spooky or what!

 

Moving into our extremely dilapidated and creaky old house, it seemed a reasonable question to ask Lucinda, who was selling it to us, and moving to a very nice, very new house not far away, if the house had any ghosts.

‘Well, I’ve never seen one!’ she robustly and rather cryptically replied.

So in we moved; the  whole process of which took five days, even though we weren’t moving far, and I found it all so stressful my face swelled up, first on one cheek, then the swelling travelled across my nose to the other cheek. No one was very interested, but at the same time, after having to leave several dinner parties early feeling ill, and once fainting spectacularly and inexplicably in the cellar, I discovered I was unable to eat any sort of gluten.

‘So when exactly did you become a coeliac?’ boomed my sort of friend, Prue.

‘Well more or less when we moved in here.’
‘And did you know Lucinda, your predecessor in the house, was a coeliac too?’ she persisted.

I did actually, but I hadn’t connected the two of us with any significance, why would I? Until the well meaning and sort of friend continued, ‘and I think you should get your house doused.’

 What! Why? And what am I going to do if I’m told it’s built along the wrong ley lines. Apparently it is better to be actually haunted, as ghosts are easier to deal with than imperfectly behaved ley lines!
 
Well I’m pretty superstitious anyway; no crossing on the stairs, nodding three times for a magpie, ladders, all the usual things. So when she came round again with a book, a rather chilling read about having one’s house doused for spirits, it was guaranteed to scare me, but if there were any troublesome influences, reassuringly I could have stakes hammered into significant points around the house which would divert the trouble, making appropriate corrections and ‘Diana, I feel sure there might be something amiss because when Lucinda moved out of your house she wasn’t a coeliac any more!’ 

So against my better judgement, which clearly had deserted me totally that day, I agreed for her to speak to a friend; some kind of healer. ‘He healed my dog!’ she bellowed triumphantly at me. I didn’t ever discover what was wrong with it.    

She negotiated with her friend who would come over and check out the geopathic stress levels of the house. He would need to see the whole house. ‘Don’t worry about tidying up Diana, he’s not coming to be looking at the mess.’ Well I did my best to put away as much as I could, as I couldn’t help feeling to be as profoundly untidy as I am might be construed as having a negative effect on the house. I didn’t want her friend having any excuse for finding poor energy levels inside. Our appointment was made for 1pm and Prue would come along too, so it made for an exhausting morning I can tell you. And as 1 o’clock approached I was actually feeling quite nervous. What if the house actually did have a problem? If it did would I really want to know? I definitely didn’t want to know if it was haunted, even if ghosts are apparently easier to sort out than ley lines.

And so 1 o’clock came. And went. Nothing. No friend of Prue’s appeared. And what is more, no Prue either! At first I was relieved, then gradually annoyed. Quite apart from the mental energy and considerable angst over all this, I’d actually wasted a whole morning tidying for heaven’s sake. At 4 o’clock I rang Prue.

‘Where’s your friend?’ I asked before she had time to say anything. When she did speak she was almost hysterical.
‘Haven’t you heard?’ she said, distraught.
'Heard what, Prue? ‘
‘He’s in hospital, he’s had a heart attack, this morning, haven’t you heard? On his way to your house!’

Well I know that’s terrible, but ‘How would I have heard, Prue, why didn’t you tell me?’ I asked. She said she thought his son would have rung me, but why didn’t she ring me? ‘Prue, why couldn’t you have told me!!’ I asked her incredulously, by now completely furious!

I saw her some time later in Sainsburys, where we spoke briefly, coolly; apparently he is completely recovered, but he didn’t ever ring me, and I still don’t quite understand. And I don’t know if she does either.

But a heart attack, on his way to douse my house! What does that tell you?