‘We’ll show them,’ she said with a reassuring, toothy smile and gave me a bear hug to show she meant it. And we did show them. We were the best bloody wise men a Nativity Play has ever seen and our improvised dance routine got a standing ovation, much to the head-teacher’s annoyance. We have been there for each other ever since – break-ups, make-ups, you name it, we have always been together.
In fact, it didn’t really surprise me that Amy had done so well since leaving college. I always knew she would. Amy wouldn’t just take up a hobby such as Karate; she would make it her mission to become the youngest person ever to get a black belt. Amy wouldn’t be satisfied with any old spotty oik; she would make sure that she got the school super-stud and then dump him, just because she could.
Being the best at everything wasn’t my ambition. I preferred to concentrate on one thing at a time. Whereas at 13, Amy was already plotting and planning as to how she was going to master world domination. Today McDonalds, tomorrow the world.
‘You’ve been talking to Jack then,’ I guess.
‘I certainly have!’ Amy shrieks. ‘So fill me in on all the details. I mean Sammy, hun, really! I leave you alone for a fortnight and you decide you no longer want to cure people of their veggie problems, you decide to become a professional psychic instead!’
Here we go again. If it’s not bad enough that Jack thinks I’m a sandwich short of a picnic, now Amy won’t let it drop either.
‘Well, seeing as I couldn’t find any carrot fearing clients and I have to pay the rent, unlike some of us …’ - Amy has already bought her own house thanks to a little help from one of her mother’s property developer boyfriends - ‘and a job is a job. I mean it’s not going to be forever and I did earn myself £337 last night. Not bad for listening to people bang on about their problems,’ I retort.
‘I think it’s brilliant, hun! So how do you do the psychic bit then?’ Amy asks.
‘What psychic bit?’
‘You know, the bit where you contact the dead,’ Amy says in a spooky voice.
‘Oh, I can’t contact the dead. I just make it up. You forget my dear that I spent three years in college learning how to read people. I’m trained to listen to people with problems and tell them what they want to hear. This way I earn enough money to pay all my bills without even leaving the house!’
‘Well, psychic Samantha, let me tell you something your crystal ball won’t tell you. I met this gorgeous guy out there called Kenzie. He’s tall, dark, and as if it couldn’t get any better, very, very handsome. And, you are not going to believe this Sam…he’s also a Scottish lord! Can you believe that? He’s bloody loaded Sam! Just think I could become a lordess!’
‘You mean a lady. Ooh, Lady Amy, has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?’
‘Lady Amy,’ Amy muses to herself, ‘of course he doesn’t boast about his money and his title. He’s much too cool for that. Oh, Sam he is just perfect.’
Amy proceeds to spend the next 45 minutes informing me of her new beau who apparently has two houses, one in London and the other in the middle of nowhere in the Scottish highlands and, according to Amy, her new fella is also sex on legs. Way too much information before I’ve even thought about breakfast and it only stands to remind me that I am still bloody single!
By the time I’ve made arrangements to meet Amy later and eventually get off the phone, it’s midday and I decide to combine breakfast and lunch by offering to take my mum out for both at a little café in town. I know that at some point soon Mum will bump into Amy or Jack, and it will only be a matter of time before she finds out what I’m currently doing for money and how I am actually able to pay for her chicken and pineapple Panini, with side salad. I’m going to have to tell her. I mean it’s not as though I’m a topless lap-dancer, is it?
‘You’re a what?’ my mum splutters out a pineapple chunk on her plate – how come people are always mid-munch when you tell them something shocking and you end up covered in second-hand food?
‘What do you mean you’re a phone psychic? I didn’t bring you up to be a psychic, Samantha!’ Mum says a bit too loudly for my liking.
‘Mum, shhhh will you?’ I whisper. ‘It’s only a temporary thing, until I find a proper job.’ I justify the reason why I’m about to send my mother into an epileptic fit. ‘And it does pay the rent.’ I add.
‘I told you I would give you money, Sammy. People are going to think you’re a right fruit-loop! I mean it’s all right for old Doris Stokes…’
‘She’s been dead for years, Mum.’
