Jenny Telfer Chaplin (14 page)

Chapter Six

Watching the weather reports on TV of the severe wintry conditions in Scotland was sufficient inducement for Ivy to stay on in Tenerife for a few more months.

However, she’d told Pilar she was leaving Puerto and it would be embarrassing to backtrack now.

Sitting in a street café as she thought the matter over, she was startled to hear her name called from across the square. It was Rosa, a friend from her Spanish Beginners Classes.

Rosa sat opposite Ivy and blurted out: “I’m so glad I spotted you. Last I heard you were going back to Scotland. I thought I’d never see you again. So what are you up to now?”

Ivy shook her head. “I wish I knew. I’ve still a few loose ends to tie up here – but then? I did think I might treat myself to a holiday down in the south – Los Cristianos or Las Americas perhaps.”

Rosa gave a squeal of delight.

“You’re never going to believe this, but my parents have retired down there and bought a large villa on the outskirts of Los Cristianos. They always made you very welcome at their tiny holiday flat in Los Realejos and you know how hospitable they are.”

“Yes, indeed I do know. They may not be Spanish, but they’ve spent enough time and holidays here to adopt the Spanish mantra. ‘Mi case es tu casa.’”

Rosa laughed. “ Yes, ‘My house is your house’. It’s about the only bit of Spanish they ever learned. Mind you they must have been really into the Spanish culture all those years ago when they christened me Rosalita. You can imagine how that went down at Stanmore Comprehensive.”

Ivy grinned.
“Certainly not your average Brummie name.”

“Right!
I’ll give you their address and phone number. If you do decide to go south, be sure to contact them. They have a gorgeous guest suite. Any way, I’ve got to dash. Remember now, give my folks a ring.”

Ivy waved the waiter over to remove the now cold coffee and bring her a glass of wine. The more she thought about it, the more she liked the idea of wintering in the south. The fact of not being in a tourist hotel was a decided plus. With the cash she’d save she’d be able to treat Rosa’s parents to special meals out.

The guest suite at the home of Rosa’s parents was the acme of comfort and Ivy felt it was little short of heaven on earth.

Over the time of her friendship with Rosa, Ivy had always got on well enough with her parents. But during their time at the small holiday flat, Mr and Mrs Wood had both been so tired from business matters at home in Birmingham that Ivy had never been able to get to know them properly. Now, retired, relaxed, happy and enjoying the fruits of their labour this was an entirely different situation.

Ivy and Rosa’s elderly parents struck a great rapport from the moment of her arrival. With the fame of Ivy’s supernatural short stories having gone before her, they seemed to think it a privilege to have a real-live, working-on-novel authoress actually living with them.

When Ivy tried to express her gratitude for their hospitality, they brushed her thanks aside.

“We are only too glad to have you here as our guest. Apart from anything else, you being here is company for Rosa when she comes down on weekends. It takes the pressure off us. Our disco-dancing days are well and truly over. When Rosa is between boyfriends, she’s like a bear with a sore head. So it’s great for her to have someone to go with her for a night out in swinging Las Americas.”

After weeks in which the sun shone endlessly from a cloudless blue sky and weekends were a haze of disco dancing and partying, Ivy was struck with the thought: I’ve been here a month having a whale of a time but I came here with the avowed intention of getting started to my chef-d’œuvre – my best-selling novel on the theme of the paranormal. What have I done – nothing, not one
word.

But beyond vague thoughts of a title nothing came.

Still blocked, as she strolled along the Los Cristianos seafront one Friday afternoon Ivy spotted Rosa with a male escort at one of the beach-side cafes.

I haven’t seen him before, Ivy thought. Not quite her usual Latin lover type.
Somehow, a little craggier than his predecessors.

She joined them at their table.

Wow! I certainly could go for him, Ivy thought as she looked at him close up. Is there such a thing as love at first sight? Trust me to fall for Rosa’s latest paramour. Oh well, I’ll have a quick drink and scuttle back to the villa and leave them to it.

However, Rosa gave Ivy a very off-hand wave and said: “Hi, Ivy, meet Dave, my cheeky big brother.
A surprise visit. He just arrived from England. Mum and Dad are thrilled. Their handsome wonder boy here in time for Mum’s birthday.”

There’s
more than your parents thrilled. Though I can’t say I altogether agree with the handsome tag. Rugged, interesting – I hope available.

Within the week Ivy and Dave already seemed an established couple to the delight of the Wood family – with the possible exception of the still man-less Rosa.

When Mrs Wood teased her son about his total absorption with Ivy he laughed.

“Give it a rest, Mum. How often over the years have you nagged me to settle down, start a family,
provide you with grandchildren?”

“I’m not nagging you now. You and Ivy seem to be managing well enough on your own. Just let me know when the nuptials are to be. That wedding hat I’ve been bringing out of its box faithfully, hopefully, every spring is by now rather past its sell-by date.”

