I speak as gently as I can, glancing at Sheila to make sure I’m not getting this wrong. ‘Sarah. You have to listen. This is horrible. You are living a lonely life in this place. You feel ill and angry and strangers keep coming in. The girl that messed up your bathroom lives here now. And there’s somewhere much nicer you could be. Where you’d feel well and strong and happy. You deserve to feel wonderful, Sarah, and you could, easily.’
‘What do you mean?’ Sarah sounds hesitant, but at least she’s listening.
Suddenly, Sheila speaks. ‘Sarah love, look to your left. Go on, look to your left. There’s a door opening, isn’t there?’
‘Who do you see? Who’s there?’
All goes still. Faint but clear, I hear it. I hear the anger and the pain drain away from her voice as she says just one word.
‘Len?’
‘That’s right, Sarah, your Len’s here and he’ll take you to Petey. Just walk to him.’
I feel her go. It’s nothing dramatic or showy. There’s no massive flash of light or crash of thunder. It’s like something was here, an energy, and now it’s gone. An absence. I look around the room. It’s lighter. The oppression has lifted and now it just looks like a messy room. I can’t believe it. Was that it?
I turn to Sheila. ‘Did we do it?’
She nods. ‘Well, that went all right, didn’t it? Well done you. All that stuff about a better place she could be in. That’s so right. And kind, being kind was exactly right. They’re so used to being confused by all the comings and goings over the years that they don’t understand. They can’t see the wonder that’s waiting for them right in front of their faces. You just have to introduce some doubt and they’re suddenly open to the possibility that they don’t have to stay trapped. That’s when I jumped in. Bloody fish to water, you are.’
It was so sudden. Was that truly it?
‘Sheila. That was un-be-lievable. Has she really gone?’
‘Looks like it.’
I move to leave, but she stops me. Lowers her voice. ‘Your friend out there. Is she a depressive?’
‘Erm…’
‘Come on. She must be to have chosen this place. Or let this place choose her. And this kind of mess, you find it a lot in ‘disturbed’ rooms. Troubled spirits thrive in mess. She needs to tidy up: it’ll help to tidy her head up.’
‘OK.’
We go back through to Elsa and tell her the good news. She doesn’t look like she knows whether to believe us or not. We explain about the old lady and how she didn’t want to move on because of her bird. I decide not to tell her that Sarah died at three fifty-five a.m. precisely in the bedroom, as that might do more harm than good. We promise we saw her move on. I accept a coffee and a biscuit. Ghost-busting has left me gagging for sugar. I adopt my most serious voice.
‘Elsa. We’re going to drink our coffee and eat most of your expensive biscuits. You are going to get in that bedroom and tidy up. Put all the bottles and cans and used up creams and whatnot in a black bin liner. Shove the dirty clothes in your wash basket and the clean ones in a drawer or the wardrobe or in another bag, I don’t care, just do it quickly. By the time we leave, in about twenty-five minutes, I want you to have a tidy room. Sheila says it’ll help to keep the place “clear”.’
I have to bring Sheila into it. She won’t do it just for me. She’s so shocked she doesn’t speak, then she jumps up.
Sheila chimes in. ‘Open the window and burn a nice smelly candle if you have one ’n all. Can I smoke in here?’
Elsa looks like she might say no, then shrugs.
‘How can I refuse after what you just did? Smoke by the open window if you don’t mind.’
She throws open the window to the street, goes to the kitchen then tentatively enters her bedroom with bin bags and a box of matches. She runs back in for a second.
‘Thank you so much. Both of you.’
Then she’s off again.
I can’t believe she’s doing as I told her. Nobody ever does what I tell them. Sheila goes to the window, face thoughtful. We hear a lot of rummaging from Elsa’s room.
‘That was impressive, love. What you did in there. I hardly had to say a thing. Your first time. You just got it.’
‘I don’t know about that, I just felt awful for her, being so unhappy. She was in the kind of trap you see living people in all of the time. Still, at least she was dead and could move on!’
Sheila emits one of her dirty laughs. ‘True enough.’
