by Tim McGregor
“Yeah. Tomorrow. Three ‘o clock okay?” An hour before she needed to be at work. The timing would give her a polite exit if Robin turned out to be a nutjob.
The woman gushed out a thanks and Billie ended the call. “There,” she said, turning to Poor Tom. “Happy now?”
Eternally mute, the boy didn’t reply but he seemed oddly pleased with himself.
~
Arriving at the appointed time the next day, Billie removed her toque and shook the snow from it. Scanning the patrons seated inside the bakery, Billie realized she’d forgotten to ask the woman what she looked like. No need. A woman sitting alone by the steamed window was already waving at her.
Gliding through the tables, Billie put on a smile and hoped this wasn’t a waste of her time. “Hi.”
The woman rose awkwardly from her chair. “Thank you for coming,” she said. “I really appreciate it.”
Billie thought she was tipsy, moving so clumsily, but when the woman straightened up the reason was clear. “Oh my,” Billie popped. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks,” the woman replied, one hand wrapped around her protruding belly. “I’m at that stage where just getting up is an effort. Have a seat.”
Shrugging out of her coat gave Billie a moment to study the woman. Robin seemed to be close to her own age, maybe a year or two older. A not-natural blond with a hoop nose ring that Billie found distracting. Pretty but with dark circles under eyes. Was that due to the pregnancy? Billie had no idea.
“How far along are you?”
“Almost eight months,” replied Robin. Her left hand was draped over her belly like it was an armrest. “It’s going by fast.”
“Wow.” The woman’s belly seemed so big already that it looked almost fake, like a basketball stuffed up her shirt. Billie calculated ahead by one month. “Eight months? So you’ll have a little Pisces or an Aries?”
“If the due date is right, it’ll be an Aries. I hope it is. I don’t mesh well with Pisces.” A dash of mortification flashed in Robin’s eyes. “No offence or nothing.”
“I’m not a fish. Do you know if it’s a boy or girl?”
“I want to be surprised. But I’m pretty sure it’s another girl. Noah’s convinced he’s having a son.”
Billie smiled, warming to the pregnant woman across the table. “Another girl? The baby has a big sister?”
“Maya is seven.” Robin thumbed her phone to a picture of a little girl and passed it to Billie. Brown hair and a smile that dimpled her cheeks, her arms around a huge stuffed pony. “She’s very excited about being a big sister.”
The woman’s smile was brief, brightening at the photo of her daughter before dimming back to the fatigued demeanour that Billie had first encountered. Mark that, Billie thought. Something was keeping Robin from a proper night’s sleep. Was it just the baby?
“She’s a cutie-pie. She likes horses?”
“Crazy about horses. You should see her room.”
Billie thought back to her own childhood, trying to sequence the school years. “Seven. Is that first grade?”
“Second. She loves school.” Robin’s eyes dimmed to an even lower wattage. “She’d rather be at school than at home. And I can’t blame her.”
Cutting to the meat of it now, Billie guessed. The woman across the table was biting her lip, working up the courage to push it out into the open.
“Robin,” Billie said, wanting to nudge it along, “why did you want to meet?”
“I’d heard about you. About how you can see things. And I saw you on the news that time.”
Billie tried not to bristle. She’d sooner forget about that pushy news reporter who had outed her publicly as a psychic working with the police. Since then, all sorts of people had come out of the woodwork seeking help. Guessing which way this was going to turn, Billie was already forming excuses to turn the woman down as politely as possible. “And there’s someone you want to talk to? Someone who’s passed?”
“Talk? God no. I just want it gone.”
“It?”
Robin’s eyes darted around them, wary of anyone within earshot. “There’s something in my house. And it’s angry.”
“You mean a spirit?” Billie asked, matching the woman’s whisper.
“Ghost, entity, shadow. Whatever it is, it’s awful.”
Entity. The phrasing was a red flag. Robin wasn’t just a tourist. She’d read some things or seen certain TV shows. Another aficionado of the paranormal.
