Business as Usual


Chapter 42

Flames


“I thought you’d be shutting the tea-room tonight, Aggie.” Spike was wandering around the tea-room basement as Agnes tried to ice currant buns and keep a watchful eye on the oven where her Parkin was baking. “It’s Hallow’en – take the night off, most vamps and demons do that.”

The small English vampire cast an anxious glance at him, a look tinged with irritation. She wished her friend would sit still for two minutes; give this nervous pacing a rest. He hadn’t been a frequent visitor recently and that saddened her. He’d been her first and best friend in Sunnydale but since the night of the biker invasion, when the Slayer had returned from the dead, Agnes had realised she could no longer trust Spike to be there for her when she needed him. When he’d had a choice, he’d chosen Buffy Summers.

For a second or two, her sure hands wavered and the icing slid off the bun onto the tray. She was back, years ago, in the first year at her English boarding-school. She knew now that it hadn’t been a good school; the teachers had been second-rate, mean-spirited, bored with trying to educate girls who had no great desire to learn anything. Now Agnes realised that it had been the best her parents could afford; her mother’s desire to better themselves had over-ridden a more sensible course of action – to send her daughter to the local school where she could have learnt to cook professionally at a much younger age.

But plump, fluffly haired, bespectacled, eleven-year old Agnes Pringle had gone to boarding-school, wearing a uniform that was inches too big all over – bought for growth – and a straw boater one size too large that slid down across her ears. She was plunged into a world of friends, cliques and spite that she was woefully unprepared for.

But she’d made a friend – Sally – another new girl and for three glorious weeks, Agnes had known what it was like to giggle and whisper and share secrets. But then – Agnes looked up at Spike who was moodily digging his finger into the pots of different spices on the rack – Sally had decided she no longer wanted to be her friend and had joined up with Brenda Marlow and Jessica Green, the trio who would torment Agnes for the rest of her school life.

Agnes had learnt at an early age that friendships sometimes were not all you’d hoped they would be.

She blinked vigorously and applied herself to her icing again, adding a drop of two of blood to the mixture – it made such a nice shade of pink. She didn’t understand Spike at the moment; she liked him, would always like him. She thought at heart he was a good man; at heart Sally had not been good. But this obsession with the Unturneds, especially the Slayer was bizarre and dangerous.

She started as she realised he was looking at her, still waiting for a reply to his question.

“No – the tearoom will be open. I’ve two big Hallow’een parties booked in. One is for the whole Fninetzh family and I have had to insist that their tradition of eating their oldest relative on October 31st is not one I will allow – not unless they agree in advance to pay for washing the table-cloths!”

Spike shrugged, almost as if he wasn’t listening again, shifting the containers of sugar, flour and currants back and forth on the shelves, opening lids and peering inside.

Agnes hesitated, pushed a stray, fluffy curl back from her forehead, leaving a smear of pink icing in its place, then made up her mind. After all, he could only say no, but why should he? “I wanted to talk to you about tonight, Spike. If you’re not going to be busy, do you think you could take Eric and Nancy out trick or treating? I don’t understand it too well because we never had anything like that at home, but I’ve seen what fun it can be for children over here.”

“Who?”

Agnes turned to the oven, pulled out the Parkin and slapped the tray briskly onto the table. Sometimes she found herself loosing patience with Spike. “Eric and Nancy – you know, Shona’s children. They live just along the passage from here. I know they’re a little old for it, but Eric’s having problems with being Turned – remember, I’ve asked if you could speak to him about – well, about growing up as a vampire, how to cope, how long it will take him and – ” she wanted to add that she was sure there were lots of manly things Eric needed to know that she was unable to tell him, but her voice died away – she could see Spike wasn’t paying attention, her worries about Eric meant nothing to him.

Biting her lip, trying to stop her fangs from appearing and cutting the skin – she’d never mastered the skill to stop this happening – she continued to work and the silence grew thick and heavy in the basement kitchen. Agnes felt both angry and guilty: angry, because she was fond of Eric and knew he needed a male figure in his life and guilty because she knew that she only had to say one word and the floodgates would open. The only person Spike wanted to talk about was Buffy: the Slayer consumed his thoughts, his every waking moment. To Agnes she seemed like some odd virus that had taken over her friend, one he didn’t know whether to fight or welcome.

“The ex-demon girl, Anya, showed me her engagement ring,” she said at last. “She’s getting married to that dark-haired boy you know, Xander.”

Spike nodded absently then he dropped the canister of sugar and spun round, his blue eyes sparkling. “Just shows you, Aggie. People can fall in love with anyone. There’s always a chance that – ”

Agnes was rolling out pastry and banged the rolling-pin down as hard as she could to drown out his words. “Anya is no longer a demon, Spike. And I’m not sure if she really loves this Xander; she loves being engaged, loves the security of marrying, of belonging. Are they in love with each other? He’s an Unturned and she used to be a thousand year old demon. It’s not likely, now is it?”

