Shamrock Green (45 page)

‘Is that like a ghost?' said Pauline.

‘An appearance, an apparition,' the woman said. ‘If we do happen to see something I implore you not to start up or break the circle. Do not let go my hand or attempt to reach out and touch the person.'

‘Has anyone ever done that?' said Sylvie.

‘Yes, on several occasions.'

‘What happened?'

The medium's grip tightened, crushing her knuckles.

‘You mustn't challenge them,' Madam Lomborosa said, crossly, ‘nor must you challenge me. I'm not here for the good of my health, you know.' Then suddenly she stiffened, looked up and away to her right, up past the tassels of the lampshade into a corner of the room.

‘What?'
she said loudly.
‘What?'

In unison, Sylvie and Pauline repeated the medium's question.

‘There's someone here,' said Madam Lomborosa. ‘Yes. Speak.'

Pauline said, ‘F-Fran, is it you?'

‘Yes,' said Madam Lomborosa, speaking very rapidly. ‘Yes yes, there is a presence with us tonight, a determined presence, I feel him tugging at my throat, I feel him within my mouth, I hear the voice, a strong voice, a man's voice, an Irish voice, I hear his utterances, he is love, he is not angry, he is love, he is here with us, he is crowding out …
Oh! Oh my!
'

She jerked her arms from the table, carrying Pauline's hand and Sylvie's with her until their arms seemed to take on a life of their own, to become as boneless as garden hoses, slapping about.

‘Jaysus! Oh, Jaysus save us,' Pauline said in a barely audible whisper. ‘Is it Fran? Is it Fran come down on us again?'

If it was Fran then he had learned a thing or two in the great hereafter for Madam Lomborosa suddenly burst into a chorus of ‘The Soldier's Song' in a deep bass voice, a voice so hollow that it seemed to come from below her navel.

She sang a snatch of the verse as well as a chorus and then, with a chuckle that turned into a high childish giggle, said, ‘What a naughty boy you are, whatter naughty, naughty boy.'

‘Is that my Fran?' said Pauline.

‘No.'

‘Who is it then?'

‘Ronnie.'

‘Ronnie? I don't know nobody called Ronnie.'

‘Ronnie's a bad boy. Ronnie's a naughty boy.'

Sylvie was unaccountably afraid. She knew full well it was a trick, a performance, but she was drawn in spite of herself. Ronnie! There was no Ronnie in her life and, as far as she knew, no one of that name in Pauline's.

‘He won't let Gowry through, the naughty, naughty boy.'

‘What?' said Sylvie. ‘Who did you say was…'

‘Gowry-powry, Gowry-wowry, Gowry …
Oh my, my!
'

‘Gowry?' said Sylvie, under her breath. ‘Is Gowry here?'

‘Hmmm.' Madam Lomborosa nodded. ‘Hmmm.'

‘It's your man, Sylvie.' Pauline straightened and squinted up at the ceiling. ‘Speak to us, Gowry. Speak to us.'

‘For God's sake,' said Madam Lomborosa, ‘will you leave it to me.'

‘How did you know about Gowry?' Sylvie said.

‘He … he … he … is … here,' said Madam Lomborosa.

And he was.

Rising up from behind the medium's chair was a tall gaunt figure clad in a soldier's tattered uniform, the face swathed in dirty bandages, one visible eye glazed like that of a fish. The fire blazed up behind the apparition, creating an aura about him, a bleary, almost blinding aura that Sylvie could not quite penetrate. She swallowed, and said, ‘Gowry? Is that you?'

‘Yes. It is me.'

‘Are you dead?'

‘Yes.'

‘I mean,
are
you dead?'

‘I am happy, happy. Do not shed tears for me, my love.'

The voice came from Madam Lomborosa not the figure behind the chair but at that moment it seemed that Gowry was speaking to her from beyond the grave. ‘Wh-where are you?'

‘At peace. At peace. I am happy. Everybody here is happy.'

‘Where's your bod— I mean, where were you – where do you lie?'

‘In the mud of Flanders. I am happy now, my love. I must go, must go.'

‘Gowry, are you really, really dead?'

‘I am spirit now, spirit pure and unalloyed.'

‘Wait,' Sylvie called out as the figure sank down and, in another flash of firelight, vanished behind the medium's chair. ‘For God's sake, wait.'

Madam Lomborosa gripped her hand like a vice.

