Bronte's Inferno XXII (Enough Room For Hattie Jacques)

I could tell you I was looking at the decor, the sconces with those faux-candle electric bulbs and the stained wood wainscoting; the holes in the thin balsa gave the impression of a long-abandoned set for a Hammer film. I could, because I did – for as long as it took to notice. I thought about the Editor-At-Large, wondered what his and Charnel House's stance on The Male Gaze was. Then I did some male gaze-ing. The balsa-wooded corridor was about as long as a cricket pitch. We had just about reached the stumps, when Hella looked over her shoulder at me and winked. Maybe she wasn't too bothered about what I'd been looking at.

'It is just through here,' she pushed at a door that swung like a branch end leaf in the wind. It must have been balsa-wood too.

Hella waved me in with an arm that should have been draped in a Lily Munster sleeve.

'I hope you vill be…'

'Com-for-ta-ble, yeah I get it. Maybe I will, as long as that bed isn't a film-set prop.'

'I voz going to say, joining us for dinner.'

'Us?'

'Oh, just the old gang.'

'Ma Baker's? Ned Kelly's? The Sugar Hill?'

'You are making the jokes. Splendid, laughter is the best medicine… especially in the dark.'

I half expected the generator outside to give up the ghost and be plunged into darkness.

Hella brushed past me on her way out, although there was enough room for Hattie Jacques to get by and leave fresh air between us.

The bed was the real thing, at least it didn't collapse when I tossed my bag on the counterpane. A four poster, with tapestry drapes and a tester that were at once both faded in colour and begrimed by time. The finials atop the columns almost reached a ceiling that seemed improbable, judging by the apparent height of the building, when viewed from outside. Perhaps it had seemed smaller due to the rain and the dark. There was more wainscoting. It looked identical to the mock-up stuff in the corridor. I gave a tap to a panel next to a washstand that was even older than the bed looked. It was the real thing, or an imitation so accurate it didn't matter. I gave the panelling a shave-and-a-haircut knock just for luck, as if I were "an American, already".

I looked at my watch. It showed a quarter past five. Dinner "vould be at 8", with some dreadful spirit as an aperitif, a half-an-hour earlier, no doubt. I threw myself on the bed and landed on my messenger bag. I was asleep in minutes, despite the pain in my kidneys.