Never Can Say Goodbye

by Christina Jones

  ‘You mean, you had to drive him in his coffin? To Tadpole Bridge?’

  Slo shook his head and wheezed sadly. ‘Not in the coffin, duck, no. That’s illegal. Can’t fasten down a body in a coffin without the appropriate death certificate, see? So, I took him – Ernie, that is – to Tadpole Bridge in the Daimler. In the passenger seat.’

  ‘No way!’

  ‘Sorry, duck. Told you it weren’t pretty, and it’s not something I’m proud of, but needs must. Anyway, I made sure Ernie was fully dressed and I thought no one would notice.’

  Frankie suddenly wanted to laugh even though it wasn’t remotely funny. ‘You mean, you drove to Tadpole Bridge with a dead body – Ernie’s dead body – belted into the passenger seat of your car? In broad daylight?’

  ‘Yes, duck. That’s exactly what I mean. See now why I can’t have a word of this getting out? It would finish us as a business if anyone knew. Oh, I treated Ernie right respectfully, and I chatted to him all the way there.’

  Frankie pulled a face. ‘But, er, wouldn’t he have been, um, stiff?’

  Slo shook his head. ‘Rigor mortis goes off pretty quickly. Just as well, really, or we’d never be able to do the laying-out and embalming and stuff.’

  Frankie winced.

  ‘Sorry, duck. But you did ask.’ Slo coughed apologetically. ‘Anyway, we got to Tadpole Bridge with no mishaps, and old Doc Harman staggered out of his cottage with his stethoscope and said, “Yes, that’s Ernie Yardley and he’s had a dicky ticker for ages and he’s dead”, and he wrote the certificate and that was that.’

  ‘And then you and Ernie came back here, to the chapel of rest, and … ?’

  ‘Going out there we were lucky with the traffic lights, and no one took no notice of us at all. Coming back, we got caught by a red light on the junction to Bagley-cum-Russet and Fiddlesticks. And there was some old dears waiting to cross the road and they waved at me and looked in the car … ’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Yes, duck. Sadly. And poor old Ernie had slumped a bit in his seat belt – so, in case they could hear me, I just said the first thing that came into my head … ’

  ‘Which was “Whoops, Ern, there you go. Can’t have people thinking you can’t hold your ale, can we?”’

  Slo nodded. ‘And then the lights changed and off we went. And I got the death certificates to the crem that same afternoon and Ernie Yardley’s funeral went ahead as planned – not by him, but by the nasty nieces – and see, there isn’t anyone in the world who can know what I said to him that day, except him and me … and he was dead.’

  The fire crackled in the silence.

  Frankie exhaled, her skin crawling. ‘What about the old ladies crossing the road?’

  Slo shook his head. ‘No, duck. The windows was tight shut. They couldn’t hear me, but they could see I was chatting to him. Even if they got a glimpse of Ernie they wouldn’t have twigged that he were dead. He was pale naturally, so they might think he looked a bit ill. But they couldn’t hear me, I’m sure. They just thought we was talking. No, I’d swear on my Essie’s life they weren’t aware of anything odd going on at all.’

  Frankie sat in silence, staring at George Clooney, a million thoughts racing round her head.

  ‘So, what does it mean? All this? Is Ernie really haunting my shop? Is he a ghost?’

  ‘I’ve got no darned idea, duck. But you’ve got me spooked now, and no mistake.’ Slo stood up and walked slowly over to a walnut desk in the corner.

  After a minute or two of rummaging, he returned with a folder. ‘Here we are, duck, all the bits and pieces from Ernie’s funeral. Them nasty nieces didn’t want any of it as a memento of poor old Ern, naturally, so I kept it in here out of respect, really.’

  He sat down again, pulled out a photograph and passed it to Frankie. Feeling cold and more than a little frightened, she really didn’t want to look at it.

  ‘Go on, duck,’ Slo encouraged her. ‘Take a peek. This is Ernie. Now, is this the same man who –?’

  Reluctantly, Frankie gazed down at the photograph and swallowed.

  The elderly man smiling up at her was wearing an old-fashioned shiny suit, with grizzled hair and a cheerful-goblin wrinkled face.

