Shadow Music

by Elisabeth Rose

  The voice had spoken to her again but this time she wasn’t playing the music and she wasn’t meditating. This time she’d been kissing Gordon—and the voice didn’t like it.

  He’d said quite clearly and distinctly in her ear, as if he stood behind her, “Not him! He’s not the one.”

  Twenty minutes later Nina managed to struggle to her feet. She pulled the spare room door shut then stumbled to the kitchen to boil the jug. Gran’s remedy. Hot sweet tea. While that was boiling she went to the bathroom and doused her face with cold water.

  Clutching the mug, she went outside and sat where Gordon had been sitting, shaded from the increasingly hot sun by the overhanging branches of a tree from next door.

  She needed help. This was getting out of control. But who could help? That was the big question. Who could she go to with this sort of problem? A psychiatrist seemed the obvious answer but she didn’t fancy some stranger probing her innermost thoughts and feelings. At great expense so she’d heard. And they would probably put her on some sort of pills. Schizophrenia, that’s what they’d say. Hearing voices? Take two of these every day. Maybe they’d be right. Maybe she was schizophrenic.

  “I’m not mad!” Nina thumped her mug down. “I’ll ask Brett.”

  But she would have to wait until next week to see him. Unless she rang him at home. He’d told her to ask if she needed help and she did. She was desperate.

  His answering machine came on.

  “Brett. I’m sorry to bother you. It’s Nina Lee from Saturday morning class. I…could you call, please?…I have a…a…problem. It’s…hard to explain. Thanks.”

  She hung up and then had to call back and leave her number in case he didn’t have it in his class records. She pottered about half heartedly doing household chores. She hadn’t dusted in weeks and the bathroom definitely needed cleaning.

  The phone rang as she was putting rubber gloves on.

  “Hello sweetness.”

  “Dad! Hello. I’m so glad you called.”

  “Why? Something wrong?” His voice held instant concern.

  Nina swallowed. “No. I just haven’t seen you for ages, that’s all. Mum all right?”

  “She’s fine. We’re leaving tomorrow.”

  “Oh. So soon? I thought you were going in October.”

  “It is October,” he said. “What have you been up to Nina?” Suspiciously, only half-joking.

  “I don’t know, Dad. Working. Tai Chi. I’ve been playing my violin a lot lately.” That would please them, after all the money they’d spent on lessons, not to mention the emotional strain of making her keep practising.

  “Glad to hear it. I told you you’d thank us for it one day.” Thank them? Not the way she was feeling at the moment.

  “What made you start playing again?”

  “I don’t know. I found some old music at a fete. It looked interesting so I bought it. Dad, where does ‘this way madness’ come from?”

  Her father hesitated briefly as his mind coped with the abrupt switch of topics.

  “King Lear, I think. Look it up.”

  “King Lear. The mad king.”

  “Deranged by grief. Listen we’re leaving early tomorrow so we won’t see you before we go. We’ll keep in touch. Jason will be here on his own so it would be good if you looked in occasionally to check on him and see the house is still standing. Lucy will do the same.”

  “Dad, he’ll be fine. He’s not a little kid anymore.” They always treated him as if he were six instead of twenty-two.

  “I know, I know. Anyway, look after yourself, sweet.”

  “I will Dad. Have a wonderful time. Drive safely.”

  “I’ll put Mum on, now. Bye, we’ll be back for Christmas.”

  Nina listened while her mother gave a rundown on the detailed instructions she’d given Jason.

  “Mum, I’m not going to go over there and check on him every day.”

  “You don’t have to. Just call him every week and visit when you can.”

  “All right. Now don’t worry about him while you’re away. Enjoy yourselves. Send me a postcard from the Top End and watch out for crocodiles.” Nina grinned as her mother flapped some more and then finally hung up amidst a flurry of goodbyes.

  Telling them was an option she hadn’t even considered. They would have cancelled their long-awaited trip in an instant and had her booked into a shrink in no time flat.

