Never Can Say Goodbye (15 page)

Frankie suddenly wanted to laugh even though it wasn’t remotely funny. ‘You mean, you drove to Tadpole Bridge with a dead
body – Ernie’s dead body – belted into the passenger seat of your car? In broad daylight?’

‘Yes, duck. That’s exactly what I mean. See now why I can’t have a word of this getting out? It would finish us as a business
if anyone knew. Oh, I treated Ernie right respectfully, and I chatted to him all the way there.’

Frankie pulled a face. ‘But, er, wouldn’t he have been, um, stiff?’

Slo shook his head. ‘Rigor mortis goes off pretty quickly. Just as well, really, or we’d never be able to do the laying-out
and embalming and stuff.’

Frankie winced.

‘Sorry, duck. But you did ask.’ Slo coughed apologetically. ‘Anyway, we got to Tadpole Bridge with no mishaps, and old
Doc Harman staggered out of his cottage with his stethoscope and said, “Yes, that’s Ernie Yardley and he’s had a dicky ticker
for ages and he’s dead”, and he wrote the certificate and that was that.’

‘And then you and Ernie came back here, to the chapel of rest, and … ?’

‘Going out there we were lucky with the traffic lights, and no one took no notice of us at all. Coming back, we got caught
by a red light on the junction to Bagley-cum-Russet and Fiddlesticks. And there was some old dears waiting to cross the road
and they waved at me and looked in the car … ’

‘No!’

‘Yes, duck. Sadly. And poor old Ernie had slumped a bit in his seat belt – so, in case they could hear me, I just said the
first thing that came into my head … ’

‘Which was “Whoops, Ern, there you go. Can’t have people thinking you can’t hold your ale, can we?”’

Slo nodded. ‘And then the lights changed and off we went. And I got the death certificates to the crem that same afternoon
and Ernie Yardley’s funeral went ahead as planned – not by him, but by the nasty nieces – and see, there isn’t anyone in the
world who can know what I said to him that day, except him and me … and he was dead.’

The fire crackled in the silence.

Frankie exhaled, her skin crawling. ‘What about the old ladies crossing the road?’

Slo shook his head. ‘No, duck. The windows was tight shut. They couldn’t hear me, but they could see I was chatting to him.
Even if they got a glimpse of Ernie they wouldn’t have twigged that he were dead. He was pale naturally, so they might think
he looked a bit ill. But they couldn’t hear me, I’m sure.
They just thought we was talking. No, I’d swear on my Essie’s life they weren’t aware of anything odd going on at all.’

Frankie sat in silence, staring at George Clooney, a million thoughts racing round her head.

‘So, what does it mean? All this? Is Ernie really haunting my shop? Is he a ghost?’

‘I’ve got no darned idea, duck. But you’ve got me spooked now, and no mistake.’ Slo stood up and walked slowly over to a walnut
desk in the corner.

After a minute or two of rummaging, he returned with a folder. ‘Here we are, duck, all the bits and pieces from Ernie’s funeral.
Them nasty nieces didn’t want any of it as a memento of poor old Ern, naturally, so I kept it in here out of respect, really.’

He sat down again, pulled out a photograph and passed it to Frankie. Feeling cold and more than a little frightened, she really
didn’t want to look at it.

‘Go on, duck,’ Slo encouraged her. ‘Take a peek. This is Ernie. Now, is this the same man who –?’

Reluctantly, Frankie gazed down at the photograph and swallowed.

The elderly man smiling up at her was wearing an old-fashioned shiny suit, with grizzled hair and a cheerful-goblin wrinkled
face.

‘Oh my God,’ Frankie whispered. ‘Yes, that’s him. That’s the man in my shop.’

Cherish had always hated Sundays. Well, at least since she’d been living here alone. Having worked in Miriam’s Modes in Winterbrook
since leaving school, Sundays back then, shared with her parents, had been lovely. Sundays back then had always been a busy
day of housework in the little bungalow, and cooking economical meals to pop into the tiny fridge-top freezer compartment
for the week ahead, along with the traditional Sunday roast, and washing and ironing her work skirts and blouses, all to the
accompaniment of lovely sing-along songs on the radio.

Now, Sundays were just another lonely day. Just like every other lonely day.