Later that same week Dave was making his travel arrangements to return to Birmingham.

Strolling back along the front Dave without preamble said to Ivy: “Why don’t you come back with me? Come and stay with me. You’d love the villagey part of Harborne where I live. My cottage is just along the road from the pub.”

Ivy laughed. “That’s supposed to some sort of inducement is it? Really, Dave, you’re not the world’s greatest romantic, are you? I’ve had more heart-tugging proposals. Even from my ex – I can still see him down on one knee, engagement ring at the ready.”

“That was back in the good old days, was it? Anyway, that was no proposal I was delivering – just a suggestion. An obscene suggestion I suppose if you’re still living in the dark ages. I only want you to come and live with me. Let’s give it a whirl. So, how about it? See how it goes?”

“I see. And if it doesn’t work out, we go our separate ways? No harm done?”

Dave nodded. “Something like that. It’s the way things are done now-a-days.”

“Maybe, but it’s not the way I do things. I’ve had more than my share of failed relationships, thanks all the same.”

No matter how Dave cajoled, Ivy would not change her mind, and as they parted at Reina Sofia Airport Dave said: “So that’s it? You’re determined to take the job offer you mentioned with some spooky weirdo? If you ask me, you’re half in love with him.”

Ivy started to protest, but Dave laughed.

“Why else would you turn down a wonderful catch like me? Anyway, here’s what we do: You head back to the frozen wilds of Scotland, write your precious book, get the whole crazy thing out of your system. But, we’ll keep in touch and perhaps see if a few months down the road we still feel the same way about each other.”

“That’s the first reasonable thing you’ve said in days. Now, scoot before you miss your flight.”

A hurried kiss and he sprinted to the departure lounge. Before he disappeared from sight, to the amusement of other waiting passengers, he turned back and shouted: “Meantime, some predatory widow or rich divorcee might snap me up – you’ll be sorry then!”

And with that he was gone.

Chapter Seven

Ivy travelled back to Scotland and took Bill up on his offer.

The arrangement worked well. She functioned as assistant to the daily housekeeper, Mrs Muir, but was excused housekeeping duties when the hotel wasn’t busy to let her devote time to her writing.

However, today wasn’t about to be one of the ‘blessed quieter spells’ as Mrs Muir explained: “We’ve got a full house from afternoon on. You know that couple from the Isle of Bute who often weekend here?”

Ivy nodded and Mrs Muir went on: “This Saturday is their Golden Wedding Anniversary and they’ve taken the whole hotel for them, their guests, and the celebrations. So, Ivy, we’ve lots to do. Sleeves rolled up and into action. You know what a perfectionist Bill is.”

“That I do know. It didn’t take me long to work that one out.”

Everything – food, flowers, rooms, ambience,
speeches – was absolutely perfect, right down to the ceilidh in the drawing room to which Mrs Muir and Ivy were invited.

As the evening was drawing to a close, the wife of the Golden Anniversary couple turned to Bill.

“There’s just one thing left to put a seal on this day. As you know, we’ve sat in on your trancing sessions on many occasions, so perhaps ...?”

Bill smiled. “Even before going into trance, I can tell you there is already a lot of spirit around. They too have been enjoying the fun. They love the sound of laughter. All right, let’s see who’s here.”

Once in trance, a host of faces appeared one after another, superimposed on Bill’s face. They all looked so happy. At one point everybody in the room saw the full figure of a little ringleted Victorian girl. She was laughing so heartily, and hopping from one foot to the other so excitedly that her ringlets danced round her face.

Trancing over, there was general laughter when the Golden Anniversary husband said: “Thank you, Bill, and thank you, spirit friends. Just one thing, Bill, don’t think me mean, but I hope I won’t be charged for all those extra guests. I hadn’t budgeted for quite so many.”

As the time approached for the Annual Cowal Highland Games Mrs Muir said: “Bill tells me this will be your first Games Week ever.”

“Yes, I can’t imagine what it will be like – lots of bagpipe playing and so on, I suppose.”

“That and more, but you’ll find that here at Ardfyne it’s an ‘old home week’ with guests from America, Canada, all over Scotland and England, and even from Russia.”

“Surely you’re exaggerating–”

“Not a bit of it, my dear. We have friends and families reunited here every Games Week and new friendships formed. It’s a wonderful feeling. But if you thought the Golden Anniversary week-end was hard work, that was a walk in the park compared with every last week in August at Ardfyne.”

“Thanks for the gypsy’s warning. Maybe I should make my escape now.”

“Don’t you dare, my
lady. But if it’s any consolation Bill will be working harder than any of us. You’ll see him actually staggering with tiredness before Games Week is over.”

