Never Can Say Goodbye (35 page)

‘Well, er, no,’ Alan blustered. ‘I don’t suppose you do. Not that we associate ourselves with the commercial side of things,
of course.’

‘So, this dead-of-midnight stuff is all for effect really is it?’

‘No it certainly isn’t.’ Jackie looked a bit uncomfortable. ‘It just helps the atmosphere along, that’s all.’

Frankie smiled. ‘OK, I just wondered. And you’re both sure there isn’t anyone, um, ghostly left here, are you?’

Alan puffed himself up again. ‘As you’ve seen, we are
extremely in tune with all things spiritual – so do you honestly think I wouldn’t know if there was a presence left behind?’

‘Precisely,’ Jackie echoed. ‘Your shop is now as clean as a whistle, ghost-wise. And I for one could do with a nice hot bath
and a peanut butter bap.’

‘Sounds good to me,’ Alan said with a smirk.

And the door closed behind them.

Dexter and Frankie looked at one another in dismay.

‘Sod and buggeration.’ Ernie frowned, appearing from his usual post beside the 1950s frocks. ‘Looks like I’ve missed the bloody
boat – again.’

After the ghost-busting session, life in Kingston Dapple went on much as normal. Francesca’s Fabulous Frocks did a roaring
pre-New Year trade in party dresses, and Dexter was kept busy with customers wanting masses of bright flowers to liven up
the gloom of the downbeat post-Christmas period.

The freeze continued and the snow stayed put. Everyone who’d been delighted to see it fall was now heartily sick of slipping
and sliding and being cold, and just wished it would melt.

The New Year came and went, and Frankie went to Clemmie, Guy and YaYa’s party with all her girlfriends and their partners.
She invited Dexter and he said he’d love to go, but had something else that had to be done over the New Year break that couldn’t
be put off, and he wouldn’t be in Kingston Dapple.

Frankie still wore her earrings constantly, and thought back dreamily to the kisses – the one with mistletoe and the one without
– and determinedly didn’t ask Dexter how he saw in
the New Year, or who with, and he didn’t tell her. Lilly, tanned and in love with a waiter called Andreas, returned from Cyprus.

Cherish astounded absolutely everyone by putting her bungalow on the market and moving into Brian’s spare room. ‘No point
in shilly-shallying at my age. I’m living for the moment,’ she told everyone proudly. ‘It’s like being reborn. I’ve never
been happier.’ And neither, it appeared, had Brian.

Biddy had, of course, sniffed and said it would all end in tears. And Maisie Fairbrother had announced that her New Year’s
resolution was to give up mediuming and take up holistic healing instead.

And Ernie still lurked miserably – and now alone – in Francesca’s Fabulous Frocks.

‘You know,’ Frankie said post-work, one very cold and frosty evening in mid-January, as she and Dexter squinted at yet another
pair of dubious cocktails in the Toad in the Hole, ‘I’ve just had an idea.’

‘Hold on to it then.’ Dexter grinned. ‘You might need it one day.’

‘No, seriously … it’s about Ernie.’

‘Oh, Frankie. I know how you feel, and I know how miserable he is, but we’ve been over it so many times. We’ve decided that
Jackie and Alan couldn’t send him back because he was a newly dead ghost and he just didn’t latch on to their vibes. Even
Ernie agrees with that now.’

‘I know. It’s not that. It’s something different.’

‘OK, go on.’

‘Well, I don’t think he’s here by accident. In my shop. I mean, he could have ended up anywhere, couldn’t he? And
he’d never been in the shop before – not even when Rita had it – so it isn’t the shop he’s haunting, as such.’

Dexter frowned. ‘Sorry, I’m not really following your train of thought at all here. And I always thought that ghosts – if
I ever thought about them at all – haunted the place where they died. So, in that case, Ernie should be hanging around in
Poundland, shouldn’t he?’

Frankie nodded and stirred the turquoise concoction in front of her with the end of her dead sparkler. ‘Well, yes. Maybe –
but he’s not. He’s in my shop because of Achsah’s wedding dress, isn’t he?’

‘I suppose he is, yes. He did say he felt close to her because of the dress.’

‘And the first time I saw him, after I’d realised he wasn’t a cross-dresser, when he told me, well, everything, he said the
dress had been stolen by his nieces and donated to Rita. And I was thinking, as it’s the
dress
that’s so special, maybe if we could take the dress to a church or something – maybe even the church where Ernie and Achsah
got married – and hold some sort of ceremony, it might, well, free him.’

Dexter pushed his unfinished cocktail away and ordered a beer from the bored barman. ‘It might, but then we’d need the vicar
or someone to be in on it, and maybe communing with the undead doesn’t go down very well in churches. I wouldn’t know. I’m
afraid I gave up going to church after I left primary school.’