  ‘Oh my God,’ Frankie whispered. ‘Yes, that’s him. That’s the man in my shop.’

  Chapter Twelve

  Cherish had always hated Sundays. Well, at least since she’d been living here alone. Having worked in Miriam’s Modes in Winterbrook since leaving school, Sundays back then, shared with her parents, had been lovely. Sundays back then had always been a busy day of housework in the little bungalow, and cooking economical meals to pop into the tiny fridge-top freezer compartment for the week ahead, along with the traditional Sunday roast, and washing and ironing her work skirts and blouses, all to the accompaniment of lovely sing-along songs on the radio.

  Now, Sundays were just another lonely day. Just like every other lonely day.

  It had been all very well, Cherish thought, as she dusted the Royal Doulton figurines in the Hazy Hassocks bungalow that had hardly changed for five decades, giving up her job to care for her parents; giving up any chance of meeting someone and marrying them and having children; dedicating her life to her parents until they had passed away. They’d loved her, and she’d loved them and been dutiful, and hadn’t minded the duty one jot.

  But now, with no parents, no job and no one in the whole world who needed her, it was a very forlorn existence.

  Of course she had Biddy who’d been her friend since school days, and Biddy was single too. But Biddy enjoyed her own company. Probably because Biddy was always so miserable. Always wanting the see the bad side of everything. Biddy, Cherish thought, as she folded her duster and placed it neatly beside the polish in her cleaning-tidy, was very mean and sometimes downright depressing, which was why she still had no real friends. Apart from Cherish, of course.

  But even in late middle age, Biddy still didn’t seem to mind being alone, because Biddy had always been a loner, really. Even at school, Biddy had managed to alienate most people by her barbed comments. Cherish, for some reason, had never been the target of Biddy’s bile. Both only children with elderly parents, they had formed an unlikely alliance. And Biddy, always totally happy with her own sniping company, simply didn’t understand why Cherish craved the companionship of others, then or now.

  Which is why, on Biddy’s advice – “Well, if you really want to meet other people, although Lord knows why you should, then you might as well make some money out of it and as you’re pretty useless at most stuff, why don’t you resurrect that colour advising thing you used to do?” – Cherish had started the colour-palette advisory service as a home-run venture.

  She’d always had a feel for colours indicating people’s inner vitality, somehow. Even as a child. Her mother had called it a gift. Cherish’s mother had been a beige person, as was Cherish now. Her father had been more of a lovat green or heather mixture. As a family, none of them had been remotely what you’d call gaudy.

  The colour advising was something she’d always done at Miriam’s Modes. There had been a certain class of lady who shopped there and they’d always seemed to welcome Cherish’s advice on the most suitable colour for their new season’s shirt-waister or costume.

  Funny, Cherish thought, no one said costume these days. It was always suits. Suits, in her day, had been strictly for men. Ladies always wore two-piece costumes.

  It would have been lovely, Cherish thought, if she could have carried out her colour-advising in that lovely vintage frock shop yesterday. Not that she needed the money, whatever Biddy said, because Cherish had never really needed money. Her parents had been very astute with their endowment policies leaving her a healthy nest egg, and, even after she’d stopped working, Cherish’s own insurance premium, saved for since childhood, had matured nicely on her fiftieth birthday. She’d always managed to live well within her means.

  No, money was no objective, but it would have made such
a difference, knowing that she had somewhere to go, someone to see, a purpose in life, when she stumbled out of bed each morning to switch on the kettle first, followed by the radio on the kitchen windowsill.

  It was sad, she felt, in her mid-fifties, to live her life regulated by the radio programmes during the day and the television programmes at night. But at least she hadn’t gone down the daytime telly route like so many others of her age.

  The television remained switched off until the six o’clock news, as it always had in her parents’ day, when Cherish had her supper on a tray. The tray-on-lap had been a daring innovation brought in after her parents died. When they were alive, they all sat round the dining table for their meals, and discussed the day’s events. After their deaths, close together, Cherish had found a dining table set for one a very dismal thing.

  So now the radio presenters and television announcers were her daily friends, and were more real to her than any real people. She felt they were all talking just to her, and she talked back to them. And she hated it when they went on holidays and a stranger took over their programmes. It totally ruined the symmetry of her day.

