Love and Kisses

by Jean Ure

  It was while I was lying in bed that night, wide awake, listening to Ellie gently snoring, that it came to me. I suddenly knew what was happening. Patty was trying to communicate. That must be it! She was trying to tell me something. That was why she was here. She’d come because she understood how desperate I felt, being torn apart from Alex. She’d been through it herself! She wanted to reassure me: it would all come right. If I just took one big step, like she had…

  I felt so much better, now that I’d worked it out. It hadn’t made any sense before. Now it made total sense! I was almost tempted to wake Ellie and tell her. I even reached across and was on the point of prodding her when at the last minute I drew back. It wouldn’t be sensible to tell Ellie. She had a way of keeping on, worrying at things, nudging and poking and asking questions. “What d’you mean, ‘encouraging’? Encouraging you to what?”

  I was feeling so jubilant I might just have opened my mouth and come blurting out with it. “Me and Alex are going to run away together!”

  I forced myself to lie down and close my eyes. Only one more day, and I would see him again. I would touch him, I would kiss him. Then just two more weeks and we would be off, following in the footsteps of Frank and Patty…

  I almost hoped, next morning, that the ghost girl would be there waiting for me. If she had been, I would have found some way of letting her know. Surely if I concentrated my thoughts really hard she would be able to pick them up? But I didn’t get a chance because the landing was empty. I blamed Ellie, who was jigging about, disturbing the atmosphere. It seemed to me that ghosts would like things to be peaceful. Ellie was anything but.

  “It’s raining,” she wailed. “It’s always raining! It’s like the monsoon. I’m sick of it!”

  “Never mind,” I said, “you can always watch some more telly.”

  “I don’t want to watch more telly! Mum doesn’t like me watching more than two hours a day. You know she doesn’t. What are you going to do?”

  “Dunno yet,” I said. “I’ll think of something.”

  “I’m so bored,” said Ellie.

  We went down to breakfast. Auntie May insists we all eat meals together, sitting round the big table in the kitchen. She doesn’t approve of what she calls “the modern habit” of everyone eating at different times, just whenever they feel like it. As we sat there, munching cereal and Ellie saying for about the hundredth time that she was bored, the telephone rang upstairs in the hall. Auntie May, in considerable annoyance, said, “Who is that at this hour?”

  “Eight o’clock in the morning!” said Auntie Mo. Shock, horror! Who would have the nerve? “If it’s someone looking for a room, we haven’t got any.”

  “Well, I know that,” said Auntie May.

  She began to push her chair back, but I leapt up. “I’ll go!”

  “Find out who it is,” said Auntie May. “Take a message. Get their telephone number. Ask what they want. Write it down!”

  She obviously didn’t realise that I am well-trained in the art of answering telephones. Mum and Dad live in daily expectation of someone like Steven Spielberg ringing up, so I am very well aware of the importance of taking messages.

  I picked up the phone and in my best telephone voice said, “Hello? Can I help you?”

  “Well, I’m hoping so,” said a voice at the other end. It was a woman’s voice, with some kind of accent. Australian, maybe. “I’m looking for a Miss Munroe who used to live at this address?”

  “Oh! Auntie May,” I said. “Or d’you mean her sister?”

  “May sounds good. May Munroe? Could I speak with her?”

  “I’m afraid she’s not here right at this moment,” I said. “Perhaps I could take a message?”

  “Yeah, sure, fine. If you could tell her that a Margaret Bagley rang? I’m just over from New Zealand, I’m in London at the moment. My telephone number—”

  “Hang on a sec!” My heart was suddenly racing. “I think I just heard the door…it might be Auntie May. Hang on, I’ll go and see!”

  I laid the receiver on the hall chest and went pounding back down the basement steps into the kitchen.

  “It’s someone called Margaret Bagley,” I said.

  Auntie May froze. “I am eating my breakfast just at present. I thought I told you—”

  “Margaret Bagley?” I said. “From New Zealand?”

  Auntie Mo gave a little excited gasp. Even Auntie May looked a bit stunned.

