The Medium

by David Hatton

  ‘She’s always been like that,’ Ted butted in, shaking his head. ‘Don’t allow what happened to Suzanne to be an excuse for her odd behaviour.’

  ‘Now, now, Ted. Mental health is a complex issue.’

  ‘We didn’t have all this anxiety back in my day. You put on a smile and got on with it. God knows what we’d do if we had another war with these snowflakes today.’

  Michael grinned and took a biscuit from his eye-rolling mother-in-law.

  ‘So how have you been?’ Jane changed the subject. Tea trickled into white Royal Doulton cups from a cosy-covered pot. She handed him his drink and he slurped the contents while he searched for an answer.

  ‘I’m fine, thank you.’ He gave the easiest answer. ‘Just trying to move on, I guess.’ A sceptical stare lingered on him from Jane’s cynical eye. ‘How about you two?’

  ‘We’re well. We’ve just been on another cruise. We sailed to Spain, Madeira, North Africa and the Canaries. It was beautiful. We could eat and drink as much as we wanted on the ship and the entertainment was marvellous, wasn’t it, Ted?’

  ‘Oh it was, although you can never find a decent ale abroad, can you?’ Ted rolled his eyes while his wife shook her head and covered her eyes in shame. He reclined in his armchair and picked up a photo album off a table-nest beside him before handing it to Michael. ‘Here are a few snaps.’

  He rushed through the photographs, eager to see any pictures of his wife which matched the image he’d spotted on Jane’s FaceHub profile. Much to his disappointment, Suzanne was absent from all the photographs.

  ‘What have you been up to?’ asked Ted.

  ‘Not much.’ Michael cleared his throat, reliving the months he’d spent shaking bottle heads to capture the remaining drips. ‘I returned to work last week. I figured it would help give me some focus and help me move forward.’

  ‘And help pay those bills too, I imagine,’ Ted grumbled. ‘Is there any money left from the sale of that house?’

  ‘Some,’ Michael gulped.

  ‘What do you think my daughter will say when she finds out that you spent all of her money? Or should I say our money seeing it was us who gave you the deposit for that place?’

  ‘Will you shut up, Ted?’ Jane snapped and patted his balding head. ‘He’s been through hell and back. He doesn’t need you biting at him on top of his own suffering. It’s only money at the end of the day.’

  ‘I was just thinking of Suzanne...’

  ‘Who’s not coming home.’

  The silence hovered over them like a rain cloud as they absorbed Jane’s smack of reality. The only noise radiated from the corner of the room where a home-cooking programme played quietly on the television. Jane had reduced the volume upon arrival of their guest and it continued to subtly hum while they caught up on their previous months apart.

  ‘I take it you haven’t heard from her?’ Michael broke the tension.

  ‘No, you’d be the first person we’d call if we had, don’t you worry about that.’

  ‘I’d understand if she’d been in touch and asked you not to tell me. I just want to know she’s OK. If she wants me to stay away, I will.’

  Jane shook her head, closing her eyes as she spoke. ‘No, I promise you, we’d tell you. It wouldn’t be fair to keep you hanging on like this. I know things weren’t right after Jason died. But while Suzanne is our daughter, you’re very much like a son to us, Michael. You gave us our grandson and you made our daughter happy.’

  The cooking show on the television ended and the next show commenced. Celebrity Haunts followed well-known faces entering historic houses with a camera crew while the medium, Psychic Paul, lured spirits into a séance. Flashing lights, night-camera shots and the screams of petrified reality stars caused the program to be limited in deliverance for Ted’s high-definition screen.

  ‘Who watches this rubbish?’ Michael heckled a small laugh.

  ‘We love it, don’t we, Ted?’ Jane turned to her husband. Ted sat forward and put on his glasses. He turned up the volume and smiled.

  ‘Oh yes! It’s one of our favourites. You wouldn’t believe what this guy can do. It’s amazing!’

  Michael watched on in disbelief. While they were retired now, they once held respected careers. They were both academics, lecturing at Warwick University, a career which required an inquisitive mind. They both held Master’s degrees; an achievement to boast about for their generation while their neighbours sweated in the factories nearby.

