by Jean Ure
“And it can’t have been that bad,” said Ellie. “Not unless she had a boyfriend who cheated on her and she murdered him and is rotting in jail.”
I said, “Ellie.” And then I thought, maybe she had a boyfriend and got pregnant and they took the baby away and put her in a lunatic asylum. They used to do that, way back then. I’d read about it. Unlike Ellie, however, I was discreet enough not to say so.
“Pleeeze,” begged Ellie. “Now we’ve seen her photo…please tell us!”
“Well, I suppose you’re old enough,” said Auntie Mo.
I thought, lunatic asylum…
“It was a man, wasn’t it?” said Ellie. “I bet it was a man!”
“Yes, my dear, I’m afraid it was. A most unsuitable man! Frank, I remember his name was. Frank Bagley. That was it. Oh, he was a handsome devil! I’ll give him that.”
Ellie sniggered. I said, “How was he unsuitable?”
“Oh, in every way. He was far too old, for one thing. She was only sixteen, still a schoolgirl. He must have been thirty, if he was a day.”
Ellie shot a meaningful glance in my direction. I ignored it.
“What was he doing in Clacton?” I said.
“He was a mechanic,” said Auntie Mo. “In a garage.” She said it in hushed tones, like we were supposed to be shocked. Ellie shot another glance at me. I kicked her, harder than before.
“Our family had always been professionals! Father was an accountant. Very highly thought of. And Patty…she was going to go to university. It was quite something, in those days. Not many people did. ’Specially girls.”
“So what happened?” said Ellie.
“Well, naturally, Father put his foot down. Said she wasn’t to see him any more.”
“But she did.” Hint, hint. Ellie jabbed at me with a finger. I felt like punching her.
Auntie Mo sighed. “She was always very headstrong. Between you and me, she was rather spoilt, what with being Father’s favourite.”
Well, at least Ellie couldn’t accuse me of being spoilt. I wasn’t anyone’s favourite.
“Did he find out?” said Ellie.
“Not until it was too late.” Aunt Mo shook her head. “She was a sly one! She kept her secrets. Even from her own sisters! Then one day—that was it. She just took off.”
I leaned forward, trying not to seem too eager. “With him?”
“The mechanic,” said Ellie.
“Frank,” I said. “Did they go off together?”
“She left a note saying they were going to get married. It broke Father’s heart. Mother’s too, of course. But poor Father, he never got over it.”
“Did they get married?” The question came out a bit more urgently than I’d meant it to.
“Apparently they did,” said Auntie Mo. “They seemed quite happy. We had a Christmas card, years later, from New Zealand, of all places. Signed Frank and Patty. They had two children, as I recall…a son and a daughter.”
I jabbed triumphantly, at Ellie.
“Of course—” Auntie Mo gazed sadly at the photo. “It was all too late by then. Mother was dead, and Father had had his first stroke. We tried to tell him, but we were never quite sure that he understood.”
“But you wrote back?” said Ellie.
“We couldn’t, you see…there was no address. We had a few more cards, and then—nothing. It must be a good ten years since we last heard. Poor Father! He went to his grave without ever seeing his grandchildren.”
I thought to myself that it was entirely his own fault. If he had only been a bit more sympathetic to the nature of true love there would have been no need for Patty to run away. He brought it on himself! But I didn’t say so as I didn’t want to upset Auntie Mo. Auntie Mo had sided with her dad; they probably all had. I pictured Patty, desperate, with no one to turn to. She would have loved Frank as much as I loved Alex, so I knew how she must have felt. I did think it was a pity he had to be called anything as unromantic as Frank Bagley, but on the other hand he was obviously pretty gorgeous. I stifled a giggle, and wondered if Auntie Mo would think Alex was a “handsome devil”. I wished I could show her his photo! Unlike me, Alex was definitely photogenic.
There were a million more questions I would have liked to ask Auntie Mo. I was dying to find out everything I could about Frank and Patty! But too late. Auntie May had come blustering back from her meeting and Auntie Mo, instantly in a flutter, had gathered up the photographs and guiltily stuffed them back in the drawer. Auntie May fortunately didn’t notice. She was too busy telling us about the meeting, and how she had to put “certain people” in their place.
