by Katie Penryn
Sam ruffled Jimbo’s hair saying, “I have to admit. I used to be scared of the dark when I was a kid.”
For once Jimbo didn’t snatch himself away. “What did you do?”
“Called for Mum.”
Dangerous ground. Gwinny never went to comfort Sam. It had been left to me. But we couldn’t risk getting into all that now. We had to live in the present with the new Gwinny and let bygones be bygones.
The phone interrupted my thoughts. It was Father Pedro for Audrey. She listened and asked him to hold. “He can visit us this afternoon. Shall I confirm?”
“Please do,” I said and turned to Jimbo. “Did you hear that?” I asked him. “The priest’s coming to sort out the ghosts.”
“Will he want to talk to me?”
“He’ll need to talk to all three of you.”
“Does he believe in ghosts?”
“You’ll have to ask him when he gets here.”
Chapter 5
Father Pedro arrived as we were drinking our after lunch coffee. Audrey introduced us.
He tousled Jimbo’s hair. “So you’re the young man with the ghost problem?”
“Not just me, sir. Simone and Wilfred as well,” Jimbo said pointing to Audrey’s children seated at the foot of the table.
“You don’t have to call me sir, child. Father will do.”
“Sorry, I’ve never met a Catholic priest before.”
Father Pedro laughed. “We don’t bite, you know.”
Audrey offered the father a cup of coffee and he accepted.
“Shall we all sit down?” he asked.
He drank his coffee while he waited for us to settle down and give him our attention.
He looked at Jimbo. “Now, young man, tell me about this ghost.”
“There’s more than one. The chief one says she’s the ghost of the woman who was murdered in our garden.”
“Yes, I heard about that. Several of my parishioners sought comfort from me. An Englishwoman called Edna Yardley, is that right?”
Jimbo nodded. “I never saw her body, Penzi wouldn’t let me look.”
“Quite right,” said Father Pedro glancing at me. “Does this Edna ghost say horrible things to you or threaten you in any way?”
“No, nothing like that. I don’t think she wants to harm us. She’s unhappy. She says there’s more evil coming. She said I should warn Penzi to be care—”
“You never told me that,” I said looking at Jimbo in astonishment.
“I didn’t want to scare you,” Jimbo replied before turning back to Father Pedro. “Do you believe in ghosts, sir… I mean, Father?”
“I have an open mind on the subject as do many of my colleagues. From what you’re telling me, this Edna is trying to help you all; she’s not evil. There’s no need for an exorcism. What we’ll do is pray.”
Our family looked at each other in alarm. Pray with a Catholic priest? We didn’t know what to do.
“Don’t look so worried,” he said and chuckled. “Audrey and I will pray and you can all bow your heads and think good thoughts. Try and project a message to Edna that you have understood her warning.”
“Now?” asked Jimbo.
“No time like the present. Everyone bow their heads and Audrey and I will pray the rosary. Our prayers will bring spiritual cleanliness to your house. After the prayers we will cleanse your house with holy water and herbs. Ready?”
I reached for Jimbo’s hand and we all bowed our heads. The quiet respectful tone of the priest’s prayers calmed the children. Jimbo’s hand relaxed in mine as the tension left him. I concentrated on Edna, a woman I had never met while she was alive, and sent her messages of thanks for her warning.
Father Pedro’s voice broke into my thoughts. “All right. You can look up now. The next thing we’ll do is go round the house and cleanse it. Do you have any sage?”
Audrey answered that she had a packet of fresh sage in the fridge. “There’s not much.”
“It’ll do. Bring it with you. And do you have a bell?”
Felix rose to his feet. “I saw one in the brocante. I’ll fetch it.”
Upon Felix’s return with the bell we followed the father from room to room. He sprinkled holy water in the four corners of the room, and asked Felix to ring the bell. The sage he tore up and scattered on the floor.
*
“So, do you feel better about your house now?” Father Pedro asked when we went back down to the kitchen after his cleansing tour of the house.
“I do,” said Jimbo.
Father Pedro chucked Simone and Wilfred under the chin. “And you two, my little ones.”
They hid their faces against Audrey but they sucked their thumbs no longer.
“Guess, that’s a yes then,” he said.
Felix took down the bottle of pineau and poured a tot for the priest. He sipped it slowly in between asking us questions about our previous life in England and about how we found life in France.
He finished his glass and stood to leave.
“Before I go, I’ll say a blessing if you’d all like to bow your heads again.”
When the blessing was over, I thanked him for coming to our aid at such short notice especially as most of us were not members of his congregation.
“Mpenzi, my child,” he said. “Anything any of us can do to further the cause of goodness in the world is much needed regardless of religion or conviction. Let me know if I can be of further help.”
As his car drove away up the cobbled street I whispered to Felix, “Do you think he would approve of my being a white witch?”
“You heard what he said. Any force for good is valuable no matter where it comes from.”
So Jimbo wasn’t the only one to be comforted by Father Pedro’s visit.
