by Beth Thomas
‘But isn’t that the entire reason we’re here?’ I get my feet under me and stand up. ‘I mean, what the hell was this all about, if not to find out where the fucker is?’
Julia flinches at my language and covers her ears, as if she doesn’t live in the twenty-first century. ‘Oh dear …’
Melissa is scowling now. ‘No, my love, thit is not why we’re here. If you thought thit, then maybe you shouldn’t have come.’
‘I didn’t know anything about it!’ I’m practically shouting now. ‘I wasn’t given the option of not coming. Believe me, Melissa, I would … not have come, if I’d known in advance what was going to happen.’ I glance at Matt. ‘Although you were extremely amusing.’
He touches his hand to an imaginary hat. ‘Why thank you, ma’am.’
Melissa’s serene demeanour is completely dissolving now, and she gets up angrily. ‘Ah don’t git what you thunk is so fanny.’ Her accent gets broader as she gets angrier. ‘Ah’ve connicted to spirut to hilp you in your loss, end ah’m only charging hahf price as ut was a cancellation …’
‘Oh, right. Now it all makes sense,’ Matt says expressively, standing up, and up, and up, in front of Melissa. She actually seems to shrink as he extends to full height before her.
‘No,’ she says quietly, ‘there’s no deciption here. Julia knows there’s a fee, don’t you love. She rang me, she booked me, ah haven’t done nothing wrong.’
‘Very telling,’ Matt says darkly. ‘Unlike your psychic ability.’
Max the baby is getting stressed at this point and starts to grizzle. Melissa bends down and deftly scoops him up, then bounces him a little on her shoulder. ‘Ah don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she says, gathering her things together. ‘Ah done what ah said ah’d do, no more, no liss. This isn’t an exict science, like ah sid, and clients do know thit you might not always git what you want to hear.’
‘I think you’d better leave.’ Matt’s voice is low and almost threatening.
‘All right, ah’ll go. But before ah do, don’t you want to hear what ah did pick up?’
There’s a sudden sense of someone pressing the ‘pause’ button. We all freeze. Even Max stops whinging. We all look at each other in silence for a brief moment. Then Max starts up again and the moment is gone.
‘Yes. Oh yes please.’
Matt and I look at each other, then turn to the voice. It’s Julia, of course, standing up from the sofa, wringing her hands together. She’s been so quiet, we’d kind of forgotten about her. Which is rotten, really, seeing as she’s footing the bill. ‘Please tell me. Please.’
Melissa draws herself up from her previous cringing position and beams around the room self-importantly. She approaches Julia and gently takes hold of her upper arms. I hold my breath. ‘Well Julia,’ she says, her voice irritatingly self-important, ‘ah’m so pleased to tell you thit ah was able to see, without any doubt at all, thit your son is still very much ulive.’
TEN
She announces it like some kind of declaration, as if she’s just decided to share with us the formula for turning lead into gold. I roll my eyes towards Matt and find him looking just as un-thunderstruck as I am. He catches my eye and raises one corner of his mouth in a half smile, then widens his eyes.
‘Wow, Melissa,’ he says, shaking his head, ‘thanks. I mean, that was great. Really, really impressive. Wasn’t she? Seriously, skills like that, you should be on telly.’ He takes two giant strides and arrives at the door to the hallway. He turns back to me. ‘Coming?’
‘Right behind you.’ I walk past Melissa’s flummoxed face as she struggles to get a grip on what’s just happened, but as I stride to the door, a sound from the sofa makes me stop and turn. Julia is there, staring at the floor, one hand on either side of her face, and her expression makes me stop where I am. At the door, I can just see Matt looking from me to Julia; and then he edges back into the room.
‘What is it?’
I don’t take my eyes from Julia’s face. ‘Not sure. Are you all right, Julia?’
She’s gone completely white, and has just made a small whimpering sound. She starts rocking, her hands still on her face. I sit down next to her and put my arm around her shoulder. She’s trembling. This isn’t quite what I was expecting. I mean, she’s just had what she must consider to be ‘proof’ that her beloved son is still alive (personally, the missing passport, car and curry were all it took to convince me), so surely she should be joyful? If anything, I would have expected a dance around the garden in bare feet singing ‘Stayin’ Alive’ or something. Looking at her now, she’s about ten Valiums past disappointed. ‘Julia? What is it?’ She doesn’t look up, just continues to stare at the floor and rock.
