thousand. Laf had told her the same so she didn’t need convincing. The obvious thing to do was take out a mortgage on it of ten thousand pounds, one eighth of its value.
Minty wasn’t a very practical person, but Auntie had taught her some of the principles of thrift and neither a borrower nor a lender be. She’d already done the lending and now she was going to start borrowing-but all that much? “I’ll have to see,” she said. “I’ll have to think about it.”
Jock had been spending every evening with her and most nights. When he hadn’t come round or phoned for three days she phoned the number he’d finally given her in Harvist Road but no one ever answered. Perhaps it was just that he was with his mum again. If he never came back it would be because she’d hesitated over the mortgage. She imprisoned herself in rituals, praying, taking extra flowers to Auntie’s grave, hardly moving about the house without touching wood, walking round the room like an old person who couldn’t get about without holding on to the tables and chairs. The rituals brought him back, and the prayers and the flowers. She’d decided to let him have the ten thousand.
He wasn’t as happy as she thought he’d be. He seemed a bit absent, as if his thoughts and his interests were elsewhere. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but he was changed. When he explained she understood. His mum was ill, he said. She’d been on a hospital waiting list for months. He’d like to take her out of the National Health Service and pay for her op privately if he could afford it. The whole thing was a worry. He might have to go down and be with her for a bit. In the meantime he’d get the application forms from the building society.
Minty said she’d got about ?250 left in the bank and he was to have that toward his mother’s op. His bank still hadn’t completed the changeover to the other branch, so she drew the cash out of the bank and emptied her account. He put the notes in the pocket of his black leather jacket and said she was an angel. The jacket looked new, it was so stiff and glossy, but he said, No, he’d had it for years, just never got around to wearing it. Next day he phoned her on his mobile-she didn’t know he’d got a mobile-and said he was in the train going to the West Country. Thanks to her, his mother would be able to have her hip done next week.
Minty told Sonovia about the op, leaving out her personal involvement. They were in the cinema, waiting for the big picture to start and Laf to get back from the gents’. It was the first time Minty’d been out with them since Jock came on the scene.
“His mum’s getting a hip replacement for two hundred and fifty pounds? You have to be joking.”
“Ops cost a lot when they’re private,” Minty said.
“I don’t mean it’s a lot, my deah, I mean it’s nothing.”
Minty didn’t like that. She’d always suspected Sonovia was jealous because her Corinne hadn’t got a boyfriend. The lights went down and she accepted the pack of popcorn Laf handed her, She usually liked popcorn, it was dry and clean and not messy to eat, but this evening somehow it tasted stale. It’d be a shame if Sonovia and Laf were to turn against Jock when he’d soon be coming to live next door permanently.
Like the rest of the country, she saw about the Paddington train crash on television. She didn’t connect it with anyone she knew. Jock had phoned her the day before from his mum’s as he’d promised and he hadn’t said anything about coming home soon. When he hadn’t phoned or appeared for three days she looked so pale and ill that Josephine asked her what was wrong.
“Jock’s gone missing,” she said. “I don’t know where he’s got to.”
Josephine didn’t say much to Minty, but she said a lot to Ken. He couldn’t understand a word but she talked to him just the same. He liked the sound of her voice and, as he listened, smiled with the tranquillity of the Buddhist at peace with himself and the world.
“Maybe that Jock’s ma lives in Gloucester, Ken, or near it. What’s the betting he was on that train, the one the local train smashed into? They haven’t named all the casualties yet, there were horrific injuries. Minty’ll be devastated, it’ll about break her up.”
It did. She got the letter when Jock had been missing a week.
Chapter 3
THE GHOST CAME into Immacue. Minty was in the back, ironing shirts but keeping an eye on the shop while Josephine had popped down to Whiteley’s. She heard the bell and came out. Jock’s ghost was there in jeans and black leather jacket, reading the card on the counter that gave details of their special offer to pensioners. One free of charge if you bring in three items. She screwed up her courage to speak to it. “You’re dead,” she said. “You stay where you came from.”
It raised its eyes to look at her. They had changed color, its eyes, being no longer blue but a pale, washed-out gray. She thought its expression threatening and cruel.
“I’m not afraid of you.” She was, but she was determined not to show it. “If you come back I’ll find ways of getting rid of you.”
The bell sounded as the door opened and Josephine came in. She was carrying a bag of food from Marks and Spencer and another one from the shop that sold cut-price makeup and perfumes. “Who were you talking to?”
She could see through the ghost to Josephine on the other side. It was fading, blurring round the edges. “Nobody,” she said.
“They say it’s the first sign of madness, talking to yourself.”
Minty didn’t say anything. The ghost was melting away like the genie going back into the bottle in the pantomime Auntie took her to when she was little.
“But I see it this way. If you’re nuts you don’t know you’re talking to yourself. You think you’re talking to someone because you see things normal people don’t see.”
Not liking that sort of talk, Minty went back to her ironing. It was five months since Jock had been killed. She’d been out of her mind with worry, though, funnily enough, she never thought he might have been in that train crash. It hadn’t sunk in that the express was coming from the West Country, and even if it had she hadn’t known where Gloucester was or that Jock’s mum lived there. Besides, he’d said on the phone he wouldn’t be coming back till the day after. Lists of casualties appeared in the papers but Minty didn’t often read a paper. Laf brought round the
She didn’t get many letters either. Something coming in the post was an event and even then it was mostly a bill. The letter that came when she hadn’t heard from Jock for a week had
Minty thrust the letter into Sonovia’s face and burst into a storm of tears. Crying wasn’t something she did much of, so when she did it was a violent explosion of long-pent-up misery. It wasn’t just Jock she was grieving for, but Auntie and her lost mum and being alone and not having anyone. Sonovia read the letter and handed it to Daniel and he read it. Then he got up and fetched a drop of brandy in a glass that he personally administered to Minty.
“I have my doubts about this,” Sonovia said. “I’m going to get your father to check up on it.”
“Don’t let her go to work, Mum,” Daniel said. “See she lies down and rests, and you could make her a warm drink. I’d better go or I’ll be late for surgery.”
Minty lay down till the afternoon and Sonovia brought her several warm drinks, sweet tea and her own recipe for cappuccino. Luckily, her neighbor had a key to 39 or Minty wouldn’t have been able to get back in again. Whether Laf ever did check she never found out. She thought that maybe she’d dreamt Sonovia saying that. Jock was dead all right or the train people wouldn’t have written. Josephine was very nice about her taking time off work. After all these years when she’d been as regular as clockwork, she said it was the least she could do. Minty got a lot of sympathy. Sonovia personally made an appointment for her with a counselor, and old Mr. Kroot on the other side,
