“God, that’s weird,” said Valentina. There was a dark silhouette of a woman’s hand superimposed over the Doctor’s. He let go of Madame de Pompadour’s face, but the black hand remained where it was. Elspeth took her hand away; the screen hand stayed black. “How did you do that?” said the Doctor. Elspeth thought he was speaking to her, then realised that Madame de Pompadour was answering him. I must have burned out the screen. What if I could do that with my face? She tucked her entire self into the TV and found herself looking out through the screen. It was wonderful inside the television, quite warm and pleasantly confining. Elspeth had only been in there for a second or two when the twins saw the screen go black. The TV died.

“Drat,” said Julia. “It looks like a newish set too.” She got up and started fiddling with the buttons, to no avail.

“Maybe it’s under warranty,” said Valentina. “I wonder where she got it?”

John Lewis, Elspeth remembered. But I think the warranty must have expired by now. She passed out of the television and stood before it, hoping it would revive. That was rather exciting-they saw me! Well, they saw my hand. She waited for the screen to flicker back to life, but it remained stubbornly dark. Think about this. I short-circuited an electrical thing. Am I electrical? What am I made of, anyway? She stared down at her hands, which, to her, looked like-hands. Elspeth floated over to a floor lamp which stood in a corner of the room. It was turned off. She reached through the fixture and touched her fingers to the base of the lightbulb. It began to glow, faintly. Ah, that’s bloody brilliant. She looked to see if the twins were noticing, but they weren’t.

“Maybe that guy upstairs would let us watch his TV,” said Valentina. Her reluctance to meet Martin was evenly matched by her desire to see the rest of the episode.

“I’m not sure he has one,” said Julia. “It was kind of hard to tell with all the stuff he’s got piled up.” They stood looking at each other in silence, irresolute.

“Maybe there’s a Scrabble set around here somewhere.” Valentina got up, and Julia followed her out of the room. Elspeth stood holding the lightbulb, feeling a distinct sense of anticlimax. It’s in the wardrobe in the guest bedroom, she thought. She let the lightbulb go, and the glow vanished. She could hear the twins ransacking her office. I’ve got to get more serious about this. I wish I’d read more ghost stories, I’m sure I could have found some tips in Le Fanu and that lot. Maybe there’s something on Wikipedia. I wonder if I can turn on the computer? No, I’d probably just wreck it. Elspeth climbed back into the defunct television, which was still warm. What’s wrong with me? I feel positively fuckwitted, I think death has knocked fifty points off my IQ. I used to be able to reason. Now I just waft around making random experiments regarding the nature of existence. And wallowing in self-pity.

When the last of the heat was gone from the TV, Elspeth left it and wandered into the guest room. The wardrobe stood slightly open. The Scrabble set was on the top shelf, under the Monopoly box and an old cribbage board. Elspeth got onto the shelf and behind the games. She began pushing. It was useless; the boxes were too heavy for her. Sod it.

She went to her office to see what the twins were doing. They were sitting together on the floor, huddled over an old issue of The Face. Elspeth felt irritated. Idiot girls. You’re sitting in a flat that’s chock-full of fabulous printed matter and what are you reading about? Morrissey.

“Don’t,” said Valentina.

“Don’t what?” replied Julia.

“Don’t be mad at me. It’s not my fault about the TV.”

“I’m not mad at you.” Julia put the magazine down and looked at Valentina. “I’m kinda bored, but not mad.”

“Huh. I just felt this-like you were really annoyed with me.”

“Well, I’m not.”

“Okay.”

They went back to their reading. Elspeth crouched on the floor a few feet away and stared at them. Valentina raised her head and surveyed the room, perplexed. Seeing nothing, she looked down again. Julia turned the page.

All right then, Elspeth thought. We’re getting somewhere, you and I.

Valentina said, “It’s so cold in here. Let’s just go to bed.” Julia put the magazine away and flipped the light switch. Elspeth sat by herself in the dark, listening to the twins brushing their teeth. When the flat was quiet she went to her desk and touched her fingers to the lightbulb in the desk lamp. It glowed.

Squirrels

FOR DAYS Martin had been hearing noises in the eaves. Something was scampering, clawing, scratching in the space between his ceiling and the roof. Martin called Robert. Robert called the pest-control man, whose name was Kevin.

Kevin duly arrived first thing Monday morning. He was an enormous man, at least twenty stone, both tall and wide. He didn’t say anything as Martin and Robert led him through the darkened rooms with their piles of boxes. Martin wondered how such an immense human was going to manage to get through the small trapdoor in the dressing room ceiling that provided access to the eaves.

Kevin pulled down the ladder, took out a torch and squeezed himself through the hole with a soft grunt. Robert and Martin heard his boots treading from joist to joist. Martin felt a bit queasy, staring up at the hole. Something might come running out of it. Perhaps whatever it was had fleas; perhaps Kevin would bring the fleas down with him on his boots. He seemed to be up there a long time. Martin became very uneasy. Robert said, “You don’t have to stand here. Why don’t you go and have a fag at your desk. I’ll wait for him.” Martin shook his head. The faint boot treads seemed to be moving around the outer perimeter of the building. “Have you ever been up there?” Robert asked.

“When we first lived here Marijke went up. And we had some problems with the roof, but that was before you came. It’s just boards and insulation.” Martin wondered if he could persuade Kevin to remove his boots before he stepped off the ladder. Not likely.

The boot treads approached; Kevin appeared in the opening, lowered himself onto the ladder. Martin stared at his boots. Robert said, “See anything?”

“There’s nowt up there,” said Kevin. “You’ve got very empty eaves.”

“Hmm,” said Robert. “They must be on the roof, not in the roof.”

“That’ll be it, perhaps.”

Robert saw him out and came back upstairs. Martin was scrubbing the dressing-room floor.

“Well?” said Robert.

“That’s a deep subject,” Martin replied.

“My grandfather used to say that.”

Martin said, “Why haven’t you introduced yourself to Elspeth’s girls? They’ve been here for six weeks.”

Robert leaned against the doorjamb and thought about it. “I don’t know. I’ve been rather busy. I had their ceiling fixed, though.” He watched Martin scrubbing and said, “You might use a bit less water when you do that, or you’ll be bringing down their dressing-room ceiling as well and all Elspeth’s shoes will be ruined.”

“They’re charming. Or, one of them is. I haven’t met the other one. She was quite Elspeth-like.”

“In what way?”

“That devastating forthrightness. Elspeth could wield it better, of course; Julia seems a bit out of control. But really, she’s a lovely girl. Nothing to be afraid of.”

Robert made a little snorting sound that Martin correctly translated as Kindly back off. “These noises you’ve been hearing. Are you sure they’re animal noises? I noticed the big oak has grown over the roof. Perhaps we need to call a tree surgeon and get things trimmed up. It couldn’t hurt.”