I don’t know whether to burst out laughing or tell her off.
‘Mum, what are you doing? What do you look like?’
My mum looks down at her unflattering smock.
‘Oh, this, I just thought it would be fun. God, Sammy, chill out a bit, love.’
Chill out a bit? Chill out a bit? My mother, who normally favours fashion that Margaret Thatcher would approve of, is dressed as if she is going to the Notting Hill Carnival and she wants me to chill out!
‘Uh-oh,’ I hear Ange say in my ear.
Uh-oh? Uh-oh? What do you mean, uh-oh? Ange just giggles to herself.
‘We’re just having a bit of fun, aren’t we Missy, man!’ my mum squeals as she sashays her way to the CD player and presses play again. I shake my head in disbelief as I take Missy from her. I sniff the air, which smells of incense, or at least I think it’s incense – oh my God, I hope my mother hasn’t been smoking dope. I wonder if Colin is having this effect on my mother. Or maybe she’s just decided to recapture her youth. Goodness knows. Since my dad passed away, my mother constantly surprises me.
Maybe that’s what it is – it’s a coping mechanism over my dad’s death. Yes, that’s what it must be. I mean, we all cope in different ways, don’t we? Mine was to slob out, eating too many Kit Kats and watch daytime TV for a year. My older brother, Paul, coped by waging a one-man war on the hospital that, as he says, “killed our dad”. My younger brother Matt’s way of coping was just not to talk about it – ever. Mum’s coping mechanism is obviously one of having fun and living life to the full, even if it does mean dressing up in ridiculous gear and shouting out boomchakawahwah every five minutes!
‘Come on, Sammy, get in the groove!’ my mum sings as she dances towards me in a funny fashion – yikes!
‘I’d love to, Mum,’ I shout above the music, ‘but I’ve got to get home. I’m on call tonight and I want to get Missy settled, and I have to phone Jack and sort out where we are going to have the reception.’
‘You do too much, Sammy. You need to chill a bit, man,’ my mother advises.
Yeah, OK, well, I think I’ll just be going now.
‘Oh well, I’ll just have to get Colin in the groove,’ my mum says as she twirls round and turns the CD player up more.
‘OK Mum, but don’t play that too loud. You don’t want Mr and Mrs Gale banging on the walls.’ God, I sound like my mother, or at least I would if I knew which planet she was on at the moment! ‘I love you!’ I shout as she turns the music up another notch and accompanies Bob to ‘One Love’.
As I walk back down the drive to my car with Missy in my arms saying thank God you came when you did, that woman’s bloody mad – or at least this is what she would be saying if cats could talk – Colin pulls up in the drive. I have to do a double take because in the passenger seat is someone who looks like his cousin Clive – his dead cousin Clive. They both wave to me and Colin winds down his window.
‘Evening Sammy, how are you? Haven’t seen you for a while, love.’
I look into the car. The only item in the passenger seat is a box of old military magazines. I really like Colin and he’s really come out of his quiet shell since he met my mother – I think my mother could persuade a snail out of its shell. He will never replace my dad and he would never want to; and despite looking like Jasper Carrott, he’s really very nice and seems to be keeping my mum grounded. Boy, is he going to get a shock when he walks in the house.
‘Oh, I’m fine, it’s my mother you need to worry about,’ I laugh, picturing Colin walking in to find my mother has suddenly become a fan of reggae music.
Between you and me I think they are a match made in heaven. Colin is good for my mum and I think she’s good for him.
‘Right then, must get on, things to do and all that,’ I say quickly, remembering that I have to work tonight.
‘Now then, young Missy, what’s the matter with you today?’ I pick up the bowl of salmon that Missy hasn’t touched and kiss her little pink nose. She mews and then rubs her head on my cheek. She’s not right, you know. ‘Maybe you’re coming down with something,’ I surmise. She responds with another mew, which I take to mean yes. ‘Well, let’s make you up a little bed on the sofa, and no more running off to see that fella of yours, young lady. I’ve told you before it won’t hurt him to wait around for you. If you keep chasing after him he will only take advantage of you. You mark my words,’ I advise like any good mother. ‘You know, your grandma’s right, you are getting a bit chubby, young lady.’
