A ghost of our own

We have a ghost. About five years old with long fair hair and wearing a long white dress. Now personally I would have said the latter is a mistake in this house, neck-deep in dust and madness. But there you go.
We found out about her through my cousin, Catherine, who is over from Australia on a visit. Catherine has inherited the spooky genes of the family (we have all manner of spiritualists and odd religious fundamentalists in our history – most of us more or less came out the womb reading tarot cards).
Anyhow, she came over along with size-zero Mother and her own (not size-zero) mother, Aunty Wendy, to have a nose around the new place. We had a rather nice Thai takeaway (oh the heaven that is a takeaway, after nine years without) and a few glasses of the good stuff and I was saying how warm and embracing the house felt.

‘Funny really,’ I said. ‘I thought it would be a spooky house but really it isn’t at all.’
Catherine was wandering around the Oak Room (or as Adrian calls it ‘the Baronial Hall) at this point. Then suddenly she went ‘on point’ – truly, if she’d been a gun dog she’d have had one paw up and her tail stiff as a brush.
‘There’s a little girl here,’ she said.
Oh no.
‘Are you sure?’ I asked, giving off big vibes of ‘please don’t tell me anything seriously weird.’
‘Absolutely.’ She went on about the long blonde hair and all. I was, let’s be honest, sceptical. After all, it’s a pretty archetypal image, even down to the long white (possibly grubby along the hem-line) frock.
‘Have you got a cellar?’
Yup, two actually.
‘One with a door with a window above. Some kind of heating thing there.’
Oh stop it. Yes we have a cellar exactly like that with the remains of a huge old under-floor heating system.
‘Er, why?’
‘She was locked in there as punishment.’
Now this we don’t need to hear.
‘She’s very benign though. She’s not angry or vindictive or anything.’
Well that’s fine then.
I love the idea of ghosts but not in my house. It’s like mice and bats and other forms of wildlife – they’re great as long as I don’t have to share living space with them.
So, anyhow, they all headed off back to the safety of size-zero Mum’s nice friendly ghost-free house and we were left – with a ghost.
‘I wish she hadn’t said that,’ said Adrian.
‘Yup, so do I,’ said I.
‘I’m going to be looking for her now. Out of the corner of my eye and all.’
‘Yup. Me too.’

So now my people-to-find list has an extra item on it. It now reads:
- find architect
- find builder
- find someone to help with garden
- find someone to fix Rayburn
- find someone to fix hot water
- find ghostbuster

Mind you, I’m already getting advice on the latter.
‘You want Father X. He’s terribly good at that sort of thing,’ opined someone at a party we went to over the weekend.
‘What, even though I’m not Catholic?’
‘Oh no, he won’t remotely mind. He really is very good.’

By heck, a bonda fide exorcist in the town? How utterly thrilling.

But I’m not sure I should exorcise my poor little ghost. It seems a bit extreme (and tantamount to child abuse) to throw bell, book and candle at a five-year old (even if she has been dead for God knows how long). So I shall see how we go, my ghost and I. Maybe she will want to be released at some point and then I'll see if I can find a way to help her. Until then, well, it's live and let live (so to speak).

PS - for Un Peu.....here's the bonkers wallpaper!