by Frances Vick
He was still a liar, though. He hadn’t come to talk to her the day Lisa disappeared. Even if he’d tried to, there was no way on earth her mum would have let him in the house – Bryan’s notoriety was such that even adults knew his reputation. Now, here he was trying to get some kind of credit for telling the police about Tokki, when he’d done nothing; nothing at all apart from making a bad situation even worse.
And that stuff about Denise? There was a chance that she’d forgiven him… maybe even let him back into her life, but the Denise Kirsty knew would never have supported him selling his story to the papers that way. Denise was private, dignified and stoical. Bryan was the exact opposite.
Kirsty shut down her computer, took a few moments to blink away the after-image of Bryan’s stupid, pompous face. Then she texted Vic back. Of course she’d come early to help! Looking forward to it!
One of those things was true.
Fourteen
It was the hottest March on record. That’s what Ollie told everyone as he swung around with prosecco. ‘Since records began!’ Vic had tasked him with maintaining a strict orbit around the guests outside, and his sweaty face was getting more and more mottled as he leaned in with drinks. ‘Hot enough for you?’
The garden was packed because, so far, nobody had been allowed into the house. There was a gazebo set up in the garden; next to the trampoline already crowded with children, parents on the patio peered like meerkats at every shriek, and, seeing that it wasn’t their child, turned away again, with their raised glasses.
‘Who do the kids belong to?’ Kirsty asked.
‘Oh, some are from the NCT group, some are from baby massage, some are from TumbleTots,’ Vic answered casually. ‘Lovely bunch of girls, I couldn’t have got through the first few months without them. Could I? Could I, Milo?’ Milo wobbled and drooled on her hip, either dozing or succumbing to sunstroke. He had the same, dropsical look as Ollie. ‘Actually, can you take him? He looks like he needs some Auntie Kirsty time! Don’t you? You do!’
Of late this was Kirsty’s role – the childless, doe-eyed aunt who could be relied on to do the heavy work. And Milo was undeniably heavy. It was strange how Vic didn’t need help setting up, help choosing the music or help with the food – she’d hired caterers, for god’s sake. She only needed someone to handle the baby so she wouldn’t get vomit on her new dress.
So many babies and so many women with babies that she didn’t want to meet but had to. Vic steered her around by her elbow, introduced her to everyone, passing her around like a bowl of nuts. My sister, Kirsten. I’ve told you all about her. Yes, that’s the one! That’s her. God, I couldn’t do what you do! Social work! It’s a vocation though, isn’t it?
Vic had taken to saying this a lot. As if being a social worker was somehow both exotic and illustrative of Great Maturity. Kirsty caught sight of Lee at the buffet, comfortable in his un-sweaty T-shirt, back straight, sipping a beer while some banker type was holding forth about… what? It sounded like reputations? Regulations? And Lee was nodding, wearing that little smile that others read as polite and interested, but Kirsty knew was ever so slightly ironic. When they were alone she knew that Lee would ditch the irony and gleefully tell her all about the conversation, imitating the man’s meant-to-be-noticed asides about bonuses, huge deals lost and won, promotions… and all in that silly voice (posh Scots. Who knew that was even a thing?).
The general absurdity of his surroundings seemed to have perked Lee up. He was of the opinion that people should make the best of things… he didn’t want to be at his horrible sister-in-law’s horrible party, but he was, so he may as well have some fun. At the beginning of the day, Vic had introduced him to a group of guests as ‘My amazing brother-in-law, he makes bespoke furnishings – look at these beautiful units? That was Lee,’ and Lee countered with ‘All chipboard and superglue. Lucky if they’ll last six months.’ Later, when Vic told them that, yes, Ollie was thinking of extending his portfolio into property development, Lee added cheerfully, ‘He has his eye on hoarder houses and crime scenes. There’s a lot of adult nappies and blood, but it’s all finders keepers. If you’re lucky you get to keep the war medals.’ He smiled joyfully as Vic paled, her jaw tightening in fury. She made no more introductions. Maybe Kirsty should do that; embarrass Vic into leaving her alone, stop throwing her at more and more smug mums…
Sensing Kirsty’s eyes on him, Lee smiled, beckoned her over. ‘Kirsty, this is Alistair. He’s in murders and executions.’
