Ann Cleeves: The Healers

Then Daniel had persuaded her to join them at the Old Chapel. It was a great coup. Everyone admitted that and wondered how he had managed to pull it off. Perhaps all the publicity in the capital had frightened her away. She did talk occasionally about needing to return to the simple life, and she seemed quite content in the little flat next to the Alternative Therapy Centre, under the roof of the old chapel. She had sold the big house in Hampstead and there was considerable speculation about what had happened to the money. Lily was occasionally tempted to ask her, but had never quite found the nerve. Magda didn’t encourage idle conversation.

But Magda Pocock had definitely brought success, Lily thought, looking round the Abbots’ stylish house. The Alternative Therapy Centre must be a thriving business now. Then she was ashamed that financial calculations had entered her thoughts because Magda had become a guru to her too, besides a surrogate mother and role model.

“Are you going to Magda’s group this afternoon?” Lily asked. Win was pouring coffee into hand-thrown mugs. She looked haggard, tired, undernourished. Not a brilliant advert for homoeopathy, Lily thought, but perhaps that was what motherhood did to you. Win had given birth to two boys, only a year apart, as if she wanted to get the mucky business over with as soon as possible.

“No,” Win said. “Not this afternoon.” She offered no excuse.

On Sunday afternoons Magda ran what she called her Insight Group, a nineties version of the encounter group.

“We’re doing Voice Dialogue,” Lily said. “What about you, Daniel?” she added. But Daniel obviously thought he had no need of insight. He led workshops but seldom participated in them. He shook his head, smiling slightly.

“I suppose babysitting must be a problem,” Lily said. “Now Faye’s not around any more.” She saw Win turn away and realized she’d put her foot in it. She went on, to make amends: “You know I’d always babysit if you’re stuck.”

“Would you?” Win turned to Daniel. “Perhaps Lily could babysit tomorrow night. So I could come to the lecture with you.”

“Why not?” Daniel said, but his response was half-hearted, and Lily had the impression that he would have preferred to go alone.

“Sure,” Lily said. “I’ll come straight from work. Daniel can give me a lift home after, if he doesn’t mind.”

She was pleased with the arrangement. At least she would have an evening away from the caravan and Laverock Farm. She did wonder, briefly, what Daniel could be up to.

That Sunday afternoon, in a small terraced house in Wallsend, a dozen misfits and loners crammed into the tiny front room to sing rousing choruses to praise the Lord. Despite the heat the men wore dark suits and ties and the women gloves and mushroomshaped fluffy hats. There was a squeaky harmonium. After the songs and some prayers they sat, excitingly crushed together on the settee or on dining chairs brought in for the purpose, to listen to Ron Irving giving the address.

Brother Ron prided himself on his topical sermons. He was a small, dark man given, some of them knew, to violent tempers and secret drinking, but he was a skilled speaker. In the previous week the newspapers and television had focused on an illegal New Age festival, held on some common land in Gloucestershire, a precursor to the solstice assault on Stonehenge. Ron took up the subject again, with delight.

“You must not think of these followers of the New Age as being simply misguided seekers of the truth,” he boomed. In the house next door the television was turned up louder in compensation. “Oh no! Most have had a way to the word of the Lord and have turned away from it. They have joined the path to sorcery, witchcraft and the devil. Through choice and deliberate wickedness.”

There was a shuffling of seats in anticipation. They liked to hear Ron talk about the devil. It was better than a good horror film any day. But they were disappointed. His tone changed.

“That path always leads to misery and disaster,” he said, so quietly that they could hear the football commentary through the wall. “We know that, don’t we? We’ve seen it in our own congregation. Our own little Faye, my step-daughter, Joan’s beloved baby, turned her back on righteousness and paid the ultimate price for her sin.”

Magda Pocock was a striking woman. Her background was mixed Eastern European and minor English gentry. When she was younger her features had been too large to make her attractive but she seemed to have grown into them. The high cheekbones, the heavy eyebrows gave an impression of gravity and power, of someone at least who should be taken seriously. “The Germaine Greer of the New Age’ one of the Sundays had called her. She had laughed at that but taken it as a compliment; looking at herself in the mirror she had understood what was meant. They had cleared all the furniture from the reception area in the Alternative Therapy Centre. It was still cramped but it was the best she could do, better at least than using a draughty church hall or a school gymnasium smelling of cabbage and sweaty children. The group were sitting on the floor, chanting. Not choruses to the glory of God but a low, communal tone. Magda always started her session that way. A deep breath into the pit of the stomach, then an exhalation which became vocalized, relieving tension, making new members feel part of the group. Lily, sitting cross-legged, shut her eyes and felt herself relax for the first time that day. Magda looked round the circle to see who was there. She saw a couple of new faces but mostly the old crowd: Lily Jackman, Val McDougal.

“Get into pairs,” she said. Lily and Val moved together. Lily looked towards Magda, expecting her to separate them so their experience could be shared, but she must have decided not to make an issue of it. Lily was pleased. She did not have the energy today to work with a stranger.

“Just a few exercises to help us feel at ease with each other,” Magda said, and got them to shut their eyes and explore each other’s faces with their fingertips. Her voice, compelling, still slightly foreign, allowed no awkwardness. Lily, feeling Val’s hands on her neck and forehead, felt like crying.

“Now stand facing each other. Imagine one of you is the mirror image of the other. As one moves so must the other. But let no one be the leader. Be so aware of each other that you move together, almost instinctively.”

She walked among them, encouraging them. Then told them to sit again while she explained about Voice Dialogue. “Each of us has different sub personalities within us,” she said. “Each with its own voice clamouring to be heard: the submissive child, the critic, the pleaser, the pusher, the rule maker the playful child and many others.

Some of these sub personalities we are conscious of, some we identify with very strongly, some we disown, not wanting to admit even to ourselves that these energies belong to us. Others we are yet to discover. By giving expression to the different voices inside us, each pulling us in its own direction, we can begin to be more aware of our complexity, more aware of balance, of what is best for us as a whole.”

In their pairs they should explore these different voices, Magda said. They should speak with them. Move to different chairs or cushions as they gave expression to the different facets of their own personality. Starting with the ‘primary self; the sub personality they identified most with. It would not do, Magda said, to blame their background or upbringing for weakness or lack of confidence. They could take responsibility for their own emotional well-being. Voice Dialogue could help them to do that.

News of the murder came to Stephen Ramsay early on Monday morning. He was in a meeting, one of the endless meetings the Chief Superintendent regularly called. The Superintendent was a new appointee. He had been on management courses, spent a secondment in industry. Ramsay supposed the new Home Office plans for accountability and professional appraisal would attract others like him, grey men whose idea of effective management was more memos, more meetings. The talk was of limited resourcing, cuts. Ramsay found it hard to concentrate. The summons from Hunter came as a relief.