I look at Mum. She’s staring at the tapes, still cradling her cup of tea.
‘Can we play them?’
She looks up at me. I can tell she’s thinking about it. She sighs. ‘I don’t know about that, Summer.’
I sigh. ‘Why not?’
Mum takes a sip of her tea. ‘I don’t know what’s on them yet.’
I roll my eyes. ‘Well, that’s sort of the point of listening to them.’
‘That’s not what I meant.’
I raise an eyebrow at her. I’m being patronised and I don’t like it.
‘What I mean is, I don’t know what’s on the tapes yet. And like your grandad said, it didn’t help your nan to deal with it any better.’
‘But –’
‘I think maybe I should listen to them first, at least one of them, before you do.’
I snort indignantly.
Mum puts her hand on mine. ‘I just don’t want you to hear something that’s going to upset you.’
I pull my hand from underneath Mum’s. ‘You are joking, aren’t you?’ I say, my voice raised, just about managing to stop myself from shouting.
Mum looks back at me, saying nothing.
‘Mum, I’m sixteen! I could move out of here if I wanted. I could go and get a job. I could get married. I could even have a baby!’
Mum sighs again. ‘I know, Summer. That doesn’t stop me from wanting to protect you though, from not wanting you to hear things that are going to upset you.’
I feel like I’m gonna explode. I can’t believe she’s treating me like this. Like a kid. I tut. I try and think before I say something I’m gonna regret. ‘So it’s OK if you hear it and get upset? But not if I do?’
Mum shifts in her seat. She looks away from me for a second. ‘No, I don’t mean that. I’m just –’
‘You’re treating me like a baby, that’s what you’re doing,’ I say. ‘I have just as much right as you to listen to those tapes. He was my dad. The tapes belonged to my nan.’
‘But, Summer –’
‘You even said it yourself, when Grandad wouldn’t let you have the tapes – Dad was related to us, so we should be able to hear them. You and me.’
Mum makes a face and sighs. She’s thinking hard. But she doesn’t say anything for ages.
‘Please.’
Silence. It seems to go on for ever until, finally, she says, ‘OK.’
I jump up from my seat and kiss her on the cheek.
‘On the condition that we listen to one together and then I make the decision whether you should hear the other. OK?’
I smile at her. ‘Deal.’
Johnny
I woke up this morning at exactly the same time as usual. I’d been dreaming about the Poisoned Dwarf again. We were in the graveyard. At least, I was. I was sitting on the bench, just about to kiss Summer, when the Poisoned Dwarf rose from a grave and went for me.
I had the same feeling as always, like I wasn’t alone in my room, but there was no one around. I was covered in sweat, but my room was freezing cold and the window was wide open. I put the light on and when my heart had slowed down a little and I’d managed to get the image of the Poisoned Dwarf’s corpse out of my mind, I just sat there for ages in my bed. To begin with, I stared into space as thoughts flew through my brain. Thoughts of the Poisoned Dwarf . . . Summer . . . Mikey and what he might know. But the thoughts flew so fast through my mind that I struggled to get a hold on any of them.
I was awake for hours. Gradually my thoughts stopped rushing and I could grab on to one thing and try and think it through. Not that I actually worked anything out. I mean, even when I managed to slow my thoughts, I was still confused.
I don’t know what Mikey knows – whether he knows as much as he makes out, or if he’s just trying to wind me up. And I don’t know much about Summer. I know I like her and I think she likes me. As for the Poisoned Dwarf . . . Well, I know that I feel guilty as hell. I know that I wish I had a time machine so I could go back and make sure that none of it ever happened. But that doesn’t help. There is no way to make it right. I doubt I’ll ever stop feeling the way I do now. I can’t imagine a time when I’ll feel anything other than overwhelming guilt. And that scares me.
