‘Yes. Pass,’ I say out loud. For all I know the bangle could have come from Claire’s Accessories. I haven’t a clue and at this moment in time, it’s apparent that the entire spirit world has gone on bloody strike!
‘You are passing on the first test, Miss Ball. Is that correct?’ Bobby Walters says condescendingly
‘Sorry, yes. Yes I am. Just give me a moment please. ’ I say, nervously.
Still nothing. Oh great. Just bloody great! I’m going to have to go on my gut instincts here.
‘Thank you, Miss Ball,’ Bobby Walters says, and I’m sure he is shaking his head as he does so.
‘Test two, Miss Ball…’
‘In the envelope which is shown on the screen in front of you, there is a piece of paper with a shape drawn on it. Can you please tell me what the shape is, Miss Ball?’ Mr Walters says.
I look up to the screen and see a red envelope. OK, come on, Sam, think, I urge myself. What shape is it? A star? A circle? A sausage? I haven’t the faintest idea.
‘Miss Ball?’ Bobby Walters asks.
‘Um…a star. It’s a star shape in the envelope,’ I Say out loud. In fact I haven’t got a clue what shape it is. It could be the shape of the bloody Eiffel Tower for all I know right now. I really do not have a clue what shape is in the envelope.
The following tests range from trying to predict the name of Bobby Walter’s great grandmother, to telling him how many people in the audience are holding keys in their hands. Still I have no inner voices to tell me, so I am passing or guessing on each and every test he gives me. I just know that I’ve messed this up big time.
Eventually, after what seems like days, but in reality is probably half an hour later, Bobby Walters’ serious face appears on the TV screen in front of me.
‘Thank you, Miss Ball. Your parapsychology tests are complete. As you can see, members of the audience, the tests we set Miss Ball prove that there is no such thing as the ability to contact, what many claim, is the after life. Miss Ball passed on 23 answers out of a possible 25, proving that there is no possible way that Miss Ball can be clairvoyant or have any extraordinary or paranormal skills. Of the answers Miss Ball got correct, in my opinion, it was purely by chance or guess work…’ Bobby Walters says – and yes the two tests; the shape one and the one asking what Bobby Walters’ wife’s favourite colour was, I did get right, but were purely by guess work, I’ll give him that.
From the screen in front of me I notice the camera pan round to show the whole audience nodding solemnly in agreement. A multitude of faces appear of people of all ages in the audience looking intently at Mr Bobby Walters on the stage.
All of a sudden, as the camera pans around the audience, my head is full of voices. Oh, great, better late than never, eh, guys?
‘Tell him I still love him and always will,’ a woman’s voice tells me.
‘Tell her that it’s amazing here in heaven. It’s paradise,’ another voice talks over the first one.
‘I want my mum to know I’m OK,’ a young boy’s voice tells me.
‘Tell my family I’m all better now and my legs are just fine,’ an elderly woman says.
‘Please tell him not to smoke. He saw what it did to me,’ A man warns.
‘Hang on a minute, please!’ I say.
‘Miss Ball, do you wish to say something?’ Bobby Walters says smugly.
‘Yes, I have some messages for people in the audience.’ I say quickly.
‘Oh really?’ The smug bastard actually laughs.
The camera looks around the audience.
‘Stop the camera there please!’ I say as it rests on a middle-aged man in the third row up. Suddenly my head is spinning with voices again.
‘Sir, the man in the green sweater? Yes, you, Sir,’ I say. I’m up and out of my chair and staring intently at the TV screen in front of me.
The middle-aged man points to himself.
‘Yes you. Your wife Sheila has just asked me to tell you that she still loves you and always will.’ I say breathlessly.
‘Sheila!’ The man says with a look of surprise on his face.
‘Err, just a minute. The tests are over Miss Ball.’ Bobby Walters butts in.
‘Is Sheila your wife, Sir?’ I ask ignoring Mr Walters.
‘Yes, yes, she is... was.’ The man answers.
‘Now just one minute…’ Mr Walters says.
‘Does she say anything else?’ The man in the audience, who now looks as though I’ve just told him he’s won the lottery, talks over Bobby Walters.
‘Tell him I like the green carpet in the hallway.’
