Melody Bittersweet and The Girls' Ghostbusting Agency: A laugh out loud romantic comedy of Love, Life and ... Ghosts? (23 page)

Marina looks at me knowingly, and Artie rummages in the cool box then hands me a little chocolate bar in silence. I break a bit off and suck it, letting the sugar slide into my veins and sweeten my mood again after my mini Fletch-rant.

‘I’m just saying that if their minds are too closed, then we’ll be better off getting back in Babs and heading back to Scarborough House sooner rather than later.’

Marina gathers all of the used plates, cutlery and rubbish together and packs it into the cool box, and then we all look at each other with nervous, excited eyes.

‘Well, here goes nothing,’ I say, turning the key in the ignition.

I
’ve parked
Babs further on down the street so that she’s not the first visible thing to whoever opens the door. I think we all look pretty normal this morning, although there’s no getting away from the fact that we’re probably going to seem like a bunch of religious door-knockers at first sight. Artie couldn’t look blander in his jeans and
Dr Who
T-shirt, Marina’s nipped-in jacket, skinnies and heels look is a chic mixture of business and nightclub, and I’ve matched my sneakers with the red white and blue of Captain America’s shield emblazoned across my chest. If nothing else, we look cool and unthreatening. These people should just be glad it’s not Leo and the psycho Barbies delivering this news, because opening the door and finding those three brooding and glamorous on the doorstep would probably feel similar to being paid a visit by the Devil and his fembots.

‘Ring the bell,’ Marina hisses behind me.

‘I’m going to, I’m just psyching myself up for it,’ I whisper, rolling my shoulders. I’ve hovered my finger over the bell once and then scratched my nose instead, and I can feel myself starting to get all hot and bothered.

‘Should we go and have a coffee in that café around the corner first?’ I say, and in answer Marina reaches over my shoulder and pushes the bell. I slap her arm, and she flicks my earlobe as she retracts her wrist.

‘I don’t know where you’d be without me, Bittersweet,’ she says.

‘In the café around the corner drinking coffee,’ Artie says, and I can’t help but laugh under my breath, which is why Isaac’s grandson finds me grinning like an idiot when he swings the door open seven seconds later. I know without needing to ask that it’s Isaac’s grandson, because he is the absolute dead spit of him. Facially he is anyway, but where Isaac favours the traditional, neat, old-man cardigan and slacks look, his grandson is . . . how can I put this? He’s avant-garde. His shock of white hair is held back by a red bandana, and his grandad-shirt is loose and paint-splattered. His faded jeans are similarly daubed, and he’s barefoot. He looks like a man who’s lived, and given the fact that he has a better tan than Joey Essex, I’d say he’s lived it in warmer places than England.

‘Mr Henson, I presume?’ I frame it as a question even though I know the answer.

‘Too Sherlock,’ Marina mutters, and I just keep smiling and ignore her.

‘Yes,’ he says, eyeing us with curious, suspicious eyes.

‘My name’s Melody, Mr Henson. Melody Bittersweet, and this is Marina Malone and Artie Elliott.’

He glances at each of us in turn. Marina nods and Artie bobs his hand up at the mention of his name as if he’s a child answering the register.

‘I’m probably not going to buy whatever it is that you’re trying to sell me,’ he says mildly. God, I hope he’s wrong.

‘Oh, we’re not here to sell you anything,’ I insist earnestly. ‘We’ve driven up here all the way from Shropshire this morning just to see you.’

His brow creases, telling me that I’ve just made us sound like crazies, so I backpedal hastily.

‘I mean, it wasn’t all that far really and we had a decent picnic, so I’m not complaining . . .’ Shitballs, I’ve gone off on a tangent and now he’s looking less like a friendly bohemian artist and more like an alarmed, slightly pissed-off pensioner about to cut us off.

‘Look, I don’t mean to be rude but I’m busy,’ he says, and I start to panic because he’s closing the door. I don’t know what to say to make him listen, and Marina jumps into the breach.

‘This is going to sound weird, but please listen. We need to talk to you urgently about your grandfather, Isaac Scarborough.’

The door stills, ajar, and then slowly swings open again.

