Execution of Agatha Christie Part 1

~ Chapter One~

"I Wish!"

"I..I didn't call anybody!"

"Then it really doesn't matter what happens, does it?"

{Phantom of the Paradise

                                                                                             1974}

         Passing by the dining room on the way to the kitchen, Agatha Christie caught a glimpse of the typewriter on the large, oval, mahogany dining room table and almost audibly growled at the sight.
Inside the typewriter, there was a sheet of paper, nearly finished when she became bereft of ideas and had to go to bed.  To the left of the typewriter that was facing her, there was the half-finished manuscript for the latest Poirot mystery, "Murder of Roger Ackroyd", to the right, a half inch thick stack of paper.  Would she need more to finish?

    "Oh, GOD, I hope not!  I really don't know how much more of that little ...Belgian I can take!" Christie mumbled to herself.

     Heading to the kitchen, she found her husband pouring coffee and making breakfast of scrambled eggs and sausage.  Weekends were a good time for such gestures and she appreciated them.
"Morning,"  Archibald Christie greeted his wife; offering a brief smile.

    "Morning. Thanks for breakfast."  Agatha greeted her husband as she sat herself down at the pleasant but simple breakfast table.
"Were you on the phone?  Thought I heard you talkin' to someone." Archie Christie turned down the heat on the sausages that were starting to spit grease.

      "Just myself.  Verbally kickin' myself for my foolishness. Nothing serious."  She waved the issue off with a brief chuckle,  "Didn't realize I was talking aloud.  Not so loud I could be heard."

     Serving up his wife's breakfast first, and then his own, Archie sat down at the breakfast table and discussed the day's plans.  “Millicent and I are going to take a ride into the city for some supplies. Need anything?"   Millicent was the cross-border Collie/ Golden Retriever. Two years old and the unofficial Lady of the Manor.  She ate before either of them.

   Agatha pondered silently as she savored the scrambled eggs.  "I'll make a list. I'm sure there's something."

    Pouring coffee into her mug, she added cream and two square lumps of sugar, she stirred and then sipped.

    "You mentioned that you were running low on paper.  I can stop by the stationery shop." Her husband said.

    Agatha wanted to say, "No, forget it. I'm dumping the whole project and tossing the typewriter into the Thames! "   Instead she nodded and picked up a perfectly browned sausage and took a bite.  Hot.  She chased the hot sausage with some scrambled eggs. That took the edge off.

    "What are you going to do today?   Finish off Roger Ackroyd?"

     "I'd just as soon finish off Poirot. Maybe I'll let Dr. Shepherd shoot him before he makes his escape."

   Archibald Christie only shrugged, chasing the last of his eggs with a gulp of coffee.  "How many writers would give their eye teeth to be able to earn their living; doing what they enjoy, and you grumble about it."

    "It's not the writing I'm grumbling about, it's that..."

    "I know!" Archie interrupted his wife's potential diatribe.  "BOY, do I know!   Man's never done you a bit of harm, yet, to hear you talk, you'd think Hercule Poirot was responsible for every hardship you have."

    "I'm not sure he isn't."

     After depositing his breakfast dishes into the sink, Agatha's husband headed upstairs.  "Have a list made up for me when I get down. If nought else, it'll give you something else to think about besides fictional characters you shouldn’t have started writing."

    Agatha was tempted to argue but what could she say? Archie was right.

     By the time her husband returned, dressed and ready for the day,  Agatha presented Archibald  with a list of grocery items along with some writing supplies she needed.  From an old coffee can on the second shelf, behind the company cups and saucers Archibald took out two ten pound notes.

       "Take thirty, just to be safe." Agatha suggested.

      Taking the extra ten pound note from the jar, Archie  headed for the back door. Millicent, who’d been just outside the door, got up and began bounding around the vast back yard.  She’d be going for a ride.  Just about every time her dad appeared first, there was bound to be a car ride involved. 

     "You want me to hurry back?" Archie called, half in, half out the door. 

    "Nah. Take your time. Enjoy the day. I've got a few chores to tackle here before I sit myself down with that book. You and Millicent have fun.  Buy her an ice cream, or maybe a steak bone from the butcher."

