by Tim McGregor
“From Greek mythology. She’s like this normal woman who one of the gods, Apollo, is hot for. He seduces her by promising to grant her the ability to see the future. But he pulls a fast one on her. He keeps his end of the bargain, bestowing the power of divination on her but screws her over in the fine print. She can see the future but no one will ever believe her. She’s dismissed as crazy by everyone to whom she foretells the future.”
That detail cut close to the bone. Billie thought of her mother. The small town psychic, derided and scorned as the local crazy woman. A twin edged blade, this gift slash curse.
“What happened to her? This Cassandra.”
“She predicts the fall of Troy but, of course, no one believes her. Not until it was too late anyway. She’s taken as a slave and later killed. Not exactly inspiring, is it?”
Traversing another ice-laden path, they hove up before the doors of the Doll House. Twin mannequins stood sentry in the display window, each decked out in cocktail dresses that were clearly the designs of the owner.
“No,” Billie agreed, pushing open the front door, its pane of glass fogging up on the interior side. “But it sets the tone for every psychic who came after her.”
The shop was was quiet, free of customers willing to venture out on a cold winter’s day. Tammy sat on the church pew set against the wall, mesmerized by her phone. She looked up when the bell rang.
“Happy Tuesday, ladies,” she said, sliding the phone into her back pocket. “I was starting to think you were a no-show.”
“We haven’t missed a Tuesday bitchfest since Jen opened,” Kaitlin said, stomping the snow from her boots on the mat. “That would be bad luck.”
“Jenny-fart!” Tammy hollered into the back room. “They’re here!”
“Be right there,” returned the shop owner’s voice, hidden behind the curtain of hanging beads. “Did you put out the glasses?”
“Yeah, yeah.” Tammy scooted around the front counter, digging for something under the cash register.
The arrivals tossed their heavy coats onto the pew, pulling the snow-dusted hats off from their heads.
“I saw the photos you did for that restaurant,” Kaitlin said. “Really nice.”
“Which one?” Tammy asked.
“The upscale taco place on King William. Nice work. What’s the food like?”
“The food’s awesome. We need to go there soon.” Tammy set four glasses on the counter top. Champagne flutes.
“What’s this for?” Billie asked.
“Jen has some news to spring on us. Something that called for a toast.”
Silent speculation ran amok between the three of them. Billie stole a glance at Kaitlin, saw trepidation in the young woman’s eyes. “Maybe she’s opening another shop,” she suggested, steering the conjecture to neutral shores.
“Or she’s knocked up,” Tammy chortled.
“Can you imagine?” Kaitlin said quietly. “God, what would you do?”
“It won’t be that,” Billie said, rubbing her hands together. “Jen’s life-plan has that scheduled when she’s 35. Not a day sooner.”
A trinkling sound of beads as Jen pushed through the curtain, her smile on full wattage. “I wouldn’t be celebrating if I was knocked up,” she said. “I’d be crying into my beer.”
“So what is it?”
Digging her thumbs against the cork, Jen popped open the bottle in her hand. “I’m getting hitched!”
The three ladies reacted with surprise and delight and disbelief. The proseco was spilt as the glasses were filled and then raised in a toast. Tight hugs, a few damp eyes, peels of congratulatory laughter.
“So what happened?” asked Billie. “How did Adam propose?”
“He didn’t really,” Jen stated. “We kind of just came to it together.”
“What?” Tammy’s sneer was biting. “Only you would take the fun out of it.”
“Screw you,” Jen said, clinking her glass against Tammy’s. “Adam brought it up and we just started talking it through. Planned the whole thing.”
“When did this happen?”
“Last Sunday. We came home after dinner with my parents. Adam had said something about how well-suited my folks are. Unlike his own, who barely tolerate one another now.”
“So when’s the big day?” Kaitlin asked quietly.
Billie kept one eye on her empathic friend, gauging her reaction to the happy news. Kaitlin maintained a mask of delight but the smile slipped a little whenever Jen wasn’t looking her way. Kaitlin’s own wedding plans had been scuttled just before Christmas. It was for the best, Kyle having proved himself to be an ass of the highest rank. Still, Billie mused, it must sting a little.
