Never Can Say Goodbye (23 page)

‘Stay there!’ Frankie said firmly to Lilly as Dexter quickly relit the candles. ‘Stand there, next to Maisie and don’t move.
You’re all giggly and wobbly and I don’t want you setting fire to yourself. And don’t speak, please.’

‘OK.’ Lilly looked excited. ‘This is brilliant, though, isn’t it? Like when we went to see that illusionist in Winterbrook
and all the lights went out and someone nicked the takings. Do you remember?’

‘Stop talking,’ Maisie said as Dexter turned out the lights and Francesca’s Fabulous Frocks was once more plunged into darkness.
‘Please, please, stop chattering.’

Some hope, Frankie thought.

Maisie closed her eyes. ‘Ladies … ’

‘And gents,’ added Ernie, ‘although I know you can’t hear me, you silly old so-and-so.’

‘And me!’ Jared piped up from the gloom.

‘All right then, if you have to be picky – spirits all.’ Maisie sounded grumpy. ‘Spirits all, listen to me. Listen.’

The rabble round the rails fell silent.

Ernie moved closer to Frankie. ‘Look, duck, if the daft old bat actually manages to get us all back over to the other side,
I
just wants to say sorry for causing all this trouble and thank you for your help. You’ve been more than kind.’

‘You’re welcome,’ Frankie whispered back, wiping away a tear. ‘And I hope you and Achsah live, well, no, but you know what
I mean, happily ever after.’

‘Ah, me too, duck.’ Ernie nodded his grizzled head. ‘And you and young Dexter, too.’

‘Oh, I don’t think so, but … anyway, good luck. And hopefully, goodbye.’

‘Goodbye, duck. It’s been a pleasure knowing you.’

Frankie swallowed the lump in her throat. It was like waving someone who was emigrating off at the airport, knowing you might
never see them again.

Maisie threw her head back and started to mutter some sort of incantation.

The air was exotically filled with the mingled scents of calendula and patchouli and ylang-ylang and the shop suddenly seemed
much, much colder.

‘Go back!’ Maisie screamed unexpectedly, making them jump. ‘Go! Go back to your other life!’

The shop was icy now and there was an even deeper darkness. Maisie’s head slumped forwards and she mumbled something else
unintelligible. It sounded like a poem.

The cold increased. Lilly snivelled a bit. Dexter moved closer to Frankie and slid his arm round her, pulling her against
him.

Maisie stopped mumbling and suddenly shot upright in the chair. ‘We need noise! Noise! Lots of noise! Noise can disperse the
spirits from their earthly bonds!’

‘What sort of noise?’ Lilly giggled. ‘Should we all go wooowooo-wooo?’

‘Clap you hands and stamp your feet and shout loudly,’ Maisie said sharply. ‘All of you.’

Feeling totally ridiculous, Frankie, Dexter and Lilly clapped and stamped and shouted.

‘That’s the ticket.’ Maisie nodded. ‘Louder! Keep it up, sweethearts. Now, be gone! Be gone! Spirits, go! Rest in peace! Rest
in peace! For ever!’

The shop’s darkness turned to impenetrable blackness. A tearing wind roared round them, making the candle flames dance higher
and higher and then extinguishing them, plunging the shop into nothingness.

Then a roll of thunder boomed round them, and someone screamed, and carried on screaming, a thin, blood-curdling scream that
spiralled away, upwards, ever upwards.

The wind rushed and danced and seemed to suck the life out of the room. There was no air, no feeling. Just a vacuum.

They all stopped stamping and clapping and shouting.

The screaming intensified.

Frankie, terrified and clutching tightly to Dexter, hoped it wasn’t her.

Maisie, after howling out a further garbled incantation, gave a sob and a sigh, and then collapsed.

Immediately, the wind stopped shrieking, the blackness lightened slightly, and everything was quiet.

Deathly quiet. ‘Er –’ Dexter eventually gulped in Frankie’s ear. ‘I think she might have managed it. I think she might actually
have done it. Stay there – I’ll put the lights on.’

‘Don’t go,’ Lilly whimpered. ‘Please don’t go.’

Frankie held Lilly’s hand and worked some saliva into her
mouth. ‘It’s OK, Lill. It’s OK. You’ll see when Dexter puts the lights on. It’s all over now. There, see.’

The shop was bathed in the lovely, friendly, warm glow of joyous electricity.

‘See?’ Frankie squeezed Lilly’s hand. ‘It’s perfectly all right now and … Oh shit.’

The dozens of ghostly women had disappeared. Well, mostly.

Bev and Jared still stood in the middle of the shop staring at one another. And two elderly women who had earlier been arguing
over a pink strapless empire-line evening dress, wandered dejectedly between the clothes rails.

