‘Laying the ghost,’ Dexter said firmly. ‘Once and for all. It’ll all be fine, you’ll see.’
Frankie wasn’t so sure.
They’d discussed it endlessly throughout the week. Over hearty fat-filled food in the Greasy Spoon, and twice over rather weird cocktails in the Toad in the Hole. Then, they’d both agreed it was the only thing to do. At least they’d be giving something a try.
Now it was actually happening, it seemed like something else altogether.
It was very odd, Frankie thought, unclipping the fire extinguisher from the wall, that she and Dexter had fallen easily into meeting up at lunch times and after work simply to discuss Ernie’s exorcism. They hadn’t touched on anything personal at all, but having a shared secret had brought them closer in some way.
‘Are we still not telling Maisie that it’s Ernie who’s our resident ghost?’ Dexter hefted the fire extinguisher. ‘Are we going to let him come as a surprise?’
‘Definitely.’ Frankie looked around the kitchen. ‘I still think Maisie’s a fake, so I’m not intending to give her any help at all. We know Ernie can materialise at will, so let’s see what she does with him if she manages to communicate with him at all. Right, let’s go.’
With the lights out, and the shop illuminated only by the multitude of flickering candles, shadows danced eerily up the walls, around the rainbow rails of frocks, and across the low ceiling.
‘You stand here to my left,’ Maisie whispered shakily to Lilly, ‘because you believe in the spirit world and will increase the positivity. And you, Frankie and young Dexter, must stand to my right. And no one say anything. Not a word. Whatever happens. Promise me, sweethearts?’
They all nodded. Lilly giggled. Frankie could feel her heart thundering under her ribs.
‘Are you OK?’ Dexter whispered.
She nodded.
‘Good,’ he said softly, and took her hand in the darkness and squeezed her fingers.
Her heart thundered even more.
Maisie leaned back in her chair and fumbled under the neck of the kaftan. Producing an oddly shaped pendant on a thick chain, she held it between her thumb and forefinger.
‘Are you here?’ Maisie whispered hoarsely. ‘Are you here with us?’
The pendant jerked wildly.
Dexter squeezed Frankie’s hand.
‘And do you want to be free?’ Maisie croaked. ‘Are you unhappy?’
The pendant swung from side to side.
‘That’s a yes on both counts,’ Maisie informed them. ‘Shall I release you?’
‘Is she talking to us or them?’ Dexter whispered in Frankie’s ear.
‘Them I hope.’ Frankie tingled, feeling Dexter’s lips close to her skin.
‘Shhhh.’ Maisie looked cross. ‘Don’t speak.’
The pendant whirled round and round.
‘Can’t even see her fingers moving,’ Dexter murmured. ‘It’s impressive.’
‘Show yourselves to me,’ Maisie demanded, sweeping her hand across her forehead. ‘Show yourselves! Now!’
They all held their breath.
The pendant seemed to take on a life of its own, swinging violently backwards and forwards.
Maisie gave a little scream and slumped sideways.
‘Is she dead?’ Lilly whispered.
‘God, I hope not.’ Frankie peered at Maisie. ‘It would take a hell of a lot of explaining.’
‘Of course I’m not dead,’ Maisie groaned. ‘They’re coming through. It exhausts me. And stop talking.’
Dexter nudged Frankie. ‘Over there,’ he whispered. ‘By the fifties frocks.’
In the dancing shadows, Ernie was leaning nonchalantly against the rails, grinning cheerfully. He gave them a little wave.
Frankie waved back, then frowned. ‘Did she do that?’
‘Doubtful, seeing as we know he appears like that without Maisie here,’ Dexter said softly. ‘But let’s see what she does now. If we can see him then she must be able to.’
Maisie gave a jerk and shook her head. ‘I can’t hear you all at once, I need to hear one voice only. I can’t see you, but I can sense you. Make yourselves appear.’
Frankie and Dexter looked at one another.
Lilly peered across the shop towards Ernie. ‘Isn’t that something over there?’
‘Ssssh!’ Frankie and Dexter hissed together.
Maisie, her eyes wide open, looked wildly round the shop. ‘No, no, this is all wrong. I’m hearing too many voices. I need a spokesperson. I need just one of you to materialise and talk to me. I need guidance.’
‘She needs glasses,’ Dexter said quietly, ‘if she can’t see Ernie.’