“That Henson woman from Number 4…she has a mouth on her! And the new couple, those Beechams…only been here five minutes and think they can take over!”
We all had to sit and listen; not even Ellie dares interrupt when Auntie May is in full flow. I did try nudging at Ellie and mouthing “See?” Things could work out! I suppose, really and truly, I just wanted the satisfaction of saying I told you so. It was a relief when it finally got to be ten o’clock. Ten o’clock is the Aunties’ bedtime, which means that me and Ellie also have to go upstairs. For some reason they don’t like us staying down by ourselves.
As soon as we reached our room, I burst out with it: “You see? It all worked out.”
“How d’you know?” said Ellie. “You’re only saying it cos it’s what you’d like to believe.”
“Pardon me? Didn’t she get married and have kids?”
“So what? Doesn’t necessarily mean it worked out. Might just mean she got stuck.”
I said, “Stuck?”
“Like, you know…with kids.” Ellie looked at me slyly. “Hope you don’t,” she said.
I flushed angry and embarrassed. “You want to go and wash your mouth out!”
“Why? It’s not rude. You don’t have to get all twisted.”
“You have absolutely no right to say something like that.”
“Like what?”
“You know like what!”
“Well it wasn’t me, anyway,” said Ellie, “it was Dad.”
“Dad?” I stared at her, appalled.
“I heard him talking about it with Mum. He said you weren’t very streetwise and you’d be easy to take advantage of. ’Specially by someone so much older.”
I denied it, indignantly. “Alex wouldn’t ever—I choked—“ever take advantage! What did Mum say?”
Ellie screwed up her face. “Can’t remember. Don’t think I heard. Mum just says not to make too much fuss cos she reckons you’ll get over it. It’s just a passing phase.”
“Didn’t stop her sending me to bloody Clacton! The twenty-first century,” I said, bitterly, “and they’re still behaving like it’s back in the Dark Ages.”
Frank and Patty, all over again. History repeating itself! But that’s what history so often does. Except that there wasn’t any excuse for Mum and Dad; they were actors, not boring repressed accountants. Actors are supposed to be broad-minded, liberal sort of people. They were treating me like I had committed some kind of sin. Like Alex had committed some kind of sin. I hated them for that. It was so unfair! Alex was a truly sweet person who just wanted to love me and take care of me. Why couldn’t Mum and Dad see that? Because they had never even tried, that was why. They were behaving exactly the same as Maggie’s father had, and when I disappeared from their lives they would have only themselves to blame.
“Where are you off to?” said Ellie, as I marched to the door.
I said, “I am going to the bathroom, if that’s OK with you.”
“Why are you taking your phone with you?”
God, did her beady eyes miss nothing? “Might wanna call 999 and have them come and pick you up!” I said.
“Are you going to ring him?”
“None of your business!”
She was right, of course; I had been going to call Alex. I was going to sneak back downstairs and shut myself away in the kitchen. But I never even got as far as
the top of the stairs, because there on the landing, right where she had been before, was the ghost girl. And this time, I recognised who she was…
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Patty?” Ellie shot up the bed, hugging her knees and staring at me, bright-eyed. “Are you sure?”
“I’m positive! She looked exactly like she did in the photo.”
“I want to see!” Ellie scrambled off the bed and scurried on elaborate tip toe to the door. “Got to be very quiet,” she whispered. “Don’t want to scare her.”
I hadn’t thought you could scare ghosts, but being quiet seemed only sensible. The last thing we needed was for Auntie Mo to come wobbling out, or even worse, Auntie May. We have never had ghosts in this house and we do not intend to start now. But how could you stop them? Not even Auntie May had any power over ghosts.
Ellie had stuck her head round the door and was peering out on to the landing. “Can’t see anything,” she hissed.
I tiptoed across to join her. “She was over there.” I pointed. “Just like last time.”
