‘So, have you finished laughing at me?’ I ask. Jack still hasn’t managed to get a word out without bursting into fits of laughter.
‘Sorry, Sam, but… I mean…’ and off he goes again. Occasionally muttering that his stomach hurts and he needs to pee.
‘Oh, I’ve had enough of this.’ I huff. ‘I’ll call you back when you’ve finished wetting yourself laughing.’
With that I put the phone down. Ahh! The one person I wanted to share my good news with and he can’t talk for bloody laughing! I can’t even phone Amy to tell her my news as her mobile seems to be permanently switched off.
My jubilant mood has turned to one of dismay. Stupid Jack! Well, he’ll be sorry when I’m raking it in from telling people’s fortunes for a living. And anyway, it’s only a temporary thing. Eventually, I will track down all those people in hiding who have an aversion to vegetables, and cure the bloody lot of them, so there!
I realise that Missy has departed to the kitchen and I am actually talking to myself and had better stop it. The last thing I need is for people to have an excuse to call me a crackpot. Right, I really should prepare myself for this evening. I wonder, as I make my way to the bathroom, what sort of people call a psychic line. There’s your answer, I think, looking at my reflection in the bathroom mirror - desperate, unemployed people who watch too much daytime TV. Anyway, I’m trained to deal with desperate people, and not only will I be doing a very good public service, I will also get lots of experience with dealing with different people, I tell myself in order to justify the reason as to why I was so desperate that I had to call the psychic hotline in the first place.
I run a shower and contemplate what I should wear tonight. I know the callers aren’t going to be able to see me, and I could be wearing my Betty Boop pyjamas and my dad’s old gardening cardi for all they know. Nevertheless, I feel I should at least get into the spirit of things – no pun intended – and at least look as though I know what I’m doing, even if I don’t. Perhaps I should dress in a headscarf and put a big hoopy pair of earrings in my ears? Or maybe I should go the whole hog and hire a fortune teller’s costume from Jack’s uncle. That would get me in the right frame of mind.
Instead, I decide to wear my black jumper dress over a pair of black leggings and knee-length boots – black seems appropriate, don’t you think? And I ought to be comfy if I’m going to sit for the next eight hours listening to people’s problems and trying to fix them. I gulp at the thought. Am I really qualified to advise people on what they should be doing with their lives when I don’t even know what I should be doing with my own?
Looking appropriately mystical – well, I think so anyway – I sit and look through the tarot cards my mum bought me. Thankfully, most of the 78 cards have pictures on them giving me some idea of what they mean; although the one with a man in Indian attire, holding a head belonging to someone else in his hands, could be a tricky one to interpret. Hmm, perhaps I’ll just take that one out of the pack altogether. And that one showing a picture of an animal with a cat’s head on a goat’s body – that’s just plain weird. Oh, and that one depicting a man tied to a tree and a woman pointing a crossbow at him... I’m just guessing, but a woman scorned maybe?
As I’m working my way through each card the door buzzer rings, breaking my concentration. Missy heads towards the door and mews. She is such a nosey cat and I’m sure she thinks it’s for her. I silently pray it’s not my landlady again.
My landlady, Ms Morris, is one of the most unpleasant women I have ever had the misfortune to meet. No, really, she is. Obviously gnarled from life’s experiences, she could easily give Cruella de Vil a run for her money. She hates noise, she hates cats and she hates me and is always looking for an excuse to pop downstairs and tell me off for something. Last week it was because Missy had accidentally knocked over a milk bottle on the front step. I wouldn’t have minded if it had actually broken, but it hadn’t. Her grievance was that it made the place look untidy - says she who mooches around all day in a grey anorak and a bad hairstyle.
I would guess that Ms Morris is probably in her late sixties. She lives in the flat two floors above, but in fact, owns the whole house we live in and rents out five or six of the converted rooms to students, or ex-students like me. I’ve never seen a man about, but then she is so bitter and twisted that nobody would put up with her for long. God, I hope I don’t end up like her, with nothing better to do with my time than annoy the hell out of young people.
‘Taddaaa!’
