Ghosts Know (14 page)

Her long white muslin dress hints at the outlines of her lingerie. It makes her look oddly vulnerable, and so does her apologetic smile. “I was going to call you,” she murmurs.

“Well, now you don’t need to. Where shall we go?”

“Do you fancy a stroll by the canal?”

“I don’t much.’”

She’s already heading in that direction, and my response appears to throw her. “Excuse me, 1 didn’t realise …” She’s glancing around her, and all at once she’s less distracted. “Of course, we’ll go in here,” she says and dodges into the Dressing Room.

Is it too late to call her away? As I hurry after her, Benny shouts “Same as last time? It’s on Mr Wubbleyou. He’s set you up.”

“In that case,” Hannah says to both of us with some bemusement, “thanks.”

At least we’re the only customers just now. I usher Hannah to a corner booth from which I can keep an eye on the entire room, and then I touch my lips with a finger. Once Benny has brought glasses of New Zealand white—“Newsie’s Wee for both,” he confines himself to announcing—I clink mine against Hannah’s. “So you’ve made the news,” she murmurs.

“Honestly, I wish people wouldn’t keep mentioning that. I really didn’t do much at all.”

“I shouldn’t think it will do your image any harm.”

“If it helps us I suppose I shouldn’t complain.” As Hannah parts her lips I say under my breath “I’d better tell you our last meeting isn’t secret any more.”

“How did that happen?” Before I can answer she says “Who knows about it?”

“The station manager at Waves.” Without quite glancing at Benny I mutter “I think it was someone in here.”

“Would you rather talk somewhere else?”

“Not unless you would,” I say but keep my voice low.

“Well, Graham.” Hannah takes a sip of wine and then another. “I spoke to our people,” she says, “when I came back.”

I take hold of my glass in preparation for a celebratory clink. “What’s their verdict?”

“I want you to know it’s the longest discussion of the kind I’ve ever been involved in.” She gives me a moment to savour whatever substance this contains, and then she says “We came to the conclusion that it isn’t the right time.”

“The right time.” The echo doesn’t sound much like my voice, and I can’t judge how loud it may be. “When is, then?” I whisper, which makes me feel like a secretive child.

“Unfortunately none of us could foresee one.”

For a crazed moment I’m tempted to retort that they should have consulted Frank Jasper. I feel as if the bulbs that frame the mirror above the booth have focused all their glare on me, turning the rest of the room into a dark barren emptiness. The gulp of wine I take leaves my throat parched. “Maybe I can give the situation another look,” Hannah murmurs like a nurse attempting to comfort a terminal case, “in let’s say a couple of years.”

“Years.” The echo seems more detached from me than ever. “Can I ask what their problem was with me?”

“It wasn’t just theirs, Graham.”

“What’s yours?”

I’m no longer bothering to lower my voice, and I glimpse Benny leaning across the bar to take the order he assumes I’m about to give him. I grimace and just as fiercely gesture at him, only to discover that he has his back to me; he’s replenishing the bottles that hang their heads down. Hannah waits for me to look at her and says “We couldn’t very well not take into account all that business with Frank Jasper.”

“You said you were impressed with how I handled him.”

‘The first time.”

“Not just then. You told me more than once.”

“After I came back as well, that’s right. I’m sorry, Graham. I hadn’t realised you’d had him on your show again.”

“So I did. What’s wrong with that?”

“The consensus was you didn’t deal with him with the skill we were looking for, and there have to be questions in some people’s minds.”

“Which?” As Hannah meets this with a look that hopes to be silently sad I protest “Maybe if you’d heard what actually happened—

“I listened to a playback.”

In a moment my rage overtakes my confusion. “Wait a minute,” I say in a whisper that makes my teeth ache. “You want me to think you hadn’t heard it last time we met.”

“That’s the truth, Graham.”

“But you talked about it.”

“I couldn’t have. What are you thinking I said?”

“You started talking about the photo I signed for Kylie Goodchild, and then you said there was no need. You certainly didn’t give me the idea there was any kind of problem. It was after that you went into all the details about our programme.”

“Graham …” Hannah’s sounding like a nurse again, and her expression goes with it. “I meant the photographs in here,” she murmurs. “I just thought you might be unhappy there isn’t one of you.”

