Business as Usual


Chapter 6 The girlfriend



Agnes spent the next day baking and worrying about Spike. She couldn’t understand why he’d rushed away when she’d told him about that young man, Riley Finn and how he’d staked poor Sandy. Or was it because Mr. Finn had been sampling blood from vampires as well? It was all very confusing.

Still, she expected Spike to turn up at the tearoom some time during the night. He usually did and she had to admit she looked forward to his visits. Agnes had found it hard to make close friends since she’d arrived in Sunnydale. She sighed as she rolled out pastry to make apple turnovers – to be fair she hadn’t had too many back in her other life in England.

She had been a member of the local Women’s Institute, of course. And although she hated to think bitter thoughts, she knew that their annual fete would not have been so successful if she hadn’t been there, running the cake stand, supplying the goodies for the tea tent.

But even then, although the Chairlady had thanked her every year in her speech, she’d never invited Agnes to the select little luncheon she always hosted in her very grand house when the final amounts of money were counted.

And of course now Agnes was a vampire, she didn’t think she could possibly join the different groups that she’d heard of in Sunnydale.

There were several church choirs, a quilting society, which she would have loved to have belonged to - she, was a dab hand with a needle – and even a gardening club, although the ‘not being able to go out during the day’ might have made taking part in that one a little difficult.

Agnes sighed and allowed herself the luxury of five minutes sit down before she began the weary journey out to the garbage dump. Her back ached from bending over the tiny stove and tabletop where she prepared her food.

She shut her eyes, overwhelmed with tiredness. Some people seemed to enjoy life as a vampire, but all it meant to her was hard work and dirt. She missed having a garden; just a tiny patch to call her own, to grow a few begonias and herbs, maybe some early salad vegetables.

Agnes wondered who was living in the rooms over her tearoom back in Winchester and wondered if they still put out organic birdseed in the feeders she had hung around the fences.

Suddenly a tear ran down her face and she felt her bottom lip tremble. Oh, how she wanted to go home!

But she couldn’t. “Needs must!” she said out loud and got to her feet. “Buck up, old girl. Not like you to feel sorry for yourself. There’s thousands worse off than you. Think of all the starving people in Africa!”

But as she began to pack her cakes and cookies into the trolley she used to convey them to the dump, she wondered if perhaps being a vampire was worse than starving. Blood was so difficult to come by, except by those methods that Agnes only apologetically used when she was desperate.

“What you need, Agnes Pringle, is a hobby. Something to take your mind off your problems.” Perhaps she could start a lady vampire’s book club, or even offer cooking lessons to any young girl setting up a crypt for the first time.

Or boy, of course, Agnes told herself firmly. She was quite aware that this was today, this was America and she understood all about young men living together, although, if she was being totally honest, she didn’t quite understand what they – well - did.

And although she understood, that didn’t mean she had to approve, of course. At least she was quite certain that Spike was quite happy to have a girl friend. Agnes knew there was a girl who shared his crypt, and she had a funny feeling that his anger towards The Slayer woman wasn’t based wholly on hatred.

When the attack came, it was vicious and unexpected. One moment she was carefully packing gingerbread men into a box and the next she was fighting for her life as someone hurtled through the door – without knocking! – and hurled her to the floor.

Someone was pulling her hair! Scratching, biting, growling!

Agnes felt her face change into the distressing lumpiness that she hated so much. She twisted and kicked and for one dreadful moment she thought she heard herself using a word she didn’t know she knew!

“Leave my boyfriend alone, you bitch!” a voice hissed in her ear and a hand slapped her across the mouth.

Agnes, who had once played hockey for the second eleven at school – it consisted mainly of the rougher sort of girls who didn’t make the first team and those like her who no one ever chose – had learnt at an early age that the best means of defence is attack. Without thinking twice, she snapped her fangs tight around one of the fingers as it crossed her mouth.

“Ow! Ow! That hurt. Jeez, I’m bleeding!”

Agnes staggered to her feet, gasping for breath. She stared down at the girl still sitting on the floor, sucking her finger. She was young, blonde and pretty. As Agnes looked, the bumpy ridges on the face vanished and she stared up at the older woman, tears glistening on her cheeks.

“That really hurt! You’re mean and – ” as she looked at Agnes her eyes grew bigger and rounder – “totally old!”

Agnes reached out a hand and pulled the girl to her feet. She was wearing a very short skirt and a top that left nothing to the imagination. Agnes shook her head: it got cold at night, even in Sunnydale; this child would catch her death of cold – well, she would if she wasn’t already dead, of course, but a cold was just as nasty for a vampire as it was for a human.

“I am certainly older than you, Miss – Miss – ”

“Oh Kendall, Harmony Kendall.”

“Harmony? What a very pretty name. I am Agnes Pringle.”

The blonde girl smiled and her face lit up. “Oh, do you think it’s a pretty name? I’m sort of used to it, of course. My best friend used to say it was dreadful, that it sounded as if I came from the poorest part of town. She had a really great name, from a book by that guy Shakespeare!”

Agnes frowned and tutted. “Well, she doesn’t sound like much of a friend to me, but then, as you say, I’m older than you.”

Harmony suddenly looked apprehensive. “Oh jeez, did I hurt you much? I thought you were young. I’d never beat up an old lady.”

