The Mandrake Effect

A silver necklace entwines Harry’s fingers as he drives the Glen Cove road, making towards Rose’s mother’s house. He studies himself in the rear-view mirror; he looks older, maybe the starting of a slight greying tinge to his temples, maybe the start of a line or two creasing his forehead. Had the past few months of shunned treatment by the Agency personnel finally got to him? ‘Naaaa!’ he said aloud. He knew what he needed… Rose.

It is now early evening, the sun still shining but on the wane. The big sky over the Atlantic appears sanguine red, ‘Christ’s blood on the cross,’ as the first Dutch settlers would have said. Harry’s Rolls Royce turns into the tree-lined avenue leading to the little shingle-covered house, that now, in the setting sun, glowed like amber. Rose is waiting on the stoop to greet him, sitting in a wooden chair and dressed in a scruffy smock dress.

‘Are you staying?’ demands she, curtly, as he starts to get out.

‘Hallo Harry,’ says he, sarcastically speaking the words Rose should be speaking, ‘how are you? Me? I’m fine, and yourself, Rose, and your mother? … Good, good.’

Rose is unmoved. ’Are you staying, creep? Because if you’re not, you can get back in your bloody ‘motor’ and fu–’

‘HARRY!’ cries Mabel, cutting Rose off, mid-expletive, ‘It’s so good to see you! It’s been so long… I thought she’d lost you. Let me look at you… What the heck you doing standing outside? Come on in, come in come in.’

Harry gives Rose a quick look, as to say ‘this is more like a greeting’. They all go into the house. Rose is definitely non-plussed. Once inside, Harry gives Mabel a big affectionate kiss on each cheek. Mabel winks at Rose – Rose scowls back. Mabel smiles and now winks to Harry, ‘I’ll go make us some coffee. I’ll leave you two hate-birds to say hello properly.’ She gives rose a ‘buck your ideas up’ look then scuttles off to the kitchen.

As soon as she’s gone, Rose continues to Harry. ‘Are you staying, Hal? … If you are, I’ve got something to tell you.’ She gives him a contemptuous look. ‘You haven’t got a goddam clue, have you?’

Harry rolls his eyes, mimicking deep thought. ‘Errrm… No no, don’t help me. I can get this. Errrrm… Got it, you are the alien entity, not Rosette?’

She looks at him blankly. ‘Yeah… you’ve got it in one.’

He looks at her in mock-disbelief. ‘You are!?’

‘Yes!’ A long pause as they stare into each other’s eyes. ‘You stupid fucking moron,’ yells Rose, ‘Is that all you can think of? The only alien entity in me was your sperm! I’m pregnant… In the bloody pudding-club, as you say in your stupid, fag-English language… knocked-up!’ She pulls the smock dress tight. She is indeed pregnant.

‘Oh… thaaat!’ says he, as if obvious, ‘I knew that. I just thought you were waiting for the opportune moment to tell me – I wish you wouldn’t swear, Rose.’

‘You lying rat! You–’

Harry grabs her roughly with one hand by the front of her dress, pulls her to him and kisses her… remembering to cover his vitals with the other hand as an expedient. Rose responds momentarily to the kiss. He takes a chance and puts the other hand around her. She pulls away, turns and stands with her back to him, moodily. ––A glittering necklace now entwines her neck. Instinctively her hand comes up and holds it up to her eyes, and she turns. When Harry attempts to speak she puts her hand over his mouth and kisses the back of her hand.

’If you tell me this has been in the family for years I’ll stuff it into your bloody nose… and I do mean ‘bloody’. Thanks, I love it… creep!’

She walks a little way away, head bent, and speaks as she fingers the necklace. ‘Hal, I need you… now. – I’m pushing forty, six-months pregnant and I’m scared. I don’t know what to do no more. All I know is if you don’t come now it’s over with us.’

Harry sighs, ‘Rose, be reasonable. It’s important. If we can’t contain this thing the whole world–’

‘–Fuck the whole world… I’ve given my youth for the whole world… I need you. Christ, Harry you didn’t even graduate, what help are you, anyway?’ Harry is hurt by this remark. ‘I’m sorry Hal, but it’s true, they’re more up to it. You’ve done your bit… they’ve got their shield. Leave it to the experts.’