  “I thought you might like to speak to her?”

  Without a word, Auntie May swept past me and up the steps. I would have loved to follow and listen in, but it didn’t seem right. We all sat there, at the breakfast table, nibbling round the edges of our toast as quietly as we could in the hope of catching the odd word. Even Ellie had stopped moaning about the rain.

  “Bagley.” She mouthed it at me. “It could be Patty’s daughter!”

  We waited impatiently for Auntie May to come back. She progressed majestically down the basement steps.

  She obviously wasn’t intending to speak till she was settled, but you could tell, looking at her face, that she had big news.

  “Well, now.” She seated herself and slowly and deliberately began spreading butter on a slice of toast. “That was a Dr Bagley. Margaret Bagley. Patty’s granddaughter, apparently.”

  “Oh!” Auntie Mo clapped a hand to her mouth.

  “Her father,” said Auntie May, reaching for the marmalade, “is Patty’s first-born. Michael.”

  Auntie Mo gave a little squeak.

  “Margaret, it seems, was very close to her grandmother.”

  Cut the toast. Eat the toast. God, this was killing me! I could see Auntie Mo twitching, and Ellie wriggling on her chair.

  Auntie May chewed and swallowed. “She tells me she was mainly brought up by her, owing to circumstances I could not perfectly comprehend. Something to do with parental discord. The mother, so I am led to believe, departed the scene quite early on.”

  I clenched my fists under the table. Why for heaven’s sake couldn’t she just speak normal English? Ellie rolled her eyes at me.

  Auntie Mo, braver than either of us, quavered, “But what of Patty?”

  “Patty, I regret to report, passed away about a month ago.”

  A month ago! Just when we had come to Clacton. Ellie reached out with a foot and pressed it very hard on one of mine. Auntie Mo’s little round face puckered. “Oh! I had so hoped—it would have been such a comfort—just to see her one last time!”

  “It was entirely up to her,” said Auntie May. “Had she wished to make contact, she knew where to find us. As it is, it has been left to the granddaughter. I have invited her over; she is on her way. I am suggesting she books a room at the Briarley and stays a day or two. She will doubtless be eager to make our acquaintance.”

  Auntie Mo was already on her feet. “We must check we have enough food! We shall have to feed her. Being from New Zealand she is bound to have a hearty appetite.”

  “I see no reason she should consume any more than anyone else,” said Auntie May, “but obviously we must make provision. We must also do some tidying up.” She looked rather pointedly at me and Ellie. “If you two girls would kindly attend to that? It is not, I think, too much to ask. The ground floor needs to be vacuumed, also dusted and polished. Quickly, quickly! She will be here before we know it.”

  Ellie and I snatched our last pieces of toast and crammed them into our mouths as we clattered up the basement steps. We were both bursting with things to say, and to be safely out of reach of the Aunties so that we could say them.

  “This is just so amazing.” I yanked the vacuum out of the hall cupboard and thrust it at Ellie. “Here! You vacuum, I’ll dust.”

  For once, she didn’t argue. I grabbed a duster and we rushed into the front room, shutting the door behind us.

  “So she did die,” said Ellie. “I told you ghosts had to be dead!”

  “A month ago,” I said. “That’s when she first appeared!”
>
  “She obviously couldn’t wait to start haunting.”

  “But why does she look young? Every time I see her she looks young.”

  “Well…” Ellie tilted her head to one side, considering. “I guess that’s cos she was young. When she lived here.”

  “But she didn’t die here! She died in New Zealand.”

  “So?”

  “How come she’s haunting here?”

  “Ghosts can haunt anywhere,” said Ellie. “They can do whatever they like. There aren’t any rules.”

  Pardon me???

  “It’s her spirit,” said Ellie.

  I was tempted to remind her that that was my line, not hers; but I didn’t want to quarrel with her. There was still too much to talk about.

  “Know what I think?” I said. “I think our souls somehow…reached out to each other. Across the years. I think she was drawn here cos she knew what I was going through, cos it’s what she went through when she was my age.”