  ‘I had no idea you were believers.’

  ‘You know we go to church?’ Jane grabbed her chest and sat back.

  ‘Yeah but I thought that was for the community spirit rather than the Holy Spirit.’

  ‘I’m surprised Suzanne didn’t subject you to this.’

  ‘What? She liked this show?’ Michael quizzed, twisting his head between the television and his in-laws.

  ‘She loved it!’

  ‘She never expressed any desire to watch it when she was with me. We cancelled the cable because we couldn’t escape this rubbish.’

  ‘It was a real blessing for her when Jason passed. She talked about going to see a medium at some point. Whether she ever did or not, we’ll never know.’ Jane wiped a tear from her eye and grabbed the necklace holding her nephew’s image.

  ‘She liked all the spiritual shows. She enjoyed the horoscopes in the newspaper too,’ said Ted.

  ‘Remember the annual horoscopes they printed at New Year?’ Jane giggled.

  ‘Ah yes. She’d run out on the first of January, buy a paper and then circle all the dates, taking note of what to expect over the year. She would look back at the end of the year and see how much had come true.’

  ‘This is so bizarre,’ said Michael, scratching his head. ‘We always used to laugh at people who believed in all this. She ridiculed those psychics. I’m so confused, why would she do that if she believed in it all?’

  ‘Beats me, but she swore by them. It got her through her entire life. You should give it a go, Michael.’

  ‘Well what a damn lot of good those horoscopes did for us,’ Michael snapped. ‘Did it prevent Jason from getting killed? Or did they warn us that she’d go missing? Or will they let us know where she is now? No, because it’s all crap!’

  ‘Well they don’t tell you the bad stuff, Michael,’ Jane explained. ‘There has to be some things we don’t read about, otherwise we’d all be cheating death. God has a plan, Michael.’

  ‘I do have a question about Suzanne…’ Michael intervened, desperate to change the conversation. ‘I found this the other day.’

  Out of his pocket, he took a folded sheet of paper. It displayed a printed copy of the photograph which he found on FaceHub of Suzanne in Egypt. Intrigued, Jane took the paper and examined the image. She raised her eyebrows before handing it to her husband, who glanced at the photograph. His cheek muscles sank as he handed it back to Michael.

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘When was it taken?’

  ‘Last November,’ said Ted. ‘We offered you both the opportunity to come and clear your heads but Suzanne said you didn’t want to join us.’

  ‘I was never asked,’ Michael replied, scratching his head. ‘This is the first time I’ve heard about this trip, but it does explain some of her absences. Sometimes she would just disappear for days and simply say she was out. I guess I know now. She just needed to escape. But why is her hair so grey? I don’t remember her looking like this.’

  ‘The sun always brought it out more and she dyed it when we came home. You were both so distracted, she could have grown a third eye and you wouldn’t have noticed.’

  ‘You’re probably right… I should probably go. The traffic is a nightmare on the motorway if I leave it too late. I do have to ask though, sorry. Is Suzanne in Egypt?’

  ‘I promise you,’ Jane spoke with a firm tone. ‘She came home with us long before she disappeared. We don’t know where she is. Anyway, I’ll see you out.’

  Michael
shook Ted’s hand and followed his mother-in-law out to the front of the house. She waited until her husband was out of earshot before she reached into her pocket and pulled out a wad of rolled-up cash.

  ‘Here take this.’

  ‘I can’t take that,’ Michael said, pushing her hand away.

  ‘You must, Michael. You only have one income now and I know it’s not cheap living in the city. Please take it, I insist. Suzanne wouldn’t forgive us if we didn’t look after you.’

  Michael reluctantly took the money, kissed Jane on the cheek and walked back to his vehicle.

  As he put on his seatbelt, he peered up at the house where his wife grew up towards the room she once shared with her sister. Pamela stood in the window staring down at him without expression. He waved, but she walked away, leaving a bare window with just the swinging curtains in view. He drove off down the road, waving to his mother-in-law who, unlike her reclusive daughter, smiled and waved back.