Sylvie rose then fell back as the little giggling voice came pouring out of the medium's mouth once more, ‘Gowry-powry, Gowry-wowry, Gowry-towry.
Bang!
' Sylvie and Pauline jumped.
‘Bang. Boom. Bang.'
Then Madam Lomborosa, in her normal, clipped, Anglified voice, was saying, ‘It's the guns. The guns trouble the child. Do you hear the guns? Ah, the guns are everywhere, even beyond. Was that your husband?'

‘Yes,' Sylvie confessed in a tiny, chastened voice.

‘He loves you, see, he still loves you.'

‘Can't you bring him back?'

‘No, he's gone. Gone for tonight at any rate.'

‘What about Fran?' said Pauline. ‘Can you do Fran now, please?'

‘Fran isn't with us.'

‘Ask Ronnie about Fran?'

‘We're not running a blessed telephone exchange,' Madam Lomborosa snapped; then with more control, said, ‘We've been terribly privileged tonight. It ain't – isn't every sitting I receive a visitation. Materialisation takes a lot out of them, you see. He must have loved you very much, Mrs McCulloch, to wait so long and make so much effort…'

‘Try again,' said Pauline. ‘Try again for Fran.'

Madam Lomborosa sighed. ‘I'm sorry, my dear, but the room is absolutely empty. Perhaps next time we'll be more successful with Flan.'

‘Fran. You got him down before, in the Ockram Hall.'

‘And I'm sure we'll get him down again,' said Madam Lomborosa. ‘But all my spiritual energies are drained and my powers depleted for this evening.'

She released Sylvie's hand then Pauline's and sat back in the tall, well-upholstered chair. She laid her small, ring-laden hands on the arms of the chair, and closed her eyes.

After a moment's delay the door of the dining-room opened, the maidservant duly appeared and obsequiously enquired if everything was all right.

‘Yes, Maddy, thank you,' the medium answered.

‘Was there an appearance, Madam?'

‘There was.'

‘I can see it took a lot out of you.'

‘It did.'

‘A sad occasion?'

‘Sad, so sad – but joyful too,' said Madam Lomborosa.

Then with a little nod, she indicated to Maddy that the ladies – one of them in tears – had had their money's worth and should quietly be ushered out before the next batch of grieving widows arrived for the nine o'clock show.

*   *   *

They sheltered in a shop doorway, waiting for a tramcar to appear over the brow of the hill. It wasn't dark yet but mist lay low on the hills, the sea was veiled by rain and even for a wet Monday in mid-summer, the city was uncommonly quiet.

Although Sylvie had recovered her composure soon after they'd left Madam Lomborosa's, she still clung to Pauline's arm.

‘What did you tell that woman, Pauline?'

‘Tell her?'

‘About me.'

‘Nothin'.'

‘She knew my name. Did you tell her my name?'

Pauline squinched up her face, concentrating hard.

‘Nup,' she said.

‘When you made the appointment perhaps?'

‘Made the 'pointment at the Ockram Halls, with the big woman.'

‘I see,' said Sylvie.

‘Don't you think it was Gowry?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Did it look like him?'

‘It might have.'

‘I think it was him. It wasn't Fran.'

‘No,' Sylvie said, ‘I could see it wasn't Fran. She knew Gowry's name.'

‘Aye, an' she knew he was a soldier.'

‘One soldier looks much like another,' said Sylvie. ‘The bandage covering his face was very handy, wasn't it? Still, I admit it gave me a shock to see him. How did Fran materialise at the Ockram?'

‘He didn't materialise. He just spoke.'

‘What did he say?'

‘Said he loved me. Said it was grand on the other side, a very happy land.'

‘Did he ask about Turk or Charlie, or the children?'

‘Nup.'

‘Did he ask for you by name?'

Pauline, discomfited, leaned forward and peered up the street.

‘I wish this tramcar would hurry up,' she said.

Maeve had been left in charge of the children. If the night had been fine they would still be playing in the street but in this sort of weather they would be running about the hallway and fetching up to all kinds of mischief.

‘I wonder,' Sylvie said, ‘if it's been in the newspapers.'

‘What?'

‘Notice of Gowry's death.'

‘I thought he was only missin'?' said Pauline. ‘Oh, I see what you mean. If he's a ghost, he must've passed on. Is that why you were cryin'?'

‘It caught me by surprise, that's all.'

