Neurotica (23 page)

“D'you know,” Anna said, sweeping her glass through the air as
if she were making a grand toast, “if Dan did
actually .   .   . you know, snuff
it .   .   . as it were, I would get the life assurance
money and the mortgage paid off. I'd be worth over a million quid.
Christ. Makes you think.   .   .   .”

All three of them cracked up.

When Anna and Brenda discussed it a few days later, Anna said
she couldn't remember who started singing first. Brenda insisted it
was Lavender who, after five glasses of wine, ended up standing on
the table to deliver what she insisted was a purely ironic version
of “Stand By Your Man.” This was followed by Anna and Brenda
climbing up to join her and the three of them attempting, and failing,
to do “I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair,” in a
round.

They were seen later that afternoon, by the woman in the blazer,
who had decided to hang around in the hope of gathering gossip,
kneeling at the side of the lake in Lavender's garden, trying to race
her meringue swans.

C H A P T E R     F I F T E E N

D
AN FINISHED CLEARING HIS UPPER respiratory tract by
pronouncing an especially throaty version of the German first person
singular. He'd arrived twenty minutes early for his psychic
consultation with the world-renowned Ada Bracegirdle and was sitting
in the car, which, in order not to be noticed, he'd parked a few doors
up from her house. He was passing the time listening to
Woman's
Hour
and trying to cough up phlegm. As Jenni Murray introduced
an item on a Guatemalan lesbian crocheting cooperative's struggle for
survival, Dan took his handkerchief away from his mouth and looked
inside. He expected to find a small puddle of yellow gluey gob
streaked with blood. Instead, all he found was clear, healthy-looking
mucus.

Dan's cough had started at the weekend. Nearly a week later
it was still nothing more than a persistent and irritating tickle
at the back of his throat. The new Dan, who had thrown away his
medical appliances and had taken to thinking of himself as a
recovering hypochondriac, was trying to convince the old Dan that
his condition was nothing more than a minor infection. Old Dan,
on the other hand, was preparing himself for the imminent onset of
silicosis. As a consequence of his fear, Old Dan thought it wise
to keep a half-hourly check on the consistency and color of his
pulmonary secretions.

Dan scrunched up his handkerchief and put it back in his
trouser pocket. On the radio, the Guatemalan feature had ended with
the lesbians announcing their plans to go on hunger strike unless
the European Union provided them with free crochet hooks out
of its overseas aid budget, and Jenni Murray was announcing a
twenty-four-hour BBC hotline number which would enable listeners
to donate money to the cause.

Dan looked at his watch. His appointment wasn't until eleven.
It was still only ten to. He reached into his pocket for his snotty
handkerchief and began wiping the dust off the dashboard. This
took about fifteen seconds. Playing around with the position of the
car shoulder mirror with the electric button on the inside of the
driver's door took another ten. Dan looked at his watch again and
decided he could either spend the next nine minutes going round the
outside of the car touching up chipped bits of bodywork with the
can of spray paint he always kept in the glove compartment, or be
early for his appointment. He decided to be early.

He locked the car and turned round to face the outside of Ada
Bracegirdle's row house.

He'd been so taken up with his phlegm that he had failed to
notice the B-registered brown Bentley sitting majestically on the
narrow concrete drive looking down its long nose like faded gentry at
a redneck barbecue.

The Bentley, albeit old and bubbling with rust, was the only
immediate evidence of Ada Bracegirdle's countrywide fame and
success. She'd certainly lavished no money on the house. All the
other row houses in the small cul-de-sac had been tarted up. They
had frilly Austrian blinds at their windows, brass stagecoach lights
on either side of their storm porches, and wrought-iron Spanish guitars
nailed to the brickwork. Mrs. Bracegirdle's house, on the other
hand, was exceedingly run-down. The window frames were balding and
rotting, most of the guttering was loose and tall weeds had pushed
through the cracks in the concreted-over front garden. The bell wasn't
working, so Dan tapped on the frosted-glass door with his knuckle. As
he waited for Ada Bracegirdle to answer the door, he felt an
overwhelming sense that his decision to see a medium had been the
right one.

Despite a lifelong cynicism about anything “supernatural,”
Dan had been convinced right away that his dream wasn't simply
another of his occasional nightmares about his mother. He was in no
doubt that her spirit had come to him that night and that she wanted
him to make contact with her.