‘Well, ah gotta go,’ Melissa says, heading swiftly for the door.
Matt intercepts her. ‘Whoa, hold on a minute, you can’t just leave when she’s in this state.’
‘Why not? ’S nothing to do with me.’
I raise my head to face her. ‘It’s got everything to do with you! She was – well, I won’t say fine, but certainly more coherent than this – before your little charade, and now look at her. Doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to work out there must be a link.’
Melissa shrugs and hoists baby Max up a bit further. ‘’S not my problem if she cahn’t take the news, is ut?’
Matt gets right up close to her. ‘What do you mean?’
She steps back a little and coolly looks Matt up and down. ‘Well, sometimes the client doesn’t like what they hear. Stands to reason, doesn’t ut? You want news from the other sahd, sometimes ut’s not gonna be good. Ah can’t be held responsible for thit.’ She raises her free hand, palm up. ‘Ah’m just the missinger, right?’
Matt stares at her with narrowed eyes for several seconds. ‘What do you mean, not good? How can what you’ve said possibly not be good?’
Melissa shrugs. ‘Ah don’t claim to understand ut.’
‘Yes you do! That’s exactly what you do claim!’
She shakes her head. ‘Ah don’t. Ah just receive information and pass ut on. What ah hear and how they take ut us not my responsibility.’
He stares at her wordlessly for a moment, narrowing his eyes. ‘Typical necromancer.’
‘What …?’
‘Oh just leave, Melissa. Go on, get out of here.’
She doesn’t wait to be asked twice, but scuttles immediately behind Matt and out into the hallway. Seconds later we hear the front door bang.
I look up at Matt. ‘Typical necromancer? You met many?’
He shrugs. ‘Not personally, but I’ve seen lots of films about it. Summoning the dead all over the place without giving a thought to the consequences.’
‘Ah, right. I see.’ I give him a sarcastic nod, then turn my attention to Julia. She’s shaking her head now, and looks seriously displeased. ‘Are you all right, Julia?’
She looks up at me. ‘He’s alive, then.’
‘Yes, Julia,’ Matt says. He moves a bit nearer and puts a hand on her shoulder. ‘It’s good news, isn’t it?’
She stares at him for a few seconds. ‘You … you’re sure? He’s definitely …?’
‘Yes, according to Melissa, he’s definitely alive.’
I want to give him a nudge, to stop him being so absolute about it, getting her hopes up, just in case. But that’s ridiculous. He can be as firm about it as he wants, because Adam is definitely alive. He always has been. And then I’m hit by the extraordinary realisation that part of me wanted Matt not to be so definite about it. Does that mean I want Adam to be dead?
No, no, of course I don’t. Definitely not. No one would want that even for a casual acquaintance, let alone for someone they have loved and lived with for three years. So why would I try to preserve the possibility that he is?
‘But …?’ Julia is searching Matt’s face, looking for clues, perhaps, or trying to find answers. I can’t help wondering what answers she’s hoping to find there. Discreetly I angle my head to get
a better look at it myself. He’s got a nice firm jaw, a rough shadow starting to appear on it, dark eyes staring at her concernedly, hair flopping across his forehead. Yes, definitely a nice face – a very nice face – but no answers there really. I want to know what’s happened to Adam as much as she does – well, nearly as much – but even I know that Matt won’t know.
‘Julia,’ Matt says firmly, ‘what’s the matter?’
Her eyes stop searching and instantly still, narrowing as they focus on his eyes. Her lips thin and for a second she looks like she might be about to lunge towards his jugular. I want to yell, ‘Cover your throat!’
‘I’m not insane, you know,’ she hisses. Her voice is low and throaty. ‘It’s just a bit of a shock, or a surprise really. I mean, I hoped he was alive, of course I did. Who wouldn’t? I’m his mum, I looked after him every minute of every day for thirty years, now that’s a lifetime.’ She breaks eye contact at last, then starts fidgeting, as if she wants to move. Matt straightens up and moves to my side, and we both look down at the woman on the sofa. She’s glancing from side to side now, then around the room, at her lap, at the sofa, back to the floor, as if she’s lost something. I think it’s her marbles. ‘It’s just … Well, I’m just disappointed that Melissa couldn’t tell us any more about where he is, that’s all.’