‘Me too,’ Frankie admitted. ‘Oh, I don’t know. It was just a thought. I really don’t know what else to do for him.’

‘Oooh, I sooo lurve Skype.’ Lilly teetered into the Toad, wrapped in a violet fun fur coat over her skinny jeans and hitched
herself onto a stool beside Dexter. ‘Me and Andreas
have just been talking for
ages
. Oooh, I miss him so much. Still, he’s coming over at Easter. Only another twelve weeks to go. If I can live that long without
him.’

‘I’m looking forward to meeting him,’ Dexter said, trying not to laugh. ‘Frankie’s told me a lot about him.’

‘That’s because he’s been the only topic of conversation since she got back.’ Frankie played with her tiny cocktail umbrella.
‘And I bet he’ll have been replaced by someone local several times over before Easter.’

‘No he won’t.’ Lilly pouted and looked at the discarded cocktail. ‘Have you finished with this drink, Dexter?’

‘Yes – be my guest.’

‘Cool, thanks. Oooh, it’s lovely. I’ll order another one. And anyway, Andreas isn’t just coming over for a visit. He’s moving
here. He’s going to live here. With me.’

‘
What
?’ Frankie shook her head. ‘Since when?’

‘Since tonight. We talked about it while I was over there, and he’s got a second cousin or an uncle or something who runs
a Greek restaurant in Winterbrook, so he’s sorted out a job there and I said of course he’d be living with us, well, me –
so it’s all organised.’

‘Well, congratulations,’ Frankie said faintly, wondering first if Lilly and Andreas had considered visas and work permits
and assumed Andreas had, and secondly how much she really wanted to share the Featherbed Lane house with a madly loved-up
Lilly and a permanent fixture.

‘Er, yes – congratulations.’ Dexter tried to keep a straight face.

‘Ta.’ Lilly beamed. ‘And anyway don’t make it sound like I hog all the conversations. The ghost-busting has been talked about
just as much as Andreas. I can’t believe I missed it. I can’t
believe they’ve really gone and I’ll never see them again. I really liked Jared.’

‘I know, so did I, but they’re happy now. And we were just talking about poor old Ernie again,’ Frankie said. ‘And trying
to come up with a decent plan for reuniting him with Achsah. For the umpteenth time. I wondered if we could have some sort
of church service.’

Lilly ordered another doubtful cocktail. ‘What? Like a funeral?’

Frankie laughed out loud. ‘Lill, how do you do it? You’re brilliant! Oh, Lilly, I love you!’

‘Good.’ Lilly blinked her long pink-and-sparkle eyelashes. ‘But I’m not sure what I did there.’

‘Nor me.’ Dexter looked confused. ‘Did I miss something?’

‘A funeral.’ Frankie smiled excitedly. ‘Why on earth didn’t we think of that before? It’s so obvious, isn’t it?’

‘Is it?’ Dexter still looked puzzled.

‘Yes, blindingly. Listen. We’ll give Ernie the funeral he wanted and never had. Remember I said Slo Motion told me the dreadful
nieces ignored all Ernie’s requests and went for the cheapskate funeral option and that his ashes had never been buried or
scattered or anything?’

‘Yes, and –?’

‘And so, if we arranged to have Ernie’s ashes buried in the grave with Achsah where he wanted to be in the first place, surely,
that would mean he’d be laid to rest at last, wouldn’t it?’

Dexter exhaled. ‘God, Frankie, that’s brilliant. Why on earth didn’t we think of that before? So, what do we do next?’

‘Go and see Slo and tell him what we want to do and ask him to arrange it.’

‘Actually, I think –’ Lilly twirled her little umbrella ‘– that
the first thing you should do is ask Ernie. Just in case. I mean, if it was me, I’d want to know if someone was planning to
bury me somewhere, just in case I didn’t want it. It seems rude not ask him.’

Dexter looked at Lilly in astonishment. ‘You know, Lilly, you really are very clever, aren’t you?’

‘Yeah. Sure. For a bimbo airhead. It’s been said before.’ She leaned across the counter towards the bored barman. ‘Hi, gorgeous.
Can we have the same again all round? Ta.’

‘So,’ Frankie said to Ernie in Francesca’s Fabulous Frocks, about an hour later. ‘That’s the plan. What do you reckon?’

Ernie, leaning against the 1950s dress rails, beamed all over his little goblin face and ran his fingers through his grizzled
hair until it stood on end. ‘Oh, my word, Frankie, duck. That sounds just about perfect to me. I mean, I know I didn’t want
to be cremated, but what’s done is done, but if you could just lay me to rest with my Achsah, I’d be right happy. Then, at
last, our bodies and our souls would be together again, and we could rest in peace, together, for … well, eternity.’