Eventually the thoughts left my brain. I sat in bed, eyes wide open. And I did nothing but look and listen. At first it seemed like the house was silent, but the more I listened, the more I could hear. A clock ticking from downstairs that seemed to be telling me with every tick and tock that another second had passed and I was still wide awake. Sleep sounds came from my parents’ and Mikey’s rooms. Snores. Groans. The whoosh of cars out on the main road. The creaks of the house. I listened right through till I heard the electric buzz of a milk float coming down the road. I looked at the clock then. It was after five o’clock. I put out my light and went to sleep.
And I’ve only just woken up. It’s after midday. I can see from the way that the sun is pouring light upon the closed curtains that it’s a hot, sunny day out there. But it’s one that I’m not sure I want to be a part of. I feel like hiding away from the world.
Summer
‘There,’ Mum says as she finishes setting up her old cassette deck. She turns to me and smiles. ‘Now, are you sure you want to listen to this? It might be upsetting . . .’
‘Positive,’ I say, even though I feel totally nervous about what I’m gonna hear.
Mum presses play and then comes and sits on the sofa beside me, pulling a cushion up from behind her back and putting it on her lap.
My heartbeat quickens as the tape starts running – silence for a few seconds till there’s a loud clunking noise that makes me jump. Two voices start talking to each other, too muffled to work out what they’re saying. I can’t even work out whether the voices are male or female.
Then slowly the voices get clearer and I hear Nan. All she says is, ‘Yes, that’s right.’ She says it in a nervous voice. She sounds like she’s trying to sound posh – the same voice she always used for answering the phone. A shiver runs down my spine.
The tape goes quiet again. No voices. Just hissing and crackling.
‘OK, Jean. Now I’m going to try and contact the spirit world,’ says a voice. The medium, I s’pose. She has the kind of voice that should be working in customer service.
The noise of someone moving things around in the background fills the air. I try and work out what’s going on – it sounds like things being arranged on a table.
‘Jean, when I make contact with a spirit, I’ll go into a trance to allow the spirit to talk through me.’
‘OK.’
‘You’ll be perfectly safe.’
The tape hisses.
‘Are you happy to start, Jean?’
‘Yes,’ Nan says. Her voice still sounds weird and nervous. She’s lost the false poshness in her voice now.
There’s more silence.
And then, in this spooky voice that I think is probably staged, the medium says, ‘Spirit world, I have Jean Hornby here with me.’
Silence. I feel almost sick with nerves. Mum grabs hold of my hand.
‘Is there anybody there that has a message for her?’
No one says anything for what seems like ages. The tape hisses and crackles.
‘Hello? Is that you, Mum?’ a voice says. It sounds weird, like the medium is putting on a voice.
‘Yes,’ Nan says. She sounds completely terrified. ‘Who’s there?’
‘James,’ the voice says. I look at Mum. She smiles at me, but I feel terrified. She squeezes my hand.
‘Oh, James,’ Nan says. She sounds like she’s about to cry. ‘We miss you. How are you?’
No one speaks. I hear a few clunks and I wonder what they are; whether things are moving around the table on their own like in a horror movie, or whether someone’s just picking something up and putting it down.
‘Tell everyone I miss them,’ the voice says. Dad. The medium. A spirit. It’s confusing.
‘I will,’ Nan s
ays. And I’m sure that she’s crying now. She sounds almost too upset, too scared to talk. She sounds small and meek and hesitant.
There’s a silence. Just the tape noises.
But then the voice cuts in again. ‘I never really told you I love you.’
I hear Nan sniff. She doesn’t say anything for ages. ‘I love you too,’ she says eventually. ‘We argued too much. I wish I could go back and change it.’
A pause. The tape clicks as it plays.
‘Me too,’ the voice says. ‘We parted on bad terms. That was wrong.’
There’s a long silence. I look at Mum. She raises her eyebrows.
‘How’s the baby?’ the voice says.
It takes me a couple of seconds to realise which baby they mean. A lump appears in my throat. He must mean me. He must do. When this tape was made, I was a baby. He can’t mean anyone else.
‘Summer?’ Nan says. ‘She’s lovely. She’s a ray of sunshine. She’s just like you were as a baby.’
