Anybody Out There - Marian Keyes (25 page)

Sensation burned through me; I nearly puked, fainted, ran around the room. Thank you, Aidan,
thank you, thank you.
"It's a woman." Shite. "An older woman, she's talking very loudly at me." Leisl looked a little
distressed. "Shouting almost. And she's banging a stick on the ground for attention."
Christ! It sounded like Granny Maguire! That was exactly what she used to do when she came to
stay with us and needed to go to the bathroom--she'd bang on her bedroom floor with her stick
for someone to come up and help her, while downstairs, we'd be drawing straws. I was terrified
of her. We all were. Especially if she hadn't done a number two for a while.
Leisl said, "She says it's about your dog."
It took a moment for me to stammer, "I don't have a dog. I have a toy dog but not a real one."
"You're thinking of getting one."
I am? "I'm not."
Mackenzie piped up, quite excited, "I have a dog. This must be for me."
"Okay." Leisl turned to Mackenzie. "Spirit says he needs more exercise, he's getting fat."
"But I walk him every day. Well, I don't, but my walker walks him. I would never have a fat
dog."
Leisl looked doubtful and cast a glance around the room. Anyone else with a fat dog?
No takers.
This is shit, I thought. This is so fucking shit.
Suddenly the door flew open, the light went on, startling us, and four or five plumpish boys ran
into the room, singing, "`Oaakk-la-homa! Where the...!' Whoops! I'm sorry." Strangely, they all
looked identical.
The mood was shattered and I, for one, felt a little silly.
"Time's up," Leisl said, then people were putting crumpled dollar bills into a bowl, and getting to
their feet and blowing out the candles.
40
I  n the corridor, I was devastated with disappointment and couldn't hide it.

"Well?" Nicholas asked.
Rigidly, I moved my head from side to side. No.
"No," he admitted sadly, "I guess it didn't really happen for you."
Leisl came racing out and grabbed me. "I'm so sorry, sweetie; I really wanted something good to
come through for you, but I've no control over these things."
"What if we tried..." I asked. "I mean, would you be available for an individual reading?"
Perhaps if there weren't the dead relatives of all the other people, clamoring in Leisl's ear about
rapeseed oil and the like, there would be a chance for Aidan to get through.
But sorrowfully, Leisl shook her head. "One-on-ones don't work for me. I need the energy of the
group." For that alone, I respected her. Almost trusted her.
"But sometimes I get messages at unexpected times, like if I'm at home watching Curb Your
Enthusiasm. If anything comes through for you, I'll be sure to pass it along."
"Thank y--"
I ran out of words because, without warning, her body went rigid and her eyes glazed over. "Oh,
wow, I'm getting something for you now. How about that?"
My knees turned to water.
"I'm seeing a little blond boy," she said. "Wearing a hat. He's your son? No, not your son,
your...nephew?"
"My nephew, JJ. But he's alive."
"I know, but he's important to you."
Thanks for telling me something I already know.
"He'll become more important to you."
What did that mean? That Maggie was going to die and I was going to have to marry Garv and
be a stepmother to JJ and Holly?
"Sorry, sweetie, I don't know what it means, I just pass on the message." And off she went down
the corridor, with her lasagne, so bowlegged she looked like she was doing a side-to-side Charlie
Chaplin walk.
"What was that?" Nicholas asked.

"My nephew, she said."
"Not your dead husband?"
"No."
"Okay, let's get Mitch over here." Mitch was deep in discussion with Barb, the car-tire-sandals
woman--she was really cool considering she was probably well into her sixties; as well as the
funky sandals, her tote bag looked like it had been crocheted out of cassette tapes.
"Mitch'll tell you about Neris Hemming," Nicholas promised. "She's often on TV shows and she
even helped the cops find a murdered girl. She's so good she spoke in Mitch's wife's voice.
Mitch!" he called. "Mitch, c'mere, buddy."
"You go on and talk," Barb said, in a gravelly voice. "I'm going outside for a cigarette. Who'da
thought? I marched alongside Dr. King in the civil-rights movement. I fought the good fight in
the women's revolution. And look at me now; having to hide in a doorway like a dirtbag just to
smoke a cigarette. Where did it all go so wrong?" She laughed a grouchy heh, heh, heh. "See you
next week, guys."
M       itch came over.
"Okay," Nicholas told me. "Tell him everything."
I swallowed. "My husband died and I came here today hoping to get in touch with him. I wanted
to have a conversation with him. Find out where he is." My throat thickened. "Check if he's
okay."
Mitch understood completely, I could see it.
"I told her about you going to Neris Hemming," Nicholas said. "She connected with your wife,
she actually started speaking in her voice, didn't she?"
Mitch gave a little smile at Nicholas's enthusiacomfortable showing up.
Leisl did a little intro, welcoming me, and saying stuff about deep breaths and centering
ourselves and hoping that "Spirit" would deliver what everyone needed. Then we were allowed
to stop holding hands.
Silence fell. And continued. And continued. And continued. Frustration burgeoned in me. When
would this fucking thing start? I opened one eye and snaked a look around the circle, their faces
shadowed in the candlelight.

