Seductive Viennese Whirl (15 page)

"You mean the Reichbach Academy? Well sure, I must have learnt something. Let me think, let me think," Eva says excitedly. "There was a rumour of a ghost that haunted the school, some old spinster teacher who hung herself at the turn of the century. I never saw her but a friend of mine, she was Viennese if I remember rightly, Veronika, said this ghost came in and sat on her bed one night, dressed all in white with a monocle in one eye. I remember that night, Veronika screamed the place down – woke us all up and got herself in terrible trouble."

"Is this story leading anywhere?"

"The point is she was always talking about this, Jesus, what was the word? Gast, Gest, no, Geist. Geist is the word for ghost!" she shouts triumphantly.

"Well, I'll take your word for it. Now, what about castle?"

Her face goes all dreamy. "What? Oh, I was just thinking how the Count told me he'd show me his last night."

"Can you get your mind out of the gutter for one minute? If you want to find this idiot then start thinking, because I'm so knackered I'm just about ready to throw in the towel."

"I meant, the Count said he'd show me his Schloss, that's the word for castle. It's a little isolated, apparently, but well worth the trip, and ..."

"All right, all right. Let's stay focussed. Where does that take us? Haunted castles of Vienna ... Viennese ghosts …" I flick through the guide book, but there doesn't seem to be a single mention of ghosts. I'm stumped.

"What about this train business?" says Eva. "Maybe he's hinting at a
ghost
train. There's an amusement park in Vienna somewhere, Veronika told me about it."

I flick through my guidebook. "You're right. It's called the Prater."

Eva lifts her hand and hails a passing cab. "It's worth a shot, right?" she says.

"Please God, let this be the last clue," I reply as I crawl in after her, dazed with fatigue. Night descends on Vienna as we drive toward the amusement park.

As I enter the Prater I'm thrown into sensory overload. Flashing lights, arcades pinging, dodgems swooshing and teenagers whooping. We keep walking, past ride after ride. Pop hits mingle with the screams of people being spun inside huge Mexican hats, hoisted upside down in cages or attached to bungee strings.

The air is greasy with the scent of potato pancakes dripping with garlic butter, which everyone is chomping. I stop at the end of a long queue to buy one, but Eva drags me on. Back and forth we go, round and round. Just as I'm ready to believe the impossible, that there is a theme park on earth without a ghost train Eva screams and points at the stone façade of a fortress.

Bug-eyed monsters grin out of every window, while, at street level, a cage set into the wall holds a mechanical gorilla with red flashing eyes. Now and then one of his hairy arms shoots out between the bars, to give an unsuspecting passer-by a cuff on the ear.

I look up at the sign above the gorilla, which reads ‘Geister Schloss.' "Geister must be the plural of Geist," I shout, as a skull encrusted ghost train speeds out of the tunnel, passengers wailing. "What do we do now?"

"I don't know. I can't see a note stuck anywhere," she says, eyes skimming the gorilla cage and the paying booth. "Maybe we actually have to take the ride to get to the next clue."

"Sure," I say, fighting the impulse to turn around and head back. I figure, if I humour her maybe I'll be tucked up in my little bed within the hour. "But if we don't find anything we're done. We've an early flight, remember?"

I haven't been on a ghost train since I was a kid. I sit back, prepared to be bored by the plastic skeletons and cobwebs made of silly string. But as soon as we hurtle through the double doors and into a stark cloud of cold fog, I realize this is a different type of ride altogether. Icy vapour envelops us. Gliding through this giant freezer compartment, Eva and I are soon huddling together for warmth.

"What's going on?" whispers Eva, her breath warm on my neck. The ice fog is now a swirling mass of purple and red, deepening as we go. The vapor dissolves against my breath, coating my teeth with a gluey residue tasting of metal and peppermint. My brain tries to wrestle with the concept of being lost, somewhere in space, then swiftly shuts down.

"Virtual reality, it has to be," I say, as we hurtle down a steep incline, into blackness. Something, which feels like raw meat, scrapes my cheek and I scream. I keep screaming as I see a dead body, hanging on a meat hook, its rotted neck muscles barely supporting a dangling head.

