by Jean Ure
“Sorry,” I said, “I didn’t mean to be rude. Actually I just came to tell you that there’s a strange girl out there.”
Auntie May’s eyebrows shot up into her hairline. “What kind of strange girl?”
“I don’t know. She’s just standing there.”
We all trooped out into the hall, Auntie May in the lead. At the last minute, Ellie skipped ahead. Her voice came shrieking back: “I can’t see anyone!”
I pushed past Auntie Mo, who was dithering. The upstairs landing was empty; the girl had disappeared.
“She was up there.” I pointed.
Ellie scampered up the stairs and along the passage. “She’s not here now!”
“Try the rooms,” quavered Auntie Mo.
Ellie did so, and reported them all clear.
“She must have gone back down,” I said. “I told her she shouldn’t be here.”
Auntie May, looking grim, headed off in the direction of the basement. I noticed that Auntie Mo was shaking.
“It’s all right,” I said. “It was only a girl. She wasn’t actually doing anything.”
But it wasn’t the girl that was making Auntie Mo shake, it was the fear that she might have been the one to have left the basement door unlocked.
“I do it, you know…I forget! May gets so cross with me.”
I sometimes feel sorry for poor Auntie Mo. She is so meek and gets so easily flustered. And Auntie May is such a tyrant. I would have hated to be at her primary school when she was head teacher.
Fortunately she came back up to say that the door at the top of the basement stairs was both locked and bolted, just as it ought to be, so that was a relief. Auntie Mo stopped shaking. But then Ellie cried out that the front door had the chain on—“She couldn’t have got out that way!”—and Auntie Mo went into a quiver all over again because that meant the intruder was still somewhere in the house, probably hiding under one of the beds or in a cupboard.
“And why would she be doing that?” said Auntie May.
“Well, you know…if she was a burglar,” pleaded Auntie Mo.
“Tamsin, did she look like a burglar?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know what burglars look like. She didn’t have a swag bag.” Auntie May breathed in, rather deeply. “Sorry,” I said, “sorry! But I mean she didn’t have any tools or anything. She looked more like maybe she was on drugs, or something? Kind of…out of it. You know?” I demonstrated how she’d stood there, with this glassy expression. Auntie May made a loud tutting noise.
“Are you sure you’re not making this up?”
“I’m not,” I said. “I saw her!”
To keep Auntie Mo happy I went with Ellie and peered into every cupboard and under every bed, but there wasn’t a sign of the strange staring girl. Auntie Mo begged Auntie May to call the police, but Auntie May wouldn’t hear of it.
“Make ourselves look complete fools! How, pray, was this creature supposed to have gained entry?”
It was a puzzle. All the doors were locked, and the windows, too. Auntie May said that either I had an overactive imagination or it had been my misguided idea of a joke.
“In which case,” she said, “I am not amused.”
I protested, in vain, that it wasn’t a joke. “I saw her! I spoke to her!”
“And did you by any chance get a reply?”
Reluctantly I was forced to admit that I hadn’t. But I am not the sort of person to imagine things. Mum always says I am the straightforward, level-headed one of the family—or was, until I fell in love with Alex. That was something she’d never expected! I hadn’t expected it, either, to tell the truth. Maybe Auntie May was right, and my mind was starting to play tricks. But I knew I had seen the girl!
“Perhaps it was a ghost,” said Ellie.
Auntie Mo gave a little whimper. Auntie May, drawing herself up very straight and stiff, coldly informed Ellie that “We have never had ghosts in this house and we do not intend to start now. Kindly don’t talk nonsense. I suggest we all forget about it.”
Later, in bed, Ellie said, “I bet it was a ghost.”
I certainly preferred the idea of a ghost to the thought that my mind might be playing tricks. “But whose could it have been?”
“Someone who died a horrible death and they’ve come back to haunt.”
“But why haunt me?”
“Cos you’re in a state,” said Ellie. “You’re all lovesick and swooning. That’s when they get at people.”
