Caroline Graham - A Ghost in the Machine

“What sort of trouble?”

“I was outside and one of them, an old lady – she was ever so nice – asked me to take a message.”

“Who to?”

“Elsie next door. She was in the garden. They don’t ask unless the person’s present.”

Dr. Lester held back a smile. The detail, everything fitting, every impossible aspect so rationally described was impressive, to say the least.

“I’d never actually done it before. I thought I’d try but then Ava came rushing out. She got hold of my hair and dragged me inside. She was ever so angry. She said if the neighbours heard me talking to myself it’d be all round the village I was mental.”

“But you weren’t talking to yourself.”

At these words something happened to Karen. Her brow became smooth, her thin bony little fingers stopped plucking and pulling at her skirt and, interlacing, came to lie quietly in her lap. Her shoulders relaxed, which made her neck look longer. She held her head in a delicate, assured way. Her eyes, unclouded now, glistened with happiness. She smiled.

“I knew you’d understand.”

Dr. Lester experienced a moment of deep misgiving. Had the decision to appear to accept Karen’s story been a mistake? If so she was stuck with it, for there could be no backtracking. The important thing was that the child should grow to trust her.

“I tried really hard to explain,” continued Karen. “Ava wouldn’t listen. I didn’t know what to do. But then she met this man, George, at a club. And suddenly everything got better.”

“I see.” Nothing about him in the notes. “And what was George like?”

“Really nice. He gave me a little bag made out of funny string. And some Smarties.”

“So…” For now she gave this unknown sweet-giver the benefit of the doubt. “He was Ava’s friend?”

“Yes.”

“Did he ever stay at your house?”

“’Course not.” Karen laughed. “He lived with his mother.”

“So how did he ‘make things better’?”

“Well, she asked him round to Rainbow Lodge for tea. He was on the patio when this old man walked round the corner.”

“One of your…?”

“That’s right. He gave me some messages for George but I got frightened and ran inside. The old man came after me. I didn’t know what to do. So I told Ava. I went on and on and on to make her listen. I knew she wouldn’t hit me with somebody else there.”

This was incredible. The child was so convincing Dr. Lester actually found herself leaning forward.

“And then what happened?”

“She said she had high hopes of George and didn’t want him thinking she’d got a kid what was round the bloody twist. I promised I’d never, ever do it again if she’d just help me this one time.”

“And did she?”

“Yes. She made out she’d had this dream. All about an old tramp, trying to tell her things. But when she said what the things were George started shaking and crying. It was awful. She thought he was having a fit. Than he ran off shouting, ‘I have to tell Mummy. I have to tell Mummy.’”

Belatedly Dr. Lester realised this last scene was not in her notes and scribbled a couple of lines.

“Carry on, dear. Carry on.”

“Ava believed me after this. She said we had to have a serious talk because a gift like mine was from God and should be really worth something. Later on, George rang up and said he knew a lot about the…um…parasomething…”

“Paranormal?”

“Also, he belonged to this church and said for her to go along with him.”

“Where was it, the church?”

“In our village,” explained Karen, patiently. “It’s called the Near at Hand.”

That the place could really exist Dr. Lester knew. Occasionally fantasists create a dazzlingly unreal universe as a background for their imaginings but mostly they would use genuine places. Often these will be inhabited by famous people flitting in and out of the action. Well-known landmarks too can be casually relocated to accommodate the plot. Pointless to argue as to authenticity. Try showing a globe to a member of the Flat Earth Society.

“And did she go?”

“Yes, but she couldn’t do anything.”

“Because you weren’t there?”

“Yes!” Karen glowed the glow of the appreciated. More, of the totally understood. “Back at home she kept walking up and down. I went to sleep and when I woke up she was still doing it. She said she was racking her brains.”

This time Dr. Lester did smile. Couldn’t help it. The total wildness of the invention combined with Karen’s fervent sincerity should have been disturbing, yet, because she was so young, the anodyne phrase “make believe” was never far away.

“Then she got this amazing idea. I told the doctor.”

“Yes – it’s all down here.”

If the invention had been wild up till then it now spiralled totally off the wall. Ava apparently hit on a seemingly foolproof method of exploiting Karen’s “gift.” Concealing the child behind curtains she had set up a microphone through which messages from all these strange and invisible people could be relayed. Ava then received them via an earpiece and passed them on to the waiting congregation.

What Dr. Lester found somewhat unsettling about this extraordinary tale was the amount of common or garden detail mixed up in it. Karen described precisely the shop in Slough where they had bought the equipment. And how her mother paid cash so she wouldn’t have to give her real name. The assistants had laughed behind her back when she’d tried to swear them to secrecy if they were ever questioned.

“And you were happy with this arrangement?”

“It was brilliant. They came into my head, I passed the messages on and they went away.”

“I see.”

“But she’d only tell people happy things. There were terrible stories as well.”

“Thank you, Karen.” Dr. Lester smiled, slipping the notes back into her envelope file. “But we’ll have to leave those for another time.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m afraid our sessions only last half an hour.”

Karen stared at her. “You said you’d help me.”

“And I will—”

“You said you’d find someone to talk to them. Like Ava did.”

“I don’t think—”

“They’re coming all the time – going on at me. They never give up.”

“I can give you something to help your headaches.”

“ They’re not headaches, ” screamed Karen. Her arms shot out with such force they seemed to be jumping from their sockets. They flailed the air, beating and flapping as if fending off some great bird.

Dr. Lester, shocked at the suddenness of this explosion, hesitated. Her immediate impulse was to try and restrain the child but even as she started to get up Karen became calm again.

The change happened so quickly Dr. Lester was immediately suspicious. Yet she could have sworn Karen was not manipulative and had not been acting. A draining paleness had come upon her. The milk-white skin now appeared almost translucent. Her hair, that floss of dazzling light, stirred slightly, though there was not the slightest breeze. Her colourless lips drooped at the corners in disappointment.

Barbara was glad the session was at an end. Glad too it was the last of the day. It had been a difficult one and she was very tired. They had already overrun by nearly ten minutes.

She said carefully, “Are you all right now, Karen?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

Karen sat quite still, absorbing this new understanding that had so unkindly presented itself. Dr. Lester, in whom she had put all her faith, was not going to help. Karen had a moment of panic, of frail crying inside, then deliberately let all hope in that direction go.

But what to do now about the clamour in her head? She couldn’t go on like this – she just couldn’t. She’d go mad. If only she was older. If she was grown up they would all understand. Even now it would only take one person…