Jane Eyre vs. The Mighty Boosh

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Vince Noiyre, a young governess, takes a position at Thornfield Hall under the watchful eye of Howard Moonchester. But what are those noises coming from the attic? Why does everyone think Vince is a girl? And how old is Naboo?

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Chapter One: In which Miss Noiyre arrives at Thornfield, blowjobs are mentioned, and the housekeeper has a problem with unsightly facial hair.

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Chapter One: In which Miss Noiyre arrives at Thornfield, blowjobs are mentioned, and the housekeeper has a problem with unsightly facial hair.

Reader, I married him.

Oh shit, wait – that comes later. Let me start over.

My name’s Vince, but most people call me Miss Noiyre, which is… well, yeah, I have a whole androgynous charm thing going on, and I use a little make-up occasionally, only to bring out the gifts I was given in spades, right, but still, there’s no excuse for thinking I’m a girl. But mostly I let it go, ‘cause I’m a governess.

Or governor.

Come to think of it, maybe that’s it. See, they don’t have many male nannies where I’m from, it’s all a bit backwards here. And jobs are scarce enough for an electro-ponce-slash-classic-frontman making ends meet – for now – by teaching snotty little brats just how many dinky little countries Britain happens to be oppressing at this moment in time. So when your boss calls you “Miss” and asks you to wear a dress, if the money’s good enough, there are some issues that don’t get raised.

It was raising the dress that was the problem.

Anyway, I don’t really wanna get into it, but long story short, that job’s over and I’m heading on to pastures new. This place Thornfield sounds cool, as far as I know there’s just one little girl there to teach, which is easy, compared to some of the gigs I’ve had.

So here I am, sitting in this rickety old trap – that’s, like, an old coach thing – winding my merry way along all these bumpy and dusty little country roads, wondering if taking a job right out in the sticks was such a good idea. I miss London already. But, out here in the middle of… Christ, I don’t even know what county I’m in any more – anyway, wherever I am is one of the only places that won’t have heard about my little… the thing that happened that got me sacked. Well, I quit. Anyway. Also this guy Moonchester didn’t ask for references.

Actually, that’s a bit worrying, now I think about it.

I’m dressed in my travelling clothes – just your simple studded leather jacket, belted at the waist, on top of a silk wrap-around top that maybe shows off a little too much skin, but fuck it, and my tightest jeans. Oh, and boots. I like boots. Not that I’m short, I just… like ‘em. These ones are red, they’re wicked.

And this farmer guy that Moonchester sent to pick me up from the station keeps giving me these knowing looks, like either he thinks he can give me half a guinea for a blow job, or he knows something about Thornfield I don’t. And he’s about a hundred and six, so he isn’t getting anywhere with the first option.

So when we pull up outside I’m pretty much prepared for anything. Thornfield’s this gorgeous old place, bit old-school gothic maybe but I like that kinda thing. Huge building, hundreds of windows that I’d bet Moonchester has a fleet of maids to clean ‘cept that they’re all filthy, which isn’t a good sign for that raise I was planning to ask for.

And outside the front door, right? I swear I’m not making this up.

There’s a gorilla.

In a pinny and a little maid’s cap. With his/her (how do you tell with gorillas?) hands tucked neatly behind his/her back, the picture of propriety, except I didn’t think propriety would be quite so hairy.

Farmer Guy pulls up outside, not shocked, and this is what he must have been giggling about. Well, ‘cept then he licks his lips and winks, so I’m figuring a little of both. I give him the finger, Jagger-style (John Jagger, old mate of mine from school, ‘bout as rock’n’roll as you like) and hop off the trap, landing perfectly, not easy on boots, but I practice.

The gorilla does a little curtsey, and I guess I can tick off an item on my list of ‘things to see before I die’.

“Miss Noiyre?” the gorilla says in this deep growly voice, and despite the dress I decide it must be a ‘he’. Well, who am I to talk about dresses, eh?

“Mr, actually,” I say, ‘cause servants knowing your gender pronoun ain’t the same as kicking up a fuss in front of the master. “And you can just call me Vince.” I hold out a hand, and he grins, showing about a billion teeth. He’s got one hell of a handshake. His hand feels like my jacket, and suddenly I’m really glad I decided not to travel in my gorilla-fur coat.

“My name Bollo. Did you bring bags?” he asks, and he’s got this strange sort of stilted way of speaking that misses out verbs and possessive pronouns – see? Governess by name and nature – and I have to stop myself from going, “My name is Bollo. Try again.”

Instead I just point behind me at the trap, the whole back half of which is covered in trunks, suitcases, satchels, and a dressmaker’s dummy with no arms that I picked up for a song in St. Giles. So cheap my guess is either it was stolen or it was used as a murder weapon in some trial I haven’t heard about, on account of saving my money more for lipstick than for newspapers.

Bollo’s eyes widen when he sees all my baggage, and seeing as no other servants are rushing out or anything, I’m guessing maybe Moonchester’s fallen on hard times, maybe Bollo is the only servant. He certainly looks a bit overworked. I think he’s starting to moult under the arms. So I give him a hand, and I think about asking Farmer Guy to help too, ‘cept I’m worried about what he might expect as a reward. Takes us a few minutes, but eventually all my stuff is out on the driveway, and Farmer Guy buggers off in a cloud of dust and an evil cackle.