‘Oh yes, she says to tell you she likes the green carpet you put down in the hallway.’ I say with a smile.
The middle-aged man claps his hands together as if in prayer like and smiles to the false studio ceiling.
The audience gasp.
‘Miss Ball, it’s a bit too late to try and convince people now.’ Bobby Walters says.
‘Oh shut up you stupid buffoon! Cameraman, could you please zoom into the lady in the red dress, forth row up on the right? Yep, that’s her,’ I say breathlessly. The lady in the red dress blushes. ‘Excuse me, madam, I have Marcus here. He says he’s your son,’
Tears well up in the lady’s eyes and she claps her hand to her mouth.
‘He says you don’t have to keep his room as it was. He’s happy for you to use it as a study for James if you want to,’ I say, relaying the words that are coming through to me from a young man.
‘Oh my goodness!’ The woman in the red dress says, ‘that’s my son, Marcus and she’s right, we’ve always kept his room just as he left it…that was eight years ago. We wondered whether we should allow our other son James to use it as a study, but we didn’t know whether we should or not.’
The audience gasp again and I can see Bobby Walters looks as though he is about to pop with rage. Suddenly voices start to come fast and furious and I have a job to keep up and repeat everything that is coming through. I scan the audience and catch sight of Miracle sitting there with her new chap Max. Both of them are wearing ‘Save Mystic Sam’ t-shirts and both have huge smiles on their faces. Gerry the security guard from the BBC studios is sitting next to them, also wearing a supporting t-shirt, only if I’m not mistaken, I’m sure it’s a size or two smaller than what he would have usually worn.
‘Please tell Jamie that I’ll be cross if he gets that motorbike,’ A woman’s voice says.
As quick as I’m instructing the cameraman to zoom in and pass a message on to someone, so another voice comes into my head.
The audience are sitting looking aghast and cheering every time I pass on a message to someone else. Bobby Walters is looking absolutely furious with me. Ha-ha Bobby Walters, stick that up your parapsychological bum!
All of a sudden I spot my mum and Colin in the audience. They are sitting next to Jack and the three of them are also wearing my ‘Save Mystic Sam’ t-shirts. My mum is desperately trying not to smile, but I can tell she really wants to.
‘Sammy Puddleduck…’
Suddenly my dad’s voice comes into my head. I know it’s my dad because he’s the only one who has ever called me Sammy Puddleduck, on the account that as a child I had an obsession with Beatrix Potter’s little duck, Jemima.
‘I am so proud of you, kid. Tell your mum that I’m OK and I’m happy that she has found someone else to love and look after her. I’ve met up with Uncle Harry and Grandma Jess. I’m watching over you all. Keep on going kid, you’re going to be just fine.’
‘Miss Ball…’ Bobby Walters says.
‘Just a minute, Mr Walters. Can you ask the cameraman to zoom in to the lady with curly hair, sitting next to the man with ginger hair…top row, fifth along?’
The cameraman does as he is told and my mum looks at Colin.
‘Mum, Dad says to tell you that he’s OK and that’s he’s happy that you have found someone else. Oh, and that he’s up there with Uncle Harry and Grandma Jess.’
; My mum looks stunned for a moment and then looks at Colin and smiles. He takes her hand in his and kisses it.
‘Well done, Sammy Puddleduck, I knew you could do it,’ my dad whispers.
I want to ask him so many questions, such as, why it’s taken him until now to come through to me and why he didn’t help me earlier on with the tests, but perhaps I needed to prove to myself that this was all real and that when it comes down to it, you can do all the tests in the world, but it’s real people that count in this game, not stupid bloody tests, conducted by stupid bloody parapsychologists.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Oh, how the worm turns, as they say. No sooner have I finished passing messages to all and sundry in the audience than I have reporters queuing up wanting to interview me – ha, they weren’t so keen to get my side of the story when they were happily typing up that I was a fraud and a charlatan, were they?
With this in mind, I have told Larry that I am not willing to give interviews to anyone at the moment and I expect to read a full apology in every newspaper who vilified me before I will even consider talking to anyone.
