Six of the Best

by Michael White

  “Not even if I do this?” he said, and his face took on a painful wince, his face now a perfect mime of pain.

  “Not even if you do that.” I sighed and deciding I was wasting my time returned to the front of the crowd where Mary was just finishing. Slowly she faded into the darkness just as Jack’s van arrived across the road. Off we went again! Our next stop, the “litter bin ghoul” went pretty well. Edward seemed to be warming to his various parts and the crowd seemed to be getting into the spirit of it. His costume for this one was slightly different, and again looked pretty authentic. He looked like a completely different person altogether!

  Then we were off again, and so we made our way to our half way point and a rendezvous with “The Chip Shop Ghost” which was Mary again. The plan was to stop at the chip shop for about ten minutes or thereabouts so that everyone could buy themselves some chips or whatever from the chip shop that we played the scene outside of. Mr Chan’s was a fine old chippy and Mr Chan was more than pleased to have a new influx of customers eager to fill their boots with his food. As well as that we were on a ten per cent cut of any grub they all bought so everyone was a winner, really.

  Mary did her stuff and afterwards most of the punters lined up to get some chips while I took a breather and Arthur rested his supposedly “gammy” leg. Again the reporter was scribbling furiously in her notepad, and the photographer did take a picture this time, but it was of all of the people queuing up for chips. Odd. A few minutes later I had to have a word with Mary as well. She seemed to be trying to line some of the punters up for palm readings, but I soon knocked that on the head as Jack arrived and drove her off for the next stop.

  “Is this an authentic chip shop?” one of the Americans asked me, and unsure exactly what an authentic chip shop actually was I just nodded. He seemed happy with this and began taking photos of the grinning Mr Chan who was by now stood in the window of the chippy, waving. I think if I’d given him another five minutes he would probably have been doling out autographs too. I gave them another minute or so and then we were off again to our next but last stop, and “The mystery of the Seventh lamp post”. Edward played a blinder on this one and as he made his way back to the van for our finale I could see both Mary and Jack waiting for him, the van’s engine running. For the finale all three of them would have a part, Jack at last getting the chance to bet involved rather than just being the chauffeur.

  By now Arthur was almost dragging his leg behind him. Several of the punters had begun to look at him suspiciously, as if his limp could in some way be catching. Thankfully none of them had decided to take a picture of him. Yet. God knows what he might do if they had tried to. And so we approached our final location. So far I had got through the night on adrenalin alone, but by now I could feel myself starting to sag a bit. I could tell several of the walkers felt the same way too; the long line of people now stretching out behind me more than it had done at any other point during the evening. The journalist and the photographer managed to keep up though. I could make them out striding along, deep in conversation.

  Our final location had been very carefully chosen. It was a wide, square courtyard into which there was only one entrance, through a long narrow alley. It was quite big, and would easily fit all of our walkers in at once. It was also pitch black. I thought, not for the first time, that we were very lucky to find it. It was perfect for our last tale, “The Legend of Spring Heel Jack”.

  I waited at the entrance to the alley whilst everyone caught up, herded forward by the furiously limping form of Arthur, who was just about visible at the back. I gave a little speech about the legend of Spring Heel Jack and then announced that we would all be filing in to the courtyard through the dark alley in a moment. I made a great show of approaching the passage into the courtyard slowly, as if scared of what we would find in there, and called out. “Are you ready, Jack?”

  It was, of course, a double feint. I needed to know that Jack was in place and ready, along with Edward and Mary. From the darkness a loud deep growl came back in answer, loud enough for everyone there to hear it. “I am ready!” said Jack. “I have been ready for a long time!” Smiling to myself, I thought that Jack sounded really good! As I noted this I began to herd the people into the darkness, making sure they all kept to the left because Mary, Edward, and of course Jack were on the right hand side ready to finish off the night’s events. I was silently quite pleased with myself. Everything had gone relatively well and we were nearly done. I think we could just about manage to fit in a pint or two on the way home once the finale was over.

