The Medium

by David Hatton

  The break of laughter disrupted the mourners. Three large ladies spilled in from the bar, chuckling as they clutched on to their pints of lager. Each sporting tattoos on their exposed upper arms, and large hoops drooped from their ears.

  ‘’Ere, Toyah, do ya think they’ll speak to your Bobby?’

  ‘I sure as ’ell hope not! How would I explain who Eric is?’

  They heckled with laughter, slurping on their beers and munching on a supersized bag of crisps as they found their seats, two rows behind where Michael and Louise were ushered to by a hotel service rep. Louise turned around and hushed the gaggle of drunks, who quietened following the scolding.

  ‘Have you been to one of these shows before?’ Michael enquired.

  ‘Yeah, I came about six months ago, it was a couple of weeks before Christmas?’

  ‘Any good?’

  ‘She was OK. There were mixed responses but some were really accurate.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘My friend was reunited with her son after a car accident …’

  Before Louise could divulge any more, a pen and paper were thrust in her face. Before her, a man dressed in the hotel’s branded uniform, approached them, holding a fishbowl in his other hand.

  ‘Would you like to place a message in the bowl?’

  ‘No thanks.’ Michael waved his hand, shooing the stage-hand away. ‘Will they stop at nothing? An obvious ploy to supply answers to the medium.’

  ‘You couldn’t be further from the truth, Michael,’ Louise said, folding her arms. ‘You see by placing a letter in the bowl, you channel the spirits like a kind of bait. The medium traps the spirits and begins to collect the message from them, before setting them free.’

  ‘You know a lot about this stuff…’

  ‘I know enough. I get Psychic Monthly delivered to my house.’

  The lights dimmed, saving Michael from hearing more about Louise’s unusual taste in literature. The chimes of Carl Orff’s ‘O Fortuna’ hummed out of the speakers. A lone spotlight hovered over the stage where two hotel guest representatives entered and held up a purple throw. They lowered the sheet three times, displaying the empty space behind. On the final drop, Jackie Wallace appeared.

  The spellbound audience gasped and broke into applause. The psychic’s red velvet jacket matched the lone rose clipped onto her short purple hair, while the rest of her black clothing slipped away, blending with the dark curtains behind her. Her eerily pale skin almost sparkled within the spotlight. She adjusted her microphone and waited for the music and the audience to fall silent before she began her spiritual show.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming tonight, let us transform ourselves to…’ the audience waited in suspense as she took in a deep breath ‘… the other side.’

  A short delay before the untimely crack of a thunder strike caused Michael to giggle. She can’t even get the sound-effects right.

  ‘Now you must understand, ladies and gentlemen, that my shows are not like musicals or Shakespeare productions. There is no script. I have been on stage hundreds of times before and occasionally nobody has been here to help me with my show, therefore at times you’ll have to bear with me. Sometimes I can’t get a word in edgeways because so many people want to get through to you all and I have to scramble through all the chaos to determine a clear message. But I will ask one thing of you. This show only works if I get as much input from you as possible, so if something I say resonates with you…’

  She paused. As if she’d walked into a sheet of glass.

  ‘Yes? Oh, OK.’ The medium appeared to mumble to herself. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, a lady has just joined me. She says she’s looking for Annabelle. Is she here?’

  A woman in her mid-forties raised her hand. She stood up, exposing her caramel complexion and leopard-skin dress. Her afro-hair was plaited down into thick dreadlocks and her eye shadow placed her in competition with Gene Simmons.

  ‘I’m Annabelle.’

  ‘How lovely of you to join us tonight, Annabelle.’ The medium smiled and turned back to continue the exchange with the invisible character on stage. ‘I have Layla here. Does that name mean anything to you?’

  ‘Yeah, she’s my mum.’

  ‘Ah, your dear mammy. She’s right here and she’s so proud of you. Am I sensing an illness? As I’m talking to her I feel a pain towards the left side of my chest.’ Jackie rubbed her gold brooch and tilted her head.

  ‘She had breast cancer twenty years ago.’ The audience applauded.

  ‘She isn’t the only one who has suffered with the illness, is she?’

