Demon on a Distant Shore

by Linda Welch

  “Think you’re funny, don’t you,” I told him.

  “You should see your pink cheeks.”

  Yeah, the Brits really like their desserts. Maybe I would stick with those. They did have apple pie and whipped cream. I often eat pancakes and syrup for supper, so why not dessert for lunch? At least there should not be animal parts in apple pie.

  “So what will it be? The faggots should be good.”

  “No, thank you very much,” I said primly from behind the menu. “Think I’ll have the Apple Pie. It is just apples, right?”

  “You will enjoy it.”

  “And stop looking so damn superior.”

  My slice of pie was huge, and came with lashings of thick cream. Royal had a Cornish Pasty.

  As Royal ate dessert and I sipped coffee, I got that old familiar feeling. I looked up to watch a woman head in our direction on the heels of a waitress. In her late forties, with auburn hair parted on one side and cut just below her ears, she had wide green-gray eyes, a square-jawed face, small straight nose and full, pink-lipped mouth. Her floor-length, plunge-necked burgundy negligee in a satiny material clung skintight. Her feet were bare. With a tiny waist, rounded hips and a backside to match, she couldn’t have stood more than five-four, and her generous bosom looked out of proportion. It would probably bounce up and hit her in the chin if she jogged. When I call her negligee skintight, I mean exactly that; two sizes too small, it left nothing to the imagination, outlining parts of her anatomy I would rather not see. Her hair seemed kind of odd, but I couldn’t immediately put my finger on what was wrong.

  She sat in the vacant seat beside me.

  I leaned away as I slid my eyes at her. She had the worst case of static-afflicted split ends I had ever seen, making a fuzzy brown nimbus over her head. To verify I didn’t make a huge assumption, I edged my hand over and carefully touched her side. And kept touching halfway across the seat.

  “And what do you think you’re doing, madam?”

  I pulled my hand back.

  Hells bells! Why didn’t I sense her when we arrived at the inn?

  She didn’t know I heard her and had already lost interest in me. She leaned on her elbows with chin nested in cupped hands. “Now,” she said, gazing at Royal, “what are you, boyo? Though my memory is not what it once was, I know I’ve never seen anything like you. You, I would remember.”

  I leaned back to get a better look at her. Bare feet in water, the slinky negligee clinging to her still-damp body, looking in the mirror as she pulls the towel off her hair. “Hand me that, love.” Reaching back, she sees his reflection, a blur in the misted glass as he comes up behind her, and feels warm plastic touch her fingertips. She tries to grasp, but it escapes her hand and drops to smash on the tiled floor.

  A shiver breezed over my shoulders. “You were electrocuted?”

  Her head whipped in my direction. Her large, permanently flaring eyes focused on my face. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Were you electrocuted?”

  “You’re talking to me?” She stared me in the eyes as she repeated the sentence in a lower, gruffer voice: “Are you talking to me?”

  Great. Just what I needed: another lousy DeNiro impersonation. “I am.”

  A pause, before she said, “I didn’t believe that could be possible, a living person seeing me, and I expect you think I’m a right idiot - Taxi Driver? - but I didn’t think you could hear me. Well I never. And tell me, there’s a reason you mumble from the corner of your mouth?”

  Wasn’t it obvious? “I don’t want anyone to notice.”

  “That you’re talking to empty air? Ah, I see how it could be a problem. These fine people will think you’re insane.”

  “Tiff?”

  Oh dear. Poor Royal, left in the dark again. I gave him a pleasant smile. A normal, pleasant smile like you give your friend and partner in a public place, and kept it on my face as I spoke quietly. “It’s one of them. The departed. She’s in the seat next to me.”

  “I guessed.”

  He concentrated on the chair. He does it with Jack and Mel all the time, as if he stares hard enough he will be able to see them.

  “I’m sorry,” I murmured.

  His forehead pinched in a frown. “Careful.”

  “I can’t talk to you here,” I told the woman.

  “I understand. We could chat in your room.”

  I inwardly groaned. I was doomed. She could move around the inn, and having found someone who could hear her, she would stick with me. “Not in our room.”

