The Medium

by David Hatton

  ‘How about Justin Bieber at the arena?’

  ‘Maybe not. We’re a bit old for him.’

  Within the calendar of events, a photograph of a ghostly woman with dark purple hair holding a crystal ball filled the bottom left-hand corner of the page. Zodiac star signs floated around her and a set of upcoming appearances at the nearby Sleep Tight Hotel were listed below.

  ‘Here’s one for you… Jackie Wallace.’ Robert tapped the photograph and smiled.

  ‘Spiritual medium?’ Michael replied, gazing over the description.

  ‘Bollocks, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s sad that people need that to move forward.’

  ‘Impressive, some of them, though. I saw that Psychic Paul on the television once.’

  ‘It’s all cold reading,’ Michael explained. ‘My psychology tutor told me all about it at uni. Basically they use body language, age, gender and fashion sense to deliver vague messages based on stereotypes. He freaked a bunch of my classmates out, it was hilarious.’

  ‘Well it must be quite a skill.’ Robert shrugged.

  ‘Not really, I’ve used similar tactics to build rapport with clients at work.’

  ‘Talking of which… when are you returning to work?’

  ‘Tell me more about this orchestra you want us to see.’ Michael quickly changed the topic. He took one last glance at the photograph of Jackie Wallace and threw the newspaper back onto the pile and walked out of the supermarket, shaking his head.

  ‘Absolute bollocks.’

  2.

  “Do we not hear voices, gentle and great, and some of them like the voices of departed friends?”

  - William Mounford (Date Unknown)

  The midsummer sun continued to shine above the Langley estate into the late evening. A formerly council-owned home stood out amongst those that remained under the control of the local government. The buildings to either side held discarded fridges and furniture outside of their front doors, standing shamefully beside the pristine gardens of their neighbour in between. White cladding formed the centre of the pistachio house and a hanging basket filled with pink pansies swung gently within the light breeze.

  Jackie Wallace paused as she reached the driveway. She turned around, returning to her car. This should have felt like home; it was where she’d spent her teenage years after her parents uprooted from Aberdeen to North Manchester for job opportunities while she prepared for her eleven-plus.

  As she reached the driver’s entrance of her yellow Mini, she turned around again and stared at the yard which once held her swing. Today, the bare front displayed little evidence that a child had ever played here. Taking in a deep breath, she paced back to the entrance of the house and knocked on the door.

  Three knocks later the door opened revealing a tall, slim, pale woman with shoulder-length brown hair. Her blue dress held floral patterns, a cream pinafore surrounded her waist and her aubergine slippers cozied her feet leaving her veiny ankles exposed.

  ‘Come in!’ she said, but her tone was far from welcoming. Jackie followed her into the kitchen, but before she could enquire about the wellbeing of the hostess, a basket-weaved door slid open and the medium was forced inside into complete darkness.

  Light burst from the ceiling and a pull-chord swung below. Before her, a furious face leaned in, the tips of their snouts almost touching. The collar of Jackie’s black leather jacket was tugged; beneath, a white t-shirt and jeans made up a more modest off-stage outfit. A silver crucifix swung from her captor’s neck, clinking against the pentacle hovering before the clairvoyant’s chest. Tinned soup and spice jars surrounded her and enough pasta to feed a small African country.

  ‘Now listen here, Jackie. You might be my sister, but I don’t want any of your psychic shit being discussed here tonight. Chris doesn’t know about your so-called career and I don’t want my children being exposed to your blasphemous crap, OK?’

  ‘That’s fine, Margaret. I promise, I won’t say anything.’

  Despite being born minutes apart, the resemblance between the twins was slim. Margaret was taller but held a smaller frame to her younger twin and only their eyes bore any familiarity. She spoke firmly between brown gritted teeth and she sprayed Jackie through the gaps of her missing molars.

  The closet door swung open and Jackie was released back into the kitchen. Black granite worktops rested above beech cupboards, a framed print of Christ the Redeemer hung next to a kitten calendar, and patio doors provided a glimpse out onto a small concrete yard. Plant-pots filled with marigolds provided the only colour within the grey garden.

