The Last Days of Jack Sparks (6 page)

I frown my most irritating frown at Di Stefano. ‘Why would the Devil care? Isn’t his greatest trick supposed to be convincing the world he doesn’t exist?’

‘Maria?’ calls Maddelena. With one swipe of a curtain, she reveals an empty confession box.

Di Stefano opens his mouth so Beardless can insert pills, then gulps them down with water. He tells me, slowly and deliberately, as if instructing a child, ‘That was a
movie
.’

The priest has underestimated me in assuming I was paraphrasing cinematic dialogue as opposed to the Charles Baudelaire quote, but I’m impressed that he’s seen
The Usual Suspects
. It makes him seem more human when I imagine him lounging around in his underwear, throwing a DVD on the box. I resist the urge to ask which other cool nineties films he’s seen, like
Reservoir Dogs
, or
Goodfellas
(‘My exorcism is funny, huh? I amuse you, I make you laugh?’)

Maddelena’s voice is smaller and without echo, suggesting that she’s outside. ‘Maria? Maria?
Dove sei
,
la mia bambina?
’

I nod over at the stained-glass window that Maria looked at so pointedly during the exorcism. Its coloured glass panels collectively depict a glum Jesus Christ sitting on some rocks.

‘What is the meaning of that?’ I ask.

‘No more, no more,’ says Beard, making the universal gesture for ‘No more’ with his hands. ‘Move away.’

Di Stefano glances irritably at the window.

‘It is Christ during his forty days in the wilderness,’ he says, sagging with relief at the approaching wail of an ambulance siren.

* * *

You’d think the paramedics’ arrival would end the madness here, but no. There will be one more burst, for my pleasure.

Mother and daughter have been reunited. Maria, it transpires, only wanted some fresh air. Besides attending to Di Stefano’s obvious needs, the paramedics check the girl over and swab samples of that worryingly rust-infused blood from the church floor.

Basically, everyone’s going to hospital except me and Translator Tony. I have to catch a flight back to London, which means Tony is no longer required. It’s a shame the fun has to end: I might derive perverse pleasure from spending time in a crowded ambulance with a Catholic priest, a nail-spitting teen and two lunkheads. Great material for another episode of
Satan & I
.

While Di Stefano is being strapped on to a stretcher, I pull out my phone and walk around, fishing for reception.

My post about laughing during an exorcism has caused a furore. I honestly hadn’t imagined that, in this day and age, chuckling in the Devil’s face would be so controversial. Of course, plenty of people support me, but at least as many spiritually minded folk object to my ‘arrogance’, ‘disrespect’ and ‘rudeness’. These are people with whom my good friend Richard Dawkins spars on a daily basis. The kind of people who believe the Earth is only six thousand years old. I feel like I’m getting a taste of Rich’s online life. I’ve sampled it before while posting about atheism, but never to this extent.

‘An exorcism can be a very dangerous thing, both for priest and exorcee!!! Shame on you!!!’ writes GodsAmy12 from Tucson, Arizona. Loving the word ‘exorcee’. Is that really a thing?

‘Your [
sic
] gonna be laughing on the other side of you’re [
sic
] face when you burn in hell!’ suggests the incongruously named TickleTumTina from Ipswich, Suffolk. Sorry for reposting your post, Tina! Hope you didn’t get
too
much grief from the rest of my 251,043 followers . . .

‘You are SO self-obsessed,’ offers TheRossotron in Tampa, Florida. ‘Not just laughing during an exorcism, but telling everyone. Why do we need to know? Is it impressive?’ I should point out that TheRossotron is following me. Presumably by choice.

I learned a while back that it’s pointless to try and reason with individuals on the internet. Even if you do succeed in changing one person’s mind, ten more will spring up asking the same questions and making the same stupid points. When you have as many followers as I do, the whole thing becomes untenable. You may as well try to scoop up the sea, one cup at a time. I soon realised that addressing everyone collectively was the best use of my time and energy. As was following no more than fifteen people.

It’s famously unwise to feed the trolls, but on this occasion the stream of abuse riles me. As I watch Di Stefano gruffly berate the paramedics who are trying to make him more comfortable, I see a stupid old man with way too much power over the ‘little people’. I see a man who, just like most people who promote the supernatural, is
trying to deceive others
.