As he woke the next morning his mind had been filled with a
sense of eagerness and excitement. There were two reasons for this.
He was profoundly curious about what she had to tell him, but
more than that, he knew that it would be the perfect opportunity
to confront her and tell her how angry he was with her. Speaking
to his mother's spirit would be almost like having a conversation
with a living person. Infinitely preferable, thought Dan, to Virginia
Livermead's empty chair.

Lying in bed, he realized it wasn't simply eagerness and
excitement he was feeling. Something about him had undergone a
transformation. He began patting his upper body and head to check
nothing Kafkaesque had happened while he was asleep. His bits felt
pretty much the same as they always had. Suddenly he realized the
transformation wasn't physical, but emotional. His self-confidence
appeared to have surged overnight. He felt brave, bullish even.
Suddenly, he didn't give a toss if his mother's spirit flew round the
room swearing at him in Yiddish and shaking an accusing ladle. For
the first time in his life he was ready to confront her. The thought
even passed through his mind that maybe psychotherapy had done
him some good after all.

It had taken him no more than a couple of hours to track down
Ada Bracegirdle the morning after his dream. Being a Saturday, the
Vanguard
's cuttings library was pretty quiet. Dan had asked
the librarian to find him all the cuts on psychics and spiritualists.
In the time it took for him to drink a cup of stewed caffeinated
coffee in the canteen and develop
palpitations, the librarian
produced a thick pile of photocopied
newspaper cuttings which he took
back to his desk to
read. The name which kept coming up over again was
Mrs.
Bracegirdle's. The articles went back to 1968. Over the last
thirty years, it appeared that Ada Bracegirdle had led the
police to an assortment
of mutilated murder victims, and had
correctly predicted
dozens of earthquakes and plane crashes.
She was now in
her sixties, and still traveled round the
country lecturing and
giving demonstrations of her psychic powers.
In addition she also
held private sittings at her house in Dagenham.

Dan had found her number in the phone book, and had made an
appointment to see her the following Thursday.

T
he Anaglypta walls inside Ada Bracegirdle's house were yellow
with age and nicotine. The place reeked of cats. Dan followed her into
the living room. She was just over five feet tall, and fat. She also
had bandy legs and the beginnings of a dowager's hump. He couldn't
help noticing that her size and shape were almost identical to his
mother's.

Mrs. Bracegirdle gave Dan a huge purple-frosted smile and showed
him to a worn moquette armchair with an embroidered antimacassar
on the back. She threw a scrawny tortoiseshell cat off the armchair
opposite. As she lowered herself into the chair she adjusted a
bra strap through her imitation chiffon blouse. Her bust, like
his mother's, was immense. As a child he used to wonder if his
mother's tits were long enough to tuck in her knicker elastic. The
same thought was occurring to him now.

Ada Bracegirdle picked up a packet of Silk Cut from the coffee
table.

“ 'Ope you don't mind, my darlin',” she said cheerily, “only
I find I can make contact with the other side much quicker once I've
lit up .   .   . 'elps me concentrate.” She began
scraping her finger across a crusty dried-up stain on the arm of her
chair.

Dan waved his hand and said it was fine with him. She had a
face like a Gypsy. The skin was excessively wrinkled. The eyes were
piercing and, despite her age, still very blue.

Ada Bracegirdle stared into the barrel of the cannon-shaped
table lighter and lit her cigarette. Just then a man poked his
head round the door and offered them tea. He was about forty,
with a moon face and cropped hair. Partly concealed behind the
door was a zeppelin-sized beer gut. He wore this under a grubby
white T-shirt.

Dan strongly suspected that Ada Bracegirdle's kitchen was a rich
source of E. coli and politely declined the offer of tea. Ada said she
wouldn't have any either as she'd had five cups this morning and
another one might mean going to spend a penny while she was in
a trance. The head disappeared.

“That's my Anthony.” She pronounced the “th.” “He's my
eldest, bless 'is heart. He's been living with me ever since his wife
ran off to Tilbury with a tattoo artist. I don't know where I'd
be without 'im. He chauffeurs me all over the country in the
Bentley.” She emphasized the make of car and waved her cigarette
towards the bay window. The Bentley was just visible through the
filthy net curtains.

A look of impatience must have crossed Dan's face because Ada
Bracegirdle suddenly sat very upright against the back of the chair
and took several deep breaths.

“Right, my darlin' .   .   . I can feel there's a
loved one on the other side who is very anxious to come through.”
She took a long drag on her cigarette and closed her eyes. “It's a
woman. I'm getting the initial G. I think Gertie wants to speak to
you. Is there a Gertie who passed recently with her kidneys?”