  Margaret returned to a half-cut onion rolling above a wooden chopping board. Awkwardly, Jackie stood silently behind her. She took off her jacket and handbag and placed them in the hallway alongside her boots, which her sister insisted she take off.

  ‘I didn’t know if you were in, your car wasn’t on the drive.’ Jackie broke the silence.

  ‘I wouldn’t leave Betty out there, not with the riff-raff that live round ’ere.’ Margaret scrunched her face up as if an unpleasant smell had made its way into her home. Having spent most of her life on the estate, she’d lost any glimpse into her Scottish past from her voice.

  The tapping of feet stumbled down the stairs like a slinky. The kitchen door opened and a giant burst in holding an infant in each hand. He blew a raspberry on their skin and the toddlers chuckled. The stern stare of his wife placed a pause on the fun. He turned to their visitor and smiled.

  ‘You must be Jaqueline!’ He walked over and stamped a kiss on her cheek. ‘I’m Chris. This is Mary and Joseph.’

  He lifted the twins higher as he introduced each child. The youngsters were dressed in matching red tartan pyjamas and their red hair shone beneath the spotlights above. Their roots were handed down from their father who had fine auburn hair, a bright contrast from his beige fashion sense.

  ‘Lovely to meet you, Chris.’ Jackie smiled and ruffled the hair of their children. ‘They’re very cute.’

  ‘It’s a shame this is the first time you’ve had the opportunity to meet us all, but we understand. New Zealand’s far away. It’s a shame you couldn’t make the wedding though. What brought you back to England?’

  Perplexed, Jackie turned to her sister, who glared back with an encouraging nod. ‘Well, you know how it is. I go where the work goes.’

  ‘What do you do? Maggie didn’t say.’

  Jackie glanced back at her sister, who lightly shook her head. The threat delivered only moments before threw her back into a closet of careers that families were too embarrassed to reveal at dinner parties. She’d have felt more empowered to tell a vegan that she worked in an abattoir. Unsure of how to answer, she stuttered.

  ‘She’s a grief counsellor,’ Margaret answered on her behalf. Jackie forced a smile and nodded, unnerved by the deceptive tongue of her twin.

  ‘Oh I see, have people stopped dying in New Zealand?’ Chris chuckled and turned his head back towards Jackie.

  ‘They’re just better at dealing with death than we are.’ Jackie shrugged her shoulders, swallowing the frog in her throat.

  Chris placed the children into a pen, a caged hub in the corner of the room. Sponge formed the base and two teddy bears provided the only entertainment within the tiny complex.

  ‘I hope it’s not too painful being back here in your mother’s old house, Jaqueline. Maggie said that’s why you moved away in the first place.’

  ‘Oh I’m fine. It’s a little strange being back here. Lots of memories. Some good, some not so good.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Dinner’s ready!’ Margaret chimed, placing filled plates before the diners. Margaret put her hands together and bowed her head, placing a silent prayer. Jackie and Chris copied her in unison.

  ‘This looks wonderful, Margaret, thank you.’

  ‘Eat it up before it gets cold.’

  Silence hovered over the threesome as they consumed the cottage pie. The mumblings of youth attempting t
heir first words and the ticking of a grandfather clock in the corner, chiming on the hour, provided the only sound in the still kitchen.

  ‘So what does the role of a grief counsellor actually entail?’ Chris asked, breaking the silence.

  ‘It’s just talking to people who have lost loved ones, trying to establish ways to get past the hurt and move on,’ Jackie explained, her real career holding similar responsibilities.

  ‘Maybe you should spend some time with Maggie, she’s really struggled with your mother’s death. You could help her.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Margaret snapped, furiously shaking her head.

  ‘It could help you. You really struggle to cope sometimes when we discuss your mum. And the nightmares… my goodness!’

  He placed a hand around his wife’s back and rubbed her shoulder. She hissed and raised her shoulder, shoving him off.