I post a new missive: ‘Everyone, seriously. If the Devil, ghosts and ghouls existed, don’t you think they’d be all over YouTube by now? Where’s the EVIDENCE?’ Then I return to the ambulance to try and prise some final words from exorcist and, ahem, exorcee.

It seems Father Primo Di Stefano, now in the back of the ambulance and impatient to be off, has nothing left to say. When asked to sum up how the exorcism went, he bats off an imaginary fly with one hand.

‘I did not expect it to be like this,’ is all a distressed Maddelena can manage, several times.

Maria winces as a paramedic carefully bandages her forefinger. ‘I can’t remember anything that happened,’ she says, with more than a note of despair. ‘It is just like all the other things Mamma tells me I’ve done, at night. But this is the first time it’s happened during the day.’

A shadow crosses Maddelena’s face – I think she just twigged that Di Stefano’s rite has only made her daughter worse.

I’m concerned about Maria and can’t help myself. Screw journalistic impartiality: I implore – no,
tell
– Maddelena to take proper medical advice at the hospital. Hopefully, this time, my words sink in. I wish them well and head for my Alfa Romeo rental, keys jangling in hand.

‘Hey there,’ calls Maria, in English. ‘Hey, Jack Sparks.’

Except her voice doesn’t come from the ambulance. It comes from the opposite direction. It comes from Translator Tony, who is approaching his own car. As if on cue, he spins around to face me, a dazed puppet, his centre of gravity awry.

His mouth opens and continues to move as Maria’s voice comes out of him.

‘Enjoy your journey,’ he says. Or, rather, Maria says it. His mouth, but her voice. Tony looks as surprised as anyone else that a thirteen-year-old girl’s words just sprang out of him. Then his jaw drops again and Maria’s voice says: ‘I’ll be back in a few hours, okay?’ Whatever that’s supposed to mean.

Back in the ambulance, Maria regains the power of speech and emits a childish giggle. She wears that same knowing smile she had during the exorcism, the one just after she looked at the window. The eyes are back jaundice-yellow.

Maddelena’s face falls, as if this is the final straw. Father Di Stefano begins to pray out loud, on his stretcher.

The effect is disorientating and I don’t know how to react. We’re now all so accustomed to being able to replay moments over and over again that my first instinct is to reach for a non-existent rewind button.

I’d previously thought of Tony as a third party unconnected to the trickery here. So how did Maria’s voice come out of him – and how did she know my name? Di Stefano never spoke it. When telling Maria and Maddelena why I was here, he only described me as ‘a journalist from England’.

Salvation soon comes when I remember that Di Stefano’s office recommended Tony in the first place – and Maria’s knowledge of my name only hastens the return of that
Truman Show
feeling. She and her mother are Vatican glove puppets after all. This whole thing really was an elaborate set-up. What the hell was I thinking there, for a while? Given the Catholic Church’s wealth, the ultra-convincing illusion of a nail spat into a leg is both achievable and relatively subtle. Making a young girl’s voice come out of a man’s mouth? Child’s play.

This whole thing has been organised religion to a T: the use of man-made lies to try and make people feel small, protected and grateful.

I award everybody the slowest, most sarcastic handclap I can muster, before getting in my car.

This time, no amount of further dicking around will make me look back.

* * *

During the long, dull drive back to civilisation, I mentally run through the SPOOKS List. Today’s experience clearly does not require any further possible explanations to be added. At some point during the exorcism I’d believed Father Di Stefano was ‘trying to deceive others’ (Explanation #1) while Maria and Maddelena were in turn ‘being deceived by others’ (Explanation #2.) By the end, it had become obvious that only Explanation #1 was required. Everyone, to their eternal shame, was acting. Lying their heads off.

A call comes in from an unknown number. The word ‘Unknown’ doesn’t pop up as usual: the screen is completely blank except for the options to answer or reject.

When I answer, a piercing electronic shriek crashes out of the speakers. Warped digital feedback: the kind of thing Aphex Twin used to put on his records
(Eleanor: I know you’ll ask me to update this reference and make it a more current band. Sorry, but it sounded like Aphex Twin. Not my fault you’re too young to remember him.)
And it’s loud. So loud. I had no clue my phone was capable of such decibels.

