by Neil Spring
Was it any wonder? Why should I have had any concern for what came after life when I had yet to live mine?
‘Darling, I appreciate this must be hard for you to understand,’ she said, ‘but all I ask is that you remain patient.’
I attempted to suppress my annoyance as we continued walking. ‘I am coming, aren’t I?’
‘Yes,’ she acknowledged, ‘but reluctantly. Sarah, I need you there in heart too.’ She came to a sudden halt next to a flower stall at the roadside, fixing me with eyes that were serious and sad.
‘Well, I’m sorry, but you have to admit these practices are in rather poor taste,’ I said solemnly. ‘The war has consumed far too many lives already. So many tragedies … But Mother, the guns are silent now. It’s done. It’s over. The world needs to move on – we need to move on.’
I couldn’t help the exasperation that had trickled into my voice. She was shaking her head, secure in the certainty of parental wisdom. ‘To move on, you have to have something to move on from. I know your father wasn’t always around when you were younger, and that when he was his moods changed like the weather. He was far from perfect, believe you me. But Sarah’ – she frowned – ‘he went to his grave loving you.’
‘Just because I haven’t put my life on hold, it doesn’t mean I never mourned for him.’
My father had meant the world to me. He was a terrifically busy man, one of the most highly respected barristers in west London. Work, for him, had been a matter of survival. I remembered him telling me, ‘Sarah, a wage in your pocket gives you freedom.’ It was he who empowered me with the confidence and self-esteem I had needed even to consider glamour modelling as a career. He had given the ultimate sacrifice to make us safe, and now, without him, the world was a far lonelier place.
‘I’ve mourned him twice,’ Mother said quietly. I looped my arm around her waist and squeezed tightly, reassuring her that we weren’t arguing. These conversations were becoming more and more difficult to negotiate without that happening.
‘I know you miss him,’ I said, watching her bottom lip tremble. It made me sad to see her looking suddenly so vulnerable. ‘But you’re living on your nerves, consulting with these quacks.’
She wasn’t a gullible woman. Indeed, I had always thought of her as reasonable and wise. So naturally I wanted to know why she persisted. Why now, after all these years?
‘What do you honestly hope to achieve? You know Father wouldn’t want you to live in sorrow, don’t you?’
‘Your father kept secrets.’
‘You mean during the war?’
‘I mean before the war. And I have a question for him – something I must know.’ Her voice juddered with the effort of holding back her tears.
I didn’t understand, just as I couldn’t understand why she had put so many of his photographs away, but I could pinpoint the day her obsession with the supernatural had begun. Just before the previous Christmas, late one evening, a stranger had appeared on our doorstep. I only caught a glimpse of him from the top of the stairs: his black hat and coat, his face, half shadowed, red raw from the cold. Whatever he said to Mother had driven her to slam the door in his face and then shut herself away in her bedroom. Since then, as often as two or three times a month, I would hear her through my bedroom wall – and in the dead of night – rummaging through the old boxes of letters and photographs she kept in the wardrobe, hear the snap of buckles as a trunk was opened then closed again once whatever had been removed and inspected was meticulously replaced.
‘You’re not to go in there,’ she had instructed. ‘Not under any circumstances. Understand?’
I had agreed, reluctantly, my puzzlement deepening until it bordered on suspicion. But I never disobeyed her injunction. Sometimes I saw Father in my memory, kneeling on the floor of his bedroom, examining something I couldn’t quite make out. Sometimes it seemed to me that he was crying. The image was too unsettling. I always pushed it away. Perhaps Mother was right. Perhaps I hadn’t acknowledged the pain of his passing.
Then a thought struck me, pulling me out of my reminiscence. She had said that Harry Price was a scientist. Given everything else I had learned about him, I had grave doubts that he would prove a rational man. But still … there was a chance, a very slim chance, that he might be – that this man of science might shine a light on her misplaced beliefs.
The hope prompted me to squeeze her hand with my support. ‘All right, Mother, I suppose this once it can’t do any harm.’