  “The loo, then.”

  I grinned at Royal lopsidedly as I stood. “Sorry. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  The woman got to her feet. “Come on, this way.” She walked between tables. I followed her out of the door.

  I thought she would lead me to the bathrooms near the rear exit, but she went along the passage to the main bar. The bar counter took up half the length of the west wall, with padded stools in front, and bottles, glasses and dispensers filling the shelves below a huge mirror. As well as the tables down the middle, trestle tables with cushioned bench seats lined the east wall. At the far end, a door gave access to the unoriginally named Games Room. Inside, a pool table occupied the center and four ugly electronic arcade games crowded the east wall with doors to Ladies and Gents on the west.

  She went through the wood door of the Ladies, her voice trailing behind. “These don’t get much use.”

  Seeing a shade walk through a solid object didn’t startle me, Jack and Mel do it all the time. I followed her inside the bathroom.

  “Perhaps you are,” she said from where she stood near a floor-to-ceiling wall mirror.

  I stopped next the washbasin, mentally preparing myself for an extended session. “Are what?”

  “Insane.”

  “Because I talk to ghosts?”

  “Please! I prefer to think of myself as an incorporeal person. After all, I’m here. I am not a figment of your imagination.”

  Her accent resembled some I’d heard in London, but she spoke with clearer articulation. “You’re not from around here.”

  “I am now. But I was born and raised in Essex. I spent my entire life there, ended up in Kingston upon Thames, southwest London, until Himself and I had the mother of all spats.”

  “Himself?”

  “My husband Barry.” She snuffed through her nose. “Ex-husband, I should say.”

  “So you were here on vacation? What happened?”

  “Vacation? You must mean holiday.” Her head bowed to her clasped hands. “No, not a holiday. I’d had as much as I could take from Barry, so I withdrew my savings and left him.”

  She hefted a sigh. “I met a young man.” Another sigh. “I know, pathetic old fool, getting back at Barry by cheating on him. But Alfonso was a lovely lad. Italian. There are Italians in America, aren’t there? But of course there are, all those Mafia types. Didn’t know any myself until I met Alfonso – not that he was Mafia - but I saw those Godfather films. I went to the cinema with my friend Sarah to see the first one. That scene with the horse’s head … ooh, gave me the collywobbles.”

  “But - ”

  “I was almost afraid to watch the sequel. How many did they make, anyway? And then there was that horrible Scarface. Nothing entertaining in that one if you ask me. And Taxi Driver - ooh er. Gave me nightmares.”

  Good grief, the woman had a bad case of motor-mouth. “Can we get back to what happened to you?”

  She sniffed loudly. “You were right - 240 volts of electricity. I took a shower and he offered to help dry my hair after. But when he handed me the electric hair dryer, it slipped from his hand, hit the floor and shattered in the puddle of water I stood in. The place smelled like Sunday roast for weeks.”

  I gave a moment’s serious thought to that, then said, “I don’t think - ”

  “I was joking, dear!” She stepped closer. “I don’t look like a burned roast, do I?”

  I jogged my head side to side. “Your
hair’s a bit frizzy, but the rest of you looks very nice. I should think your heart gave out immediately.”

  “I suppose we should be grateful for small mercies.” She patted the side of her head. “I spent a fortune taming it when I was alive. Is it still auburn? I don’t expect you understand what it’s like to look in a mirror and not see your reflection. You don’t truly know the importance of a little thing like that until you lose it.”

  Well I’ll be. Jack and Mel never mentioned they can’t see their reflections.

  “Your hair is very white, isn’t it, but it has a lovely silvery shine. If I could, I think I’d try that shade.” She lifted her hand as if to touch my hair and I reflexively leaned away from her.

  She abruptly flapped one hand at me. “Seriously, dearie, I’d look like a tart with hair like yours. It is dyed, isn’t it?”

  If I had to keep steering her back on topic, this would take all day. “Forget my hair. This Alfonso murdered you?”

  “Goodness no! He wasn’t the brightest bulb but he had a kind heart. I expect the poor lad felt terrible.”