Sheila looks like she’s sucking on a stick of nectar rather than a cigarette right now. ‘Just so you know, you can’t talk them all down that easily. You get some right buggers. Evil so and so’s in life and still evil so and so’s in death. But she wasn’t evil, she was just a lonely old lady who was worried about her bird. God bless her. Best not to talk about her right now, though. Or think too much about it. She’s only just gone over; we don’t want to bring her back!’
I wonder if my admiration is too apparent? I’m buzzing again. What just happened was awesome and Sheila is my new hero. Still, I do have one unanswered question.
‘How did you know that she should look to her left? When it was time to go?’
She sucks again on her nectar stick. ‘When you know you’ve got to them, made them doubt or hope, close your eyes and visualise where they’re standing. You’ll see a pinprick of light somewhere, or a door opening. It’ll just appear in your mind. In Sarah’s case, maybe she imagined she would ‘go to heaven’ through a door when she was a child so that’s what appeared. Sometimes you see someone waiting to accompany them, sometimes they spot someone through the porthole and tell you who it is. They usually sound happy about it and they almost always go through. We just help them by soothing their fears beforehand. What a lovely job, eh?’
‘Sure is.’
And it really is. When I go and check on Elsa twenty minutes later it’s already a different room. She has piled her dirty clothes into one bag and her clean clothes into another, and wedged them into the wardrobe. The shoes have gone on their shoe rack and the rubbish has left the room in another bag. Now the floor is cleared the room looks bigger. She has switched on the make-up lights around her mirror, lit a Jo Malone candle, probably a freebie from one of her freelance jobs, and she’s straightened the duvet. The open window has let in fresh air and the candle smells great. I call in Sheila. Neither of us believes how different a room can look in such a short time. Elsa’s cheeks are pink.
‘It feels different.’
Sheila nods and hands her some crystals from her bag.
‘Wash these under the cold tap and don’t carry them next to coins. They should help with negativity, especially the haematite. Don’t dwell too much on what just happened: we want to let Sarah get settled wherever she is. Chances are she’d not want to return here in a month of Sundays, but you don’t want to call any unwanted energy back. Keep the windows open for a bit and I’d get some sage tomorrow, light it and take it around the house, carry it into each room and waft the smoke. This should be a new start for you and your flat.’
‘Do you want to come back to mine again tonight Elsa? You can if you’re not ready to stay here.’
‘No. Actually I’d like to tidy up everywhere. Doing the bedroom has got me in the mood. Plus, if I run off again I might be too scared to come back. I need to see if I can sleep here now.’
I admire her spirit. Spirit. Geddit?
As we walk down to the car, Sheila winks. ‘If she wasn’t your friend we’d have had a little wage for that.’
I can’t believe anybody gets paid for doing something so gratifying but, on balance, Elsa should have forced Sheila to take some money seeing as it’s how she makes her living.
As I start up the car I send a little wish up to Sarah. I hope she’s having a lovely time. I visualise her cuddling her husband and feeding her bird. It makes me feel warm.
That night in my dreams there are no nooses or screams. I just see a quiet wood filled with bluebells.
I love bluebells.
The Phone-call of Fortune
Inka, so called because she’s the blackest, shiniest cat you’ll ever see, is sitting on my lap, purring like a truck. It is noon and I’ve only been up an hour as I was reading my book. It’s a tarot card book I picked up in a charity shop. Talk about God providing (if you believe in any of the gods). Fifty pence it was. The brand new ones in Mystery Pot cost eleven pounds.
I can’t be spending that kind of money right now as my savings are dwindling fast. In fact, in another week or two I will have reached the end of the wire when it comes to cash flow, so I am now limiting myself to one crushingly expensive, shop-bought coffee a day when I’m at work (I simply love a large soya cappuccino with a sugar free shot of hazelnut – who doesn’t?) and I stick to home-brewed coffee on the days I’m not working. Today I’m not working. I’m also shockingly bored by this book. Sheila says I should check how good I am with the cards. She recommended the Ryder Waites, but they didn’t inspire me. I’ve seen the deck I want. They’re called Medieval Scapinis and they are the bomb. I’m just not sure I can justify the expense.