‘Did you say Scarborough?’ he says, his head drawn back and his expression cautious.

We all nod like those bobble-headed dogs people stick in the back window of their cars. I’m not above sitting and begging if it gets me through this door.

He stares at us, and I can see he’s weighing up whether to let us in or not.

‘You can come in,’ he says after an age, and I’m so relieved that it feels as if someone just deflated a balloon in my chest. ‘But only because you’re a
Dr Who
fan,’ Henson adds, pointing to Artie. I’m mildly offended that he isn’t more impressed by my Captain America T-shirt, but the expression of pure joy on Artie’s face at being useful is enough to stem my annoyance.

‘We come in peace?’ I say, trying to sound like I’m a
Dr Who
fan too.

Artie shakes his head. ‘Wrong show.’

‘Exterminate?’ Marina has a go.

‘Technically yes, but threatening, so very inappropriate,’ Artie says, and I notice the small smile on Richard Henson’s face as he steps aside to allow us entry into his home.

Inside, Artie looks around the spacious white hallway. It’s welcoming, bright and fresh with a huge abstract painting on one wall and a primary-coloured runner on the honeyed floorboards for a splash of colour. For such a narrow house, it packs quite a visual punch.

‘Bigger on the inside,’ Artie quips, and Richard Henson gives him a silent high-five.

‘Come through,’ he says, and it strikes me that not only does he look like Isaac, he has the same rich, deep tone to his voice, too. I don’t say it though, because, well, you know. The ghost thing has to be approached with care every damn time.

‘Let me just go and find my daughter,’ he says, ‘Go on through and take a seat in the lounge.’

He waves his hand towards a door that’s standing slightly ajar. Artie goes in first then comes to such an abrupt halt that Marina and I canon into each other behind him.

‘What the . . .?’ I say, and then I see why he stopped. There’s a woman reclined on a chaise lounge reading a book, and by the looks of her generously wrinkled, quite naked body, I’d say she’s well over ninety. She looks up when we come in, and then lowers her book and slides her glasses down her nose to peer at us over the top of them.

‘Oh, fuck,’ she says. She sounds a lot like Princess Anne, and when she makes no move to cover herself up, Artie slaps his hands over his eyes instead.

‘I didn’t see anything,’ he squeaks, as if to assure her that her modesty is intact.

‘Oh, I’m afraid you did, young man. From that angle you quite clearly saw my vagina,’ she says robustly.

Marina chokes with laughter behind me, and we all shuffle aside as Richard Henson hurtles back into the room.

‘Ah, I’m so sorry! I forgot all about Margo,’ he says, rushing in and holding up a terry robe. ‘We were about to start a painting.’ He gestures towards the easel as Margo stands and slips into the robe. I think we’d all assumed as much already, but it came as a shock all the same. Poor Artie. Yet another thing to add to the humungous list of things he can never tell his mother he did at work.

* * *

F
ive minutes later
, and we’re now sitting in the lounge with cups of coffee and no naked pensioners. We’ve been joined by Jojo, Richard’s rather exotic-looking daughter. I know that she’s gone past forty because, oddly for someone you’ve never met, I’ve seen her birth certificate, but you wouldn’t guess it to look at her. Her long dark hair hangs in two plaits tied with orange-glass bobbles, and she’s wearing four or more layered strappy vests of various colours. Her wrists jangle with heaped-up bracelets, and like her dad, she’s barefoot. I expect Marina will wholeheartedly approve of her choice of leopard skin nail art for her toes, and I’m slightly awed by the detailed floral tattoo that snakes from around her ankle all the way to her thigh and disappears into her frayed denim cut-offs. That thing must have hurt more than childbirth; the fact that she endured it tells me that however ‘ethereal beach-bum’ she may look, she’s got balls of steel to call on when she needs to.

‘So what’s this all about?’ she asks, taking a seat on the arm of her dad’s armchair. They both look at us lined up on the sofa opposite them, and with polite enquiry, they wait. Okay. This is where I have to step up and take the lead, because this is my agency and, by God, I want this business to work. This is my moment. In my head, I slap Martine McCutcheon for the earworm and clear my throat.

‘My name’s Melody Bittersweet, and I see dead people.’

