Fogging Over (8 page)

“What
is
the boy up to?” Lola wondered aloud.

We followed him back to the medium’s house in Milkwell Yard. Georgie knocked softly on the back door and waited. He looked edgy like he was bracing himself for some major ordeal.

Ivy let him into the house, putting her finger to her lips. “Your sister says she hopes you don’t mind waiting,” she said in a hoarse whisper. “But a client turned up, total stranger, he was. Just rang the bell, bold as you like. Says his name’s Smith.” She gave a disbelieving snort. “I said, ‘I’m sorry, sir, but Miss Temple won’t see you without an appointment, not if you was Prime Minister.’ But he comes out with this cock and bull story about his dead granny and how he needs the spirits to help his family find her will.”

She leaned closer. “I think he’s one of those wossnames, investigators, trying to catch her out. I said to her, ‘Madam, you don’t have to see him.’ But she says, ‘Ivy, my professional reputation is at stake!’”

Ivy noticed Georgie anxiously clutching his daisies and her eyes filled with pity. “Oh, bless,” she exclaimed softly. “And here’s me rabbiting like it’s just an ordinary day.”

She suddenly took in his bedraggled appearance. “Tell you what, ‘ow’d you like a nice wash, while you’re waiting?” she said briskly. “I’ll fry you some bacon and eggs and you have a little clean-up, how about that?”

Ivy seemed to know all about Georgie’s forthcoming ordeal whatever it was, and was reminding him, in the kindest possible way, that he should make himself more respectable.

“Let’s give the kid his privacy,” Brice suggested. “We can have fun with Minerva and her paranormal ‘wossname’ while we wait.”

Lollie shook her head. “One seance was more than enough, thanks,” she said with a shudder.

“Oh, come on. This one will be a blast,” he insisted.

“You’re a bit confident, aren’t you?” I said.

“I’m totally confident, and I’ll tell you why.” Brice paused for dramatic effect. “Minerva Temple heard us talking last night!”

We stared at him.

“I’m serious. She has a genuine psychic gift. You saw what happened yesterday. She’s a spirit magnet. They can’t keep away from her.”

“But that doesn’t make sense!” I objected. “If she’s for real, why go in for fake ectoplasm and funny voices?”

“Because the spirit world is unpredictable, and if you don’t give the punters what they want on a regular basis, they won’t pay up. Faking it is a safer bet.”

“Well, I don’t think we should get involved,” I said in my prissiest voice. “She’s conning vulnerable people. This investigator should just go ahead and expose her.”

“Maybe you should actually see what’s going on, before you make up your mind,” Brice suggested with an edge to his voice.

We argued for a bit, but I admit I was a tiny bit curious to see this mysterious Mr Smith myself, so I let myself be persuaded. We crept into the purple twilight of Minerva’s parlour. The bored ghosts were killing time playing a game of ghostly noughts and crosses. Not having pencil or paper, they were each taking it in turns to draw on the mirror with a spooky sepia finger.

Minerva, Georgie’s sister and the mysterious Mr Smith were all holding hands in hushed silence, waiting for the fake spirits to show.

After the usual heavy breathing, Minerva announced that Mr Smith’s dead grandmother was standing by her side. “She is showing me a beautiful brooch,” she said in her hypnotist’s voice. “A very old cameo brooch. She tells me she was very fond of it and sometimes used it to fasten her shawl.”

Mr Smith shook his head in mock amazement. “What are the chances of anyone guessing that an old lady would wear a shawl and a cameo brooch? Could you ask her if she ever owned a pair of spectacles?”

Brice’s instincts were right about this guy. Most paranormal investigators are genuinely after the truth, but this guy wasn’t one of them. He didn’t just want to expose Minerva and put her out of business. He wanted to destroy her, as a person.

He sat forward and I saw his eyes glitter in the twilight. “Perhaps you could ask my grandmother about someone who used to work in her kitchen? A workhouse girl. I think her first name was Minnie,” he mused. “And her last name began with T. It was strangely similar to your own, Miss Temple. Could it be Tuttle? Yes, that’s it. Could you ask my dear old granny whatever happened to little Minnie Tuttle?”

Minerva’s voice sounded strained. “I don’t appear to be getting anyone of that name,” she said bravely.