I’m toying with putting on a repeat of Homes Under the Hammer when my phone pings. It’s a major novel of a text from Elsa. She usually texts rather than phones if she’s freelancing from an office. She says the last few nights she’s slept like a baby, one of them on no alcohol at all. She’s followed instructions and also set out more candles around the place, dusted and cleaned the whole flat and added flowers. (I can’t help wondering if we gave her a personality transplant by accident. I mean Elsa, buying flowers? Really?) She says it feels much more comfy now and she’s less stressed. I text back that I’m happy for her and would love to see her for a catch-up sometime soon.
Just as I’m sending it my home phone rings. I usually wait for the answer phone to kick in, in case some idiot is trying to sell me double flamin’ glazing, but I take a chance and pick it up.
‘Tanz! All right?’
The booming tones of Bill. Six foot four, blond, piercing green eyes, Glaswegian, funny, my agent and – crucially – gay. (So many of my friends are gay. A blessing of being in the entertainment industry.) He is engaged to my other agent, handsome, sensitive, equally hilarious Joe, who stands half a foot shorter than his man but has the spirit of a tiger.
Even though I’ve had only one audition in the past three months, I would never leave them. I know how horrid the acting world is at the moment and I know my past victories in ‘the business’ are now nothing compared to pouting, frivolous females who are younger, still considered up-and-coming and who managed to get a few of their lines right in Hollyoaks.
I really cannot compete in a world of vacuous celebrity consumerism. I could now prove myself as an actress a million times over and it would make no difference. I have an ‘interesting’ face, I am not a lover of schmoozing and I live in a universe where sporting massive plastic tits and selling every aspect of your life to the tabloids is pretty much expected. I will never fit into this new world order.
‘Hiya Bill, how are you?’
‘Not as good as you’re about to be. You know the Snow-bar ad?’
How could I forget? A fortnight ago they had me pretending to be a liberated housewife in the imaginary snow, doing a silly dance to some awful song about their new chocolate bar. To be fair, they let me taste one and it wasn’t appalling. Then they kept me hanging on until three days ago, when they announced that unfortunately I’d got down to the last two, but they’d ‘gone in a different direction’, i.e. away from me towards some other lucky cow.
‘Of course. The bastards.’
‘Not so fast! “The bastards” would now like to offer you the part, as their first choice just broke her foot in a pothole. Apparently she thought it was a little puddle. Compound fracture, can’t walk. So now they need to go back to their other and, of course, superior choice.’
‘Oh my God! Oh my God, Bill. When?’
‘Flying to Spain tomorrow. Is your passport in order darlin’?’
‘Of course!’
‘Money’s three hundred a day for two days plus travel, plus they’re offering you a three grand buy-out. Means you don’t get repeat fees, but it’s three thousand upfront. It’s pretty rubbish compared to the old days, but deals are getting tighter and it’s better than some. Good news is they’ll pay it as soon as the ad is showing and they expect to have the first burst out in four weeks.’
‘Aaaaggghhhh. Three grand in four weeks’ time would be MARVELLOUS!’
‘Well done, darlin’. I’ll email all the details now and speak to you later. Bon voyage!’
I cannot believe it. I hug Inka and kiss the top of her head. Her purring now sounds like rain thrumming on a tin roof. She would sit on me all day if I let her.
I have been completely bricking it as to how to pay my credit card bill along with everything else and still afford my rent. This job has bought me a few months’ grace if I rein in the spending, do my three days a week in the shop and stop treating myself to enormous vases of wine at Minnie’s.
Minnie’s. I still haven’t called Patrick. I assume he’s Patrick if he’s Pat.
I decide to have a bath to celebrate getting my job. I will shave my legs and armpits, put some super-strength conditioner in my hair and slather myself in cocoa butter cream. Then I’ll go for a big walk in the drizzle with my ladybird umbrella up.
But before all of that I shall send a little text. Today I landed a job. Tomorrow I will be on an aeroplane, I will do a minimal amount of work and will return knowing I shall not have to scrape for pennies for the time being. That deserves a treat. I shall text Pat and ask how he’s feeling and maybe he’ll text me back. That would be nice.