It made a sort of sense. And the house was old. But the ghost hadn’t been!
“She looked modern,” I said.
“Some ghosts are,” said Ellie. “Don’t always have to be from history. What was she wearing?”
I closed my eyes, trying to conjure up the memory.
“Jeans?” said Ellie, trying to be helpful. “T-shirt? Jacket?”
“A dress,” I said. “A blue dress.”
“Like from now? Or olden times?”
“Not olden times.” But not from now, either. “Sort of…old-fashioned. But not very. Not like Victorian, or anything. More like…when Mum was young, maybe?”
“Can’t you describe it?”
“I didn’t really notice.”
“God, you’re so useless!” said Ellie. “You’d never make an actress. You never notice anything!”
“She had dark hair,” I said.
“What sort of style?”
“Sort of…curled.”
“Like it had been permed?”
“Could be.”
“Hm…” Ellie sat cross-legged, hugging her knees to her chest. “I know, I know!” She rocked, triumphantly. “I know who it could have been!”
“Who?”
“Mum’s mum! She died a horrible death.”
“She died having a baby,” I said.
“You saying that’s not horrible?”
“She died in hospital.”
“She could still come back and haunt us!”
“Ye-e-es…but this girl was younger. She only looked like my age.”
“But you said she had dark hair,” urged Ellie. “Mum’s mum had dark hair. Like Mum has dark hair. I’ve got dark hair!”
And I was mousy blonde, like my dad. But I shook my head. I’d seen pictures of our grandmother; I knew what she looked like.
“There was a sort of resemblance,” I said. “but it definitely wasn’t her.”
“Got to be someone!!” Ellie rocked again; she was enjoying herself. “Who else could it be?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I was just imagining it.” I was almost beginning to think that I must have done. “Whatever you do,” I said, “don’t go bothering the Aunties, cos Auntie Mo will freak and Auntie May will get all frozen, you know like she does. She’s already mad at me, I don’t want her getting any madder.”
Ellie sighed. “OK, but if she appears again you’ve got to promise to tell me.”
The days went grinding on. Five-and-a-half weeks to my birthday…five weeks to my birthday. Thirty-five days. Thirty-four days. Thirty-three, thirty-two, thirty-one…I marked them off, secretly, in a notebook. It was very difficult doing anything secretly with Ellie around. The kids next door had gone away, and she always seemed to be at my elbow, whining about having nothing to do, demanding to know what I was doing.
“What are you up to? What are you writing? Are you writing to him? You’re not supposed to be writing to him! You’re not supposed to be in touch with him at all. What have you got in your notebook?”
Like it was any of her business. I told her to go away and get a life and let me get on with mine, but when Ellie is bored she clings like a limpet. I sometimes think she has no inner resources at all. I asked Auntie May one day if I could borrow her library card, and Ellie immediately shrieked, “What d’you want to go to the library for?”
I said, “A book, would you believe?”
“I want a book, too!” said Ellie. “I’ll come with you.”
There
wasn’t any shaking her. She insisted. Auntie May said, “Well, for goodness’ sake, don’t discourage her!”
“That’s right,” said Ellie. “You’re not the only person who reads! I’ve done the whole of Harry Potter.”
And I was doing the whole of Nicholas Nickleby, which was going to take me for ever. Katie’s mum had lent it to me for the holiday. I didn’t need another reading book. What I wanted was a book about Spain. I wanted to fix on a good place for me and Alex to go. Somewhere warm and sunny, where we could swim and lie on the beach…
Normally I’d have searched on the web, but the Aunties don’t have a computer. Auntie May doesn’t like them, and Auntie Mo says she doesn’t understand them. It’s like being on a desert island, cut off from normal civilisation. I’d been promised a laptop for my birthday, but that was still four weeks away. Twenty-eight days, twenty-seven days, twenty-six, twenty-five…
Oh, God! I couldn’t wait another twenty-five days. I had to speak to Alex now. Right away. I needed to hear his voice, to reassure myself. To know that he still loved me…
I forced myself to wait until both Ellie and Auntie May were out of the house and Auntie Mo was giving a piano lesson, then dialled his number. Please let him answer! Please let his phone be switched on! And then he was there, at the other end of the line, and I felt this great sense of relief.
