Thursday morning. Sun is shining. Birds are singing. Clara wakes to an unusual smell. She emerges from her bed and, slightly crumpled, walks down the hall. The hall leads her offended nose to the source of the smell in the kitchen. The kitchen is its usual self. Give or take the minor redecorating that a smallish electrical explosion creates. Mabel bends over the charred-round-the-edges body of Mabel. Classic doubletake on the part of Clara. “Morning,” says she.
“Ummmm...Clara? What’s going on?”
“I was kinda hoping you could shed some light.”
“No.”
“Obviously.”
Both stand for a while and stare at the body. Clara is presented with the unusual sight of Mabel checking Mabel’s pulse.
“I think I’m dead.”
“I think I’m confused,” says Clara as she sits herself on the floor. “
“Clara I’m dead on the floor and you sit there and
“Ommmmmmm…. Exactly what is it that you propose I do?”
In an irritating undertone Mabel speaks, “Gee, I dunno…. something would be nice though. I mean we could all just stand around and meditate while I LIE DEAD ON THE FLOOR!”
“Mabel, Mabel, Mabel. Even dead sarcasm does not become you.”
“Will you just do something?”
“Such as? I mean do you even have a pulse? Are you alive? Are you sure you’re dead? And how the fuck…I’ll be right back.” With that Clara takes herself back out the kitchen door and into the hall. She stops. She takes a deep breath. She utters one tiny ‘
“I don’t wanna. You’re being mean to me.”
“You’re dead, I’m confused and I need HELP….”
Snigger, “You’re telling me.”
“Oh you! Come here!” Clara grabs the surprisingly solid arm of the Mabel-not-lying-dead-on-the-floor and drags her down the hall to a rudely closed door. Clara, in her decisive mode, opens the door and stomps into the room. The room’s occupant remains softly snoring on the room’s bed. “Daisy, wake up.”
“Mmmmmmwhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaa? No. Go ‘way.”
“Daisy, please wake up, get up, come to the kitchen and view Mabel’s corpse.”
Daisy slowly sits up. “Have you become delusional, Clar? Hate to sound rude but…”
“…. Mabel is standing right behind me?”
“Um, no, she’s not actually. She isn’t here at all. How could she be dead? Wait, hang on, I just woke up…I’m confused…I’m lost…just go away.”
“Please just come with me.”
“Is there an option here where I can just go to sleep again and, possibly, completely ignore you?”
“No.”
Daisy eases herself out of bed. She is careful to ensure that Clara knows the effort involved. Clara ignores Daisy and entertains herself by tapping a little tune with her foot. Daisy, knowing she has lost, ostentatiously makes her way to the kitchen. She stands in the kitchen doorway. “Yup that’s Mabel on the floor all right. And that’s Mabel…and that’s Mabel standing over Mabel…”
Clara, who has drifted into the room after Daisy, nods her head, “Try omming.”
“Yeah, thanks, think I might.” Daisy sits herself on the lino - slightly away from Mabel-dead-on-the-floor. “
“Oh well. Worth a try anyway.”
“But it didn’t work for you either, Clara.” Mabel continues staring at her body. Daisy considers hyperventilating. Daisy reconsiders the options. “Okay, so we have Mabel-dead-on-the-floor and Mabel standing over Mabel-dead-on-the-floor…” She does a quick circuit of the kitchen. “And we appear to be missing a couch…”
Mabel and Clara speak as one, “Couch!”
“Yes couch.”
And again, “Where is it?”
“How would I know?”
And yet again, “But…”
“Okay, this talking as one thing is just disturbing. Stop it.”
Clara speaks, “Where’s the couch? When did anyone last see it? Has it run away? Oh no sorry…”
With a voice full of amusement Daisy speaks, “I think we should sit down and talk this one over.”
“But where? The couch has vanished!”
“And the corpse speaks!” A consensus is reached as all three giggle. “No really….stop…we’ve got to do something.”
“Like what, Dais? So far all that’s happened is Clara walking in omming and being mean to me and then you walking in omming and being mean to me and then everyone laughing.”
“Well, for one, we can stop laughing.”
“We have.”
“See that’s something!”
“Be serious, Daisy.”
“I can’t I’m in shock.”
