by Frances Vick
‘Well I don’t care who does it, but it has to be now,’ Vic snapped. ‘I promised the neighbours that the fireworks would definitely be over by seven. They have two very anxious poodles.’
‘Right-o!’ Ollie fairly scampered out of the kitchen. Vic closed the door behind them; she could be heard giving him painstaking instructions on the order she wanted the fireworks to be lit. ‘We have to end with the hearts. The hearts!’
Kirsty and Lee stayed in the kitchen, which now throbbed with quiet. Kirsty poured herself a glass of wine, held it in one trembling hand. Lee finished his beer, rolled the bottle to and fro over the marble-topped island. From outside a tiny fizz of a rocket was politely applauded.
‘I fucking hate your family sometimes,’ Lee said quietly.
‘I know. I do too.’
‘Were they just born that way?’
‘Well, Vic was. I can’t be held responsible for Ollie though.’
‘I just don’t… I know I went too far, took the piss too much, he called me on it and I apologised.’
‘You didn’t really apologise though,’ Kirsty put in.
‘Well, why the fuck should I? I was only joking. He knew that.’ He wrinkled his brow. ‘And then he turns around and says all that—’
‘I know.’
‘“Fertility problems running in the family”. Fuck’s sake.’
‘I know,’ Kirsty said quietly.
‘And poor Vic with no support, no friends, just a sister who gave up everything to move in with her, wait on her hand and foot—’
‘But I don’t think he meant to—’
‘It’d be better if he did.’ Lee’s voice throbbed with anger, with near tears. ‘If he was trying to hurt you it’d hurt less.’
‘Oh, I’m all right.’
‘Yes, you fucking well are. Come here.’ He pulled her into a hug. His arms were roped tight with muscle, his face warm, and his breath, when he spoke, tickled her ear. ‘You’re worth a million of him. Him and your sister combined. And it’s going to happen. The baby. It will happen.’
Kirsty stiffened, gave a sad laugh, tried to pull away. ‘Well, let’s not go there.’
‘Oh love, we’re already there.’ He pulled her closer. ‘We’re there together. We’ll get through it together too, not guided by Angela what’s-her-name. Lansbury? Merkel?’
‘Angela Rippon, I think.’ Kirsty smiled.
‘Angela Rip-Off.’
There was a loud explosion in the garden, a shriek from the crowd.
‘Sorry about that!’ Oliver could be heard. ‘That one went off at a funny angle, didn’t it? How about we all stay a little further back…?’
Kirsty put her finger in the air. ‘Angela’s Ashes?’
‘And we have a winner!’
They laughed together, clasped together. Outside, the fireworks fizzed.
* * *
‘Kirsten? Kirsten, come here! Come here you! I want to introduce you properly!’
Victoria swayed a little by the patio doors. Standing beside her was Angela Bright, a vague, foxed expression on her face, a glass of very flat prosecco pinched between lean fingers. Kirsty noticed that she was still wearing her shoes while everyone else shuffled around in their bare feet. Had she just refused to? Or was Vic too in awe of the woman to ask her?
‘Angela – this is my sister. My only sibling!’ She let dewy eyes rest on Kirsty’s features just for a minute. ‘I always have to explain that, because we look nothing alike, do we?’
Angela Bright shifted her weight from one hip to the other and smiled in a non-committal way. Then she slightly inclined her head, her lips almost forming words, but not quite, and fixed her gaze on something just slightly above Kirsty’s head.
‘Kirsten is my older sister. Older by – seven years, is it? God. She was like a second mother to me when we were growing up, weren’t you, Kirsty?’
Vic must be pretty drunk to slip up and call her Kirsty. She hadn’t done that for years, she thought it sounded common.
‘She used to dress me up like a little doll, curl my hair, push me about in my pram, d’you remember?’
‘Vaguely.’ Kirsty smiled tightly. She was absolutely sure that had never happened. ‘How long are you in the UK, Angela?’
Angela Bright’s eyes drifted down, focusing on something apparently fascinating on the wainscoting. ‘Not long.’
‘And you live in America? How long have you been living over there?’ Kirsty asked.
‘I’ve been based in California for the last five years. But I also have a home in Lily Dale.’ She left a pause that Vic scrambled to fill.