       “Enjoy your day!”  Archie Christie said and closed the door.  Letting Millicent in passenger’s side, he got behind the wheel and soon enough, they were off.

   As soon as her husband and the dog were down the road, Agatha returned to the house.  Upon finishing the breakfast dishes, she poured herself a second cup of coffee and headed into the dining room table and the manuscript.

    At the dining room table, sitting at her customary chair, just in front of the china cabinet, Agatha stared at the half- finished page for a good ten minutes without a spark of inspiration coming to her.  She knew what was wrong and her husband said as much.  She should NOT have created this character.

    It all began with the desire, hope...belief that she could compete with her favorite author, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Like the author of the Nancy Drew series, but with more grit.

      Next thing Agatha knew, she was putting character puzzle pieces together for the best possible compliment and yet contrast to Holmes, et ensemble.  Somehow, though, there were more comparatives with the characters from Mr. Doyle's series. How she was able to escape charges of plagiarism, especially concerning the close similarities between LeStradde and Japp, Agatha still puzzled over.  It was both a relief and a source of consternation.  Had Mr. Doyle been informed of her literary efforts and the comparisons to his own characters, there might not be a Poirot to gripe about.  These days, she could afford court costs, but not then.  THEN was before Poirot.  She liked THEN.

    Grumbling to herself, Christie gave up on trying to do anything else with the story, and padded her slippered feet into the sitting room, where she took her journal from the bottom drawer of her desk. The key for which was in a jewelry box she'd had since… forever  that was in the very top drawer.  Hidden in plain sight.

       Journal and fountain pen in hand, Agatha sat in her favorite high-backed chair by the fire place.   On a fresh page, she mentally meandered over the story she was having a difficult time finishing.  It was the WHY of her writer's block that got her scribbling frantically.

      "Why, Oh WHY did I EVER create that DETESTABLE , Bombastic creature?!?"

Agatha wrote in precise, bold lettering.    She had barely completed the last of her emphatic punctuation when she was interrupted by a voice she neither expected or recognized.

     "Good question, Agatha!  Why DID you bother?"

     The shriek Agatha emitted didn't seem to even ruffle the woman she  now faced.  And speaking of faces, it was an equal jolt to the nerves to see the woman was none other than a younger version of Agatha, herself.

   "I'm still sleeping. I have to be!"  Christie pinched herself while wondering if she believed what she was saying.  But she HAD to be dreaming.   In real life, people didn't face the younger versions of themselves in three-dimensional form.

   "I'm real, and I'll leave if you like. Then again, why?  I mean, you did make a wish. Why not find out if it can be granted?"

    "Wish? I didn't wish for anything!"  Agatha puzzled at arguing with what HAD to be a figment of her imagination.

    "Of course you did! Well, not specifically, but you did ask a question. You asked yourself WHY you created Poirot.  With that question comes the hidden wish;  Would you undo what you've done...IF you could?"  The young Agatha (Aggie)  asked. "So?  Would you?"

    "Would I WHAT?"

    "Would you ...UN-create the 'DETESTABLE, bombastic creature'   if you could?" the younger Agatha asked, slightly impatient.

  Christie chuckled , "It's pretty much an academic point. The damage, as the saying goes, has been done. However ,"  she stopped for a click and then replied. "Yes! Yes, if I could, I'd drop that little... pest like the proverbial hot, rotten potato."

    Christie invited her younger self to take a seat on the sofa, which Aggie politely turned down. "I think better when I'm standing, but maybe you should take a seat before you keel over!  My appearance has taken the wind out of you."

    "To say the least," Agatha agreed.  "But I'll wake up soon and all of this will be laughed off."

       "You still think you're dreaming?"

    Agatha rolled her eyes. "I KNOW I am. Real life just doesn't work so ...pleasantly.  No one magically shows up and grants wishes. So I'm either still dreaming or Archie slipped me a mickey in my coffee and I'm hallucinating."

   "Alright, then," Agatha Christie's younger self replied, meandering the sitting room. "suppose all of this is just a dream or hallucination. Play along. What can it hurt?"

   Christie assented with a half-shrug.  "Alright. What's the game?"

