Bacchus and Sanderson (Deceased) (13 page)

“Get out you bastards.”

William realised that contrary to the level of noise and commotion, no one but Wooster was in the room.

Still taking deep breaths, he said to the dog,

“That’s the last time you have cheese at bedtime you lunatic animal. Show me the burglar. That’s right no burglar. Settle down while I finish making you a bowl of tea.”

              Ernest was listening to the dogs reprimand from the space between the floorboards and the ceiling. As soon as the dog had started his frantic barking, he had shot upwards in fright, scaring Juanita who was gliding through checking bedrooms. Wasting no time, he dropped straight down beside William, landing on the work surface, at the same instant Juanita appeared half in and half out of the ceiling. Nodding at him she indicated with a facial expression and a flick of her hand that he should begin.

“William. William, this is Ernest.” His voice was gentle, soothing. He didn’t want to sound threatening William mustn’t panic.

              Williams spun around in fright, looking for the owner of the voice. He backed out of the kitchen door and into the lounge. Looking across to Wooster, he said in a shaky voice.

“Did you hear that? The voice. Was the woofing because you saw someone?” Patting Wooster’s head, he went back into the kitchen to continue making their tea and coffee.

“William, it’s Ernest Sanderson, your father. I’m dead; so you aren’t going to be able to see me, but we can talk to each other. If you can hear me, please hold up your right hand.” Shaking his head, William swivelled on the spot looking for the owner of the voice. Wooster was still calm, so no one in the lounge. The dead are dead; period. William took a deep breath and thought, what if the voice was who it claimed to be? He was a vicar, he talked to someone he couldn’t see everyday. He didn’t expect a response, at least not verbal response. What did he have to lose by holding a hand up? He raised his hand inch by inch, unsure what would happen.             

Ernest looked up at Juanita hanging out of the ceiling to check he was doing okay and got a smile and a nod as his answer.

“Thank you William. I know this challenges everything that you hold dear, and in your shoes, I would be even more sceptical than you are now. To try and show you that this voice in your head is not mental illness, delusions or a psychotic episode let me tell you a couple of thing that I heard you chatting about today with my other son Ben. If that is ok, just talk to me as you would to anyone else.”

              Watching for a reaction from William, he knew that if William responded aloud to him he was half way there.

“I know I’m talking out loud and I know you said, in my head, that you are Ernest Sanderson but to be honest at the moment I think this is either stress or medication. So convince me.” The act of talking out loud to an empty room was unsettling, uncomfortable. Was this how it started? Mental illness? The joke that he had found so funny at school popped into his head. ‘What’s the first sign of madness? Talking to yourself. What’s the second sign of madness? Replying.’ It didn’t seem so funny anymore.

              Taking a deep breath to steady his nerves, Ernest began one of the most important speeches he had ever had to make.

“When you introduced yourself to Ben, he looked very confused and he offered to buy you a coffee. When he brought the coffee over he also brought tea for your dog.” Ernest paused to let that sink in.

William walked out into the sitting room, poured himself a large whisky from the half bottle of Bells and sat on the sofa.

“I’m not impressed. All you’ve proven is that you know someone who was in the bookshop this afternoon. You’re going to need to be a lot more convincing than that.”

Frowning for a moment Ernest then said,

“He told you about my death and that his mum died five years ago from cancer.”

William made to interrupt, but Ernest continued without letting him speak,

“He didn’t tell you his mother was called Jess, but I did in the letter I wrote to you. When Ben did a Ben, as it has become known in the bookshop, you panicked. Even when Debbie tried to reassure you, you were still panicky.  Your friend Annabel is nice and she’s right, Ben is a great chap and he can be unpredictable. Listen to her, she tends to be right more than she’s wrong.”

