Sleeping Dogs Lie

Ghosts

At last, Gladys stopped talking. She seemed to have missed the point of holding a séance; that it was for the dead to communicate with the living, which was not easy to do if the living wouldn't let the dead get a word in edgeways.

"Well, Gladys," Joe said when he was sure the she'd stopped talking. "Robert says you should probably go to the doctor's and have it looked at."

"Is it serious?" Gladys asked, her eyes wide with anxiety. Around the table, the pensioners shared shocked expressions with each other, at least as shocked as when Gladys had shared the embarrassing and detailed symptoms of her latest ailments.

Joe put his head on one side, as if listening to another conversation for a moment.

"Robert says, he's buggered if he knows, that's what the doctor's there for," Joe relayed. This reassured the old woman somehow and she sat back with a satisfied expression. Joe took this as a sign that she was finished.

"Well, that's it for this evenin' I think," Joe said and he started to stand. Around the table, the murmur of conversation started to rise as well.

A soft hand on his, across the table, stopped Joe before he could get to his feet.

"What about Miss Smith, Joe?" Elsie asked. "She's come all this way with her uncle and her fiancée and there is still no word from her mother."

Elsie had some rather old fashioned ideas and, across the table, Miss Smith's boyfriend squirmed a little but remained silent.

Normally, Joe found the best way to deal with the skeptics was to give them nothing. To let their ghosts, real or imagined, remain silent. Given enough time and nothing to show for their money, they soon gave up and let him alone. Miss Smith though, was most persistent, and now she had upped the ante considerably by bringing her 'boyfriend' and her 'uncle'. Joe could smell the academics a mile off. The leather elbow patches were a dead giveaway. But Elsie, bless her, wanted the same comfort for Miss Smith that Joe had given her.

Joe turned to Miss Smith, "Sorry, Alice, love. I'm just not hearin' anything from your mum. Some of 'em, when they move on, they don't bother to look back."

"That is a pity," Elsie said, still with her hand on top of his, gently pinning it to the table.

"Is there anyone else?" Joe asked, more for show than anything else. "Someone you've been close to who's passed on that you'd like to speak with?"

Alice just looked at Joe but it was there, like the flash of a fish near the surface of slow moving water that streaks away when startled by a shadow. Joe had caught a glimpse of it. There was someone. Someone she had cared about, someone dear and departed. He'd slipped up by calling her by her first name, the quiet Miss Smith had never previously revealed it, but somehow the surprise of that had been enough for this glimmer to come through. Now he knew there was fish to catch, he'd just have to bait a hook for it.

Joe turned to Elise. "There's too many voices in 'ere," he said. "If everyone else clears out maybe it'll clear the air a bit, make it easier to 'elp find 'er mum or whatever."

Elsie gave him a smile and his hand a little squeeze. "That's it Joe. I knew you wouldn't let us down." Then she addressed the other pensioners in the room, "Come on everyone, let's give Miss Smith and her friends some space."

Slowly, the old folk got to their feet. Grumbling and muttering, saying their goodbyes to Joe, and conversing about the mundane now that the supernatural was finished with. It took a few minutes but soon they had all filed out. Elsie was the last to go. As she left, Elsie peered back around the door.

"Good luck, Miss Smith. Good luck, Joe," and then, with a smile, she was gone and the door was shut behind her.

After some musical chairs, they settled down again. Joe had Miss Smith sit near him at the head of the table and next to her he put her uncle. The other side of himself, facing Miss Smith and with his back to the door, Joe put the boyfriend who seemed happier now that he didn't have to sit on a ridiculous stool.