Page 21 of Crazy Spooky Love

“I want a television set. A color one, like there used to be when Donovan’s father lived here.”

“I don’t think they even make black-and-white ones anymore,” I say, for the most part relieved I don’t need to buy a cricket jumper and then stalled by the logistics of installing a TV here.

I’m not technical, but I’m guessing that you don’t just plug it in and the picture appears, and it’s a sure fact that Scarborough House doesn’t have a Sky dish.

I make a note to check out the aerial situation on the roof when I leave.

“Let me have a think for a couple of days,” I say. “I can’t promise, but I’ll try.”

Douglas pushes himself off the doorframe and nods.

“Jolly good, then. Until the next time, Melody.” He inclines his head and saunters away, leaving me with the strong impression that his lips are sealed until such a time as he’s able to hear the thwack of leather against willow.

Or is it beech? And when would you ever use the word thwack in any other circumstance?

God, I hope Artie is a cricket fan, but somehow I doubtit.

“Is Isaac around?” I call out before Douglas disappears.

His gaze flickers toward the slender staircase that leads up toward the attic. “He’s usually up there brooding.”

There is a weariness behind Douglas’s eternally youthful voice, and I suddenly feel desperately sorry for him being trapped here for all of these years.

He died way back in 1910 and he’s remained stuck here ever since, unable to communicate with any of the various inhabitants of Scarborough House until Isaac’s ghostly arrival in 1968, followed swiftly by Lloyd gate-crashing the party in 1971.

Douglas is, or was, so very young when one of his brothers, quite literally, stabbed him in the back and let him plunge down the staircase to his death.

I wonder if he ever knew the agonies and ecstasies of falling in love, if he had serious girlfriends.

At twenty-one he probably didn’t die a virgin, but I wonder if he ever got to make love.

I hope so. He seems to me to be a man who would have been easy to love and who would have loved generously in return.

God, if all the guy wants is to watch the sodding test match, I’m going to make sure he gets his wish, even if I have to climb on the roof and twiddle with the bloody aerial myself.

“Isaac?”

The paint is peeling on the blue door at the top of the attic stairs, and it creaks on its hinges when I push it open.

“Isaac?” I call again, a little louder this time as I step inside the room, squinting because the curtains are drawn over the small eaves window.

They’re deep blood red, and the sunlight straining to break through behind them seeps the whole room in a warm rose glow.

It reminds me of a scene from a low-rent movie where they bathe a place in red lights to summon the spirits.

It’s airless up here, really stuffy. I can’t see Isaac, so I cross to the window set into the sloping roof and reach out to open the curtains.

“I prefer them closed.”

I swing around and spy Isaac sitting in an armchair, an open book on his lap. It’s a mass of eaves and supporting struts up here; I hadn’t noticed him tucked away behind there.

“What are you reading?” I ask, hoping that a spot of general chitchat might oil the wheels a bit.

He holds the book up for my inspection. Jackie Collins, Hollywood Wives.

Well, that was unexpected.

“I’ve read every book in the building ten times over, child. This is by no means the worst of them.”

A thought strikes me. “I could bring you some new ones, if you like?”

“I thought you were supposed to be getting rid of me, not entertaining me.” He closes the book and lays it to one side. “I prefer thrillers. And perhaps a newspaper.”

I make a mental note to ask Gran for book recommendations; she loves a good thriller, the more scare-your-pants-off the better. Given our unusual ability, us Bittersweet women are less easy to scare than most so we have to steal our thrills where we can.

“I want to help you, Isaac, and if for now that just means a couple of the latest thrillers, then so be it. We’ll get to the bigger stuff along the way.”

“I presume you mean who killed Douglas,” he says cutting keenly to the point. “I’ll tell you something, Melody. I think the murder weapon is still hidden somewhere in this house.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because neither Lloyd nor I left the house on the days following the discovery of Douglas’s body, and it’s a well-known fact that murderers like to keep trophies, mementos of their kill.”

“Right,” I say slowly, backtracking on my thoughts about bringing Isaac a fresh stock of gruesome novels. Maybe I’ll throw a few light romances in there too. “But surely the house was thoroughly searched?”

He shrugs one shoulder. “It was 1910. They searched it, of course, but policing today is very different to how it was back then. Forensics were a long way off.” He has a point. I’ve watched enough reruns of CSI: Miami to know that forensics are an essential part of any modern murder case.

“And you couldn’t search here when you were alive because the family had cut you off,” I say, remembering his gangrenous limb comment as I worked through his theory in my mind.

I privately acknowledge the possibility that Isaac himself is the killer and is trying to send me on a wild-goose chase, but only quietly at the back of my mind.

If I had to say which of the brothers is a more likely murderer I’d definitely err toward Lloyd.

But without either a motive or a weapon, I fail to see how I’m going to come up with any cast-iron proof.

“And as much as I’ve mastered the rudimentary ghostly art of holding objects and opening and closing doors, detailed searching or heavy lifting is beyond my capabilities,” Isaac explains, shaking his head.

“Can you manage a pen to write?” He knows this house better than I ever could; I’m hoping he’ll be able to draw up a list of potential places to look.

“Until that damn fool appeared and used up every precious pen in the house in the space of six months, yes.”

“I take it you mean Lloyd?”

Isaac sighs with distaste at his brother’s name.

“He always fancied himself a writer, when we were younger.” He folds his hands in his lap.

“Quite the obsessive diarist, convinced that he was going to burst onto the literary scene with his dazzling plays and prose. Our mother should never have encouraged him; it was borderline cruel.”