              William stared into space scratching Wooster’s ears to keep him from barking again, barking at what he didn’t know, but the noise was more than he could cope with. Getting up, he walked into the kitchen and returned with a shoebox full of pills and began taking out the instructions from each packet. Smoothing each one out he placed them in a pile. Picking up a piece of paper from the top of the pile, he began to read. After a few moments it became apparent that he wasn’t finding the information he needed in the first of the drug instruction leaflets, he discarded it and picked up a second. After he had rejected three of the leaflets and was selecting the fourth from the pile, Ernest asked,

“What are you doing?”

“The voices, it must be the pills. I’m on so many of the things, one of the combinations is producing these auditory hallucinations.”

“Ok William, what could I know, that it wouldn’t be possible for anyone else to know? Ah, yes. William, when you were a child, did you go away on holiday with your mother?” William thought back to his childhood and the raft of family holidays he had had with his mother he had loved, enjoyed or abandoned. He answered as honestly as his memory allowed.

“Yes, not every year, but most years.”

“Excellent. You went to a variety of places including, Weymouth, Torquay and I think, Guilford. Your mother had family in Guilford I think. When you were five, which was the last year I had any contact with you, you went to North Devon, Croyde Bay. When you were on holiday you hurt yourself, you fell from one of the large stones on the beach and broke your arm. It was a bad break and it needed to be pinned in hospital. That explains the scar that runs along the inside of your arm from your elbow to your wrist. It also explains why you have an irrational fear of beaches. Have you been back to the beach since?”

“No, not once. I think I could now but for years, the thought of them made my arm hurt, I would have, what now I suppose would be called anxiety attacks. Mum was very good and we had our holidays in the countryside until she died.”

Ernest continued in the hope that all he was saying would persuade William that he was talking to his father.

“I collected you and your mother from your cottage in Croyde Bay and brought you back to Batcombe. Soon after that your mother decided that she could no longer cope with such a fragmented upbringing for you. I continued to provide for you both financially but I never saw you again.”

Now for the difficult part, Ernest thought, how do you talk to a priest about heaven and hell? 

“I’m here talking to you now, trying to convince you that I’m not the symptoms of early onset dementia or schizophrenia. When you die, you are allocated; the good go up to heaven, the bad go down to hell and those with unfinished business go to limbo.”

Juanita could see from her perch halfway through the kitchen ceiling that Ernest was losing him. It was taking too long. Finishing Ernest’s sentence, she took over and said,

“And that William is where Ernest is now, limbo, and why he needs your help. William walk over to the mirror in the hall and look into it.”

Bolting out of the chair he was sitting in, William spun around looking for the source of the second voice.

“Who in god’s name are you?”

“My name is Juanita, and I am Ernest’s guide. Now do as I ask and go to the mirror.”

William walked to the mirror in the hall, not hurrying, unsure why he was doing what the voice in his head said. Ok, he thought I’m here, I’m looking in the mirror and all I can see is my reflection.

“Ready William?” said Juanita.

“Ernest I think it will help William believe if you show yourself.”

              For a moment nothing happened, William’s reflection stared back at him as it always did. Feature by feature, the face he was looking at in the mirror began to change. His hair colour changed from grey to light brown with grey at the temples.  His nose became slimmer and aquiline, his face lost its fleshiness to take on a more haughty bearing and his Adams apple became more prominent.

“William, may I introduce Ernest, your father.”

“Hello William. This is how I looked when I died, how I would have looked if we had had the opportunity to meet. I really do need your help. I’m sure looking in the mirror and not seeing your own face is unsettling but we needed you to believe. You’re not hallucinating, not losing your mind. You are seeing something that very few people see. You should feel proud that you have been chosen.”

William continued to stare at the face of his father reflecting back from the mirror. He spoke to no one in particular, saying,

“This isn’t a dream is it? This is real. I don’t understand but I do now believe it, you are real.”

