by Julie Howlin
‘Which is when?’
‘I don’t know yet,’ I said.
‘I’m sure that will be possible, as long as there’s cover for the phones,’ he said.
I wanted to scream, who cares about the bloody phones? My grandmother is DEAD and I wasn’t there, so I can’t not turn up at her funeral because of bloody PHONES. I didn’t feel strong enough to do that, though, so I just muttered, ‘I’ll let you know as soon as I find out.’
‘Please do,’ he said.
I turned to leave the room and before I reached the door he was already tapping something into the Blackberry. As I closed the door behind me, I prayed the funeral would not be on a Friday. Sarah’s child-minder had Fridays off and so Sarah wouldn’t be in. There were a couple of people who might be drafted in to help out, but I knew one of them was on holiday and the other was going to a meeting on Friday. I wondered if I would get away with throwing a sickie if I was refused the time off. Probably not, but I might have to do it, anyway.
I returned to my desk. Sarah handed me a message from Caroline, to ring her URGENTLY. Making personal calls at work was a serious offence, but I knew Caroline would make my life a misery if I didn’t ring her back immediately. I sighed and dialled her number.
‘Gran’s funeral’s on Thursday,’ Caroline said when I identified myself. No hello, no how are you, no how are you coping. No small talk. Straight to the point. ‘Eleven o’clock, leaving from Mum and Dad’s house.’
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Okay? Of course I’m okay,’ Caroline said, huffily. ‘I’ll see you on Thursday.’
With that she hung up and I went to tell Robert that I wanted Thursday off. ‘That should be fine,’ he said.
**
I arrived at work on Tuesday to find the office in darkness and a frantic message from Sarah on the answerphone. ‘Hi, guys, it’s me, Sarah.’ There was a baby squalling in the background. ‘My child-minder’s got the flu. I won’t be in today.’
My heart sank. Without Sarah, the chances of there being enough phone cover on Thursday just got a lot less. Robert might say I couldn’t have the time off after all, because it would leave him in the office alone. Despite his constant harping on about the company standard of answering a phone within five rings he never, ever picked up a phone himself. He might be standing right next to it and Sarah and I would be in the kitchen, but rather than answer it himself, he’d come flapping into the kitchen saying, ‘Five rings! Five rings!’
It was one of those days when the phone didn’t stop ringing. I only had one cup of coffee all day which Robert, in one of his better moods, made for me. However, his good mood didn’t stretch to covering the phone for even ten minutes while I went out for a sandwich so by five o’clock I was famished. Just as I thought I’d finally dealt with everything, the phone rang again - the messaging service with three callers demanding to be phoned back TODAY. One issue had already been resolved but the other two required me to search through Sarah’s files and call back. It was a quarter to six before I could even think about leaving.
As the last person in the office I had to go through all the security procedures - a whole long list of things that had to be done before I could leave. If any one of those things was forgotten, Robert would come storming in the next morning demanding to know who had been last to leave, and give me a right bollocking when he found out it was me.
If you picked up a difficult phone call at five to five, you knew that even once you’d managed to get this person off the phone, ideally by persuading them to call tomorrow, when with any luck it would be picked up by somebody else, if everyone else had gone home you still had fifteen minutes worth of health, safety and security procedures to go through.
I kept a laminated list in my drawer so I wouldn't miss anything:
Health/Safety and Security Checklist.
1. Empty all rubbish bins and put bag out for collection.
2. Make sure washing up is done and no mugs are left out on anyone’s desk.
3. No food to be left in the fridge over the weekend - last person to leave must remove and bin any food left in the fridge.
(That one was a killer - many’s the time I’d done the first two - emptied all the bins and put the bag out, only to find when I got to No 3 that there was still food in the fridge and I would have to go out and re-open the rubbish bag, which added five minutes on to the routine. I keep meaning to retype my list with No 3 coming before No 1 but never seem to get the time).