The sheer physical shock makes me cover my ears with both hands. Which is bad, because I’m negotiating a tight bend.

The Romeo hammers along the middle of the dirt road. If something hurtles around that bend towards me, there’ll be a head-on smash, no survivors.

Clutch. Brake. Steer. Terminate call with built-in steering wheel button. Pray.

I sail around the rest of the bend, sick with adrenalin, ears ringing. Edging the Romeo back to safety.

The noise sounded demonic. It was the natural, or unnatural, soundtrack to Edvard Munch’s
Scream
. And afterwards, however fleetingly, I find myself pondering how this call might be connected to Maria Corvi and her internal lodger. Which is ridiculous. Completely batshit. But it gets me thinking about the supernatural and how damn seductive that world can be. Because such connections are insidious. Once you start making them, it must be so easy to become seduced. To get sucked right in. Connections would lead to endless others: a vast social media network of belief. Before you knew what was going on, you’d be dragging your daughter to meet one of the Pope’s right-hand men at a knackered old church in the back of beyond.

By the time I’m propping up a brutally impersonal Rome airport bar, the outside world is studded with coloured runway lights. My ears still ring and my phone holds more surprises. When I’d asked, ‘Where’s the EVIDENCE?’, hordes of people took this to be a genuine request for EVIDENCE, or at least their interpretation of what constitutes EVIDENCE. So my feed is now jam-packed with helpful links to recommended ghost videos.

‘Check this one out, Jacky boy! [Link]’

‘Oh yeah? Try THIS video on for size! [Link]’

‘Fuk u watch dis. [Link]’

At first it all looks overwhelming.

Then I decide I’m going to watch these videos. Every last one of them.

If all these followers truly believe that a YouTube video provides evidence of life after death, then the least I can do is humour them by taking a look.

I post as follows: ‘All right, all right, thank you, guys, for the spooky YT links. I will have a look at this vital EVIDENCE and get back to you. Cannot WAIT.’

I slip my earphones’ jack into my handset. The bar atones for its lack of character with good Wi-Fi. Watching a whole row of videos will help pass the two and a half hours before my delayed flight, as will a whole row of large Jack and Cokes.

For the sake of my sanity, I discount the clips that are patently rubbish. People giggling while filming their partners with white sheets over their heads going ‘Wooo!’ You can see these clips coming a mile off, from titles like ‘What lurks within my shed? LOL!’ or ‘Danny’s ass is haunted – hear what it has to say!’

Frankly, I don’t think the people who sent me those particular links were taking the whole thing seriously. Skipping these (all right, I
was
curious about the pronouncements of Danny’s ass – and there’s a sentence I never thought I’d write) removes half of the list.

The videos I do watch embroil me in a world that knows no boundaries when it comes to lame attempts at scaring the viewer. A world that never settles for just the one exclamation mark and knows nothing of the apostrophe’s correct function. A world that owes Mark Snow, the composer of
The X-Files
theme tune, millions of royalty dollars.

I suffer through photo slideshows with voiceover narration, none of which convince. Photographs have, after all, been doctored since their early-nineteenth-century inception. Double-exposure shots may have retained their power to alarm the gullible, but only then at a pinch. Photoshop and similar programs have equipped fakers with more advanced tools, while simultaneously making their work all the more obvious. One video from user WooWooWooo, boldly entitled ‘Scariest Photographs of 2014 – DO NOT Watch Alone!’, does not make me glad to be surrounded by businessmen, depressed tourists and camp baristas. I’m bored stiff by the time the third old family photo appears with a ‘chilling’ cymbal crash, a circle superimposed around the alleged spectre peeking from behind Aunt Maude’s skirts. Over one million people have been suckered into watching this thing. A nice chunk of advertising revenue for the video’s creator.

‘Thanks for watching. Please comment and subscribe.
A
’

I endure videos that – gasp – actually
do
feature moving pictures. Most of these betray their lineage from Oren Peli’s successful ‘found footage’ movie franchise
Paranormal Activity
. The clue tends to be the word ‘Paranormal’ in their titles. Shot in people’s houses, generally in America, they show someone clowning around or presenting a video about some random topic, before a door slams shut in the background. Whereas
Paranormal Activity
did a good job of convincing the viewer that its stars might be real people, the protagonists here are less gifted in the fields of acting and improv.