next door table, Dr Winterton. I've just seen him stroking the

younger man's thigh."

Maggie turned her head so violently that she cricked her neck. She noticed the

two men holding hands under the table. So did Simon, who was a precocious

boy, advanced for his age. Simon's father was a professional exhibitionist, and

there were no limits to the tenor of his conversation with his son in public.

"That's our doctor at the next door table. He's as queer as a coot," said

Simon, his voice raised due to his father's deafness."

The Brigadier put his hand to his ear to hear better.

"What, dear?"

Simon repeated himself, speaking as loudly as possible, and added,

"The doctor's holding his friend's hand, Daddy. I told you he was queer,

didn't I?"

The Brigadier had only heard a few of his son's words, and was unaware of

the fact that the doctor, of whom they were speaking, was at the next table,

sitting back to back with him. He raised his voice to a clipped military bark, so

loud that it reverberated round the huge room.

"Mind you, just because a doctor's holding a man's hand, it doesn't

necessarily mean to say he's a homosexual. He may be feeling the man's pulse,

what!"

Simon picked up a starched white napkin. He took a Biro from his pocket and

wrote on it:

"Do keep your voice down, Daddy. The doctor you're talking about is sitting

at the next table, immediately behind you. Not only that, he's our own bloody

doctor!"

The Brigadier turned to Maggie.

"I say, have you got a vanity mirror in your bag, young lady?"

She gave him her mirror. He held it six inches above his head and focused it

on what he recognized to be his family doctor who was undoing his companion's

zip.

"Well, knock me over with a fevver!" he shouted.

Footnote: The above incident is authentic, apart from the changing of names.

Berry, her close school-friend and her husband, were sitting in an Italian

restaurant in London's King's Road in 1984. One of very many doctors known to

Berry, was sitting with a young inky-haired man at a back-to-back table. Berry

and her school-friend noticed the behaviour of the doctor and his young friend.

Berry's school-friend took out a hairdresser's mirror from her bag and held it in

front of Berry, showing her the two men. Berry wrote a letter of apology to the

doctor which made matters even worse.

The next day, the Brigadier composed a letter of apology to the doctor.

Dear Dr Winterton,

"I am writing to apologize with all due sincerity, for the improper behaviour

you may have witnessed at the Ritz yesterday.

"I recall the two children accompanying me, made lewd and discourteous

observations about your homosexuality.

"None of us have anything against homosexuals. Indeed, some of my best

friends are that way inclined, even though I am not.

"I trust this short letter will demonstrate my extreme respect for members of

the medical profession."

        Yours sincerely,

            Darby-Ball

The doctor wrote back to him:

Dear Brigadier,

"I am in receipt of your bizarre letter. I am offended by its familiar and

insolent tone.

"I am unfortunate enough to be almost completely deaf, and, until you drew

my attention to it, I heard nothing of the conversation you describe.

"It has been brought to my attention that your name is on the books of my

junior partner, Dr Ames. Upon receipt of your letter, and after consultation with

Dr Ames, we have reached the joint decision that our Practice no longer wishes

to have any association, either with you, or your family."

        Yours sincerely,

            B. J. Winterton

Evans, the mortuary attendant and religious nut, clutched Epstein by the

sleeve. All Epstein wanted to do at that moment, was to die.

"I've got to tell you this, mate, and you've got to listen. Me and the Orange

boys..."

"The Orange boys and I," corrected Epstein.

"All right, mate, all bloody right! The Orange boys and I. Anyway, we was

marching through this Catholic area, and some of the boys was whistling The

British Grenadiers. Then these Catholic 'ooligans came wading across our path,

throwing stones. Jesus, mate, it felt like the bloody Battle of the Boyne!"

A medical student came up to Epstein and tapped him on the shoulder. He

turned round and recognized his friend, Jim Curtis, whom he eyed with the

desperation of a man about to be suffocated.

"Jim?"

"Yes, Frederick."

"Will you listen to the end of this gentleman's story, please?"

An American election was in progress. It appeared that Richard Nixon, the most

popular candidate, would win it. Tessa and Maggie got into a New York taxi.

Tessa asked the driver to take them to an art gallery.

The taxi driver, a jaded cowboy type, chewed gum rhythmically. Tessa saw

his face in the mirror, and thought he looked foul-tempered and bored.

"So, who do you think's going to win this election?" she asked.

The driver spat his stale gum out of the window and ran his hands through his

greasy, blonde hair, before wiping his nose with the back of his hand.

"Nixon, I guess," he replied. "But I wish to hell Wallace would win."

"Wallace? Wallace? How could you possibly want him in? I think he's to the

right of Adolf Hitler!" rasped Tessa.

The driver put his foot down on the accelerator, something he always did,

when he was ill at ease, particularly when he was being aggressively addressed by

a woman with a clipped British rasp. He turned round and faced Tessa who

noticed a three inch scar on one side of his face.

"Aw, can it lady!" he snarled.

He pulled in to the side of the street, got out and opened Tessa's and Maggie's

doors.

"What's going on?" asked Tessa.

"I guess this is where you get out, lady," he said.

Footnote: This incident is authentic and occurred in a New York taxi during an

American Election campaign in the autumn of 1968. Berry was with her mother.

It was her mother (name changed) who, perhaps unwisely, started arguing about

politics with an obviously militantly Right-Wing taxi-driver, in someone else's

country.

As the pupils shuffled into the main hall for Assembly at Maggie's school,

they saw on the faces of the teachers, including the headmistress, a look of

despair, as if a bereavement had been suffered. Some of them noticed that the

tickets on the London underground were edged in black. They knew that

something terrible had happened.

The headmistress waited until the room was full, before speaking. "It is my

duty to bring you the most tragic news. Sir Winston Churchill, by far our noblest

and most glorious war hero, has finally passed into eternity. To pay homage to

this great bastion of courage and heroism I would like you to stand and close

your eyes for two minutes."

The pupils did so. When the headmistress dismissed them, they walked out

with their heads bowed. Some of them were in tears.

The acid-tongued Professor Spector was Head of the Department of Morbid

Anatomy. He was lecturing his students. Evans, the mortuary attendant, had just

passed him a lung, mistaking it for the other lung, riddled with cancer.

The Professor continued to look at the lung, as if it were an address book

without the address he wanted in it, and suddenly blushed profusely.

"Can't find it, blast it!" he exclaimed. He looked questioningly at Evans, who

was standing two feet away from him. He whispered something to the unfortunate

dwarf, whose responsibility it had been, to hand him the correct material. Evans

whispered something back to the Professor, his facial expression a mixture of

truculence, shame and humiliation.

"That's the wrong lung, you damned fool!" shouted the Professor. The

students sniggered into their hands.

"I'm only doing my best," said Evans.

"I don't want to hear about your blasted, bloody best!" bellowed the

Professor.

Footnote: The above incident is authentic. During her 20-year career working as

a computer operator and researcher in Harley Street and many London hospitals,

Berry was asked to take notes at the Post Mortem of an 88-year-old man, a

victim of lung cancer. She was fascinated by her task and enjoyed the kerfuffle

between the Professor and Evans (name changed), the hung-over mortuary

attendant, who could not tell the difference between a healthy lung, laid out on a

metal tray and a lung riddled with cancer.

Berry was amused by the Professor's bad-tempered outburst which made the

incident more like a carry-on film than a solemn grisly episode.