I momentarily wonder whether I will make a good mother. I can’t wait to marry Jack and make him a proud father. I think it’s even more important to Jack to have a family of his own because he’s never known what normal family life is like. Having spent the majority of his childhood in the one care home after another, Jack wants more than anything to be settled with a family of his own and I can’t wait until the day when I tell him we’re pregnant. Which reminds me: I must contact my brother Paul to see if he can find out some information about Jack’s family. Jack has no idea what happened to his parents and I think deep down he would like to know where his mum and dad are. Maybe I will be able to trace them in time for the wedding.
‘Of course you’ll make a good mother, Sammy Puddleduck,’ I hear my dad whisper in my ear. My stomach does one of those contented flips and I lie next to Missy, smoothing her silky tummy. Together we drift off to sleep for an hour before work begins again.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I took a total of forty-five calls last night and my head is hurting again this morning. I know I should be grateful for the work; I mean, if I hadn’t phoned Miracle in the first place, I wouldn’t be where I am today, but sometimes, particularly now, I wish I could just switch myself off from it all for a while. Jack and I still haven’t decided where we are going to have our wedding reception and every time I think about it, something else comes up. Take last night, for instance: I was finishing a call to a young woman who had phoned the psychic line to try and get some advice on whether or not she should quit her job and become a chef, when Ange warned me that she had a man in spirit for the next caller waiting to speak to me. Having already spoken to thirty odd people – some odder than others, I hasten to add – I had told Lynda our call centre manager that I wanted to wind the calls up for the night because I still had to phone Jack back.
‘Oh, please take the next call,’ Lynda said, ‘he seems pretty desperate.’
And desperate he was. The poor man was heartbroken at the death of his son and needed to know that he was alright. I could tell initially that he didn’t believe a word I was saying, but when I told him the exact spot where his son had died, what he was wearing and the circumstances surrounding his death, he was so pleased and couldn’t thank me enough. I guess calls like that are what make people like me stay in this job rather than do something a bit easier with more sociable working hours that would permit me to organise my wedding.
‘Why don’t we just get one of those wedding planners to organise it all? Or better still, why don’t you agree to getting that okeydokey magazine to cover it and get them to organise it all?’ Jack said, when I eventually got round to phoning him in the middle of the night.
‘No! I want to do this myself, Jack! And besides, your manager would kill you if we had a big media wedding. Think of how disappointed all your adoring fans will be,’ I laugh.
‘I just don’t want you to get so stressed out that you don’t enjoy your big day,’ Jack says. ‘Why don’t we just bugger off somewhere and do it quietly?’
‘Because, my darling, I hope I’m only going to do this once and I want it to be the best day of our lives. I don’t want to run off and have a quickie wedding. And besides, my mother would kill the pair of us!’
‘And how is the delectable Mrs Ball these days?’
‘Oh, you know, as mad as ever. I caught her listening to Bob Marley this evening. I think she’s finally cracked.’
‘If she was any decent futur
e mother-in-law she would be listening to my music.’ Jack laughs. ‘Look, don’t worry, it will be the best day of our lives.’
Yes, it will, if I have five minutes to spare to actually concentrate on it and a fiancée who wasn’t a rock and roll star and currently living in a hotel in London.
‘I want you to come home, Jack, I’m lonely,’ I whisper to him.
‘I want to come home too, baby. It won’t be long now. Another few weeks and we should have finished the first six tracks on the album. I tell you what, why don’t you come and see me on Friday? I’ve got the day off because the sound engineers just want to record the bass guitarist, so they don’t need me. We could go shopping in Covent Garden if you like,’ Jack tempts me. He knows how much I love Covent Garden.
‘I would love to, but I’ve got to go to Bristol to check out this nursing home for that psychic detective show for Living Today TV.’ All in a day’s work, hey?
To add to my stress levels the sound of that damn train whizzing round and round in the spare bedroom meant I didn’t sleep very well and I still can’t work out who it is that is trying to get my attention. I’ve tried asking Ange to find out, but she’s more concerned at the moment with when Kerry Katona is going to announce she’s getting married for the umpteenth time than with spooks in my house.