“Not there now,” said Ellie. She closed the door and went back to sit, cross-legged, on her bed. Solemnly she regarded me. “You know what this means?”
“What?”
“She’s here for you.”
I bleated, “Why me?”
“I told you! Cos you’re in a state. About him. That’s when they get to you. What I don’t understand,” said Ellie, “is how it can be Patty. She didn’t die a horrible death! She didn’t die at all. She got married and went off to New Zealand. So how can she be back here, haunting?”
“I dunno. I s’pose—” I said it vaguely—“I s’pose ghosts can do whatever they like. There aren’t any rules.”
“Course there are! They can’t just drift about from place to place.”
“Why can’t they? They’re spirits.” If they existed at all. “They can go anywhere.”
Ellie looked at me, pityingly, “Shows how much you know.”
“So what makes you an expert all of a sudden?”
“I’ve read things,” said Ellie.
“What, like Rules for Haunting? How can you have rules for something that mightn’t even exist?”
“Ghosts do exist! It’s a known fact.”
I clicked my tongue impatiently.
“All right,” said Ellie, “what’s your explanation?”
I had to admit I didn’t have one.
“I’ll tell you what I think,” said Ellie. “I think you’ve got the wrong sister. I think it was Pam, cos she did die young. And she’s our grandmother, so it’s likely she’d hang around and haunt.”
“She died in hospital,” I muttered.
“Yes, but at least it was close by. Not like New Zealand. And maybe—” Ellie bounced, exultantly—“maybe she actually really died here, in the house…her soul died here and it was just the empty shell that went to hospital.”
I squirmed uncomfortably. “Do you have to?”
“I’m just trying to make sense of it for you. If it was Pam, that means you saw a ghost. If it was Patty, it means you’re going bonkers.” Ellie peeled back the duvet and rolled herself into bed. “You choose!”
It took me ages to get to sleep. I kept opening my eyes and imagining that I could see ghostly figures in the moonlight. Three times I pretended that I needed the bathroom, just to give myself an excuse for checking out the landing. I refused to believe I was going bonkers! But I knew that it was Patty I had seen, not Pam. Our grandmother was quite a short plump person with a dimpled face; in the photograph, Patty was already a whole lot taller. And Patty was lean and angular, more like Auntie May, and had these deep-set eyes like pools of black ink.
The eyes of the ghost girl had been just the same, deep and dark. The only difference was that in the photograph the eyes were alive and alert, concentrating on the camera. The eyes of the ghost girl had been…dead. All the light gone from them. Surely, if it was my mind playing tricks, I would have seen her exactly the same as in the photograph? And anyway, how about that first time? I hadn’t even seen the photograph then!
As we went down to breakfast next morning Ellie paused on the landing and hissed, “Is this where she was? Where I’m standing?” I nodded. Ellie closed her eyes and let her arms drift slowly upwards.
I said, “What are you doing?”
“I’m getting the vibes,” said Ellie. She breathed deeply, throwing her head back and flaring her nostrils. “I can’t feel anything…you try!” She grabbed at me and I shook her off.
“Leave me alone, I don’t want to feel vibes!”
“But it’s interesting,” said Ellie.
“It’s not,” I said, “it’s creepy. Just forget about it!”
But it wasn’t the sort of thing you can forget about. Even if you are not scared of ghosts, which I am not, it is unnerving to keep seeing people who don’t exist, specially when you are the only one. Ellie, of course, couldn’t stop talking about it.
“I wonder what would happen if you tried walking straight through her? Next time you ought to try, and see what happens. If you go straight through her it’ll prove she’s a ghost and not just your imagination. If it’s your imagination, she’ll just, like, disappear, and then you’ll know.”
I thought, know what? That my mind was cracking up?
“It’ll be a psychic experiment,” said Ellie.
I looked at her with distaste. “Don’t you have anything you want to go and do?” I said.
“No,” said Ellie. She pouted. “Drew and Chelsea aren’t there and it’s still raining and I’m bored!”
“So read a book! I thought you got one out of the library?”
“I did. It’s boring.”
“Then go and get another one!”
“I can’t, it’s raining.”