She smiled her gratitude and I consoled myself with the thought that I could not have dissuaded her from this. At least by coming with her I could ensure she was not drawn any deeper into the absurd practices of Spiritualism.
‘But one day,’ I added, ‘I’d like to you to tell me who it was who came to the house last Christmas. It’s important that I know what he said to you.’
She nodded. Smiled, but said nothing.
*
Arm in arm, we turned right into a short road lined on both sides by gleaming stucco Georgian townhouses with pillared entrances and wide, tall windows.
‘There it is,’ said Mother.
Just up ahead, the entrance to the Laboratory loomed into view, orange light pouring from the opening front door.
I drew in a breath as we joined the throng of other visitors.
There was no turning back now.
– 3 –
THE MAN WHO DID NOT BELIEVE IN GHOSTS
‘Nobody try to stop me!’ cried Harry Price from the front of the lecture room. And to the astonishment of all of us in the audience, he threw up his long arms, brandishing a glass beaker that flashed as it caught the beam of a spotlight.
I suppose, given his reputation, I had expected Price to be conventionally handsome, but the man before me was balding and rather stocky, his large ears balanced by bushy dark eyebrows curving towards a pronounced nose. And yet his eyes, wide and icy blue, twinkled with charisma and something about the way he held himself, straight and smart, exuded a commanding integrity that made a flush creep to my cheeks.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, I recovered this viscous substance less than a day ago from the body of a medium under my scrutiny. It quite literally oozed from her nose while she sat upstairs in my laboratory, in a deep, trance-like state.’
Sitting with Mother in the front row, my stomach turned at whatever was contained in the beaker: a gluey white substance which seemed to glow under the lights. It reminded me of mucous.
And then, to the amazement of everyone in the room, Price, with his white lab coat covering a poorly fitted brown flannel suit, raised the container to his wide mouth.
‘He’s going to drink it!’ someone behind us cried.
‘Wait!’ someone else exclaimed. ‘Mr Price, don’t!’
I looked back over my shoulder to see that the order had come from an elderly gentleman in a dusty tweed jacket sitting a few rows back. ‘You mustn’t drink that, sir, you simply mustn’t!’
‘What I am about to do is not dangerous,’ Price boomed back, his eyebrows shooting up, ‘but merely … experimental. True students of science must surely put their faith in open-mindedness?’
‘But that’s … ectoplasm!’ his critic retaliated. ‘No one has ever before attempted to ingest a spectral manifestation. Anything could happen!’
Price grinned. ‘Anything usually does.’
Horrified, I turned to Mother in disgust and complained, ‘What in heaven’s name have you brought us to – a freak show?’ And the fleeting look of worry in her face suggested that even she was out of her depth.
‘Hush, Sarah!’ she mumbled. ‘I’m sure Mr Price knows what he is doing.’
‘Do you know anything about this man?’ I demanded.
‘I know he hunts spirits,’ she answered. ‘That is why we came.’
‘Mr Price, I insist!’ continued his challenger. ‘Consider the consequences!’
‘The con-se-quen-ces …’ Price echoed. Up on the stage he had become as still
as a cat, his domed head glistening with sweat under the heat of the stage lamps. His gaze settled on me – only for a second – before fluttering away and moving over my shoulder to the man who had dared challenge him. ‘My dear sir, since the day I founded this institution, the first laboratory in Britain dedicated to the investigation of spiritualist phenomena, I have done nothing else but consider consequences … the effect of the astonishing claims that spiritualist mediums so wilfully drip into the ears of the recently bereaved.’
Moving to the centre of the stage he asked, ‘What comes after death? The Spiritualists, good men like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, will tell us that the human personality can survive death in this world and continue living in the next. And many gathered here this evening think that the evidence from seances, mediums and other such supernormal phenomena constitutes proof for this survival theory. That what we call ‘ghosts’ are in fact spiritual embodiments of the human personality.’