It had been all very well, Cherish thought, as she dusted the Royal Doulton figurines in the Hazy Hassocks bungalow that had
hardly changed for five decades, giving up her job to care for her parents; giving up any chance of meeting someone and marrying
them and having children; dedicating her life to her parents until they had passed away. They’d loved her, and she’d
loved them and been dutiful, and hadn’t minded the duty one jot.

But now, with no parents, no job and no one in the whole world who needed her, it was a very forlorn existence.

Of course she had Biddy who’d been her friend since school days, and Biddy was single too. But Biddy enjoyed her own company.
Probably because Biddy was always so miserable. Always wanting the see the bad side of everything. Biddy, Cherish thought,
as she folded her duster and placed it neatly beside the polish in her cleaning-tidy, was very mean and sometimes downright
depressing, which was why she still had no real friends. Apart from Cherish, of course.

But even in late middle age, Biddy still didn’t seem to mind being alone, because Biddy had always been a loner, really. Even
at school, Biddy had managed to alienate most people by her barbed comments. Cherish, for some reason, had never been the
target of Biddy’s bile. Both only children with elderly parents, they had formed an unlikely alliance. And Biddy, always totally
happy with her own sniping company, simply didn’t understand why Cherish craved the companionship of others, then or now.

Which is why, on Biddy’s advice – “Well, if you really want to meet other people, although Lord knows why you should, then
you might as well make some money out of it and as you’re pretty useless at most stuff, why don’t you resurrect that colour
advising thing you used to do?” – Cherish had started the colour-palette advisory service as a home-run venture.

She’d always had a feel for colours indicating people’s inner vitality, somehow. Even as a child. Her mother had called it
a gift. Cherish’s mother had been a beige person, as was Cherish now. Her father had been more of a lovat green or heather
mixture. As a family, none of them had been remotely what you’d call
gaudy
.

The colour advising was something she’d always done at Miriam’s Modes. There had been a certain class of lady who shopped
there and they’d always seemed to welcome Cherish’s advice on the most suitable colour for their new season’s shirt-waister
or costume.

Funny, Cherish thought, no one said costume these days. It was always suits. Suits, in her day, had been strictly for men.
Ladies always wore two-piece costumes.

It would have been lovely, Cherish thought, if she could have carried out her colour-advising in that lovely vintage frock
shop yesterday. Not that she needed the money, whatever Biddy said, because Cherish had never really needed money. Her parents
had been very astute with their endowment policies leaving her a healthy nest egg, and, even after she’d stopped working,
Cherish’s own insurance premium, saved for since childhood, had matured nicely on her fiftieth birthday. She’d always managed
to live well within her means.

No, money was no objective, but it would have made such a difference, knowing that she had somewhere to go, someone to see,
a purpose in life, when she stumbled out of bed each morning to switch on the kettle first, followed by the radio on the kitchen
windowsill.

It was sad, she felt, in her mid-fifties, to live her life regulated by the radio programmes during the day and the television
programmes at night. But at least she hadn’t gone down the daytime telly route like so many others of her age.

The television remained switched off until the six o’clock news, as it always had in her parents’ day, when Cherish had her
supper on a tray. The tray-on-lap had been a daring innovation
brought in after her parents died. When they were alive, they all sat round the dining table for their meals, and discussed
the day’s events. After their deaths, close together, Cherish had found a dining table set for one a very dismal thing.

So now the radio presenters and television announcers were her daily friends, and were more real to her than any real people.
She felt they were all talking just to her, and she talked back to them. And she hated it when they went on holidays and a
stranger took over their programmes. It totally ruined the symmetry of her day.

It had taken her months and months to recover from Terry Wogan’s retirement.

There. Cherish looked at the cabinet full of Royal Doulton ladies. They all sparkled in their crinolines, staring imperiously
at her from their pale blank eyes. Her mother had loved the crinoline ladies, but Cherish hated them. She thought they were
all in the wrong colours, and frequently told them so. If she hadn’t felt so guilty about it, she’d have packed up the entire
collection and donated it to Biff and Hedley Pippin’s charity shop. Like most things in the bungalow, really. But, because
the bungalow was a shrine to happier times with her parents, she simply couldn’t bring herself to get rid of a single item.

