by K. C. Finn
“Well we locked him in the loo see, where it was pitch dark and he couldn’t talk to no-one, then we sent our mate Billy into the billet. Billy went round taking things out of everyone’s packs and cupboards and putting them in new places. Then we sent Billy away so he couldn’t give no hints and brought this spy fella back to the billet. He stood at the door and he told us everything that had just happened. He told us exactly where to find every object that Billy had moved, he told us how Billy had swapped some things over and changed his mind, then swapped them back. He told us all sorts of things. And Billy came back and said it was all true. Well if you can tell me how that’s possible, you’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din!”
Leighton sat scratching his chin thoughtfully and Idrys gave us a satisfied look. I knew, of course, exactly how it was possible. If you locked me up somewhere and had me tell you what Leighton had been up to all day, I’d be able to rattle off every action as though they’d been my own. What fascinated me was not the demonstration, but the fact that someone else out there had what I had, knew what I knew.
“Suppose it’s true that this friend of yours was psychic, Mr Pengelly,” I began carefully, “Did he tell you how he did it? What was his process to travel with his mind?”
“Ah, you’re a scientific one, are you?” Idrys said with what he thought was a knowing grin. Clearly he thought I didn’t believe him. “Well Kit, he told me and the boys that all he had to do was close his eyes and think.”
“Think about what?” I pressed.
“About where he wanted to go, or who he wanted to find,” Idrys answered.
“And was it easier to reach people he knew, but harder to find strangers?”
Idrys quirked a grey eyebrow at me. “That’s a funny question,” he said with amusement, “Are you thinking of trying it sometime?”
It was hard not to be flustered by the accusation, so I tried to laugh it off.
“I’m just interested,” I lied, “It’d be nice to think we have people who can spy in on the Germans now, in this war, wouldn’t it?”
“I wish I could do it,” Leighton said excitedly beside me, “I’d give all of Hitler’s secret plans to the Prime Minister!” I wished I could tell him that it wasn’t as simple as that.
***
Idrys moved on to his battle stories at the dinner table, which caused Blodwyn to groan regularly between bites of her roast. She only perked up when her Bampi told her how pretty she was looking. I was totally lost to my own thoughts as I chewed aimlessly on a piece of chicken at the far end of the table, wondering about the psychic spy of the Great War and his special skill. If it were true, then that meant other people out there could do what I could do. If it were false, then people who could pretend to be psychic were making a fool out of the military. But the military wanted them, needed them even, to gather their information.
It was silly to think that a girl like me could ever be of use in the grand scheme of the world war, but it was also quite possibly true. If I could hone my focus into people and places further away than just Leighton, there was a chance that I could actually be useful to someone. I thought back to the German man from my dream the night before and spoke without thinking, interrupting one of Blod’s little rants.
“Where’s Oslo?” I asked.
Blod shot me a stabbing look across the table. Idrys swallowed his mouthful of potatoes as he turned to look at me.
“Norway, love,” he answered, “It’s the capital city.”
“Why’d you ask Kit?” Mam said, shifting more vegetables into the available space on my plate.
“I, um, I heard it in a dream,” I answered, realising seconds later how stupid I sounded.
“That’s funny,” Mam remarked with a kind smile.
“Yeah, she’s a funny girl, isn’t she?” Blod added. She too was smiling, but not in the same way. The urge to slap people’s faces was apparently quite a popular one for me today.
Leighton started school again in the village the week after our arrival, so I was left in peace in the sitting room most mornings in order to practice propelling myself in the chair as the rotten Doctor Bickerstaff had ordered. But with the luxury of time without supervision all I could think of was Idrys’s tale of the psychic spy and the soldiers I had seen in my dream. If I was going to get back into the head of the German man talking about Oslo, I would have to stretch my mind a lot farther than it had ever deliberately travelled.
The first thing to practice was finding Mum. I had been able to do it with ease when we were at home, when she was in another room or even down the end of the street chin-wagging with the local gossip, but I had never attempted to reach her any farther afield than that. Now was the time to try. I raised my hands up for the heel of each palm to touch my forehead, my eyes slipping shut. Two big breaths. In and out and in and out. And I thought hard, thought of Mum and her short, curly hair the colour of autumn leaves, her eyes the same navy blue shade as mine, her smart brown hat with the pretty white bow that she wore to go out and about.
I opened my eyes to a familiar scene: Blackwell’s Post Office in East London. I could see my mother’s slim white hands holding a small stack of letters. She was waiting in a noisy little queue. I congratulated myself very quietly on a job well done. My gift had taken me all the way back to London, though it was still into a head that I already knew I could reach, it was something. Distance was possible.
“Hello Gail,” said a woman behind my mother in the bustling queue. She turned and through her eyes I was overjoyed to see the familiar sight of Anne, my mother’s childhood friend who lived not far from us.
“Oh Anne,” Mum said, giving the woman a hug with one hand whilst she clasped her letters in the other, “How are you dear? Did Bobby and John get off okay?”