  It had taken her months and months to recover from Terry Wogan’s retirement.

  There. Cherish looked at the cabinet full of Royal Doulton ladies. They all sparkled in their crinolines, staring imperiously at her from their pale blank eyes. Her mother had loved the crinoline ladies, but Cherish hated them. She thought they were all in the wrong colours, and frequently told them so. If she hadn’t felt so guilty about it, she’d have packed up the entire collection and donated it to Biff and Hedley Pippin’s charity shop. Like most things in the bungalow, really. But, because the bungalow was a shrine to happier times with her parents, she simply couldn’t bring herself to get rid of a single item.

  Ten o’clock. Cherish sighed. The day stretched endlessly ahead. And it was still so foggy and cold outside there wasn’t even much point in wrapping up and taking a stroll down Hazy Hassocks High Street. There’d be no one about on a day like this. Hazy Hassocks was ambivalent about Sunday opening hours, too. Big Sava would be open, of course, but because she shopped cheaply and cooked simply, as her mother had done, Cherish didn’t need any groceries, and the rest of the Hazy Hassocks shops held very little interest.

  Unlike Francesca’s Fabulous Frocks in Kingston Dapple. Oh, how she’d loved just looking at all those beautiful frocks, imagining the previous owners, speculating on who might buy them next, and for what special occasion. And Frankie was a very nice girl, too, despite what Biddy had said about her. Even if she wore those garishly bright colours when she really should be in grey.

  And how wonderful it would be to work in that shop with Frankie and chat to the customers, and touch those gorgeous fabrics – fabrics made with love into stunning dresses long before cheap clothes were imported by the container-load from other countries – and advise them on which colours would suit them best.

  Cherish shuddered suddenly, remembering the debacle in Dorothy Perkins in Winterbrook the previous day. That had been Biddy’s fault, of course. Biddy was always so caustic.

  She shook her head, trying to erase the awful memory.

  She looked at the clock again. Was it too early to make a cup of coffee? Yes, definitely. Coffee was for elevenses and it was nowhere near that time yet.

  Oh, dear … Cherish wandered to the window and stared out at the swirling grey gloom. How on earth was she going to fill all those long hours before it was time to go back to bed?

  Chapter Thirteen

  By half past nine on Monday morning, Frankie had restored Francesca’s Fabulous Frocks to some sort of order after the jumble-sale rush of her first day’s trading. The rails were restocked and tidy; the purple and gold bags were neatly stacked; the float in the till was replenished; Michael Bublé had been replaced by a selection of easy-listening from Jack Jones, Matt Monroe and Andy Williams; the counter had been polished and the floor swept; and Dexter’s rainbow bouquet had been topped up with fresh water and still looked and smelled ravishing.

  Frankie looked around her with pleasure – relishing the array of sumptuous fabrics, rich colours and varied designs – and not a little relief.

  After a sleepless Saturday night – a combination of exhaustion, followed by driving through the pea-souper fog twice, but far, far more because of Slo Motion’s revelations about Ernie Yardley – all Frankie’s plans for spending Sunday in the shop had been abandoned.

  Eventually falling asleep at somewhere around dawn – just as Lilly had stumbled in from her night out in Winterbrook – Frankie had dozed fitfully, woken properly at lunchtime and felt pretty groggy all day. Deciding that she’d do a far better job of tidying the shop and restocking the rails on Monday when she’d had a good rest, and convincing herself it had nothing whatsoever to do with the thought that Ernie Yardley’s ghost might just be real, she’d spent the day half-listening to Lilly’s raptures over her latest ‘cutest man in the entire world’ and mulling over what Slo had told her.

  It simply couldn’t be true.

  Of course, she hadn’t mentioned any of it to Lilly. Mainly because Lilly might just have believed it and made matters a whole lot worse, but also because a loved-up Lilly was even less use as a listener than a dishcloth. So, Frankie had kept everything about Ernie Yardley to herself, as she’d promised Slo she would.

  And it had ruined her Sunday.

  However now, with the fog gone and the low winter sun streaming through the festive windows on this bright, extremely frosty morning, she almost laughed at her gullibility. Ghosts! No way. It was, Frankie was sure, still something to do with Maisie Fairbrother playing tricks – although the photograph was pretty damning evidence, not to mention the incident at the traffic lights … And why would anyone want to play those sort of tricks on her anyway? She wasn’t aware of having any enemies, and she was pretty sure everyone had loved Rita. So, who? And why?