‘Exactly!’ My mum replies. No, I don’t fathom it either but I’m sure she thinks there’s some method in her madness. ‘And how is this…’ Mum can’t seem to get the words out of her mouth, ‘…occupation going to affect your future career as a psychologist? I mean if people think you’re already nuts, they’re hardly going to think you’re capable of making them better are they? Do you think it’s because of your dad, sweetie?’
‘Eh?’ What planet is my mother on today?
‘Look Sammy, grief affects us all in different ways. Perhaps you’re just trying to get closer to your father?’
‘Mum, I’m not trying to get closer to Dad; I’m not putting my future at risk; I’m simply doing something that will earn me money and quickly. You keep asking me if I have a job and besides it was you who brought me back a set of bloody tarot cards! You were the one who was into all of that mystical stuff.’
‘Yes, well I was just educating myself about different cultures and the cards I brought you back from India were only a memento, I didn’t think you would be taking up fortune telling as a career!’
‘It is not my career, Mum. Like I said, it pays the rent until I can find a more suitable job and besides it’s not that far removed from psychology. I mean the people who phone up these lines have real problems and I’m trained to deal with people who have problems. So it’s not that far off what I eventually want to do.’ I say. I’m getting a bit peed-off with all this negativity from all and sundry. I mean, they all keep on at me to get a job. I get a job which is not only interesting, but pays well, and all they can do is mock me or tell me it’s not good enough.
‘Well, I can’t say I’m over the moon about it, Sammy love.’
Really?
‘But if it’s only going to be temporary, then I guess it will be OK. It will tide you over for a bit but don’t you dare go playing around with any of those wiggly boards. They’re nothing but trouble.’
‘It’s a Ouija board, Mum, not a wiggly board,’
‘Oh and how do you know that? Oh Samantha, you’re not telling me…’
‘No Mum! God, you can be impossible sometimes,’ I huff again. What was supposed to be a nice brunch is turning out to be a big fat pain in the butt brunch.
‘Well, I don’t know what your father would make of all this. Not to mention Paul and Matt. The next thing you’ll be telling me that you’re one of those wicker people.’
‘Wiccan, Mum, not wicker!’
I daren’t tell her that Miracle had contacted Dad when I first phoned her. She would probably have choked to death on that pineapple chunk. Mum picks up a lettuce leaf and waves it dramatically in the air.
‘Do you know how many food miles this piece of lettuce has probably travelled?’
‘Eh?’ I look up from my jacket potato at Mum’s lifeless garnish.
‘Hundreds if not thousands,’ Mum adds in an authoritative manner. ‘I’m writing all about it in my new book – How Many Miles Has Your Food Travelled To Get To Your Plate?’
‘Oh right.’ I say, quite thankful that we are now off the subject of me, Doris Stokes, Ouija boards and what appears to be my dire career decision making and on to something Mum wants to talk about, meaning her attempts to become the female version of Alan Titchmarsh.
‘Did you also know that the tomatoes that you buy in the supermarket have probably been picked and packed by low-paid workers in Spain or somewhere as long as up to a month ago!’
Mum looks aghast, ‘and they have the cheek to call them fresh!’
‘Hmmm.’ I say and nod as though I care. Quite frankly, I’ve had just about enough of vegetables – I know strictly speaking a tomato is a fruit, but you know what I mean. I studied vegetables for three years; I don’t want to know anymore about them, thank you very much.
‘That’s what you should be doing, Sammy, writing a book, not messing around with all that silly fortune telling stuff. You could write one about people who don’t like vegetables. I’m sure there would be a market for it.’ Mum brightens up.
‘And who do you think is going to buy it, Mum? There are less than 3% of people who suffer from lachanophobia. I hardly think they are going to make it a bestseller do you?’
‘Well we’ve all got to start somewhere and it would make you more credible in the medical field.’ she adds.
I’m tired from lack of sleep and my mother is just making things worse. I thought at the very least she would be pleased that I was earning my own money regardless of what I was doing to earn it.