‘I do wish you wouldn’t swear, Rose, it really doesn’t suit you. Give me a month. They think they’ve got a shield. They’re going to flood the cabin with an electro-charged plasma. They think that will stop it. The idiots aren’t even going to test it. I’ve got to–’

‘–Then it’s over. I don’t need you to have this baby.’

‘I’ve got to stay, Rose. I’ve got to try to stop it. I promise I’ll drop it after another month… we’ll go to Edinburgh for the birth… anything you like. Please give me a month. You’d be a great help back there, it’s right up your street. We’re converting everything, film to binary and videotape: air displacement, temperature records, sound records, atmospheric recordings, heat recordings–’

’You already said, ‘temperature records’ you Jerk,’ says Rose, sarcastically,

Harry shrugs and continues unabashed, ‘Yes, and temperature records, the lot… lock, stock and bloody barrel.’

‘Then you don’t need me.’

‘I do/ we do, Rose. We’re taking averages, converting everything to digital, reconstructing it into a four-dimensional résumé. Then they break it down and do the same again. Sometimes I think they’re just bloody twiddling their brains – it beats me. But with you there, Rose…’

‘Why me?’

‘Because you were the smartest on that ship, that’s why. It should have been your ride. You should have been captain… I checked the crew’s IQs, and you were by far the smartest.’ He gives his most appealing look, ‘What do you say, Rosey old girl, come back with me… one month?’

‘You really are a bastard!’ yells Rose, now quaking with anger, ‘You’d let your child and me face that… fucking zoo?’

‘There’s been more bodies, Rose, lots more. She’s out there, feeding! For Christ’s sake, the whole worlds in danger… our child included.’

‘Don’t give me that, you damned hypocrite. You just want to prove you’re up to it, for you uncle’s sake. Well you’re not up to it, Hal – come to that, neither am I.’

‘But the whole world, Rose.’

’What about aids? The ‘whole world’ is in danger from that, but it doesn’t stop people making love. What the hell can you do?’

‘I can try.’

‘They don’t want you, Harry, don’t you understand? It’s getting near the big pay-off. Money’s talking! You’re a danger to them. Remember what they said at the beginning… the chop?’

‘But I may make the difference, Rose.’

‘Get out now, while you still can, you idiot. They’ll kill you, Hal… you’ll force them to it.’

Rose stares at him, hoping for a positive response… Nothing. She sighs and continues. ‘I have an appointment at the maternity clinic in the morning, Harry. I’m having the new-fangled ultra-sound scan, they say it can see right inside, tell the sex an’ all. Will you come? I take it you are staying the night.’

‘Yes, I’ll stay the night if I’m invited. And of course, I’ll come with you, Rose, to see our son.’

‘Daughter! I’ve had it with men – and you sleep in the guest-room.’ Harry gives her a kiss, she turns away from him, grudgingly allowing him to kiss her cheek.

A foetus with beating heart. Harry stares unbelievingly at the screen, an arm, a leg, and a tiny face. The nurse squirts another blob of jelly onto Rose’s stomach and offers the probe again. Rose smiles and raises an eyebrow to Harry.

Two days on, Harry sits working in his Agency office along with other technicians. He makes a phone call. As he waits for the call to connect he takes out a black-and-white ultra-sound rendering of their child. ‘Girl?’ says he with a grin, ‘Ha! With tackle like that, I don’t think so. Hi, son. Hi, Barney.’

The line connects. It’s Rose. They argue. Rose hangs up. He waits an hour then phones again, and again. Each time the same, they argue, Rose hanging up to Harry left staring into the silent receiver – technicians snigger behind his back.

Harry, now alone in the office, calls again. He gushes excitedly into the phone, ‘Rose, listen. Don’t hang up! I’ve found something. Nobody had noticed it… they’re all so bloody clever, pa! The blank part of the original film, underneath there’s some new footage. The old man had laid a new layer of photographic emulsion over it and fogged it. I only found it by accident – he knew I’d find it eventually. It’s of the metamorphosis, very rough, I can hardly make it out. I’ve got the lab chaps digitalising it, putting it into binary, whatever. The buggers hardly speak to me nowadays, so with a bit of luck, they won’t bother to check it and see that it’s new… I’m an annoyance to them now. The good thing about binary is you only see it when you reconstitute it… reconstruct it, whatever. There was something else. One frame is a bunch of equations, what flesh was lost to what proportion was made. I don’t quite understand it yet. Anyway, Rosey, they’ll have to believe me now. What say, come back, please?’