Clara begins to get edgy. “Whatever.” She stalks out of the room.
“Clar, where you goin?”
“The hell away from your dead body.”
Daisy begins to stalk where Clara has stalked before her. “That sounds like a plan,” says she.
Mabel takes a final look at Mabel-dead-on-the-floor, nudges the figure with a foot, and trails after the others. “Where are we going..?”
“Well, call me stupid…” Cara pauses. “But I figure the lounge’ll do.” Clara arrives at her destination, a rather plush armchair, and flops into it. Daisy follows suit. Mabel drifts into the room and sways about in the middle looking from one to the other. “So what now?”
“We talk about this logically and intelligently. Concentrate – I know it’s difficult.”
“Daisy, don’t be a bitch! Okay so what are the facts? One – Mabel is dead on the floor. Two – Mabel is loitering in the middle of the lounge. (Mabel, why are you floating about and loitering and drifting – can’t you be a bit less wraithlike?) And, three, the couch from the kitchen has gone walkabout. How logical is that, Daisy dear?”
“Oh very! Mabel, are you a ghost?”
“Umm, no, that is, I don’t think so.”
“So how do we find out if Mabel is a ghost?” Daisy and Clara stare at Mabel for some moments. Mabel shuffles about, uncomfortable in their scrutiny. Clara fiddles with the arm of her chair, plays with her nails, scratches her head, and generally acts bored. Mabel shuffles some more. Daisy jumps with excitement as an idea forces its way into her befuddled brain. “I got it!” Clara looks up, startled out of her boredom. “What have you got?” asks she.
“What we do is…um..yeah…what we do is make Mabel walk through a wall or something.”
“And that proves…?”
“Well she won’t be able to if she isn’t a ghost.” Unnoticed by either Daisy or Clara, Mabel spends an enlightening few moments attempting to walk through the wall. Aside from a headache she gains nothing and gives up.
“Dais, face it, Mabel is lying dead on the floor. She must be a ghost. She’s dead. You don’t get much deader than exploding an electrical appliance while holding onto it. I mean she’s taken out the electricity in the entire house, possibly the entire street.”
“I can’t.”
“Can’t what?”
“Can’t walk through anything. The wall is solid. I am solid. I walk to the wall and bounce right off it. Is that non-ghostly enough for you?”
“Have you really tri…” Daisy is interrupted by the sound of Mabel launching herself at and being rejected by the wall. “Guess not..”
“So Mabel isn’t dead?”
“Oh fuck Clar! Of course she’s dead or her body is or something but she’s also here and pretty damn solid – did you dent the wall, Mabby?”
“No but I damn near killed myself again.”
“Oh this is getting just too funny.” Once more Clara stalks from the room and into the kitchen. Muttering to herself, as has become her habit, she once more goes over what she sees. “Mabel-dead-on-the-floor, couch gone, toaster exploded, Mabel-dead-on-the-floor, bagel, very black knife, very black kitchen too, no power, she blew herself up, stuck a….”
Mabel after regaining her composure had mirrored Clara’s stalk into the kitchen. “…knife in the toaster? Yeah I noticed that too.”
“You mean you don’t remember?”
“Not at all.”
“Come here, Daisy.” Clara yells over her shoulder.
“I am. Don’t scream. And yeah I heard that last bit. So…Mabel…what exactly do you remember?”
“Nothing until I was standing over my body-dead-on-the-floor.”
“Nothing at all? You don’t know who you are? You remember nothing?”
“I remember everything. I just don’t remember sticking a bloody knife in the toaster. I don’t remember this morning at all. First thing I recall was standing over myself and then you coming in.”
“I call that selective memory. Nonetheless it’s pretty obvious what you did. And now you’re dead.”
“You are way too obsessed with the death thing, Daisy. I mean I’m here aren’t I?”
“And you’re, like, there, on the floor, aren’t you?”
“Yeah.”
