Dial a Ghost

If they liked the house, the ghosts liked the gardens even more. The weeping ash tree with its drooping branches, the rook droppings on the stone benches, the yew trees cut into gloomy shapes . . .

‘It’s so romantic, dear boy, so cool!’ said Aunt Maud. ‘You can’t imagine what it is like to be here after the knicker shop.’

When they reached the lake they found Eric staring down into the water.

‘There is someone in there,’ he said. ‘Someone like me. Someone who has suffered.’

‘There’s supposed to be a drowned farmer,’ said Oliver. He had been afraid of the body trapped in the mud, but already the ghosts were making him think of things differently.

Eric nodded. ‘He died for love,’ he said. ‘I can tell because of Cynthia Harbottle. She wouldn’t go out with me even after I’d bought her a box of liquorice allsorts. It took all my sweet ration and she didn’t even say thank you. And this man’s just the same. People who have been hurt by women can recognize each other.’

‘Can you call him up, dear?’ said Aunt Maud. She was thinking how nice it would be if Eric could talk to someone else about being unhappily in love. When he talked to her about Cynthia Harbottle she got terribly cross. Mothers always get cross when people do not love their sons, and Cynthia had been a nasty piece of work, wiggling her behind at American soldiers and smearing herself with lipstick.

‘He doesn’t want to; not now,’ said Eric – and Oliver couldn’t help being glad. He didn’t feel quite ready yet for a drowned farmer covered in mud.

But the farmer reminded Aunt Maud of something she wanted to ask Oliver.

‘Now please tell me honestly,’ she said, taking his hand. ‘Don’t be polite. But... how would you feel if... if someone came here, someone appeared, who was only wearing a flag? Would she be welcome?’

Oliver was quite hurt that she should ask such a question. ‘Of course she would be welcome. Of course. A ghost wrapped in a flag would be... inspiring.’

After lunch (which was a sandwich for Oliver in the garden) the other ghosts said they would rest, and Oliver and Adopta climbed up the hill to look at the place where the two hikers had frozen to death.

‘I can’t feel them,’ said Adopta. ‘I’m afraid they may just not have become ghosts. Perhaps it’s as well if they had bad frostbite. But I think you ought to ask your factor to put up a proper cross or a little monument. It seems rude not to have anything.’

‘I don’t know if I’ve got a factor. What is it exactly?’

‘It’s a person who runs an estate and tells the shepherds and farmers what to do.’

‘How do you know about factors? I mean you wouldn’t have had them in the knicker shop or at Resthaven.’

Adopta shrugged. ‘Sometimes I know things that I don’t know how I know them, but please don’t start on again about how I’m really someone else because I’m a Wilkinson and I’m me.’ She glanced round at the wide view, the heather-covered hills, the river. ‘Pernilla would love this. She feels so trapped in the shopping arcade.’

‘Who’s Pernilla?’

‘She’s a Swedish ghost – she came to look after some children and learn English, and some idiot in a Jaguar drove her home from a party and crashed.’

‘Why don’t you ask her to stay? And Mr Hofmann too. Anyone you want, there’s lots of room here.’

‘Could we? Oh Oliver, that would be great. Only we’d better do it properly through the agency or—’ She broke off and pointed excitedly at a field below them. ‘Look! Sheep! Hundreds of them. Come on!’

But when they reached the field every single sheep in it looked fleecy and cheerful and well.

‘I could kill one for you, I suppose,’ said Oliver. ‘But I don’t eat mutton and—’

‘No, that would be silly. It might not become a ghost and then it would be a complete waste of time. You can never tell, you see. You can get half a dozen animals that just lie there dead as dodos and absolutely nothing happens, and then one suddenly rises up, and you’re away!’

The day ended with a great honour for Oliver. He was invited to the Evening Calling for Trixie. They did it near the sundial and everybody linked hands and bowed to the north and the south and the east and the west and told Trixie that they wanted her and needed her and would she please, please come.

When it was over, Oliver asked if there was anything that Trixie had particularly liked.

‘Something that we could put out for her, perhaps?’ he said.

Grandma and Aunt Maud looked at each other. ‘Bananas,’ said Grandma. ‘She’d have sold her soul for a banana. All of us would in the war.’

So Oliver ran back into the house and fetched a banana – a long and very yellow one – which they put on the sundial where it could be seen easily from above, and Aunt Maud was so happy that she rose into the air and did the dance that she and Trixie had done when they were Sugar Puffs – a thing she hadn’t done for years.