She hangs up. He phones again, this time, Mabel answers, refusing, politely, to let him speak to Rose. Dejected, he makes another call. This time, Kate Ottoman’s sexy voice answers:

‘Lo Harry. Where you been hiding.’

They speak for a short while. Harry finally blows a kiss goodbye. Still holding the phone he asks operator for along-distance call. The line connects. ‘Alfie! My god, it’s good to hear a friendly voice–’

Late afternoon sunshine sneaking lazily through the trees finds Rose resting idly on the stoop of her mother’s house, still in her dressing gown, still very angry, still very pregnant. The telephone is by her side on the table. She sits mesmerised by it, staring at it, willing it to ring. Exasperated, she picks it up and dials Harry’s number, only to slam the receiver down moments before it connects.

Wearily she makes the effort to dress, bids a hasty goodbye and drives off in her mother’s truck, in the direction of the city. Arriving early evening she makes straight to Harry’s hotel apartment block. As she enters the foyer she sees a woman resembling Kate Ottman step into the elevator. Rose makes a dash… the doors starting to shut just as she gets to them. She manages another glance at the back of the woman as the doors close in her face. She is convinced it is Kate. Furiously she turns and makes for the stairs, hurling herself up the two flights, retaining the bloated contents of her stomach with one hand and the handrail with the other. She bursts through the fire doors and into the corridor, just in time to hear an apartment door close. Was it Harry’s room? She charges up to Harry’s door and is about to slam her hand on the oak panel… she hesitates, puts her ear to it and listens. Her face contorts as she strains to hear. A few moments pass… Nothing. She tries her key… the door is bolted from inside. Now enraged she hammers at it and screams out.

‘Open this door, Harry, or I’ll bust it down. OPEN IT!’

She batters at the door until eventually, it opens to Harry, soaking wet and wearing just his dressing gown.

‘Rose. What the devil? What’s happened? The baby, are you–’

She grabs him by the neck of his robe and bullies him back into the room, Harry instinctively covering his groin with both hands.

‘Where is she!?’ she screams hysterical, ‘I’ll kill the bitch, then I’m going to break your noodle neck. Where is the bitch?’

Harry pulls away and backs off, trying to tie his dishevelled, sagging dressing gown. ’The ‘bitch?’ You mean, Rosette?’

‘Don’t try that, you pathetic fucking creep. I saw her. You’ve got Kate Ottman in here, and when I find her I’m going to kick the cellulite out of her lop-sided ass.’ She storms around the apartment searching everywhere, raving as she goes: bathroom, shower, bedrooms, kitchen, and balcony, everywhere. All the time Harry is doing his best to placate.

‘Honest, Rose she isn’t here… Please don’t swear. Calm down… just reason it out. You know me, I wouldn’t risk it here… give me some bloody credit.’

’What the fuck do you mean, ‘credit’?’

Harry giving a face of reason, ‘Look, I could take her to a dozen places… why would I risk it here? Calm down Rose, your condition… please, pleease don’t swear.’

She screws her eyes at him, ‘You think you’re so fucking smart, don’t you? I bet you have had her in a dozen places – Well, I’m not done yet. I can smell her on you.’

‘Don’t, be, ridiculous! I’ve just come out of the shower.’

She pushes past him into the main bedroom again, pulling the bedclothes off the bed, inspecting and sniffing the sheets, then rips them away. Harry shakes his head in disbelief. Unabashed, she starts opening the half dozen doors of the huge wall-to-wall wardrobes, starting at the far end.

‘For heaven’s sake Rose, nobody hides in wardrobes anymore. God, you look ridiculous.’

Rose crashes back the doors, making her way towards the last three. Harry is leaning on the frame of the last door, he shakes his head and smiles mockingly as the penultimate door crashes open revealing nothing but Harry’s clothes, the door falling off its hinges. Undeterred she continues to the last door, Harry moves out of her way. Rose is weeping now, floods of tears, as she rips it, exasperated, open to reveal… Kate! Crouching naked in the foetal position, eyes screwed tightly closed, body rigid anticipating the blow she knows is coming. It doesn’t come! – Harry, aghast starts to move his hands to protect his groin again. He stands rigid.