Spike began scooping the sugar back into the jar, then stopped, irritated by her words. He was fond of Aggie, but sometimes she drove him crazy. She had no idea what a wonderful woman Buffy was. To Agnes she was and always would be just the Slayer. But Spike knew she was far, far more than that.

He glanced at his friend – rolling out pastry – a small, plump, middle-aged vampire with fluffy hair. There was no way she could ever understand the strength of the emotions that were driving him. What did she know about love, passion, desire? Bloody hell, it was impossible to imagine there had ever been a man for whom she would have given up everything.

“I can be what Buffy wants,” he said suddenly. “I know I can.”

Agnes peered up at him, sighing silently. Sensing a fever in his voice that worried her, she knew there was no point in telling him what she thought about the Slayer. She would never change his opinion of Buffy Summers.

“So – what about trick and treating with Eric and Nancy?” she said, valiantly trying to change the subject. “That boy can really use your help, Spike.”

But the vampire was talking as if she’d never spoken: he sat at her kitchen table, gazing into space, seeing – she had no idea what but his voice was hoarse.

“Buffy told me – she was in some sort of heaven and her friends dragged her out. She was finished, her mission completed, at rest. Now she’s back and - Aggie, she’s in pain, suffering. And I’m the only one who can help, who’s there to listen to her. She can’t tell her friends what they’ve done. She won’t hurt them. Can you imagine keeping a secret like that? She clawed her way out of her own coffin. I’ve done that. I can understand.”

Agnes felt a wave of anger wash over her. She didn’t often lose her temper – it left her feeling sick and tired and full of regret – but she wondered if Spike remembered what he was and what she was – a vampire. She tried very hard to keep up with modern idioms and thought that the ungrammatical one she’d heard many youngsters use in the shop would be about right – “Been there, done that, got the T-shirt!” Although she had never actually seen a T-shirt with “I rose from my grave and survived” printed on it, at least she would be entitled to wear one.

She knew it was wrong to be jealous of Buffy Summers, but the Slayer had come back to her own home, her friends and family. Whether it had been right or wrong to bring her back, Agnes didn’t know. All she did know was that she herself had struggled up through a particularly wet and muddy grave to reach what was to her a foreign country only to discover that not only had she become a vampire, she had lost her suitcase with all her new, going- to-Hollywood, holiday clothes in it!

“I’m the only one who’s there for her,” Spike was still speaking, blissfully unaware of the reaction his words were causing. “One day she’s going to need me. So I haven’t got time to take Shona’s kids sodding trick or treating and if I had, I wouldn’t. And let’s face it, Aggie, Eric might as well learn that lesson – vamps don’t do Hallowe’en! Tell him that from me.”

Agnes nodded, unable to reply for a few minutes. What would be the point of trying to explain to Spike that Eric and Nancy were excited because it was the only night they could run freely around town with other vampire children. If anyone saw them, no one would care. If their fangs slipped out, people would think they were wearing good Hallowe’en masks. For a few hours they could act like normal Unturned children.

But if she started to explain to Spike, it might make him feel bad. No, she would keep her feelings secret, pretend that everything between them was as usual. It wouldn’t be difficult; she had spent years pretending her life was OK.

She frowned, putting glace cherries on the final bun, mulling over what she’d just thought. Something didn’t feel comfortable; she was wrong. Eric and Nancy were vampires; why should they act like Unturneds? Why should she want them to? In this case Spike was right. Vampires didn’t do Hallowe’en; it was a lesson the children had to learn. They would probably be better off sitting in the tea-rooms, watching the Fninetzh family devour their oldest relative. That was the world they now lived in; that was an example of the customs and habits they needed to know about.

Agnes carried the tray of iced buns and Parkin upstairs. Even thought she accepted he was right about Hallowe’en, she found it hard to excuse Spike for his lack of interest in the children. He could have helped in some way to guide Eric through the maze of problems a young vampire boy faced.

Spike had left through the basement door, muttering something about checking up on Buffy and maybe seeing Agnes later on. She’d watched him go, aware that he had no idea how much he’d disappointed her this evening.

As she laid the tables for the Hallowe’en parties, blew up balloons and checked that the live appetisers in their little cardboard boxes were still alive, Agnes wondered about love. Could anything that powerful, that consuming, be a good thing? She sensed a fire in Spike that burnt so brightly, every other nearby flame flickered feebly in contrast. But at the end of the day, when the roaring conflagration finally went out, the candles would still be gleaming in the dark.

And her last thought, as much later she wearily cleared up the bloody remains of Great-grandfather Fninetzh from under the table, was that Spike was walking a different path from her and his other friends now and try as she might, all she could see at the end of it was loneliness and despair.

tbc