  Brett rang her that night after dinner.

  “Nina? It’s Brett. How can I help?”

  “Thank you for calling. I don’t know if you can help but I didn’t know who else to ask…”

  “Is it about what happened in class that time?”

  “Sort of. I hear that voice quite a bit. I know that sounds crazy…but I don’t think I am…crazy, I mean.”

  He didn’t speak and she could almost hear him weighing up the odds of his having a loony on the line.

  “Is it only during Chi Kung or at other times?” He wasn’t giving anything away.

  “Mostly when I’m playing the violin. I play violin. I bought a piece of music. Old music and I hear the voice when I play and then sometimes during Chi Kung.”

  “Nina…I’m not a doctor and I wouldn’t presume to know exactly what is happening…have you seen a doctor?” He was tactfully avoiding saying psychiatrist, she could tell.

  “No. I know what you’re going to say and I understand. You think I’m imagining it. It’s all in my mind.”

  “Nina,” he interrupted, “it is all in your mind. Everything we think comes from our mind but it doesn’t mean it isn’t real to us. In Chi Kung we tap into our deepest thoughts and sometimes fears. The thing is to let them go. That’s the hard part, letting go of things.”

  “It’s as if he won’t let go of me.”

  “The voice?”

  “Yes.” Tears choked in her throat. “He wants me to keep playing the music.”

  “This might seem crazy to you but I think you should see a clairvoyant.”

  “A clairvoyant?”

  “Now you think I’m crazy.” He laughed lightly.

  “No, I don’t. I hadn’t thought of it that’s all.”

  “The Chi Kung we practise is for strengthening, relaxing and healing the body as well as calming and opening the mind. It’s a holistic approach, comes from martial arts training. Other systems deal only with the mind. There are a lot of forces at work here that I don’t pretend to understand. The ancients knew about them. Many cultures use trance and meditation to contact the spirit world. I’ve read about this in relation to China. There are descriptions in the literature dating back four thousand years. There were mediums, ‘wu’ they were called, and emperors often consulted them. They claimed to transmit advice from the spirits. Mediums still do it now. Channelling.”

  “But is it true? Real?”

  “Is what you’re experiencing real?” he countered.

  Nina sat deep in thought after her conversation with Brett. He’d been reassuring, had taken her seriously. It was true what he’d said. Psychics weren’t a modern New Age fad at all. She did an online search.

  There were lots of clairvoyants, many of them phone-in services but that didn’t appeal to her. Psychic advice over the phone had to be a scam. She had an image of a blousy, overweight woman with her hair in rollers, painting her toenails making herself a few extra dollars from home while her small children crawled around the floor and a baby screamed in the next room.

  She wanted to see someone face to face, to know who she was talking to. She didn’t think what she wanted could be done over the phone, not that she really had any idea what she wanted. To be told she wasn’t going mad, basically. She picked a number at random, someone called Serena close to where she lived and who gave palm, aura, and tarot readings amongst other things, past lives included.

  Serena answered, sounding reassuringly calm and rational. Nina made an appointment for Monday afternoon at four. She would tell her boss she had a doctor’s appointmen
t and he couldn’t fit her in any other time. Which was sort of true.

  ****

  Monday passed abysmally slowly. Rain started during the night and poured down all day. Nina’s feet were already soaked before she’d reached the end of her street on her way to the catch the morning ferry.

  “Great start to the week,” commented one of her fellow commuters dismally from under his black umbrella as they waited on the little dock. Nina nodded, clutching her own red umbrella with the wooden duck’s head handle.

  “At least the weekend was good.” She looked out at the grey expanse of harbour. Their ferry appeared through the rain, ploughing toward them over the greasy, pock-marked swell.

  “Yours may have been,” he said. “We had six eleven-year-olds sleeping over for my daughter’s birthday. Hardly slept a wink on Saturday night and then they were up at dawn running around giggling and carrying on.” He heaved a sigh and then laughed. “Could have been worse I suppose. It could have rained all weekend. I think that’d be my definition of hell—stuck in a small house with a bunch of overexcited eleven-year-olds in the rain.”

