Never Can Say Goodbye (24 page)

‘Not a problem for ghosts,’ Ruby assured her, slipping on the crimson dress which fitted her perfectly and giving a twirl.
‘There! How does that look?’

‘Really nice.’ Frankie nodded. ‘It could have been made for you. Shame none of you have got any shoes on. Shoes would set
off the frocks beautifully.’

‘It’s not damn
Gok’s Clothes RoadShow
,’ Dexter said testily.

‘They’re dead, Frankie, not off to some huge red carpet event. They don’t need matching accessories. Just get them dressed
and let’s get out of here.’

‘Yes, but,’ Frankie hissed, ‘if they’re
seen
wandering around the shop barefooted in the dead of winter, people will
notice
won’t they?’

‘Mmm, suppose so.’

‘Oh, I do wish Rita hadn’t donated all her shoes to Maisie now.’

‘Maisie will just have to un-donate some then, won’t she?’ Dexter said. ‘I’ll pick some up when I take her home. Although
they might not fit that well, I suppose. What size was Rita?’

‘Six,’ Frankie said. ‘Ladies? Will size six shoes do you? I can’t guarantee that they’ll match your frocks, but—’

‘Any shoes will be most acceptable,’ Bev said. ‘I’m a six anyway. I don’t know about them two, though.’

‘I think I was a five,’ Ruby said, ‘but I’ve only ever had hand-me-down shoes so I can stuff the toes with newspaper.’

‘I’m a size seven,’ Gertie added. ‘But I can tread the backs down. I always had to do that when I borrowed my sister’s shoes.
She were a size six so they’ll be fine for me. And I’m not fussy about style or colour.’

Frankie heaved a sigh of relief. Shoes, it seemed, didn’t have that much importance in the afterlife. She wouldn’t mention
it to Lilly.

‘We’ll manage with whatever you can get, thank you. And I do like this dress.’ Bev pirouetted in her blue frock. ‘I had something
similar before we got bombed out. It takes me right back.’

‘It really suits you,’ Frankie said. ‘Er, is the, um, bombing how you, um, passed over?’

‘Died,’ Bev said, admiring herself in the cheval mirror. ‘Yes. We don’t use euphemisms. No passing over, passing away, going
on before, shuffling off the mortal coil. None of that old baloney. We died and we’re dead. Fact.’

‘Er, right.’

‘Can you find a dress for me now?’ Gertie asked plaintively, trailing her sheet behind her. ‘Don’t forget me.’

‘As if,’ Dexter said.

Frankie shot him a look.

‘What about a nice bright yellow? Something cheerful.’ Frankie rattled the hangers back and forth. ‘Yellow always brings a
bit of sunshine into the dullest day, I feel, don’t you?’ Oh heavens, she was turning into Cherish. ‘Ah, now this is lovely
and looks as if it might be your size, doesn’t it?’

She flourished the lemon cotton dress, its full skirt randomly splodged with deeper yellow sunflowers.

‘Oh, yes!’ Gertie clapped her greying hands. ‘Lovely! So pretty! I was always one for a pretty frock!’ She cast a coquettish
simper at Dexter. ‘The boys all loved my pretty frocks.’

Dexter, Frankie noticed, looked slightly sick. Ernie and Jared still had their eyes closed.

Shedding the raggedy wrapped-round sheet and displaying her all-over greyness to its full advantage, Gertie shrugged the vibrant
yellow frock over her head.

‘Zip me up, love, will you?’ She grinned at Frankie. ‘I can’t wait to see meself in a dress after over eighty years.’

Frankie zipped, avoiding looking at the withered grey skin.

‘Oh! I love it!’ Gertie elbowed Bev and Ruby away from the mirror. She looked anxiously at Frankie. ‘Thank you so much – but
when we go back, can we keep the dresses on? We won’t have to go back to wearing the other things, will we?’

‘I shouldn’t think so,’ Frankie said, not having a clue. ‘I’m sure if you’re wearing the dresses when, well, whenever whoever
can return you to, er, the afterlife, then you’ll go, er, back in whatever you’re wearing at the time. You’re more than welcome
to keep them.’

‘Lovely.’ Gertie looked delighted. ‘Thank you. I can’t wait to show this off to my old man when I get back. It’ll be like
our honeymoon all over again.’

Dexter chuckled.

Frankie winced.

‘Right.’ Dexter ran his fingers through his streaky hair. It fell beautifully and silkily back into place ‘I’m totally worn-out.
So, now we’ve established that Bev and Ernie and co. will hang on
here, as discreetly as possible, until we can find a real medium to release them, are you OK with that?’