‘But we could…I mean you could make a mint out of doing these interviews, Samantha,’ a panic-stricken Larry says. ‘I’ve got Hello magazine lined up. They want to do a full photo shoot with you at The Dorchester.’ He says, ‘What am I going to tell them?’ Larry is in full panic mode now. A photo shoot and four page spread with one of the top magazines in the UK is worth a large amount of commission for him. ‘And I’ve had Morning Latte on the phone wanting to renew your contract. I’ve also had It’s Morning Time on the phone saying that they want you on next week as a special guest to advocate their new lifestyle programme, Life Beyond the Grave, for them…’
‘Oh yes, the woman with too much make-up – no thanks Larry.’ I say thinking of the silly cow presenter who did her best to make me look like a complete moron.
‘And Phil and Holly want you on their show next week…you know what a huge fan you are of Phil and Holly,’ Larry coaxes. And I am a huge, huge, fan of the fabulous day-time duo, but I am also fuming with anything and everything associated with the media at this moment. The only person I have agreed to talk to is Town FM.
Annette has been the only person who has spent hours on the radio protesting my innocence and getting people to log on to my website and support me. She has been the only person in the media to have the balls to say what she thinks, instead of jumping on the ‘burn-the-witch’ bandwagon.
‘Look Larry, this has been a pretty shitty time for me of late and at the moment all I want to do is go back to my flat and live a normal existence.’ I say, losing patience with my agent. I know he means well and I also know that if I do all these interviews that have suddenly been requested of me I can turn this whole mad thing round to my advantage, but to be honest, I am hurt. I am hurt that someone has gone to so much trouble to hurt me and, I would much rather curl up on the sofa with Missy and a box of chocolates.
‘Well take a few days to think about it,’ Larry says in my dressing room – funny that now I’ve proved myself the little room originally entitled the ‘wait here’ room has now become known as “Miss Ball’s dressing room”. ‘I’ll tell all of them that you need to take a few days to recover from all the media attention and that we will be in touch,’ he says hopefully, ‘Oh and I’ve also got a publisher lined up for your autobiography.’ he adds excitedly.
‘Autobiography! I’m only 26 years old, for God’s sake, Larry!’
‘Well, you’ve had quite an experience here. Mind you, you could be right, we might need to hold that idea for a few years, but we can always do an inside-the-mind-of-a-psychic kind of book, I mean look at that psychic barber bloke, Gordon Smith and Most Haunted… very popular,’ Larry rubs his little chubby hands together and I’m sure I can see pounds signs kerching-ing in his eyes.
‘Right that’s enough now, Larry, sod off and leave me alone, I’ll call you tomorrow when I’ve had a decent night’s sleep,’ I smile at him and thankfully he takes the hint and goes on his way to think up new ways of promoting me.
I look at my reflection in the mirror opposite me. I look as though I’ve aged by 10 years. My hair looks more like dreadlocks than pretty corkscrew curls and as hard as I try I can’t manage to straighten the frown lines out of my forehead. I was lucky to be blessed with good skin but it’s obvious that media attention overload is bad for your health. In fact, it is so bad that they should have a government health warning issued to anyone who is considering becoming an overnight success.
I put my head on the desk in front of me with a thump. I am so tired I could easily cry myself to sleep.
Knock, knock.
‘Okay if I come in?’ Jack’s voice whispers by the door. I raise my tired head from its resting position.
‘Come in,’
Jack closes the door behind him and leans against it. He looks as tired as I feel. His normally spiked up hair is flat and he looks as though he hasn’t slept in weeks.
‘How you doing?’ he asks.
‘Oh you know,’ I shrug. ‘How are you doing?’
‘I’m cool. You did well out there, kid. There’s loads of people out there want to meet you and say thank you. You can’t hide in here forever, you know.’
‘I know.’
‘You did it, kid. You showed them all and left that Bobby wanker bloke speechless. You should have seen the look on his face.’ I know Jack is desperately trying to make me feel better, but I don’t. Yes, I made my point. I gave people messages from their loved ones and proved that I was genuine all along, and I did hear voices from people, and yet I feel completely and utterly deflated.
Jack squats down beside me and grabs my hand. For a moment we look at each other and then look away again at the same time.
‘It’s all over now, Sam. You can get on with your job. You’ve proved to the world that you are genuine.’ Jack says quietly. Right now I so want to hug him to me.