Rose turns on him, wiping away her tears. ‘And don’t think you’ve gotten away with this, Harry. I know you, and I know that bitch! I’m damn sure I saw her in the lift.’

Harry, realising Rose has not even looked into the last opened door, starts to relax. The change in the tone of her voice already conceding defeat. He raises his hands to her shoulders and attempts to move her away. Rose, assuming her mistake, had opened the last door as mere formality.

Kate, her eyes still screwed up, squats rigid hardly believing her luck, then… WHAM! The door crashes closed in her face, and slips askew off one hinge, Rose’s last act of frustration as Harry leads her out of the bedroom and into the main room.

Harry, relieved, confused and grateful, resumes his lofty pretence of hurt pride. ‘Rose… Rosey, give me credit. Sit down,’ says he, oozing authoritative innocence to the now desperately apologetic, weeping Rose. They undress and make love on the divan – Kate voyeur, spying through the crack in the door.

Passions spent, Harry puts on his dressing gown.

Rose sighs as she starts to get dressed, ‘I must go home, Hal, I got to get Ma’s truck back. I had to come. I had to see you.’

Harry starts to take off his dressing gown. She stops him, ‘No, don’t get dressed, Hal, I don’t want you to see me out. I’ll see you soon.’

‘But–’

‘Give it up Harry, please.’

‘Rose, I…’

‘…can’t.’ Defeated, she finishes his sentence. ‘I know. Sorry about the damage, sorry about… The agency will pay, of course.’

‘Of course.’

Rose leaves. Harry stands at the door and watches her disappear into the lift. He goes back in, closes the door, locks it and bolts it. When he turns, Kate is standing in the middle of the room, still naked, holding a pillow to her front. She twists the bottom half of her body, offering her bare butt to his view. ‘You see any cellulite, Harry? – Who goes on top, you or her?’

‘You should know, you were bloody watching us!’

‘You’d better be careful she doesn’t get you pregnant.’

‘Christ, Kate, I told you, never to come here, didn’t I? … Didn’t I!?’

Kate gives a mocking smile. ‘What’s up lover-boy got nothing left?’

Harry eyes her lustfully. ‘Oh yes, regrettably, I’ve always got something left, God help me. A quickie, then I’m off. I’ll see you as planned, tonight at the office. And never, ever, come here again.’ He walks over to her and smacks her bare rump.

––From a vantage point in the adjacent apartment directly across the street, through military binoculars, Harry and Kate are being observed: Harry’s back-lit silhouette walking out of view and into the bedroom, after a few seconds the light goes out. Inside the adjacent apartment, Casey sighs in frustrated disappointment. He steps away from the window and puts the binoculars away, scribbles a few lines in his notebook, gives a wry, unsatisfied smile, then gathers his belongings and hurries out. He leaves the building and makes for his car. As he drives away, another car, driven by Cameron, ominously follows for a few moments then overtakes and drives on.

Around midnight – the witching hour approaching – Harry expectantly enters his unlit office. He calls into the darkness in his soppy, singsong voice, ‘Katey, hell,ooo! Where are you, honey? Kate, sweetie I can hear your heavy breathing, and I can smell your perfume.’ He strains to listen. ‘What’s that other noise? What are you doing?’

‘Over here, Harry, I’m making myself ready for you… You’re early.’

Harry tiptoes over to the direction of the voice. ‘You naughty girl, I couldn’t wait. Where are you?’ As his eyes accustom to the light he makes for the stack of metal filing cabinets: the direction of the voice. One large cabinet door is open. As he is about to poke his head around it Kate’s head appears over the top.

‘BOO!’

Harry jumps. Kate hangs her blouse over the door revealing her large, naked breasts, then stretches out her hands and pulls Harry towards her.

‘Hey, you’re all wet. What have–’

She stifles his words with a big, open-mouthed kiss. Harry responds eagerly, a long kiss, just the door separating them. When he tries to pull away, she holds him fast. After a few moments, he tries again to pull away, and again she holds onto the kiss. Harry’s hands push at her shoulders but she won’t give way. He can’t breathe. He struggles. He is now close to panic as he approaches the limit of his breath. Still, Kate holds on. Harry is choking! As he lurches back, his feet lose their grip and he slips backwards. Kate’s hold loosens. Harry, now bleeding from the mouth, coughs and splutters. He retches as Kate’s long serpentine tongue rips out from deep in his throat. The blood coloured tentacle thrashes at him. In his panic he slides backwards on the slippery floor, his feet kicking upwards, catching the open cabinet door and slamming it shut tight, wedging the grotesque, flaying tongue fast in its steel jamb. The Kate monster is held tight.