“Alex, it’s me!”
“Tamsin?”
“Where are you?”
“I at work. Where you?”
“In Clacton. In my bedroom.”
“Is all right we speak?”
“No, but I don’t care! I had to. I miss you so much!”
“I miss you, Tamsin!”
“It’s still another three whole weeks before we can be together. I don’t think I can bear it!”
“Three week a long time.”
“That’s why I had to ring. I thought you might forget who I am.”
“This a joke, yes?”
“Yes!” I giggled, a bit hysterically. “I’m crossing off the days!”
“We still go Spain?”
“It’s the only way we can be together! If—” I faltered slightly—“if you still want us to be together?”
He said, “This another joke?”
“I’m serious! They’re just going to keep saying I’m too young, you’re too old, I’m not allowed to see you, I—”
“OK,” said Alex. “Chill!” And then he laughed and said, “I learn good English, no?”
“What about your Spanish?”
“Si, si! Español. You teach me when we there.”
So that was it! We were going. I switched off the phone and curled myself up in the duvet to dream. Me and Alex, on a sandy beach…wrapped together, with the sun beating down, the waves lapping as we kissed…and kissed…and went on kissing…and no one to stop us. No one to interfere. Just him and me…and the sun and the sand…
I was brought violently back to reality by Ellie crashing into the room. Since it was her room as well as mine, she no longer bothered knocking. Just barged straight in.
“What are you doing?” she squealed. “It’s the middle of the day!”
I sat up crossly. “I thought you were out.”
“We came back. What are you doing?”
“I’m not doing anything! I’m trying to relax. It’s supposed to be a holiday.”
“It’s boring,” said Ellie. She bounced herself down on to the bed. My bed. “Have you seen the ghost again?”
I said, “No, I haven’t.” Actually, that wasn’t strictly true. Just occasionally, at odd moments, just now and again, I’d had the strangest feeling that I was being watched. That there was something there. Some kind of…presence. But then when I turned to look—nothing! Except just a glimpse. Just a shadow. Not scary, but a bit disturbing.
I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t even want to think about it. I hauled at the duvet. “Get your shoes off the bed!”
“They’re clean,” said Ellie.
“I don’t care. Get them off! And just shut up about ghosts.”
“Why? They’re nothing to be scared of.” Said Ellie.
“I said, shut up! I’m not scared of them.”
“Then why—”
“Did you hear me?” I snatched up my pillow and hurled it at her. “If you can’t shut up, just go away and leave me in peace!”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It was one of those rare evenings when we were alone with Auntie Mo. Auntie May had gone off to a meeting of the local residents’ association. According to Auntie Mo, she was “very big” in the association. Ellie and I exchanged glances and tried not to giggle.
“I bet she bosses them about,” I said. “Like she bosses everyone.”
Auntie Mo said, “She can’t help it, dear. It’s just her way. It’s what comes of being the oldest.”
“Tamsin’s the oldest,” said Ellie. “She bosses me all the time.”
“Well, if I do,” I said, “it’s because you ask for it. And I don’t think you should be watching any more TV,” I added. “You’ve been sitting there in front of it all day.”
Ellie turned to Auntie Mo. “You see what I mean?”
“I’m not taking sides,” said Auntie Mo. “I had enough of taking sides when I was young. It always had to be me and May against the other t—” She stopped. “Against your grandmother.”
She seemed suddenly flustered. I wondered what it was she had been going to say. I felt, strangely, that I ought to know—that I did know—but it was just a faint niggle somewhere on the far edge of my brain, and I dismissed it.
“So I can watch TV if I want”, said Ellie. “Right?” She glared at me.
“If she watches TV,” I said, “I’m going upstairs.”
“Yes, and I know what for! You’re going to speak to him. You think I don’t know what you do up there! They text each other,” said Ellie. “All the time!”
