He looked at the ceiling again and this time Anna noticed she wasn’t the only person observing Australia along with him.
‘Anything else?’ said Latham, and waited. Then he said, ‘No. That’s all there is from Beryl.’
‘Thank you,’ said the young man. He didn’t look a bit surprised to have had a message from a dead woman. Didn’t rush off to phone his grandmother. Didn’t whip out a notebook to write down the message while it was fresh in his memory.
He also didn’t burst into flames for dabbling in the spirit world. Anna didn’t believe in God any more, but she felt a little relieved by that anyway.
Richard Latham looked thoughtful again, and Anna felt herself tensing so hard that she began to shake. But he pointed to a very frail old man on the end of the front row, who sat with both hands clamped over the knob of a gnarled walking stick. He had huge ears – each containing a large pink plastic hearing aid.
‘I’ve got someone here for you, sir, and she’s very angry.’
‘Must be the wife,’ the old man quavered, and everybody laughed heartily.
‘She says the doctor gave you a prescription, sir, is that right?’
The old man hesitated. Then he said, ‘Maybe.’
‘Don’t you maybe me,’ said Latham sharply, then he softened his tone and added, ‘That’s what she’s saying, sir – I’m not being rude to you, honestly. She’s saying, Don’t you maybe me, young man!’ Here Latham stopped and looked puzzled. ‘No offence, sir, but I wouldn’t describe you as a young man. Are you sure this message is for you?’
The old man nodded. ‘I was younger than her, see?’
‘Ahh,’ said Latham. ‘A toyboy.’
The old man cackled and nodded and Latham cocked his head again, this time putting one hand momentarily alongside his ear – not quite cupping it, but close to it, as if the old man’s dead wife was shouting from the back of the hall.
‘Well,’ he continued, ‘I don’t want to be rude, young man, but your wife – is her name Ellen? Ella?’
‘Ella,’ said the old man.
‘Well, Ella tells me you need to take that medicine because they’re not ready for you yet, you see, sir? She says you’ve still got a little way to go, and you might as well be healthy and happy while you’re waiting. Will you do that for her, sir? Will you do that for Ella?’
The old man ruminated, and Anna could hear his dentures clicking from the back row.
‘I’m not ordering you, sir,’ said Latham gently. ‘I’m only passing on a message.’
‘I’ll think about it,’ said the old man.
‘Good,’ said Latham. ‘But she’s still a bit cross.’
Everyone laughed again and the old man flapped a hand and said, ‘Oh all right then, just to shut her up.’
This was nothing like Anna had expected it to be.
‘Now,’ said Latham, ‘I’ll let someone else have a go.’
To Anna’s surprise, the young man in the puffa jacket got up and walked to the front of the room and took the microphone from Latham.
‘What’s happening now?’ Anna couldn’t resist asking the blonde woman.
‘It’s open circle,’ she said. ‘We’re all here to learn.’
‘Learn what?’
‘Psychic powers.’
‘Oh!’ said Anna. The idea that you could learn to be psychic was both stupid and intriguing.
The young man was frowning hard at the wall, waggling the microphone absent-mindedly.
‘Right,’ he said finally. ‘I’ve got a Nnnnn … eville here. Neville or Nigel.’
There was an undercurrent of non-interest and then a young woman just in front of Anna raised her hand. ‘I can take a Nigel.’
‘Good,’ said the man, and thought a bit more. ‘This Nigel, was he very fat?’
‘No,’ said the woman. ‘Very thin.’
Richard Latham got up and stood beside the young man, offering advice. ‘Now be a bit more confident. Don’t be rushed. Wait until you’re sure and then don’t ask the person, tell them what you see. That way you’ll get better results and not waste time with the wrong people.
The young man nodded like a plastic Pug on a parcel-shelf, and took some more time staring at the wall.
Before he could say anything else, a man with a port-wine birthmark on his cheek put up his hand and said, ‘I can take a fat Neville. I only just remembered my father-in-law. He was a right porker.’
And so it went on. Ghosts leaving messages on spiritual answering machines, as if they’d popped out to the shops, rather than died. One by one, random people stood under the damp patch and channelled the dead. It was all so normal. If Anna had expected anything, it would have been: The will is under the bathroom carpet, and Margery did it and hid the knife in the shed! Instead there was Carol remembering her blue felt slippers, John telling his brother to repair the chimney before winter, and Granny Mitchell confirming that Gramps had arrived safely and was as ‘happy as a sandboy’.
As every would-be psychic got up, Anna’s stomach fluttered with nerves, but the longer Daniel failed to put in an appearance, the less frightened and more relieved she got.
He wasn’t dead! He couldn’t be dead. If he was dead, he’d have come here and let her know, surely?
The tension drained from her and she felt exhausted. If it hadn’t been a sort of church, she might have left to go home to bed. As it was, she felt obliged to sit and listen as the dead droned on. Her astonishment at their messages left her fast, and was replaced by a vague suspicion.
Finally she was just bored.
Dead people were every bit as dull as the living.
She felt her eyelids droop, and hid a yawn. She put a foot on a strut of the buggy and moved it gently back and forth – to keep herself awake as much as to keep the baby asleep.
By the time they got to the free tea and biscuits, Anna only stayed because she hadn’t eaten all day and was determined to get her two quid’s worth.