4. All computers, monitors, printers and fax machines to be turned off.
5. Hot water/heating boiler to be turned off.
6. Check all windows are closed, not forgetting the loo.
7. Make sure answering machine is on.
8. Turn all lights off.
9. Put petty cash in the safe.
10. Make sure filing cabinets with customer files are locked and key is in safe.
11. Hide safe key in usual place.
12. Make sure coffee machine and oven are switched off.
13. Make sure photocopier is switched off.
14. Set burglar alarm.
15. Don’t forget the post.
16. Double lock the door.
17. Hand key in to janitor.
Many was the time I had got as far as the tube station platform on a Friday night, only to get that horrid feeling that I’d forgotten something. Having to touch out again with my Oyster card, be charged for a journey I hadn’t made, run back to the office, ask the janitor for the key, unlock, do whichever item I’d missed and repeat items 14, 16 and 17 was infinitely preferable to the telling off I’d get on Monday for having missed any one of those items. That's why I have my list. My desk is by the window so I've been told to tidy my desk before I leave each night in case it gives passers-by a bad impression of the company. If I’m lucky I can just stuff everything in my top drawer, but that can add another ten minutes if my drawer is already full.
It wouldn’t have been so bad except that Tuesday night was group night and if I stopped for something to eat I would be late. My stomach was rumbling and I knew Jonathan didn’t approve of rumbling stomachs during meditations. I considered phoning and saying I was ill, but knew if I did that my commitment would be called into question. It was like being back at school - I felt like dropping out but I’d promised Gran I’d work at it. Now she was gone, I needed the group more than ever. So no sandwich - I just had to get there.
‘Tabitha,’ said the voice in my head. ‘You’re not here to please Jonathan. You must eat. No psychic is any good once she has starved herself to death. Get yourself a sandwich!’
I raced into a sandwich shop which was about to close, bought their last roll, and ate it on the train, which thankfully was just pulling in as I reached the platform. I even got a seat.
I got there just as they were about to start - a minute later and I would have been asked to leave, instead of merely getting a reproachful look from Jonathan.
After a meditation we had our sharing time, in which we related to the others any meaningful psychic experiences we had had during the week. It didn’t have to be anything major. It’s amazing how much six imaginative, highly intuitive people can tease out of the vaguest dream or the smallest coincidence.
I told them about my puzzling dream with my grandmother, the hat and the jigsaw.
‘I would say your dear departed grandmother was passing something on to you,’ Jonathan said. ‘Perhaps it was symbolic of the fact that you have inherited her gift.’
‘Perhaps,’ Cynthia Smythe-Gore cut in, ‘but I think it may be some work she wants you to complete. You know how people talk about the different roles they play - I’ve got my mother hat on today, or I’ve got my committee hat on. I think there is something she does - or did - I’m so sorry - that she wants you to finish off, and that's what the jigsaw represents.’
‘She never mentioned anything,’ I said. Did it mean all the clients who went to her for readings wou
ld now be beating a path to my door? I could give up working for wegotanythingyouwant.co.uk if that was the case - but then they would all drift away once they realised I wasn’t as good as Maggie Flynn and then I’d have no income at all.
I was relieved when the focus passed to Lorna, who said that during the meditation she had seen little dots of light dancing on the floor. Cynthia said that it was a sign from the angels. Lorna looked so ecstatic that I decided not to point out that it was probably the dying sunlight reflecting off the moving parts of a carriage clock in the window. It’s no wonder ‘normal’ people are so quick to dismiss psychic phenomena, when people like Cynthia and Lorna assign such spiritual significance to something so obviously mundane. I even began doubting my own experiences - how was I to know that I was not, in my own way, as naive as Lorna and believing I was seeing spirits or angels when it was really only a trick of the light? No, I told myself. Dakota is real enough when he chooses to appear. He’s no trick of the light. Tricks of the light never give such sound advice.
**
I got home to find my answering machine flashing. I hardly dared hope it would be Daniel at last, but he knew I was not in on Tuesday evenings.
