The Camden Tales

49 - Wicked

⚜️ THE FIFTH TALE ⚜️

-=₪ November 1932 ₪=-

The Mansion / Margate / 3.49pm

"I can't, no. I won't. No. Please don't make me!"

Malka suddenly opened her tear-stricken eyes to the room. She had been crying in her sleep again. Outstretching her arm, she found Alfie's side of the bed cold and undisturbed.

The room was dim. Turning her head to the right she saw the day's light bleeding around the edge of the curtains like the penumbra of a solar eclipse. Turning her head to the left, she cast her eyes over the nightstand beside her.

Awkwardly, she rolled over and heavily fumbled about the nightstand without much focus. Knocking an ashtray to the floor, she spilt ash and cigarette butts across the rug which was almost followed by her gin glass as she continued to bang her hand about the medicine bottles and powder. Finding the brass clock and grabbing it she pulled it to her face but struggled to see what it said. Squinting, her eyes stung and watered as she discovered that daytime was almost over and soon it would be evening.

Her tongue felt like sandpaper. Wanting a cigarette and a drink, she climbed out of bed, staggered to the bedroom door, and made her way downstairs to the drawing room. She hung on to the bannister for dear life with every step as she descended.

Reaching the drawing room, Malka stood in the doorway and took in the state of the room in the cold, harsh light of day. Still squinting, she looked to the closed balcony doors as she leaned against the frame of the doorway opposite in her long white nightdress with hair so tangled and unkempt it looked like a family of birds were nesting in it.

As she meandered her way across the room, she took caution to not step on the needles, candles, glass tumblers, bottles and much more besides that were strewn about the floor. Unlocking the balcony doors, she opened them wide and hooked them back.

Shivering, she looked out to sea and at the clear blue sky. Seagulls squawked loudly nearby, they annoyed her, so clapping her hands to disturb them they took sudden flight which for some reason made her jump. Shaking off her flinch, Malka grabbed hold of the balustrade and slowly let her eyes slip to the garden below. Her watery eyes stared at the monkey puzzle tree, at its various branches, and down and down its trunk until she reached the rock bottom. Malka closed her eyes tightly shut as her chest caved, winding her. Slowly she sunk to the blue and white patterned tiled ground of the balcony.

-●=»>₪◆₪<«=●-

A Bentley came to a stop in the cul-de-sac of Fort Paragon. A thin, well-dressed man looked out the driver's side window at a large house he hadn't visited in a number of years. The house wasn't the same, he held his breath at the sight of it as he turned off the engine and stepped out of his high-end car.

The once bright white mansion looked dull and dirty with its chipped and worn paint. All the windows of the ground floor had been completely boarded up while some of the panes of the higher windows were cracked, or with holes that had been stuffed with cloth. Across the black front door, dull white walls and boarded up windows was graffiti. Words crudely painted on the house that filled him with sickness.

"Kikes Get Out", "Filthy Jew House", and "Perish Judah" were the ones most prominent.

Walking slowly up the steps to the front door, he rang the bell and waited. A few moments later the door opened, and a gun was thrust into his face.