“So, no
more late night trancing during Games Week?”

“Not a bit of it, Ivy. You should know by now as long as there is spiritual work to be done, Bill’s your man. He’ll pull out all the stops to help people towards spiritual enlightenment.”

As it turned out, before the first guests were due to arrive, a party of Americans, new to Ardfyne, turned up looking for accommodation for one night having misjudged their arrival date at their booked hotel.

In the evening, in the drawing room Bill said: “I’m getting – they’re telling me – you’re from a very old American family.”

There were nods of assent and Bill continued: “Now, this seems very strange, but I’m getting a man in military uniform and he’s showing me his cap is spinning round his head. I don’t understand what he is trying to tell me.”

The husband and wife looked at each other then the wife said: “That is incredible! It makes perfect sense to me. My relative, in the Civil War, was saved by his cap. The bullet went through his uniform cap. You could not possibly have known about that old family story. Honestly, we could not have better proof of after-death survival. Thank you.”

Bill smiled. “Don’t thank me, thank spirit. Now then, shall we see who else is here?”

Games Week was as hectic as Mrs Muir had predicted with the hotel full to overflowing. Once it was over, Mrs Muir took a few days off to visit her sister in Gourock; Bill had the time and opportunity to put his feet up and relax; Ivy retreated to her bed-sitting room to try to impose some sort of order into the reams of research notes she had accumulated over time for her hoped-to-be paranormal novel.

Chapter Eight

Bill even as a child could see spirits and, as children do, he had assumed that everyone else in the world could also see them. As an adult he knew that this was not the case and that being so he went out of his way to ensure that conditions at Ardfyne were as relaxed, comfortable and enjoyable for his guests as he could possibly make them.

On being asked time after time the same question, Bill would answer with patience that it had first been predicted that he would become a medium when he was still a young man.

He and a friend had gone to a Spiritualist Church ‘for a laugh’, only to have Bill singled out by the platform speaker and told that one day he would become a world-famous medium.

Ivy revelled in the atmosphere of Ardfyne and enjoyed to the full the psychic weekends and meeting the great diversity of visitors of all nationalities.

An extra bonus was the opportunity to accompany Bill on his visits beyond the confines of the hotel. On one such occasion he had been invited to visit another hotel where the new proprietors said there was a ghost. Bill suspected that this might be some sort of publicity scam but he went anyway. He encountered no manifestations but he strongly advised the owners to get out as soon as possible as there was nothing good for them in the property. Six weeks later, the hotel burned to the ground.

Frequently, Bill got requests to do public demonstrations of psychic phenomena. Most of these he refused, but one from a charity he agreed to. The meeting was held in the tiny village of Port Bannatyne on the Island of Bute with an audience of two hundred-plus packed into the public hall. Bill sat on a raised platform with a wooden screen behind and on each side of him. This had the effect of focussing the attention of the audience on his face and upper body. After a few preparatory remarks, Bill rolled back his eyes, closed them, and went into trance.

There was complete silence in the hall. Within minutes a rapid succession of different faces appeared superimposed on Bill’s face. Although the ‘visitors’ were obviously unknown to the bulk of the audience, from the sudden intakes of breath and stifled cries such as: “That’s my granny” it was evident some had been recognised by relatives.

Ivy, used as she was to trancing, was as surprised as everyone in the audience when the face of the late Princess Margaret Rose, complete with traditional headscarf, not only materialized
but remained in full view for close on a minute. The concerted gasp that coincided with the manifestation of her face made it clear to Ivy everyone was seeing the same thing.

The hubbub of voices seeking confirmation from neighbours of what they had seen was instantly silenced when the full figure of Abraham Lincoln seemed to replace Bill on stage. The stone-like features, in characteristic pose, stared out at the assembly for several minutes before it faded and Bill came out of his trance.

In the silence that followed obviously none of the audience were about to speak far less make a fools of themselves by actually admitting in public that they had seen Abraham Lincoln. Bill leaned forward and looked directly at Ivy seated in the front row.

“Right, Ivy. You’re not a newcomer to this sort of thing. Who or what did you see?”

Ivy, wishing she was not the focus of the rapt attention of the audience, cleared her throat and in as firm a voice as she could command said: “Apart from a head-scarf wearing Princess Margaret and a number of people I didn’t know, the main visitor was none other than the historic Abraham Lincolm.”

At her words there was a universal sigh of relief and people all round her in the body of the hall started agreeing.

“Yes, that’s right, we saw him too ...”

“We did see Abraham Lincoln ...”

The general consensus was that the evening had been a huge success with a considerable sum raised for charity, Bill having accepted no fee or monetary payment of any kind.

It was later reported to Bill that the excited testimonies of the event had been greeted in the local hostelry with the time-honoured Scottish rejoinder: “Take more water with it next time.”