Chapter Text
Betty and Joyce had been feeding the ducks in the little park around the corner from Portland Row for nigh on 50 years. For half a century they had been doing it. Generations of ducks safe in the knowledge that, come each afternoon, Betty and Joyce would appear food in hand. Originally this was bread but then Betty had read an article in Reader's Digest that this was bad for them, so now it was seeds or oats, sometimes peas which they gobbled up and squabbled like children over. There they would be, Betty and Joyce, no matter if it was rain or shine. They must have been part of duck pond lore. Betty sometimes fancied them passing the knowledge down parent duck to offspring, daddy duck saying 'when the light hits that tall oak tree just on that branch there, duck son, you must watch the Eastern paths and the food Gods will appear'. Joyce had told Betty she had an overactive imagination and ducks didn't even think.
They had met at high school, St Ursuline Catholic High School for girls, way back before The Problem began. Although it was run by nuns so they had a different kind of problem, just less ectoplasm. Back then all they worried about was sneaking cigarettes from Paula Mann's older sister Dotty and wondering if they should go to the record store or the cafe in the park to waste away a dreary Saturday afternoon. Paula and Dotty were both killed in the early 90s, ghost touched as they tried to get home after dark, casualties of taking a short cut home from the cinema.
They would always be there, they would always sit on the same bench (dedicated to Derek - 'Derek loved this place, but not so much the lurker that got him sat here doing the crossword. RIP 1946 -1992') and they would always put the world to rights. Except the ghost bit, both ladies being of a generation that had pre-dated the need to fight spirits with psychical powers. They wouldn't be much use at putting that bit right. However, they would argue and debate every so often their likely talents had they been born a decade or two later.
"I'd have had touch, Joyce," Betty would say full of conviction, "I'm ever so good with my hands. Arif at the shop always complements my hands, asks what moisturiser I use, wants to buy it for his Mrs. And I'm handy at knitting, sewing, crochet - give me a needle I can do anything! Yes I'd have touch, no doubt about it!"
Joyce would shake her head and say, "Who needs talent I say you'd just talk nonsense to the ghosts and bore them off."
Each day they sat, they gossiped, they drank tea from a flask or occasionally treated themselves to a tea and chelsea bun from the small cafe at the bottom end of the park. Most of all they would watch the coming and goings in the small park round the corner from Portland Row. That's how they knew of Lockwood and Co, more specifically that's how they knew of Anthony Lockwood, George Karim and Lucy Carlyle.
They'd known the Lockwood family for years of course, knew Donald Lockwood as a young boy. Betty and Joyce would smile as he was zipping about on a little scooter, tearing at pigeons to make them fly off and rushing round the park. He would use a fallen branch as a rapier - pretending his brother was a Type 2 and poking him till he cried and ran to complain to their mother. They'd watched him grow, years flying by as The Problem grew. Then, before they knew it, he was married and before long there were more scooters and more pretend rapiers. These belonging to little Anthony Lockwood and his older sister Jessica, both looked like butter wouldn't melt in their mouths. Betty and Joyce admired their beautiful mother, Celia, she would stop and ask after them both when she saw them, give them a tale of far off adventure Donald and herself had come by. She had a sharp mind and a wicked sense of humour, plus made excellent flapjacks and brought the recipe for them. According to Betty both children were angels and well mannered, according to Joyce they were little hooligans and hyperactive. Although, it was always Joyce who would bring a bag of mints or strawberry bon bons on the off chance they would be there.
Then that fateful day, they'd learned the greivous news from Arif's newspaper boy. He'd spotted them as they were walking towards the park and ran to tell them, "ere 'ave you heard? The Lockwood's killed some big car crash. Them poor kids". They went to the funeral of course, paid their respects. It drizzled all day. The sky a mottled, murky grey reflected in the faces and thoughts of those who were present.
They would see little Jessica from time to time in the park, pale faced and pulling her little brother Anthony round by the hand. There was no more pretend ghost hunting, no more stick rapiers, and no more excitement just blank, vacant expressions. Betty and Joyce would nod and say hello, offers of help or meals refused politely by Jessica, grown up before her time.
Then a few years later the sirens and emergency vehicles with DEPRAC signage plastered all over them. Rumours through the neighbourhood, Mrs Waller on her way home sobbing. "It's young Jessica Lockwood..." Silence then, even Betty too overwhelmed to fill the emptiness, and another funeral to attend.
They saw Anthony Lockwood more sparsely over the next few years. They caught site of him once or twice with his Uncle, heaving boxes into Portland Row. Great packaging boxes filled with goodness knows what. Then with Gravedigger Sykes a few times traversing the park on his way to a job, no doubt, rapier at his hip. He was taller than Betty and Joyce by then, with his father's hair, face and coat. He stopped rarely as he passed, maybe said hello briefly and nodded politely whenever Betty attempted conversation. Always that smile - both women were wise enough to spot it never fully extended to his eyes. Betty would murmur he was "such a serious looking boy," and Joyce would think 'no wonder'.
What they both agreed on was he needed people his own age, people he could rely on. He needed friends.