“June eleventh,” Jen beamed, her cheeks flushed. “At our house.”
“Your house?” Tammy spat. “Going the cheap route?”
“Going the practical route. It’ll be a small wedding, nothing extravagant. We can do most of it ourselves.”
Billie smelled a disaster. Jen was a master at everything, a multi-tasking, multi-talented wunderkind but a DIY wedding at home seemed too much, even for her. It was only six months away. Voicing her concerns now would just spoil the mood and besides, if she warned Jen that it would be a disaster, she’d be dismissed as crazy. Like Cassandra, foretelling the future but cursed to never be believed.
“Congratulations, Jen.” She took up the bottle and refilled her oldest friend’s glass. “To the happy couple.”
Kaitlin, raising her glass for the fourth clink within as many minutes, looked a little green around the gills.
“Mozel tov,” she said.
~
The shop in question was called the Treasure Trove, a cramped space of twee souvenirs for the summer tourist rubes. Garish T-shirts with ridiculous logos and tacky knick-knacks made of seashells. In the far corner, beyond the spinning racks of cheap postcards, lay the den of spiritual wisdom, occult lore and Celtic folklore. Presiding over all of it was a reedy man in a flowing white shirt with his hair cinched into a long ponytail. Some halfbreed mishmash between a swashbuckling pirate and New Age guru.
A toad, Gantry surmised, who liked to impress underage girls with his “knowledge” of mystical secrets. Gantry had seen his ilk before. A pretentious tosser, overly fond of his own intellect.
Running a third-rate souvenir shop, no less. Hannah had said the wanker’s name was Stefan. Christ, he looked like a Stefan, too.
The proprietor looked up from the computer screen when Gantry walked in. The shop was empty, parched for customers in the chilly off-season.
“Hello,” he said cheerily, this Stefan. “Anything I can help you with?”
Gantry spun the rack of tacky postcards. “Yeah. Where do you keep the kiddie porn section?”
Stefan pushed his wire-rimmed glasses back up his nose. “Excuse me?”
“Never mind, here it is.” Gantry crossed to the shelves of books against the wall. He plucked one from its perch and flashed the cover at the shopkeep. Divination Made Easy. “This the shite you use to get a leg up on the young girls, is it? Clever, that.”
Stefan, the reedy git, had the nerve to appear appalled. “Is this a joke? That’s a very sacred text you’re holding. If you’re interested in—”
The book sailed straight at the shopkeep’s head. Stefan ducked and the heavy paperback collided into a shelf of commemorative plates honouring the Queen.
“Oy!” Stefan poked his head back up. “Are you fucking mad? You’re paying for that!”
“Better run a tab then,” Gantry sneered. Snatching up The Erotic Art of the Occult, he hurled the book at the loathsome pony-tailed man. Next up came Druid Secrets, in hardback, fired hard as a fastball, smashing a set of commemorative plates honouring Prince Harry and William. Following that came Satanism: In Theory and Practise and Speaking to the Dead. Flung hard and fast, the missiles took out an entire shelf of plates, destroying the entire royal family chinaware.
Stefan proved to be as agile as a cat
, dodging the hurled merchandise as it came at him. Snatching his mobile from the counter, he stabbed at the buttons. “I’m calling the police!”
Gantry lunged at the creep, knocking him to the floor. The heel of his shoe slammed down hard on the wanker’s throat. Leaning his weight into it, he didn’t let up until Stefan’s face turned a sickly shade of purple.
The shopkeep sputtered for air, rolling onto his side.
“Eyes on me, son.” Gantry knelt over the man and twisted his face up to meet his. “Your days of sleazing your way into the knickers of underage girls is over. You have two options at this point. You can pack up your gear and get as far from here as you can. Or, you can spend the rest of your life as a eunuch. What’s it to be?”
Stefan coughed and stammered. “Fuck you!”
