‘What’s set her off then?’ Paul asks. He’s trying to sound sympathetic, but it’s sticking in his craw a bit.
‘I expect she’s blaming herself for what happened to Ben.’
‘How’s the fuck’s Laura to blame for Ben?’
‘Oh, a host of reasons. For telling us where the body was for a start. If it hadn’t been for her, he’d never have gone diving on that reef. And it was Laura who set the ball rolling in the first place, by introducing Ben to me, then taking him on at the salon.’
Paul hardly dares ask. ‘What salon’s that then?’
‘Salon Laura – above the café. I’m sorry, Paul. I assumed you knew. It’s a beauty salon for transvestites. Ben used to go there to help with the clothes. I don’t know the details – that was between the two of them – but I think Laura was teaching him deportment, how to put on make-up, that sort of thing. She’s something of a specialist.’
He takes a deep breath. ‘Go on.’
‘There’s nothing more to say, really. Laura was Ben’s friend, that’s all – probably one of the few really close friends he had.’
When he pulls up in front of the house, the curtains are drawn but there’s a light on upstairs. The doctor rings the doorbell, then pushes opens the letterbox to listen. Paul edges between a collection of overflowing plant pots to see if he can find a crack between the curtains – but all he can see is folds of red velvet.
‘I’ll nip round the back,’ he says. ‘See if the kitchen door’s unlocked.’
He takes a note of the number and trots along to the end of the terrace, then counts the houses back, like he used to when he was breaking and entering with the lads. Then he hoists himself up on a wheelie bin, and vaults over the wall down into the yard on the other side. Thirty seconds later he’s in. He turns the light on in the hall, then checks the lounge – red velvet all over the show, flowery this, lacy that, like a posh brothel – before letting the doc in through the front door.
‘There’s no one downstairs,’ he says. ‘Shall I look upstairs, or do you want to go first?’
‘Let’s go together, shall we?’
The whole of the upstairs stinks of alcohol and puke. Paul pushes open the door to the front bedroom. ‘She’s in here,’ he says.
The bedside lamp’s been knocked over and there’s spilt wine on the carpet. Laura’s on the floor, spread-eagled in a pink negligee. There’s a puddle of vom by her head.
‘Looks like she’s had a right skinful,’ he says, wrinkling his nose.
The doc kneels down and feels for a pulse. ‘She’s still alive, thank God. Laura? Laura, please try to wake up.’ She looks at him. ‘I think she’s unconscious.’
‘Do you want me to call an ambulance?
‘No, wait. I think she’s coming round. Laura? It’s me, Mary.’
‘Is that Dr Mary?’
‘Yes, Laura. Let’s get you sitting up, shall we? Mr Dixon, can you pass me that dressing-gown?’
‘Dr Mary, you’ve got to help me.’
‘That’s what I’m here for, darling.’
‘You’ve got to phone a ghost man for me.’
‘What ghost man?’
‘I need a ghost man to get him out of me.’
‘Get who out of you, Laura? What are you talking about?’
‘Evil spirit. In here.’ Laura thumps her own chest with her fist. ‘Tom’s evil spirit.’ She claws at herself, as if trying to rip her skin apart.
The doc turns to Paul. ‘I think she’s asking for an exorcist,’ she explains. ‘She seems to believe she’s possessed.’ Then, ‘Oh dear,’ she comments in dismay as Laura voms up another load on the carpet.
Rinsing out the cloth again and tipping the contents of another bucket down the bog, Paul wonders how he’s ended up in a trannie’s house in the middle of the night mopping up puke and talking about exorcists. They’ve got Laura washed and huddled on a chair in the red velvet sitting room, with a bowl handy in case she feels like hurling again. The doc’s got the coffee-maker going and he’s sorting out the upstairs. The doc tried to stop him, but he said he was used to it, with the ’prentice lads on the boat – there’s forever one of them seasick or pissed or something. And it’s something to do, isn’t it? Scrubbing at that pink carpet. Something to fill his head, fill his hands, stop him thinking for a few minutes. Stop it hurting so much; stop him blubbing; stop him fucking smashing something.