  I folded my arms over my chest and leaned back on the wall. “He accidentally dropped a faulty appliance in the water you happened to be standing in and it smashed on impact? I doubt there was anything wrong with the dryer before he got his hands on it.”

  “What a nasty thing to say! Alfonso and I were very close. He wouldn’t hurt me.”

  “You knew him for how long?”

  She mumbled something.

  “What was that?”

  “Two weeks!” she repeated irritably.

  “And you had how much money on you?”

  “Two thousand pounds,” she said in a lower voice.

  I peaked my brows and flipped my hands out in a told you so gesture.

  She pouted. “For two thousand pounds? I don’t believe it.”

  “People have been murdered for less.”

  She presented me with her backside. I looked elsewhere.

  I pressed on relentlessly. “Did he give the alarm? Did he wait for the ambulance and police?”

  “He was in London on an expired visa. They would have sent him back to Italy.” She whirled to face me “We didn’t even do it,” she huffed. “He wanted to jump right in bed, but oh no, I had to take a shower, get myself all fresh for him.”

  Okay. Didn’t need to hear that. “When did it happen?”

  “Twenty years ago, before Sally Short came here to take over from Dolly Short, she who ran The Hart and Garter back then. They came from Wales.” Her voice hushed. “Take my advice, stay away from Sally Short. She’s a witch.”

  “Witch as in bitch, or witch as in witch?”

  She tittered. “Ooh, I like that. The spells and broomstick kind, though I’ve not seen her on a broom. Yet.”

  “What makes you think she’s a witch?”

  “As I said, dear, I’ve been here twenty years. I see and hear everything. All the Short women are witches.”

  Interesting. I’d think on that later. “Do you know what happened to Alfonso? Someone must have seen him with you. Was he apprehended?”

  She spat out a bitter chuff. Until I saw dead people, I didn’t realize how much we rely on facial expressions to interpret speech. I hear a shade laugh, or chuckle, or sigh, and it’s not always possible to tell if they do so in pleasure or pain. But I didn’t read amusement in her posture.

  “I never heard anything from the guests or on the radio, or read it in the newspapers, so I imagine he went on his way and had a lovely time with my two thousand pounds.”

  I softened my voice. “You know what really happened, don’t you.”

  “You didn’t know him! Call me a stupid, useless old baggage, but I refuse to believe he meant me harm.”

  She could be right. She died violently, but need not have been murdered.

  With back hunched, shoulders pressed to her neck, frizzy hair and hands spasmodically clenching and unclenching, she looked like a furious kitten about to pounce. My lips twitched. “You’re not … old.”

  Her body relaxed and she tittered. She patted her hair again. “I’m Carrie.”

  “Hi, Carrie. I’m Tiff.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Tiff.” Her shoulders went up again. “I shouldn’t say that. My mum would have a fit. You do not say you’re pleased to meet someone, because you don’t know you are, do you?” She put out her hand and moved it up and down as if shaking hands. “How do you do, that’s what you say.”

  “I’m sure you - ”

  “A stickler for etiquette was my mum. Dinner times were worse. Don’t read at the table. Put your knife and fork side by side just so on your plate when you’re done. Don’t ask for more than you can eat, and if you do by golly you’d best finish it. I saw the Queen at a fancy banquet - well I didn’t see her in person, but on the telly - pick up her chicken leg and chew on it, and everyone else trying to tackle theirs with a knife and fork. Using your fingers is the proper way to eat chicken legs. My mum knew. She had a fancy upbringing, did my mum. Went to a school for young ladies.”

  She paused as if for breath and I jumped in. “Excuse me. That’s all very interesting, but - ”

  “Do you think so? How nice of you to say! I have been known to waffle on given half a chance. My friend Sarah said I could drive any sane person up a wall. I wonder what she’s doing now. She was a lovely girl when I knew her. I could not understand her working in an abattoir, all the blood and guts. Tiff - that’s an odd name. Is it short for Tiffany?”

  My brows met. “Yes,” I hissed.

  She flapped a hand. “Does anyone like their name? I hated Caroline when I was a girl. I wanted to be Sophia.”

