Even Stranger

by Marilyn Messik

  “If all goes well this evening, and you do what we hope you can,” said Rachael, “You might not even need to go back.”

  “Go back? Nobody said anything about going back.”

  “Well, let’s just see how things go, shall we. And for goodness sake, Stella, keep it low-key, the last thing we want is a fuss. We want her scared off, that’s all, but we want it done in such a way, that nobody else notices what’s happening.”

  “I think, what you’re forgetting.” I said, “Is that I’m not sixteen any more. I’ll decide what I might do, based on what happens, I won’t just go in and follow instructions. Clear?”

  “Crystal.” Murmured Rachael. I ignored the sarcasm and settled back in my seat, satisfied I’d had my say. I knew, from past experience, there was little point in pushing for more than they were prepared to tell me. Truth be told, as streetlamps flew swiftly past the window, and the van smoothly ate the miles, there was, within it, that blissfully intense silence I remembered so clearly from when I was last with them. Their ultra-efficient blanking of their thoughts, created a comfortable blanket for me too. I liked that. I didn’t want them to know how much, but of course, they probably did.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The sizeable crowd, heading into the hotel for the meeting that evening, was a mixed lot. As Glory had said, a surprising proportion of younger people, but also a lot of professionally suited types, men and women who looked as if they’d headed here, straight from the office. Bridging these two sections were small groups of enthusiastic, carefully-dressed, middle-aged ladies and I was intrigued to see how many of them, fan-like, had adopted the black and white Martha theme. There was an undeniable buzz – excitement, twinned with nervous trepidation, an almost religiously fervent enthusiasm and the stomach-tightening anticipation that goes with any kind of performance.

  Ed had navigated slowly up the winding hotel drive, the route minimally lit by intermittent globes, fixed to the trunks of some of the trees along the way. A golf course and wooded areas on either side of the drive were untroubled by our headlights. He hadn’t uttered a word, the entire journey, but now muttered, that once past the main hotel entrance, there was an additional service road, utilised by delivery trucks during the day. It ran from the side of the hotel and back down to the main road, winding round a large lake in the grounds. It was along here, he planned to park and wait – the meeting was scheduled to start at 7.30 and finish at 9.00 – before picking me up again. It seemed a bit daft to me, that they’d want to hang around in the van for that long, but if that’s what they’d decided, I knew the uselessness of questions.

  Meet Martha was impressively and efficiently organised. Prominent, in the middle of the marble-tiled, log-fired foyer of the hotel, was an alarmingly, larger than life, cardboard cut-out of the woman herself. She wore her trademark black and white, plus an enigmatic smile and one cardboard arm was helpfully outstretched, indicating which direction we should take to the meeting.

  Planted next to the rather startling, cardboard Martha, and looking almost as smart, although somewhat less welcoming, was a solid, dinner-jacketed individual, nearly as broad as he was tall. He was checking tickets carefully and, despite the outfit, looked slightly intimidating and singularly out of place in the luxurious setting. I assumed he was there to guarantee no unsavoury elements infiltrated. I did my level best to look as non-unsavoury as possible, showed my ticket, was waved forward and followed others along a dark-wood, panelled corridor, politely careful not to tread on each other’s heels, as we moved into a comfortably fire-lit, library area.

  Here, from behind a table, two flushed-with-importance, middle aged ladies, in black T shirts, white lettered ‘Martha Vee Sees!’ across their bosoms, were doing brisk business with pre-signed, £20 books from a glossy, rapidly diminishing pile. These were being handed, to over-excited purchasers, in smart black and white canvas bags, emblazoned with yet another Martha picture, the woman was certainly no shrinking violet. I stepped round the book queue to where, at the far end of the library, tea and coffee were being served – unlike the books, these were with Martha’s compliments. Out of interest, I tried to do a swift assessment in my head, of the number of people I could see, multiplied by ticket prices, added to book sales, but not being Kitty, failed miserably and gave up. However, I didn’t need totals to see it mounting up nicely.