‘Yes, but what do you believe, Mr Price?’
‘I believe we must be careful not to let our emotions swamp our reason. These theories are entirely at odds with our understanding of the world. And science has ignored these issues.’ He flashed a sudden grin. ‘Until now.’
‘Mr Price – no!’
With horrified amazement I watched as Harry Price raised the beaker and its gelatinous substance to his lips.
And drank.
*
All those present were holding their breath and though we exchanged many questioning glances, no one spoke.
Price’s body had become perfectly still. Rigid. His eyes were firmly closed.
We waited. And he was worth waiting for, really he was – for here, I realised, was a man who had learned ways to intrigue and mystify, who in that brief moment in the cavernous rooms beneath number 16 Queensberry Place had quite captured our attention.
Suddenly his eyes blinked open. He lifted his head into the glow of the stage lamps and wiped the sleeve of his lab coat across his mouth. ‘You see?’ he said in a low voice. ‘I’m completely fine. And the medium who produced the substance I just ingested is here with us tonight!’
Dashing to the back of the stage, he hastily drew back a dark velvet curtain to reveal an enormously fat woman who was sitting motionless in what resembled an instrument of torture: a high-backed armchair with a wooden table on each side. She was around fifty, I guessed, but the blindfold wrapped around her wide face made this difficult to judge with certainty. Her hands were strapped to the arms of the chair and her slippered feet attached to wires which led to a single light bulb on the table to her right.
‘I call this contraption the electric chair,’ Price thundered, an untamed energy burning in his eyes. ‘Believe me when I say it is perfectly safe. The armchair to which Mrs Tandsworth is fastened is fitted with electrical contacts that cover her entire body. Should she attempt even the slightest movement to produce fraudulent phenomena, it will be indicated by the light bulb you see here.’
With practised purpose, he approached the table on the medium’s left side and retrieved two objects from a box on the floor – a trumpet and a tambourine. He held both instruments above his head for us to see before placing them far from the medium’s reach, at the opposite end of the table.
‘I’ve spent years learning mediums’ tricks and secrets,’ Price declared, ‘and I can assure you that in the hands of a trained magician, the man of science can become as impressionable as salt dough. That is why I decided in the first place that there ought to be a laboratory, equipped with the necessary scientific equipment, where men and women with open minds can test the mediums unhindered by preconceived prejudices, or’ – he paused, throwing the elderly gentleman a disapproving look – ‘emotional and religious influences. I must ask all of you now for silence, please.’
Drawing the curtain closed again, Price concealed the medium and the table with the instruments on her left side. The remaining table, with the light bulb on it, was left uncovered. A flick of a switch and we were plunged into near total darkness. A dim red light shone from the side of the stage, faintly illuminating the black curtain at the back. In the eerie gloom, Price’s form was just visible. As we waited for something to happen, I felt a chill in the air and shivered. Mother, whose face was pale and attentive, shifted nervously. Then the promised spectacle began.
*
The noise that signified the beginning of the demonstration was so unexpected I almost leapt out of my seat, as did many of the men sitting around me. We were, I might add, justifiably surprised, for despite the fact that the woman sitting behind the curtain was securely bound – we had all witnessed as much – and despite there being a clear distance between her and the inanimate musical instruments, it was the sound of a tambourine we now heard, jangling violently, urgently in the darkness. It was as if some unseen agency were in the room with us. An intelligence. Then came another sound, more alarming than the first.
‘The trumpet!’ someone behind me cried. ‘By Jove, something is playing the trumpet!’
But how could that be? And why wasn’t the light bulb to which the medium was connected lighting up? Surely she was doing this, wasn’t she?
Aglow in the dim red light, Price was smiling to himself, as if savouring a private joke. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he cried, sweeping back the curtain, ‘observe!’
The lights in the main hall slammed back on and more human sounds surrounded us: sharp intakes of breath, gasps of surprise.