‘Mr Dixon!’ calls the doc from the bottom of the stairs. ‘Coffee’s ready if you want it.’
He looks at his watch: three o-fucking-clock in the morning. Twelve hours since he put in that mayday call. He swills out the bucket and comes downstairs. It looks like Laura’s perking up a bit; she’s got her hands round a flowery mug, sipping away – is everything pink in this bloody place? But the doc looks completely washed out.
He slumps on the other armchair and leans back, closing his eyes.
‘Do you believe in evil spirits?’ Laura’s asking the doc.
‘You know I don’t,’ says the doc. ‘I think that cases of so-called “spirit possession” are better understood as the intrusions of past-life personalities into a current incarnation.’
‘It’s just that I keep thinking that Tom’s in here somewhere.’ Laura thumps her chest again.
‘He is in there, Laura. But not like that, not as an alien entity that has to be punished or exorcized. You can’t exorcize him – he’s a part of you.’
Now Laura starts crying, he can hear her with his eyes closed, weird little gasping sobs, then the sound of her blowing into another of the doc’s hankies. ‘Would it help to know that it now seems likely that Tom wasn’t the one who killed Annie after all?’ asks the doc. ‘According to Mr Skipper, it was Flo who stabbed her.’
Paul opens his eyes a slit. Now what’s she on about? He’d almost forgotten about all that past-life crap.
‘Tom still shoved that poor lad overboard though, didn’t he?’ says Laura. ‘And raped Annie and got rid of the body. It’s still my fault that Ben’s dead.’
Suddenly Paul’s had enough. ‘Look, shut up about it being your fault, OK? How can it possibly be your fault? Ben’s known you for what? Four, five weeks? That’s fucking nothing. Nothing. I’ve known him his whole life!’ And now the tears are coming again, hot on his cheeks. ‘If anyone’s to blame for his death, it’s me. He asked me to go diving with him and I turned him down. It’s my fault he was down there on his own, not yours. It’s my fault he drowned.’
The doc’s pulled back the curtains and it’s fucking light outside. And when she nips out for a tab this great wave of birdsong comes crashing in through the front door to rub his nose in it. Paul feels like he’s been trapped in this frilly little overstuffed room for days; but every time he thinks about leaving, he pictures Ben helping out at the caff, Ben hiding his flowery knickers, Ben trying out all those different eyeshadows and wiping them off again before anyone can see. And he makes himself sit there with it – with him – for a bit longer.
‘So what kind of stroke was it?’ he asks when the doc comes back in. She’s been filling him in about old Skip.
‘He’s paralysed down his left side, but I think it’s probably temporary. He wanted me to let you know how sorry he is for taking Ben to the reef.’
‘Seems like everyone thinks it’s their fault,’ Paul comments. Then he gets up and puts on his jacket. ‘I’d better go and see him then, hadn’t I? Set the poor old sod straight about a few things.’
Chapter Sixty-Five
2007
On the way to the Preston Road cemetery, Mary stares out of the taxi window. The children have gone back to school. There they are, trailing along the streets in their uniforms, scuffing through the first of the autumn leaves, everything about them proclaiming their reluctance to return to captivity.
Ian’s gone on ahead; Paul’s given him permission to film the service, provided it’s just him in the chapel, ‘not that whole fucking circus’. Strange how we’ve all
cohered since Ben’s death, Mary reflects, as though our connection, as long as it lasts, will somehow keep the boy with us – though perhaps it’s not so strange when one comes to think about it.
The cemetery comes into view, a long wall she’d somehow never noticed before, and behind it: acres and acres of the dead of North Shields. Is Peggy buried here? How could she not be? And Tom and Lord Jim; Miss Turnbull, Dory and Henry; and Flo, pulled from the ruins of that terrible bombed factory with her daughters. And Sam. If she searched, would she find a gravestone for him too? Is there a pauper’s corner in this graveyard?
The taxi turns in through the entrance and drives slowly through the grounds, past roses, clipped box hedges, great trees towering over the graves, their roots creeping gently between ribs and into skull cavities, binding the living to the dead.