‘Lily Dale is like Mecca for mediums, isn’t it, Angela?’
Angela nodded slightly, her eyes pained. ‘It’s a spiritualist community in upstate New York. I’m fortunate enough to be one of the registered mediums there.’
‘I’m desperate to go,’ Vic told the room. ‘Desperate!’
Kirsty coughed. ‘And where are you from originally?’
‘I told you! Angela was born in Ireland but she was brought up near where we used to live!’ Victoria said brightly.
Angela looked a little bit alarmed. ‘I haven’t lived here for a long time,’ she muttered, and her neck flushed with heat, just like Vic’s. It spread warm fingers into her hollow cheeks, and a nervous smile twitched at the corners of her lips, as if snagged by some invisible thread.
‘It must be nice to see your mother. Hard living on the other side of the world from her,’ Kirsty said. It was an anodyne statement, but it seemed to rattle Angela. The neck flush deepened.
‘My uncle died,’ she said eventually. ‘That’s why I’m here. The estate needs to be… dealt with.’
‘Oh, I’m so sorry!’ Victoria wailed. ‘I had no idea!’
‘Yes. Well. It happens,’ Angela said shortly.
There was another pause. For a psychic medium, Angela Bright was incredibly inept at putting people at their ease. She was so different in person to how she’d seemed in all those YouTube clips Vic had shown her. A frigid aura seemed to engulf her, keeping people from getting too close. Kirsty almost felt sorry for Vic – she must have entertained all sorts of best friend fantasies about this woman, and now, here she was, about as warm as a carved idol.
‘It was nice to meet you anyway.’
Angela Bright inclined her head, blinked at the carpet, and Kirsty was about to move away when Vic called Lee over. Her voice sounded slightly desperate.
‘This is my marvellous brother-in law. Lee? Come and meet Angela.’
Lee grinned with slightly insulting enjoyment. ‘I’ve never met a psychic before,’ he told her. ‘What’s my aura? It feels reddish. Am I right?’
‘I rarely read auras,’ Angela murmured.
‘I often think that we all have a little bit of psychic ability. Don’t you? Kirsty?’ The desperation was back in Vic’s voice.
‘Um. Yes? Maybe. I mean—’
‘Great Aunt Tess used to read tea leaves.’ Victoria nodded proudly. ‘And Granny Cooper she was always seeing things – ghosts and… and… things.’
‘I remember her saying she saw things, but I don’t know if it’s true,’ Kirsty said. ‘I think she was just a bit gaga—’
‘No! No, she did. And I’m sure there was another aunt who read cards, and…’ Poor Vic. So anxious to be different, so terrified of not fitting in. ‘And speaking of cards, your mother’s been doing a splendid job. Out in the gazebo?’
‘She’s doing what?’ Angela’s voice had just a trace of the local accent. It almost made her seem human. ‘Where is she?’
‘Outside? In the gazebo? A few friends asked her to read their cards and she’s been out there for quite a while now…’
Suddenly Angela stalked out of the room, into the garden. Vic and Kirsty could see her marching over to the gazebo.
‘Kirsty, go and see what’s happening, will you?’ Vic hissed. ‘Go and see why she’s upset.’
And so Kirsty dutifully did just that. She wandere
d into the now mercifully chilly garden to find Angela Bright hovering at the edge of a crowd of wavering women, all with their heads inclined, gentle smiles on their faces, listening to Sylvia talk self-effacingly about tarot.
‘I’m nothing compared to Angela, of course. She’s… oh, she was always so talented! Me, I tend to just use the cards, but Angela, oh my lord, she was so intuitive! And she worked so hard too – that’s the thing, you can’t just rely on talent, you have to practise. It’s like being a tennis player, I suppose, or an athlete – not that I’d know anything about athletics! With my osteoporosis I’d snap like a twig if I tried anything… a headstand even.’ She rolled her eyes drolly and got an appreciative chuckle back. ‘No, as soon as Angela came into her gifts she was determined. Just absolutely single-minded. That’s why she had to go to America, of course, because that’s where the money is—’
‘Mum?’ Angela broke in.
‘Yes, darling? I didn’t see you there! Just singing your praises, don’t get embarrassed—’
‘I need your help with something.’
‘What? What with?’
‘Just something to do with the cleansing. Please?’ Angela put out one impatient hand, like a mother with a dawdling child.