  Nina smiled and made appropriately sympathetic noises. What would he say if she told him about her weekend? Just the usual—practised the violin obsessively for hours, over and over on the same piece of music. Talked not only to myself but also to a voice in my head who not only talks to me but other people as well who I can’t hear but know are there…acted so weirdly my boyfriend stormed out telling me I’m crazy. Made an appointment to see a psychic who will probably tell me the voice is a past life seeping through into this one…yes, just the usual old run-of-the mill weekend.

  Nina gave a snort of laughter and the man looked at her curiously as the ferry hand ran the gang plank onto the dock.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I was just remembering some of my birthday parties at that age. Poor Mum.”

  He grinned. “I know. Parents must be mad.”

  And not just parents. They boarded the ferry.

  At work, Tien, her floor manager, sent her down to see Alistair, who regarded her suspiciously when she asked to leave early.

  “Seeing the doctor? Don’t look sick.”

  Alistair always spoke in shorthand, leaving out anything unnecessary. When she first started working in the store Nina had found him totally disconcerting but after two years she knew it was just his odd manner and not a personal attack. He lived alone and as far as any of them could tell didn’t have a life outside his CD store. She knew he was horribly embarrassed by anything personal and horrified by anything remotely connected with the intricate workings of a woman’s body.

  Nina strove not to take advantage of this but some of the other female staff members weren’t so scrupulous and rang in with “girl’s trouble” excuses on a regular basis. She hated herself for fibbing to him.

  “I’m not sick. It’s something personal, Alistair.”

  He held up his pudgy hand. “Stop!”

  “I’ll come in on Thursday night to make it up,” she offered. She hated staying for late night closing.

  He nodded. “Thursday. Good.”

  “Thanks, Alistair.” Nina smiled and was rewarded with a grin from his plump, kindly face. He fiddled with the buttons on his navy blue cardigan and then waved her away, running the other hand over his thinning, grey hair.

  She went back upstairs to the department she and Rolly shared with Tien. Classical, jazz and world music. Rolly was the jazz expert, she was supposed to look after classical and Tien was their manager.

  “What did he say?” asked Rolly.

  “It’s fine. I’m doing Thursday evening instead.”

  “You don’t have to do that. Get a doctor’s certificate.”

  “But I won’t have one, will I?” Nina picked up the phone which had just started ringing and turned her attention to the customer enquiry. Rolly gave her a surprised glance and continued sorting a new batch of CDs, putting one or two aside for his own purchase later on.

  Nina left in good time for her appointment with Madame Serena, as she dubbed her in her mind, although Serena went by the single name only. The address was in a suburban street. A housewife playing at being a psychic for a bit of pocket money? Nina began to have doubts. The fee wasn’t exorbitant but still, she felt like a sucker walking up to the ordinary looking front door in the rain and ringing the bell to pay for goodness knew what hocus pocus.

  The woman who opened the door reminded Nina of the middle-aged lady who did her mother’s hair. Plump, dark hair rolled neatly into a bun, pastel pink blouse tucked neatly into a grey skirt. Neat black pumps on her feet. Where were the crystals and silver jewellery and the flowing robes and scarves? Perhaps this was the wrong house.

  She opened her mouth to say she was sorry she’d made a mistake but the woman held out her hand and said, “I know, I’m not what you expected. I don’t need to be psychic to see that.” She laughed, a genuine, jolly laugh. “Put your brolly down there on the porch and come in. What a day!”

  Nina did as she was told and followed Serena into a room to the right of the front door. Cream-painted, small and cosy with Australian landscapes on the walls, a polished wood cabinet against the wall and a lamp shedding warm, yellow light onto a table covered with a green cloth. The matching green patterned curtains were drawn, blocking the traffic noise and the drab, grey light from outside. Two straight-backed chairs faced each other across the table and Serena indicated Nina should sit down. Dry mouthed and with a suddenly hollow middle, she did.

