Ways to See a Ghost

paid for, and petrol, and the really cheap room they were staying in tonight. But the bag was still heavy, full of unsold tickets. Each one printed on black paper, with the words in glistening purple.

    Isis sulked and sighed in the dark.
    I want to go home.
    The woman in the audience started crying snotty tears.
    “He died of cancer,” she gasped.
    Cally nodded again. “He says you shouldn’t worry any more, the pain is over.”
    The woman smiled as she cried, gazing up at Cally.
    From the corner of her eye, Isis saw a movement. The shape of a little girl, creeping up the side of the hall, barely visible in the coat-smelling dark.
    Angel! She knew she wasn’t supposed to do that.
    Isis always told her, right before every performance, “Keep still and quiet when Mummy’s doing her show.” But there she was, toddling past the audience, wearing the princess dress she always insisted on. Heading for the stage, step by careful step.
    She thinks if she goes slowly, it doesn’t count.
    In a few minutes Angel would be right up by Cally, and then she’d be running around, putting her off. It might even blow the whole gig!
    “Come back here!” hissed Isis, but the curly-haired shape of Angel’s head stayed stubbornly facing forwards, and she took another step. Isis couldn’t even run and pullher back, because then everyone would turn to look and Cally’s hold on the room would be broken. Isis had done it once, but never again; her mum had been “too angry to speak to you” for the whole evening after.
    Up on stage, Cally was oblivious.
    “It took Jonathan a long time to pass,” she said, not quite a question.
    The woman in the audience wiped her eyes with her palms.
    “He used to complain about his cough, but we never thought it was much… Then he went for a check-up, and they said it was cancer…” She gargled a sob. “He was dead six weeks later.”
    Cally opened her hands to the woman, her face beautiful with sympathy.
    “He says they felt like the longest weeks of his life, but now he’s happy, and the pain is gone. You shouldn’t blame yourself for anything.”
    The woman pulled a crumpled tissue from her sleeve, blew her nose in it. “Thank you, it’s so good to hear from him…”
    “WHAT ARE YOU ON ABOUT? He’s not even HERE!”
    Isis jumped, heart drumming in her chest.
    “There’s no Jonathan! You’re leading her up the GARDEN PATH!”
    Isis turned her head slowly, trying to look like she was stretching. At the back of the hall, behind the seated audience, was a small crowd of people. The standers, Isis called them to herself. Some young, some old, but always motley and slightly odd. Every performance they were there, huddled and yearning. Isis even recognised a couple of them.
    But she didn’t remember the old man in the middle of this lot, the one who’d just shouted. He was tall, and the tasselled fez perched on top of his almost-hairless scalp made him look even taller. His brightest features were his blue eyes, glaring at Cally. Otherwise he was crinkle-necked and tortoisey, fury fizzing out of him. Even from where she was, Isis caught the dusty smell of his frayed velvet jacket.
    “I can feel my brother, sometimes,” the large woman continued, as if there’d been no interruption. “When I walk past the betting office, I’m sure I can smell his aftershave.”
    Cally nodded. “He’s with you often,” she said kindly.
    “He’s not with you now!” called the old man.
    The crowd of standers laughed; the audience stayed silent.
    Breathe in, breathe out. Don’t make a fuss. Everyone else is ignoring them, you can too.
    “Well
I’m
here!” shouted a teenage girl, pushing out from the standing crowd into the seated area. She had long, straggling hair and her hippyish dress fell into rags around her. “
I
need to speak!” The people sitting on their plastic chairs shuffled a little, pulling their clothes tight, putting scarves and coats back on.
    “I wouldn’t bother,” the old man said, as the girl waved and shouted. “No one here is listening.”
    Isis shuffled a few steps along the wall, to the large wooden door with ‘Way Out’ green-lit above it. She moved her hand to the soft steel of the handle. Sometimes the best thing was to leave; Cally would be fine.
    But this door was heavy, the kind that really creaks when you push it. And then there was Angel, still creeping step by step to the stage.
    The large woman sat down, and the hippy girl sloped back into