My caller isn’t Ms Morris on the warpath, it’s Jack, sporting a full mystical fortune teller costume, complete with bright orange headscarf, red lipstick, a plastic goldfish bowl turned upside down, and the biggest pair of gold hoop earrings to come out of Claire’s Accessories. Half of me wants to punch his lights out. The other half wants to laugh out loud.
‘I see you are going on a long trip… to the kitchen to make your best friend a cup of tea,’ Jack says in his most Mystic Meg voice.
‘Oh, very funny indeed,’ I say sarcastically in return. He does look very funny though. He’s even gone to the trouble of wearing a multicoloured gypsy-style skirt over his black jeans. ‘Come on in before someone sees you.’ I feel embarrassed for him. ‘You didn’t seriously walk down the street dressed like that, did you?’
‘No, not seriously. I did a little dance like this as I went.’ Jack laughs as he demonstrates his impression of Beyonce. ‘So how are you feeling, my little mystical one?’
I pull a face.
‘Nervous, if you must know.’
‘Well, never fear because Mystic Jack is here and my crystal ball tells me that…’ he stares intently into his plastic fish-bowl ‘…you are completely and utterly bonkers and should book yourself into The Priory right away. You need help, girl. Ouch! What was that for?’
He’s just earned himself a punch on the arm.
‘For laughing at me down the phone, dressing up like a pantomime dame, and for taking the piss out of me.’ I reply and throw in another punch for good measure. ‘It’s all right for you, you’ve got the job of your dreams,’ I mutter as we make our way back to the lounge.
‘Well, I did warn you not to get involved with vegetables. They’re nothing but trouble. I told you that right from the start, but did you listen?’
‘You sound like my mother. In fact, dressed like that, you look a bit like her too.’ I shudder.
‘And how is the beautiful Mrs Ball these days?’
‘Well she thinks very highly of you, though Lord knows why. She’s still hinting that you would make the perfect boyfriend.’ I say packing all the cards together in a nice neat pile next to the phone.
‘No, it would never work. She’s a lovely woman and all that, but I’ve got a thing about women being older than me. It’s probably some childhood psychological scarring or something, but thank her for the offer anyway,’ Jack says with a sly smile. This time he’s the target of a scatter cushion.
‘You know, I’ll have you for assault one of these days, Samantha Ball!’
Jack lifts up his skirts, tucks them into the waist of his jeans and grabs hold of two cushions from the sofa.
‘Aim and FIRE!’ he shouts as he throws the cushions grenade style at me. I duck behind the sofa and prepare to arm myself with more ammunition – that’s the handy thing about being a girl, we love cushions and so have plenty to throw around. I bundle as many behind the sofa as I can and throw and dive as I hit my target every time. Jack quickly runs out of ammunition and looks around to see what else he can use.
‘Don’t even think about it!’ I shout as I see him picking Missy up from her slumber on the sofa.
‘Take aim and FIRE!’ Jack shouts as Missy flies through the air towards me. I drop my cushions in a bid to catch her and she lands straight in my open arms.
‘You are in so much trouble now.’ I say to Jack and grab as many cushions as I can hold, imagining that I am loading one of those guns that spit out bullets one after the other.
As I hit Jack time and time again, he backs into a corner, steps back on the plastic fish bowl, trips over his skirt and bangs his head against the wall.
‘Man down! Man down! Medic required!’ he groans.
Ouch! That thump on the wall didn’t sound too good, in fact it sounded rather painful. Thinking he really has hurt himself, I rush over to find him, eyes closed and apparently lifeless.
‘Jack? Are you all right?’
No answer. Uh-oh.
‘Jack?’ I shake his arm. Oh my God, I hope he’s not dead! That would be a hard one to explain – well, officer, he threw the cat at me so I grenade-ed him and he tripped over his skirt. No, that doesn’t sound good does it? I put my ear to his chest to make sure he’s still breathing.
‘Boo!’ Jack sits up and grins at me. I give him another thump. ‘Ouch! What was that for?’
‘For pretending to be dead. Oh, and for chucking the cat at me. Don’t you know you could have frightened her for life?’ I scold.
‘Nah, Missy knows she’s an invincible cat. And besides, she says you deserved it for taking a mad job and just generally being mad.’