  “Now Nina. What can I do for you?” Serena settled herself and studied her face with an uncomfortably intense expression. “Something is troubling you, isn’t it?”

  She had decided not to say anything about the voice or the music. Serena should be able to tell her, if she was any good. Which Nina doubted very much.

  “I’d like to know what will happen to me.”

  “Your future? Something specific in mind. Marriage for example? Your work? Travel?”

  Nina nodded. “All of that.”

  If Serena saw that she was going to be in one place with no job and no prospect of marriage then her future looked pretty much as though she was in for a stretch in an institution of some sort.

  Again that intense scrutiny. She nodded. “All right. Do you have a preference? Which method?” she added when Nina looked blank. “Aura, palm, cards, astrological chart?”

  “Tarot cards maybe?” It was the first thing that sprang to mind.

  Serena smiled. “I thought you might say the cards.” She got up and took a black silk wrapped deck from the glass fronted cabinet behind her. She unwrapped them carefully and spread them before her, studying them before selecting one and putting it aside. An intricately detailed picture with a fascinating colour and design.

  “That’s the significator,” said Serena. “It represents you, the seeker.”

  She scooped the remaining cards up and began to shuffle them, reversing some during the process. Serena handed her the deck.

  “State your query. Or if you prefer, think it. It’s the cards who will answer, not me.”

  Nina took the cards in her hands and thought: What is happening to me? What will happen to me?

  Serena instructed her to cut the deck following her instructions and then reassembled it in reverse order. She put the significator down and then began laying out the cards following what was obviously a set pattern. Some familiar pictures appeared—The Lovers. She’d seen that in a James Bond movie. The one where he tricks the psychic by having a whole deck made up of the same card.

  Death. She gasped as the figure with the scythe appeared.

  “It doesn’t always indicate a death. The surrounding cards influence it.”

  Serena spoke as though she were mundanely discussing the pros and cons of a knitting pattern. When she’d laid out the appropriate number of cards, she studied them for some time before she spoke.

  “There is a mystery somewhere. I’m not sure what. It isn’t clea
r. But there is definitely a man in your life. Someone dark, tall. Young, like you. He has travelled from overseas. Love is certainly involved. And the past. Something…” A frown flitted across her benign features. “There is…trouble and…fear but great satisfaction and pleasure as well. You will be happy. You are a creative person and you must let that part of your personality shine through. You have been hiding it or subduing it. This card,” she pointed to Death, “indicates a death of the old and a new beginning.” Serena smiled. “See? A good fortune all told.”

  Nina smiled back uncertainly. Was Serena telling her everything? Somehow she thought not. “Is that all?”

  “More or less. Would you like more detail? Ask a more specific question.”

  Gordon? What would happen there? Serena wasn’t talking about him, he was a local boy, hadn’t ever been overseas.

  “What about a current love?”

  “There is no indication at present of an enduring relationship. Just the man from overseas. Tall, dark, and shall we assume handsome? It is not clear whether he is implicated in the love or whether it is someone else.” Again she paused, frowning slightly. “He will certainly have an effect upon you. You will have to have another reading after you meet him.”

  “Do you think I will? Meet him?” Was this her dream man she was talking about? Impossible.

  “The cards are never wrong. Take care, my dear. Follow your heart and be brave.”

  Nothing she said was completely false, nothing was impossible. Improbable maybe but not impossible. Had she provided answers? That remained to be seen but for now Nina paid Serena’s fee with a small sense of relief. Without realising it the woman had reassured her of her sanity.

  Nina picked up her red umbrella and went slowly down the steps into the rain. She still had the feeling Serena hadn’t told her everything the cards had portrayed. Maybe she did that with information she thought would be too upsetting to her clients. A mystery, she said.

  She was right about that. But lots of people had little mysteries in their lives, from where did I put my glasses to who stole my car. And as for the tall, dark, and handsome stranger from overseas…well that was standard gypsy fortune teller stuff.