The chapel’s tiny – as a kindness to those with fewer mourners, perhaps – so it’s quite a squash to get everyone inside. And that’s a good thing, Mary thinks, watching fishermen shuffling along to make room for waitresses from Café Laura and boys from Ben’s football team at school.
Ian’s stationed himself at the end of the centre aisle, at the back with his camera. There’s music playing, some slow pop ballad Mary doesn’t recognize. When did that become acceptable, she wonders. Don’t people play hymns any more? Laura nudges her and whispers, ‘I chose this one. He used to have it on all the time at the salon.’
The vicar – Mary presumes it’s the vicar – starts to speak, then invites Paul to say a few words. Mary forces herself to gaze at the coffin: small and smothered with flowers, its size alone brings an ache to her throat. Swallowing hard, she closes her eyes and pictures the bodies inside: Ben’s stitched up after the post-mortem’s Y incision; Annie’s an untidy bundle of powdery bones in a new linen bag. Tears seep out between her eyelids and she reaches into her pocket for a clean hanky.
How would Ben have reacted, she wonders, if he’d been there the day they opened the kist. And seen those crumbling rags of old canvas, the fragments of skirt and shawl, that gossamer web of dark hair that dissolved almost as soon as they looked at it. If he’d seen Annie’s remains, would he still have insisted on a sex change? How might his journey have ended? Except the journey of a soul never ends, she knows that. He could be reincarnating again at this very moment.
Paul’s finished speaking now and is beckoning Laura to the front of the chapel. ‘I’ve told you all about the Ben that I knew, the Ben who made us proud. But there was another side to the lad that I never knew about – not until after he died, really. As soon as he could speak, Ben wanted to be a girl. He kept his feelings secret, but they never went away. And this summer, for the first time, he found someone to talk to about them. Laura, can you say something about the Ben that you knew?’
Mary exchanges a smile with Mr Skipper, beside her in his wheelchair – she can’t get used to calling him Mr Simpson – as Laura launches into a typically exaggerated account of her early encounters with Ben and their vain attempts to get Mary into the sea.
Then it’s Mary’s turn. She can feel Ian’s camera behind her as she squeezes out into the aisle and makes her way to the front of the chapel.
‘Most of you have probably heard that Ben’s is not the only death we’re mourning today, and his is not the only body in this coffin.’ She places a hand on the coffin; the blonde wood is warm to the touch. ‘Ben drowned trying to recover the remains of a young woman he believed he shared a soul with. Her name was Annie Milburn, and she died in 1898 at the age of sixteen.
‘Ben’s father has been kind enough – and open-minded enough – to allow Annie’s bones to be cremated with Ben’s body, and their ashes scattered together on the White Lady Reef, where her body was found.
‘Annie was a beautiful, ebullient young woman, who embraced life with unusual vigour and enthusiasm. It was almost as if she knew that it would be taken away from her. I believe it was Annie’s sheer love of life that charmed and ensnared Ben’s soul and made him want to be a girl. Ben once described himself as holding hands with Annie in his life, so it seems appropriate that they should be together again today.’
The post-funeral party was still in full swing at Paul’s flat when Mary slipped out. The combination of Laura’s food and Paul’s drink, and Ian darting around with his camera whirring, ensured that no one wanted to leave. Mr Skipper, still resolutely teetotal, was clutching a Diet Coke with his good hand and explaining the vagaries of lobster-trapping to a rapt audience of young footballers. Ben’s grandmother had backed Ian’s PA into a corner and was insisting drunkenly on the merits of a documentary about the knitting of traditional ganseys. Ian himself was being almost insufferably cock-a-hoop following the news that ‘the suits’ – whoever they are – had approved ‘the rushes’ – whatever they are – and had decided to commission the whole series.
And Paul and Laura – well, what can she say? Against all the odds, Paul and Laura would appear to have become – No, not friends. Not quite, not yet. But definitely on a road heading in that direction. Mary smiles. Amazing what cleaning up a bit of vomit will do to create a bonding experience.