And Ernie was standing beside Frankie looking morose. ‘Bugger.’ Dexter shook his head. ‘What went wrong there?’

‘Looks like we missed the spiritual bus, angel boy.’ Jared pouted flirtatiously.

‘Nooo!’ Bev shouted. ‘No! I can’t still be here. I want to go home!’

‘So do I.’ Ernie sighed. ‘And now I’ve got no damn chance.’

‘And what about them?’ Frankie looked at the women still kicking their heels disconsolately by the 1970s frocks. ‘Who the
heck are they? Why are they still here?’

‘Don’t look at me.’ Maisie sat up, looking very pleased with herself. ‘I did my best. And I’ve got rid of most of them, haven’t
I? And could someone get me a drink of water, please?’

‘Get it yourself,’ Frankie said wearily. ‘A fine mess this is now. I started off with one ghost and now I’ve got five. You’ll
have to try again, Maisie. You’ve managed it once. You can do it again.’

‘And you, sweetheart, have got to be joking. I’m like a limp rag. Completely drained. I haven’t got enough energy hardly left
to breathe, let alone use my powers.’

‘Powers!’ Ernie snorted ‘Powers, she calls ’em. Huh!’

‘You’re not leaving this shop until you’ve got rid of all of them.’ Frankie knew she was losing control. ‘I can’t cope with
five bloody ghosts.’

‘Language, please.’ Bev frowned. ‘Ghosts, yes we are, but bloody, no. Mind you, there are some pretty gory sights up there,
I can tell you. Specially them what were beheaded back in the olden days.’

‘Don’t tell me that.’ Lilly gulped. ‘I saw
Night of the Living Dead
.’

‘Sounds about right.’ Dexter sighed.

Maisie hauled herself unsteadily to her designer-clad feet and teetered on the high heels towards the kitchen. ‘As you’re
clearly not going to help me, I’m going to get myself a drink of water. When I’ve had a drink of water, I wish to be taken
home.’

‘I don’t care what you bloody wish,’ Frankie flared at the retreating wobbly kaftan. ‘You can’t go home and leave these, um,
well, them here.’

‘I’m happy, loves,’ Jared squeaked, stroking his purple ensemble and gazing blissfully round the shop. ‘More than happy to
stay. So many frocks, so much time.’

The two women by the rails stared at him, then at each other.

Jared waved at them. ‘Looks like we’re all in a bit of a pickle, doesn’t it, girls? I’m Jared.’

‘Ruby,’ said the one in the droopy grey nightdress. ‘Nice to meet you.’

‘Gertie,’ said the elder of the two who was a very pale grey, and looked like she was wrapped in a sheet. ‘Lovely little shop,
isn’t it? Pretty dresses. I like pretty dresses.’

‘Aaaargh!’ Frankie screamed. ‘Enough!’

Everyone looked at her.

‘Sorry, but I can’t cope with this. This is total madness.’

‘It’s not, Frankie. Chill. It’s been much more fun than clubbing on a Saturday night,’ Lilly said and then yawned. ‘But I’m
dead tired now. That’s the trouble with champagne, isn’t it? You get a lovely bubbly high, then whoosh it’s gone.’

‘And I’m not likely to know now, am I?’ Frankie glared at her. ‘Seeing as you’ve drunk it all.’

Lilly giggled. ‘Soz. I’ll buy you some more for Christmas. Anyway, now you’ve only got a few ghosts left and they seem quite
happy, can we go home now?’

‘No!’ Frankie stared at her in disbelief. ‘I can’t go home and leave them here. I need the shop to be de-ghosted before I
open again on Monday morning.’

‘You’ll be waiting a long time for Maisie, then,’ Dexter said dolefully. ‘I’ve just checked on her and she’s bedded down on
the coats in the kitchen and is dead to the world.’

Bev sighed. ‘Looks like you’re stuck with us – same as we’re stuck here – for the time being. Such a darn nuisance. You don’t
want us here and we certainly don’t want to be here.’

‘I do, loves,’ Jared chirruped.

‘Shut up!’ Everyone chorused.

Jared flounced off into a corner and started talking to Ernie.

Bev shrugged. ‘As I was saying, looks like we’ll all have to make the best of it until you can find a proper medium who can
return us back to the afterlife. You seem like a nice girl with good intentions. After all, this schemozzle only happened
because you thought you could help Ernie out of his predicament. Look, we’ll try to keep out of the way when your shop’s open.
We’ll be ever so discreet. You won’t know we’re here, and hopefully neither will your customers. And there must be loads of
people out there who can contact the dead properly, unlike that useless pudding snoring her head off out there.’