Frankie sighed. ‘I knew she was rubbish. Maybe we should give her a bit of a clue?’
‘Please.’ Maisie glared at them. ‘Don’t talk any more. I’m communicating.’
Ernie had strolled into the middle of the shop and stood looking sadly at them.
‘There!’ Lilly shrilled. ‘Maisie! There’s someone over there!’
‘Quiet!’ Maisie snapped as the pendant went into frantic overdrive. ‘This isn’t going to work if I don’t have complete silence.’
‘I’m here, Maisie, duck,’ Ernie said helpfully. ‘Right in front of you. Now, if you could just say whatever you needs to say to get me back to my Achsah I’d be right grateful.’
‘That’s better.’ Maisie subsided back into her chair. ‘Total silence.’
‘She’s crap,’ Dexter said firmly. ‘She can’t hear Ernie or even see him. She’s never going to reunite Ernie with his wife at this rate.’
Lilly jiggled up and down on her stilettos. ‘Maisie, there’s someone here. I can see him. You’ve magicked up a ghost!’
‘It’s not magic, you silly girl, and no one has materialised yet – you’re imagining things. Too much imagination can kill the sightings as much as too much scepticism.’
Ernie sighed heavily. ‘Look, Maisie, duck, I ain’t one to complain, but I’m here and everyone else knows I’m here and you must know that I’m here and—’
‘I’ve got someone!’ Maisie suddenly screamed. ‘I’ve got someone coming through the rabble and chaos!’
‘Thank God for that,’ Dexter sighed. ‘At bloody last.’
‘I must insist on complete silence, and far less blasphemy and profanity,’ Maisie gasped, reaching for a glass of water. ‘I’m drained here. Drained. That’s better. Now, if you could just show yourself to me.’
‘Ta-dah!’ Ernie did a little mocking jiggling dance. ‘She’s telling me that she wants to be reunited,’ Maisie said triumphantly. ‘That she won’t rest until she’s reunited.’
‘She?’ Dexter and Frankie looked at one another.
‘Hold up, duck.’ Ernie stopped jigging and frowned. ‘You seem to have got the drift of what I’m after, but I ain’t no she.’
‘It looks like a man to me,’ Lilly said doubtfully. ‘He’s really sweet.’
Ernie beamed at Lilly.
Maisie suddenly let out a banshee wail. Frankie clung even more tightly to Dexter’s hand. Lilly whimpered.
The shop grew icily cold and a wind, gentle at first, seemed to waft through the darkness, rippling through the half-lit dresses on the rails, making them dance and shimmer like rainbows in the candle glow. Growing in intensity, the wind became a howling, roaring gale, like a live thing, unseen, running amok.
Then, just as suddenly as it had started, it stopped.
There was absolute silence.
‘She’s here!’ Maisie said hoarsely. ‘Oh, dear Lord and all the saints, she’s here.’
‘Jesus!’ Dexter blinked as a shadowy figure emerged from the gloom. ‘What the hell is happening here?’
Frankie felt very sick. She was shaking from head to toe. Even Lilly was silent.
‘Speak to me.’ Maisie’s voice was guttural now. ‘Speak to me.’
‘I’ll speak to you all right, you daft old bat.’ A very angry-looking woman, with her fair hair in a 194
0s snood, and wearing a white petticoat, strode across the shop. ‘What the devil you think you’re doing, disturbing us, I’ve no bloody idea. But now you have, I’ll thank you to undo whatever hokum you’ve just done and let us go back to where we came from.’
Maisie gave a scream, followed by a wistful sigh, and conveniently fainted.
‘Christ Almighty!’ Dexter shook his head. ‘Look at them.’
Frankie looked.
The shadowy shop was suddenly full of women: women of all shapes and sizes and ages, all in various states of undress, all shrieking happily and eagerly raking through the rails of frocks.
‘I’m going to be sick.’ Lilly clutched her mouth and flew towards the kitchen.
‘A right bloody how’s-yer-father balls-up this is,’ Ernie snapped. ‘Now I’m still here, and I’m not alone. Now I’m sharing me haunting space with a lot of flaming half-dressed dead shopaholics.’
Chapter Eighteen
‘Maisie!’ Frankie shook the kaftan-clad shoulder and shrieked in the cauliflower-curl-covered ear. ‘Maisie! Wake up!’
Maisie just grunted.