Chapter 6
I'd had the forethought the week before to order two industrial vacuum cleaners from an online store. The delivery van arrived while we were having a late breakfast discussing the opening up of the brocante. Felix and Sam had no sooner bundled the machines into the hallway and I had closed the front door than someone knocked. I opened the door to find Emmanuelle standing on the step with a scarf tied round her hair and wearing a serviceable apron with a pair of gloves peeping out of the pocket.
I smile at her and said, “Salut, come in. I wasn't expecting you this morning.”
“Sam rang me. He said you planned to begin work on the brocante this morning,” she said as she eased past me into the hall. “He said you could do with another pair of hands if I had nothing to do. And I have nothing to do. The summer holidays are so long and they can be so boring. I can't spend all day on the beach.”
“Go through to the kitchen. We're making plans for the day.”
Everyone called out salut and Audrey poured a cup of coffee for Emmanuelle who took a seat next to Sam.
I clapped my hands for silence and everyone except Sam and Emmanuelle hushed. They had their heads together talking vital teenage secrets.
“Sam, pay attention.”
He sat up and grinned at me. “Yes, boss.”
“Hey,” said Felix from his perch on the window sill. “That's my name for Penzi. Leave off. Listen to what Penzi has to say. We discovered something last night when we went into the brocante for a preliminary recce of the work to be done. We found another room. It's behind that long velvet curtain on the left hand side. It has no windows and has been used as a dumping ground for years. No rats this time. Just junk.
“It looks as if the original stock of the brocante was shifted into that room to make way for the more valuable items that we found in the main shop when we opened it up before the murder of Edna distracted us.”
“So what's the plan?” asked Sam.
Felix pulled out a chair at the foot of the table and sat down. “We decided the best way to proceed was to clear out that junk room to give us space to sort out the valuable items in the main brocante. We can't move forward while everything is piled up in such a jumble.”
“I don't think we'll be keeping much,” said Felix.
Emmanuelle drained her coffee cup and replaced it on the table. “From what Sam has told me, what you have in the main room are more antiquités than brocante – proper antiques rather than bric-à-brac. If so, I agree with Felix. You don't want to be dealing with such different markets. There's a woman who has a brocante at the top of the town. She sells old kitchen utensils, books, ornaments – all fairly low priced. You could let her view the items you want to throw away. They may of use to her.”
“That's a consideration,” I said. “Rather the stuff go to someone else than the rubbish dump.”
Jimbo who was looking out of the window and hadn't been paying much attention called out, “Here's Martine.”
Martine was our postwoman. A jolly friendly woman who had helped us solve Edna's murder.
“Ask her if she wants a coffee to break up her round,” I said to Jimbo who was quick to do as I said.
Martine was popular with all of us.
Once she was settled with a cup of coffee in front of her, she looked round at us all. “You look solemn,” she said. “You haven't found another body, have you?”
“No, nothing like that. Thank goodness,” said Gwinny who had barely escaped being locked up for life for Edna's murder.
We told Martine about the room of junk we had discovered and asked her if she had any ideas.
“For anything you don't want to keep, you should give first choice to the local museum. If the items are as old as you say, they could be valuable for the exhibits of life as it used to be.”
“What's her name? I'll give her a ring now.”
“Monique LeBrun – she'll be in the book.”
Sam fetched the phone book and found the number for me. Meanwhile I asked Emmanuelle to phone the brocante shopkeeper. Apparently, she was English.
“Ask her to call late this evening. We should be finished by then. Say, nine o’clock.”
My call to Monique LeBrun was greeted with joy.
“We're always on the lookout for items to complete our collection,” she said. “When shall I call round?”
I gave her the same time as the shopkeeper. They could discuss between them who was to take what.
With that settled, Martine left to continue her mail round.
It was lucky that we had Gwinny with us to help with the cleaning and clearing. Audrey would have to stay in the house with her children. It was too dangerous for them to be running in and out of those mountains of furniture and objets d'art.
*
The gang and I worked hard all morning shifting the heavy items while Jimbo helped out with the lighter ones and brought us refreshments from time to time. By lunchtime we had cleared half the room out on the pavement and on the road. As our house was the last in what was effectively a cul-de-sac we were able to spread out across the end of the road, keeping what we wanted to keep in a small group and junk we wanted to be rid of in a much larger group.
Audrey had cooked a splendid lunch for us of grilled lamb chops with haricot beans à la française followed by strawberries and cream. Simple but tasty. I gave the gang half an hour off to relax.
“After lunch I would like Sam and Felix to buy a trailer. We'll need one anyway if we're going into this business, but we'll certainly require one to take all the rejects to the recycling center. I noticed a business selling trailers about five miles outside the town walls on the way to Isabelle's. Take Jimbo with you for company, Sam. We three girls will clean out the room ready to take items from the main brocante as we sort through it.”
I whisked Sam and Felix off to the study to look up trailers on the internet so we could decide how large a trailer to buy.
“With any luck,” I said. “If we load the trailer tonight, we can make the first trip to the center tomorrow and clear all the junk by tomorrow night.”