Clara resumes her muttering and wanders down the hall, occasionally gesticulating in a manner that would have done a madman proud. She pauses outside a door, opens it and hurries across the room to drop face down upon the bed. Mabel and Daisy continue to snipe for some minutes before noticing her absence. They turn to each other with matching blank faces before making off in opposite directions to search for her. Daisy heads down the hall to the bedrooms, calling, “Clara. Clara, come out and pla-ay.” She stops outside Clara’s bedroom door and, sensing her intrusion is unwelcome, knocks. Loudly. She, in fact, fervently bangs upon the door. Clara opens the door and wordlessly walks across the room and drops back down on the bed. Daisy rather casually follows suit but, determined to be an irritant, clears her throat and begins to speak in a calm, obviously-meant-to-be-soothing voice, “Erm, look, I know you seem to be taking this whole thing rather badly and all…”
Distinctly, “Don’t speak. Just don’t.”
“Um.”
“Don’t!”
“Look, really Clar, I mean…Why are you doing That?” She queries, as Clara begins hitting her head repeatedly into a pillow.
A muffled thump as Clara replies, “It makes sense to me.” Thump. Thump.
“Hm, yes, yes I can see how it might. Seriously though what are we going to do about Mabel?” Thump. A softer, quieter thump as Clara considers her reply.
“After much consideration it seems to me that there isn’t anything we can do. Mabel is dead but doing a very nice impersonation of a live person with that body she conjured up from who knows where. What is there to do that has not been done?”
“Clar, there’s still a corpse on the kitchen floor.”
“How do we know?”
“Could you not get all existential or nihilistic or whatever on me!”
“I’m not. Doesn’t this remind you of a joke done in very poor taste? Maybe there is no body. Maybe it’s just a dummy or something.”
“If it is Mabel then it really is a dummy. Where is she anyway?”
“Off being a ghoul I suspect. Probably in the kitchen playing with herself.”
Daisy gives Clara a look and, based on its promise of irritation, Clara proceeds to remove herself from the bed. Both move dully down the hall back toward the kitchen. Upon arrival they discover Mabel apparently attempting to resuscitate herself. Clara, “If she’s doing what I think she’s doing…”
Mabel sheepishly halts her actions and gets up. Daisy gasps and, upon catching her breath, cries, “Clara! You were right! It’s just a mannequin!” And as Clara bends down to inspect the figure, and then rises shaking her head, a more hesitant, “Clara?”
“Actually I think it might just be real. The whole slightly charred flesh smell and all.”
Daisy does her own very quick examination and decides for herself that the thing on the floor is in fact a body of Mabel. “This doesn’t, you know, explain how she can have two bodies at once.”
Mabel protests, “Hardly two at once. One of me is dead on the floor.”
“Most of us,” Clara articulates clearly, “only get one. Ever.”
“So I’m special?”
Clara and Daisy flatly deny, “No.” A thoughtful Daisy murmurs, “You know I think there’s something more to this.” The others nod. They look at Daisy expectantly. She fails to comment further. Mabel attempt a nice sort of prompt, “Er, what?”
“That I don’t know.”
It is Clara who next ventures to speak believing herself the practical one in the room. “From my perspective,” which, incidentally, is one that finds a great need to keep itself away from Mabel-dead-on-the-floor, and again, “from my perspective we really only have one or two minor-ish problems. One, a corpse, two, no power.”
“Oh but, Clar, we all have power. Personal power. The power of the spirit. The power of great…”
“I think, Mabel-of-the-refried-brains, she meant electricity.”
Being made of stronger stuff Mabel refuses to look abashed. She tartly replies, “Call a bloody electrician then.”
“Use the refried, dear; we have a corpse on the floor. Until we deal with that little dilemma I think it’s best if we don’t invite anyone round.”
“I agree with you, Dais. What, though, are we to do?”
“Dunno, thought you were the practical one.”
“Get rid of it, naturally. We must chop Mabel up and throw her bits off a cliff for the vultures. That failing we bury her somewhere. It’s not like we murdered her and the police will be hunting down her killer, and questioning us, and digging up the backyard, and pulling up the floorboards looking for her, or anything like that.”
Daisy briefly impersonates flabbergasted. She speaks, “Mind, how macabre you’ve become, Clara.”
Clara smiles. “Yes.”
“I don’t like this.”
“Who asked you, toaster child of the new generation zombie? You got yourself dead and we’re gonna fix the problem. Now, Clara, big question time, you ready?” Clara looks puzzled and nods. Mabel looks offended and puzzled. Daisy looks like hitting Mabel and Clara. “Backyard or floorboards? I think we should be as inconspicuous as possible.”