“It’s more intelligent than watching TV,” I said.
“But you’re not supposed to be doing it!”
“And you’re not supposed to sit there goggling all day! Mum wouldn’t let you, if she was here.”
“If Mum was here,” said Ellie, “you wouldn’t be talking to him.”
“Elinor and Tamsin, please!” said Auntie Mo. “It gives me quite a headache when you start on at each other. Sisters should be friends. Now let’s think how to pass the time agreeably, the three of us together. What would you like to do?”
Ellie opened her mouth. I knew she was going to say, “Watch TV.” I jumped in over the top of her. “Let’s look at photos!”
“Again?” said Ellie.
“I like looking at them. It’s history.”
“But we do it every time! We’ve seen them all.”
“So we can see them again. It doesn’t stop them being interesting.”
I wasn’t sure why I’d suggested it, since Ellie was quite right. We’d been looking through the family photograph albums every year for so long we knew them off by heart. But that faint niggle was still there, at the back of my mind, and it seemed to have something to do with photographs.
“What are all these loose ones?” I said. I’d pulled open the drawer where the albums were kept. “All these in this bag?” An ordinary plastic bag from Tesco, stuffed full of photographs. “I don’t remember these ones! Are they some we haven’t seen?”
“I don’t know, dear.” Auntie Mo sounded vague, as usual. “They’re just the ones we’ve never got around to sorting. You can look at them, if you like.”
I tumbled them out on to the table. Ellie immediately started scrabbling through, very fast, going, “Seen that one! Seen that one! That one’s Mum, when she was a baby. That’s Mum when she was at school. That’s her mum. That’s—” She stopped. “Dunno who that is.”
I peered across. She was holding a photograph of four girls. It was similar to one we’d seen many times—except that in the one we’d seen there were only three girls. Aunti
e May, Auntie Mo, and our grandmother, who had died. And then suddenly it was as if a pop-up had appeared in my head, and I knew why Auntie Mo’s remark had niggled at me. “It always had to be me and May against the other t—” The other two, she had been going to say. I remembered, now. Mum had once told me, ages and ages ago, that there had been four sisters. May, Maureen, Pam, and—
“Patty!”
Auntie Mo jumped. She held out a hand, slightly unsteady. “May I see?”
“Who’s Patty?” said Ellie.
“She was a sister,” I said.
“So why haven’t I heard of her?”
“I don’t know.” I’d been too young, when Mum told me, to show any curiosity. Ancient people from long ago don’t really hold much interest when you’re only about six years old.
“Auntie Mo?” We both turned, to look at her. Waiting for an answer. Auntie Mo was staring fixedly at the photo. It was like she hadn’t seen it for decades, which maybe she hadn’t.
“I thought they’d all been got rid of,” she said.
Me and Ellie flickered our eyes at each other.
“Did something horrible happen to her?” said Ellie. “She didn’t die, did she?”
“In a manner of speaking,” said Auntie Mo. She gave a quivering sigh. “Poor Patty! Father told us never to mention her name in front of him. And so, of course, we didn’t. We always obeyed Father. All of us, except Patty.”
“What did she do?” I said.
“Oh, my dear! It was very shocking, at the time. You have to understand, things were different in those days. It was the 1950s: ’51, ‘52…Patty was sixteen. The baby of the family.” Auntie Mo smiled, as if at fond memories. “So pretty she was. And clever with it. She got a scholarship, you know. Father was so proud of her! She was always his favourite. His little Patty.”
Auntie Mo smiled again, lost somewhere in her memories. Ellie and I waited, not quite patiently. Ellie was almost jigging up and down on her seat, desperate for Auntie Mo to go on. To hear the story.
“I shouldn’t really be telling you this.” Auntie Mo cast a nervous glance towards the door.
“It’s all right,” I said. “Auntie May won’t be back for ages.”
“And we promise not to tell on you,” said Ellie.
“But we ought to know, cos after all, it is family.”