  The walkers continued to file into the darkness of the courtyard, and over the sounds of the occasional “Oh. Excuse Me.” and “Oops - sorry” I could hear Jack growling away in the darkness. He really was getting in to the part! Mary and Edward would of course remain quiet, until, as per the script, they would appear from the darkness and drag poor old Spring Heel Jack off to Hell. Not a bad final flourish, even if I say so myself, and it allowed all three of them to exit so I could bring the night to a close with a quick little speech and then we were all over and done.

  As the last few walkers filed into the courtyard I could see Jack was really getting in to it now. I was still stood at the head of the alley with Arthur but I could see two little red lights bobbing about in the dark. It had taken ages to sew the two little bulbs into Jack’s outfit. They were salvaged from a light up Santa hat I had found in the box room, but they certainly seemed to be doing their job at the minute.

  The crowd was relatively silent now, though I could hear nervous giggles coming from one or two people. Jack was really going for it now. The two little red Santa lights jumped furiously up and down as if Jack was hopping, or more like it loping, from foot to foot. It looked as if he had been taking lessons in limping from Arthur! It was difficult to determine however, because apart from the two little red pin pricks of light dancing all over the place it was completely pitch black in there. Jack gave a loud deep growl and several squeals rose from his now captive audience. “Don’t milk it, Jack” I laughed silently to myself and began to head into the darkness of the alley and then the courtyard.

  Which is when I heard loud shouting from the street off to my right. I remember thinking that was all I needed, some bloody drunks interrupting the end of the show, and I was about to get Arthur to head them off whilst I hastily brought the evening to a close when I saw three figures running along the road towards us. They were still some way off but I recognised Edward’s outlandish outfit straight away. Then behind him, Mary as well. Followed by Jack. Even though they were still quite some way off I could hear Jack shouting. “Sorry, mate! The effing van broke down! We’ve had to run the last quarter of a mile!”

  I glanced at the three of them. Looked into the twin red points of light capering about in the courtyard, a low, deep hissing noise coming from the darkness. An ominous growling. Looked at Arthur who was blinking furiously. His limp seemed to have settled on his face instead now. Then I blinked again at the three rapidly approaching figures running down the road towards me. “Tell them to stay here!” I hissed to Arthur, who seemed to be glad he was not going to have to go into the courtyard itself.

  I strode into the darkness and the two little pin points of light seemed to settle upon me.

  “All are here now!” growled a deep voice. I thought it may have been a question, but thinking back it was more of a statement really.

  “All come to see Jack.” Came the voice in the dark.

  “Come to catch him?” growled the voice and this time it was a question.

  Then there was a dull glow of red light, growing brighter, dark red flames flickering upon the shape of a figure crouched in the corner, a long black cloak wrapped about it. Flames flickered about its body, lighting up the courtyard. It revealed a scene that was a little bit like a sea of faces all cowering in what looked like utter terror!. No face was visible. Just a long arm outstretched, covered almost entirely by the cloak. The hand ended at wha
t seemed to be a long set of claws. Flames flickered about its fingers. Several screams arose from the audience. Then the shape moved forward. I was dimly aware of the sounds of commotion coming from the alley that lead in to the courtyard.

  “Nobody catches Spring Heel Jack!” the figure suddenly screamed, the deep, low voice almost seeming to shake the ground. Then there was a burst of flames at its feet and the figure suddenly shot high into the air like a bloody rocket. I reckon it must be a good sixty foot up to the top of the building but the figure managed it easily, nestling on the edge of the roof high above, and then turned looking down towards us, watching. The flames flickering around it made it clearly visible. Whatever it was. It laughed once. a long deep laugh and then it leaped up higher on to the roof and was gone, the sounds of laughter trailing after into the darkness, which settled once more upon the audience who were more or less stunned into silence.

  Much to my amazement I improvised a little speech there and then and brought the night to a close pretty damned quick. As the walkers shuffled out of the alley and off into the night several of them stopped to shake our hands, and the journalist seemed to be beside herself as she came to give her verdict.