“Yes everything was smooth as you like,” Anne replied with a smile, “They sent me a letter from Merthyr.”
“I thought they were going to the Rhondda something-or-other?” my mother pressed.
Anne waved a casual hand. “Oh there was a terrible mix up, too many kids in one place and not enough homes to put them in!”
“How awful,” Mum said. I thought the same thing.
“No harm done, the boys are all right with the new family. Have you heard from your two?”
As I felt a wave of disappointment wash over Mum, the crushing guilt grabbed me like those awful splints Bickerstaff had given me, except this time the hard boards were cramping around my heart. I hadn’t even thought to write to Mum yet, everything had been so busy here and I had set off on this new psychic mission without even thinking about her as more than a practice target. It made me feel a little sick.
Mum was trying to smile; I could feel the movement in her face. “I’m just sending them a letter now,” she said, indicting her pile of mail as the queue shifted forwards, “So I’m sure they’ll send me all their news then.”
Too right we would. I would make a point of sending pageloads to tell her how much we missed her and make sure Leighton did the same.
“I have heard from her doctor though,” Mum added, “He wrote as soon as he’d seen her the other day.”
I froze, hating Doctor Bickerstaff all the more for pipping me to the post with my own mother, especially before I could give her my own impression of him.
Anne asked the question that was on my mind. “And what did he say?”
Mum had reached the front of the postal queue. I waited in anguish for her to pay for her letters and get her change. She took Anne by the arm and guided her out of the post office before she spoke, so I spent every moment trying not to project any of my worries too close to her thoughts. The last thing I wanted her to do was catch my voice in her head. It was all right with Leighton, he had no clue what was going on when I injected a thought here and there, but Mum, I felt, would not handle my voice in her mind in quite the same way. When they were out on the street Mum and Anne stood browsing the postcard stand away from everyone else, where finally my mothe
r was willing to let slip the doctor’s verdict on me.
“Well, you know he’s a specialist don’t you?” Mum began.
Anne nodded. “That was the point of sending her to middle of nowhere, wasn’t it?”
Mum nodded too. “He’s a forward thinker, this Steven Bickerstaff, very brisk and proper on the phone, you know?” I could already imagine his emotionless tone talking to Mum. She would no doubt be impressed by it, thinking it ever so professional. “And he said…”
I could feel a strange warmth rising in her chest. Her heart was quivering just a little when she spoke, and I recognised the hotness building under her eyes. Anne looked quite concerned and took my mother’s arm.
“He said it might not be too late.”
Now I was concerned. Had it been too late for me already at some point that I wasn’t aware of? And too late how exactly? Too late for what? Was my nice old Doctor Baxendale really the idiot Bickerstaff claimed he was? Had he handed me a sentence that I didn’t have to serve?
“Well that’s wonderful!” Anne said, rubbing Mum’s arm. “Gail, why are you so upset? Isn’t this good news?”
“Of course it is,” Mum answered, fishing a tissue from her bag to dab her eyes, “He said he’s started her on a new treatment and this Mrs Price that’s got her is going to make her to stick to it, but-” Her voice collapsed there and her sadness overwhelmed me. It was a heavy kind of sorrow, like her heart was tied to a brick. “But it should be me there helping her,” she whispered, “I feel so helpless now I’m so far away.”
It was my turn to feel sad again, because I couldn’t tell her how close I really was. I contented myself that a speedy reply to her letter would have to suffice.
“But think of it this way,” Anne soothed, her kind face framed with blonde strands, “The next time you see her, she could be… well, she could be a lot fitter.”
“She could also be thirty the rate this war’s going,” Mum sobbed bitterly, “I wish they’d get on and clobber the Krauts so we can get back to normal.”
“But the longer she’s with that doctor, the better a chance she’s got,” Anne reminded her.
I didn’t agree. So far all Bickerstaff’s night splints had done were give me bruises behind the knees and inside the elbows that Mam had to cover up with make-up. If anything I was moving my joints even less than before. But my mother’s high hopes for me were not unfounded, especially if there was a way to put my real talents to good use.
Anne soon changed the subject of conversation to shake my mother from her guilt, and though it pained me to have to leave her I let my mind slip back towards Ty Gwyn until the connection was broken. When my eyes flickered open I found I was crying. As I rifled in my pockets to fetch a tissue my head ached terribly as it often did when I’d been visiting Mum. Even though the little brown sitting room was much darker than the other rooms of the house, the light streaming in through the small windows was far too bright. I closed my eyes, hearing my pulse in my head as the door opened gently.
“Oh dear,” Mam said as she rushed in from the door. She crouched in front of my chair and helped me dry my tears, rubbing my arms. She clearly thought I had been trying to propel myself in the chair. “Oh Kit, love, you mustn’t strain yourself. Only do what you can manage, eh?”
I just nodded, feeling as though my head was about to explode. What I could manage just wasn’t enough.
