Page 72 of Secrets and Seashells at Rainbow Bay
I shake my head.
‘Jasper says he was trying to warn the builders there is danger.’
‘Danger? Where?’
‘In here. Jasper says they’ve done some work that isn’t safe, and if they leave it tragedy will befall the users of this building.’
‘Tragedy – what sort of tragedy?’
Charlie laughs. ‘Jasper says you ask a lot of questions.’
‘I should think I do. He comes here and scares the bejesus out of my workmen, then tells me he only did it to warn us of tragedy, but can’t tell us what it is.’
Charlie looks up into the air again.
‘Uh-huh, where? . . . Okay, sure, I’ll tell her that, too. He says there’s something else.’
‘More tragedy?’
‘No – a key.’
‘A key?’
‘Yeah, he said, find the key – apparently, it could be important to you.’
‘Right, so all Jasper has told you is there’s going to be tragedy and we need to find a key.’
‘What’s that?’ Charlie asks. ‘No, I’m not telling her that.’ He shakes his head. ‘No way!’
‘What? What is he saying now?’
Charlie swallows hard. ‘He said a man wouldn’t react in the same way you are. He said women are too emotional and shouldn’t be left in charge.’ I’m proud that Charlie looks mortified to even have to utter these words.
Chester growls next to me as I stare at the empty space that Charlie has been talking to for the last few minutes.
And then I laugh. A laugh so deep and throaty, that even I’m not certain where it’s coming from.
‘Now I’ve heard everything,’ I say as Charlie stares at me, unnerved by my laughter. ‘A sexist ghost. Wonderful!’
‘Ruby, what are you doing here?’ Charlie asks suddenly, looking to his left side. ‘Yeah, he did say that.’
‘What’s going on?’ I ask Charlie. This whole scene is getting stranger by the minute. Not only am I standing in the middle of a building site listening to my son talking to some invisible being, now he’s talking to two. If you’d told me a few months ago that this is what I’d be doing in my short-term future – or at any stage in my future, actually – I’d have thought you were high on some illegal substance or other.
‘Ruby is saying that Jasper shouldn’t be so rude to you, and that she likes that word sexist – she hasn’t heard it used before. She wants to know if it means to be rude to women.’
‘It means to be derogatory about women,’ I tell the empty space next to Charlie. ‘To say or think that men are better than women. Because they’re not.’ I turn and talk to the place where Jasper is supposed to be. ‘Woman can do everything men can, and sometimes they do it even better.’
‘Jasper is over here now, Mum,’ Charlie says, pointing to the right of him. ‘He’s moved.
‘Hello,’ Charlie says now to another empty space. ‘Who are you?’
‘There’s three of them now?’ I ask, my head spinning.
Charlie appears to be listening to the latest ghost to join the party, then he laughs.
‘This is Percy,’ he says, holding out his hand in front of him. ‘He rarely leaves the Blue Bedroom, apparently, but he wanted to come along and join the fun.’
‘Yep, this is certainly fun,’ I say sarcastically. ‘Welcome, Percy.’