  As the now truly hyped and buzzing crowd began to shuffle onwards from the refreshment area, there was another cardboard Martha on standby, rigid arm again, indisputably indicating our route down a further corridor to a sizeable, double-doored conference room. Chairs grouped to the right and left of a central aisle faced a small raised stage with flip-chart and side-table, very much as Glory had shown me previously. To the right of these, was yet another cut-out – she must have gone for a job lot – but there was no denying they were astonishingly effective, a ubiquitous presence, before we’d even clapped eyes on the real thing.

  I found myself a chair at the end of a row, not too far from the front. Whilst there were a fair number of others like me, on their own, many people had come in couples or groups and the conversational hum rose busily, fell and surged again, against a background of soft harp music, as seats were found and belongings stowed. Lavishly large, fresh flower displays, were pedestalled at intervals along both sides of the room, the scent heady, heightening as the crowd grew and the temperature rose.

  With rows filling up, people were having to look harder for seats. I caught the eye of a frazzled- looking woman, marooned in the centre aisle, she raised her eyebrows and pointed, were the seats next to me taken? I shook my head and smiled, holding up two fingers (in a polite way). She promptly grabbed the hand of the teenager with her, pulling her along and excusing themselves as they edged clumsily past already-seated others. She flopped down heavily with a sigh of relief, giving off a hefty waft of Estee Lauder Youth Dew, which blended, in a slightly sickly way, with the scent of the lilies in a vase on my other side.

  “Phew.” she said, “Starting to think, we’d have to sit separately. You OK Frank?” She turned to the girl, black-clad, nose-ringed, sulking and determinedly silent, someone who obviously would have preferred to be anywhere in the world but here.

  “Your first time at one of these?” inquired new neighbour, battling out of her fur trimmed coat, within the narrow confines of the seating. “Frankie’s too.” She extracted a tissue from her bag, gave her nose a ladylike swipe and leaning in, confided, “Heck of a job persuading her. Thought it might take her out of herself.” On her other side, Frankie rolled her eyes, the way only a teenager can.

  “God’s sake, give it a rest Mum.” She muttered, pulling already over-stretched jumper sleeves, further down over her hands and slumping even lower in her seat – she was going to do her coccyx no good at all.

  As lights dimmed, the sense of expectation soared. There was a theatrical pause, before the double doors at the end of the room swung open, and then a communal indrawn breath as the lady herself moved, swift and serious down the centre of the auditorium glancing neither to right nor left, and the applause started. She didn’t look up, until she’d climbed the three shallow steps to the stage and was standing above the audience.

  Then she raised her head slowly, turning it from one side of the room to the other, meeting the eyes of individuals for a thoughtful second or so, before moving on. She kept this up for just that bit disconcertingly longer, than might have been expected. Then she turned to the flipchart, to do the name introduction thing. She gained the identical laugh. That laugh was key. Once people laugh together, they stop being individuals, strangers and start to become a tribe, for the duration of whatever it is they’re involved in. This woman knew what she was doing, when it came to handling an audience.

  On this occasion the assistant with the silver tray, was a woman, otherwise the routine was the same, as was the urgency of those desperate to get their obje
cts on board. During the collection, Martha remained standing, silent and serious and such was her presence and hold on the room, everyone waited silently with her. Even when the assistant turned back with a full tray, the sigh of disappointment was politely low key and accepting.

  Only then, belatedly, when I was on the spot, did it occur to me that there were a number of other things I really should have insisted on knowing, whether Rachael and Glory wanted to share or not. It was all very well, them wanting my reactions to be natural, but forewarned is forearmed and I really didn’t know at all, what to expect from this evening. I reached out cautiously, I knew what was surrounding me would be pretty deafening, and indeed it was. A fully fledged flood of stories, situations, sorrows, angers, hopes and fears. I pulled back.

  On stage, Martha was now seated, ankles neatly crossed. In her accented, little-girl voice, she did the ‘One small silent moment’ request. Everyone stilled and obligingly bowed heads, while I took the opportunity to study her. I didn’t want to draw her attention yet, but I immediately identified her mind amongst all the others, she was cloyingly and overwhelmingly pink, the sort of sea-side-rock sweetness that you know, deep down in your soul and beyond a shadow of a doubt, will do you no favours in the long run.