Mitch was watching me; our looks met and collided in midair. Quickly I closed my eye again.
When Leisl finally spoke, I jumped.
"I have a tall man here." My eyes snapped open and I wanted to put my hand up, like I was at
school. It's for me! It's for me!
"A very tall, broad, dark-haired man." My heart sank. Not for me.
"Sounds like my mom," Undead Fred said, in a slow, gargly voice.
Leisl did a quick recalculation. "Fred, I'm sorry; yes, it is your mom."
"Built like a brick shithouse," Fred gargled. "Coulda been a prizefighter."
"She's telling me to ask you to be careful getting on the subway. She says that you don't pay
attention, that you could slip."
After a period of silence, Fred asked, "That it?"
"That's it."
"Thanks, Mom."
"I've got Nicholas's dad now." Leisl faced Nicholas. "He's telling me--I'm sorry, these are his
words, not mine--that he's pissed with you."
"So what's new?" Nicholas grinned.
"There's a situation at work that you have issues with?"
Nicholas nodded.
"Your dad says you're blaming the other guy, but you've got to look at where you're responsible
for what's happened."
Nicholas stretched out, extended his arms above his head, scratched his chest thoughtfully.
"Maybe, yeah, he's probably right. Bummer. Thanks, Dad."
More silence followed, then someone came through for the car-tire-sandals woman--whose
name was Barb--and told her to include rapeseed oil in her diet.
"I already do," Barb said tetchily.
"More rapeseed oil," Leisl said quickly.

"Okay."
Another older lady got told by her dead husband to "keep doing the next right thing"; the young
frumpy girl's mother told her that everything was going to work out for the best; Juan, the
pomady guy, got told to live in the now; and Mitch's wife said she was happy to see he'd been
smiling a bit more this week.
All meaningless, vaguely spiritual-sounding platitudes. Comforting stuff, but obviously not
coming from "the other side."
It's all bollocks, I thought bitterly, which was just when Leisl said, "Anna, I'm getting something
for you."
Sensation burned through me; I nearly puked, faintedsm. "She didn't speak in her voice, but,
yeah, I was really talking to Trish. I've gone to lots of psychics and she's the only one who did it
for me."
My heart was beating fast and my mouth was dry. "Do you have a number for her?"
"Sure." He produced an organizer. "But she's very busy. You'll probably have to wait, like, a
long time to see her."
"That's okay."
"And it'll cost you. This is going to hurt--two thousand dollars for thirty minutes."
I was shocked: two thousand dollars was an horrific amount. My finances were in a shambles.
Aidan hadn't had life insurance--well, neither had I--because neither of us had had any
intention of dying and the rent on our apartment was so extortionate that paying Aidan's share as
well as my own was eating up nearly every cent of my salary. We'd been saving to buy a place of
our own, but that money was tied up in some funny account for another year, so I'd been living
on my credit cards and doing a good job of ignoring my mounting debts. However, I was more
than happy to go further into debt for this Neris Hemming--I didn't care what it cost.
Mitch was staring at his organizer, looking confused. "It's not here. I could have sworn it was. I
keep doing that, like, I keep losing stuff..."
So did I. So often I was certain I had things in my handbag, then discovered that I didn't. I felt
another jolt of connection with this Mitch.
"I can get the number," he said. "It's got to be somewhere in my apartment. How about I give it
to you next week?"
"Can you take my number? Could you call when you find it?"
"Sure." He took my card.