I don’t point out that Isaac is being borderline cruel with his scorn for Lloyd’s writing. I’m still trying to understand the dynamics between the three Scarborough brothers, both now and back when they were all alive and this house was the elegant home of their well-to-do family.

I add pens and paper to the growing list of items I need to bring on my next visit.

Maybe a crossword book would go over well too.

Or, actually, given the fact that hangry and mansplaining are examples of additions to the Oxford English Dictionary since the brothers’ demise, maybe that’s not such a good idea.

I think Isaac might love Wordle, but a mobile phone would blow his mind. I could always teach him Sudoku.

My mother has invited me downstairs to eat with her and Gran this evening. I think it’s intended as a peace offering after Gran’s star turn as a medieval knight on daytime TV, not that Gran herself has shown much in the way of repentance.

When I let myself into their kitchen, the first thing I notice is that the table is laid with the best cutlery.

The second thing I notice is that Mum’s gone to the trouble of lighting a taper candle.

The third thing I notice is the bald, baby-faced stranger seated beside Gran at the table. Ah shitballs. Not this again.

Mum turns from the stove and greets me with a smile that is pure predatory wolf.

“Right on time, darling,” she says, sweet as cherry pie, which is odd given that she’ll be more than aware that I’m fantasizing about wringing her neck just now.

She does this every once in a while, decides to have a go at setting me up with some random man she meets at the radio station or in the shop.

The last one was so awful that even she considered doing a runner from her own flat, and I distinctly remember a late-night conversation that involved me swearing really quite badly and her swearing solemnly that she’d never attempt to meddle in my love life again.

And hey ho what do you know, here we are again.

I draw a small amount of perverse pleasure from the fact that I look like I’ve escaped from the zoo.

My hair is in rags because I’m experimenting with methods to encourage the poker-straight stuff on my head to curl, and Lumpy Space Princess glares out from the front of my T-shirt in silent challenge.

I can only agree with her sentiment. What the actual lump is my mother playingat?

“Hi,” I gush, shooting our guest a smile so wide it hurts my cheeks.

“You must be Mike. Mum’s told me all about you, and just so you know, I completely, one hundred percent approve of you becoming my new stepdad.

I mean, who cares about age differences these days?

” I look at my mother and growl “cougar” at her, rolling my r’s and shimmying my shoulders.

I see blue steel flash in her eyes and yet I feel no fear.

I thought we had an understanding about my love life—or lack thereof—but it seems I thought wrong, and I’m determined to make sure that this is the very last time she ever pulls a stunt like this again.

The thing is, she and Gran are both the same in that they’re prone to meddling in my business with the best of intentions and the worst of results.

You only need look at Gran clanking around in a suit of armor on live TV to know that.

My mother has a particular bent toward romantic meddling, more so the older I get.

I know why, of course. She found her own true love early, sweet seventeen, and the ten years she spent being spectacularly loved by my father have given her unrealistic expectations about love for everyone else, me most of all.

Her romance goggles hang so heavy around her neck it’s a wonder she doesn’t walk with a stoop.

No one has held a candle to my father for her, but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t lived a lonely life since he died.

Gran was the same with my grandpa, although of course her grief is assuaged by the fact that Grandpa’s ghost has stayed tethered to her bed for the last twenty years.

For Bittersweet women, love is big and sweeping, all-consuming, and life-altering.

My mother just wants me to find my life-altering man, and she isn’t averse to trying to nudge me in the right direction every now and then.

You might think that knowing all of this stuff would make me more inclined to look kindly on the presence of the stranger at the dining table. It doesn’t.

Gran pours us all champagne as she silently watches the proceedings, probably just glad that the heat is off her now that someone else has given me the rage.

“Melody, darling, could I have a word in private?”

I follow my mother as she disappears into the lounge, and I round on her as soon as I close the door.

“Mother!” I whisper through gritted teeth. “I thought we’d talked about this.”

“He’s a perfectly nice boy and you embarrassed him. As if I’d be interested in someone half my age.” She’s using her favorite aggressive whispering technique, perfected over years of conversations very similar to this one.

“And as if I’d be interested in someone half my height,” I fire back through clenched teeth.

“For God’s sake, Melody, he’s sitting down! How can you have judged him negatively on his height already?”

She makes a grab to pull the rags from my hair and I bat her hands away. We tussle for a second, locked in a wholly undignified girl fight.

“Get off me,” I snap, straightening LSP over my boobs. “He can barely see over the table. Unless his legs are completely out of proportion with the rest of his body, he’s clearly shorter than me. And let’s not even start on the fact that he’s wearing a Muppets dickie bow, shall we?”

“ You liked Doctor Who when you were a child! ” She swishes her silver mane and glares at me. “ He wore a dickie bow.”

“No, Mother, I was a Matt Smith fan, because he is sex on legs. On long legs, and he was clever and witty, with good hair.”

My mother folds her arms and narrows her eyes like a cobra about to go for the jugular. “Leo Dark has long legs and is clever and witty, with good hair. I think you might need to broaden your search criteria or risk going through life with a perpetually broken heart.”

I open my mouth and close it again. I can’t believe she just said that, and even worse, I can’t believe she might be right.

Am I being too selective? Do I need to “broaden my search criteria” to include men in Muppets bow ties now?

I should never have let her see how upset I was about turning twenty-seven, she’s obviously taken it as a sign that I’m desperate enough to appreciate her heavy-handed attempts at matchmaking.

Before I can take her down with a devastatingly clever comeback, she sashays off to the kitchen, victorious, then has the audacity to stick her head back around the door to gesticulate wildly at the rags in my hair.

I yank them out and throw them on her sofa, then stomp back into the kitchen again to make small talk with a tiny man who will never be either Doctor Who or my boyfriend.