Ten o’clock. Cherish sighed. The day stretched endlessly ahead. And it was still so foggy and cold outside there wasn’t even
much point in wrapping up and taking a stroll down Hazy Hassocks High Street. There’d be no one about on a day like this.
Hazy Hassocks was ambivalent about Sunday opening hours, too. Big Sava would be open, of course, but because she shopped cheaply
and cooked simply, as her mother had done, Cherish didn’t need any groceries, and the rest of the Hazy Hassocks shops held
very little interest.

Unlike Francesca’s Fabulous Frocks in Kingston Dapple. Oh, how she’d loved just looking at all those beautiful frocks, imagining
the previous owners, speculating on who might buy them next, and for what special occasion. And Frankie was a very nice girl,
too, despite what Biddy had said about her. Even if she wore those garishly bright colours when she really should be in grey.

And how wonderful it would be to work in that shop with Frankie and chat to the customers, and touch those gorgeous fabrics
– fabrics made with love into stunning dresses long before cheap clothes were imported by the container-load from other countries
– and advise them on which colours would suit them best.

Cherish shuddered suddenly, remembering the debacle in Dorothy Perkins in Winterbrook the previous day. That had been Biddy’s
fault, of course. Biddy was always so caustic.

She shook her head, trying to erase the awful memory.

She looked at the clock again. Was it too early to make a cup of coffee? Yes, definitely. Coffee was for elevenses and it
was nowhere near that time yet.

Oh, dear … Cherish wandered to the window and stared out at the swirling grey gloom. How on earth was she going to fill all
those long hours before it was time to go back to bed?

By half past nine on Monday morning, Frankie had restored Francesca’s Fabulous Frocks to some sort of order after the jumble-sale
rush of her first day’s trading. The rails were restocked and tidy; the purple and gold bags were neatly stacked; the float
in the till was replenished; Michael Bublé had been replaced by a selection of easy-listening from Jack Jones, Matt Monroe
and Andy Williams; the counter had been polished and the floor swept; and Dexter’s rainbow bouquet had been topped up with
fresh water and still looked and smelled ravishing.

Frankie looked around her with pleasure – relishing the array of sumptuous fabrics, rich colours and varied designs – and
not a little relief.

After a sleepless Saturday night – a combination of exhaustion, followed by driving through the pea-souper fog twice, but
far, far more because of Slo Motion’s revelations about Ernie Yardley – all Frankie’s plans for spending Sunday in the shop
had been abandoned.

Eventually falling asleep at somewhere around dawn – just as Lilly had stumbled in from her night out in Winterbrook – Frankie
had dozed fitfully, woken properly at lunchtime and felt pretty groggy all day. Deciding that she’d do a far better job of
tidying the shop and restocking the rails on Monday when she’d had a good rest, and convincing herself it had nothing whatsoever
to do with the thought that Ernie Yardley’s ghost might just be
real
, she’d spent the day half-listening to Lilly’s raptures over her latest ‘cutest man in the entire world’ and mulling over
what Slo had told her.

It simply couldn’t be true.

Of course, she hadn’t mentioned any of it to Lilly. Mainly because Lilly might just have believed it and made matters a whole
lot worse, but also because a loved-up Lilly was even less use as a listener than a dishcloth. So, Frankie had kept everything
about Ernie Yardley to herself, as she’d promised Slo she would.

And it had ruined her Sunday.

However now, with the fog gone and the low winter sun streaming through the festive windows on this bright, extremely frosty
morning, she almost laughed at her gullibility. Ghosts! No way. It was, Frankie was sure, still something to do with Maisie
Fairbrother playing tricks – although the photograph was pretty damning evidence, not to mention the incident at the traffic
lights … And why would anyone want to play those sort of tricks on her anyway? She wasn’t aware of having any enemies, and
she was pretty sure everyone had loved Rita. So, who? And why?

Because, if it wasn’t a trick, then it had to be real, didn’t it?

No. She shook her head as she ran her hand across the top of one of the 1960s rails. It was all nonsense. Although, it had
to
be said, she’d opened up earlier that morning while the market square was dark and still deserted and early-morning drowsy
with a feeling of huge trepidation. And, she admitted to herself, she had called out to Ernie Yardley – just in case …