As I turn on the bath taps, not four minutes after texting him, he calls. I was not expecting that.
‘Hello, is that the Wicked Witch of the West?’
‘No, it’s not. I’m the Lovely Witch of the North-East, thank you very much.’
‘Oh, forget it then. I prefer bad witches.’
‘Ha.’
‘How are you, Geordie girl?’
‘I’m OK thanks, better than OK actually. I’ve just been saved from a life in the workhouse.’
‘How come?’
‘I got a job. One of those humiliating adverts that make you look an absolute twat in front of the nation. But beggars can’t be choosers and now I can keep my Skybox for another fortnight.’
He doesn’t so much laugh as rumble. His laugh is like a rock-fall. ‘Well, I’ve got the night off. Are you coming for a wee drinkie to celebrate?’
God, his accent is delicious.
‘Are you old enough to drink, Pat?’
‘You cheeky mare. I’m nearly twenty-seven, I’m positively ancient. Have you still got your own teeth?’
‘Hoy!’
He rumbles again. ‘How old are you? Please don’t ask me to guess. I’m rubbish at ages.’
I am surprisingly reticent about my age. I still have to tell casting agents I’m thirty-three. Well I don’t have to, but I do it anyway because they have no imagination. The closer you are to thirty, the closer you are to still being young. The further away you are the more fucked up it all is. Forty is supposedly a desert for actresses. That’s why I don’t want to be relying on acting as a career by then. It’s too demeaning and embarrassing. Either that or I have to become some kind of unlikely movie star. The thought of that doesn’t even attract me. To live in those heightened realms you have to pretty much leave reality behind – in a bad way.
‘I’m at the back end of thirty-five. I am officially ancient.’
‘You’re officially sexy. Where should we meet and what time?’
I ignore the compliment.
‘I’ve got a flight at noon tomorrow and I have to pack and stuff, so how about six-thirtyish so I can get home early? I really need a proper night’s sleep if I can.’
‘OK… I know a nice cocktail place on the way up to Muswell Hil
l. It opened a fortnight ago. It’s called Purple Haze. It’s relaxed, it’s got sofas, the drinks are ace and it’s not Minnie’s. What do you think?’
I like the fact he didn’t leave the choice to me.
‘Yeah, cool. Purple Haze, six-thirty.’
‘See ya then.’
I can’t believe how easy that was. What a thoroughly nice bloke he is. I can imagine him travelling the world, making friends wherever he goes, having women falling in love with him and him barely noticing, just surfing and hanging and living in the now. Young person’s malarkey. Even at this juncture, in my mid-thirties with no ties and no kids, I’ve started to feel time ticking. Getting too old to do ‘young’ things.
My cousin Kel is my age and she has a daughter. She loves her and she loves her husband, but she says the ticking is even worse when you give birth because suddenly your life is mapped out, as a carer for another person. Until her daughter’s old enough to fly the nest, Kel can’t go out when she feels like it and she can’t just take off on holiday when the mood takes her. She can’t go dancing and sleep in till noon or go to music festivals or pop down the pub for a chat without thinking of the welfare of her child. The babysitters, the finances, the preparation, and the worry while she’s out that something may go wrong…
Kel says she’ll be going on fifty by the time the responsibility is lessened and that terrifies her. At one point she was as adventure-loving as me. Now she says she’s making her new adventure with her family, but sometimes she feels trapped. She reckons that’s why parents become alcoholics. A bottle of chardonnay a night lessens the burden. She’s only half joking. But I’m also an alcoholic and I am child-free. Probably for ever.
A Dirty Martini
There is no way I should be taking so long to get ready. I’m going for a drink with a good-looking lad. I know this, but last time he saw me I was not dressed up so I don’t see why I’m making such a song and dance about it now. There are clothes all over my bed like I’m in a chick flick. I don’t like chick flicks and I don’t want to be a flamin’ girl about this. I’m only going for a cocktail.
Sex, Spooks and Sauvignon (Adventures of an Accidental Medium Book 1) Page 7