  “I wasn’t that impressed up till now” she stuttered, “But that finale was spectacular! How on Earth did you do it? Was it wires?” I just smiled and tapped my nose and she grinned before getting her plainly confused photographer to take our picture. Arthur unsurprisingly disappeared into the darkness at this point, his limp now completely forgotten.

  “What the hell was that?” asked Edward and Jack and I shrugged. Mary was babbling about spirits of the night and so on and so forth, so we left her to it.

  “God knows.” said Jack. “But who cares? Look at this - we got thirty quid in tips!”

  And so we made our way back to the van and eventually got it going just in time to join the lock in at the local. We all had more than half a pint that night, I can tell you!

  This all happened a few months back now. Needless to say the Echo review (we even got our own article!) praised us to the nines. We now run four walks a week, and we are that successful we are thinking of setting up a franchise! Jack (that’s the other Jack – the one not quite on the payroll) doesn’t seem to mind, either. It’s as if the more people he gets to scare the happier he is to do it. He never fails to turn up. Sometimes I’ll even get him some chips from Mr Chan’s. He seems to like them. Though I have to be careful to make it a small portion or if he’s got some left he tends to start flicking them at people below from the rooftops once we have finished.

  So there we have it. We’re doing very well these days. We’ve even replaced the van. It just goes to show though, doesn’t it? In Liverpool the ghost next door is not always the kind of ghost that you would expect!

  The Lipstick Girls

  My name is Sheila Teresa Roberts and I’m a lipstick girl. Or at least that’s what some people call me. Others can be just a bit more brutal. To hell with them, I say, though I would say it quietly, and perhaps under my breath because believe it or not, I was brought up to be, and am, a good Catholic girl. I work in the big fancy department store in Liverpool. Not the one with the statue above the door where it seems like everyone in town decides to meet. The other one. The posh one. I’ve worked there for nearly thirty years now. Always on the makeup and perfume department. It kind of suited me really, and even though I’m not one to bang my own drum I’d say I’m still a bit of a looker. Still got it. Helps with the job. No doubt about that. More than a few wrinkles perhaps, but presentable. Yes, presentable. That’s me. Sheila Teresa Roberts, the presentable lipstick girl.

  Of course, if you work on the makeup and perfume counter then you have to have a certain look about you. A lot of the other girls on there (and I use the world “girls” very lightly) wander around with their noses in the air. Not me. Though I can do haughty as well as any of them. Especially when someone comes shuffling in five minutes before we close and wants to try every bloody lipstick that we have. Then I can do haughty, believe you me. Most of the time however I just speak as I find. Someone looks down on me as if I’m something stuck on the bottom of their shoe and they get the same back. The only difference is I smile when I do it. It’s a good smile, and I use it whenever I get the chance, even if I don’t actually feel like smiling.

  So. Thirty years. Well, actually, twenty nine years, ten months and four days. I’d give you the minutes if I was sad enough to want to work it out, but I’m not going to. We’ll round it up. Thirty years will do. Nearly three decades and still a shop assistant if I want to be dramatic. Do you know? I’m not sure if working in the same shop for that long is a bad thing or not. I get fed up of it. Who wouldn’t? But most of the time I simply don’t think about it. Check my bank every payday, sort out the bills; make sure that the rent is paid. Life goes on. Yet where do the days go? Seems to me these days that once Tuesday is out of the way it’s very nearly Friday again. Sometimes I think that perhaps I should be more ambitious. Well. Maybe. I never really seem to think that way, though. Couldn’t do with all the hassle and the false smiles and arse licking. I leave that to Mr Georges, the manager of the department that I work on, and a more spineless little bugger this side of Runcorn Bridge you’d be hard pressed to find.