  As the moment ended, she breathed slowly out, then deeply in again, before gesturing towards the tray. She was, she said, going to see which best beloved items called to her, but she had one teeny tiny ask. Would the owner of any object she picked, please remain silent and give no sign, until she ‘found’ them, as distraction could immediately break any chain of communication she might be receiving from the other side. It would also, I thought cynically, create far more of a dramatic impact. The audience nodded as one, with the exception of Frankie, who seemed to have tuned out of proceedings altogether, and was doing severe damage to a cuticle. Her mother nudged me gently in the ribs,

  “Amazing isn’t she?” she said, I nodded, assuming she meant Martha, not Frankie. On the stage, Martha’s hand was hovering. She dipped, touched, moved on, finally picking up an old-fashioned, ornately jewelled, tortoiseshell hair comb, holding it high above her head so all could see. Silent, he may have remained, as requested, but there was no mistaking the sharp mental yell and physical reaction of an older man, flushing with excitement, near the back of the audience, on the opposite side of the room. Martha gave no immediate indication she knew who and where he was, but closed her eyes, tilting her head gently to one side as if listening. As was I. In just a few seconds, I knew more about the comb and the woman who’d used it to hold her thinning hair in place, than I really wanted to. But I was more interested in seeing what Martha knew. She was able to read just enough, to know he was thinking of his wife. But that was all she needed. She opened her eyes, caught and held his and nodded.

  “Sir, yes, the gentleman in the brown jacket, red tie. I believe this comb belongs to you now, is that correct?” Less a question than a statement, as another assistant hastened down the aisle, to pass a microphone down the line. Whilst she wasn’t able to read a lot, I saw how she was gathering information with every subsequent, brief clever question. It was an exercise in manipulation, simply contrived, disproportionately powerful in result. Within a few moments she’d gained all she needed.

  The truth was, this chap hadn’t come on any mission of tenderness, but in frustration and fury. When he and his wife divorced, ten years prior to her death, she’d received a far larger settlement than had been expected. He blamed his solicitor, it shouldn’t have happened that way, not with the eye-watering fees he’d had to cough up. But before he knew what was what, it was all signed, sealed and remained only to be delivered.

  They’d been childless, and they themselves were both only children, so there was no family, other than the odd cousin or two on either side, and they’d never been great ones for socialising and making friends. Thus, they’d both, post-divorce, found themselves far lonelier than either had ever anticipated, possibly just as dissatisfied unmarried as not. Over the years they’d drifted back together again; shared meals out, cinema, she’d even had him over to her small flat for a couple of Christmases. There’d been some talk of them making it official again, and he could have done with that. They still got on each other’s nerves, true, but at the end of the day, someone getting on your nerves was better than not talking to another person, from one week to another.

  He knew he’d been stupidly spendthrift with his part of the house money, blown most of it in those first heady days. She’d intimated, she’d been exactly the opposite. Saved it, spent carefully, and still had most of it, for a rainy day. And then she upped and had a massive heart attack, always one for the dramatic gesture. He was in her will, but the money wasn’t. She had that big, fat, lump sum, put somewhere, he was certain of it, and if ever there was a rainy day it was bloody now, but he’d been through every bit of her paperwork and there wasn’t a clue.

  “Is there a message?” He wanted to know, and you didn’t have to be psychic, to pick up his desperation. “Anything, anything at all, she wants you to tell me?” Martha raised her hand for silence, listened again, nodded once or twice, opened her eyes and smiled warmly at him.