  He arranged to meet Robert early in the evening in a pub just a short walk from his apartment. They sat out beside the canal and enjoyed a non-alcoholic beer; a firm request from his brother. The bar was built into the railway arches and a large terrace formed the front where the boys sat drinking in the evening sun, catching up.

  ‘So what do you think?’ Michael asked as they perched on a bench.

  ‘What… about the spiritual stuff? People go all kinds of crazy when they lose someone. She was probably just grieving and holding on to anything which would keep her son alive. You know how irrational she was after Jason died.’

  ‘No it’s more than that. Jane seemed to think this had gone on for years, like before we got married…’

  ‘Well if she was that way inclined, you were hardly the person to break it to.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Michael gasped.

  ‘Well you’re always going on about it. Richard Dawkins doesn’t have a patch on you when it comes to lecturing others on what they should and shouldn’t believe.’

  ‘That’s a bit harsh.’

  ‘Is it?’ Robert asked with a raised eyebrow. ‘Look back to your first date. That Jehovah’s Witness who approached you in the student union bar ended up shaking like a shitting dog while you listed everything wrong with her religion.’

  ‘Well that’s different. That girl believed children should die rather than having a blood transfusion.’

  ‘And then you interrupted that séance they were holding in the lecture hall.’

  ‘Well to be fair I was young…’

  ‘And then when Mum asked if you were getting Jason christened, she might as well have asked you if you were going to dip your child in acid …’

  ‘OK, OK!’ Michael yelled. ‘I get it… I’m not very empathetic to people who believe in fairy tales.’

  ‘But to them… it isn’t, Michael. And Suzanne kept it from you for all those years.’

  ‘Do you think that’s why she left me?’ Michael’s voice quivered. ‘I stomped over any belief that her son was still out there?’

  ‘No.’ Robert placed his hand on Michael’s arm. ‘But maybe for once you should open your mind a little and stop pushing everyone away.’

  Michael returned to his apartment. A free newspaper had been delivered and he needed a distraction. After reading the latest results from the United game, he scanned the inside pages for upcoming shows in the northwest region. Across the page, a list of musicals, comedies and nineties boy band reunion tours made up the schedule of Manchester’s concert venues. However it was the raining astrology symbols around a ghostly woman that captured Michael’s attention. The post advertised the triumphant return of Jackie Wallace to the Sleep Tight Hotel.

  Had this been any other day, Michael would have heckled a lone laugh, closed the newspaper and thrown it into the recycling bin. However, his earlier meetings with Suzanne’s parents and Robert forced him to reconsider.

  Dialling the number provided in the advert, he called the Sleep Tight Hotel and reserved two tickets to the performance with his credit card. As he hung up, he scanned his contacts in his smartphone, browsing through the hundreds of names to determine who would be willing to accompany him on this anomalous trip. Most of his contacts shared his tenacious views on the afterlife. However, one name stood out amongst the rest. He clicked the phone symbol and on the third ring the recipient answered.

  ‘Hello?’ a voice on the other end apprehensively answered.

  ‘Hi, Louise, I have a proposition for you…’

  *

  A tap on the door sent a cold shiver down her spine. Pamela sat in her bedroom staring at the photographs of Suzanne and Jason, stuck with an adhesive tack to her pink walls. She ignored the visitor and continued to stare at her past.

  She hadn’t always been like this; the images in front of her provided evidence of the smile she once carried. A snap of them both on a ride at Thorpe Park, drinking virgin cocktails on a Canaries beach, and rehearsals for a school play. It all changed when Suzanne moved out. She lost her best friend the day Suzanne went to university. She always thought she’d one day come home and they could return to sharing their secrets beneath the covers within the torchlight. But then Suzanne went travelling. And then she moved in with Michael.

  ‘That was really rude of you today,’ Ted said from the doorframe.

  The smoke from his pipe floated into the room, gently settling beneath a lampshade with a print of Ariel, The Little Mermaid, on the cover. The room served as an exhibition into their past, unchanged since the girls were in school. Posters of eighties popstars filled the walls, a pair of twin beds lined either side of the room and a wooden desk in the corner bore the scratches of declared teenage love. Over the years, Jane had attempted to update the room but Pamela didn’t cope well with change.