"It's just an image. It's not real," I say, trying to convince myself. We duck down, just escaping being hit by a row of suspended pigs, bellies slashed open and entrails hanging out. Now the stench of rotting meat is so intense, it's almost impossible to believe what we're experiencing is computer generated.

I wipe off a sliver of meat from Eva's cheek. "It'll be over soon." Thousands of pale, green-tinged hands are reaching out through the red-black mist. Bits of bones show at the tips where the flesh has decomposed. Eva buries her face in my neck. We duck down to avoid the hands and squeeze our eyes shut. When we pop up again, the fog has thinned to pale pink, showing the turrets of a distant castle. My heart thumps like a frightened rabbit, jumping against the walls of its stall. Could someone, the Count or the Marquis, could they have put a curse on us? Are we – and the thought is so ludicrous I can hardly believe I'm having it – have we become ghosts, sentenced forever to live in the castle of doom?

But before my mind takes its final leap into insanity we're propelled through the doors into the warm garlic scented evening. I can hear the throb of pop music. "It's over," I say to Eva, who's still got a tight grip of my hand.

As we climb off, I notice a long queue of teenagers has gathered for the Geister Schloss. For all I know, maybe this is what ghost trains are like these days. What would an old fogey like me know?

"That was so totally not a good idea," says Eva, her face ashen. "He mustn't see me like this," she says, pulling a compact from her bag and dusting her cheeks with rose-colored powder.

"Duh! Do you see him anywhere? Get real. You're never going to see him again. This is just some prank he and the Marquis cooked up."

"He'll turn up, I know he will," says Eva, starting to applying a mauve lipstick as we walk away from the ghost train.

The next thing I know we're passing the gorilla cage. The gorilla pokes her in the back and she loses control of her lipstick. She turns to me, looking like a lopsided clown, a slash of mauve running down from the corner of her mouth. "Shit, what was that?" Eva says, staggering forwards. "Someone hit me." She bends down to retrieve the lipstick, which had flown out of her hand.

I start to laugh. "Looks like he wants to draw your attention to something," I say, loosening the string of a black helium balloon that's tied to his cage. The balloon has ‘
Eva
' written on it in golden lettering. I hand it to her.

"Leaving a note with a gorilla. Is this some sort of joke?" she says. She flops down on a bench holding the balloon by its string.

I turn the balloon around, but there's nothing written on it. "Looks like the joke's on you. Can we go home now, please?" I'm really beginning to feel a bit freaked out by this. Could the Count really have thought up a game as weird as this? It seems to have the Marquis' signature all over it.

Eva's shaking the balloon next to her ear. "Wait, I think there's something inside," she says, before putting the balloon on the ground and thrusting her heel into it. There's a pop, a gush of air. She reaches down and fishes out a bit of paper, which she keeps folded in her hand.

"Well? Aren't you going to read it?"

She hands it to me. "I don't dare. What if he never wants to see me again?"

"I hardly think that's likely after all this."

"Tell me what he says."

I unfurl the scribbled note. "An emergency involving his sister, wonder what that involves? And his address, Count Alex von Pappenberg, Schloss Pappenberg, 7865 Alpenbach."

"That's it?"

I hand back the note and shrug. "Come on Eva, it's better

than nothing." Her bottom lip wobbles like she's about to cry. "I slept with him …" She stares ahead, at the people streaming by. Spotlights beam from the ride beside us, illuminating their bodies in red, yellow, and green. Finally she says, "… without even knowing his name was Alex." A tear rolls down her cheek.

Eva's behaving completely out of character. I've never seen her this emotional about anyone, except maybe McManus. I really wish she'd snap out of it. I figure the best thing to do is just act like I haven't noticed she's crying.

"With his Schloss and all, do you reckon he really is a Count?"

"I don't know, anything's possible I suppose."

"There he is!" she squeals, jumping up and diving into the crowd.

Catching up with her I say, "Who are we chasing?"

"Alex," she says, breaking into a run. "There!" she says, pointing at a tawny haired hunk, some ten yards ahead, who's striding through the throng.

She's in heels, and I'm not exactly in shape, so we don't make much headway. By the time we do catch up with him I feel like there's a tight steel girdle clamped around my chest.

I watch as she throws her arms around him from behind. I'm pleased they've found each other again, of course, because if I'd had to run any further my chest would have exploded.