I can’t bear her concerned gaze or her explanation. I stare past her at Jasper performing his pantomime between the seven dwarfs and the clown. He belongs in a circus with them, but I could imagine they’re all watching me in a parody of sympathy—at any rate, that’s how he looks. The dozens of dressing-room bulbs glare in my eyes like lights in an interrogation cell, and I turn away to find Hannah keeping up her concern, which provokes me to ask “Shouldn’t helping find Kylie Goodchild make a difference?”

“Maybe it will when it’s all anyone remembers.” Hannah maintains her caring look while she drains her glass and stands up. “Will you excuse me now?” she barely asks. “Forgive me for running, but I was on my way somewhere.”

A roaring blaze of light worthy of a furnace spills into the pub, and then I’m alone with the barman. “If there’s anything to celebrate, Mr Wubbleyou,” he calls, “this one’s on me.”

I throw my head back to swallow the last mouthful of wine, but there isn’t that much in the glass. Will more help me to feel better? It can hardly make me worse. “I’ll take you up on that, Benny,” I say, only to wonder how many of his jokes may accompany the drink. They aren’t likely to improve my mood, but then I’m struck by a relatively welcome thought: I still have a secret to keep. I needn’t tell Paula that Hannah has taken back the proposal.

Since Christine dislikes being told how to drive, especially by a computer, no navigation is built into her car. On the map Middleton appears to consist largely of roundabouts, and it’s perhaps twenty minutes away from the centre of Manchester. As we drive north the streets grow narrower and more dilapidated. Beyond villages that the city has reduced to parts of itself, distant hills are parched brown as old carpets. Along the Blackley road obstinately green trees shut out the rest of the world, and then we’re in Middleton, where bouquets decorate the railings that divide a carriageway. They might be portents of the graveyard, but none of the signs by the roundabouts refers to the crematorium. At last we find a passer-by who knows where it is, and we follow an even narrower street to the smallest roundabout of all.

It’s Saturday, and so we’re both off work. I suppose Christine has no less of a reason to attend the funeral than I have; she was with me when the police found Kylie Goodchild. The message Megan took for me simply gave the place and time. As the churchyard comes in sight a hearse bereft of its coffin turns out of the gateway, followed by an assortment of cars, and I catch myself hoping we’ve missed the funeral and any awkwardness it may involve. In fact we’re so early that Christine’s is the only car in sight when she parks it beside the chapel.

The small pale sandstone building is dominated by an outsize chimney like an omen of cremation. A rudimentary tower—little more than a stone bracket—holds a solitary silent bell. Two rows of bare unadorned pews are awaiting a congregation. In a separate room a calligraphic book of remembrance is open at today’s date. The right-hand page is blank but occupied by a pair of white gloves, and I wonder if Kylie Goodchild was the kind of girl to wear gloves to a funeral. Knowing so little about her, why am I here at all?

Grey squirrels are scurrying among the graves beneath the trees, where black headstones resemble negatives of their neighbours. I sit with Christine on a bench near a wire basket piled with dead bouquets. I don’t know whether she wants to embrace the peace or simply has nothing to say for the moment. Myself, I don’t seem able to benefit from the stillness; too many thoughts are dodging about inside my head like the squirrels the colour of stones on the grass. I haven’t told Christine I met Hannah Leatherhead again; I don’t want to risk letting the news spread until well after I’ve met our new bosses. To some extent I’m relieved to see another hearse and its procession of cars arriving at the churchyard.

The hearse halts at the chapel, and an undertaker’s man lets the Good-childs out of a limousine. Wayne is with them, and they’re all in black and white; he’s even donned a suit, though it doesn’t look like his own. They stand by the door of the chapel while drivers park near Christine’s car as slowly as a funereal ritual. Kylie’s mother looks oddly fearful, possibly afraid of emotions that may catch up with her at any moment, while her husband looks as determined as Wayne to stay gruff. None of their faces waver as the other mourners, quite a few of whom must be Kylie’s schoolmates, converge on the family. I’m waiting for everyone else to go into the chapel, and then I see Frank Jasper.

He’s very much in black—suit, shoes, socks, polo-neck. He murmurs to Kylie’s parents and her boyfriend as he takes his place beside them. He looks as if he’s surveying the turnout for the funeral. His gaze comes to rest on me, and he mutters a few words to Kylie’s father. “Don’t do anything, Graham,” Christine says at once.