  ‘Where’s Mum?’ she asked without even a glance towards her father.

  ‘She’s out. Gone to Bridge Club with the girls. She’ll be out for a while.’

  ‘Oh,’ Pamela replied, bowing her head. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I just don’t get why you can’t put up a front for just a few minutes when we have guests. You embarrassed us. You embarrassed me.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to.’

  ‘You’ve been very disappointing. Next time, either don’t come down at all or at least put a smile on your face. And for God’s sake have a shower and do something about your hair. Make an effort. For me.’

  ‘I will, I promise.’ Pamela wiped away a tear. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I won’t ever be able to make you proud like Suzanne.’

  ‘Hey now.’ Ted tilted his head. She looked up towards him. ‘You’ll always be my special little girl, you know that. You and I will always have something Suzanne and I never had.’

  She remained quiet.

  ‘Now then, I’m hoping after your poor performance today that you’ll help make it up to me.’

  She wiped away her tears, closed her eyes and nodded her head, shifting herself off the bed.

  The door shut behind, casting the landing into darkness.

  6.

  “The universe is not only queerer than we imagine, it is queerer than we can imagine.”

  - J.B.S Haldane (Date Unknown)

  They met at Beetham Tower. The turquoise tower morphed into a purple spire in the evening, hovering over a procumbent Deansgate like an awkward fitting Tetris piece. The orange bubble of the summer sun sank, casting Manchester into dusk.

  Pacing through the gloaming, a flustered Louise rushed to meet Michael. They agreed to meet on the hour and it was already ten past. The bong of the town hall clock awoke her from her procrastination back home, but at the eleventh hour she continued to root through her wardrobe looking for the perfect dress. Settling for a black t-length, she ventured out of her apartment. Her straightened red hair flowed within the breeze. Her heels held her back, rubbing at her ankles as she attempted a light jog. She found him awkwardly lingering outside of the entrance, checking his phone to avoid the judging eyes
of all who passed. He looked ready to give in to the possibility that he’d been stood up. A wolf whistle grabbed his attention; he looked up and smiled.

  ‘Hello, stranger,’ Michael called. ‘What time do you call this?’

  ‘I’m sorry!’ she replied, panting. Her cheeks had grown a burning red and her forehead was moistly sprinkled. ‘I couldn’t find anything to wear. Neither could you apparently…’

  Louise’s joy turned to disappointment as she drew nearer to Michael. A worn brown jumper had been sloppily selected off the top of his growing pile of washing and his jeans held a pesto-green stain.

  ‘Sorry about that, I didn’t have time to change. I didn’t realise it was going to be a dressy occasion,’ Michael grovelled.

  ‘It’s OK,’ she reluctantly said, embarrassedly covering herself with a pink pashmina. ‘I didn’t have you down for this sort of thing?’

  He looked over this girl who’d made such an effort to see him, gleaming with excitement for their evening together, and couldn’t face to tell her the truth.

  ‘Oh I’m not usually. I just fancied trying something different, plus I knew you liked all that paranormal stuff.’

  ‘That’s really sweet, you remembered the time I stayed in that haunted house at Chingle Hall?’

  ‘How could I forget? All that drama and you didn’t see anything.’

  ‘I definitely felt a chill. There was something in that house.’

  ‘The house was built in the thirteenth century. I’m sure it was cold.’

  ‘Oh well it raised money for charity.’ Louise gently slapped his arm.

  ‘I’m sure it’ll be interesting tonight anyway.’

  ‘Hey, maybe she’ll be able to tell you where your wife is, or speak to your son?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Michael sceptically said. Her suggestion made him question why he was attending; what could he possibly get out of Jackie Wallace besides a newfound appreciation for his wife’s beliefs?

  They fell into silence. A Sunday evening on Deansgate grew calm following the drunken storms the evening prior and the city recovered like the hungover students who occupied it earlier in the weekend. A lone car passed by and a bearded man lingered, eager to sell his last copy of The Big Issue before he could retire to his bedsit. The atmosphere failed to gain momentum upon arrival at the Sleep Tight Hotel. The gathering grievers appeared ready for a funeral rather than a performance from one of Manchester’s most extraordinary acts.