‘Well,’ I say, ‘mad as it may be, it is a job and I’ll do anything for money right now.’
‘Anything?’ Jack smiles and twitches his ruby red lips. ‘Ouch! I’m going to end up black and blue at this rate,’ he whines.
‘Then don’t be so annoying and bugger off, I’ve got to mentally prepare myself. I’m on in just under an hour and I haven’t had anything to eat yet.’
Jack struggles to his feet and straightens his skirt.
‘You’re not going back out looking like that, are you?’
‘Huh! At least I’m dressed for the part. You look like you’re going to a frigging funeral.’ He flounces dramatically out of the room.
‘It will be your funeral if you don’t bugger off and leave me alone. And don’t go upstairs and upset Ms Morris!’ I yell after him, this being one of Jack’s favourite pastimes – to knock on her door and persuade her to let him in and offer him a ginger nut and a cup of tea. He then settles himself on her sofa and tells her all his problems – not that Jack has any, he just makes some up. What Ms Morris makes of him, goodness only knows.
‘Yes, Mum. Break a leg tonight and text me. Loves ya!’ He sings as he lets himself out.
‘Loves me too!’ I yell back.
After sharing a tuna sandwich with Missy - is that odd, sharing your food with your cat? - I check again to make sure there is still a dial tone on my phone, and that I haven’t been disconnected in the past fourteen minutes. Within moments of me replacing the receiver, the phone rings, making me jump – why does it always do that? I let it ring twice so as not to appear too eager and then answer it.
‘Hello?’
‘Samantha, it’s Miracle here. I have your first caller, sweetie. I’ll just put her through.’
Oh crikey, I’m on!
CHAPTER FOUR
‘Hello?’ I listen for a moment and wonder what I should say next. For all I know, it could be someone trying to get through to a sex line. It’s not. It’s a young woman on the other end of the line.
‘Hello, I’m Mystic Crystal, and I’m your reader for tonight. How may I help you?’ I say, that sounded good, didn’t it?
‘Hi,’ a small voice says, and then she snorts as though she is blowing her nose into a tissue.
‘How may I help you? Would you like a reading?’ I ask.
‘Yes… please,’ the young woman answers. Oh, bugger, I thought she was going to give me a little more information to work on than that.
‘Okay, well I’m going to shuffle the cards for you and see what comes out. I can’t make any promises…’ I hesitate, wondering if I sound authentic. After all, this woman is paying premium rates to listen to me waffle on. I feel like a fraud and desperately want to say, hang on, I’ll phone you back and we’ll have a little chat. I don’t though. I shuffle my set of cards – well, I say shuffle, it’s more of a toss than a shuffle and they all land in an untidy pile on the carpet.
The girl sniffs again. OK, so that’s a clue that she’s sad about something, but what? Boyfriend? Quite possibly. She sounds too young to be married. Maybe she’s pregnant and he’s dumped her? Or maybe she’s been fired from her job... because she’s been sleeping with the boss and his wife has found out.
Yes, that’s it! Blimey, where did that come from? Don’t ask me how but I’m sure this is what the girl is upset about. Not only has she lost her man, but she’s also lost her job. What am I doing? This is ridiculous. I haven’t got a bloody clue what I am doing or why she has called. As I pick out several cards, which actually mean nothing to me, I try to search the pictures for clues to back my out-of-the-blue theory up. There’s the broken heart for starters and then there’s a card with a king type of figure on it, looking very smug with himself. Finally there’s a picture of a big bright sun, with lots of children playing with old-fashioned hoop toys.
‘Hello? Are you still there?’ the girl asks.
‘Yes, sorry. I’m just trying to… um… sorry, I’m trying to work out something. Can you just answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to this question for me?’
‘Okay,’ she replies quietly.
Before I start getting carried away with myself, I need to know if I’m on the right track here, otherwise I am going to make myself look like a total fool.
‘I don’t want to upset you, but does this have anything to do with your boss?’ I ask cautiously – please say yes, please say yes.
‘Yes, it has.’ She replies.