Still stiff from sleeping on the sofa the other night, I decide to go and pay Gem a visit for one of her cure-all miracle mixtures. As I walk down the hill towards her house/treatment room I notice Mr Brent in his garden. I stop for a moment, wondering what on earth he is doing. The dry stone wall that surrounds his garden has been covered with barbed wire and as I look closer Mr Brent is erecting a set of wooden stocks where his wishing well used to be.
‘Hello Mr Brent,’ I call out.
Mr Brent looks up and scowls at me.
‘This will keep the bastards out!’ he shouts back.
‘Yes,’ I say quickly, walking down the hill and into Gem’s gate – ouch!
‘Only me!’ I call out as I open the front door to Gem’s cottage. The smell in the cottage is wonderful. You only have to walk into Gem’s house and you’re cured, I’m sure of it.
‘Be with you in a minute!’ Gem calls out from the spare room that is her clinic.
‘Okay, I’ll wait in the lounge.’
It’s nice to have a new friend in my life. After the episode with Amy, who I had known practically all my life, I’ve been a bit wary of letting new people into my life, and even more so now that I have a whole new career that is in the media spotlight. I mean, it’s not every day that you’re chatting to someone new and they ask you what you do for a living and you have tell them that you’re a professional speaker to the dead, is it? And it takes a pretty open-minded person to accept that apart from talking to the dead, you’re really quite normal and not a complete nut job. Gem did just that. She doesn’t understand it all, but then neither do I, and I’m the one who hears voices all the time, but she does accept it, which is more than some I can think of. Like the ones who recognise me, take one look and run as fast as they can across the road, taking the chance that there is no traffic coming.
I make myself comfortable on Gem’s sofa and look around the room. The air is filled with the fragrance of lavender coming from a small oil burner on the coffee table. Black and white photographs adorn the otherwise plain white walls and I immediately recognise Gem with her husband Simon. They look so happy together. There’s one of them at their wedding; another of them on a beach somewhere hot and sunny. There’s a photo of Gem with her mum, standing outside a museum, and another of Simon looking incredibly smart in his uniform. As I pick up the picture and look at the handsome soldier, the image begins to fade before my eyes.
‘Right, sorry about that, Sam,’ Gem says as she comes into the living room. ‘I had to mix up a quick pick-me-up for Mrs Ashton down the road. She’s a bit of an odd one, I have to say, but she’s one of my regulars and always pays on time, unlike some I could mention.’
I quickly put the photo back in its place on the mantelpiece.
‘So, what can I do for you?’
‘Err, the magic potion for my aches and pains?’ I remind Gem.
‘Oh, of course, sorry, my head’s all over the place today. Must be the hormones,’ Gem laughs. ‘Come on, I’ll make it up for you now.’
I follow Gem into her clinic. It’s spotlessly clean and very white. The stainless steel shelves are awash with bottles of all shapes and sizes, full of delicious essential oils, and the smell is wonderful! I could sit in here all day and just sniff.
‘So, have you recovered from Halloween?’ Gem asks as she dispenses several secret ingredients known only to her into a small silver measuring jug.
‘I think so. I think everyone enjoyed it. Have you spoken to Mr Brent lately?’
‘No, why?’
‘Oh, nothing. I just saw him in his garden. He was acting a bit odd actually.’
‘Odd?’
‘Well, I mean, I don’t know him that well, but when I walked past just now I couldn’t help but notice that he’s put barbed wire all around his garden and is replacing the wishing well with wooden stocks. I mean, that’s a bit odd in anyone’s books, don’t you think?’
‘Maybe he’s just had enough of people walking all over his garden,’ Gem says, as she pokes her tongue out in careful concentration so that she doesn’t spill a drop.
‘Maybe.’
As Gem concentrates on adding single drops of rose oil to my magic solution, I notice the ghostly grey figure that I saw in the hall the other night and in the mirror yesterday, standing beside her. Who are you? I ask in my head. Show yourself to me. Please let me know who you are.