***
The whole Price family went to chapel in the village every Sunday, which was a strange experience for Leighton and me. We had both been christened Church of England, but Mum and Dad were never big chapelgoers except at Christmas and Easter. Mum always made us sit in front of the wireless and listen to something religious on a Sunday after breakfast, but that was a nice, peaceful affair. Sunday after breakfast at Ty Gwyn was something else entirely.
The routine started with Idrys arriving at eight o’clock in his best chapel attire and complaining that Mam was never ready when she said she would be. Mam was in her smart white chapel dress but she still had her apron on and half a dozen rollers curled into the back of her head. Every time she tried to go up to her room to finish getting ready, something would interrupt her, like Ness appearing with her socks on her hands instead of her feet, or Blodwyn storming through the house complaining that all of her stockings were laddered. Idrys watched the whole fiasco with amusement for about the first twenty minutes, until he realised that the family would actually be late for chapel if he didn’t do something soon.
At that point he disappeared with Ness and reappeared about five minutes later with her properly dressed, then wheeled me out in front of the door and set the little girl on my knee where she was quite happy to sit and discuss dolls. He then marched back into the house and let his booming voice loose on the remaining populous; promising them that if they didn’t assemble outside in five minutes flat, the preacher would condemn them all to Hell. The first time Idrys said it Leighton came running out of the huge door like a greyhound, standing next to me in his little powder blue waistcoat.
“I bet you don’t remember what church is like, do you?” I asked, “You didn’t even come with us last Easter.”
“Of course I do,” Leigh answered with a look of protest, “It’s a bunch of old people and boring stories and all the singing’s out of tune.”
He was right on two counts out of the three, but I did rather enjoy the hymns for a change. Most of them were in Welsh, which I think made God and faith sound a little more uplifting, but that might have been because I didn’t understand the words. The actual service itself was a dull one, but being in the little chapel did give me a chance to see the collected mass that was the rest of the village. Judging by the sizeable crowd, it seemed that Bryn Eira Bach was the kind of place where absolutely everybody went to chapel, so I was glad to be part of the experience.
That was until we were outside the chapel gate afterwards, when the familiar frame of Doctor Bickerstaff started approaching us. I was stood with Mam as she adjusted her hat against the bright autumn sun, so I saw him coming first. He caught my eye with a familiar look of disdain, his gaze extending to my elbows, at which I immediately crossed my arms. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing the badly-disguised bruises his contraptions had caused.
“Good morning Mrs Price,” he said as he stopped before her.
“Bore da, Doctor,” Mam replied happily, “Lovely service today wasn’t it?”
“Hmm,” Bickerstaff answered thoughtfully, “the preacher speaks well on the progress of man indeed. I actually came to check on some progress of my own.” His round blue eyes settled on me. “How are you doing with the new treatment, Catherine?”
Thankfully Mam’s exuberance spared me from having to answer him.
“Well we’ve had the splints on every night and not a word of complaint,” Mam began, “and she’s had time every day to practice moving herself around.”
Bickerstaff didn’t look impressed in the least. “In that case I look forward to seeing your progress on Friday,” he said.
“Friday?” I repeated.
“Your next appointment,” the doctor replied.
In her attempts to make me sound good to the doctor, Mam had dropped me smack bang in the centre of an awkward situation. The mornings I should have spent trying to strengthen my arms to move the chair had been reserved for stepping in and out of Mum’s head in London and Leighton’s at the village schoolhouse. I was surprised that Mam hadn’t noticed I was in exactly the same place where she’d put me every time she came back to the room. Or perhaps she had and she was just more sympathetic than the suited cretin now judging me at the chapel gate.
“Same time as before, isit?” Mam asked.
Bickerstaff nodded, which meant I had exactly 120 hours to learn how to move more than half an inch across the floor without having a heart attack. It was a much more daunting feat than learning to infiltrate war-torn Europe with my mind, that was for sure, but I would have to make a seriou
s go of it now before the doctor caught me out.
“Are we going then or what?” said a balshy voice approaching us. I twisted my neck to see Blod ambling down the cobbled path in her heels.
“Don’t be so rude in front of the doctor, Blodwyn,” Mam chided, and this time it was a proper chide, one with no amusement in her tone.
“It’s quite all right, I was just leaving.” The words came rushing out of Bickerstaff’s mouth faster than Leighton had moved when he thought he might be sent to Hell. He said good day to us all, put his head down and moved off at his usual brisk pace back towards his shiny white hospital car. I watched him go; already regretting that the next time I would see him was so close at hand.
“Honestly I can’t take you anywhere,” Mam grumbled at Blod, “Make yourself useful and push Kit back up to the house. It’s not fair us letting your Bampi do it both ways.”
Blod grumbled, contorting her pretty face into a dramatic frown. She gave me a nasty look and put her hands on her hips.
“What have you got a face on for?” she demanded.
I opted for honesty since I didn’t actually care what Blod thought of me.