Omigosh, I thought, the poor darling! That’s
her
! She’s Minnie Tuttle.

This guy had evidently been digging around in Minerva’s past, a past she found so painful that she’d invented a whole new identity for herself.

“Figured out whose side you’re on yet?” Brice whispered.

“Yeah, this creep’s got it coming,” I agreed. “But what can we do? We’re totally not meant to interfere.”

He grinned. “And we’re not going to.” He nodded at the ghosts. ‘What do you say, guys? Shall we make it a team effort?”

They looked stunned. One spirit asked Brice something, in a distorted underwatery voice.

“No, seriously,” Brice said. “You’re the experts. We’re just here to help you do your stuff.”

It would be incredibly unprofessional of me to reveal what happened next, so I’ll just tell you that ten minutes after we hijacked the seance, the paranormal investigator bolted from the house. The final straw was definitely when Minerva’s spirits told her to ask him about an important public examination in which a pupil with the initials O. D. did something he shouldn’t.

I know! How
do
ghosts get hold of this information? How could they
possibly
know that Mr Smith’s real name was Obadiah Dunhill?

I was on such a high that I slapped Brice’s palm and said, “Yess!”

“Didn’t I tell you it would be a blast?” he boasted.

Lola just beamed at us, like: You see! You kids can play really nicely together if you try.

After Obadiah fled, Minerva lay back in her chair, sniffing at a bottle of smelling salts. The real-life spirits hovered solicitously in the background. Minerva looked exhausted but deep down I think she was relieved to be back in the bona fide psychic bizz.

Charlotte was pulling back the heavy curtains, letting in what little daylight there was. Then she turned and I saw her face, and my elation died away.

“May I leave now, Miss Temple?” she asked timidly. “You said I could have the morning off? My mama died two years ago today and my brother and I are going to visit her grave.”

Lola gave me a helpless look.

“So
that’s
why Georgie stole the flowers,” I whispered.

Georgie was waiting in the kitchen, looking astonishingly different without his grime. He had surprisingly delicate features for a boy, I thought. He scrupulously divided his stolen daisies into two bunches, handing one of the bunches to Charlotte, and they set off down the street.

Georgie didn’t say a word as they walked along. Charlotte kept giving him worried glances, but after ten minutes she couldn’t stand it any longer and said, “We must try not to be sad, you know, Georgie. Mama and Papa’s troubles are over now. They are with the angels, watching over us from Heaven.”

For the first time since we’d met him, Georgie lost his temper. “There IS no Heaven, Charlotte!” he yelled. “The angels didn’t help you when you were living on the street. It was me who found you that job. We’re on our own. There’s just you, me and Uncle Noel, no-one else.”

He stormed ahead, leaving a pathetic trail of purple daisy petals.

“Wait! Georgie, wait for me!” Charlotte went hurrying after him.

“I used to feel like Georgie,” Lola murmured. “Didn’t you, Mel?”

“Totally,” I admitted, “and I didn’t have it anything like as hard as these kids.”

A fit of violent coughing had stopped Charlotte in her tracks. Georgie ran back looking stricken. He waited anxiously until she’d recovered, then he silently took her hand and they walked on together to the church where their mother was buried.

We thought it was better if the children visited the grave on their own so when we reached the church, we tactfully went off for a walk.

The weather had improved though left-over wisps of fog clung here and there, wreathing atmospherically around the stone crosses and headstones. Some of the graves had statues of angels watching over them, which Victorians seemed to picture either as solemn girls with wings, or chubby little cherubs. Lola and I started doing angel statue imitations but then a funeral procession came through the gates, so we hastily stopped.

The hearse was a horse-drawn coach, drawn by four black horses in blinkers. Through the window, the polished gleam of the coffin was just visible under heaps of white flowers. A father and his weeping littledaughter walked slowly behind, followed by grieving friends and relations. All the women wore long black veils.

Brice was mooching around, examining inscriptions on headstones. I wondered what the mourners would think if they knew a dodgy angel in a Bruce Lee T-shirt was prowling around their graveyard.

The funeral coach went slowly past us, and we all bowed our heads in respect, even Brice. The hollow rumbling of the wheels and the clipping horses’ hooves sounded dreamlike and muffled in the fog. One of the horses gave a nervous snort and tossed its ebony plumes.