Fucking hell.
Really?
Now was
so
not the time for the ‘I see dead people’ line.

Richard’s coffee mug stills halfway to his mouth when he freezes in shock, and Jojo’s eyes practically fall out of her head.

‘I’m sorry, that didn’t come out as I intended,’ I fret.

‘Well, thank goodness for that,’ Richard says, and laughs. ‘Because for a minute I thought you said that you see dead people.’

‘Oh, she does,’ Artie pipes up. ‘All the time. It’s normal for Melody though, not spooky like you might think. I didn’t know if I’d take to it at first if I’m honest, but dead people are just like alive ones really. Only they’re dead, obviously, and they’re invisible. I watched snooker last week with someone who’d been dead for more than a hundred years. In fact, he was . . .’ he trails off because they’re both staring at him now instead of me, and I’m only glad he stopped himself before he got around to telling them that the person he watched snooker with was their murdered relative.

Marina reaches into her jacket pocket and pulls out two of the new glossy, black business cards embossed with our logo that Glenda ordered for us and leans forward to hand one to each of them. I wait while they take their time over reading them, turning them over to read both sides. They probably wish we had been religious door-knockers.

‘I’ve never met a ghost-hunter before,’ Jojo says, sceptical. ‘You might need to prove it before I can believe you.’

‘She can’t do it to order, she isn’t Mystic Meg,’ Marina snaps, used to batting away this kind of request for me. I put my hand on her knee to shush her. She’s right; there’s nothing that made me feel more weird and awkward growing up than people expecting me to perform on tap like some sort of circus freak, but this is different. We need these people to trust us. Besides, Jojo’s best friend Xena, who died twelve months previously in a surfing accident in Fiji has been here ever since Jojo came in the room and is desperate to talk to her.

‘Are you sure you want proof?’ I ask, because sometimes people say they do, but when it comes to it, they’re bluffing.

Jojo nods, and I notice that she crosses her fingers behind her knee.

‘Okay,’ I say quietly, and listen to Xena for a minute or so.

‘Xena’s here.’

Immediately, Jojo’s eyes fill with tears, but she swallows hard and stares me down.

‘Anyone could know that. She was my best friend in the world.’

I nod. I understand, I know that. I know it because I can feel the bond of love between Xena and Jojo, and it is exactly the same as the fierce, sisterly bond I have with Marina. I study Xena and describe what I see.

‘She’s about your height.’ I pause, because Xena corrects me. ‘Sorry, she said she’s half an inch taller.’

Jojo huffs softly, as if this was a point that was always contested.

‘She said to say that she’s sorry about your board,’ I relay, and Richard passes his daughter a tissue as she sniffs.

‘It was my board. She was surfing on my board when she had the accident.’

I nod, because Xena has already told me. I’m aware that I haven’t yet told Jojo anything that a con artist couldn’t have found out with some research.

‘She said to remind you of the time you took the rap from her mum for smoking in her bedroom, even though it wasn’t you; and the day she punched David Riley in the stomach because he dumped you in the lunch queue when you were thirteen; and that it’s time you got over Prick-Face Steve and started dating again, because you were always too good for him and should never have married him anyway.’

By this point, Richard is staring at me open-mouthed again and Jojo is sobbing. ‘But most of all, she wants you to know that she’s sorry she left you, and she misses you every damn day.’ My voice catches, and Marina puts her hand on my knee and squeezes. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, annoyed with myself for projecting my own emotions when this is for Xena and Jojo.

I stand up and Jojo comes to me and hugs me hard. ‘Thank you,’ she whispers. ‘Tell her I miss her every day too.’

‘You just told her yourself,’ I say, and then I start to laugh softly at the last message Xena makes me pass on. ‘She’s going now. She says to tell you that she’s keeping an eye on you, but she won’t come on dates or hover around when you’re shagging because that would be pervy and revolting.’

Jojo laughs shakily too, wiping her eyes. ‘She’s still a silly cow, then. God, I miss her.’

Behind Jojo, Richard rises from his seat and gathers the cups and mugs.

‘Well, I think you can safely say we’re convinced. I’ll make some more tea and then I think you better tell us why you’re here.’