“Why is he up there?” she said to Laf, pointing to Nelson on his column. “He’s so high up you can’t see what he looks like.”
“I don’t know why, love. Maybe he wasn’t much to look at and it’s better not to see him close. I like the lions.”
Minty didn’t. Crouching there like that, they reminded her of Mr. Kroot’s cat. Maybe in the middle of the night they got up and walked about, treading on tall buildings and stamping on trees. She was glad when she and the Wilsons had pushed their way through the crowds and were seated in the Garrick Theatre. Laf bought a program for her and one for Sonovia and a box of Dairy Milk. Minty didn’t want a chocolate, it stood to reason they couldn’t come in those shapes unless someone handled them, but she took one so as not to be rude and felt funny for the next half-hour as the germs ran about inside her stomach.
An Inspector Calls wasn’t a bit like they’d imagined, though there was a policeman in it, or perhaps not a real one, perhaps a ghost or an angel. Minty didn’t want it to be a ghost, she had enough of those in reality, and sometimes she had to shut her eyes. The set was the best thing, they all agreed on that, not like something made to be the background to a play but like a real house in a real street, transported inside the stage. When it was over and Minty got up to go, the point of the knife pushed against the stuff of her trousers at the knee, but she adjusted them quickly before Laf or Sonovia saw.
It was quite late but cafés and restaurants were open everywhere; she had never seen so many all together and it made her wonder how they could make enough money to exist on. They went into a little one in a side street and ordered pizzas. Minty wouldn’t have had salad or cooked meat or anything she couldn’t see being cooked but a pizza was all right, you could watch the man take it out of an oven with a pair of tongs on to a clean plate. And he was wearing gloves. They had a couple of glasses of wine each and that reminded her of Jock.
“Adam and Eve and Pinch Me,” she said.
“You what?”
They’d never heard it before. “Adam and Eve and Pinch Me went down to the river to bathe. Adam and Eve were drownded. Who was saved?”
“Well, Pinch Me, of course,” said Sonovia and Minty pinched her.
Laf laughed uproariously. “You had her there, Minty. I didn’t know you had it in you.”
“Yes, well, the joke was on me,” said Sonovia and, in a patronzing tone, “But it’s not ‘drownded,’ my deah. You’re wrong about that. ‘Drowned’ would be correct.”
“Jock said ‘drownded.’ ” Minty finished her pizza. “It was him who told me.”
She shivered. Thinking about him often had that effect.
“Not cold, are you? It’s very warm in here. I’ve been asking myself why I didn’t put a thinner jacket on.”
But by this time it was growing colder outside, whatever Sonovia said. They passed a pub and then another, and Laf asked if they wanted a drink, one for the road, a nightcap, but Sonovia said no, enough was enough and it’d be one in the morning before they were in their beds as it was. The tube train came and it was so full that Laf said, “Let’s wait for the next one, it’s due in one minute,” so they waited and it came and it was nearly empty. A lot of people got in at Piccadilly, a lot got out at Baker Street, and one old woman got in. It was Mrs. Lewis.
The empty seat nearly opposite Minty was one of those intended for the old or disabled. Not that many took much notice of that, but it happened to be empty and Mrs. Lewis sat down in it. She was still in her dark red coat and hat. Auntie was nowhere to be seen. Evidently she’d taken to heart what Minty had said about not associating with Mrs. Lewis on account of her being Jock’s mother and never paying Jock’s debts. Minty stared fixedly at Mrs. Lewis, who refused to meet her eyes. She had settled herself carefully to avoid sitting on the knife, though it was wrapped first in plastic and then in a clean white rag, but she was very aware of it now.
“What are you staring at, my deah? You’re giving me the creeps.”
“She’s not real,” Minty said. “Don’t you worry, she’s only a ghost, but she’s got a nerve coming after me here.”
Sonovia looked at her husband, shaking her head.
Laf raised his eyebrows. “Must be the wine,” he said. “She’s not used to it. They gave you really big glasses in that pizza place.”
Mrs. Lewis got up to go at Paddington. For the first time Minty noticed she had a holdall with her. She must be catching a train to Gloucester, back to the old home she’d had when she was alive. “Can you get a train to Gloucester at this time of night?” she asked Laf.
“I shouldn’t think so. It’s gone half past midnight. What d’you want to know for?”
Minty didn’t reply. She was watching Mrs. Lewis leave the train and make her way along the platform. A bad walker, shuffling more than walking. Then she remembered some of the money Jock had borrowed had been to pay for his mother’s hip operation. “She never had it,” she said aloud. “I don’t reckon she lived long enough to have it.”
Again the Wilsons exchanged glances. As Laf said to his wife later, all the people in the train were looking uneasily at Minty. You got used to seeing some funny sights in the underground-he’d once seen a chap racing maggots across the floor-but Minty looked crazy, her face as white as chalk and her wispy hair standing on end. Besides, anyone could tell she’d been talking to the empty air. They got out at Kensal Green and walked home; it wasn’t far. The only people in the streets were groups of young men, black and white and Asian, all around twenty years old, all looking somehow like a threat.
Sonovia put her arm through Laf’s. “I wouldn’t feel all that comfortable if you weren’t with us, love.”
“Well, I am,” said Laf, gratified. “They won’t mess with me.”
On the corner of their street was a seat with a sort of flower bed behind it. The flowers had to compete with empty beer cans, fish and chip paper, and cigarette ends, and the rubbish was winning. Mrs. Lewis hadn’t gone home to Gloucester. She was sitting on the seat, the holdall open beside her. Laf and Sonovia probably thought she was the old bag lady who sometimes sat there at night, but Minty knew better. In the ten minutes since Mrs. Lewis had left the tube at Paddington she’d changed her clothes again for a black coat and headscarf, and somehow got up here. But ghosts could do anything, get through walls and floors, travel long distances at the speed of light. She was here now but before Minty could get there she’d be in her house, waiting for her.
Down here there was no one else about. The boys in gangs stuck to Harrow Road. Sonovia and Laf said goodnight and see her soon. Minty was so preoccupied with Mrs. Lewis that she forgot her manners and all the things Auntie had taught her, and didn’t say Thanks for taking me to the theater or anything. She didn’t even say goodnight.
The Wilsons went indoors and Sonovia said, “I’ve never known her so peculiar. Talking to herself and seeing things that aren’t there. D’you reckon we ought to do something?”
“What can we do? Send for the men in the white coats?”
“Don’t you be silly, Laf. It’s not funny.”
“She just had too much wine, Sonn. People can have hallucinations when they’ve had too many. If you don’t believe me you can ask Dan.”