The blade was out fast. A cruel-looking straight razor, hinged on a shaft of pearl inlay. An instrument rarely seen outside of a barber’s shop. The leer on Gantry’s face was evil incarnate. “Bollocks is it, then.”
Realizing the madman was serious, Stefan became a flurry of flailing limbs, striking out against his attacker in an attempt to preserve his manhood. The intruder’s fist rained down, fast and devastating. Something crunched inside his nose and his vision went dark as his head dropped to the dirty floor. He had a vague sense of his slacks being heaved down to his knees.
Then the voice again. “Hold still now, Stefan. This is going to sting like hell, it is.”
A typical straight razor is kept keenly edged, sharpened against a leather strop. This blade had not been honed in a long while, its edge crusted with a little rust. Gantry made sure the prat got a good look at its nastiness before setting to work.
Stefan’s screams shrilled through the souvenir shop. The staid faces of the royal family looked on from the broken shards of china next to him.
Gantry stood up, flicking blood from the razor. The other man coiled into a ball, whimpering.
“Cut the crying, you stupid twat,” Gantry said. “I just nicked you a little. But if I ever see you in this town again, I’m coming back for the whole nutsack. Got it?”
Sobbing, Stefan vowed to do just that. Gantry gave him a hard boot, just to underline his point.
Hannah was in the kitchen when he returned to his sister’s home. Sitting cross-legged in a chair, a textbook on the table before her.
“Mum set a plate aside for you,” Hannah said as her uncle slipped out of his coat. “It’s on the counter. Where you been?”
“Out performing charitable acts.” Gantry rolled up his shirt sleeves, ran the faucet. “Where’s your mum?”
“In the sitting room,” Hannah replied, sarcasm lacing her tone. “Doing her homework in front of the telly, the hypocrite.”
“You’ll get your turn when you’re on your own, kiddo.”
“Is that blood?” she asked, watching him scrub his hands at the sink. “Did you cut yourself?”
“Nah. Gelding a pervert, is all.” He gave her a wink. “Got a bit messy.”
Hannah rolled her eyes, accustomed to her uncle’s outrageous lies.
Fetching the plate of leftovers from the counter, he leaned down to kiss the top of his niece’s hair. “Crack on,” he said, nodding at the textbook before her.
Connie was on the sofa, ignoring the sheaf of documents on her lap as she sat agog at the telly, her reading glasses in her hand.
“You won’t get anything done in front of the idiot box.” Gantry dropped into the seat beside her, the plate of cold supper in hand. “Isn’t that what mum always nannered at us?”
“Aye. I can still hear her clucking her teeth the way she did.” Fetching the remote, she lowered the volume. “Hanna said you two wasted the afternoon on the promenade?”
“We were gonna take a dip in the sea but we’d forgotten our swimsuits.” He tucked into the orange mash on the plate. “What is this?”
“Curry. Kevin’s night to cook.” Connie set the paperwork aside. “Hannah came home in a brilliant mood. Thank you.”
“You needn’t worry about the books in her closet,” he said, chewing. “Not what you think.”
Connie looked at him. “Are you sure?”
“I wouldn’t mention it, I were you. She’ll chuck them out when she’s ready. But yeah, it’s sorted.”
They watched the television in silence. Gantry scraped the plate clean, not realizing how hungry he had been. “I’ll be shoving off in the morning.”
“Already? You only just got here.”
His belly full, fatigue set in. “Got things to do.”
“Back across the pond? Hamilton, is it?”
“Swindon first. Then up north, to Norfolk.”
She looked at him again. “Swindon? You going to see Mr Orton?”
He set the plate onto the table but didn’t say anything.
“I changed your mind, did I? Good on you, then.”
It had been Hannah who had changed his mind but he let Connie assume what she would. Nothing big or earth-shattering, just the way the girl had asked the question. Is that what happened to Auntie Ellie? Something was left owing on the books between himself and Ellie’s father. Or it was Ellie who was owed, he didn’t know.
She touched his arm. “Want some tea?”
“Love some. Ta.”
“Make us one while you’re at it?”