  I have very little contact with him usually, but for half the day I am on my own till by the door that takes the money for all the accessories. It’s a bit out of the way and in the winter you can freeze your bloody feet off. In the summer it’s a bit nicer though. You can see the sun through the doors as people come in and out. Every day though, bang on twelve Mr Georges comes and changes the till roll and the float and takes it off to the cash office, and I swap with Andrea. It’s a bit of a pain, but I always think when that happens that if nothing else it is just an hour till lunch. I’ve been put on there for just over a year now and I’m stuck on the bloody thing every single day until lunchtime like a lemon. I think it’s another one of his daft ideas. A bit like the hair brushes shaped like Christmas trees that we have to drag out of the stock room every November.

  “Sheila” he said the other day, the fat little sod suddenly appearing behind me as I was having a staring match with the big clock over the door that leads out on to the pavement. I was convinced it had stopped. “The Carrera Masara range is looking terribly depleted. See to it, will you?” and off he went, mincing his way to the other side of the sales floor. Having given him the obligatory finger behind his back I proceeded to mess around with the little boxes of wrinkle cream on the counter, most of which seemed to have pictures of twelve year olds on them.

  You see, that’s how the cosmetics industry works. Look at this. Twenty five quid’s worth of wrinkle reducing cream, and you can’t deny it, the girl on the box most definitely has no wrinkles at all. In fact she looks like a bloody doll in that picture. The fact that I’ve probably got knickers in my drawer at home older than her has got nothing to do with it at all. Of course she hasn’t got any bloody wrinkles. She looks about twelve years old, if that. Mind you, the customers just lap it up. Must be soft if you ask me. Not that I’ve noticed a queue of people waiting to ask my opinion, though.

  I have a few friends at work, but not many. It’s bloody cut throat in there. Imagine it. Thirty five women preened and made up to the nines all working together, day in, day out. There isn’t a single day when at least one of them doesn’t have some kind of drama. Most days it is like a Roman gladiator’s arena in there.

  Not that the rest of the shop don’t step carefully around us, though. Oh no. They know better. We have our own table in the canteen and woe betide anyone who isn’t a lipstick girl that sits at it. There are a couple of them that could cause trouble in an empty house, of course. One of the younger girls, Gina something or another always sits in a gaggle with her mates giggling at the rest of us and giving us dirty looks. Particularly me, for some strange reason. Not that I’m bothered. Well, not much, anyway. Sometimes she oversteps the mark, and I can he
ar her calling me names and the like under her breath to her mates. Not quite bullying, but only because I don’t want to call it that. You see, like you, she knows absolutely nothing about me at all. The only thing she does know is that by day I’m a lipstick girl, and perhaps she also knows that some nights I perhaps eat too little and drink too much. No amount of slap can hide that. Caught her writing, “Pisshead” on my locker at work one day. Just pushed past her and got on with getting my stuff out. I’m not sure if it’s an easy life I want, or even a quiet one. I just wish that my Mick was back in it, that’s all.

  Mick was my husband. We were married for ten years. No kids. We never really got round to finding out why that was the case, but that’s just how it goes, I suppose. He was an electrician. Twenty years ago pretty much at this time of year he went up into someone’s loft to fix their wiring. Some stupid sod had taken a few shortcuts with the electrics and my Mick ended up cutting through a wire that carried the mains that shouldn’t have been carrying the mains at all. Turned out that the guy who originally wired it up was keen to get off home early or whatever. Mick came down from that loft in a box, and I’ve been a widow for twenty years. That’s the unfair bit. The bit that gets to me. When the girls at work laugh about that. Ah well.

  I see him sometimes. Before you jump to any conclusions it’s not always when I’ve had a drink. Though most nights I suppose it is. He sits on the end of my bed and watches over me. It’s easier to sleep then. I do wonder though about a God who would allow him to be there and me here. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve had the bottle and boxes of pills all set to one side and ready to go. I’ve had a nice hot bath with the razor blade near to hand, all silver, sharp and waiting. But as I said, I am a good Catholic girl and that’s against my beliefs. Or maybe I’m just scared I’d end up down below whilst he was up there. I’m not the kind of girl who would take that chance. I can wait a long time if I have to, because once that’s over then I have forever waiting for me.