My mum has a good heart and I know she’s only worried about me, but she is also a bit of a traditionalist and anything that is slightly ‘out of the box’ is too much for her to cope with, which is rather ironic sometimes given the fact that she has travelled the world, seen different cultures and regards Margaret Thatcher as one of the most pioneering women to ever grace the planet.
Oh, well. I finish my cold jacket potato and make up an excuse that I have an application form to fill out for a psychiatric unit at the local hospital, which seems to make my mum happier. We kiss goodbye and I head for home.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Feeling as though I’d just told my mother that I am working as a prostitute, I decide to walk across town and see if Jack is taking one of his three-hour lunch breaks today. Fortunately for me he is, and I find him in the park playing air-guitar to his iPhone. He looks a complete loon. I chuckle as people; important looking people, in important looking suits, stare at Jack as if he must be someone who has just been let out to the community. Jack doesn’t care though. That’s what I like about him. Jack is just Jack and always will be. He won’t change for anyone.
‘I’m designed for life!’ Jack suddenly shouts out, obviously unaware of the fact that he is not actually at Wembley Arena, playing alongside the Manic Street Preachers, but in the middle of Bath’s Royal Victoria Park. Thankfully, today he is not wearing a dress and full pantomime dame make-up. Jack is in his favourite old blue jeans, which have more holes in them than a slice of Edam. To complete his carefully chosen outfit, he sets it off with a black T-shirt with the slogan If you were a shoe, what shoe would you be? I know, I don’t understand it either. But if I were a shoe, I guess I would be a pink fluffy slipper – fun, snuggly and utterly dependable. Jack has his black Oakley shades on and if you didn’t know any better, you would be forgiven for thinking he was in U2.
‘I’m designed for life!’ Jack shouts again and then suddenly smiles. I know he’s seen me beneath those shades. ‘Hey honey-bee! How you doing? You stalking me again?’ Jack shouts a little too loudly.
‘Take your earphones out!’ I yell back at him.
‘What? Can’t hear you? I’ve got me phones in! Oh right!’ Jack yells back and pops his earphones out. The tinny base thumps out in rhythmic beats. I thump Jack in the arm.
‘Ow! What’s that for?’ He protests.
‘One, for shouting out that I’m stalking you, and two, for scaring all the tourists away with your singing.’ I reply as link my arm into his. We sit down on a park bench.
‘Don’t you realise that our wonderful historical city relies on the tourists? It only survives on selling over-priced tat like miniature Roman soldiers to them you know.’
‘Humm, so to what do I owe this pleasure?’ Jack asks peering at me from beneath his shades.
‘I was in town meeting my mother – please don’t ask how it went – and thought you might just be skiving off from work again, so I thought I would drop by and find you.’
‘Skiving? Moi?’ Jack feigns hurt. ‘Actually I was just…’
‘Practising your routine for when you’re asked to play at Wembley, I know.’
‘What’s up then?’ Jack asks.
‘Why should there be anything up?’ I ask, ‘I just wanted to see you that’s all.’
‘Samantha,’ Jack looks over his shades again, ‘I know when there’s something wrong. You get that sullen look about you.’ He’s right of course. I do get a sullen look about me when something is up.
‘Me? No I’m fine. Really I am.’ I say, very unconvincingly, I might add.
Jack looks at me again.
‘It’s my mother, and Amy.’
‘Ahh, yes, I forgot to tell you I’d spoken to Amy. Sorry. I didn’t think she would ring you up and go on about it.’
‘Oh it’s not your fault. They haven’t said as much, but I know they both think I’m completely bonkers doing this fortune-telling job. My mother was mortified. You’d think I’d told her I was selling my body-parts on Ebay to pay the rent.’
‘Now there’s an idea. Can you survive with just one kidney?’
‘Yes you can, and no, I’m not that desperate. I just…’
‘Wanted a bit of respect? Just a little bit, ooo just a little bit!’ Jack says in his best Aretha Franklin impression.
‘Yes. Just for someone to say, well done, Sam. What with a year of being on the dole and the year before that losing my dad… All I wanted was someone to say…’
‘Well done, Sam,’ Jack whispers in my ear and smiles.