From his vantage point on the floor, between the cabinets, Harry gets a full view of the horror: Kate, perfect down to just below her knees, below this her lower legs are unfinished, forming before his eyes. She is fused in a bubbling mass of slime, tissue, and decomposing flesh. Within this slime-pool lies the half consumed body of a man, a torso lying writhing and shuddering in a frenzy of pain and ecstasy. Just visible through the blood-slime is the shock of wavy hair, the remnant of Casey.

From this unearthly union a new Kate, now perfectly formed, rises, a phoenix from her own, and Casey’s, ashes. For a second Harry does nothing, scarcely believing his eyes. Then he’s up and running, but going nowhere, his shoes gliding through the widening pool of jelly oozing freely from the heap of offal that once was his old adversary.

Kate swishes her head, to and fro, trying to free the two-foot tongue, ripping at the flaying ligature. It splits and tears, spilling out blood and slime. She is free. Harry’s feet find terra firma through the slime, and he’s off. He gains the door, so does the projectile tongue. Kate, however, does not. Despite his terror Harry has the wit and control to grab the handle of the door as he exits, and slams it home behind him, once again wedging the tentacle tongue.

In calculated panic, Harry’s hands glide through the casement glass of the fire-cabinet, to the old-fashioned double-handed fire-axe. He turns, holding the axe above his head, and watches mesmerised for a few petrified moments, Kate’s jumbled silhouette thrashing behind the reed-fluted glass door panel – the tip of her tongue absurdly dangling Harry’s side.

With one fluid movement, the axe passes through the glass panel and lands, up to the stock, into the crown of Kate’s head. An ear-splitting, high-pitched scream as the Kate-thing dies instantly and soundlessly… it is Harry screaming.

All is now silent. Harry stands like a pillar of salt, looking in through the shattered door at Kate’s body. Her tongue, ripped out from the root with the force of the blow, still held fast in the door jam. She lies naked, her body adorned with jewel-like shards of glass, plus axe appendage. Harry remains inert for some moments. Now something unseen lifts him from his stupor. His face reacts to the rising, revolting, all-consuming odour. On realizing the origin of this pungent stench he slowly waddles off to the lift, heading for the gymnasium a floor below, desperately trying not to displace the unwelcome package swaying pendulously between his legs, suspended, cradled in his underpants.

Ten-minutes later Harry exits the lift, out into reception. He is now wearing an ill-fitting tracksuit, headband, and trainers, and carrying a paper package under his arm. He walks up to the desk.

The lone security guard gives him a quizzical look. ‘Mr. Mandrake, where in hell did you come from, and what the heck’s that goddam smell?’

‘Sweat,’ answers Harry with difficulty, his throat still sore, ‘Honest sweat, old luv… the smell of the gym… been working out… only time I get is at night, d’you see?’

‘What’s a matter with your throat?’

‘Neck-presses. Now, pay attention. This is of the utmost importance: Phone Major and tell him meet me here in exactly one half-hour. He must come. No matter what argument he puts, he must come.’

The guard bulks at Harry’s assumed authority, ‘Now you wait a goddam–’

‘–Just listen!’ snaps Harry, oozing authority. ‘Have Major wait here for me, in reception. Don’t let him or anyone else pass. Do, you, understand!? This is of National Importance… I have the authority. Nobody passes, right?’

‘Yeah, but–’

‘–I have the authority. Your job is on the line here. Nobody passes, there’s a good chap. Now I’m going for a jog. Here in half-an-hour.’

The guard’s annoyance, at being put-upon, is heightened by Harry’s patronising manner. He concedes grudgingly, ‘Got it, Mr. Mandrake, I got it,’ adding to himself, as Harry departs, ‘you crazy Limey fuckn’ jerk!’

Outside the Carnegie agency, Harry starts his jog. Across the street in a waiting car, Cameron watches. Next to him is stone-faced Rosette. She rolls her eyes in dire disappointment as Harry exits. Cameron slams the steering wheel in frustration and then drives off into the night. A short way from the building Harry dumps his unwanted package into a big metal trash bin.