‘Oh, this is mine and Simon’s song!’ Gem suddenly says as Take That’s ‘Back For Good’ comes on the radio. ‘We had a Take That tribute band at our wedding – couldn’t afford the real thing, but they were really good.’
As Gem walks across the room to turn the music up, I notice that the shadow follows her. Who are you? And how are you connected to Gem?
All of a sudden the grey hazy shape begins to form into something recognisable. As Gem sings along with Gary, Mark, Robbie, Jason and the other one whose name always escapes me, I stare at the shape forming behind her. Slowly it forms into a human. A man. A handsome young man dressed in uniform. Oh, my God! Fuck, shit and bollocks. No! It’s Simon!
‘Oh my God,’ I whisper.
‘Want you back, want you back, want you back for good …’ Gem sings along to the music. The image of Simon puts his finger to his lips as if to tell me to keep quiet. I put my hand over my mouth as tears build up in my eyes.
‘She doesn’t know yet,’ Simon says, looking at Gem, who’s lost in her own little Take That world.
You mean?
‘I’m dead,’ Simon confirms. ‘I died three days ago. They set us up at a road block.’
No! This can’t be happening.
‘You know,’ Gem says, as she places a top on a brown glass bottle and shakes it vigorously, ‘it was so funny the night before we got married. Si was so wracked with nerves that he spent his stag night being sick and then passed out in the toilet.’ She laughs. I notice Simon smiling at the memory of it. ‘I thought he’d had too much to drink, when in fact he hadn’t touched a drop.’
‘Yeah, she gave me grief all morning. She went mental at me!’ Simon says. I can’t take all of this in. This cannot be happening. I look to where Simon is standing. His face is serious.
‘They will be coming to tell her soon,’ he whispers. ‘Tell her I am so sorry. All I wanted was for us to be a happy little family. Tell her I love her and I always will. I don’t want to be here, Sam. This is so unfair to Gemma. I will always be looking out for her and our baby boy.’
Oh God, no! Don’t go!
Simon’s image disappears as Gem spins round.
‘Here you go, sweetheart. Sam?’
I look at Gem.
‘Um …yes, sorry …um …’
‘Are you OK?’
‘Um … yes …no … I… I’ve got to go. I’m so sorry Gem,’ I say, as tears roll down my face. Gem looks at me with concern on her face.
As I leave Gem’s house a black car with blacked-out windows pulls up slowly and comes to a halt outside her house. I wait as I watch two officers in uniform, one male and one female, approach Gem’s front door. I collapse on the small lovers’ bench that Simon and Gem bought together to sit on in their garden, and I wait. I wait for the anguished cry to ring out. Sure enough it does.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
As I hold Gem in my arms and let her cry, I see Simon standing in the corner of her living room. I can barely look at him. The anguished look on his face says it all. As I hug Gem tightly to me, Simon walks toward us. He strokes the back of Gem’s long brown hair and kisses her head. Through sore red eyes Gem looks up at me.
‘You knew, didn’t you?’ she whispers.
‘I …’ I begin. What can I say? I didn’t know for sure that it was Simon trying to come through to Gem at the séance, but I knew it was Simon in the kitchen. I knew Simon had died three days before the army had sent their officers to tell his wife the bad news. Shit! I hate the fact that I knew Gem’s husband had died before she knew. I hate this. I hate it! I wish I never had this stupid, crappy gift or whatever they bloody call it! I wish I had never accepted the stupid job in the first place and had persevered in my search to cure vegetable fearing folk, instead of having to know when someone has died before their loved ones know.
‘When did you know?’
‘Not until today,’ I whisper. You would think that by now I would be used to this death thing, but I’m not. Not at all. It all seems so unfair and I am constantly asking the question, why? Why, when Gem and Simon had their whole lives ahead of them, was Simon suddenly taken away from her? Why, when Simon was about to become a father, was he suddenly snatched away? What did they ever do to deserve this?
‘Why Simon, Sam?’ Gem asks, as if reading my thoughts.
Oh Great, Now I Can See Dead People Page 8