Frankie, who’d watched the fingers-running-through-hair movement with the sort of longing she’d thought had long since vanished,
rubbed her eyes. Oh Lordy … Big mistake. The panda look was never a good one.

‘Um, actually I don’t see what choice I have, so yes.’

‘Great. Then I’ll go and load Maisie into the car and take her home and collect three pairs of shoes for the, um, ladies.
OK?’

Wearily, Frankie nodded. ‘And I’ll get Lilly – goodness knows where she’s gone – and worry about all this again in the morning.’

‘Look on the bright side,’ Dexter said as they walked towards the kitchen, ‘at least tomorrow’s Sunday. We can all have a
liein and you won’t have to pop down here to feed them and change their litter trays or anything, will you? It’d be much more
troublesome if it were kittens, wouldn’t it?’

Frankie laughed. ‘Yes, I suppose so. Although I will worry about Ernie. He’s so disappointed.’

‘Yeah, poor bloke, he’s pretty down about all this – Oh God, Frankie, listen to us. We’re getting emotional over a
ghost.
’

She giggled. ‘But a very sweet ghost. And I really do want to help him. Still, bizarrely he seems to be getting on OK with
Jared, so maybe he won’t be too lonely until we can sort something out with a proper medium. I’ll have to check the internet
and see if there’s anyone local.’

‘Someone with proper mediuming credentials this time.’ Dexter nodded. ‘Someone with A stars in all aspects of things spiritual.
No more amateur dabblers like – Oh, great … ’

They stood side by side in the kitchen doorway. Maisie was still snoring happily on the pile of coats, but now Lilly was
curled up beside her, murmuring in her champagne-fuelled sleep and sucking her thumb.

‘All right for some.’ Frankie sighed. ‘Oh, what a hell of a night this has been.’

‘You can say that again – no, please don’t.’ Dexter smiled gently at her. ‘Just a figure of speech. And honestly, I know it
hasn’t gone the way we planned it, but I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.’

‘Wouldn’t you? Are you mad or a masochist or something?’

‘Neither of those.’ Dexter suddenly hugged her. ‘It’s just been so completely insane, it’s made me forget, well, things I
thought would haunt me for ever. So thank you for that.’

If she hadn’t been so tired, so confused, so totally bewildered by practically everything, Frankie might have asked further
questions. As it was, she was just delighted to feel Dexter’s arms around her. He was warm and alive and real – very, very
real – and right now she needed all the reality and normality she could get.

‘You’re welcome. And thank you for helping me so much with all this rubbish. Although I’d have thought anything would be preferable
to discovering that there really are ghosts. I bet you didn’t bargain on that when you left Oxford, did you?’

Dexter shook his head. ‘No. But then I didn’t bargain on a lot of things when I left Oxford.’

She looked at him as he stared at her. They were merely inches apart. Her heart lurched. Oh, he was so beautiful. And so untrustworthy.

Just like Joseph Mason.

‘Really?’ She wriggled away from him. ‘Sounds fascinating. We really must have a chat about it sometime. Well, now we’ve
got the dead sorted, we’d better wake the living and go home for what’s left of the night.’

‘OK.’ Dexter shrugged, clearly getting the message, and bent down to shake Maisie’s massive kaftan’d shoulder. ‘Whatever you
say.’

Damn it, Frankie cursed to herself as she grabbed Lilly’s thin hand and pulled her thumb from her mouth with a plop. How stupid
am I?

‘Go ’way,’ Lilly mumbled. ‘Leave me alone.’

‘We’re going home, Lill.’

‘Are we?’ Groaning, Lilly sat up, stared in some surprise at the still-snoring Maisie, then looked groggily from Frankie to
Dexter. ‘Oh … Where am I? Who am I? Oh, thank goodness I’m awake. God, Frankie, I had such a bad dream.’ She hic-cupped cheerfully.
‘Do you know, I dreamed your whole shop was full of ghosts. How mad is that?’

Noddy Holder and the rest of Slade were raucously wishing everyone a merry Christmas. Less than two weeks to go until Christmas,
and Frankie had given in and shelved the easy-listening music.

Francesca’s Fabulous Frocks was rocking.

On this bitterly cold Monday morning, Frankie, in her short red wool dress and matching tights and boots, felt almost festive.
Almost. The events of Saturday night still weighed heavily, and she’d opened the shop with some trepidation.

Everything seemed normal enough. The rails were still a little askew, some of the frocks still hung untidily, and the scattered
candles and small table and chair that Maisie had used were still in situ, but apart from that, there were no signs that anything
untoward had taken place.