  “She was sixteen,” said Ellie. “You’re not sixteen.”

  I clicked my tongue impatiently. “The point is, she was young. And she was in love. Same as I am. That’s all that matters!”

  “Hm.” Ellie flicked the switch of the vacuum cleaner on and off, very rapidly, several times. She’d break the thing if she carried on like that. “Are you going to tell this Margaret person?” she said.

  “Dunno.” I’d been wondering about that. “D’you think I should?”

  “S’pose it depends what she’s like.”

  “I wonder how old she is?”

  “Old,” said Ellie.

  “She mightn’t be that old. Not if she’s Patty’s granddaughter. We’re granddaughters.”

  “Mm.” Ellie still sounded doubtful. “But she’s a doctor.”

  “You can have young doctors.”

  “I s’pose.”

  We stood, thinking about it.

  “I wonder if Frank’s still alive?” I said.

  “He’d be old.”

  “Yes, cos he was older than Patty.” Like Alex was older than me. I was proud of having a mature boyfriend! I didn’t want some silly spotty schoolboy. Patty had obviously felt the same way. I sighed. It was all so long ago. I didn’t like to think of Frank and Patty being grey and doddery. I wanted them to stay young and in love for ever!

  “I wish I could have known her,” I said. I was suddenly filled with a great sadness. Sad that people grew old, sad that Patty had died before we could meet. “She’s obviously been trying really hard to reach me.”

  “Only cos she’s dead,” said Ellie. “What I mean is…she didn’t try and reach you while she was alive.”

  “That’s because she didn’t know about me while she was alive.”

  “This is it,” said Ellie. “She only sensed your presence once she was dead.”

  We were both of us pondering what this could possibly mean when the door opened and Auntie May appeared.

  “Girls,” she said, “why are you not getting on with things?”

  “We are,” said Ellie.

  “We were just going to,” I said.

  “Well, do so!” said Auntie May. “I want the place spotless.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Auntie May was in two minds whether to let me and Ellie be part of the welcoming committee or whether to banish us upstairs.

  “The poor girl has come all the way from New Zealand. I should not wish to overwhelm her.”

  “She is bound to be feeling apprehensive,” said Auntie Mo.

  “Jet lag.” Auntie May spoke as one who knows. “She will need time to acclimatise.”

  “You mean she’s just got off the plane?” I said.

  “She has been here twenty-four hours. It is scarcely enough for a full recovery.”

  Ellie started to giggle and I had to glare at her, very hard. I wanted so much to be there to greet Patty’s granddaughter! Giggling would only confirm Auntie May’s belief that we’d misbehave.

  “Please,” I said. “Please let us be here!”

  “You may be here on one condition,” said Auntie May. “You do not bombard our guest with unseemly questions.”

  We promised to be on our best behaviour and instantly rushed upstairs to keep watch from the landing window. We had one false alarm when a middle-aged woman wheeling a suitcase appeared and seemed to be heading our way.

  “Told you,” hissed Ellie. “Said she’d be old!”

  But the woman trundled on past, probably heading for the bed and breakfast on the corner. Relief! I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but I desperately didn’t want Patty’s granddaughter to be grey and middle-aged and boring.

  “Anyway,” I said, “she can’t be old, she’s a granddaughter.”

  “She could be,” said Ellie. She stood there, working things out on her fingers. “She could be forty!”

  I wriggled uncomfortably. “Forty’s not that old,” I muttered. “Hey!” I suddenly grabbed Ellie’s arm. “There’s a cab!”

  The cab drew up at the kerb and we craned our necks, trying to see who was getting out of it. A girl. Tall, with dark hair, like Patty. Carrying a backpack and wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Young. I just had time to say “Hah!” and give Ellie a triumphant shove before we both turned and headed for the stairs.