There were two messages. The first was Jess suggesting a drink on Friday evening. The other was Caroline in full bossy mode, demanding to know what I was going to contribute to Gran’s funeral. Was I going to get there early and help make sandwiches, or what? I decided I couldn’t face a run in with Caroline. She could wait until tomorrow, even if I did get told off by Robert for making personal calls at work. There were compassionate grounds, surely, if it was about funeral arrangements.
I called Jess, though, and arranged to meet her after work on Friday. An evening with Jess was just what I’d need after the horrors of the funeral.
I decided against meditating. I could get away with that on Tuesdays as we did meditations at group, and I was exhausted. Thumbelina was asleep in my meditation space, which was another good excuse to give it a miss, so I just went to bed and was asleep in seconds.
I woke up in the middle of the night after another odd dream. I was standing by a beautiful blue lake with Daniel when a giant swan glided across the water towards us. It stopped and looked at us. Then Gran stepped out from a clump of reeds beside the lake and said, ‘The swan needs your help.’
‘Don’t listen to her,’ Daniel said. ‘If you do it's over between us.’
I stood there, torn between my loyalty to Gran and sympathy for this beautiful bird on the one hand, and desire for Daniel and fear of losing him on the other. I’ll never know what decision I came to, because then I woke up.
The dream stayed with me all day. I couldn’t stop thinking about what I would do if I had to make a decision like that in waking life. I hoped and prayed it would never happen, but I knew dreams that vivid come for a reason. Perhaps it was a precog dream telling me that Daniel would call and ask me out on Friday, when I’d already said I’d meet Jess. I’d have to turn him down, as Jess and I have always said we’d never cancel a girlie night out together just because of some man. He might feel put out, but I couldn’t imagine he’d finish with me over it, especially if I said I’d see him on Saturday instead. I wasn’t sure what the swan meant, though - I decided to look it up in my book of dream symbolism later.
When I got to work, there was still no Sarah. The child minder was better but now Tarquin had a cough. It was not looking good for me getting time off. No doubt Pia would have caught the cough as well by tomorrow. I feared Robert might see that coming and rescind his permission for my compassionate leave.
No matter. I had to be there to make up for being too late before. It was my final chance to say goodbye.
The door to Robert's office was closed, so I took the chance to ring my sister.
‘So what are you going to do?’ Caroline demanded as soon as she picked up the phone. I knew I didn’t want to go early and make sandwiches - Caroline’s idea of early was the middle of the night in my book.
‘I’ll buy some drink,’ I said. I wasn’t sure how I’d get it there, but it seemed the easiest thing to offer to do. ‘How many people are we expecting?’
‘About a hundred,’ she replied. My heart sank. I couldn’t carry drink for that many people. ‘But most of them will be driving so they won’t want alcohol, so you must buy plenty of soft drinks. A bottle each of red and white will be more than enough’.
‘And some beer,’ I ventured. ‘The men will want beer.’
‘I already told you, Tabitha, the men will mostly be driving and they will not want to drink.’
‘I bet some of them will. Look, if it’s left over I’ll take it. Daniel will drink it, I expect.’
‘Oh. You’re not still with HIM, are you?’
‘It’s none of your business, Caroline. I’ll bring beer.’
‘And fizzy water. We must have fizzy water.’
‘Okay. I’ll get fizzy water as well.’
Carrying all that was going to be impossible, I thought, as I hung up. I’d have to take Simon up on his offer.
Simon, my university friend. He has a similar success rate with men as I do, so we often commiserate with each other. He is fascinated by anything paranormal and loves hearing my stories. I hadn’t seen him much for a while, because he’d been all loved up with some guy I’d met on a training course. I'd really fancied this guy, and I decided to risk asking him out for a drink. As with Simon, it became obvious very quickly that I wasn't his type. But Simon just could be. So I called him and invited him to join us. They got it together and so Simon reckoned he owed me a favour, which I intended to call in, even though their relationship had crashed and burned quite spectacularly a month or so ago.