  ‘No, my sister had it too.’ Annabelle grabbed a tissue and dabbed her eye.

  ‘And she’s passed on too…?’ Jackie asked.

  ‘No?’ Annabel replied with a blank look. ‘She’s fine. She didn’t die. In fact she’s here with me tonight. Stand up, Caitlin.’

  An older model of Annabelle stood up. A little plumper than her sister, Caitlin styled herself in a baggy black dress with a large yellow belt around her waist. She took a tissue and dabbed her eye as she thornily glared at the medium. The audience surrounding her gasped at Jackie’s claims while Michael smugly giggled.

  ‘Passed on in life, my dear,’ Jackie explained. ‘Not into death. You were so angry weren’t you, Caitlin? But you’ve forgiven your mother for passing on this horrible illness you’ve been left with. It’s not been an easy life having to explain to each new partner you meet about your scars, but now you simply miss your mother for who she was, rather than resenting her for the hereditary disease she carried.’

  The audience twisted their heads from side to side, attempting to gauge the reaction of Caitlin and her sister. It was knife-cuttingly tense as they analysed Jackie’s answers.

  ‘I have passed on,’ Caitlin confirmed with a wilting smile. The audience applauded the hit. The sisters embraced and began to descend into their seats.

  ‘And your father, Glen…’ Jackie continued. The sisters shot back up like a pogo stick.

  ‘He’s here?’ Annabelle giddily asked.

  ‘He is!’ Jackie squealed. ‘He’s so proud of you girls for getting through all of your troubles. Keep up that positive spirit. I’ll leave your parents’ love with you both.’

  The girls returned to their seats and a disappointed Michael folded his arms and huffed. Jackie returned to the centre of the stage and gazed over her audience.

  ‘Family is so important…’ Jackie riffed. ‘I lost my parents a few years ago and nothing can describe the heartache people go through. It’s important that we remain close to those around us while they’re still alive, but if we do fall out just before someone departs this world, please remember you can come and see me anytime and I’ll try to reconnect you. As I’ve just been talking, somebody has walked onto the stage… called… sorry, I didn’t quite catch that, love…. Ah, Jason. Does anyone know a Jason?’

  Michael sat up. The burn from Louise’s stare irritated his cheek. The sharp tip of her elbow nipped into his. Michael remained still.

  ‘Go on, stand up,’ Louise whispered.

  ‘No, it’s a cold reading trick. There will be dozens of Jasons in the audience tonight. It’s a popular name.’

  ‘Oooooh, he’s a handsome fella,’ Jackie continued.

  ‘Is it Jason Norton?’

  A figure in the front row shot up. A black net jumper barely covered his skinny torso, exposing a nipple ring upon his right breast. Orange in colour and limp in posture, the young man raised his right hand high above his bleached spikey hair. Jackie smiled down at him, before glancing at the empty space beside her, engaging in a whispered conversation with the invisible creature on stage.

  ‘I believe it is,’ Jackie confirmed. ‘Are you Harry?’

  ‘I am!’ Harry yelped, barely able to maintain his excitement. ‘Jason was my boyfriend.’

  ‘How sad, another young life taken from us again. Why am I feeling a pain here?’ Jackie circled her abdomen.

>   ‘He was stabbed. We were walking home from a night out in Canal Street where we were approached by a homophobic gang.’

  A tear sprang and slithered down Harry’s cheek, smudging his eyeliner as his puffy sockets swelled. His shoulders trembled and he grasped onto his chest. The psychic stepped down off the stage and embraced him as he hung over the front row sobbing.

  ‘Hey, look at me.’ She placed her hands around his cheeks and lifted his head up towards her. ‘It’s tough, it’s really tough. But he loves you and he knows how much you love him. You need to let go of this guilt that you’ve been hanging on to because you survived and he didn’t. You couldn’t have done anything more.’

  Harry nodded his head but continued to cry.

  ‘He’s telling me that he’s left something for you in a drawer at home, in the bedside table on the side where he used to sleep,’ Jackie explained. ‘I bet you haven’t even looked in there since he died, have you?’