"No game, merely a wish for you to make. But CARE-FUL-LY," young Aggie enunciated syllable by syllable.   "A great deal MORE carefully than you began your ...well... regrettable literary venture ,"  the woman said with a sigh.

    "I fail to see how you're so depressed!"  Agatha said, sniping against her younger self.

    "I began that series with the wrong motives. Mea Culpa. But you're just downright ungrateful.  What did Poirot ever do against you to deserve such cruelty?  This," the woman surveyed the room. "is a nice home!  Poirot helped you purchase this place. I can't recall a bad thing he ever did to you."

   "Unless you count ANNOYING me to death! In which case, he's the sole offender."

   "That said," young Aggie insisted.  "what would you say to the option I made mention of, a few minutes ago?  That of..."  she considered her phrasing. "UN-creating Poirot."

    Agatha thought aloud. "This is on the level?"

    In the literal snap of Aggie's fingers, a hand-written legal pad was produced.  "Does THIS answer your question?"  She walked over and handed the manuscript to Agatha, whose eyes widened.

    "This is my hand-written outline for the first Poirot story,  'Mysterious Affair at Styles' .  Where did you..?"

   "I have my sources. Ten thousand pound question, Agatha, is, WHAT are YOU going to do with it?"

   Staring at the first page, and browsing through, the woman remembered the enjoyment she felt as the story began to take shape.  Had she known, then, how she'd feel NOW, would she have found something else to do to distract herself until the story idea died?

   Had it been an hour ago, or mere minutes earlier that Agatha pushed herself to sit before her typewriter, when she would have faced a dental chair with less foreboding than the prospect of working on another Poirot story?

   "So?"  A voice brought Agatha from her dreamscape and she glanced up from the pages to see her younger self standing just before her; arms crossed and tapping the index finger of her left hand on the puffed sleeve of her right arm.

   "So? About what?"

   "What's the answer? What do you want to do about that?" she nodded to the manuscript in Agatha's right hand.

    "You know,” Christie sniped. “ for someone who wants me to consider this matter carefully, you're not being terribly patient."

    Aggie raised her hands in surrender. "Sorry. You're right. You want me to leave and return later?"

   Agatha shook her head and admitted, grudgingly at first.  "No. No. It’s okay. Stay.  Please."  Christie pleaded; staring down at the legal pad in her hand. "Alright. Tell me, again; if I agree to your offer, and toss this manuscript onto the fire, Poirot won't exist anymore?"

     "Better. It will be as though he never existed."  Aggie grinned.

    Agatha shook her head in utter bewilderment. "That's impossible!  Mind you, all of this should be impossible.  And if I wasn't dreaming, it would be."  Christie sighed. "Which makes me wonder why I'm even arguing?"

   Aggie shrugged.  "I have no idea.  On one hand, you fuss and carry on about wishing Poirot never existed. You write about wishing you'd never created him, and now you're stalling. I know I told you to think carefully about your decision, Agatha, but by the sound of things, you've all but made it. You just don't seem to want to act on it."

    "Silly, I know," Christie barely chuckled; sipping on the coffee she returned to the dining room table to retrieve. Of course, Aggie was right behind her.  "On the other hand, I'm guessing that something like this would be permanent.  That said, it makes sense to be extra careful.  After all, what would I do if I couldn't write?"

   Aggie rolled her eyes.  "It's called WORK, Agatha. You were a nurse during the first world war. All else failing, you can go back to that.  Anyway, I never said you couldn't write.  Should you take me up on this offer, you couldn't....”  Aggie pondered for the right word.  “RESURRECT Poirot. It's THE term of agreement.   So, you'd have to find something else to write."   The younger Agatha shrugged. "I would think you'd be jumping at the chance to write about anything or any ONE else but Poirot."

    Agatha Christie considered the possibility, fanning through the hand-written pages of the first story.    Life without Poirot at once sounded like acquittal from a death sentence and, oddly, at the same time, eviction from her home.  Properly, that wasn't too far from the truth.  Poirot was her meal ticket if nothing else. Her safety net.  Destroying him, un-creating him, whatever she'd be doing, it would mean leaving herself without that meal ticket; sans her safety net. That, more than anything else, scared her.