If they made horror movies at this point, he’d be the guy going, “Don’t go oop ta Carstle Draculaarr, marsters…”

Bollo’s pinning his little mop cap back on his head – it’s adorable, really, makes me think about getting one myself – and looking at this heap of bags, and back up at the house. I know that being the new governess, they’ll have put me in the most distant part of the house, some dark and dingy room where a girl hung herself fifteen years ago. Hey, there’s a point. Moonchester’s got a kid, right? Then he must have been married at some point. Or, you know… I mean, I don’t judge, but times are like that. Half a crown says he’s widowed.

Anyway, so it took us ten minutes to move all of this stuff two feet, Christ knows how long it’ll take to drag it up fourteen flights of stairs. “Don’t worry,” I say. “Let’s just leave it for now, go and have a cuppa.” This isn’t London, after all – I’m sure my bags’ll be okay.

Bollo nods in thanks, and does a little gesture to show that I should go into the house first – I don’t know whether it’s because he still thinks I’m a lady, or because I’m new, but if it’s the first one then it’s an argument to have another time, and maybe not with someone who could knock me through a wall with a casual backhand.

Inside, Thornfield is just as dusty and dingy as it looked from outside, the floor’s been swept which is fair play to Bollo, but the pictures and tables are all thick with dust, like a little furry carpet of it everywhere. There are some stairs going straight up, all mahogany and green velvet, and they must’ve been really majestic at some point. Not that I’ll get to use ‘em much – and if this is the state of the public part of the house, the servant’s quarters’ll be half missing, from the looks of things.

Bollo takes me down a dimly lit corridor to what turns out to be quite a nice kitchen, sort of like my mum’s, well, except I’m an orphan and I suspect the memories I have are more out of furniture catalogues than real life. You know, mum leaning over a tray of warm cookies while little kiddiewinkies frolic at her feet. That sort of thing.

But this place is nice, homely. There’s a big pine table right in the middle, and I pull out a chair, resisting the urge to put my feet up. Bollo fusses about with teapots and strainers and milk jugs, the bow of his little apron wiggling behind his back.

“So what’s the setup here? You the only guy working?”

Bollo pours out in a cracked china cup, and I add about eight sugars, I like things sweet.

“Bollo work here three months. All other servants gone long time ago.”

I nod sagely. “That’ll be after the missus popped off, yeah?”

Bollo looks confused, his eyebrows… well, let’s be honest, he doesn’t actually have eyebrows. Or at least, I can’t find them in the rest of the fur on his face. But something comes together with something else, almost as if his eyebrows had pulled together in an expression of confusion. Boy, inter-species body language is tough.

“No one dead.”

I stir my tea. “No? Hmm… she’s not a nutter, is she? That happened at this other place I was at, mistress of the house went right off her trolley, got carted off to a ‘sanatorium’. Everyone split after that.”

Bollo shakes his head.

Great. Well, there must be a way of putting this delicately… “So the kid’s a bastard then?”

Bollo chokes on a mouthful of lukewarm tea. “Naboo is no bastard. But Howard not married.”

Must be like a niece or summat. And Howard, what a dull name. Sounds like he wears one of those cardigans with the leather patches on the elbows, and smokes a pipe, reading philosophy all the time. “Where is he, anyway? I figured he’d be here to say hello, see what I’m like.”

“Howard not back til tomorrow.”

And that’s that, it seems. I don’t get any explanation, no ‘he had to go see farmer’ or ‘he off seeing doctor for fungal feet’, or even, ‘he gone to see prostitute because he not had any in very long time’, any of which could be true with a name like ‘Howard’. Bollo and I finish up our tea, and it’s getting late, and I’m fucking wasted from both the long journey and the truly awesome leaving do I was at the night before, so when he sees me yawning he takes me out to the entrance hall.

I groan, thinking about all them bags we gotta lug up to my room, but when I poke my head out of the door they’re all gone. “Fucking thieves!” I start shouting, but Bollo puts a hand on my arm, and takes me upstairs.

Down a long corridor, right at the end (told ya) is my room, and inside are all my bags. Even my dressmaker’s dummy is set up nicely in the corner by the window.

I turn to Bollo. “I thought you said you were the only servant?”

“Naboo must have done it.”

I look at the bags, weighing several tonnes. “An eight year old girl carried all this?”

“Poof,” Bollo says, and I feel my hand already bunching into a fist.

“What did you call me?”

“No, no,” Bollo says quickly, and makes a weird gesture of, like, throwing some dust at me. “Poof. Magic. Voodoo magic.”

And there’s a point where I’m tempted to argue, but there doesn’t seem to be anything missing, and I remember this one house where the cook made the best damn stew you’d ever tasted, but he’d go missing two, three days out of every month, and there’d be wolf sightings, and sheep disappearing in the night, and when he came back he’d make more lamb stew, and there are some questions you just don’t ask. I mean, I’ve seen weirder shit in my time than an eight-year-old voodoo practitioner. And anyway, I’m fucking exhausted.

Bollo leaves me a candle. I’m too tired to start unpacking now, I just kick off my boots and my jacket, lie down on the bed, and I’m out straight away.

I dream about something above me, moving around, some kind of weird gargoyle/harpy thing jumping around on the roof of my bedroom and climbing in through the window and sucking out my soul, and then it turns into the Farmer Guy and tries to take my jeans off, only I’m wearing a chastity belt, and he tries to have sex with that, with me just lying there and watching him in bafflement as he ‘clunk clunk’s away at it, and I think about how maybe going the whole day on only a hunk of blue cheese was a bit stupid.