“We bought a house just a few blocks from here,” Robin went on. “A fixer-upper. Three bedrooms, one bath. This was about a year ago. We couldn’t really afford it but we didn’t want to wait any longer, not with the real estate market going up the way it is. So we took the plunge. It felt odd from the get-go but nothing worrying. Just a vague sense, you know. The odd cold spot, the feeling that you weren’t always alone, even if the house was empty. But then it started getting worse. I’d wake up and see something at the foot of the bed. Like a black shape, just standing there. Watching me.”
Billie remained still as stone as she listened. No nodding or sympathetic tilting of the head. No body language that Robin could interpret as confirmation.
“Then it started touching me,” Robin said. “Pressing down on me during the night, or a poke from behind. It prodded Noah a few times but he always dismissed it as something else. He didn’t believe me, of course. Men never do about these things.”
Of course they don’t. Billie thought back to her conversation with Kaitlin, about how uncommon it was to find a male psychic. “Why not just move,” Billie suggested. “Sell the house?”
“It’s not that simple. Not with our finances anyway. Noah refuses to even talk about selling. It’s our home, he says. We shouldn’t have to move out, it should.” Robin cocked an eyebrow skyward. “Bear in mind, he’s talking out of both sides of his mouth. Denying there’s a ghost but insisting that it should move out, not us.”
“Robin, I don’t think I’m the person you’re looking for. What you need is a priest to come in and bless the house. To help the spirit move on.”
“I talked to a priest about it,” Robin interjected. “He was reluctant to get involved.”
Another red flag. Billie looked down at the table. She hadn’t even gotten coffee yet. An espresso was in order. “Does Noah know that you contacted me?”
Robin cooled. Busted. “I’ve finally convinced him that there’s something in our house. Consulting a psychic is too big a step for him.”
It’s too big a step for me, too, Billie thought. She had a hard enough time keeping the dead out of her life. She didn’t need to go looking for more. “Have you ever used sage?”
“I’ve heard of it,” Robin answered. “Never used it before.”
“You can get some at Ways to Wisdom, down on Barton. Tell the owner what you want it for, he’ll give you the right kind. Get the priest to come back and tell him you want a full blessing, every room, top to bottom. Use the sage for a full week. Just get it smoking and smudge all the rooms, every day for a week. The spirit will get the hint that it’s not welcome and move on.” Billie slipped the toque back on her head and got to her feet. “That’s the best I can do.”
Robin sighed and folded her hands in her lap. She didn’t seem surprised, just disappointed. “It touched Maya.”
“What?”
“Scratched her.” Robin traced a finger down her own cheek. “Left a mark too.”
I’m not a bloody exorcist. Pulling her coat back on, Billie said, “I’m sorry, Robin. I’m not the person you need.”
The wind was lethal when she hit the street, hurrying to get her coat done up all the way. The phrase ‘bloody exorcist’ struck her as odd. It sounded more like something Gantry would say rather than herself.
That sneaky sod was becoming a bad influence.
~
“Let us out here, yeah.”
The cabbie glanced at the passenger through the rearview mirror. “Which house is i
t, then?”
“Not far. Stop the motor.”
“I can take you right to the front door,” said the cabbie, peering out at the block of squat brick houses, all crammed cheek by jowl with nary a hedgerow between them. “Just tell us the number. We aim to please, we do.”
John Gantry rolled his eyes heavenward with impatience, momentarily mimicking a Renaissance rendering of Saint Sebastian, martyred under the slings and arrows of his persecutors. He’d been out of the country so long, he had almost forgotten how to deal with his own kind. “Just fucking pull over, granddad.”
The older gent behind the wheel geared down and coasted to a stop. “All right, son. No need to get testy.”
Clocking the tab on the meter, Gantry dug a thick bankroll from his pocket but frowned when he saw that he had only provincial currency. Half-arsing the conversion, he peeled off two 20 dollar bills and tossed it forward. Shoved open the door. “Thanks and all.”
“Oy,” barked the cabbie, holding up the bills. “What the hell is this? Monopoly money?”