  For the first half hour we sat meekly, side by side on the sofa like a couple of garden gnomes, speaking only when spoken to. I was bursting with questions I longed to ask, but with Auntie May’s flinty eye upon me I didn’t dare. She was well impressed with Patty’s granddaughter, you could tell; I guess because she was what Auntie May calls a professional person. A doctor! Not just any old ordinary shop assistant or office worker. Auntie Mo was her normal flustery self, but Auntie May was practically bowing and scraping. It would have been quite funny if I hadn’t been so eager to hear about Patty. I felt almost, by this time, as if she had been my friend. Auntie May, meanwhile, was like, “Do have a cup of coffee, do help yourself to a biscuit, you poor soul, you must be worn out!”

  The girl said, “Well, not really. I’m too excited to be worn out. I never thought you’d still be living here!”

  “Oh, yes,” said Auntie May. “Here we were born, and here we shall die.”

  The girl caught my eye then, and before I could stop myself I grinned. She grinned back at me. “See, it was so strange,” she said. “I knew Gran had a family somewhere over here in England, but she never actually spoke about it.”

  “We lost touch, sadly, many years ago.”

  “Yeah, I gathered. But those last couple of weeks, when she was so ill…I was with her most of the time. Towards the end she became really agitated. She kept talking about this place. This house…Ridge Mount. It was almost like she was back here, you know? But there was something that was obviously bothering her

  —something she seemed to feel she had to do. She kept saying, I can’t reach her, I can’t get through to her! Like it was really urgent.”

  I felt Ellie’s finger poking me in the ribs. I edged away from her.

  “It was only afterwards, going through her things, when I found an old address book with this address, that I felt I just had to come over and at least see the house, even if I couldn’t locate any of the family. The first thing I did, I looked up the name Munroe in the Clacton directory, and there you were. I picked up the phone straight away. And here I am!”

  “This is so exciting,” said Auntie Mo. “To think that after all these years we have Patty’s granddaughter sitting here with us.”

  “It’s pretty exciting for me, too. I was a bit scared, to tell you the truth. I reckoned there’d maybe been some kind of falling out, and even if I did make contact you wouldn’t want to know me.”

  “My dear Margaret!” Auntie May sounded quite shocked. “We are not barbarians!”

  Auntie Mo leaned forward, earnestly. “It was Patty and Father who fell out.”

  “Yeah…something about Gran running off with Grandpa? Not the done thing, in
those days. Incidentally, call me Maggie, why not? Everyone else does. I know it’s a bit clunky…Maggie Bagley.” She pulled a face. “But I aim to be changing that pretty soon.”

  “Oh!” Auntie Mo went into fluttering mode. “You’re getting married!”

  At the mention of Frank I had perked up; now I felt like screaming. I wasn’t interested in Maggie getting married! I wanted to hear more about Patty and her life in New Zealand. I wanted specially to hear more about her last weeks, when she had been trying so hard to get through to somebody. Who? Who was it? Was it me? And what had she been trying to say? There might be some clues, if only we could talk!

  It seemed like an age before Auntie Mo finally asked one of the questions that had been burning on my lips. “And Frank? Is he—”

  Maggie shook her head. “He went a few years back.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” said Auntie May. “Of course, he was a great deal older than she.”

  “But they were happy!” The words came spluttering out of me. What did it matter if Frank was older? So long as they’d loved each other!

  Ellie poked at me again, silently and secretly. Auntie May raised a frosty eyebrow. We were supposed to be on our best behaviour.

  “Age isn’t important.” I said it defiantly. I had a right to speak! “It’s being happy that matters.”

  “I’m sure they were happy,” said Maggie, “to begin with. I’m afraid I never actually knew them when they were together. They split up when my dad left home.”

  I stiffened, expecting Ellie to poke me again, but she just turned and studied me, in a worried kind of way. Auntie May, very briskly, said, “I cannot pretend to be surprised. Father was quite right, it was a totally unsuitable match. Nothing whatsoever in common”.

  “Except they loved each other!” said Ellie.

  “Love!” Auntie May dismissed it scornfully. “What can you possibly know of love when you are only sixteen?”

  “Was that how old she was?” Maggie sounded surprised. “I knew she and Grandpa had eloped, but I never realised she was quite so young.”