Agnes, who admittedly would not see forty again, or even forty-five, picked up a chair that had got overturned in the fight. Old lady, indeed!

“It doesn’t matter how old I am, Harmony. You have no right to go around fighting. Why did you hit me, anyway?”

Harmony flung herself down in the chair that Agnes had been about to sit in. Absentmindedly, she reached out and picked up a slice of treacle tart that had fallen to the floor during the fight – Agnes always found that adding a soupcon of blood to the treacle made the syrup go further and increased the flavour.

“My Blondie Bear keeps on talking about you, on and on – Agnes this, Agnes that, Agnes wouldn’t say that or do the other. I got sick and tired of hearing about you. But I thought you wanted Spikey for yourself so I decided to come round and tell you to leave him alone. I didn’t realise you were old.”

Agnes watched as another slice of tart vanished between the pouting lips. So this was Spike’s girl friend. She was pretty but not – well, she didn’t seem particularly bright, but perhaps she had hidden talents. So many girls did these days. Agnes sighed and wondered why she’d never discovered any of her own.

“Spike is my friend,” she said carefully and began picking up the broken cookies and cakes. The tearoom wouldn’t be open for business this evening. Not unless she could rustle up a batch of chocolate brownies or perhaps a lemon meringue using the cookie crumbs or –

“Can you have a friend who’s a man?” Harmony asked wistfully. “That’s weird, but I suppose when you’re old, it doesn’t matter about sex.”

Agnes flinched. That was a word she usually pretended not to hear. The last time she had had – well, warm feelings – for a gentleman, he’d bitten her and she’d ended up here in Sunnydale! Sex, Agnes decided, was greatly over-rated.

“Surely Spike is your friend as well as your – ” she hesitated and settled for “companion?”

Harmony gazed into a distance that didn’t seem to contain too much happiness. “He likes sleeping with me,” she said frankly. “But I don’t think he loves me.” Another tear trickled down her face. “I don’t think he even likes me very much,” she whispered.

Agnes stopped cleaning the floor and glanced sharply at the vampire girl. She had too much experience of pain and rejection herself not to recognize them in someone else. This young woman was being hurt and, although it distressed Agnes to acknowledge it, Spike was the one doing the hurting.

“There is a very old saying about couples,” she said slowly. “One who kisses and one who turns the cheek.”

Harmony nodded. “That sounds right. Spike’s only really ever loved his first girlfriend. Her name was Drusilla and she was completely mad. But he won’t hear a word said against her. I mean, I’m his girlfriend now. I have rights. I have a position in vampire society as Spike’s lover. I had my own gang recently. I was going places. Now I just hang around, waiting for him to get back from stalking the Slayer!”

Agnes pulled up another chair and sat wearily facing Harmony. “That doesn’t sound much fun. Does he like the Slayer?”

Harmony looked startled. “Ewww! Of course not! He’s trying to kill her. He steals her clothing so he can scent her wherever she goes. We’ve got a whole closet full of it in our crypt!”

“So what do you do when Spike’s out – stalking?”

Harmony shrugged. “There’s nothing to do! That’s the trouble. I’ve made the crypt as nice as possible but you know – cobwebs! Uggh!”

Agnes remembered her own thoughts earlier. “Perhaps you need a hobby? A book club? Quilting? Can you sing?”

Harmony looked horrified. “I’m not very good at anything like that. My best friend’s an actress in Los Angeles. I’d love to do that, but I know I could never remember all those words.” She looked suddenly shy. “I do collect unicorns.”

Agnes clapped her hands together. “Well, that’s definitely a good start. Collecting things is fun. And perhaps you should think carefully about getting away for a little while. How about visiting this friend of yours? Los Angeles is an interesting place, so I’ve heard. Lots of vampires and demons. You might meet someone else…”

“What – leave my Blondie Bear? Oh, I could never do that. He needs me.”

Agnes got up, thinking privately that this young woman was the last person Spike would ever need. But she also sensed that underneath all the glamour and fluffy, she was a survivor, like herself. It took one to know one.

“I’d better get back to the crypt,” the blonde girl was saying now. “I’m sorry about the fight and breaking your cakes and things. You won’t tell Spike I was here, will you. Pretty please? He wouldn’t understand.”

Agnes nodded. “I certainly won’t tell him. Come round to my tearoom at any time and let me know how you’re getting on. And do think again about perhaps visiting your friend.”

Harmony smiled. “I’d love to see Cordy again but it isn’t possible. You see there will always be Spike and while he wants me here, I’ll stay.”

She turned at the door and gazed back at Agnes. “It’s mega weird. Although you’re so old, I feel we’re friends, too. Thanks for the cake. Bye!”

Miss Pringle finished clearing up the mess the fight had caused. She felt sorry for Harmony. She knew Spike well enough to know this was not the girl for him. And it was very ungentlemanly of him to lead her on in this way if there was no future in it.

Agnes found herself yawning and decided she wouldn’t open the tearooms that evening. She was too tired and ached from where Harmony’s punches had landed. And she didn’t actually want to speak to Spike. She felt she might take him to task about his girlfriend and that would not be tactful. Although – she squared her weary shoulders – someone should do something about it and soon.

tbc