Page 58 of Secrets and Seashells at Rainbow Bay
‘Oh, you are, are you?’ Benji says, raising his eyebrows in exaggerated fashion. ‘Thepub . .. And they say romance is dead.’
‘It’s not a date or anything,’ I say hurriedly. ‘Tom thinks it would be a good idea if I got to know some of the locals a bit better – and apparently the pub on a Friday night is the best place to do that. We talked about it at the sale, and then he asked me properly yesterday.’
‘I’ve heard the pub is pretty busy on a Friday night. I guess you’ll get to know a few more of the locals that way than only the school mums, and Hetty and her WI members.’
‘That’s the idea. You’re welcome to come along too if you’d like to?’ I offer.
‘No, no,’ Benji says, dismissively waving his hand at me. ‘I don’t want to cut into your one-on-one time with Prince Charming . . . ’
‘Don’t you start calling him that too. Tiffany seems to think we’re all living in some sort of fairy tale here, with me as Cinderella and Tom as my Prince Charming.’
‘What does that make me, then, your fairy godmother?’ Benji pretends to wave a magic wand. ‘You shall go to the ball, Cinders! Or is that the Chesterford Arms in this version?’
‘I think you’d make an admirable fairy godmother,’ I tell him. ‘You’ve helped me out enough over the last few months. I don’t know what I’d have done without you.’
I reach over and pat Benji on the arm, and unlike the last time I’d done this, this time I don’t feel that my actions and words might be misconstrued. Something has very definitely changed between us. But I feel it’s only for the good.
Benji looks at my hand and then at me, and I get the feeling he wants to tell me something.
‘What’s wrong, Benji?’ I ask gently. ‘Is there something you want to say?’
Benji hesitates, and then he smiles. ‘Yes, what was it you were going to ask me earlier? Something about ghosts?’ After expertly changing the subject, he takes a large gulp from his wine glass.
‘Oh yes, I quite forgot.’ With all the talk about Tom we’d gone completely off course. ‘I asked you if you believed in them.’
‘That’s right, so you did.’ Benji puzzles for a few moments. ‘Hmm . . . well, I’ve never actually seen one. But then I don’tdisbelieve in things just because I haven’t seen them – why do you ask?’
I tell Benji everything that’s happened so far at the castle – from the unexplained noises in the stables to the ghostly goings-on in the Blue Bedroom. ‘And then that man brought back a stuffed dog to the courtyard sale because he said his wife thought it was haunted.’
‘How very odd – how can a stuffed dog be haunted?’
‘I have no idea. But never mind that, what about all the other things – the noises and stuff? And what about Charlie? He seems to think that it’s all very real. He even speaks to them . . . ’
‘Does he?’
‘Yes. And you know Charlie pretty well by now; he doesn’t lie, does he?’
Benji thinks about this. ‘No. He’s an honest kid. But then he has had a lot of upheaval in his life just lately, hasn’t he?’
‘Are you saying you think he’s making all this up?’
‘No, but the mind is a very clever thing. It can sometimes trick you into thinking something is real even when it’s not.’
‘I suppose.’
‘And I imagine you’ve both been told a lot of unexplained things happen in a castle such as this from the moment you first came here.’
I shrug. ‘Possibly. But I’m not imagining these things, am I? Even Arthur seemed to verify the Blue Bedroom ghost.’
‘Seemed to, or did?’
I think about this. ‘I guess he didn’t actually say he’d seen anything with his own eyes.’
‘There you go, then.’
‘But that doesn’t mean it isn’t real, does it?’
Benji shakes his head. ‘Nope. On the other hand, it doesn’t prove anything either.’
