Marcia Talley: All Things Undying

‘Whatever.’

‘But for Montana, there was money in it. There was the reward money, of course. Worse case, she did it for the publicity.’ I polished off another fry and stared at the copper pots gleaming from the walls, admiring the way they reflected the light. I flashed back to the day Montana Martin parked her boots on my daughter’s doorstep, and in a parting shot, claimed that my late mother wanted me to have her emerald ring. ‘Lucky guess,’ Paul had insisted at the time, but I had never been totally convinced.

‘Remember the ring?’ I asked.

Paul shot an exasperated here-we-go-again glance at the ceiling. ‘The opposite of cold reading, Hannah, is hot reading. Quite simply, Montana cheated. Did her homework, I mean. The ring? It’s mentioned in your mother’s will. The will is on file with Anne Arundel County. It’s public record. Montana could have looked it up.’

Paul had a point. I hadn’t thought of that. ‘But, but, but…’ I was stalling, organizing my thoughts. ‘But Susan Parker doesn’t know me from Adam! For all she knew, I was a tourist fresh off the Eurostar and she’d never see me again. What you’re suggesting is that she targets likely tourists, manages to learn their names, does a bit of research – on the Internet, I suppose – and then contrives to run into them on the street sort of accidentally on purpose.’ I puffed air out through my lips. ‘Doesn’t make sense. And that bit about my sister, Georgina. Spooky!’ I dragged out the ‘o’ and waggled my fingers.

‘Your mother’s obituary,’ Paul said reasonably. ‘If it appeared in the newspaper, it would definitely be available on the Internet.’

I had one of those duh, head-slapping moments. ‘Right. “Survived by three daughters”, et cetera, et cetera.’

I reached across the table and grabbed Paul’s hand. ‘Wait a minute! Information about my sisters could certainly be squirreled away in some remote corner of the Internet, but Susan knew that my mother died of a heart attack, and I’m pretty sure that information isn’t on the Internet.’

‘Not in her obituary?’

‘No, sir. I wrote it myself. It said “after a long illness”, which could mean anything.’

‘As I said earlier, Hannah, all that means is the woman’s an extraordinarily skilled cold reader. Tell me. Did this Parker woman come right out and say “heart attack” or did she work up to it first, like, “I feel a pain in the chest area”?’

I closed my eyes and tried to replay the conversation I’d had with the medium, but I couldn’t remember Susan’s exact words.

‘Think of how many medical conditions “chest area” could refer to,’ Paul continued. ‘Heart attack. Lung cancer. Emphysema.’ He squeezed my hand. ‘Even breast cancer.’

‘Why do you have to be so goddamn reasonable?’

‘She was fishing for details, I’ll bet, and reading your body language, letting you connect the dots.’

I was saved from having to agree with my husband by the reappearance of our server, inquiring if Sir and/or Madam would care for pudding this evening.

‘Yes, please.’ I dredged up a smile for the young woman. ‘It’s been a stressful day.’

After she went off to fetch Paul’s apple tart and a crème brûlée for me, Paul leaned back in his chair and announced, ‘Anybody can be a psychic, even me.’

‘Do tell.’

Paul reached across the table and captured my hand in both of his. ‘First, I get you comfortable, ply you with good food and fine wine.’

I snatched my hand away. ‘Where did you learn to be a psychic?’

‘I used to wow ’em with my magic tricks in high school. At lunchtime, I was the star of the cafeteria. And I did a lot of reading. The Amazing Randi has a lot to say on the subject of psychics.’

‘Randi? The magician?’ I put my lips together and made a rude noise. ‘None of it positive, I imagine.’

‘Like Houdini, he uses his skills as an illusionist to expose frauds. I guess you could call Randi a professional debunker. He refers to psychic shtick as woo-woo.’

Grinning, Paul reclaimed my hand. ‘Next, I smile, make eye contact…’ He stared at me, his eyes like deep chocolate pools. What with his goofy grin and wide-eyed, silent screen star gaze, I couldn’t help it. I started to giggle.

‘You are… let me see.’ Paul began stroking the top of my hand as he held it over my half-empty wine glass. ‘I’m getting a strong feeling about September, here.’

‘Not fair! You know my birthday’s in September!’

‘Just play along, Hannah.’

I closed my eyes. ‘OK. Yes. I was born in September, O Magnificent One.’

‘Ah, yes, I can see that.’

My eyes flew open. ‘Hah! But what if I’d said, “September? I can’t think of anything special about September”? What would you have said, then?’

Paul raised an eyebrow, patted my hand sympathetically. ‘Yes, I see that you’ve suppressed the memory of it. Something painful happened in September. Ah, I feel it, now. A pain, here, in my chest.’

Then it was my turn to roll my eyes. ‘Well, duh!’

Paul forged on. ‘You are not cooperating, Hannah! OK, try this on for size. What if I say, “You don’t work with heavy machinery, do you?” What do you answer?’

‘I say no, of course.’

‘But here’s the beauty of it! If you say no, I say, “Yes, I thought not.” If you say, “Yes, that’s amazing, I drive the Zamboni around the ice rink,” I say, “Yes, I thought so.” For the psychic, it’s win-win either way.’

‘Order me another glass of wine, Professor Ives, and do shut up!’

Paul waved to attract the attention of our server. ‘Scientists have been trying to find proof of life after death for over a century,’ he continued as the server trotted off in the direction of the bar to fetch us more wine. ‘They’ve designed experiment after experiment, but I’m quite certain nothing’s been proved.’

‘Lots of things are invisible,’ I said. ‘Atoms, radio waves, the wind. You don’t see the wind; you see the effects of the wind. Maybe the spirits of the dead are like that.’

‘William James certainly thought that was a possibility,’ Paul agreed. ‘Back in the 1880s he theorized that researchers could be overlooking some sort of natural fact that might explain ghostly phenomena, simply because it didn’t fit into their carefully organized system of knowledge.’

‘Do I see a crack opening in your great wall of skepticism, Paul?’

Paul laughed. ‘I’m willing to keep an open mind.’

‘Then promise me you’ll behave yourself at dinner on Thursday night,’ I said. ‘No ghost busting. No trick questions.’

‘You have my word.’ Paul raised his wine glass and clinked it against mine. ‘But sometimes you need a reality check, Hannah. And that’s my job, too.’

‘The Great Carnac has spoken.’

‘Damn right, sweetheart,’ Paul said, imitating Cagney.

Our desserts arrived and we dug into them, all serious conversation replaced by a succession of yummy noises. As I scraped the last dabs of pudding from the ramekin, I had to admit that assuming Susan Parker had somehow managed to target me in advance, Paul’s arguments made sense. But there was something I still didn’t understand. Susan had asked me, Why do I keep seeing a refrigerator?

And that was a question even Carnac in all his magnificence couldn’t answer.

‘It may seem strange but Operation Tiger, which happened so many years ago [to the Americans] is as if it happened yesterday… I have no doubt that this emotional feeling of loss stems also from the fact that they never got the bodies back. They never knew what had happened to them. All they had received were telegrams saying that their men were killed in the European theatre of operations.’ Ken Small, The Forgotten Dead , Bloomsbury, 1989, p.197