Of Ernie, Bev and the others, there was no sign at all.

Frankie, hoping that maybe Maisie’s cack-handed exorcism had worked with some sort of delayed reaction and therefore they’d
all been returned happily to the afterlife, still called out a cheery good morning – just in case.

No one answered her.

So she’d put the
Greatest Christmas Hits
CD on the stereo, quickly removed Maisie’s accoutrements, tidied the rails, and turned the shop door sign to OPEN.

She was just restocking the pile of slithery purple and gold carrier bags beneath the counter when the door opened.

‘Morning, fellow ghost-buster,’ Dexter called loudly over Roy Wood and Wizzard wishing it could be Christmas every day. ‘Nice
music. Are we alone?’

Frankie straightened up and laughed. Dexter was wearing a bright red sweatshirt under the leather jacket. ‘Snap! Again. We
really should text each other about our wardrobe choices. And yes, no sign of the, um, ghostly residents – at least, so far.’

Dexter looked round the shop. ‘Weird, isn’t it? Did we imagine it all? It all looks so normal now. Anyway –’ he flourished
a large Big Sava carrier bag ‘– just in case we weren’t the victims of some mass hallucination, I’ve got the shoes.’

‘Brilliant, thank you. I’ll put them into the far fitting room and, um, just announce that they’re there and hopefully … ’
Frankie trailed off.

‘I know,’ Dexter finished. ‘It does seem crazy, discussing the footwear of people who are dead. I just grabbed what I could.
Maisie was very reluctant to let any of them go, but I persuaded her in the end.’

‘None too gently, I hope.’ Frankie peered into the bag. ‘Oh, lovely, all nice low-ish heels which is good – I mean, if they
haven’t worn shoes for decades we don’t want them staggering about and drawing even more attention to themselves, do we? But
you’ve got four pairs in here.’

‘I brought some for Jared as well. I’m guessing he’ll stay in
his frock as he seemed very fond of it, so I thought he ought to have suitable footwear too.’

‘Purple slingbacks.’ Frankie nodded. ‘Perfect. Thank you.’ She leaned her hands on the counter. ‘And does this all seem completely
insane to you?’

‘Pretty much,’ Dexter agreed. ‘But I spent yesterday doing quite a lot of internet research into ghostly sightings, and hauntings,
and all things to do with the paranormal, and even if I hadn’t seen it all with my own eyes, I’d believe in it all a lot more
now. There are some things that simply can’t be explained. Some really intelligent, sensible, down-to-earth people have had
very similar experiences to ours. So, let’s just say I’m no longer a sceptic.’

‘And while you were surfing, did you find anyone even slightly likely to be able to sort out our, er, little dilemma?’

‘Not really. All the really famous names have great websites, of course, but they only seem to do television shows or theatre
tours. I’m assuming that they’re too big and too expensive to take on a single private spiritualist session or whatever it
is we need. As for anyone else lesser known – they all sound good, but they could be as useless as Maisie, couldn’t they?’

Frankie nodded. ‘They could. And another Maisie is the last thing we want. I’ll try to make some discreet enquiries. Word
of mouth round the villages is always a good way to go when you want to find out stuff.’

‘OK. And I’ll keep on searching, too. But are we agreed that we’re not going to do anything about ghost-laying until the new
year?’

‘Yes. Definitely. I want to get Christmas out of the way first.’

‘Fine. Suits me. Anyway, before we’re interrupted by living
customers or dead incumbents, there was something else much more important I wanted to ask you.’

Frankie groaned inwardly. It was bound to be about the childish way she’d behaved on Saturday night. Her own Sunday had been
taken up with mulling over her growing feelings for Dexter and the reasons why they must never, ever become anything more.

‘Really? Is it how to spell Mississippi?’

‘No.’ Dexter looked puzzled. ‘Why should it be?’

‘Because Lilly and I had a stand-up fight over that one once when we were doing a charity pub quiz. It’s a standing joke.’

‘Oh, right. No, it’s far more boring than that. It’s about our calorie-laden and cholesterol-filled bad food habits.’

Frankie frowned. Dexter had always struck her as a blokey bloke. Not a faddy healthy-eating freak. Was this something else
she didn’t know about him?

‘What about our bad food habits?’

‘Well, since I’ve arrived in Kingston Dapple, I’ve lived off snatched bacon rolls and the occasional all-day breakfasts in
the Greasy Spoon, along with some fabulously gooey cakes brought in from Patsy’s Pantry, and I’ve gone home to something indistinguishable
that takes about thirty seconds from the freezer to the microwave. And I’m guessing your diet has been much the same.’