  Because, if it wasn’t a trick, then it had to be real, didn’t it?

  No. She shook her head as she ran her hand across the top of one of the 1960s rails. It was all nonsense. Although, it had to be said, she’d opened up earlier that morning while the market square was dark and still deserted and early-morning drowsy with a feeling of huge trepidation. And, she admitted to herself, she had called out to Ernie Yardley – just in case …

  But the shop had been completely empty. Achsah’s frock was still on the 1950s rails, without anyone small, elderly, grizzlehaired and goblin-faced in ghostly attendance.

  It was all some sort of silly, but cleverly organised stunt to unsettle her. And she’d find out who was behind it and deal with it.

  As she looked out through the large double windows at the market square where the moisture left by the fog had frozen in crystal feathers, turning everything white like snowfall beneath the bluebell sky, she couldn’t understand why she’d allowed herself to get so agitated. There just had to be a simple and rational explanation.

  There were no such thing as ghosts. Fact.

  Shoppers were cheerfully going about their Monday-morning business, stepping carefully across the icy cobbles, and Dexter, occasionally blowing on his hands, his breath pluming into the sub-zero air, was busily arranging huge buckets of red and white flowers on the decking outside the stall, and replenishing the stocks of holly wreaths and mistletoe garlands.

  She watched him for a moment. The jeans, boots and leather jacket were the same, and this morning’s sweatshirt was turquoise: a splash of vivid colour against the rich darkness of the greenery. Frankie smiled to herself. She was wearing a short, flared turquoise frock today, with navy tights and boots. Together, they’d look like a matching pair.

  Not, of course, that there was going to be any together as such. Not in that way. She didn’t want any more complications of that sort – even if Dexter hadn’t already been involved with Ginny and the home-service ladies. But he was, she admitted to herself, absolutely gorgeous just to look at in a sort of det
ached kind of way.

  The door flew open and three women, muffled against the frosty morning and clutching shopping baskets, bustled in and, after calling out cheerful ‘good mornings’ and humming along with ‘Born Free’, headed for the 1980s rails.

  Francesca’s Fabulous Frocks was up and running once again.

  By eleven o’clock, the shop was packed. Frankie had hardly had time to breathe. She was desperate to go to the loo and to have a coffee. She worked as quickly as she could, packing the dresses and chatting at the same time, taking money and zapping cards, but the queue at the counter seemed to grow ever longer.

  ‘Here.’ Dexter manoeuvred his way behind the counter, and handed her a mug of Greasy Spoon coffee. ‘You look like you could do with it.’

  ‘Life saver.’ Frankie grinned, carefully wrapping a grunge outfit in tissue paper. ‘Thank you so much. I’d hoped to get out to you with a cup this morning but –’ she looked at the never-ending queue of women who were now looking hungrily at Dexter ‘– there’s been no chance.’

  ‘Great, isn’t it? I’m really busy too. I’d better get back before some bugger nicks the mistletoe.’ He grinned at her. ‘And snap on the colour co-ordinating. Great sartorial minds at work?’

  Frankie giggled. ‘Oh, the turquoise – yes, I know. I, er, saw you earlier and thought we looked a bit Howard and Hilda.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘They were in an old sit-com. Always wore the same clothes. A running joke.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ Dexter looked blank. ‘I must have missed that one.’

  ‘Maybe more Torvill and Dean, then?’

  Dexter brightened. ‘Oh, yeah, I know them. She’s got incredible legs.’

  Frankie laughed.

  ‘Anyway –’ Dexter ran his fingers through his silky hair ‘– how are you fixed for lunch?’

  Frankie hadn’t even thought about lunch. ‘Lord knows. I don’t think I’ll be able to have any. It doesn’t matter – it’ll be great preparation for the Christmas bloat-out. Sorry?’ She leaned across the counter to a diminutive woman in a huge tweed coat, a balaclava and mittens. ‘Yes, I’ve got several peasant dresses on the 1970s rails. Yes, I love those little peeps of lacy petticoat, too.’