Twenty-five minutes later, Major bursts through the great doors – Rex and Hamish close behind – Major yells at the guard, ‘Where the hell is he? I’ll kill him with my bare hands. I’ll–’

Harry, still in the tracksuit, enters. ‘Major!’ he calls, ‘Good, you’re on time.’

‘Mandyke, you fuckn’ imbecile! What in hell do you mean by dragging me out here in the middle of the night? It had better be worth it man or I’ll have you certified.’

Harry, still racing blood from his ordeal with Kate, explodes at Major’s unexpected bad temper. ‘DRAKE! for Christ sake! Man,drake! Get it right, you blasted moron. It’s been eight bloody months, damn it, DRAAAKE!’

‘Drake’!’ says Major, puzzled, ‘What the hell are you raving about, man?’

Harry closes his eyes in exasperation, ‘Follow me, I have something to show you.’

Major, Rex and Hamish follow Harry into the lift without further word. In the confines of the elevator Hamish, sniffing the air, gives a quick suspicious look to the sole of his shoe. The journey up is most uncomfortable, the four trying to avoid looking at each other, three of which pondering the origin of the offending smell, the other, pondering the futile explanation he is about to offer.

Harry, now dressed in tailored suit, shirt and tie walks immaculately and warily up to Major’s office. He makes three abortive attempts to knock, at the forth, claiming a morsel of valour, he taps gently. – It is the morning after the night before.

‘IN!’ Major’s voice booms out.

Harry enters. Major is sitting stoically behind his desk, Rex and Hamish standing either side. Major speaks without looking from his papers.

‘Don’t sit down – this won’t take long. We’ve tidied up after you.’

‘Just hear–’

‘Don’t speak,’ yells Major across the office, ‘Don’t sit. I don’t even want to look at you. Just listen!’

‘I cleaned up your mess,’ adds Rex, with malice.

Harry again tries to speak, ‘Just hear me out–’

‘Will you shut up! None of this gets out, understand? Now, we’ve got a month to go of the present contract. The Russians have started their own Mars programme so we may just be able to put this mess down to industrial espionage, maybe. It’s up to you.’

Harry gives an angry, puzzled look. ‘You can’t possibly think of brushing this under the carpet, Major,’ says he in disbelief, ‘Kate was supposed to be a plant! We’d never have known if I hadn’t got to her before she finished metamorph–’

‘Jeezus! Will you shut up!’

‘But it’s out there bloody feeding, for God’s sake!’

‘You have nothing on for the next few days?’ says Major, ignoring, ‘No more fucking murders planned?’

‘What! Why? I don’t like the bloody sound of this.’

‘We have one last task for you,’ says Hamish, trying to hide his look of contempt, ‘We want you to check out another body.’

Harry is shocked to silence. He takes two quick steps towards Major. Hamish leaps the desk and grabs him in a bear hug before he finishes a third.

‘No way!’ screams Harry through restricted larynx, ‘I won’t do it… I won’t! Not a hope in hell!’ He struggles, kicks, and weeps.

Major unmoved. ‘That’s just about what you’ve got, buddy, a hope in hell. You’ll do it because you’ve got no other choice. The boys have all your notes.’ He leans forward and places a bundle of bills, papers and receipts onto the table.

Harry shrinks at the sight of them. ‘I can explain these. They–’

’No, ‘I can explain these’. You thought we were easy pickings. You’re in big trouble, buddy.’

‘But–’

‘A Mafia-connected bookmaker: you owe them money. Maybe I’ll let them have you, save us the trouble.’

‘No! You can’t–’

‘And you’re in trouble with us. You sold us out to that lunatic, Casey. And you’re in trouble with Narcotics. You corrupted and bought drugs and medical apparatus, illegally, from a state registered dental surgeon.’ Major stares. Harry has to look away.

‘But best of all, Hal,’ says Rex, now taking up the inquisition, ‘we’ve also got you on a murder-one rap. The police have got Kate’s body on ice and we’ve got the axe with your prints on it. They’ll fucking crucify you. You ripped her tongue out while she was still alive then you killed her with a single axe-blow to the head. You’ll do it.’

Tears of fear well in Harry’s eyes… moments pass and he is openly weeping.