‘Oh, yes!’ Lilly looked slightly more awake. ‘There are! They’re all over the telly! Loads of them. Really famous spiritualists
and mediums, and there’s all sorts of programmes on haunted houses. We can contact one of them and get them to do a proper
session, can’t we?’

‘No.’ Frankie shook her head vehemently. ‘We tell no one about this. No one. I’ve only got two weeks trading to go before
Christmas. I certainly don’t need to scare away customers at the busiest time of the year. I’ll just have to make the best
of it until the new year. I’ll think about what to do, then.’

‘You could use it as a selling point.’ Lilly said, yawning again. ‘Jennifer Blessing always says that you can always turn
a disaster into a selling point. Like the time—’

‘Shut up!’ Frankie snapped. ‘I am
not
turning my shop being haunted into a selling point. And please, please, promise me you won’t mention this to anyone.’

‘I’ve already promised.’ Lilly looked sulky. ‘I’m good at keeping promises. Promise. Oooh, and now I need the loo.’

‘Too much champagne,’ Frankie said crossly. ‘And while
you’re through there, do something useful and see if you can wake Maisie up then we can all go home.’

‘Don’t mention going home, please –’ Bev tucked more fair wisps of hair into her snood ‘– it’s painful. But there’s something
you can maybe do for me before you go.’

‘Is there?’ Frankie looked at her. ‘Go on then. Try me.’

‘Find us something to wear.’ Bev indicated the rails. ‘Jared will probably spend all his time down here trying on everything,
but it looks as though me, Ruby and Gertie could do with something decent. Just in case.’

‘In case of what?’

‘In case we appear at an inopportune moment. Like I say, I’ve never been earthbound before, so I don’t know when we’re invisible
and when we’re not. I’ll make sure we try to stay unseen, but I’m not sure how it works. And I’m thinking you won’t want three
ladies in various states of undress mingling with your Christmas shoppers.’

‘She’s right.’ Dexter nodded. ‘Ernie’s OK, he’s fully dressed in his suit, he’s even got a shirt and tie and nice polished
shoes on, so if anyone spots him they’ll think he’s a shopper, but the one over there in the sheet –’ he made a face in Gertie’s
direction ‘– she’d scare the pants off anyone.’

Frankie sighed, then smiled at Bev. ‘I’m afraid the frocks I’ve got only date back to the nineteen fifties at the moment.
We haven’t had any real vintage stuff. They might be a bit, um, modern for you.’

‘They might,’ Bev agreed. ‘But they’ll be even more modern for those two.’

Ruby and Gertie were looking disconsolate.

‘OK.’ Frankie tried not to think that this was the maddest thing she’d ever done in her life, and took a deep breath. ‘Let’s
pretend you’re all normal customers – go and have a look and see what might suit you.’

Gertie and Ruby immediately homed in on the strapless pink evening dress again.

‘Not that.’ Frankie shook her head. ‘Sorry. It has to be day-wear only. Otherwise you’ll stick out like sore thumbs.’

‘And you don’t think they might do that anyway?’ Dexter asked kindly. ‘Being as they’re dead?’

‘Bev doesn’t look dead. Nor does Ruby in a good light. I’m not so sure about Gertie.’

‘I was always pasty.’ Gertie grinned at them in a rather scary manner. ‘Even when I was alive. Pale and pasty. Proper little
pasty face my dad used to call me. I don’t look that much different now, actually.’

‘Jesus,’ Dexter muttered.

Frankie, suddenly wanting to laugh and sure that if she started it’d turn into hysterics and she’d never stop, ignored him,
and hurried across to the rails of dresses.

‘Blue would suit you,’ she said to Bev. ‘What about this?’

Bev surveyed the 1950s blue frock with its white collar and cuffs and nipped-in waist. ‘Mmm, I quite like that one. Can I
try it on?’

‘Be my guest,’ Frankie muttered, raking through the frocks to find something – anything – that would do to cover Ruby and
Gertie’s obvious, er, deadness.

‘This would be nice for you.’ She pulled out a crimson wool dress in a very small size and showed it to Ruby. ‘You’re very
petite.’

‘I used to be a right big lass,’ Ruby said conversationally, lovingly stroking the crimson dress. ‘Until my last illness.’

Frankie whimpered. It was one thing
knowing
they were
dead, it was quite another having to face
why.
‘I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.’

‘Oh, you haven’t,’ Ruby said cheerfully. ‘It was smashing being thin for a while at least. And now I’m always thin and I love
it.’

She slid enthusiastically out of the greying nightdress and stood stark naked in the shop.

Dexter, Ernie and Jared quickly averted their eyes. ‘Oh God, you haven’t got any underwear,’ Frankie gulped. ‘I’m afraid I
don’t do undies.’