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘I couldn’t do it anyway,’ Jackie butted in. ‘It’s inappropriate for me to have sessions with my family. I won’t even do my friends.’

  Margaret nodded towards her sister in approval before returning to her dinner. She scratched at her plate with her knife and fork in frustration, causing an unbearable squeak for her fellow diners’ ears.

  ‘You must come over for dinner on your mum’s birthday, Jacqueline. We remember her every year,’ said Chris.

  ‘Oh I don’t want to put you out,’ she coughed and waved her hand.

  ‘Nonsense, Maggie would love you here, wouldn’t you, Mags?’

  Margaret shrugged. ‘Sure.’

  ‘OK, thank you, I’d love to come,’ Jackie replied, but her smile did not mirror her sister’s.

  ‘It’ll be nice for you to make an effort for once…’ Margaret snapped. ‘You barely did when she was alive.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Margaret.’ Jackie bowed her head. ‘I did try to help in those final months, it just became too difficult.’

  ‘And it wasn’t for me?’

  ‘I never said that.’ Jackie sighed and continued to pick at her dinner.

  Upon finishing her meal, Margaret grabbed Jackie and Chris’s plates before they had a chance to clear their own and placed them on the sideboard with a light slam. Opening the door to the hallway, she held the handle and turned to her husband.

  ‘Christopher, please can I have a word with you upstairs?’

  He lifted out of his chair and followed his wife, excusing himself to Jackie, who remained in her seat, bewildered. Jackie sat patiently while her sister and brother-in-law argued upstairs. A vase shattered upon impact with the bedroom wall and the squeals of her sobbing sister shimmered across the house.

  ‘How dare you tell her I’m unstable!’ Margaret screamed.

  ‘I didn’t say that, I just said you’d benefit from speaking to somebody because you’ve found it hard since your mother’s death.’

  Uncomfortably trapped in the kitchen, Jackie stood up and browsed around for a distraction. The toddlers in their pen in the corner appeared as restless as she did. For a property which housed two children, it had few toys. Attempting to entertain the kids, she took out her keys and jingled them above their enclosure.

  Their faces lit up and Jackie smiled, leaning in to connect with the niece and nephew whose formative years she’d missed. As she bent over Joseph grabbed her pendant, which had a pagan symbol embedded within it. The medium, moved by the youngster’s interest, removed the necklace and swung the chain above them. Their hypnotised eyes followed the symbol from left to right.

  The door to the kitchen swung open and Margaret stormed in. She skidded across the tiled floor, her eyes widening as she drew closer to the medium.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’

  ‘Oh I was just playing with the kids. Don’t worry, I held on to the chain the whole time. They wouldn’t have got hold of it… I wouldn’t have let them choke.’

  ‘I don’t care about that. I’m more concerned that you’re forcing your devil worshiping onto my children!’ Margaret grabbed her sister’s arm; the pinching of her skin caused Jackie to wince. The medium was dragged towards the front door and forced out of the house.

  ‘But paganism has nothing to do with devil worshiping. You must know that?’

  ‘Get out and don’t come back.’

  Before Jackie could retaliate, the front door slammed in her face. Wincing from the tingle on her forehead, she turned around and sat on the doorstep to recover from the dizziness her sister had blown her way. The door reopened and her belongings spilled out onto the stone path and the door was slammed again into Jackie’s back. Behind her, Chris’s footsteps trickled down the stairs.

  ‘What’s going on? Where’s Jackie?’

  ‘She had to go in a hurry.’ Maggie’s muffled voice echoed behind the door.

  ‘But she didn’t say goodbye.’

  ‘Yeah she can be rude like that.’

  Jackie’s blurred vision settled and her headache disappeared. She put on her boots, lifted off the doorstep and returned to her car. The summer sun began to set and the purple sky grew darker.

  She arrived at the place she’d called home for over ten years. She switched on her computer and read through her emails. Invoices from the Sleep Tight Hotel and a tax bill caused her to bury her head in her hands as she envisioned another month in her overdraft. Switching over to a local news site, she found the story of a missing woman who had disappeared the previous December.