I want to cry. I don’t know what to think. Mum squeezes my hand again. I look over at her. She has tears in the corners of her eyes. She dabs them away with her free hand.
‘Sky’s growing up fast,’ Nan says. She still sounds nervous, like she’s struggling to keep it together. ‘She’s a little lady. You’d be proud of her.’
More silence. Mum takes her hand away to dry her eyes.
‘I’m sorry I’m not there for you all,’ Dad says. ‘I was selfish.’
And then it’s silent.
‘What do you mean? What happened that day, James?’ Nan says. She sounds more hesitant, more nervous than ever. ‘The accident?’
Silence. It stretches on for ages. My heart thumps. My palms are sweaty. Beside me Mum fidgets and I sense that she’s not sure whether I should hear this.
‘Accident?’ Dad says.
There’s a stunned silence on the tape and in our front room. I look at Mum. She avoids my eyes.
‘James? James?’
‘I’m sorry, Jean,’ the medium says. ‘I think we’ve lost James now.’
‘Oh,’ Nan says. She sounds shocked, deflated, empty. ‘Can’t you get him back? I want to know what he meant . . .’
There’s no answer from the medium. The tape hisses for a little longer before there’s a loud clunking noise, like someone switching the microphone off. Mum and me both sit there and listen for a couple of seconds, not sure whether it’s the end of the recording or not. Mum looks shocked. The tears are gone from her eyes. She looks like she wasn’t expecting that, like she doesn’t know how to deal with it. Which is just how I’m feeling.
‘Well . . .’ she says. Then she lets out a long, slow breath. ‘I think that’s your lot.’ Her expression is somewhere between a smile and a grimace, confused.
I sit on the sofa and try to take it all in. That wasn’t what I was expecting at all. I want to say something to Mum, but I don’t know what.
Mum shifts in her seat. I keep hoping that she’s gonna say something, but she doesn’t either. Instead she goes over to the tape deck and switches it off, takes the tape out. She walks to the coffee table and puts the cassette back in its box.
‘It was weird hearing Nan’s voice again,’ I say, because I can’t bear the silence any more.
Mum smiles sadly. She comes and sits on the sofa. ‘Yes. That was quite nice, wasn’t it?’
‘Kind of. It was horrible in a way as well,’ I say. ‘She sounded desperate.’
Mum nods. ‘You have to remember that she was devastated when your dad died. I mean, we all were. It was so sudden. But Jean took it really badly. She kept looking for a reason. And the truth is that there is no reason for what happened. It was just bad luck, bad timing.’
‘What did he mean when he said, “Accident?” like that though?’ I say.
Mum doesn’t say anything. She shrugs.
‘Do you think he meant it wasn’t actually an accident?’
Mum looks at me. ‘I don’t think it was your dad talking, Summer. Don’t read too much into it.’
‘But if it wasn’t Dad’s spirit talking, how did it know all the other stuff? About me and Sky?’
Mum sighs. ‘I’m sure your nan would have told the medium that sort of thing before she started the session. The medium was just telling her what she wanted to hear. Besides, even if that was your dad’s spirit on the tape, there was an inquest at the time. It was an unfortunate accident, nothing more sinister than that.’
Anger wells up in me. ‘How can you say that? It was Dad’s spirit.’
‘Listen, Summer. All I’m saying is that a lot of people think that mediums just use the information they’ve already been given to make it seem like a spirit is telling them something. What you heard probably had nothing to do with your dad.’
I feel so annoyed at her. And what makes it more annoying is that she could be right. I just don’t know what to think.
Johnny
I feel kind of nervous about this. The fact that it’s a date makes me nervous enough to start with, but more than that I’m worried about coming here, to the spiritualist church. What if the Poisoned Dwarf’s spirit turns up? I nearly texted Summer to change our plans. Nearly. But I didn’t, so here I am – clammy hands and all – leaning against the wall in front of the church.