Less puzzled, Clara replies archly, “Ah yes, I see you’re going the floorboard option? Hmmm yes, a nice choice that, very classic, very classy, though not, perhaps, in the league of Hitchcock? However, two votes for under the floor! What say you, Mab?”
“I don’t like this. You’re so…”
“Objection noted. How do we proceed? Where does she go?” Questions the ever-eager Daisy.
“Thinking, thinking. That bit in the hall, you know? Where the floorboards are loose?”
A look of glee crosses Daisy’s face, “I think we have a winner!” A look of disdain crosses Mabel’s as she begins to exit the room. “Mabel! Where are you going?”
“I want no part of this.” She continues to the doorway where a nonchalant Clara blocks her exit. Clara smiles sweetly, “You break it, you pay for it.” Daisy moves in for the kill, “Mabel dear, why don’t you pick yourself up off the floor? Clar and I will work out how to lift the floorboards without making it look like we’ve ripped them up to plant a corpse. Everyone agreed? Good, good.”
Mabel scowls in the kitchen as Daisy and Clara move off down the hall toward the front door. On examination they find the loose boards to be un-nailed and proceed to lift them swearing occasionally at splinters and broken nails. “Ouchit!” Daisy looks up, “Aw, don’t be such a baby.”
“That last one bloody hurt.”
“Yeah, well. Only one more to go then we can have a bit of a look.” And with that she pulls up the last of the group of boards that will allow them to access the space beneath the house.
“Well will you look at that?”
“Erm, what exactly? I can’t see anything. It’s dark.”
“Exactly. Grab a torch or something, and Mabel, one of us’s gotta go in and it may as well be the dead ‘un.”
“Yes, okay, and when I come back we can discuss why you’re talking like a cowboy. Yes?” With that Clara makes her way back to the kitchen. The first thing to assault her eyes is the sight of Mabel doing nothing, again. Ignoring Mabel momentarily, Clara makes her way across the room in rifle through a drawer or two in pursuit of a torch. Mabel watches these proceedings and is affronted at being ignored. “What are you doing?” she grumpily asks. Clara sighs, “Looking for a torch.” She explains patiently. The exclamation “Ahha!” is heard as she locates a torch shortly followed by another such exclamation as she discovers it to be in working order.
A self-satisfied Clara smiles, firmly takes the torch in one hand, Mabel in the other and walks from the room. She hauls her protesting cargo down the hall and safely delivers it to the hole in the floor. Daisy, sitting at the hole’s edge, swinging her legs in the abyss, looks up and smiles, “Oh good. Here she is then. Mabel, be a dear, will you, and just pop down this hole and have a bit of a look ‘round?” Daisy stands up and pats her gently.
Mabel emits inarticulate sounds of protest as Clara presses a torch into her hand. More sounds are heard as Daisy and Clara manoeuvre her to the edge of the opening.
Mabel, “Oh no. No.”
Daisy and Clara, “Oh yes, yes.”
“Can we not talk about this, you know discuss, pros and cons and whatnot? Please?”
“We have, you are it,” states Daisy in the most no-nonsense of her voices.
“But…”
“Sorry hon, no buts. Take control of your life, fight your own battles, bury your own corpse, explore the dark unreachable places that ain’t never been explored before.”
A tragic little sigh escapes Mabel, “Oh well, if it must be so, it must?”
“It must.”
“I will take myself off into the dark and scary recesses of…”
Exasperated, “Cut the bloody drama queen act, Mab. What’s the worst that could happen? You’ve already managed to circumvent the great unknown once – don’t be such a fraidy-cat.”
“You are cruel, Daisy.”
Daisy and Clara, using the form of telepathy most common to highly annoyed people, sidle up to Mabel and each take an arm firmly in hand. Daisy, “Now you can make this easy – or we can just push you down that there hole in the floor. What’s it gonna be, cowboy?”
“Oh just get down the bloody hole, Mabel. And, while you’re doing the explorer thing, Dais and I will discuss her newly found penchant for cowboyeze.”
“Alright already, you win, but I want a transcript of that conversation. Unhand me!”