Yes! Thank God! I want to punch the air. How’s that for woman’s intuition? I’ve always been good at guessing what’s wrong with someone. Whenever my friend Ali phones, I know instinctively if she’s had a fight with her boyfriend James. Mind you, Ali and James fight more often than they don’t, so that’s probably not a good example to give you. However, take it from me, I can usually tell when something is up. I venture a little further.
‘Was your boss also your boyfriend?’ I bite my lip, praying that I’m not wrong.
‘Um…’ is all she replies.
‘Well? Look, I don’t know you, and you don’t know me, and all calls are completely confidential.’ I say, hoping that they are indeed confidential and that this poor girl’s phone isn’t being tapped as we speak.
‘Yes.’ She replies again.
‘You were having an affair with him and it’s all ended in tears, hasn’t it?’
I’m feeling a bit more confident now that she has confirmed what I first suspected. Maybe it was the tone of her voice, I don’t know, but all I do know is that she is upset and her boss has got off lightly. As she bursts into tears I feel quite angry with him.
‘Oh please don’t cry. Listen it’s going to be OK. It really is.’ I try to assure her, but who am I to tell her that everything is going to be rosy in the garden again? I can’t see into her future, can I?
‘He said he loved me,’ she wails down the phone. ‘He said his wife hated him and they were going to get a divorce and…’ The tears start again. Oh help, what do I do now? Do I cut her off for being an emotional wreck?
‘Listen to me.’ I say, genuinely feeling sorry for this girl. It doesn’t take a psychic to see that her boss fancied a bit on the side, got caught with his trousers down and yet he got off scot free – bastard! ‘This is not your fault. You are not to blame for this and I know that you still feel as though you love him, and that he will rethink and will dump his wife and come running back to you with a job offer in hand. He won’t, darling. This man is a coward. He got caught with you and right now, is desperately trying to convince his wife that you were the one who did all the running.’ I hear her sniff loudly again. Oh I do hope I’m not upsetting her even more. I continue. ‘Can you not see what he’s done to you? You’ve lost a good job over this bastard - excuse my French - and he’s deceived you. If he can do such a thing to his wife, the one he took vows with, what makes you think that he
wouldn’t do the same to you? Did you really think that he would leave his wife?’
‘Yes, I did.’ She whispers, ‘he promised.’
‘Like he promised his wife to love, honour and obey?’ I ask. Okay, I know I’m being a little dramatic, but someone had to say it.
Silence.
‘Listen. I know for a fact just what type of man this is, and even though you really want me to tell you that he will realise that he’s made a big mistake, and that you mean the world to him, he is not going to do that. He’s going to employ another young, naïve girl to be his PA and will start all over again, until the next time he gets caught.’ I say. I mean it’s hardly rocket science, is it? The only reason he got rid of her is because he got caught out.
‘But…’ I suddenly say as I look at the sun card and a flash goes through my mind, ‘within six months time, things are going to be so different for you and so much better. I can see lots of children around you. Now I don’t think they are your children, but there are a lot of children here. I think you might go into teaching.’ I try to sound confident. I haven’t really got a clue what I’m waffling on about, but anyway.
‘Wow!’ the girl sniffs, ‘I’ve just been accepted on a teacher training course. When Martin dumped me I didn’t want to go back into secretarial work and I’ve always loved children. My mum suggested I try to get on a teacher trainer course and I’ve just found out I’ve been accepted.’
‘There you go then.’ I say, feeling rather smug with my guesswork. ‘Things will get better, sweetheart. I know it feels raw at the moment and so unfair, but I do feel that this is a whole new start for you and I have a sneaky feeling that your Mr Right is just round the corner – well not literally, but you know what I mean.’ I laugh. Actually this is quite good fun and I’ve been on the phone for 32 minutes – that’s £19.20 already. Yippee!
‘Thank you so much, Crystal. You have been spot on and I don’t know what I would have done without you. It was a toss up between phoning the Samaritans or Mystic Answers. I’m glad I chose you now.’ The young girl says, and I’m sure she is smiling. Well, at least she isn’t calling me names and crying down the phone. ‘I knew deep down that he was never going to leave his wife and kids for me.’ She sighed.
Oh Great, Now I Can Hear Dead People: What Would You Do if You Could Suddenly Hear Real Dead People? Page 3