“It’s Canadian cash, mate. No time to change it up. It’s all I got.”
“This?” The old man snapped the bill in his hands. “It’s fucking plastic, this is. Feel that! I need sterling, not this play money from God knows where.”
“It’s legal tender, granddad. I tipped you mightily. Despite all the bothersome chitchat, never you mind.”
The old man wavered, rubbing the two bills together. “What’s the exchange on this Canadian rubbish?”
The snarl on Gantry’s lips tilted into a mischievous twist. “It’s on par, mate. Due to the oil prices and whatnot. Dollar per pound.”
The old man grinned, pleased in his good fortune. “Ta, then, squire. Toodley-hoo.” Then he roared off down the carriageway.
Gantry shouldered his bag and grinned. It was petty, sure, bamboozling the cabbie that way but the old git deserved it for snoring him to death with his endless chatter. Take your pleasure where you find them, he told himself.
Turning to the row of houses patterned down the street, each with a brick windrow edging the sidewalk, Gantry marched north. The address he was after was down the next block but he didn’t want the cabbie to see which one it was. It wouldn’t do for that info to leak back to the filth, would it?
Twenty paces down the block, Gantry swung left and marched to the third house on his left. Indistinguishable from any of the others, there was a dull light flickering against the drawn curtain. All he had to do now was figure out a way to slip into his sister’s house without causing a fuss. Tall order, that one.
Constance Gantry was a name seldom heard. She’d been called Connie since uni and the last name had given way to Barstow when she married Kevin. An old-fashioned idea, sure, to give up the family name to adopt that of the betrothed but Kevin had insisted and she relented. It hadn’t begun to rankle until a few years ago but the bureaucratic nightmare involved in changing it back quashed any resolve she had for ever reclaiming it.
With her mobile tucked under one ear, she busied herself wiping down the counter. Her friend, Merrilee, was having another crisis. The third this week and wasn’t even Friday. “Merrilee, take a breath and put the phone down for the night. It’s all you can do.”
“But he’s already posting all this shite on Facebook, isn’t he?” Merrilee’s voice was brittle from crying. “We broke up three days ago and here he is, flirting with tramps publicly, posting picture after picture. All the while knowing I can see it.”
“Then unfriend the bastard,” said Connie. Merrilee was a dear but sometimes she needed the direct approach. Which is why she called Connie in those moments. “That sends a clear and simple message, doesn’t it? And you won’t see his nasty posts, either.”
“But,” protested Merrilee’s quivering voice, “if I unfriend him, how will I know what he’s up to?”
Connie blew out her cheeks in exasperation. Her attempt to ease Merrilee’s mind had already sunk into a sickening loop of Moebian lengths. There’d be no talking sense into the wee girl when she was in this state. Connie considered getting on Facebook and simply un-friending Merrilee. How much easier would that be, if Merrilee refused to end her masochistic creeping of her ex-beau? Be polite, she reminded herself.
“I need to go, Merrilee. Hannah needs help with her homework.” Using her daughter as an excuse was cheap but it was expedient. “Close the laptop, tune the telly to something mindless and fall asleep. Night, love.”
Ending the call, she slid her mobile onto the table. Looking up, she saw her dead brother standing in the entranceway to the side door like the ghost of Christmas past.
John Gantry leaned against the door frame, a sly disease of a grin on his face.
“Hullo sis.”
Chapter 6
THE WEATHER-BEATEN HOUSE smelled of fresh paint. Billie breathed it in as she came through the door and banged the snow from her boots on the mat. Was there anything as lovely as the smell of fresh paint in an old house? Even here, in the house haunted by Mockler’s past, it hinted at change. Hope and fresh starts.
“Honey, I’m home!” she bellowed, doing a lousy imitation of Jack Nicholson.
“Back here,” came the reply from down the hall.
He was in the sunroom off the back of the house, tapping the lid onto a can of eggshell white. The room was bare save for the roller tray, paint can and a radio on the naked floor.
Billie leaned up for a kiss. “How’s the fixing-up going?”