And then Jack’s mobile signals that he has a text. He stands up and reads it, frowning as he does so.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘It’s from Paul…’ Jack says, still in frowning mode.
‘What’s he say?’ I ask as I wipe eyeliner from under my eyes in a bid to make me look less like the living dead.
Jack frowns again.
‘Nothing much, just wondered how you’re getting on,’ Jack says, and snaps his phone shut. ‘Come on, you’ve got fans to meet and greet.’
The last thing I want to do it meet and greet people but Jack is right; a lot of them have come to support me and the least I can do is talk to them. The TV production company kindly rustled up some caterers from the canteen who put on a kind of spontaneous ‘after-the-show’ buffet. I do wonder if I hadn’t heard those voices just in the nick of time, whether we would have been booted out to the fish and chip shop down the road.
‘Thank you so much.’ The man whose wife Sheila passed on a message to me for him hugs me to him. ‘You don’t know how much that message meant to me,’ he says, but I think I do.
‘You’re very welcome. Excuse me a moment, will you?’ I ask as I spot my mother talking to Gerry and asking him if he knows Trevor McDonald because she would like to ask Sir Trevor to front one of his Tonight programmes on the effect carrots can have on the male libido.
Gerry looks completely terrified in my mother’s company and backs himself into a wall.
‘Um…I don’t know him…sorry…’ he says.
‘But you must do! You work for the BBC!’ my mother says, ‘Colin, Colin, come here, dear. Let me introduce Gerald to you. Colin, meet Gerald. Gerald this is my… very dear friend and co-author, Colin. Colin, Gerald knows Sir Trevor McDonald,’ my mum says as Colin joins them with a plate of prawn vol-au-vents in his hands. Despite his size, Gerry, or Gerald as my mother insists on calling him, looks absolutely terrified.
My mum can be terrifying at times, especially if it comes to fighting a good cause – in t
his case it being carrots and how they can affect a man’s sexual performance. How she came to this conclusion, I really do not want to know. Give my mum a challenge and she’s like a dog with a bone, she will not let go of it until she has got a result. I step in to save Gerry.
‘No, Mum, Gerry doesn’t know Trevor McDonald. Gerry is a security guard.’ I add ushering Gerry away from the clutches of my mother.
‘But he works at the BBC,’ my mother squeals after me.
‘Yes, Mum, but Sir Trevor McDonald works for the other side,’ I add.
‘Oh, that’s a shame,’ she muses, ‘oh, Sammy, I want to speak to you in a moment…’
‘OK, Mum,’ I say as I move Gerry away from my mother and towards a bowl of fruit salad.
‘Thanks for coming to support me. Please excuse my mother,’ I say with a smile.
‘I’ve seen worse,’ Gerry says, ‘you were very good out there you know and thanks… you know for the advice…’ Gerry says, ‘…about the jogging…’ Gerry wobbles his tummy, ‘see, I’m already losing weight,’ he laughs, ‘my wife thinks it’s amazing.’
‘You’re very welcome, but I still don’t understand why you’re here.’
‘Me and my missus are big fans of yours ever since she phoned in to that Morning Latte one morning and you gave her a message from her grandmother. You made her day. I told her, I said, Lynne, there’s this psychic bird just joined that new morning programme, she’s pretty good from what I hear. Didn’t take much convincing, did my Lynne – she’s into all that weird psychic stuff. Watches all those Very Haunted programmes or whatever they’re called. She was straight on the blower to you.’ Gerry laughs. ‘I expect you remember her…grandmother’s name was Doreen?’ Gerry says.
I nod, but I have to admit in my time as a professional psychic - which is all of about six months now - there have been so many messages that I couldn’t tell you who I’ve spoken to and who I haven’t, dead or alive.
I give Gerry a hug and make my excuses for the loo where I discover my mum in there re-applying her lipstick. It’s been a long time since my mum wore lipstick and I smile to myself. She really is a beautiful woman and I feel so lucky to have her, even if she can be a bit flaky at times. I’m sure she isn’t really as daft as she makes out sometimes, but I’m her daughter, and like all daughters, sometimes I think she’s totally lost the plot.
Oh Great, Now I Can Hear Dead People: What Would You Do if You Could Suddenly Hear Real Dead People? Page 23