I come puffing up beside her as he turns around and pries her loose. As he swivels round I notice something strange. His ears lie flat against his head. And his nose is perfectly straight.

"I'm sorry," she says. "I thought you were someone else." He takes in her lopsided clown makeup, before backing away.

"This is all I've got," she says, waving the paper in front of my face. "For all my trouble." A gust of wind plucks the paper from her fingers, lifting it high into the air.

As she goes running off after it I collapse onto a bench. My calves ache and I still haven't got my breath back from the last sprint. Maybe it was for the best that she never started writing to him, never started a correspondence which would have been doomed to failure. But then, as I watch her crashing into people in an attempt to catch the paper, I think, it's really none of my business. Instead, I open my address book and write down,

Schloss Pappenberg

7865 Alpenbach

Austria

I've got a photographic memory, okay? It's not exactly something to be proud of, like legs up to your armpits or a washboard stomach, but it's all I have in the talent department.

Eventually she comes back, tells me the paper whirled off in the direction of the giant Mexican Hat ride. When the hats stopped spinning she'd tried to crawl around under them looking for it, but a guy shooed her off. I wipe off her clown mouth with a tissue.

"What do I do now?"

"Kill yourself?"

"Good idea. How?"

"Hey, I'm only kidding." I show her the address I scribbled in my book. "Remembered it, didn't I?"

Her mouth gawps open. "Oh Kate, that's incredible."

"I know. Now can we please go and get some grub?"

At first she protests. Says she's feeling grossed out by those dead pigs or virtual dead pigs we saw on the ghost train. But despite the fact of being grossed out, or maybe because of it, she ends up eating two hot dogs smothered in sauerkraut.

We step into a room, furnished in white and gold striped wallpaper with frilly curtains at the windows. I take the Count's hand and lead him to the bed. Standing behind me, his fingers trace my spine as he unzips my evening gown and pulls it down. Kissing one shoulder, then the other, he lifts my hair, lips soft against my nape.

The phone rings, shattering my dream like a pneumatic drill.

"Yes?"

"Guten Morgen. This is your six am wakeup call."

"Thanks," I say gruffly and bang down the phone. I am groggy and disappointed. The frilly curtains and striped wallpaper are still here, but the Count is gone.

When Eva comes in I feel a stab of guilt, what with seducing her boyfriend in my dream and all. I tell myself it was just my subconscious playing tricks. I mean, I don't even fancy the Count.

"My stomach's in knots," she says. "I didn't get a wink of sleep."

"You're in love. Butterflies in the stomach. It goes with the territory."

"Oooh ..." she wails. "I mean, I feel awful. I had the runs all night."

"Probably those hot dogs," I say, getting out of bed and pulling on a black top. I'd played it safe with one of the pancakes. "You'll get over it. Right now we've got a plane to catch."

I'm emotionally wrung out. These past few days I've tried to be there for her at a difficult time. But now I'm done. I can't cope with another crisis. And her rolling around on the bed moaning something indecipherable is just about the last straw.

"I can't understand a word you're saying. Is this some pathetic excuse to miss the flight so you can track down Lover Boy?"

"How can I? I don't even have his phone number." As I'm pulling on my Tommy Hilfiger sweat pants she jumps up and races to the toilet. This is all I need, I think, as I squirt Frizz-Ease onto my out of control locks. I have a meeting with the Haddock and McManus at ten thirty in which I'm to parade his new ads.

As I listen to Eva vomit into the toilet I feel a twinge of sympathy. Still, I can't hang about here all day. I need to catch my flight to be at this meeting. If I want to keep my job, that is.

I feel like a queen bitch as I bang on the bathroom door. "Here I've left you some Tums on the bed. I'll see you outside the hotel in ten."

Some twenty minutes later she emerges from the revolving doors, her handbag trailing a silk scarf and some tissues, which I hastily stuff back in. She takes a few steps and looks like she's going to fall over. I grab her arm and pull her into a taxi.

When we get to the airport she insists on one more trip to the little girl's room, while I buy some chocolates for Sparky, a copy of
Hello
! and a miniature bottle of vodka from the airline shop. Then I check the monitor. Our flight is now boarding. So where the heck is Eva? I barge into the ladies' toilets.