  ‘It’s been too painful.’

  ‘You need to go and look in there. He won’t tell me what’s in there, but he’s left it in there for you, it’s something personal. Promise me you’ll look in there as soon as you get home.’

  ‘I will.’ Harry nodded with a glowing smile.

  Behind, Louise began to get the giggles. She turned to Michael and whispered, ‘I hope no one says that to any of my loved ones when I die. All they’ll find in my bedside drawer is a vibrator.’

  Michael burst into laughter, his chuckles echoing across the conference suite. A distracted Jackie glanced up and glared at the insensitive couple.

  ‘Sorry,’ Michael whispered and quietened down, but his shoulders continued to bounce. He bit his bottom lip and closed his eyes, hiding away from the cross clairvoyant.

  The readings continued for over an hour. Several messages received warm responses while others met a silent audience. A distraught mother had to leave the room following a connection with her baby girl, and a man collapsed as he heard a message from his departed wife. The mailbox for Michael and Louise appeared to remain empty.

  ‘Now for an intermission…’ Jackie announced and disappeared behind a curtain.

  A relieved Michael tapped Louise on the shoulder and nodded his head towards the exit. They stepped over the bags and knees of their neighbours, who remained glued to their seats. Their judgemental eyes followed the pair who dared to laugh during a powerful connection between Harry and his late partner.

  ‘Don’t you want to stay for the second half?’ Louise asked as she chased after Michael.

  ‘I can’t stand to listen to such drivel any longer. She’s undermining those poor people.’

  ‘You still don’t believe then?’

  ‘Absolutely not,’ Michael said, spitting with disgust. ‘It’s all cold reading. As a grieving father, I’m disgusted that she could take advantage of those people.’

  ‘But how do you explain how she got such specific names? It can’t be all cold reading.’

  ‘I’ll admit, she’s good. I’ll give you that. But I can’t buy into her lies.’

  ‘But regardless, she really helps people.’

  ‘Does she, Louise?’ Michael snapped. ‘Does she really? Those people go time and time again and never let go. That poor woman who had to leave the room, she was devastated. Is she helping her? I don’t think so.’

  Silence accompanied them on their walk back along Deansgate. Louise struggled to keep up with Michael’s fast pace; instead she lingered behind.

  ‘I’m sorry you didn’t get to speak to your son.’

  ‘What?’ Michael stopped and turned around.

  ‘Well you just seem so upset and you had so much optimism on the way here. I could only assume it was because of Jason, or even your wife, which has put you in such a mood.’

  Michael sighed, suddenly aware of his ill-temper. His date’s rich blue eyes softly manipulated his guilt-ridden conscience as her usually jubilant flamboyance dampened. The evening sky grew dark and the air cooled. Goose-bumps bloomed upon Louise’s arms, her teeth chattered and her shoulders shivered. Michael removed his brown leather coat and placed it around her.

  ‘I’m sorry. I guess being around people who have been through so much trauma, it’s hard not to consider your own bad luck. You didn’t deserve that.’

  As they approached the Beetham Tower, they paused, turned to each other and lingered. Biting her bottom lip, Louise stared down at the concrete pavement below and swayed, while Michael looked up to the sky.

  ‘I guess this is where we part,’ Michael said. Louise nodded her head in disappointment. ‘Louise, thank you so much for coming tonight. Despite my outburst, I’ve really enjoyed your company.’

  ‘You too.’ Her eyes lit up and her pearly teeth shone between her red lips. ‘I’ve had so much fun.’

  They embraced. Her forehead, once buried in his chest, brushed past his cheek and rested gently on his chin. As she looked up, her icy cold nose met his. She leaned into him.

  ‘Suzanne...’

  ‘That’s not really the name I want to hear right now, Michael.’ She pushed him away from her and folded her arms, hiding her eyes as she withered within the shame of his rejection.

  ‘I’m sorry. I love my wife.’

  ‘But she’s not here. She’s not been here for six months.’

  ‘Which makes it all the more complicated, Louise.’ Michael’s voice broke. ‘I don’t know what I am. I’m not separated, I’m not widowed. I’m nothing. I don’t know if she’s going to knock on my door tomorrow or ever come back again.’