  The computer hummed from the corner of the living room. A cream carpet lined the floor, a painting of John Beattie performing a séance covered a silver-coated feature wall, and a framed newspaper cutting from the Horwich Gazette of a successful reading for the Bolton Mayor balanced above a glass coffee table.

  A bleeping from her handbag distracted her. Her flip-phone displayed a text message on a luminous green screen.

  ‘Thanks for coming tonight, please feel free to come to Mammy’s anniversary meal.’

  Confused by her sister’s mixed messages, an exasperated Jackie returned to a story regarding the concerned family of Suzanne Walker.

  3.

  “Behind every man now alive stand 30 ghosts.”

  - Arthur C. Clarke (2001)

  The stench of Clorox turned her stomach. She stared at the plastic beaker which held the fate of her future, debating whether to consume the contents. Beside her, a nurse held her hand and discussed the options at length, assuring her that she was not alone.

  A solitary moment was appreciated for the girl who could finally make her own decisions. She’d finally escaped the man who had made far too many decisions on her behalf over the years, if only for a day. Now these tiny pills in her hand felt so empowering while he was distracted miles away.

  The majority of her morning was spent in her closet, deciding on the right outfit for the occasion. The white shirt, black cardigan and knee-length skirt seemed the most appropriate. The same outfit she wore for Jason’s funeral two years before. Now, as she prepared to say goodbye again, her hand trembled as it attempted to keep hold of the items which would relieve her of any doubts. Regret would follow, but by then the choice would be out of her hands.

  A purple beret covered her hair. Her dark, almost black locks beneath had grown greasy. As she dressed before leaving the house, she spotted the growing appearance of her rib cage as she struggled to swallow the food, which would inevitably be thrown away. At this rate, even if she hadn’t brought on her child’s fate herself, her body would have soon rejected it anyway.

  The father was someone she should have been able to trust; the man she should have been able to run to in a crisis, the one person who should have made her whole world secure. However the word ‘no’ just wasn’t in his vocabulary. Every moment was engrained on her memory. His rough hands on her bruises, his brandy breath on her face. It was over in minutes, but it felt like hours. Her tears brought little defence; it spurred him on if anything.

  He’d noticed her belly; it was distinct upon h
er scrawny physique. She had to tell him. He was overjoyed. His own flesh and blood. The family would be over the moon; as long as they didn’t know how it came to be. Although it would be a miracle if the baby was born healthy.

  ‘Some good came of this,’ he said as he wiped himself off her, pulling up his trousers and retiring to bed as she sobbed on the floor.

  The baby should have come as good news to her too. She’d been diagnosed with endometriosis as a teenager and she’d adapted to a life without children, but then this surprise was by no means welcome.

  She’d tried self-harm; that just angered him even more. Despite his lust for her body, he continued to tell her she was ugly. That no one would want ever her. She began to believe him and stayed in the house as it was all she knew. Where would she go? She was useless, uneducated and without a penny of her own.

  Instead he had her right where he wanted her. He knew where she was twenty-four hours a day. Now as she sat alone, reading the pamphlets regarding the procedure she was undertaking, she felt rebellious. He didn’t know where she was. Nor could he take this decision of hers away. It would be so easy; she would simply tell him that she woke up, made a visit to the bathroom and found the floating foetus in the toilet bowl. How could he blame her? Somehow he still would. She would return to being the useless ‘barren bitch’ he’d grown to despise.

  Niggling doubts overcame her as she considered the possibility that this could be her only chance of motherhood. The protesters outside encouraged her to reconsider. Her baby already had a heartbeat and fingernails. However, the father of the child and how it was conceived forced any reservations out of the window. It would be unfair for the kid to have a life with a mother who resented it and a father who spoke with his fists.

  With her choice made, she emptied the beaker onto her palm, took one last breath and downed the pills with a glass of water. The cramps began, but with every painful push, she became increasingly free.