~
The smell from the kitchen brought her round, opening one eye. Coffee brewing. Billie sat up and reluctantly pushed the duvet aside.
“Ray?”
Mockler appeared in the doorway. Shaved, dressed for work. “I was trying not to wake you.”
“S’okay.” She looked at the bedside clock, clumsily trying to do the math. Five hours sleep? “I wanted to see you before you left.”
They had missed each other again. He asleep when she got home from the bar, she asleep when he left for work in the morning.
He sat on the bed and folded an arm around her. She could smell his shaving cream.
“I’ve barely seen you in three days.” Billie leaned into him.
“What time did you get in last night?”
She covered her mouth, yawning. “Three? Three-thirty, maybe.”
“Go back to sleep. I’m just heading out.”
“Did you make coffee?”
“It’s in the thermos, so it would still be fresh when you got up.”
“You’re sweet.” She got to her feet, the floor was cold. “I gotta pee.”
He poured her a cup while she called out from the narrow bathroom. “Did you decide anything about that house?”
“Yeah. Cynthia’s putting in an offer this afternoon.”
“Yay!”
He laughed at her goofy cheer. Her humour was her own, odd and low-key and he had missed that over the last few days.
When she strode into the kitchen, he handed her the mug. “Listen, I ran that address you gave me through the database. Nothing showed up.”
“Really? There’s got to be something.”
“The database only goes back so far. I called the archives and put in a search for the property, but that’s gonna take a few days. Maybe a week.”
“Okay. Thank you.” Slinking her hands under his jacket, she pulled him close. “Call in sick. Come back to bed with me.”
“I can’t.”
He kissed her. She didn’t let go. Not all of him was saying no. “When’s your day off?”
“Monday.”
“Okay. You and I are spending all day together.”
“Deal.”
Another kiss and he was out the door. Something seemed to leave with him as the flat around her became still, quiet. She sipped her coffee, wondering if it would always be like this, the two of them constantly missing one another in their lopsided work schedules. Quick kisses and scraps of conversation until one of them had a day off. Still, if this was how it was to be, who was she to complain? Being with him made her happy, bottom line, and if that was relegated to nestling against him in bed
and five minutes of conversation together, so be it.
Over a simple breakfast of yogurt and fruit, her thoughts drifted back to last night’s announcement. It was really no surprise that Jen was getting married. She and Adam were solid and, although Adam could be a bit full of himself at times, she knew that he loved Jen dearly. It just seemed so weird, the idea of one of them crossing that line in the sand. None of them were kids anymore, time for adult stuff. Careers, marriage, mortgages, kids. Good god, kids.
Robin popped into her thoughts. Robin and her distracting nose-ring. Not much older than herself, a mother to a seven-year-old and another on the way. It was nigh impossible for Billie to imagine a life like that. She would call Robin today, see if there had been any change in the house. Or should she wait until she had more answers about the spirit infesting the house?
A crinkling sound behind her. Tom was watching her. He was always watching her. This time from the top of the fridge, in the narrow space among the empty vases and the blender she rarely used. He preferred high places where he could observe all like some watchman in a lonely tower. Poor Tom, her mute guardian angel, ghostly roommate, and not-too distant ancestor. What was he to her, a great-great-great uncle? Was that even the proper term?
Scrounging through the untidy mess on the small kitchen table, she gathered up both her phone and the scrap of paper where she had jotted down the name and number that Judith had given her. Earl, out in Waterford. A distant relation who might know some of the family history.
Billie looked up at Tom as she dialled. “Come down from there,” she said, nodding to the chair across the table. “Sit with me.”
His head swivelled to look at her. He blinked once but didn’t move, a stone gargoyle on the side of a church. Vigilant.
The call picked up. A man’s voice, gruff but cheery. “Hello?”
“Hi. Is this Earl?” When the man on the other end confirmed that it was, Billie continued. “My name’s Billie Culpepper. Judith Tremaine gave me your number. We’re, uh, related, actually.”
“Sybil?” said the man. “Sybil Culpepper, right?”
She straightened up, not expecting that. “That’s right. You might remember my aunt, Maggie.”