I gave up at that point. “Just go and watch TV,” I said. “You might as well, you’re already brain-dead, you can’t do any more damage.” I have no patience with people who keep saying they are bored.
“Where are you going?” demanded Ellie.
I snapped, “Upstairs! And I don’t need you coming with me.”
She opened her mouth, but before she could say it—“You’re going to ring him!”—Auntie May had appeared.
“Elinor,” she said, “if you’re not doing anything—”
I fled. I wasn’t going to ring Alex, as it happened, cos I knew he’d be at work, but I thought that I would text him. Just LUV & KISSES to show that I was thinking of him. Then I would curl up under the duvet and let my mind drift…all the way to Spain, and the sun-drenched beach where we kissed the days away…
I didn’t answer my mobile when it started on its merry warble; I was too deep in my daydream. When finally, reluctantly, I swam back to reality, I found I had a text from Alex in reply to mine: LUV U. CALL ME. I called immediately. My heart leapt when I heard his voice telling me how he missed me and longed to be with me. A small unworthy part of my brain—I could admit it, now
—had always had this fear that once I was away he would forget me. That he would find someone else; someone older, more sophisticated. Someone prettier. I’d seen the way pretty girls looked at him. I’d seen their eyes flicker from me to Alex and back again, trying to work out what he saw in me. He could get any girl he wanted! But he didn’t want any girl: he wanted me.
Without even stopping to think about it, I said yes—yes, yes, yes!—when he begged to be allowed to come down to Clacton on Saturday.
“I need see you, Tamsin! I miss you so much!”
I said, “I miss you, too.” And then it burst out of me, in a great unstoppable splurge: “I’m just so miserable without you! I can’t stop thinking about you. I don’t know what I’m going to do if we can’t be together!”
“So is all right if I come?”
I said, “Yes! Please. Come!” I knew we could only snatch at the very most a couple of hours before the Aunties started asking questions, but we had been separated for so long. Even
just a couple of hours would be precious. What was most precious of all was that Alex missed me as much as I missed him…how could I ever have doubted him?
I bounced out of my room, my heart pounding, only to be brought up short by the now familiar figure of the ghost girl standing in her usual spot, on the landing. I hesitated; she seemed to be looking straight at me. I gave a small, uncertain smile, but there was no response. Not even a flicker.
She just went on staring; that dead, glassy-eyed stare. Suddenly panicked, I shot past and leapt down the stairs in three great bounds. When I turned at the bottom to look back, she had gone.
I found I was trembling. My knee caps were bouncing, and my limbs were all shivery. Even my teeth were like castanets. I clamped my jaws together and ran on wobbly legs down the hall. Auntie Mo was in the kitchen, filling a kettle. She beamed at me.
“Just in time!” she said. “I’m making a cup of tea. Sit down, and we’ll have it together. I’ve got some of those biscuits you like. Cherry shortcake. Or was that your sister? Maybe it was your sister. I know it was one of you. Well, if you don’t care for shortcake there’s always digestive. The chocolate ones.” She giggled. “I’m not supposed to eat chocolate, May says it’s bad for me. But the way I see it, you have to have a bit of a treat now and again.”
Auntie Mo prattled on. For once, I was grateful for her burble. I sank on to a chair and locked my kneecaps to stop them bouncing. Auntie Mo pushed biscuits at me and I ate them mechanically, without even tasting them. Auntie Mo was pleased.
“I got them specially,” she whispered. “I smuggled them in without May knowing. Have as many as you like, dear! Just don’t tell her.”
I munched obediently. I didn’t say anything about the ghost girl; it would only have thrown Aunt Mo into a fluster. I didn’t intend to say anything to Ellie, either. I knew she would be cross with me. “Did you try walking through her? Did you at least try touching her?”
I hadn’t done either of those things; I’d been too busy quaking. And now I was going to be scared stiff every time I went upstairs. I was such a coward! Ghosts can’t hurt you—specially not this one. Not if it was Patty. She and I were like…soul mates. Like there was a special bond between us, linking us over the years. If we could only find some way of communicating…