When the boys had left, we girls continued with the work getting dustier and dirtier by the minute. I have never seen so many insect carcasses or so many spiders' larders. Emmanuelle was helping to lug out an ancient wash tub when Gwinny called to me.
“Penzi, come quickly. There's something you should see. Quickly.”
We plonked the tub down where we were and rushed inside to Gwinny. She stood by a huge metal container. It was about three foot tall.
“Look inside,” she said, her voice quavering.
I could see why she had been alarmed but it was all for nothing. The case was full to the brim with old brass shell cases, empty of course.
“Gwinny, it's all right they're used cases. We'll make some money on those. People love to use them as doorstops or vases. Start carrying them out. You'll only be able to manage one at a time. We'll come back and help you when we're dumped that old tub out on the pavement.”
For the next twenty minutes the three of us ferried the shell cases outside lining them up like old soldiers on the pavement on the right of the front door.
I rubbed the dirt away from a couple. They were dated from 1941 to 1944.
Emmanuelle looked over my shoulder. “The soldiers used to bring them back from the battlefields during the Second World War when they were on leave. I don't think we had any action around here.”
Another shriek from Gwinny. Emmanuelle and I hurried back inside. We found her cowering in the doorway to the room. She pointed at the shell container. “Penzi, there're some live ones at the bottom. There're dustier and more tarnished than the others. What shall we do? We can't touch them.”
“Everyone outside,” I said at once. “Gwinny fetch Audrey and the kids. Tell them to wait by the seawall while I phone the mayor.”
Seconds later I was through to Monsieur Bonhomie. When I told him what the problem was, that we had live shells in our storeroom, he told me to send my family to the end of the road and start knocking on doors to evacuate the street to the Esplanade. He would contact the appropriate authorities.
Were we never going to set the brocante to rights?
In no time Gwinny and Emmanuelle, accompanied by Audrey and her two children, were running down towards the town. I followed along behind emptying the houses along the way. I met with a skeptical reception until the fire brigade sirens could be heard at the top of the town moving fast towards us.
The gendarmes arrived and blocked off the street to all except the Fire Brigade. Then nothing happened. I asked Dubois what was going on.
“We're waiting for the experts from Bordeaux. We don't have a bomb defusing squad here in Beaucoup-sur-mer. Your family is really putting all our emergency services to the test. The CIS team last week and now the bomb disposal squad.”
He broke off as a helicopter appeared in the distance and he turned away to listen to his earpiece.
Inspector Dubois and his team of gendarmes had been given orders to clear the beach to give the helicopter space to land. Everyone began to panic, pushing and shoving to get up the stairs onto the Esplanade. Whispers ran through the crowd of a suspected terrorist attack.
Oh dear, we weren't going to be popular when everyone learned it was an unexploded shell in our storeroom.
Chapter 7
The bomb squad hurried across the beach and along to the police barricade where I was standing. The chief asked for me and I stepped forward. He wanted details of how to find the shells. I offered to go with him but he wouldn't hear of it. His squad stepped out smartly towards our house at the end of the street. My phone rang. It was Sam. I had forgotten all about him and his mission in the panic over the shells.
“Yes?”
“We've bought a trailer but we can't bring it home.”
“Why on earth not?” I asked him, ex
asperated at another hiccup in the middle of the drama about the possible explosion of old ammunition.
“Penzi, I hate to tell you this, but we can't bring the trailer back because we don't have a tow bar on our car.”
That was the trigger that set off my hysteria. I burst out laughing, laughing so hard I had to bend double to take the pressure off my stomach muscles. People around me backed off leaving me standing alone. First off, my house was the scene of a possible explosion and now I was roaring with laughter. Was I mad?
“Penzi? Are you still there? What's going on? I can hear sirens.”
I heard scratches on the phone and Felix's voice came through. “Boss, are you okay? I can't leave you alone for five minutes without you getting yourself into trouble.”
I explained about the unexploded shells and that the emergency services were in control.
“You did the right thing,” Felix said. “To hell with the trailer. I'm coming back now to take care of you.”
“Please don't,” I said calming down and forcing myself to speak quietly into the phone. “I'd rather you took the car to the garage and got a tow bar fixed. Wait there and as soon as Gwinny can get her car out from behind the police blockade she will come and fetch you. You can deal with the trailer tomorrow.”
The crowd waiting for a long time to see whether the shells would be defused or not, or whatever it is the experts do to unexploded shells. Some of them, I'm sure, hoping for one of them to go off and wake up the sleepy little town, but they were to be disappointed. The gallant bomb squad called the all clear at about five o'clock and allowed us to return home.
“You were lucky, Madame Munro,” said their chief. “Those were shells from the First World War – German, French and British – very unstable. They could have gone off at any time.”
Monsieur Bonhomie arrived at my side and put his arms around my shoulders. “We are lucky not to have lost our brave and clever Mpenzi.”
“You told Madame Isabelle Tointon the stock was old. I never guessed it was as old as pre-1918.”