‘Yes. See that’s all I wanted to hear from someone. I don’t mind people taking the piss out of me, but at the end of the day, all I’m trying to do is earn a living just like anyone else. I bet you don’t get the piss taken out of you from your mates at work.’ I add.
‘Ah well, that’s actually because I have a really cool job.’ Jack smiles, ‘Ouch! Will you stop hitting me?’
‘No, because you deserve it and because you laughed at me. I’ll have you know that my job is a very cool job: I speak to dead people. On a level of coolness, I think you’ll find that comes high on the cool-o-meter. Well, I don’t actually speak to dead people, but I did speak to loads of very cool alive people last night.’ I add.
‘Oh yes and who were these very cool people phoning you at two o’clock in the morning? Masturbators Anonymous by any chance?’
‘No! Well I don’t think they were masturbating when they were talking to me.’ Oh crap, I hope they weren’t. ‘There were a few women who had been dumped by boyfriends, oh and a man who was having an affair but tried to convince me that it was his wife who was cheating! Can you believe it?’ I look shocked. ‘Oh, and my last call...well that was a bit strange. I had this elderly woman whose husband had died. You know I’m sure I recognised her voice…’
‘Maybe it was your mum?’ Jack smiles.
‘Yeah right. The woman who thinks that I’m making a living impersonating Doris Stokes.’
‘She’s dead isn’t she?’
‘Yes she is. Anyway, on the cool-job-factor scale I think I have the coolest job out of all of us.’
‘Ahh, but Amy does get as many free fries as she wants. That’s pretty cool.’
‘Good point, but they make you fat and spotty.’
‘And I do get you as many free CD’s as you want. That’s pretty cool.’
‘Yes but I can download them for free anyway. And I earned myself £337 in one night.’
‘Well in that case, I think you must have the coolest job then.’ Jack smiles and hugs me tight. ‘Take no notice of what other people think, kid. You keep at it and one of these days you’ll have your own hotline to old Doris. Oh shit!’ he jumps up, ‘I told Jerry I would be back to cover for him - he’s got a root canal this afternoon - I’ve got to go. I’ll text you later. Loves ya!.’
‘Loves me too!’ I shout as Jack jumps over a park bench and heads off back into the t
own centre with his air guitar.
Missy and me spend the afternoon cleaning the flat. Well, I say Missy and me, in fact it’s just me who cleans the flat. Missy spends most of the afternoon chasing a spider around the living room and cleaning her bum – you know that cat must have the cleanest bum in the world. Stupid spider. It should know by now not to come out of the bookcase when Missy is around. She likes nothing more than to hunt them down. And she does. One swipe with her paw and Incy Wincy will no longer be running up any drainpipes. Missy then spends her afternoon playing with its remains. I did warn that spider not to get too close.
With the flat gleaming like a Flash advert, I decide to have a quick bath before checking in for work. I think back to last night and the mysterious female caller who called so late. I’m sure I know her voice from somewhere, but can’t think where.
Seven o’clock soon comes round and I log in with Miracle to say that I am now available for work.
‘You did really well last night, Samantha. Did you enjoy it?’ Miracle asks.
Enjoy it? Well I don’t know if I would liken it to that word exactly. I mean, to me, enjoyable means pigging out on a family bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken whilst immersed in a romantic comedy, not listening to other people’s problems and thinking of an answer to make them happy. However, it wasn’t altogether an unpleasant experience.
‘Yes, lovely.’ I say.
‘Good, because we’ve got a busy night ahead of us. We always find that Wednesdays are the busiest nights. I guess people get depressed that it’s not quite the weekend, and decide to ring us.’ Miracle muses.
‘Really? I would have thought the weekends would be more busy’ I say. I have a bit of a theory about weekends. Psychology experts all agree that more people commit suicide on the weekends than any other time of the week. The reason being is that weekends give them time to think about things more deeply. They’re not rushing around at work or trying to beat the rush-hour traffic. They’re at home, often on their own, with time to think. I wonder if the Samaritans are busier at weekends.
Oh Great, Now I Can Hear Dead People: What Would You Do if You Could Suddenly Hear Real Dead People? Page 5