‘Done that to me at the Ockram, first time.'

‘Why didn't you tell me you were attending spiritualist meetings?'

‘I thought you'd just laugh.'

Pauline was calm tonight, rational; halting speech, blank gaze – there were no signs of mental disarrangement. She seemed to accept at face value the existence of the dead and the surety of an afterlife. Sylvie was less certain. There was something too clumsy about Gowry's appearance in the medium's drawing-room, something too convenient to be wholly convincing.

Once she was out in Grafton Street, she realised that Gowry had said nothing personal. He hadn't even uttered her name; ‘Ronnie' had come between them, Ronnie and a chorus of ‘The Soldier's Song' sung in a deep, lyrical voice far removed from Gowry's tuneless tenor, and that there had been no spiritual rhetoric or oracular pronouncements.

Even so she felt curiously light, as if a weight had been removed from her shoulders. She was more mystified by the manner in which the trick had been done than comforted by its relevance; yet there were elements that she'd missed, clues concerning not Gowry but Fran. She couldn't be rid of Fran, it seemed; Fran and Gowry, Gowry and Fran entwined together, ghosts who would haunt her for the rest of her days.

‘Here's the tramcar,' Pauline said. ‘I'll be glad to see home.'

‘You're not the only one,' said Sylvie.

*   *   *

Endicott Street was almost deserted. Lights burned in McKinstry's but the pavement was devoid of the usual loungers and there wasn't a kiddie to be seen between the lane and the canal. Some tenement windows were lit, little postage stamps of colour in a grey rain-washed landscape. There were no lights in Fran's building, however, and when Sylvie and Pauline entered the hallway they found it empty, the door to the ground-floor apartment firmly closed.

Sylvie glanced upstairs.

Gas-mantles hissed blue and yellow but there was more shadow than light on the landings.

Pauline rattled the door handle.

‘Algie, Algie, what're you doin' in there?'

‘Who is it?' Maeve asked from behind the bolted door.

‘It's us,' said Sylvie. ‘Who did you think it would be?'

The door opened a half-inch. Maeve's pale face peeped out at them.

Sean was in her arms, kicking and grizzling. Backing his friend, Algie brandished an old chair leg in lieu of a weapon. You could smell the room, not dank but fetid, feel the heat of the fire, taste coal smoke in your throat and hear the younger children whimpering within.

Sylvie said, ‘Maeve, what is it? What's wrong?'

Maeve hissed, ‘The peeler's waitin' for you, Mam.'

‘Which peeler? Vaizey, with the moustache?'

‘Yes,' Maeve answered. ‘He came about a half-hour ago.'

‘Did he frighten you?'

‘Yes,' Maeve confessed.

‘Open the door, open the door,' Pauline cried. ‘By Jaysus, if he's touched one hair on your heads, I'll kill the soddin' bastard, so I will.'

Maeve stood back and Pauline rushed into the room.

Sylvie did not follow. She knew that Vaizey wouldn't harm Pauline's children, that he had come here not to wreak vengeance but to negotiate.

‘He told us to keep out the way,' Maeve said. ‘Is it a raid, Mam? Are they still lookin' for Fran's guns?'

‘No,' Sylvie said. ‘Where is Vaizey? Is he upstairs?'

‘I think so.'

‘Did you tell him where Pauline and I had gone?' said Sylvie.

‘I told him nothin',' Maeve said.

Algie, braver now, repeated, ‘Nothin'.'

‘Stay inside,' Sylvie said. ‘Stay with Pauline and keep the door closed.'

‘What're you goin' to do, Mam?'

‘Settle this thing,' said Sylvie, ‘once and for bloody all.'

*   *   *

She took off her wet overcoat and hat on the landing and held them on her arm. She was more nervous than afraid. She knew what Vaizey wanted and what she was prepared to give. She pushed open the door and stepped into the room.

Vaizey was seated on the end of Fran's bed – her bed – hat in one hand, a cigarette in the other. He had lighted the candle on the whatnot and most likely he had rifled through the papers in the drawers and poked about among the clothing in the cupboard. The fire was still smouldering in the grate and the room was stiflingly hot.

‘Still raining?' he asked.

‘Worse than ever,' Sylvie answered.

She hung her coat behind the door and placed her hat on the little table by the typewriter. There were three cigarette stubs in the ashtray and thin fronds of tobacco smoke clung to the windowpane.