‘Mergers and acquisitions,’ Alastair said after a baffled pause.
‘Oh, OK. That makes more sense,’ Lee said smoothly.
Just then, Vic tapped her glass with a spoon to get everyone’s attention. She stood, slim and glowing on the new decking. She was excited.
‘I’d like to thank you all for being part of this special day.’ She gazed at the guests with prosecco-dimmed eyes. ‘As you know, Ollie and I have been working so hard on the house. Not one house, either, because this was originally two homes and a small barn! So as you can imagine, the amount of work it’s taken to get the place liveable, I felt like we were caught in an endless episode of Grand Designs!’ There was an appreciative ripple of laughter, a sympathetic wave. Alastair called out, ‘We’ve all been there!’
‘Anyway, after a year of hard work, no sleep and hundreds of trips to B&Q, we got here. We finally made it!’ She waved her hand. ‘And I’m so glad you’re here to help us celebrate!’ A man at the back gave a little cheer. ‘But, before I show you around the house, can I ask two things? One, no shoes please. Two – as some of you know, I have a spiritual side, so I wanted to make absolutely sure that not only are we ready to move into the house, but that the house welcomes us.’ She laughed. ‘I can see a few eye-rolls, a few anxious looks, but you know I’m a bit crazy!’ Again that little ripple of indulgent laughter. ‘I’m the wacky sister. Aren’t I, Kirsten?’
‘Mmm,’ Kirsty managed.
‘You see, I still embarrass her!’ Victoria blinked slowly, lovingly. ‘Anyway, I’ve arranged for a very special ritual. A house cleansing. We wanted to build a bridge—’
‘That’s more your line, isn’t it, Lee?’ Alastair put in.
Lee answered with a cock of his beer bottle. ‘It is, but after the cabinets they couldn’t afford me.’
‘—between ourselves and the past, to ensure unity. A peaceful house.’ Milo chose that moment to throw up on the decking. There were a few stifled giggles. For a second, Kirsty saw Vic’s face ripple with fear – she looked vulnerable, then, frightened, much as she had during all those months of bed rest. A flush spread up her neck, as it always did when she was nervous or excited. Today meant so much to her, it was practically existential. Kirsty felt a wave of fierce protection flow from her to her sister; she caught her eye, nodded encouragingly. It seemed to give Vic the strength to finish her prepared speech.
‘Anyway. I’d like to introduce you all to a very special woman, who, for the last week, has been spiritually cleansing our home remotely from California, and through fate.’ Vic’s fingers made little speech marks in the air. ‘Her schedule allowed her to join us this evening for the final ritual.’ Vic gave a little pause. ‘I’d like to introduce to you: Angela Bright.’
She swayed ever so slightly on her heels, surveyed the crowd, assessing the impact of her news. It wasn’t the greatest of impacts, to tell the truth. There were some nods, and one woman held one soft palm over her mouth in what might be excited shock, but could also easily be amusement. Mostly, people carried on looking at each other with a kind of guarded expectancy, hoping for someone to break ranks and take the lead. Kirsty realised that nobody knew who Angela Bright was. She might be famous in America, but here she was nobody. Someone whispered, ‘Who?’ Kirsty busied herself with Milo, so as not to witness any more of her sister’s embarrassment. Lee wore an expression of happy expectation.
Vic turned to the house. ‘Angela?’ Her neck glowed. Her taut skin stretched over her all-to
o-prominent jaw. Angela didn’t appear. ‘Can you join us out here?’ Vic’s voice was strained now.
‘D’you mean here, here, or “here”, as in “here in spirit”? Is this a seance?’ Lee put in cheerfully.
‘Leave it, Lee,’ Kirsty hissed at him under her breath.
Vic smiled tightly again. ‘She was finishing the sage-burning in the conservatory. That’s at the very back of the house, so a long way away. She probably just hasn’t heard… Oh, wait, yes, here she is now! Angela Bright!’ and she led a polite scatter of applause as a woman appeared, stepping gingerly from the house to the garden. She had the same smooth ash-blonde hair, the same gym-toned arms, the same tanned skin as Vic, although Angela Bright’s looked distinctly genuine, while Vic’s was sprayed on at The Tanning Shop every two weeks. She wore a simple black shift dress and there was nothing witchy-looking about her. She could have been a newsreader. Or a senior civil servant.
