Mr. Flood's Last Resort(72)

The woman to my right nudges me. I look up into the rumpled face of a professional smoker with a drawstring bag of a mouth. She is wearing a sweater with a picture of a corgi howling at a moon.

She smiles lugubriously, revealing a tumbledown set of tawny teeth. “Is this your first time?”

“Yes.”

She draws nearer and whispers loudly, “She’s very good, you know. We were lucky to get her. She should be in Woking tonight, but she intuited an accident on the M3.”

“That’s lucky.”

“My uncle came through last time she was here. Big man, Welsh, unusual death in Llanelli.”

“Is that the case?”

“He died of coronary heart failure after being attacked by a flock of seagulls. Doreen got him pegged, even the habit he had of hitching up his trousers before he sat down.” The woman pulls at the knees of her slacks. “Doreen said he didn’t suffer.”

“Sure, that’s the main thing.”

She nods. “He’d been eating biscuits, you see. A digestive had fallen into the hood of his coat and that’s what the seagulls were going for. They hadn’t meant to kill him and that was a relief to know.”

“I’m sure it was.”

The music trails off abruptly. At the lectern, Doreen clears her throat. “I’m very lucky to be here tonight, amongst friends old and new.”

She smiles at Sam, who smiles right back at her. Doreen gives him a cordial wink. She obviously isn’t averse to a man in espadrilles.

“Right now,” she purrs, “the crushed and bleeding wreck of my body should be lying on the intersection between the M3 and the M25. But it’s not. Tonight death by motorway carnage is not my fate, and for that I thank the spirits who walk with me, who have always walked with me.”

Several members of the audience nod and smile, grateful that Doreen isn’t a crushed and bleeding wreck.

Doreen continues, her voice grave. “Since I was a little girl, the spirit world has revealed itself to me in all its myriad glory. This marked me out as different, unusual.” She looks down at her folded hands. “But I was never lonely. Not when my earliest playmates were the dear departed.”

I think of Cathal’s sister, rendered psychic, or just unhinged, by a rake of wasp stings, a belt with a stick, and a dip in a magical horse trough. I wonder if Doreen suffered a similar initiation. Then I think of the pair of martyrs currently brawling in the car park. Then I decide not to think anymore.

Doreen glances around the room. “I am honored to be here tonight to share my gift of mediumship with you and to offer you proof of the continued existence of the spirit in the afterlife.”

She talks like she’s sealing a deal. “Before we start, I want to remind you that I have one rule and one rule alone. You all know what it is, don’t you?”

The audience nod and smile, of course they do.

“I’ll say it again for the sake of our newcomers: Don’t feed me.” She grins and gestures towards her generous flanks. “Heavens, don’t I look as if I’ve had enough to eat?”

Everyone laughs politely and a few idiots shake their heads.

She leans forwards on the lectern. “If I say something you can relate to, or you recognize the presence of a friend or loved one, then raise your hand and I will talk with you. If I talk with you, keep your answers brief, confine yourself to ‘Yes’ and ‘No,’ please, folks. And speak up, loudly and clearly.”

The audience nod obediently, their tissues in their hands, ready for a good cry.

Doreen pulls a serious face. “A conversation with those who have passed is not like a regular chinwag over a cup of tea, such as you or I would have. For the spirit realm both coexists with our own world and lies infinitely beyond it. A good medium can sweep back the curtain separating these domains and gain access to the deepest depths of mystery. As you can imagine this is a difficult, and sometimes unpredictable, undertaking.”

I wonder about this otherworldly curtain. With Doreen it’s likely to be chintz or plush velour. I imagine the spirits of ages, coughing and shuffling behind it, like amateur actors waiting for their scene.

Doreen draws herself to her full tiny height. “Tonight some of you will receive messages and some of you will not. I’m only a conduit, you see; the deceased tell me what they think you need to know. Please be aware that this may not necessarily be what you want to know. And, of course, they may not come at all for you this time.” She smiles coyly. “This is because they are not yet able to communicate or you are not ready for what they want to say to you. Can I have silence now, please.”

A thin, wild-eyed spinster with thick tights and hair that’s a haunt for wildlife dims the lights.

Doreen takes several deep breaths and fixes her eyes on a far-off point just over the top of our heads. She begins to nod and beckon. The audience turn in their seats to look with curiosity at a bookcase and a stack of chairs at the back of the hall, perhaps to witness the legions of the dead, awoken by Westlife, shuffling through the wall.

Doreen folds her hands on top of her chest and closes her eyes. She nods from time to time, listening intently. Sometimes she sways. Then she opens her eyes and steps closer to the lectern. She scans the room.

Her tone is brisk, efficient, like that of an auctioneer. “I have a tall man, brown skin, a Cypriot I think, with a bowel obstruction. Can anyone take this?” Her hand lifts an imaginary gavel.