“Sorry,” Dan said, “the name means nothing.”

“What about V for Vera?”

“Nope.”

“S?”

“No.”

“W?”

“No.”

Ada Bracegirdle put her cigarette-free hand to her forehead and
frowned.

“I think I must have a bad line today, my
darlin'. .   .   . No, wait. .   .   .
I'm getting it. .   .   . It's definitely N. I've got
Aunty Nellie here for you with a message. She says your sister made
the right decision to take holy orders. That brickie was never going
to make an honest woman of her.”

“ 'Fraid not .   .   . there's nobody in my
family called Nellie, and we're Jewish.”

Dan shuffled in his chair. He was beginning to get irritated.
According to the newspaper cuttings, Ada Bracegirdle was the most
gifted medium in Britain. He was already fascinated by the idea of
what a consultation would be like with the least gifted.

But suddenly, Ada Bracegirdle began turning her head in a slow
circular motion. Once again her breathing became noisy and deep.
Keeping her eyes closed, she felt along the chair arm for the ashtray
and stubbed out her cigarette. Then her entire upper body joined in
the circular movement. This gradually became faster and faster.

Dan looked up. The faint sound of music and singing was coming
from the ceiling. He felt a tremor go through him. The slow,
melodic singing got louder. The voice was unmistakable. It was
Sophie Tucker. She was singing “My Yiddishe Mama”—his
mother's favorite song.

The singing seemed to be all around him now. Dan's eyes darted
round the room, looking for a stereo and speakers. There was
nothing. He was beginning to feel frightened. The singing continued.
Dan looked at Ada Bracegirdle. She had stopped turning her head
and body and was now sitting completely still and ramrod straight.
Her eyes were still closed. She began to moan quietly. The moans
possessed an almost melodic quality. They seemed to quiver and
vibrate—almost as if they were trying to follow the music.
Then, in the space of a few seconds, it happened.

Dan could only blink in childlike disbelief as the features on
Ada Bracegirdle's face started to change. He could almost hear the
blood pumping round his head. Any minute he would require a change of
underpants.

It was her skin which began to change first. The wrinkles
disappeared and were replaced by dark, leathery skin. This had huge
open pores and sagged bloodhoundlike at the jaw. Her blue eyes
turned dark brown. In place of her small pointed nose, there
appeared a rubbery, bulbous 747 hooter. Her bubble perm seemed
to dissolve. A moment later she was sporting a strawberry-blond,
heavily backcombed Chez Melvin of Hendon special.

Dan, icy and trembling, was staring into the face of his dead
mother. Only she wasn't dead. Her eyes were open and she was
staring back at him. There was nothing remotely phantomlike about
her appearance. “My Yiddishe mama .   .   . I need her
more than ever now.   .   .   .” Sophie Tucker's voice
was still floating in the background, but Dan barely heard it. The
only thing he needed more than ever now was a stiff drink. He gripped
the arms of his chair so hard that his knuckles turned white.

In the midst of his fear, he remembered that a couple of the
newspaper cuttings had mentioned Ada Bracegirdle's rare psychic
ability to take on the face of a dead person. They'd referred to the
phenomenon as transfiguration. Dan had dismissed it as hysterical
nonsense.

Finally the moaning stopped and the singing faded.

Lilly Bloomfield began looking her son up and down.

“Daniel, stop slouching.” The fierce haranguing tone he
hadn't heard for seventeen years hit him like a thunderbolt. “You
want to turn into a hunchback like your uncle Barnet in
Westcliff?”

Instinctively, Dan straightened.

“So, you've got a kiss, maybe, for the dead mother you haven't
seen in seventeen years?”

Dan looked down at his hands, which were still gripping the arms
of the chair. Slowly, he relaxed them. As his heart began to leave his
mouth he got up. His mother turned her cheek towards him. Dan
leaned over, gave her a nervous peck and returned to his seat.

She grunted as if to say, “Is that the best you can do?”

“And look at you, Daniel.” She pointed an accusing forefinger.
“You're nothing but skin and bone.”

“Mum, don't start,” Dan heard himself say. “I'm just over
twelve stone, which is ideal for my height.”

“Height, schmeight. .   .   . He turns forty and
he's an expert all of a sudden. Daniel, believe me, a mother knows.
Just one look at you and I can tell you're not eating enough. A
sparrow with a terminal disease would eat more. Doesn't she cook for
you, this shikseh you married?”