“I wasn’t about to.” Her assumption infuriates me even more than Jasper’s behaviour. I stare at him as expressionlessly as I can manage, and then I watch three teenage girls dab at their eyes while they giggle at the antics of a squirrel. When I glance back at Jasper he’s heading for our bench.

I’d clench my fists if Christine wouldn’t see. I make to stand up, but she holds onto my arm. Jasper doesn’t speak until he’s almost within reach. He dabs his forehead with a handkerchief, and I’d be happy to imagine
he’s sweating with nervousness, but it’s the heat that even the trees can’t fend off. As he pockets the handkerchief he murmurs “Have you been put in the picture?”

He hasn’t finished speaking when his gaze shifts from me to Christine, so that I could think the question is meant just for her. That’s one reason I demand “Is that your job now?”

Keeping my voice low to avoid being overheard has reminded me of trying to be secretive in Benny’s bar. The memory inflames my rage, and Jasper doesn’t help by saying “I guess nobody here wants to upset Robbie and Margaret.”

Even his adopted accent infuriates me, since it’s part of his act. “Who’s going to do that?”

“Anyone who asks them for the latest on their daughter.”

“Why do you think I’d do anything of the kind?”

Perhaps fury is confusing me—perhaps he didn’t mean I would. Christine strokes my arm and says “So what is the latest, Mr Jasper?”

“I need you to keep this to yourselves just now.”

“It’s okay, Frankie. It’s all right, Frank.” I’ve rephrased it to placate him and obtain the information, but I can’t resist adding “We aren’t on the air and I’m not recording you this time.”

“We’re good at keeping secrets,” Christine adds.

He seems bemused by the hint of a rebuke, but of course that’s aimed at me. My remark may have antagonised him as well. He lets us see that he’s making some kind of allowance before he murmurs “It looks like it wasn’t the canal.”

“What wasn’t, Mr Jasper?”

Perhaps Christine thinks the fake name is the best way to coax the details out of him, but I’m about to quiz him more vigorously when he says “How Kylie died.”

“‘What are you saying it was then, Frank?”

“It seems like she was dead before she hit the water.”

Though I asked the question he’s still eyeing Christine, who clasps my arm as she says “Do they know what happened?”

“I’m hearing she may have been knocked down. Just a single blow, it could have been. They’d have given her no chance to call for help.”

Is it possible he’s claiming to have heard this from the afterlife? Apparently this doesn’t occur to Christine. “Who could have done something like that?”

“It wouldn’t have taken too much strength. She looks like a delicate girl. Maybe he lost control for a moment. That’s all it would need.”

Before I can enquire how the police know it was a man, Jasper glances at the chapel. “You’ll pardon me if I leave you to it. They’re going in,” he says and turns back to add “Remember I’m trusting you.”

Christine takes a firmer hold on my arm as though to prevent me from lurching after him to grab him. Even if my rage is virtually indistinguishable from the heat that’s settled on my scalp, I was only making to stand up; I do know where I am. “I’m a hundred per cent more trustworthy than Mr Frankie Pattercake,” I mutter.

“Are you sure you’re all right to go on with this?”

‘As all right as anyone is at a funeral,” I say and bring her to her feet as if I’m fishing her up.

The last of the mourners are filing into the chapel, above which the vapour trails of an airliner doubly underline the emptiness that’s heaven. Wayne and Kylie’s father are standing by the hearse, and Wayne stares at me until I reach the chapel, where a pastor hands Christine and me a pamphlet each. Despite the stone walls, the heat feels as if it presages a furnace. Many of the small latticed windows are frosted, but however much they blind us to the world outside they can’t shut out the sun. Among the reasons I head for the back row is that it’s furthest from the rays that are advancing through the chapel.

Music is hovering under the rafters—“Amazing Grace” performed by a young choir. According to the pamphlet they’re from Kylie’s school. The white letters on the pale blue cardboard cover say Kylie Goodchild: Celebrating Her Life. Some of the mourners seated on the straight-backed pews are using their copies to fan themselves, and I’m tempted to follow their example until Christine touches my arm. She’s showing me a poem in her copy, and I turn to it in mine.

Life by Kylie Goodchild

Life’s everybody who’s alive and everything that is.

I’m a part of it and so are you, and we shouldn’t think we’re any
better than the rest.

Find out how you’re like other people and how they’re like you, and then
we’ll all be more alive.

We’re all the same before we’re born, and babies never fight,
so why can’t we just remember how it was and be glad everyone’s alive?