  A gentle rap on the door startled me. Royal’s voice came faintly. “Tiff?”

  “I have to go,” I told Carrie.

  “But I have so many questions.”

  And you had plenty of time to ask them, if you didn’t ramble on so. “I know. We can get together later. Okay?”

  “All right,” she said morosely. “I’ll be here.”

  I thought about Carrie’s memories as Royal and I returned to our room. She remembered going to the movies to see The Godfather and it was made in 1972. I recalled wondering if Jack and Mel retained their memories because they had a social life. Carrie died twenty years ago yet her memory was still good and her ability to move around equated with a social life.

  “I’m beginning to wonder if we can go anywhere without you picking up a new friend,” Royal said.

  I pretended not to hear his exasperated tone as I checked my teeth in the bathroom mirror. “Me too.”

  “Are you going to ask about her?”

  I came from the bathroom. “She died twenty years ago. They’d wonder how I knew about her.”

  “You don’t feel the need to poke around with this one?”

  I smoothed the sleeves of his dark-blue cotton shirt down his arms. “Not this time.”

  He grasped my elbows and pulled me in close. “That is a blessing.”

  We shared a kiss which seemed to last forever. I went liquid. Then I had a nasty thought. I leaned back from him and twisted to look at the room. But Carrie wasn’t there.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “No.” With seduction in mind, I eased away, backed to the bed and dropped my butt to the mattress, which promptly tried to eject me right back off. I clung to the edge and fistfuls of bedspread as the thing tossed me all over the place. “Whoa!”

  It subsided to a gentle wobble. I daren’t move. Royal took my hand and hauled me upright.

  He tweaked his eyebrows suggestively. “Looked like an interesting ride.”

  “Do you know you have very suggestive eyebrows?”

  He cocked his head on one side. “I prefer expressive.”

  I imagined how I looked as the bed from hell did a number on me, and it was not a pretty sight. I felt like an idiot.

  The mood had passed and he knew it. “Why don’t we go down and sample the lo
cal brew?” he suggested.

  Sounded good to me. “Okay, but let’s check out that place across the square. It looks really old.”

  Downstairs again, and everyone in the half-full bar eyed us as we walked past.

  We didn’t make the exit. Royal had to stop and talk to a group of people in the foyer, and he’s like a lamp attracting moths to the flame. Before I knew it, we were in the barroom and a crowd had gathered. I stood there like a lump while he chatted, smiled and shook hands.

  One guy suggested a game of darts, so off we went to the Games Room. What fun, sitting alone at a table while grown men threw pointy things at the wall. Naturally, Royal hit all the right places on the dartboard, and the local men, not to be outdone, insisted on another match, and another. I’m sure Royal deliberately threw the last match. It made the other guys happy and resulted in backslapping all around.

  I didn’t see Carrie. Strange. I thought she would hover, eager to resume our conversation. Come to think of it, I didn’t sense her either.

  We didn’t get across to the Ugly Duck. We spent the entire afternoon in the Hart and Garter while Royal charmed what appeared to be half of Little Barrow’s population.

  After a three-hour nap, we ate in the restaurant again. The menu offered the same dishes as lunch plus additions. Chicken Maryland, sole in an herb sauce, rack of lamb, chicken lasagna. Mm. The desserts sounded fancy: White Chocolate Gateaux, pears braised in white wine, Baked Alaska.

  Royal started coughing as I tucked into a huge slice of gateaux. I thought he was coughing until I heard “toads!” in a voice muffled by laughter. I eyed my gateaux and imagined a glob hitting him dead center between the eyes, but it was too good to waste.

  We went up to our room after supper. I hung my jacket on the hook behind the door and carefully eased down on the bed. I patted the mattress. “C’mon over here, Watson.”

  “Whatever you say, Holmes. Just give me a minute.” He went in the bathroom.

  I was already under the covers when he came back. He stood at the end of the bed and deliberately leered at me. “No sexy lingerie tonight, I see.”

  I flapped my hand at where the threadbare old T-shirt I usually wear in bed lay on the chair. “It’s hot, and this place doesn’t have air-conditioning.”