It’s a blatant lie! I’m no Jeremy Kyle, but even I could spot that one. Her eye contact is all over the place, she’s rubbing her face, her tone of voice is almost … robotic. She’s annoyed, definitely, but not with Melissa.
‘Should we leave?’ I whisper to Matt. Neither of us can take our eyes off her.
‘Yes,’ he whispers back. ‘Definitely.’ But we don’t move.
Julia gets up now and walks straight to the dining table where she picks up a folded piece of paper lying there. She unfolds it and glances at it, then puts it roughly back on the table with a bang. ‘Fuck that!’ she exclaims, and I jerk in surprise. I’ve never heard her swear before, or anyone else while in her presence for that matter, so this feels like an electric shock. To hear this fragile lady in her dress and cardigan cursing like that is making me nervous. Next thing you know, there’ll be an article in the paper about a woman driven mad with grief butchering two visitors on the living room carpet. Except, she’s not mad with grief, is she? Because Adam is alive. She stomps away from us towards the other end of the room, and I take a resolute step towards the door. Matt notices and looks round at me smartly, then goes back to watching Julia. Obviously he’s more used to the prospect of being sliced like ham than I am.
‘Julia,’ he says, and I close my eyes briefly. Now he’s done it. I expect her to round on him with glowing red eyes, then come flying towards him with supernatural speed and tear him apart. Or am I thinking of The Exorcist?
‘Yes?’
‘Will you be OK? I mean, if Grace and I leave now.’
A brief frown flickers across her face. ‘Of course I’ll be OK. I’m not a child. I’m perfectly capable of continuing to live without you here.’
There’s a pause. Then Matt says, ‘I’ll take that as a “yes”.’ He looks at me. ‘Come on then.’
‘Right.’
We both march quickly out of the front door and get back into Matt’s car. Then we sit there in silence for a few moments. Eventually, Matt turns to me and we lock eyes.
‘Well,’ he says, his lips twitching. ‘That was awkward.’
‘Oh my God, I’m so sorry for dragging you into that, Matt. I honestly didn’t expect that to happen.’
He’s shaking his head. ‘No, no, don’t apologise. It was brilliant. I had a great time.’
‘You did?’
‘Hell yeah. I want to be there every single time you go to a psychic reading please. It was priceless.’
‘I wonder what the piece of paper on the table was.’
He shrugs. ‘I reckon that was Melissa’s bill.’
‘Oh, yes, I bet you’re right. Julia didn’t seem too happy with the service she got, did she?’
‘No she did not. Which is kind of not what I would expect, given that it sounded to me like good news.’
‘Mm, that’s what I thought.’ I shake my head. ‘Doesn’t make sense.’
Matt is staring at me. ‘Grace, it was a psychic reading. Of course it didn’t make sense.’
‘Well that’s true.’
We share a brief laugh, then lapse into silence. ‘Shall I take you home?’ he asks, starting the ignition.
‘Yes please. And thank you so much for helping me today. I genuinely could not have done all this without you. I’m just sorry it wasted your entire day off.’
He looks at me seriously. ‘It was the opposite of a waste.’ His voice has gone soft and low and meaningful, but I’m not sure what the meaning is. I smile, and he looks away.
‘Did you get the sense that Julia was a bit disappointed to hear that her beloved only son is alive?’ I ask him.
‘Mm, yes, it did seem like it, didn’t it?’
‘Weird.’
‘So weird.’ He takes me back to Mum and Dad’s and leaves me there pretty quickly as he’s working the night shift tonight. I watch his car driving away with a very odd sense of the end of a strange, surreal adventure.
But the adventure hasn’t come to an end at all. I spend the evening curled up snugly in an armchair in the living room with Mum and Lauren, watching Big Brother. I haven’t watched it for years – not Adam’s sort of thing at all – and it’s great. The armchair is new, a giant cream leather thing that I’ve never seen before, and I glance around the room and notice the new sofa, and new coffee table too. The walls are a different colour – very pale lilac, like the kitchen – and there’s a print on the wall of a huge flower in different shades of purple. It’s very pretty, very relaxing, and feels strange yet familiar in here. I remember reading on Google that lilac is a colour to relax to, so I do. It’s obvious that Mum and Lo have watched this series from the beginning as they’re full of comments like: ‘Oh bless her, she’s so naïve, isn’t she?’ and ‘Christ, he’s such a cock.’ But I’ve seen none of it.