Sylvia got up with visible effort, nodded goodbye to her audience, and followed her daughter back into the bright house, a pace or two behind. They didn’t speak.
The women made general huffing, assessing sounds that could be translated as What a lovely old woman, and What’s the daughter’s problem? Kirsty wondered that herself.
* * *
Despite the furnishings, the rugs, the cushions, the house was too big to feel homely, and the acoustics were strange. It reminded her of somewhere but the full memory was just out of reach… Some sounds carried from the furthest ends of the place, while others stopped dead, as if blocked by invisible barriers. Maybe Vic was right. Maybe the house (Two houses! And a barn!) was haunted in some way. Despite being only a room away from the garden, the noise of the party didn’t reach Kirsty, yet from much further away, upstairs in fact, she could hear definite murmurings. As she crept up the stairs (telling herself that she was just trying to find the toilet, that was all) she recognised Angela’s voice, speaking, presumably, to her mother. They were both sitting in Milo’s room.
‘—here?’
‘Well, why shouldn’t I? I was invited too.’
‘It’s my job.’ Angela sounded sullen.
‘And I was helping you. I was talking all about you, and how wonderful you are! Surely you can’t hate me for that?’ Sylvia sounded close to tears. ‘I’m proud of you! And now you can see how much interest there is here, you could come home, couldn’t you? Live with me?’
‘I’m not staying, Mum, you know that.’
‘Didn’t think you’d go back,’ Sylvia replied after a mournful pause. ‘I thought, after Mervyn, you’d stay a while… It’s lonely there by myself and I can’t get around as well as I could.’
‘That’s why you need a smaller place. You said you—’
‘I just need a bit of help where I am, that’s all. If you came back, even for a bit—’
‘I’m not coming back though!’ Angela almost shouted. ‘It’s not happening, OK?’
‘OK,’ Sylvia answered softly. ‘I don’t want to upset you. I’d never want that.’
‘Then why—’ The door to the stairs opened, and the noise from the crowd downstairs drowned out the rest of the sentence. Then the bedroom door opened too, and Kirsty ducked into the room next door (a magnolia box earmarked as a meditation room). She didn’t want to encounter Angela Bright on the stairs, and she wished she’d never overheard this strange and pitiful conversation. She heard Angela’s light tread on the stairs, then the living room door closing, then a sob from the room next door.
Sylvia was sitting on the rocking chair by Milo’s cot, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief. She started when she saw Kirsty in the doorway, and hurriedly put on a smile.
‘Allergies,’ she said.
Kirsty smiled sympathetically. ‘Can I get you some water? Or…’
‘No, no. I tell you what you can do, though, you can help winch me out of this chair!’ Her face had almost recovered. Those blue, blue eyes were poking fun at herself as the tears dried. ‘I’m getting to the age when I can’t get up under my own steam.’
‘Do you need help down the stairs?’ Kirsty had her by one elbow now. She weighed nothing. She could have picked her up and carried her like a doll.
‘I will, yes. God, I tell you, it’s funny – getting old. You never think it’s going to happen, and then, suddenly…’ Her face creased with pain. ‘Can we just stay here for a minute? Let me get my breath before tackling the stairs.’ She leaned against the wall and took a few deep breaths. ‘She was right. I shouldn’t have come,’ she muttered to herself. Then she smiled. ‘That’s another thing, you talk to yourself when you start getting old. I have some good chats with myself! You must think I’m dotty.’
Kirsty shook her head, smiled. ‘I don’t think you’re dotty.’
‘Work with dotty people, do you? Used to it?’
‘I’m a social worker at the hospital, so yes I do and I am, but I still don’t think you’re dotty. Ready to go downstairs now?’
Sylvia nodded. They ambled gently down the stairs, arm in arm, and when Kirsty opened the door at the bottom, a sudden wave of noise hit them both. This house was genuinely unsettling. Upstairs they could have been two people alone on an island, and down here…
‘There you are!’ Vic was looking more than a little pink around the eyes. Her wine glass wavered. ‘Lee’s been looking for you! And Sylvia? Angela needs you.’