  “Indeed, your wife wants you to know, she’s at peace now and you’re not to worry at all about her, she’s in a better and happier place. She wants me to say, although it may not be for a while, she knows you’ll be together again.” From the apoplectic expression on the face of the bereaved, this looked like it might happen sooner rather than later, but there was little for him to do other than nod. In his agitation, he’d risen, he now sat down again, and found himself patted warmly on the arms by those on either side, thrilled to be so close to one who’d been contacted. ‘Wasn’t Martha, quite something?’ asked a large lady, looming over his shoulder, from the row behind. He nodded, ‘Indeed,’ he agreed, ‘Martha was very definitely something.’ Quite what he thought that something was, is really rather unprintable.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Martha Vee continued with the object picking for a while, sometimes hovering over an item for a hope-inducing few seconds, before moving on to pick another instead. There were a lot of indrawn breaths, raised hopes and fears, as she did. I was shocked by the palpable combination of anticipation, apprehension and tension, she was generating. Each item she picked; a plain gold wedding ring; a battered brown wallet; the grubby pink child’s glove; a key-ring bearing one sadly solitary key, held a wealth of meaning for the individual who’d placed it. Nobody here was playing, the emotions were deep and heartfelt and, as far as I could tell, there was no evidence of cynicism from anybody – other than me. They were here, because they desperately wanted to believe in what Martha was offering. Unlike Glory, I was perfectly prepared to be convinced, with the proper proof, that there were those whose intentions and even abilities were genuine, but of one thing I was certain – Martha wasn’t one of them.

  Most of us are dreadful at controlling our physical reactions, be it so little as a shifting in the seat, an indrawn breath, or the involuntary movement of a hand, we can’t help but give ourselves away. Every time she held something up, Martha was able to unerringly zone in on the person who’d placed it, because it was impossible for them to remain impassive. Indeed, by repeatedly asking them to do that, she secured, just the opposite, making them excruciatingly aware of the need to not react and therefore, all the more likely to. Of course, in a crowd, reaction from one person, however fractional, cannot help but be felt by those sitting nearest, who in turn respond, often without even realising. The overall effect is like seeing ripples move outward, from a pebble dropped in a pool. It’s unmistakeable and from the stage, with its overview of the crowd, it was a doddle. As it was, every new accuracy was greeted with audible gasps from a thrilled audience, she’d had in the palm of her hand from the off. There was no doubt, just how clever was her performance which, as far as everyone was concerned, could have no other possible explanati
on than the supernatural.

  All in all, the Martha and Martha show was a slick, smoothly run, highly professional operation although, as far as I could see, the messages she was giving out were pretty banal. And whilst most recipients (with the exception of the first dissatisfied customer), appeared thrilled right down to their socks, at being told nothing in particular, none of it, so far, seemed to be the type of thing that could cause anybody harm or distress. Quite frankly, if this was how people chose to spend their money, and how she chose to earn hers, I couldn’t see it was anything for Rachael and Glory to get their knickers in a twist over and certainly didn’t see why they’d had to haul me in. I was getting thoroughly bored, and could feel the creepings of a dull head-thump, starting at my temples and throbbing towards the base of my neck – the inevitable consequence of opening up against such a busy background. What with Youth Dew on one side, the cloyingly sweet lilies on the other and sugary pink, Martha on the stage, it felt like I was sinking into a marshmallow. This whole thing was a fool’s errand and I made up my mind that, if fate was kind, and there was an interval, I’d slip out then, head back to the van and let them know exactly what I thought of this whole waste of time. I pulled my attention back to the stage, to see Martha had moved away from the tray. She was standing again now, hands clasped loosely, below her waist.

  “My dear, dearest friends,” she said. “And I feel I may call you that, because I see so many familiar faces here tonight. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for joining me yet again and for lending me your strength. I want you to know, your contribution to each meeting is unique and entirely precious.” Not to mention, I added to myself, extremely lucrative.

  “Utilising keepsakes,” she continued, “Objects that are, or have been, dear to you and yours, is incredibly powerful and presents me with strong links to spirit, but I do know there are many more of you who have nothing to bring, other than your own emotions. My dears, release those fears and indecisions now and, if I am so directed, I will endeavour to provide you with direction and comfort.” The atmosphere in the room had changed subtly again, partly due to some clever, if unobtrusive, stage management. The lights had been taken down and softened to a warmer more intimate tint, whilst the background harp music was gradually turned up a notch or two. It was all very simple, but highly effective – very clever.