‘Hi, everybody. My name’s Angela Bright—’
Kirsty felt Lee behind her. ‘What’s her name again? Someone really should tell us her name.’ He poked one finger into her ribs, and she could feel his chest trembling with suppressed laughter. That made Kirsty laugh too, she managed to turn it into a cough.
‘I am a psychic medium. I’ve had the gift all my life—’
‘Like herpes,’ Lee whispered.
‘The past is all around us. I think of it as a stain that just won’t shift, a mark on the fabric of time.’
Lee poked Kirsty’s ribs again. She stamped on his foot. Milo hiccupped.
‘Things can get trapped, like insects in amber. They’ve died, but they don’t know how to move on—’
‘So it’s house cleaning and fumigation she does?’ Lee whispered.
‘Shhh! Don’t, you’ll set me off!’ Kirsty giggled.
‘Would you sit in someone else’s dirty bathwater?’ Angela Bright was saying. ‘No? Well, that’s what we’re doing every time we move into a house – we’re sitting in years, centuries of dirty bathwater—’
‘So she deals with water damage as well?’ Lee whispered. ‘It’s an all-round service, isn’t it?’
‘Please!’ moaned Kirsty.
‘Emotions are energies, and energy does not die. There’s not a scientist in the world that would disagree with me on that. And what we find when a building is renovated, or altered, is that these emotions are stirred up again – replayed, so to speak.’
‘Science!’ Lee whispered. ‘She’s a scientist!’
‘I know there are sceptics out there.’ Angela Bright looked directly at Kirsty and Lee. ‘And that’s as it should be.’ Her lips smiled. ‘It’s very wise to… question things. But we all know that there are things out there that – so far – defy explanation. I believe that at some point, hopefully in our lifetimes—’
‘Or our next lifetime maybe?’ Lee muttered.
‘These things will be not only accepted, but explained, and the gift I’ve been given can be used to help, not just individual clients but all mankind.’
‘That’s quite a remit there,’ Lee whispered.
‘Stop it, you’re being rude now!’ Kirsty whispered back.
‘Can I ask if you do readings?’ one of Vic’s friends was asking. She had her hand in the air as if asking a teacher.
‘I… do,’ Angela Bright told her. ‘But, apart from being here tonight, I’m taking a short break from face-to-face readings. But I can be contacted via my website and I can do remote viewings via email.’ Her tight little smile flashed on, off. She turned briskly to Vic. ‘Shall we?’
‘Of course, but can I say that we’re very lucky to have Angela’s mother here as well! She’s a wonderful tarot card reader, and perhaps, if you’re very lucky, she may agree to doing some readings later? Sylvia?’
Kirsty noticed Angela Bright’s jaw tightening, her eyes suddenly hard. One foot tapped on the decking. ‘She’s tired.’
‘Oh, she’s not, is she? Too tired?’ Vic was impervious to Angela’s obvious anger. ‘Sylvia? Can you… There she is!’
Vic pulled a frail-looking older woman from the crowd. A rather wonderful-looking woman with a soft halo of white hair, like a dandelion dock, mischievous blue eyes, a shy smile.
‘If you visit Angela’s website…’ Vic inclined her head to the awkward-looking younger woman, ‘you’ll see that she’s descended from psychics, and Sylvia herself is also very powerful in her own way. Aren’t you?’ She twinkled at the old lady, who merely inclined her head, smiled meaninglessly.
Angela Bright whispered something to Vic then. ‘Ah, yes, Angela’s right to… nudge me. All right then, it’s time now to enter the house, please, everyone. And can we follow Angela rather than just running about the place? That way she can… talk you through everything…’
After the guests had taken off their shoes, they were all led through the house (Two houses! And a barn!) by Angela Bright who took her time describing the energies she’d found in each room, and the methods she’d used to tame them. Vic chimed in about the renovation and furnishings, and where everything had to be placed according the different energies, and it took such a long time that even Lee’s humour was tested. He peeled off from the tour and sought sanctuary in the kitchen. Kirsty found him picking at the weird halloumi skewers no-one wanted, and listening to Ollie who had also somehow managed to escape. Ollie was now more than partially in his cups. All that drink-serving and ‘Hot enough for you?’s had taken their toll; now he wanted to talk.