“Slowly,” Mockler said, wiping his hands on a rag. “Painting isn’t my forte.”
“Why don’t you just hire someone to do this?”
“Because,” he said with a shrug, “I’m loathe to spend anymore on this place just to sell it.”
She looked over the room, the walls wet from a fresh coat. “When’s the open house? Tuesday?”
“Friday. I told Cynthia to push the date back.”
“I’m sure she wasn’t happy about that,” Billie said. “She’s eager to get in here and work her magic with the staging.”
“Well, she’s just gonna have to wait,” he said, stretching his back. “How’d your meeting go?”
“No big deal,” she said, reluctant to elaborate. Turning the pregnant woman down was sitting uneasily in her gut. Diverting the topic, she gave him a once over in his paint-spattered jeans and old T-shirt. “I like the casual look.”
“Pretty fancy, huh?”
“It’s just weird seeing you out of your work clothes. I like it.” She tread a slow circle around the room, listening to the echo of her boots in the empty space. “I love empty rooms. If I had my way, I’d have one room in my place that was completely empty.”
“What for?”
“Just for the potential of it. There’s something about an empty room that’s just, I don’t know. Luxurious. Four walls and a bare floor. That’s it.”
His brow knitted, like he’d never heard anything so daft. “What would you do with it?”
“I’d go sit on the floor. Just to be still for a little while. Un-distracted.”
“You’re an odd one, Culpepper,” he said, slipping a plastic bag over the wet roller, wrapping it tight.
“Quitting time?”
“I got to make a run out to the nursing home,” he said. “My old man ran out of his medicine and he puts up a stink if he doesn’t get it.”
The tip of an earlier argument. He had made himself clear on it and she had no wish to bring it up again. “Oh,” she said. “Well, I guess I’ll just head home then.”
Mockler scraped a blotch of paint from his knuckles, then he looked up at her. The disappointment in her eyes was as clear as a cloudless sky. “Do you want to come?”
That took her aback. “Can I?”
“If you really want to,” he said, raising a hand in caution. “But fair warning, he’s an asshole and he’s gonna be mean to you.”
The smile broke wide and crinkled her eyes into crescents. “Sounds charming.”<
br />
~
“You stupid sod!” Connie’s voice rang shrill inside the small kitchen, bouncing off the tiled backsplash. “They told me you were dead!”
Gantry sighed, wondering how long the ranting would go on before his sibling cooled off. Her temper ran hot, had done ever since they were kids. “They got it wrong, didn’t they? Like they always do.”
“Don’t be so bloody smart, you!” Connie’s cheeks were pink, blowing with rage. “I can’t believe I actually shed tears over your sorry arse.”
Christ, he thought, did nothing ever change? This same dynamic had played out their entire lives, him screwing up and her giving him a good ballocking like she knew better. They did this when they were wee, they did it now as adults. “That’s why I’m here. To let you know.”
“By rising from the grave and just popping in? Are you fucking barkers? You couldn’t pick up the phone?”
“Nope. Nor an email or even a plain old letter in the post. You know that.”
Footsteps clomped from the hall and then a man slid into the kitchen. Connie’s husband. The in-law, as it were.
“Hullo Kevin,” Gantry said, as droll as humanly possible.
Kevin Barstow was a slouching slab with dull eyes and an expanded paunch growing under an Arsenal jumper. “John? What the hell, mate? You’re dead.”
“I got better.”
The interjection of the brother-in-law threw Connie’s rage off track, scaling it back a notch. Gantry took the opportunity to open the refrigerator and peer inside. Kevin Barstow was a dimwitted prat but he could always be trusted to keep the icebox stacked with cans of lager. Cracking one open, he said, “How’s Hannah?”
Kevin’s eyes went to the stairwell. “Frightened at all the shouting, I’d imagine.”
Gantry beamed and set off for the stairs. “I’ll go surprise her.”
His sister’s grip was iron as she snatched his arm. “No you bloody well won’t,” she seethed. “Kevin, give us a minute. My brother and I need to talk.”