If only Ben could have seen the two of them bumping into one another in the kitchen, jostling amiably over access to the oven, the sink, the fridge. If only he could have been there too. She can picture him arranging hot crostini and sausage rolls on plates, all pink cheeks and greasy fingers; then handing them round – that solemn determined expression he’d get on his face when he was concentrating. A familiar surge of grief washes through her. A few precious weeks, that’s all she’d had with him. A crash course in – what? Tenderness? Motherhood? Love?
Walking along the top bank to her house, Mary supposes she should have stayed to help with the clearing up. But once she’d said her piece at the cemetery, all she wanted to do was escape back to her quiet familiar world of books and clients and Italian coffee. And her thoughts about Ben. He had softened her somehow: made her less twiggish and snappy. More open; more hungry for experience.
She quickens her pace, energized suddenly. Her consulting room is waiting. At last, at last, she’s been allowed to open her curtains and reclaim her comfortable cluttered territory. Striding along in the sunshine, she makes a list in her mind of all the diverting activities she’s been denied these last few months: that intriguing new heap of books she has to review, the masochism paper she wants to write, that long-postponed visit to Karleen to explore Sam’s life and that of her other fisherman forebear.
In the distance a flotilla of little yachts is setting out from the sailing club at South Shields and scattering like confetti on the water. Perhaps I’ll join a sailing club, she thinks – and the idea amuses her so much that she laughs aloud. So Ben forced her to conquer her thalassaphobia after all, though not in the way he’d intended.
Her house hoves into view, a seagull perched on the cupola, and she quickens her pace. Yes: a double espresso and a pristine pad of lined A4, that’s what she wants. And solitude: precious, luxurious solitude.
The woman gets to her feet as Mary opens the gate. She’s pregnant, Mary notices at once. Probably not that far gone, but on such a slender frame the hard high bump is unmistakable.
‘Can I help you?’ Mary asks, only mildly irritated.
‘I am coming here for the room. There was advertisement in the paper.’
Damn, Mary thinks. She’d intended to cancel that advert. ‘How did you know where to come?’ she asks.
‘I am sorry?’ The woman looks confused.
‘The address. Who gave you my address?’
‘I telephoned the number and a lady told it to me.’
Damn, damn. Mary sighs with annoyance: this must be Laura’s doing.
‘I am sorry. This is a bad time, yes?’ The woman turns to go.
‘No, no. Please – sit down. Would you like a cup of something? Coffee? Tea?’
The woman sits down on the edge of the bench. She looks Asian – Indian, perhaps? ‘I was thinki
ng I will walk to see the house. Then I like it so much! So I am waiting here until you come home.’ She spreads her slim hands in apology. She reminds Mary of one of the housekeepers at that Ashram in Chennai. ‘I like the sea very much,’ the woman adds shyly. ‘I think the sea will be very good for my baby.’
Oh dear, Mary thinks. A baby. A lodger and a baby.
She sits down beside the woman and takes out her Gitanes. Then she puts them away again.
Damn.
Further Reading
Reincarnation
For latest research in this field, see recent editions of the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research and the Journal of Scientific Exploration.
12 Real Life Reincarnation Stories in the News: global evidence of reincarnation and past lives, ed. Richard Bullivant, Kindle edition, 2012
‘A critique of arguments offered against reincarnation’, by Robert Almeder, Journal of Scientific Exploration, vol. 11, 1997
An Introduction to Jungian Psychology, by Frieda Fordham, London: Penguin, 1953
Introduction to Buddhism: an explanation of the Buddhist way of life, by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, London: Tharpa, 1992
Life Before Life: a scientific investigation of children’s memories of previous lives, by Jim B. Tucker, London: Piatkus, 2006
Many Lives, Many Masters, by Brian L. Weiss, London: Piatkus, 1994
Mindsight: near death and out-of-body experiences in the blind, by Kenneth Ring and Sharon Cooper, New York: iUniverse, 2008
Old Souls: the scientific evidence for past lives, by Tom Shrouder, London: Simon and Schuster, 1999
On Life After Death, by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, Berkeley, CA: Celestial Arts, 2008
Only Love is Real: the story of soulmates reunited, by Brian Weiss, London: Piatkus, 1996
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