To everyone’s audible amazement, the heavy-featured Mrs Tandsworth was still sitting motionless on the small stage just where Price had left her, her arms and hands still bound, her feet still visibly concealed by the slippers which were connected via wires to the light bulb. As for the tambourine and trumpet, the instruments lay undisturbed on the table just where Price had left them.
It’s a trick, I thought. Got to be a trick.
I looked around me to see rows of confused, transfixed faces staring back at Price. Turning his back, He concealed the medium for a second time, but no sooner had he done so than the tambourine hurled itself over the railed curtain, landing with a loud clang at the front of the stage. Mother jolted sharply in surprise, and one of the gentleman in the front row reeled backwards.
When Price drew the curtain again Mrs Tandsworth was still sitting limply, her face quite vacant, her hands and feet still apparently secure.
Mother’s mouth dropped open in astonishment. ‘See, Sarah,’ she whispered, ‘I told you.’
‘Spirits?’ Price cried incredulously. ‘Demons? Not a bit of it! Indeed the very same trick is performed almost nightly by the Great Houdini on the opposite side of the Atlantic. All Mrs Tands worth had to do was slip free her left hand – which is not connected to the electrical wiring system – and reach for the instruments you observed. A sharp tug on the bandage would restore the ties to their original place.
He beamed at us. ‘Isn’t that marvellous? Such a simple illusion. As so many illusions are. Which partly explains why … ladies and gentlemen I do not believe in ghosts!’
Sitting back in my chair I glanced from Mother, whose eyes were overflowing with disappointment, across to the row of gentlemen next to me. Their faces were shocked, some horrified. No wonder. These eminent paranormal researchers had, I imagined, witnessed many strange disorders of nature: encroachment of the supernatural into the ordered world, spirits that walked the earth, telepathy and the ability to move objects with the power of thought alone. But I doubted that many of them had anticipated that the great and enigmatic Harry Price, who had made the world of psychical research his own, would declare so publicly that he did not believe in ghosts.
Still centre stage, the man of the hour was smiling fully now – a wry, self-satisfied sort of smile that belied the stark simplicity of the statement he had just issued, as if he were privy to secret knowledge.
‘That is to say, ladies and gentlemen, I do not believe in ghosts … as the term is commonly understood.’
With the grandiloquence of a politician tipped for great things, he leaned forward, letting a moment pass as he gripped either side of the lectern. ‘When we speak of ghosts, we think of ephemeral and intangible figures that flit across the ill-lit stages of haunted houses, graveyards and suchlike. Of course I accept that people have reported seeing such things.’ He proceeded cautiously, moderating ever so subtly the tone of his voice. ‘The evidence comes to us from countries poles apart, from races civilised and savage, and from every period of history. Consider the legendary Spring Heeled Jack, once known as the Terror of London. One hundred years ago, sightings of the ghost were common all over our capital. People said he vaulted over walls and attacked young women with his claws. But what do these ghost stories actually mean?’ he continued, creasing his brow and raising his hands. ‘What exactly do they represent?’ He rapped his knuckles sharply on the lectern in front of him. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, what is the truth?’
Surprise and relief washed over me. So he wasn’t a charlatan after all. Far from it. He was asking us to be critical, to pay closer attention to the meaning of the term ‘ghost’.
‘I think it was Goethe who wanted “light, more light”. Let light shine upon that question – the greatest question – of our era. Let light bring us out of ignorance and furnish us with proof conclusive. My science, psychical research, has the capacity to do just that: to leave behind the cheap mummery of the seance room. This laboratory represents the beginning of a new age of discovery. On these premises the miracle-mongers can be tested and the genuine mediums – should we find any – encouraged. My Laboratory will answer, once and for all, the ancient question of immortality.’
There followed an uncomfortable silence. As I surveyed the audience of eager believers, I wondered if he had gone too far; whether his propensity towards showmanship betrayed an ego that might provide fodder for his critics. The thought hadn’t passed through my mind before suddenly, from the back of the room, an authoritative voice turned everyone’s heads.