"Can I ask you something?" I said. "Why do you come here after seeing someone so good?"
He stared into the distance, considering. "After talking to Trish via Neris, I was able to let a lot of
stuff go. And I dunno, I like coming here. Leisl is good, in her own way. She doesn't hit gold
every week but her averages are pretty high. And the people here understand how it is for me--
everyone else in my life, they think I should be over it by now. So coming here, I can be myself."
He tucked my card in his wallet. "I'll call you."
"Please do," I said.
Because I wouldn't be coming back.
41
B    ut later on, at home, I wondered if Leisl might have been onto something. The spirit
"person," "voice," whatever you want to call it, had sounded a bit like Granny Maguire. Then
there was the dog connection; I know it had come through a bit garbled, what with talk of my
(unfortunately, nonexistent) dog putting on weight. But the thing was, Granny Maguire had kept
greyhounds.
Rumor had it that she used to sleep with them. Sleep sleep with them, if you know what I mean.
Although, now that I think of it, it was Helen who'd told me that and I'd never had it
corroborated by a more reliable source.
Whenever we used to visit Granny Maguire, the minute I stepped out of the car, she'd urge, "Go
on, Gerry; go on, Martin." (Named after Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness.) And two blurs
of leanness would whip out of the house and pin me to the wall, a paw on either side of my face,
barking so hard my eardrums would hurt.
Granny Maguire would be in convulsions. "Don't let on you're ascared," she'd screech, laughing
so much she'd have to thump the ground with her stick. "They can smell the fear. They can smell
the fear."
Everyone said that Granny Maguire was a "character," but that was only because she hadn't set
the dogs on them. They wouldn't have been so quick to say it then.
And what about Leisl mentioning a little blond nephew in a hat? Not everyone had one of those.
With a tickle of anxiety, I started to worry about JJ. What if Leisl had been giving me a warning?
What if something was wrong with JJ? Fear continued to badger me, until eventually I had no
choice but to ring and see if he was okay, even though it was one in the morning in Ireland.
Garv answered the phone.
I whispered, "Did I wake you?"

He whispered back, "Yes."
"I'm very sorry, Garv, but could you do something for me? Could you check that JJ is okay?"
"What sort of okay?"
"Alive. Breathing."
"Okay. Hold on."
Even if Aidan hadn't died, Garv would have humored me. He was nice, that way.
He put the phone down and I heard Maggie whisper, "Who is it?"
"It's Anna, she wants me to check on JJ."
"Why?"
"Just."
Thirty seconds later Garv was back. "He's fine."
"Sorry to have woken you."
"Not at all."
Feeling a little foolish, I disconnected. So much for Leisl.
As soon as I hung up, I was filled with a terrible need to talk to Aidan.
Typing furiously, I looked up Neris Hemming on the Internet. She had her own site, bearing
literally hundreds of grateful testimonials. There were also details of her three books--I hadn't
known she'd written any, I was going to run out to the nearest Barnes & Noble right now--and
information on her forthcoming twenty-seven-city tour: she was playing thousand-seater venues
in places like Cleveland, Ohio, and Portland, Oregon, but, to my bitter disappointment, she
wasn't coming to New York.
The nearest city was Raleigh, North Carolina. I'll go, I thought, with sudden determination. I'll
take a day off work and fly down. Then I discovered that it was sold out and another wave of
wretchedness hit me.
I had to arrange a personal reading with her, but I clicked on every single link until it became
clear that there was no way of contacting her via the site. I needed that phone number from
Mitch.
42

I   was trying to remember if Aidan and I had had rows. I mean, we must have had. I mustn't fall
into the trap of turning him into a saint because he had died. It was so important to remember
him as he'd really been. But I couldn't remember any major fireworks--no big shouty matches
or kitchen implements being flung.
Of course, we'd had our disagreements: I used to get occasional bouts of jealousy about Janie
and any mention of Shane made him tight-lipped and surly.
And there was that morning when we were getting ready for work and he was having trouble
with his hair.
"It won't go the way I want it to," he complained, trying to push down a stubborn tuft.
"It doesn't matter," I said. "You look cute with it sticking out like that."
Briefly, he lit up, then said, "Oh, you mean Irish cute--like a puppy. Not U.S. cute."
"Cute, like adorable."
"I don't want to be cute or adorable," he griped. "I want to be good-looking. I want to be
handsome, like George Clooney."
He put his tube of hair wax back on the shelf with a little more force than was strictly necessary
and I got annoyed and accused him of being vain, and he said that wanting to look like George
Clooney wasn't vain, it was normal, and I said, "Oh, is it?" And he said, "Yes!" Then we
continued our ablutions in huffy silence. But it was early in the morning and we'd had a late
night the night before and were tired and had to go to work and we didn't want to, and under the
circumstances the whole thing was understandable.
And there were other things--it used to drive him mad when I played with the ingrowing hairs
on my shins. I'd be having a great time, squeezing and tweezing--gross, I know, but is there
anything more satisfying?--and he'd say, "Anna, please. I hate it when you do that." And I'd say,
"Sorry," and pretend to stop, but I'd carry on, hiding behind a cushion or a magazine. After a
while he'd say, "I know you're still doing it."
And I'd sort of snap, "I can't help it! It's my...thing, my...hobby, it helps me unwind."
"Can't you have a glass of wine?" he'd say, and I'd stomp off into the bedroom, where I'd ring
someone and gouge away to my heart's content. Sometime later, I'd reemerge in top form and
we'd all be friends again.
Then there was that time we went to Vermont in the fall to see the changing of the leaves and I
decided that he was taking too many photos. I felt that he was intent on photographing every