Dexter took a deep breath and tried to steady his voice. ‘Um – yes. So, if we go and see Slo, and tell him we want to organise
a small ceremony for you – that we’d like him to inter your ashes in Achsah’s grave, you’ll be OK with that?’

‘More than OK. I don’t want no church service or hymns nor nothing – I had all that at the crem. I just want to be with Achsah.
In the churchyard at Tadpole Bridge.’

‘Wonderful,’ Frankie said. ‘And I know it’s what you want and what we’ve been trying to do for ages, but I’ll miss you, Ernie.’

‘Ah, and I’ll miss you an’ all, duck. And young Dexter here. You’ve been like a little family to me, you have.’

Frankie gulped and wiped her eyes.

Dexter cleared his throat. ‘So, we’ll go and see Slo tomorrow, shall we?’

‘I’ll ring him and make sure he’ll be in and doesn’t mind us popping round,’ Frankie said, nodding happily. ‘And then we’ll
arrange the funeral for as soon as possible. Ernie, I think we’ve found the solution at last, don’t you? I don’t see what
can possibly go wrong this time.’

‘ … so, you see, it ain’t as easy as all that. Sorry, ducks.’ Slo Motion gazed at them sadly the following evening. ‘I know
you’re disappointed.’

They were once again sitting in his cosy Hazy Hassocks flat, with Essie plying them with coffee and sandwiches.

Frankie sighed. ‘Oh, sod it. I thought it was going to be really simple.’

Dexter nodded at Slo. ‘So, what you’re saying is that you can’t just give us the casket, and we can’t just bury Ernie’s ashes
in Achsah’s grave, even if we all know it’s what he wants.’

Slo coughed wheezily. ‘Exactly, Dexter, lad. Look, if it were that simple then I’d have done it meself. I knew what old Ern
wanted, and I knew the nieces hadn’t given him the funeral he’d planned. It would have been so easy for me, being in the business
and having the ashes on the premises so to speak, to have a word with the vicar at Tadpole Bridge, open up Achsah’s grave
quietly, and pop Ern in.’

‘But you can’t, and we can’t?’ Frankie frowned.

Slo shook his head. ‘No, duck. The ashes legally belong to the next of kin, you see. It’s only the next of kin who can decide
on the dispersal or disposal.’

‘But the nieces – Thelma and Louise – as far as I can gather –’ Dexter leaned forwards ‘– didn’t give a toss about Ernie.
So why wouldn’t they give their permission for you to do what Ernie wanted?’

‘Money,’ Slo said simply. ‘They didn’t want to spend a penny more than was necessary. And it costs to open up a grave and
have an interment. And they weren’t going to pay for it. No way.’

‘But we will,’ Frankie said. ‘Dexter and I have already agreed we’d pay. You must have Thelma and Louise’s contact details.
Tell them we’ll organise it and pay for it. Surely they’d be OK with that?’

Slo wheezed pleasurably a bit more. ‘Ah, duck. Mebbe they would and mebbe they wouldn’t. But there are
laws
, lots and lots of laws, to do with burials. And the next of kin have to agree in writing to hand the ashes over to a third
party. I’d have to write to them, and they’d have to sign the papers to allow you to take charge of the mortal remains, then
return the signed arrangements to me for me to organise the interment. It’s complicated.’

‘Oh, bugger it then.’ Frankie sighed crossly, leaning back in her chair and watching the fire dance in front of her. ‘And
that will take
ages
, won’t it? From taking over Rita’s shop I know only too well what legal paperwork is like.’

‘This can be done quite quick.’ Slo nodded. ‘As long as all parties are in agreement. But there’s no guarantee that Thelma
and Louise will even give a jot about what happens to Ernie’s ashes. Why should they? He meant nothing to them. I doubt if
they got much, if anything, from his estate, and they certainly won’t bother about him resting in peace.’

Dexter frowned. ‘You mean, they’ll probably just ignore your letter?’

‘Ah.’ Slo nodded. ‘Having met ’em, I’m afraid they will, Dexter, lad.’

‘Nooo,’ Frankie sighed. ‘And I thought we’d really found the answer this time.’

Slo took a mouthful of coffee. ‘So, you’re still saying that Ernie is
haunting
your shop, are you, duck?’

‘I am and he is. And –’ Frankie leaned forwards ‘– I know you don’t totally believe me, but it doesn’t matter. We – Dexter
and I – love him, and want him to be reunited with Achsah, and no, I haven’t told anyone about the other stuff, and I never
will.’