Three Things About Elsie(77)

‘You’ll have to excuse the smell,’ she said.

He felt a brush of unease.

‘It’s the velvet. Lets everything in. I was going to opt for tarpaulin, but it’s not as ambient, is it?’

Simon shook his head.

‘You should smell it when the wind gets up. Some days, it gets so bad, I’m forced into a can of Glade.’

He coughed and tried to very discreetly check his watch.

When he looked up again, Rosa had her hands on the crystal ball, and her eyes tipped back into her head. Her face did a little grimace and she started to sway very slightly in her seat. This went on for quite some time and Simon tried to work out different ways he might be able to check his watch without being spotted, just in case Rosa’s eyes happened to tip forward again as he was doing it.

‘I see a long journey,’ she said eventually. ‘Of many miles.’

Simon started to tell her about the M1, but she held her hand up.

‘I can’t hear the spirits, Simon. You have to let them speak.’

He sat back and chewed at his bottom lip. It took at least ten minutes before Rosa spoke again, if you didn’t count the mumbling, and Simon began to wonder whether he was so dull, even the afterlife didn’t want to have a conversation with him. But just when he was on the verge of throwing in the towel, she spoke up again.

‘Do you,’ she swayed with a little more violence, ‘know anyone by the name of Ben?’

He shook his head.

Rosa opened one eye. ‘Well, do you?’ she said.

‘I was letting the spirits speak.’ Simon shifted in his seat. ‘No, I don’t think I do.’

‘It might be Bob,’ said Rosa.

He shook his head again, and then said, ‘No,’ in a loud voice.

‘Something beginning with B.’ She cupped her hand to her ear. ‘What’s that? I can’t hear you.’

‘I didn’t say anything.’

‘Not you, Simon. The spirits. The longer someone has been dead, the softer their spirit voice.’

‘Like they’re further away from you?’ he said.

Rosa took a large breath and nodded very energetically. ‘Do you know or have you ever known, at any point in your life, anyone whose name starts with the letter B?’

‘My mum was called Barbara.’

‘That’s it!’ She said this so loudly, Simon jumped and his leg became tangled in the deckchair. ‘It’s your mother. It’s definitely your mother.’

Simon peered into the darkness. He wondered where his mother might be. Perhaps behind Rosa, although there wasn’t a great deal of space, and she was quite a large woman, to be fair. Maybe she was sitting in the spare deckchair. He moved his leg.

‘Your mother wants you to know how very much she loves you.’

‘She does?’ His mother had never found it easy to say she loved anyone when she was alive, although perhaps being dead made you a bit more outspoken.

‘Oh, yes. She wants you to know she loves you, and not to worry about anything, because everything is going to work out just fine.’

The character transformation his mother had undertaken was quite extraordinary. Before her death she’d spent most of her time combing through people’s lives looking for potential hazards, and if she was unable to find anything, she would invent one just to be on the safe side. The afterlife clearly suited her. Simon frowned. Perhaps she was talking about Mrs Honeyman. Perhaps heaven gave her a view that no one else could see.

‘Does she say what, exactly, will work out just fine? Can she be a bit more specific?’

‘Ah, Simon.’ Rosa shook her head. ‘We cannot ask of the spirits. We can only take what they’re willing to offer.’

‘Not even a little bit?’ he said.

She opened an eye again. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Although …’

Simon leaned forward.

‘… she keeps saying something about a dog barking. Listen to that dog barking, she’s saying.’

‘A dog?’ said Simon. ‘We didn’t have a dog.’

‘Oh. A cat, perhaps?’

Simon shook his head. His mother didn’t like pets. She said they set off her chest.

‘And she’s gone.’ Rosa looked towards the ceiling of the tent. Simon looked too, and thought of a small finger wave, but decided against it.

The stopwatch rang out an alarm on Rosa’s iPhone and she took another mouthful of coffee. Simon picked up his rucksack.

‘Could I ask you something,’ he said. ‘Before I go?’

She narrowed her eyes and nodded at the peg. ‘As long as it’s quick. I don’t want to open that flap and find a queue.’

‘Dead people. Do they ever leave things for you to find? Little signs, you know? Something to show you they’re around?’

‘Oh, all the time.’ Rosa took an egg and tomato sandwich out of the paper bag. ‘Feathers. Keys. Coins. If you haven’t found anything, it’s only because you’re looking in the wrong place.’

‘Why do they do it? What are they trying to say?’

‘Times of stress, Simon.’ She took a bite of the sandwich and a small collection of tomato seeds hurried on to her chin. ‘Whenever you’re worried or frightened, they’ll leave something for you, to show you that you’re not alone.’