‘She has some kind of show in the States. One of those medium shows. Victoria saw her on the TV when she was pregnant with Milo? And she had to have all that bed rest? What was the show called? Something about angels…’
‘Touched by an Angel?’
‘No. God, what was it?’
‘Charlie’s Angels?’ Lee was trying to hide his smile now.
‘Or maybe not angels, maybe bridges? Bridge something…’
‘Over the River Kwai?’
‘No.’
‘Painting the Forth Bridge? With Angels?’
‘There you are,’ Kirsty interrupted. She flashed a stern look at Lee, and a slightly weary, mothering one at Ollie. He had that doddery, broken-veined look of a man who should have switched to water a few hours ago. ‘Everyone’s in the sitting room now.’
‘Which sitting room?’ Ollie asked.
Kirsty saw Lee raise his eyebrows behind his back and mouth, ‘Which sitting room…’
‘The… I don’t know. The one with the red sofa?’
‘Ah. Why there? The other sitting room’s much larger.’
‘Angela says that that room is the nexus of the house,’ Kirsty told him, as if it was a perfectly reasonable explanation. ‘So she’s doing a positive energy ritual there.’
‘Is she on overtime then?’ Lee put in. ‘You need to watch that, Ollie. I’ve heard that positive energy rituals can run into serious money. Negative energy… it’s like damp. You never get it first time.’
Oliver summoned sudden gravitas. His rheumy gaze met Lee’s sorrowfully. ‘You’re being facetious.’
Lee’s smile faltered. ‘I’m just having a laugh, Ollie—’
‘You think the whole thing is silly,’ Ollie went on, ‘and it may be. But I love Victoria, and this is something that’s very important to her. She’s found this whole process very, very difficult. All those months of not being able to move in case she lost the baby, followed by months and months of hard work on this house, when she still wasn’t a hundred per cent. The isolation, having to do everything for Milo with no help.’
Kirsty opened her mouth, closed it.
‘She wasn’t alone though.’ Lee’s voice was serious. ‘She had Kirsty the whole time.’
Ollie made a vague dismissive gesture with his hands. ‘Yes, but it’s not the same thing, is it?’
‘The same thing as what, exactly?’ Lee seldom allowed people to rile him, but he was getting riled now.
‘Lee…’ Kirsty said.
>
Ollie didn’t notice though. ‘I’m tremendously proud of what she’s done, and how she’s coped. And if some of the ways she’s coped seem a little wacky to you, I’d like to ask you to keep it to yourself. It’s… it’s not polite.’
‘Polite?’ Lee said seriously.
‘You may think it’s all hokum, and I’m inclined to agree with you, but Angela helped Victoria through a particularly hard time, and I’m grateful to her for that, and Victoria was so happy to have her here. She’s been so worried about the whole thing, you know, wanting everything to be perfect.’
‘Of course,’ Kirsty mumbled. She didn’t want to look at Lee. If she did he might go for Ollie right there.
‘Well, you know your sister. She’s a giver. She doesn’t like to worry people. She’s like a swan – all beauty up top and pedalling like mad below the water. There’s been a lot of strain. She was so scared that we’d never have children – naturally, I mean – and she worried that fertility problems might run in the family.’ Kirsty managed a nod. ‘But she didn’t want to talk to you about it, burden you with it. And so I think Angela became that rock for her. And when she happened to be in the country it made sense to invite her over tonight as a guest of honour, introduce her to Milo. She’s planning on asking Angela to be his godmother.’
‘Oh.’ Kirsty could feel Lee behind her, feel him place one soothing hand on the small of her back.
‘Yes, so it means so much… so much to her, this night.’ Oliver’s eyes glistened with ginny emotion.
‘Huh.’
‘Sorry to have been so sharp with you, Lee.’
Lee was about to answer when the door opened and Vic poked her harassed but happy face into the kitchen. ‘Ollie! Fireworks! Now? Please?’
‘Ah, yes! Lee? Would you like to light the touchpaper?’
‘No, I’ll pass,’ Lee replied. ‘You’re better at things like that.’