‘Si, I need to borrow your car.’
‘When?’
‘Tomorrow. My gran died over the weekend. I have to buy booze for the funeral.’
‘Oh, my God. I am so sorry, Tabs. My Scarlett is at your service, you poor thing. I’ll bring her over tonight and we’ll have a few bevvies to drown your sorrows, OK?’
I laughed and said that would be wonderful. No doubt when I returned Scarlett (his bright red Ford Fiesta) we would get smashed together again.
Robert emerged from his office and flashed me a warning look. I think he must be psychic, too, because he always seems to know when we're making personal calls even when he cannot hear what is being said. ‘Gotta go,’ I told Simon and hastily hung up.
‘Funeral arrangements, was it?’ he asked. I nodded. ‘Tell me about it,’ he said. ‘My uncle died six months ago and my aunt is still not speaking to my mother because they both wanted to bring potato salad. Listen, I’ve asked Barbara if she’ll come in and cover the phones tomorrow if Sarah’s not back, so you needn’t worry. Just take the day off and don’t think about work, okay?’
He winked at me and disappeared into his office, leaving me a little confused. Perhaps he wasn’t so bad after all.
8 school days
Gran told me that most children are naturally psychic. But they get told so often that what they are seeing or hearing is their imagination, and they start to believe it. I was lucky to have my gran to tell me that the spirit world was as real as the one we live in, perhaps even more so. She taught me that while it might not always be wise to talk about it in front of grown-ups, I should never deny to myself what I heard or saw.
It was possible, Gran said, that even Caroline was psychic when she was younger - but she quickly conformed to Mum’s worldview. Even at the age of ten, her memories of such things had gone completely.
I remember my first day at school. I found myself, for the first time, in a room full of children my age. I was nervous as I watched my mother leave the room and abandon me. My spirit friend Dakota stayed, telling me everything was going to be fine. Gran had warned me not to talk to adults about him, so the pretty lady in the Alice band who was my teacher must never know. But the other children - they needed to know that their imaginary friends were real, so t
hey would never lose them.
I told everyone, during the course of the day, that I had a spirit guide and they all had one, too, and that it was true, no matter what the adults said. But these kids had already forgotten. They looked at me blankly, and turned back to their building blocks, or the sand pit. At playtime, one group of boys, led by a boy named Timothy, who looked like a sandy haired rat, began taunting me. ‘Bonkers, bonkers, bonkers,’ he chanted, and one by one, the whole class joined in.
The playground had a couple of concrete pipes, big enough to sit inside. I dived inside one and stayed there. The chanting continued, but I could close my eyes and cover my ears to shut it out. I also managed to shut out the bell signalling the end of playtime. When the chanting finally stopped, I stayed where I was, weeping. Nobody understood.
‘Hey, Tabitha, what’s the matter?’ a kind voice said. The pretty lady in the Alice band, who was called Miss Gibson, peered into my hiding place. ‘The bell went ten minutes ago. You’re supposed to be back inside. What’s wrong?’
I looked at her. I liked her. She was nice; she had welcomed me when I first arrived. ‘They’re all laughing at me,’ I blurted out. Then I remembered Miss Gibson was an adult and I could never tell her why. To her credit, she never asked. ‘I’m going to read you all a story,’ she said. ‘I think you’ll like it - please come in and listen.’ She held out her hand, and I took it.
**
I was a bright child and loved to learn, so I enjoyed lessons. School was bearable as long as I stayed away from the other children.
The problem was the teachers seemed to think that there was something wrong with spending playtime alone. Miss Gibson, the headmistress, other teachers and even the dinner ladies who supervised us at lunch time, seemed to be on a mission to get me to play with the others.
I was content to wander to the very edge of the playground alone, lean on the fence and watch the others from a distance. I learned to savour the few moments’ peace I'd get before the teacher on playground duty would spot me and make a beeline for me.