‘That is marshmallow telly,’ Adam said, when I suggested watching it once, a couple of years ago. ‘Not only completely lacking in any nutritive value, but also actively detrimental to your brain. Your mind will switch off because it requires no activity whatsoever to partake of that dross. Avoid at all costs. Let’s watch a film – I’ve got The Dark Knight Rises.’
I sip my tea and relax with the fun of the programme and how entertaining it is. Later on, Ripper creeps into the room, low to the ground, trying not to be seen, and curls up on a sock that someone left on the floor. He stares warily at the space in front of him for a long time, but eventually he too is soothed by the lilac walls and chilled ambience, and falls asleep.
‘We’re leaving early tomorrow to go to Ikea,’ Mum says, standing up when the programme ends. Ripper is instantly up and out of the door. Mum watches him go with a fond smile, then turns back to me. ‘Fancy coming?’
Ikea. Where Adam and I used to go together. As a couple. ‘Oh, thanks, Mum. I’m not sure, though. I think I might bring you all down. Adam and I used to—’
‘Oh, that’s a shame,’ she cuts in, heading for the stairs. ‘Anyway, night night.’
I blink. Couldn’t go anyway; got a safe to find.
The next day is Saturday again. I wake up in a single bed in my old room at my parents’ house, like a cliché, but instead of rolling over and crying into my pillow before trudging around the house in my pyjamas eating ice cream for three weeks, I open my eyes wide and eagerly pull back the curtain by the bed to let the sunshine come flooding in. I’ve slept well, I’m relaxed and comfy, and I’m pleased that I enjoyed Big Brother so much last night. I didn’t expect to, thought I’d gone off it completely, seeing as it’s nothing more than mindless marshmallow that requires zero brain power, but I really did. As I pull the covers back and swing my legs over the side of the bed, I wonder with a thrilling
tingle what else could happen now.
The first thing to happen is that I have a root through my old clothes, loyally hanging there in my childhood wardrobe. Bright colours, shorts, skimpy vests, they’re all here. I get them out and lay them on the bed. They look like forbidden fruit.
‘I don’t know why you have these things,’ Adam’s voice comes back to me from three years ago. ‘They’re awful. Make you look so … I don’t know, unspecial. Like every other girl these days.’ He was helping me unpack my things into the flat when I’d moved in, three weeks after we’d first met, and was dangling a lovely pastel pink vest from River Island between his thumb and forefinger. ‘Do you even wear them?’
I had done. I used to wear them all the time. Ginge and I got quite a lot of attention in them. But when he said that, I looked at them differently. Yes, I could certainly agree that most girls my age were wearing things like these – it’s called a trend. Most girls my age were showing a lot of provocative flesh. Most girls my age liked the attention. But did I want to be like them? Did I want to be unspecial? I eyed the top, seeing it through his eyes, and realised that I probably did look pretty classless in it.
‘Oh, God, no, not that,’ I said, quickly, grabbing it from him and stuffing it into a black bin bag. ‘These are all things from when I was eighteen, nineteen.’ In went a couple more tops, several pairs of shorts, some miniskirts, crop tops and short summer dresses. ‘I’m older now, I don’t wear them any more. I’ll get rid of them.’
But I hadn’t binned them. I couldn’t. Instead, I’d dropped the sack into Mum’s one afternoon when Adam wasn’t with me, and Mum had apparently washed them, ironed them, and hung them all up for me. And I totally love her for it. Today, I’m wearing a pair of white shorts and a tight blue tee shirt, finished off with silver flip-flops. I give myself a grin in the wardrobe mirror – it’s great to see the old me – or rather, the young me – again.
‘I’m wearing skimpy clothes, Adam,’ I say out loud, looking around me at the air. ‘And, would you believe it, they don’t make me feel unspecial? Not at all.’ My reflection leans forward and whispers, ‘I think it was just you doing that.’