“I want my mama,” the little girl was saying. “Where’s my mama?”

I can’t handle this, I thought. There’s too much death and dying in these times.

I must have looked upset because Lola asked, “Are you OK, hon?” Then I heard her voice change. “Mel,
look
, there she is!”

A little way off, under the trees, a young woman was watching the funeral. She held a tiny new-born baby in her arms. The mother and baby weren’t see-thru and sepia like the spirits in Minerva’s parlour. For people who’d so recently died, they actually looked spectacularly full of life. You could see that the dead woman really felt for her husband and daughter, yet her face was filled with utter peace and love.

When will you get it into your head, angel girl! Dying is
not
the end, I reminded myself. It’s not a big hole or a terrifying bottomless pit or a cartoon cliff edge that characters vanish over for ever. It’s a portal into a totally limitless, indescribably beautiful universe.

I noticed Brice giving me a funny look, almost but not quite a smile.

“What?” I said. Brice has this annoying habit of spoiling my mystical moments.

“I think our kids are almost finished,” he said gruffly.

Georgie and Charlotte had pulled up the weeds growing over their mother’s grave. Now they solemnly laid down their flowers. Charlotte said a prayer, stopping once to cough into her handkerchief. Georgie just chewed furiously at his lip, but when his sister finished, he obediently muttered “Amen.”

The dead woman waved to us serenely as we left and we waved back.

The children said their goodbyes outside the churchyard. Charlotte wanted her brother to come back to Milkwell Yard, but he said he had something to do. I guessed Georgie planned to drop in on his uncle.

It was a long walk, even with Georgie’s impressive knowledge of shortcuts. I cheered up once I realised that Portman Square, where Georgie’s uncle lived, joined on to Baker Street. I was walking down the
actual
street where Sherlock Holmes and Watson hung out solving mysteries! I didn’t mention this though. Brice would only try to make me look small.

Sherlock Holmes just lived in a flat. I don’t think he was really into worldly goods. Uncovering the truth, that’s all he cared about. But Georgie’s uncle and aunt had a big posh house, set behind iron railings.

The maid who opened the door looked about nine years old. She must have just started working there because she obviously didn’t recognise Georgie. When she saw him on the step, she clasped her hands behind her back like a child in a talent show.

“The mistress says no hawkers, no traders and no workhouse riffraff,” she recited in a pleased voice.

“I’m not selling anything and I’m not riffraff,” said Georgie with dignity. “My name is Georgie Hannay. Please tell my uncle I wish to see him, and that it’s a matter of life and death.”

A few minutes later the maid flounced back, and sulkily showed Georgie in to his uncle.

He was sitting by a crackling fire, apparently reading The Times. He had long dark hair with dramatic silver streaks. He was actually really handsome, I thought, in a slightly haunted way. A little speckled black and white spaniel was sitting wistfully at his feet, hoping to be noticed. It gave a joyful bark when we came in and Georgie’s uncle looked up.

“Georgie! What is this ‘matter of life and death’ you have to see me about?”

Georgie stammered out his story. He explained that Charlotte’s cough was getting worse and that she urgently needed a doctor. “But we can’t afford his fee, so I wondered if you could help us. I promise I’d pay you back,” he said anxiously.

The whole time Georgie was talking, his uncle was searching his face with a strangely hungry expression. It wasn’t like he was really seeing Georgie, I thought, so much as looking
through
him to someone else.

“I thought of asking Miss Temple,” Georgie babbled nervously. “But if she suspected my sister was ill, she might put her back on the street. I am so afraid Charlotte may have tuberculosis, like poor mama.” His lip trembled.

His uncle was nodding as if he genuinely sympathised.“It must be worrying for you.”

At that moment both Georgie and the neglected little cocker spaniel both wore an identical expression of hope and longing.

“You do realise that before I do anything, I must first consult with your aunt, Mrs Scrivener?” his uncle said.

“I understand—” Georgie began.

His uncle cut across him. “I’m afraid you don’t. Mrs Scrivener is a formidable woman, some might say frightening, and it is she who holds the purse strings. The fine things you see around us here are mine only through marriage. Your grandfather did not leave me a fortune to squander as he did your dead papa, and if your aunt suspected I was spending her money on my half-brother’s brats—”