   But then, the very idea that Poirot wouldn't simply be dead, he'd be utterly non-existent opened up creative avenues. It would be like starting from scratch.  Brand new opportunities.  Scary as that seemed, turning down the chance she'd long dreamed of and wished for would make all the whining and complaining she did about Poirot a waste.   She had wished she'd never created him, and now that very opportunity was an open door; waiting for her to walk through.

   "Again, are you sure this will work?"

   Christie's guest replied with patience that was beginning to fray.  "If I couldn't make it work, I wouldn't be here, Agatha"

     Agatha apologized. "Fine. What would I have to do?"

     "Simply toss that hand-written manuscript into the fire place and that's that. Poirot never existed and you're free. However, as I may have already stated, once he's out of existence, you cannot re-create him.   Although, why you'd even want to, I fail to see."

    "I will NOT want to."  Christie replied, casting her gaze on the dead fire place, with wood stacked in a built-in 'cord shelf', hardly two feet away.  "Only problem is, getting a fire started. I'm gawd-awful at it. Archie is ..."

    "I'll save him the bother."   Again, Aggie snapped the fingers of both hands and the room was momentarily thrown into darkness before it brightened up, almost in the same breath. A fire now blazed behind the grate that was bereft of so much as kindling, never mind wood.
Tempted as she was to inquire how that miracle was accomplished, Agatha kept quiet.  In slightly shakey hands, she held the original, hand-written manuscript of a book she wrote...a whole lifetime ago. Obtained from a woman, who appeared out of nowhere.
That manuscript, published, lead to others, until, a number of books later, she found herself wishing she'd burned that original copy before it ever went to publication.  And today, having stated, in writing , her wish that she'd never created Hercule Poirot,  Agatha was offered the chance to make that very question/ wish come true.

   Of course it was silly.  Ridiculous!  She was sleeping.  But she wasn't!  She'd pinched herself to try to wake up, but she didn't wake up because she wasn't asleep.  This woman...this...younger her, going by the name Aggie, produced the very copy of a written manuscript she'd kept in her hope chest, at the foot of her bed.  How could this woman have retrieved it without knowing where it was. OR...even if she DID know where it was, how did she so quietly creep up the stairs without being heard?  And then there was the fire place.  A snap of the woman's fingers and a dead fireplace, sans wood or kindling, was alive with a crackling fire.

   If this woman...whoever she really was, could do that...make fire APPEAR from nothing, maybe she could make the DETESTABLE Belgian detective DISAPPEAR into nothing?

  Taking a few hesitant steps, her confidence grew.  By the time she reached the fireplace grate, Agatha Christie knew she was doing the right thing. For herself.   IF Poirot was undone with this action, then no one would refuse to forgive her because there would be nothing to forgive her for.  Whatever she found to do after this, it didn't matter. She'd be free.

   Holding the legal pad over the fire, Agatha released it and watched it drop into the bright orange flames. Perhaps a minute later, pages of work were reduced to ash.

    Walking over to the fire place to examine the state of the written manuscript, Aggie extended a hand for the author to shake.

    "Congratulations, Agatha. Your wish is granted. Hercule Poirot NEVER existed."  Aggie pursed her lips and said, in the next breath, "Well, to you he will exist for a bit longer.  It could be compared to someone who had a leg amputated.  There will be phantom pain for a bit. Just don't try to walk on that non-existent leg, if you catch my meaning.  There will be consequences. Find other things to do. Upgrade your nursing skills. Write new stories. Whatever you do, don't go back on what was accomplished today. You wanted it.  You could have said no.  But it was YOU who tossed that hand-written story into the fire."

   Raising her hands,  as if in surrender, Agatha reiterated,   "Say no more.  Like I already said, 'Why would I want to bring him back?' "

       Walking back to the fire, Agatha Christie stared at the dying embers and the ash that used to be hundreds of pages that made up the first story of a life she had un-created.

"Whaddya doin' ? staring at a dead fire place? Come on out.  Millicent wants you to take a walk around the grounds, but she won't go without you."

    Taking one last glance at the contents of the fireplace, Agatha turned her back on the mantle and headed out with her husband, where their dog was waiting.