‘Hang on.’ Dexter deftly moved the candles away from Maisie’s sprawled designer-clad feet. ‘We’ve got enough problems. We don’t want to turn the place into an inferno as well, do we?’
‘I don’t see why not,’ Frankie said faintly. ‘We’ve got hell on earth here already.’
‘I’ll put the rest of the candles out and switch the lights on,’ Dexter said, clearly trying to keep some sort of control. ‘The, um, well, ladies might all disappear in the light.’
He did, and they didn’t.
The woman in the white petticoat frowned at Frankie. ‘Who are you? Where is this? And what century are we in?’
‘I’m Frankie Meredith,’ Frankie mumbled, not taking her eyes from the apparition. ‘This is my frock shop, in Kingston Dapple, in Berkshire, and it’s the twenty-first century.’
‘Twenty-first century.’ White Petticoat frowned. ‘Is it? Crikey. And anyway what the blazes did you think you were doing here, meddling with things you clearly don’t understand?’
Frankie, petrified, just stared at her. Across the shop, the women were still shrieking with girlish excitement, but now also tugging frocks from the rails, struggling into them, and admiring one another.
It was like Saturday afternoon in Primark. ‘Come on, one of you,’ White Petticoat said tersely. ‘Speak to me. Tell me exactly what’s going on.’
‘They’re scared witless of you, duck,’ Ernie said helpfully. ‘And I can’t say I blame them.’
‘Oh, heaven preserve me.’ White Petticoat looked Ernie up and down. ‘Now we’ve got a bewildered newly dead. They drive me mad, you know. All lost and confused and insisting they’re still alive. Get over it, love. You’re dead.’
‘I know that,’ Ernie said crossly. ‘And I’m dead happy to be dead. I just don’t want to be here.’
‘That makes two of us.’ White Petticoat patted her snood. ‘I was more than happy where I was until she –’ she jabbed a finger towards Maisie ‘– dabbled. Saints preserve me from a bloody dabbler.’
Ernie nodded. ‘Exactly what I said, myself.’
‘Tell me I’m dreaming,’ Frankie said, trying not to cry. ‘Please tell me I’m dreaming.’
‘I wish.’ Dexter looked totally bemused. ‘What the heck do we do now?’
‘Wake her up –’ White Petticoat jabbed a finger at Maisie again ‘– and get her to send us back to the afterlife.’ She turned her blazing glare to Frankie. ‘Was this your idea? The seance? A bit of a giggle, was it? Well, let me tell you, it’s far from funny to disturb the dead. I do wish people would leave the spirit world well alone. Stupid, absolutely stupid.’
‘Now you just hang on.’ Ernie stepped forwards. ‘Young Frankie and Dexter here didn’t cause this. It’s more my fault than anyone’s. They were just trying to help me pass over. I want to rest in peace.’
‘Which is what we were all doing nicely, thank you.’ White Petticoat sighed. ‘And who are you, anyway?’
‘Ernie Yardley, duck. And you?’
‘Bev Barlow.’
‘Nice to meet you.’
‘And you.’
‘Christ.’ Dexter shook his head.
Maisie snored.
Frankie rubbed her eyes. ‘This is crazy. We’ve got to do something. No, correction, Maisie’s got to do something.’
She picked up the jug of water and flung it into the large, flabby, comatose face.
Dexter applauded.
‘Whooooo!’ Maisie screamed, sitting up and shaking herself, with several cauliflower curls now dripping into her eyes. ‘Did you chuck water over me, Frankie? Oooh, that was very nasty of you.’
‘Maybe it was, but I don’t care,’ Frankie said angrily. ‘What the hell have you done, Maisie? You said you knew what you were doing. You said you could help me to un-ghost my shop! Now look at it!’
‘Crikey, sweethearts.’ Maisie gazed proudly round the spirit-filled shop. ‘Did I really do all this?’
‘Yes, you bloody did.’ Dexter leaned over her. ‘And now, please reverse it.’
‘Well I never.’ Maisie mopped her face with a massive hankie and beamed cheerfully. ‘I’ve never managed to raise anything or anyone before. Ever.’
‘What?’ Frankie sighed. ‘You mean, you’re a fraud? One big fake? Like we suspected all along?’
‘I’m not a fraud. I do have some powers – some very special powers. It’s just that, so far, they’ve not had very spectacular results.’
‘Well, they have now,’ Bev snorted. ‘And hopefully you’ll be able to summon up your clearly limited powers to send us back to where we came from.’