  ‘You can’t live your whole life waiting, Michael. At some point you’ll have to accept that she’s not coming home.’

  Taking off his leather jacket, she threw the borrowed garment back at him.

  ‘You wouldn’t understand,’ he said.

  ‘No you’re right. I wouldn’t. But I tell you something, you criticise all those people in the Sleep Tight Hotel tonight for not moving on, but at least they’re doing something about it. What are you doing, Michael, besides wallowing in your own misery?’

  ‘Look, Louise, I’m sorry.’

  ‘No, just forget it. I really made an effort for you tonight…’ She looked him up and down, focusing on the stained jeans and the tatty jumper he’d chosen to turn up in. ‘… it’s just a shame you didn’t.’

  As Louise paced up the road away from him, a glum Michael looked down at his embarrassing attire. Too ashamed to chase after her, he walked down the towpath towards his apartment. He carried his coat over his shoulder, punishing himself with the cold.

  En route, he questioned what he had witnessed that evening. He couldn’t fathom how Jackie had collated the information on her audience. Several notes were left in the bowl, but she hadn’t glimpsed inside any of them all evening.

  The revving of an engine caused Michael’s heart rate to pulsate. Across the water, a yellow Fiat flew through the air and dived into the canal. A panicked Michael rushed back up the stone steps to recruit help for the drowning driver. Silence met him on the empty street. Alone and unsure of how to help, he lifted out his mobile phone and dialled triple nine.

  ‘Cut!’ A beaming light poured down over the canal, exposing a beret-wearing figure sitting beside the water in a foldaway chair with the word Director chalked into the back of the seat. A dozen members of a television production crew slowly descended from the dark corners of a viaduct. A white transit van drove past with the production title Florizel Street stamped on the side. Relief overcame Michael; it was a soap opera, one of those which Suzanne used to insist on watching. They fre quently filmed in the area. A crane rotated over the canal and lowered into the water before lifting the vehicle out. Inside, the driver, coated in a wetsuit and an oxygen-mask to match, gave a thumbs-up to the director.

  ‘Illusion,’ Michael muttered to himself and smiled. ‘It was all an illusion.’

  And with that, he left the scene, confident that Jackie Wallace had used similar tactics to fool her
own audience. With his belief system restored, he strolled home to his apartment.

  A beer, a cigarette and a calm summer evening provided a tranquil escape for Michael. He absorbed the three luxuries on his balcony, gazing over the television production crew, who were packing away their equipment before returning to the studios around the corner. To his right, a lone cyclist glided across the towpath. He was reminded of the summers when he, Suzanne and Jason would ride along this particular path.

  ‘Don’t let him fall in, chicken,’ Suzanne said.

  ‘He’ll be fine, love,’ Michael reassured her. ‘He’s a smart lad, he knows what is and isn’t safe.’

  It was the belief in Jason’s good sense which led Michael to allow his only son to go and ride his bike outside alone that day. Suzanne was at her mother’s at the time looking after her sister, who had locked herself away in her room without food or water for two days. It was late July and Michael had been sweating away at home tiling their kitchen. Jason was getting in the way, asking for his dad to come and watch him play on his new computer game.

  ‘Haven’t you got any friends you can play with, mate? It’s a beautiful day, why don’t you go out and enjoy it while you can?’ Michael had suggested.

  And so he did. Concern for his wellbeing only hit home when Jason hadn’t reappeared for his dinner. He wasn’t a particularly truanting child but Michael assumed he’d got lost in a computer game with his friend, Toby. Glad of the peace and quiet, he carried on with the tiling.

  A knock at the door shortly after awoke Michael from his concentration. Two policemen stood at the door, informing him that his son had been involved in an accident and had died at the scene. Toby’s mum had heard a loud scream and the screech of wheels. She ran out, but the car had already disappeared before she managed to see Jason’s lifeless body on the road. She hadn’t got a good glimpse of the car, but a fellow neighbour had seen a car passing around the time of the accident which she said was blue and she believed to be a BMW.