Daisy and Clara grudgingly unhand Mabel, standing menacingly as she switches on the torch. She gives a final hopeful look, concedes that her defeat is complete, places said torch in her mouth, and lowers herself into the floorboard cavity. The others hold their breath. Silence. More silence. Both crouch near the cavity and peer in. “Um, Mabel? You ok, honey?” calls Clara in a slightly wavering tone. Still more silence. More worried, “Mabel?” Clara shouts down the hole.
A giggle, “Took you long enough.”
An aside from Daisy, “I’m gonna kick that girl’s arse. Soon. Very soon.” Louder, “So everything’s ok, sweetums?”
“Natch, Dais. And, incidentally, I heard that bit about you kicking my arse.”
“Stop bitching girls! Mabs, what’s it like down there?”
“Rather surprising actually. I think you’d best come down and see though. Bring more lights.”
Daisy and Clara look at each other and exchange ‘is this a con?’ looks. “It isn’t a con. Hurry up,” the grumpy voice of Mabel drifts from below. Further looks are exchanged and Daisy stands, stretches, and moves off. “I’m agoing to hunt me some torch-type lights.”
“We really must discuss…” comments Clara as Daisy moves out of hearing range, “Oh bother it.” Clara loiters for a further few minutes to the sounds of Daisy ‘huntin’ and exclaiming before making a decision, “Mabel?” she calls.
“Yeah?”
“I’m coming down. Make sure I don’t step on you, or something.”
“No fear,” states a Clara confusing Mabel. Clara takes a deep breath and begins to lower herself into the cavity.
“Watcha do that for? You’re not going diving!” The rather strident voice of a stealthily returned Daisy momentarily frightens Clara and she tumbles into the hole and crash-lands. Daisy switches on one of the many torches and dives in after her. Much squealing and squeaking are heard as she finds Clara a soft landing.
“Get off me.”
“Yeah yeah. No harm done.” And then, “Oh my god,” inspired by her first look at the space under the floorboards. Space it is, and there proves to be rather a lot of it. Daisy looks first at Clara, whose mouth is opening and shutting fish like, and who keeps shaking her head and rubbing her eyes in disbelief, and then at Mabel. Mabel is standing, as an object in a fairly unnatural amount of space for the floorboard cavity in a terrace, with an enormous grin on her face. “Explain.”
“Can’t.”
“We aren’t in
Chokingly, Clara explodes with, “Oh my god! Who put the Tardis under our house? They didn’t mention this is the lease! Mabel, you better explain, and fast!”
“Me? Explain? Why? I don’t know what’s going on either. What makes you think I do?”
A dry Daisy, “A little something to do with this morning’s unusual reincarnation episode perhaps? Have you always been an alien? Didn’t you think we’d find out?”
“Daisy, you’re overreacting. I’m not an alien. A bit weird maybe - but not that weird. This is a surprise to me too. Unless it’s one of you…you’ve been very quiet there, Clara…”
“Oh don’t look at me. If I’d known there was a spatial anomaly under the floor do you think I’d be still sleeping in that nasty little shoebox I call bedroom? Man, you could fit an Olympic sized pool in this ‘space’ alone…what’s through that door?”
Mabel and Daisy, “What door?”
“That one, over there,” Clara points to a distant object, just visible in the light of two torches. Daisy hands her a torch and lights yet anther one. All torches are then trained in the direction of Clara’s pointing finger. The door is spotted by all, and, next to it, a light switch. There is a shuffling of feet and a hang of hesitation. Daisy shivers.
“You’re afraid, aren’t you?” Crows Mabel in a decidedly unladylike manner. Daisy shivers again.
“It’s a trifle chilly down here in the dark void and, though it may have escaped your notice in all the bizarre excitement of dying and reincarnating stupidly, I’m really not wearing very much.” She is, in fact, wearing only her hair and a clutter of metal and tattooist’s ink. “I think some clothes are in order. You should probably dress as well.”
“Dress to meet death? She managed that in her jammies.”
“Jammies that are still on her scorched corpse. That thing that she’s presently wrapped in begs rather a lot of other questions.”
“The Victorian nightie? The reincarnaters weren’t happy with her views on immodesty?”
“Droll. Very. Now what?” A terse Mabel must have her say.
Clara, thoughtfully,”I guess we dress in our into-the-unknown best, haul corpse, and come back.”