She took Sylvia’s other arm, and led them both over to a long, low, blue sofa, where Angela was sitting, back ramrod straight, expressionless face set, ignoring the increasingly timorous conversation around her. When she saw Sylvia she frowned, but when she saw Kirsty, her face went through a strange kaleidoscopic ripple of different emotions, each too brief to grasp. As if being propelled by an unseen force, she moved towards her, took her hand, which Kirsty, though startled, didn’t think to pull away. From behind her she felt people staring.
Angela Bright closed her eyes, opened them, she looked directly at Kirsty. Blue eyes on brown.
‘You’ve lost someone,’ she said. ‘Someone is missing.’
‘What? What d’you mean?’
‘What?’ Vic echoed. ‘Angela, are you seeing something? Can you see something? In Kirsten?’
Angela put two fingers to her brow, closed her eyes and frowned. ‘I have such a feeling of loss. Loss, and fear and… guilt? Does this make sense?’ Her eyes met Kirsty’s again, and they were pleading. Now, for the first time, she resembled the woman on the YouTube clips. ‘You think you’re to blame. Can you understand this?’
‘I think you should stop there,’ Lee said firmly, moving to Kirsty’s side. ‘Stop that now.’
Angela Bright didn’t stop, she didn’t even hear him. ‘You’re missing someone. A girl. She’s coming though. You’ll see her soon.’ For the first time that evening, Angela’s face, filled with fractious emotions, with the stuttering need to transmit knowledge, looked like the face of a real person. The smooth, pale skin around each eye was pulled taut, and out of her too-young sockets shone old, old eyes. ‘You’re going to see her soon.’
‘She’s been trying for a baby,’ Vic put in. ‘Is it that you see? It is, isn’t it?’
‘That’s enough now.’ Lee was more forceful now. ‘Stop.’ He took Kirsty’s hand. ‘Let’s go.’
But still the medium ignored him and grabbed Kirsty’s wrist with one sudden movement. Her grip was strong… strong enough to check Lee. ‘Do you know who she is?’
‘Yes,’ Kirsty found herself whispering. ‘Yes.’
The medium’s fingers dug into her wrist painfully, and Kirsty, hypnotised, stared at her face, as the medium’s eyes rolled back in her head, her grip tightened furth
er.
She whispered, ‘You have to prepare. If you do, and you’re careful, she’ll appear. You won’t have to wait much longer.’
Dimly, Kirsty registered Lee’s alarmed anger, Victoria’s tipsy concern, but she couldn’t move her eyes from Angela Bright. She felt the words burrow down into her brain like a tick.
‘She’ll appear. You won’t have to wait much longer.’
‘What for?’ she murmured back.
The medium replied, ‘You’ve been expecting her for a long time. And soon you’ll see her.’
Then, the medium’s grip loosened and fell – the next day, Kirsty would see four digit-sized bruises circling her wrist – and the moment was over and the outside world came rushing into the strange, sudden vacuum. She stood, dazed. Vic gave her water, Lee was talking, Lee was upset, and Kirsty wanted to tell him to calm down, but she didn’t. Instead she walked back upstairs to Victoria’s needlessly large en-suite, where she sat on the toilet seat and started to cry.
A minute later there was a knock on the door. Kirsty hurriedly turned on a gushing tap, patted her eyes, grimaced at her stricken reflection.
‘Just a minute.’
‘It’s me.’
‘Lee? Wait a minute…’ She unlocked the door. ‘I just needed a bit of a break.’
‘Vic’s outdone herself tonight, eh?’ Lee was grim. He closed the door behind him and perched on the side of the bath. The beer bottle quivered in his hand. ‘She should write a book. How to Make Your Sister Feel Like Shit in Twelve Easy Steps.’
‘It wasn’t her fault. She didn’t make Angela say all that.’
Lee took out a cigarette, lit it, blew deliberate smoke at the carefully laundered and softened Egyptian cotton towels arranged ever-so-carefully on the heated rack. ‘I don’t know how she manages it. It’s a gift.’
‘It wasn’t her fault. Put the fag out, will you? She’ll go mad if she knows you’ve been smoking in the house.’
‘That’s my intention, my love. To drive her mad.’ Lee squinted through smoke, smiled crookedly. ‘It’s the only weapon I have. It’s my superpower.’
‘How is she?’
‘Vic? Fine. Not up here. Why would she be up here? With the sister who ran off in tears?’
