Three Things About Elsie(63)

‘Where’s the lavatory?’ I said.

‘It’s just through here. It’s en-suite.’

I hesitated.

‘It’s just for us,’ she said, and we spent the next ten minutes saying how wonderful it all was.

There were twin beds, covered in shiny pink eiderdowns. Comfortable, but not like being at home. The mattress was left wanting. Boxed springs. Saggy in the middle. Vague sensation of static each time you moved. Elsie went for the one nearest the door, because she knew I liked watching the seagulls. Above the writing desk there was a notice telling people not to pinch anything.

I read it out loud. ‘Well, I never did,’ I said.

I wasn’t sure what anyone could find to steal. There was a picture of a zebra above the bed and a pot dog on the windowsill, but in all honesty, I would have paid somebody to take them away. I began unpacking my things. Elsie told me it wasn’t worth it, because we were only going to be here for two nights, but I like to turn wherever I am into a home from home.

‘It would take more than a tube of Poligrip in a plastic beaker to make me feel that way,’ she said, but she let me get on with it.

Miss Ambrose asked us all to be in reception for three o’clock. We walked down the stairs at five past, but half of us was still missing. Ronnie was there, of course, leaning against the telephone table, talking to Mrs Honeyman, and Handy Simon stood on a little velvet stool with his clipboard, but he kept losing count and having to start again. Miss Bissell had gone for a lie-down with one of her stomachs. As soon as I spotted Ronnie, I reached for Elsie’s hand. Jack arrived a few minutes after we did, and Miss Ambrose clapped and coughed, and tried her best to lure people away from the television lounge.

‘We can watch the television at Cherry Tree, can’t we? No need to put ourselves through four hours on a motorway.’ She did a little laugh in the middle but no one joined in. We were told what to do if there was a fire or if anyone had a gluten allergy. I did start to ask a question about that, but Elsie put her finger against her lips, and so I decided to save it until later. Miss Ambrose told us what time the front door was locked, and how to request extra pillows, and then she handed us all an itinerary, which Jack used to clean his glasses, and I think I put mine in a plant pot for safekeeping.

‘And now we’re going on a ghost walk!’ Miss Ambrose said.

We all stared at her.

‘Ghosts are very popular in Whitby,’ she said. ‘The place is riddled with them.’

Our tour guide was called Barry. He had a bowler hat and very melodramatic arms. In fact, everything about him was melodramatic. He carried a silver-topped cane, which he held aloft as we followed him down the street. Jack copied with his walking stick, until Miss Ambrose told him off outside the Army & Navy. She was right, though. Whitby is full of ghosts. There are crinolined ladies tumbling from cliffs, several runaway coaches, and endless women running down cobbled yards with their hair on fire. We found ourselves standing on a street corner, listening to a story about a screaming cat, but my mind kept wandering. I was trying to keep one eye on Ronnie, but he would insist on moving around and I was always having to turn and check whereabouts he was. I had to ask Barry to repeat what he’d said a few times. Elsie reassured me she’d go through it later, but I said to her, what’s the point in going on a ghost walk, if you have to have it all explained to you afterwards?

When we walked on to the main street, Jack nudged me in the ribs and nodded across the road.

‘There’s your music shop,’ he said.

Barry was being very theatrical about a vampire, and we crossed over unnoticed. It wasn’t what I expected. Although we’d seen a picture on a computer screen, it seemed different in real life. It was sandwiched between a charity shop and an estate agent, and it sat there as though someone had lifted it out of the past and forgotten to put it back again. The window was filled with clarinets and trombones, and giant saxophones tilted towards the ceiling. There were polished violin bows, ready to be tightened, and a row of guitars waiting to be tuned. There were instruments I didn’t even know the name of.

‘Look at all the sheet music,’ said Jack.

There was far more than we’d been able to see in the photograph. It stretched across the window. It crept from behind the violin cases and made a lake of crotchets and quavers on the floor. Songs from the past, all waiting to be played again, and right in the middle, looking down at us from a wartime dancehall, was Al Bowlly.

‘“Midnight, the Stars and You”,’ I said. ‘Of course.’

‘There he is again.’ Jack pointed to the other side of the display. ‘Goodnight Sweetheart.’

‘My father used to sing that every evening,’ I said. ‘Goodnight sweetheart, I’ll be watching o’er you.’ Then I sang the next line: ‘Sleep will banish sorrow.’

I looked at Elsie. ‘If only that were true,’ I said.

‘Let’s go inside.’ Jack reached for the door.

‘What, now?’ I looked over at the ghost walk, which had moved a little down the pavement. Barry was pointing to a church spire, and everyone was looking up with their mouths open.

‘Won’t they miss us?’ said Elsie.

‘No time like the present,’ Jack said.

I linked my arm through his. ‘Isn’t there?’