‘Which is where?’ Maisie asked interestedly. ‘It’s always fascinated me.’
Bev tucked a stray hair under her snood. ‘The afterlife is far too complex to describe to you now. And while I obviously have the time I certainly don’t have the patience. Just accept that there are various layers, and most of us are more than happy to be where we are. We certainly don’t want to be dragged back into a world we hardly recognise with people we don’t know, by the likes of you.’
Dexter and Frankie exchanged glances. But any further explanations were halted by a lot of screaming and scuffling.
A fight had broken out round the 1960s rails.
‘Here!’ Ernie strode across the shop. ‘Stop that! This is a lovely little shop, and young Frankie’s trying to make a living. It ain’t a bloody bun fight! You leave them frocks alone.’
The women stopped squabbling and fell back, looking abashed.
‘And that’s fine for you to say –’ a figure with close-cropped hair and wearing long johns, sashayed forwards, clutching a floaty purple minidress and pouted ‘– but some of us haven’t seen a decent bit of material for simply ages.’
‘It’s a man!’ Frankie blinked. ‘Isn’t it?’
‘Oh Lordy,’ Dexter muttered. ‘It’s the Louie Spence of the spirit world. Fantastic.’
‘OK.’ Frankie took a deep breath. ‘This is madness. Maisie, do something. Now.’
‘I don’t know what to do, sweethearts, and that’s a fact. You’ll have to give me some time to think.’
Bev snorted. ‘Well, being dead, I’ve obviously got all the time in the world, but I’m guessing these living people haven’t. So I suggest you get a bit of a shift on, all right?’
‘Just give me a minute.’ Maisie took several deep breaths. ‘Let me see what I can come up with. But, when you were coming through, didn’t you tell me you wanted to be reunited? I’m sure I heard you say you wanted to be—’
‘I didn’t say anything, and I certainly don’t want to be reunited with anyone down here, ta.’ Bev sighed heavily. ‘I’ve got all the chums and family I need back there in the afterlife, thanks very much.’
‘But I could have sworn you said you wanted to be reunited,’ Maisie looked confused. ‘I’m sure someone wanted to be reu
nited.’
‘Me, duck,’ Ernie said. ‘Me. And you even managed to get that wrong. What a bloody palaver this all is.’
Maisie ignored Ernie and closed her eyes again. ‘Well, I’m very sorry I’m sure if I misunderstood you, er, Bev. The signals must have got crossed somewhere. I’ll try to sort out my earthly auras from my spiritual ones. Just let me concentrate. Right, I’m getting a clearer picture now.’
‘Sounds like my damn old telly,’ Ernie said. ‘And that only worked properly when you gave it a good whack with your fist.’
‘Don’t tempt me,’ Dexter muttered.
Frankie who was still shaking and absolutely sure she’d wake up in her pink and purple bedroom at any moment, cleared her throat and looked at Bev. ‘Look, while Maisie sorts this lot out, can I ask you a question?’
‘Ask away.’ Bev looked bored. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’
‘I know it sounds rude, but why are you all, um, not properly dressed?’
‘Because when we died, a very long time ago in most cases, the fashion for bedecking the corpse in all its earthly finery was seldom heard of. Especially among the lower orders. The men always used to be buried in their best suits if they had one, but not the ladies. We got nightdresses or petticoats to cover our dignity if we were lucky. Some of the poor souls just got shrouds. Most of them haven’t seen a dress for over sixty years. That’s why they’re so excited by the frocks.’
‘Oh dear.’ Lilly had teetered unsteadily out of the kitchen, looking green. ‘That’s a bit unfair. Whatever happened to equality?’
‘There weren’t no equality back then,’ Ernie chipped in. ‘Men and women had separate roles and were treated very differently.’
‘I’m glad I’m alive now, then,’ Lilly said, watching the women still sifting excitedly through the clothes rails, but with more decorum since Ernie’s rant. ‘Oooh, is that one with the purple frock a man?’
‘I am, dear heart. Thanks for noticing. I’m Jared.’
‘I’m Lilly.’
‘Pretty name for a very pretty girl.’ Jared, now with the purple minidress over his long johns, gave a twirl and a curtsy.
‘Faggot!’ Bev sniffed.
‘You can’t say that!’ Frankie was horrified. ‘Not even if he’s dead and you’re dead. That’s so non-PC!’
Never Can Say Goodbye Page 17