I’m not gonna say anything at all in there. Even if a spirit shows up asking for Johnny, I’ll ignore it. That way I can’t give anything away. And if Summer asks why I said nothing, I’ll just pretend I was too scared to answer. No one’s gonna make me say anything I don’t want to.
I’ve been here ten minutes already waiting for Summer. My fault mainly, because I was early, but I see her hurrying down the street towards me.
‘Hey, Johnny,’ she says. She smiles and then as she gets close, she leans in and hugs me and gives me a kiss that I wasn’t expecting on the side of my face. ‘You been here long?’
I shake my head. ‘Just got here.’
Summer stands and looks at the church, and so do I. It doesn’t look much like a church, more like a factory or an office or something. You wouldn’t even know it was a church if it wasn’t for the tiny sign stuck on the building saying, Cottenham Spiritualist Church, and a poster advertising tonight.
The world famous Donald Howard, clairvoyant and psychic consultant, exemplifies life after death, communicates with loved ones and demonstrates his psychic gift
The first Tuesday of every month at 7.30 p.m.
Cottenham Spiritualist Church
Just reading the sign and seeing the picture of Donald Howard is enough to give me the creeps. He looks really smarmy and weird, like the people on TV that do this kind of stuff. He has a bald head, a long, white, braided goatee beard and scarily piercing ice-blue eyes. They must be contact lenses.
‘Shall we go in, then?’ Summer says.
Inside, there are ten or so rows of plastic chairs lined up in front of a small stage. There’s a microphone set up on stage and a small table with a tablecloth, some flowers and a crucifix on it. I guess that must be the altar. Above all this there’s a weird stained-glass window that looks like it’s made from double glazing.
Summer and I sit in the back row. Maybe from here I can just watch this weirdness, take it all in and not be noticed.
Summer puts her hand on my arm. ‘I feel nervous,’ she says. ‘Do you?’
I nod.
‘I’ve never done anything like this before.’
‘Me neither,’ I say. ‘I hope they don’t call up anyone I know.’
Summer laughs. ‘I hope they do call up someone I know. That’s the whole point!’
The seats around us start to fill up. We say nothing. I feel petrified. This was a bad idea. I think about making an excuse and going home. Then the crowd, or the congregation or whatever you call it, applauds as the guy from the poster, Donald Howard, walks up on to the stage. He’s tanned and dressed in a sharp, shiny suit but looks way older and wrinklier than on the poster. He smiles and waves at
the audience and then takes the microphone from the stand.
‘Thank you,’ he says, and then he holds his arms out wide as though he’s embracing the whole congregation. ‘Welcome to Cottenham Spiritualist Church. My name is Donald Howard. Tonight we will make contact with the deceased.’
He takes a few steps around the stage as the audience murmurs excitedly. He doesn’t look at the audience though. He’s concentrating really hard on something, like he’s trying to psych himself up. Maybe he’s started contacting the dead already. Who knows?
I look across at Summer, who smiles slightly. She seems nervous and excited.
Donald stops still in the middle of the stage. ‘It’s time to begin,’ he says. Suddenly the expression on his face changes to deadly serious. He looks upwards, as though to the spirit world. ‘OK,’ he goes on, ‘I have a connection . . .’
The hall goes silent. All I can hear for a second is my own heart thumping. Donald closes his eyes, holds his hands out and then stands absolutely still. After half a minute he starts moving again. He talks quietly, so I can’t hear what he’s saying. I think he’s talking to a spirit or something.
Eventually he looks back at the congregation. ‘I have someone who only wants to identify themselves as G,’ he says, staring at the audience.
There’s a murmur of excitement as people talk to each other.
‘G is a woman,’ Donald says. He looks into the audience again.
He’s silent and still for a while. He concentrates. He talks to the spirit so that no one else can make out what he’s saying.
‘G is looking for her great-niece,’ he says. ‘Is it a name beginning with T? Yes?’
Loads of people shake their heads and look at one another. I look at Summer. She raises her eyebrows and smiles. And then someone in the middle of the audience nervously puts her hand up.
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