The voice of the guide Juanita broke in and said

“Good. Now you have realised that this isn’t an elaborate practical joke, we can continue. As Ernest was explaining, limbo is where you go if you have unfinished business. Unfinished business occurs if you die before we are expecting you to die, before your death date. That happens for one of two reasons: one, random chance, hit by a car, bus, etc., impossible to predict, and two, murder.”

“Ernest? Which one was he? The former or the latter?”

Juanita hardened her voice,

“Does it matter? It isn’t relevant, what you need to know is that he needs your help. Unfinished business cannot be left unfinished. As I have already explained to Ernest, eternity is a long time to be stuck in limbo.”

Ernest continued without a pause between Juanita finishing talking and his first word.

“I was murdered. In a way that left no trace. Murdered. That is part of what I have to deal with before I can get out of here. I’m a spirit, a ghost, which is why I need someone on earth; a living, sentient human being, to act on my behalf. That person has to have a connection with me. Our connection is at best tenuous; we haven’t seen each other for many years, you know nothing about me and I doubt very much if you are even interested in helping. The bequest of money and the bookshop would have been yours anyway. Now I need your help. I have no choice, there was, is, no one else I could trust. There you have it. Will you help me?”

              William turned away from the mirror, no longer able to look at a reflection that wasn’t his own and went to the kitchen to put on the kettle. Looking at Wooster, he said,

“I think after the night we’re having an extra cup of sweet strong Colombian wouldn’t hurt, do you?”

              He prepared the coffee and took the small cafetière, mug, milk and sugar through to the sitting room. Pouring himself some coffee, he sat down on the sofa; put his feet up to get comfortable and then answered Ernest’s question with a question of his own.

“What about Ben? He is a member of your family, someone you could trust.  He seems the perfect choice.”

“I did think about Ben but only for a moment. I wouldn’t get the help that I need and I think that it would be cruel to Ben and could leave him psychologically damaged.”

              Showing her fiery Spanish blood and her increasing impatience with Ernest’s inability to get Williams agreement and close the deal, she intervened,

“William, are you assisting your father or not?”

“Yes.”

“Ernest, what do you want William to do?”

“Read the files on the flash drive at the bookshop,” he said, answering Juanita’s question. Then addressing William, he continued,

“If you can read the files and notes that are in the safe and in a safe deposit box at the bank by this time the day after tomorrow you can give me your assessment and we can then decide what needs to be done first. If you need me before then, call and I will be there. Goodbye and thank you William."

“Felicity speaking.” Jemima imitated her sister Felicity when she said,

“Jemima speaking.” Reverting back to her normal voice she continued,

“What do you want? I’m not, as you seem to imagine, poised at the other end of a phone waiting for you to call.”

Felicity winced; a more subtle approach was going to be called for.

“Jemima, I’m sorry for leaving such an unimaginative message. I’ve been under terrible pressure, can you forgive me?” Without waiting for a response, she continued.

“Do you remember the little job I arranged for daddy a couple of months or so ago? The apparent heart attack? It seems we still might have a little problem and I was hoping you could help.”

“You can’t keep killing. Whoever your mystery fixer is you might need to send them on a long holiday. Haven’t you something other than venom in that odious, skinny body of yours? Use some of the cunning you are so proud to have inherited from our departed grandfather.”

“No, much less complicated. I need to know how much information Ernest Sanderson left as part of a bequest he made to William Bacchus and whether the aforementioned Mr Bacchus is bright enough to draw any conclusions for himself. William is now in Sherborne, Dorset where he has inherited a bookshop and a cripple. Be a dear, pop down and see what you can see. Ciao.”  Terminating the call before her sister could think of any cutting response, Felicity smiled with pleasure. Jemima was so easy to tease. Irrespective of the subject or how many times she had taunted her with it before, Jemima would always oblige. She knew that one day she would go too far, but until then, well a girl had to have some fun. She’d have a trinket awaiting Jemima’s arrival at the Eastbury Hotel, Jemima loved a bauble, as long it was a tasteful and expensive bauble. Education will out.