Mr. Flood's Last Resort(71)

I shake my head in despair.

“Before you judge,” says Renata with offended dignity and a voice of deep-napped velvet, “you should read the testimonials.”

“Doreen is one in a million—her ears are open to the faintest voice of the dead. No one understood my late aunt for the last five years of her life due to chronic laryngitis but Doreen gave her a voice again!”

MRS. V. B. PRITCHARD

“Doreen, what can I say? You reunited me with my beloved husband. We are closer than ever now, I am reassured to know that he watches over me—and the prize-winning marrows I grow in his memory.”

MRS. S. BOLICK

“Doreen is the real thing: a fully fledged Ghost Whisperer.”

SAM STROUD, AUTHOR OF THEY COME IN DROVES: A BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO MASS HISTORICAL HAUNTINGS

*

“HAS IT really come to this?” I close the book and put it down on the table.

“I think it has,” says Renata. “Give it a try. What have we got to lose?”

I look over at St. Dymphna, who rolls her eyes, then turns back to the television. I stay as silent as the afterlife.





CHAPTER 35




Sam Hebden is standing on Renata’s doorstep. He is wearing espadrilles. Jesus Christ looks approving; Johnny Cash sneers. Renata and I stand at the door with our arms crossed.

Sam nods at us with a rueful air. “Renata. Maud.”

Renata nods back, her black brigand’s eyes giving nothing away.

Undaunted, Sam smiles. “I’m sorry for not calling.”

It’s a slow, warm smile. It makes my heart gasp for life, despite itself.

Renata glances at me, thin lipped.

“I know how it looked,” Sam ventures.

“You have five minutes,” I say.

Renata squeezes my arm and wanders into the kitchen to put the kettle on, tightening her headscarf against the squalls that lie ahead.

*

SAM IS driving me to the spiritualist church in his green Golf with a dented passenger door. This does not mean that I have forgiven him; I make this clear with my testy demeanor. St. Valentine and St. George, perhaps picking up on the tension, are squabbling in the back seat.

Sam takes a wrong turn.

“You should have gone left,” I point out.

We sit in silence behind a red traffic light.

“Look, I’m sorry, Maud, really I am. I should have called, but something came up.”

“Right,” I say.

“I know how it looked.”

“So you said.” I will the light to turn green and it does. “Renata could have done with your support,” I say, my voice flat. “After what happened.”

“You’re right. I should have been there for her.”

“She sleeps with a bread knife under her pillow and carries Bernie’s urn everywhere.”

“I’m sorry.”

There is a skeptical jeer from the back seat. I turn round to see St. Valentine making a derogatory gesture at the back of Sam’s head. St. George has his visor up and is wearing a comprehensive scowl.

I open the window and lean out a bit, avoiding Sam’s smell of wolf in sheep’s clothing: citrus soap and cigarette smoke.

“Can we start again, Maud?”

I glare at him. “Start what?”

“I won’t let you down.” He smiles and glances back at me with his hot gray eyes.

With my resolve weakening I ask myself this: What kind of a man wears espadrilles? Renata didn’t say but surely they are a mark of some horrific variety of deviance.

“I had a great time that night, by the way,” he murmurs.

I wait for wisecracks from the back seat, but none are forthcoming.

“Good for you,” I say. Then I switch on the radio and turn it up.

In the bag at my feet is something more tangible than the vicissitudes of men: a gift from Mary Flood, from beyond the grave.

Don’t be afraid to tell our story.

I won’t, but what is our story, Mary?

Maybe Doreen Gouge, Psychic to the Stars, will tell me tonight.

*

I’M NOT hopeful. Doreen Gouge, Psychic to the Stars, stands behind a balustrade, on a wooden box, in front of a lectern. Doreen is as wide as she is tall, the Queen Victoria of the spiritualist world. Her small head, dainty feet, and tiny hands are separated by the expanse of her body, so that she looks like a human kite. She is wearing cheerful pastels in chiffon layers and has a long rope of popcorn-like beads around her neck. Her hair and makeup are just as exuberant as her clothes. A frothy blond halo surrounds her pink face, where her eyes gleam in patches of shimmering blue and her lips shine frosted peach. I wonder if this is all an attempt to offset the morbidity of her profession.

It’s a turnout: at least fifty people, and apart from Sam and me, the audience appear to be regulars. They greet each other with nods and smile at us. Some seem normal, with a kind of worn-down averageness. Others look verifiably strange, as if they are unused to company or hairbrushes. I wonder at the desperate lengths people will go to for solace in the face of death and mortality.

We start by singing a Westlife song, to lift the energy in the room and stir the dead into action. Doreen sings with us, sweetly and enthusiastically. I take a moment to be thankful that the saints are still outside in the car park, most probably where I left them. St. Valentine glaring at St. George with an expression of wall-eyed fury and St. George mouthing expletives back at him over the bonnet of a minivan. Then I wonder what I’m doing here, when Cathal’s world is falling apart, Renata is at home with the door locked and a paring knife up the sleeve of her kimono, and Maggie Dunne is still missing. The singing rises in a crescendo; I follow it on my hymn sheet. Where else would I be?