Caroline Graham - A Ghost in the Machine

“I’m aware of some strange shapes…” She opened her arms wide, then leaned back slightly. Her eyes widened as if seeing a frightful vision. “Huge constructions like nothing I have ever seen…They throw great shadows…white walls are all around with windows high in the air. A man, small with red hair, clad in green, approaches them. But he is not alone…Someone else is hiding in the shadows…someone who means him dreadful harm. I see them handling one of the machines…causing damage…Now it is no longer safe. The merest touch could bring it crashing down…”

A concerted gasp swept the church. Even the lady with the chair leg stopped knitting.

“As the man draws nearer the watcher in the shadows creeps forward too…coming as close as they dare to gloat…to watch a terrible plan succeed. The mist around this figure is clearing now…I can almost see an outline…even perhaps a face…”

A baby cried – the tiny baby held in a sling against his mother’s breast. He was wet and he was hungry. His cries became yells and screams.

The tense atmosphere ruptured beyond repair. People started to relax, a few laughed, marvelling aloud at the amount of noise coming from such a minute scrap. Someone held him while the mother got her things together. For a moment the medium hesitated. Then she caught the eye of the man in the grey suit, made a negative movement with her head then swept slowly from the stage, gazing ahead as if tugged by some magnetic force.

As the service finished the youth who had switched on the hi-fi at the beginning worked the rows with a velvet drawstring collecting bag. Nicolas dropped in a jingle of drachmas he had brought back from Corfu. The music began again and the congregation filed out to Dean Martin’s liquid gargling: “Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime.”

Cully and Nico had been the last to move. She pretended to search for something in her bag as the others streamed by. But the Master of Ceremonies was walking up the centre aisle, sweeping and shooing with both hands, as fussy as an old woman rounding up hens. He bared his teeth in a fearsome grimace of synthetic friendliness.

“Get that smile,” muttered Nico, allowing himself to be eased into the general stream. “Like a mouthful of Chiclets.”

About ten minutes later everyone was in a large room off the hall, enjoying their tea. Cully was taking dainty bites out of a fragile cucumber sandwich. Nico gnawed on a huge chunk of bread pudding. Smiling, nibbling and gnawing, responding politely when spoken to, they waited for an opportunity to slip backstage.

The MC had accepted a plate of food composed by the lady with the teddy bear knitting. There were a lot more teddies on a large table under an Oxfam poster, amended to read: “Teddies For Tragedy.” They were hand-knitted too and all wearing different clothes. There was a teddy surgeon, a policeman and a gardening teddy with a little hoe. They were all for sale at different prices.

“I rather like the idea of teddies for tragedy,” said Nico, helping himself to a cream horn. “Why shouldn’t they have a rotten time like the rest of us? Want one of these?”

“I think I’d rather have one of those.” Cully nudged her husband round to face another smaller table behind them.

“Aaarrgghhh!” cried Nicolas, sotto voce.

He was looking at the most extraordinary display of candelabra. They seemed to be made of string, knotted and tangled then glued into twisty Gothic shapes. From time to time the glue had dripped a little, hardening into tiny orange beads.

“Look,” whispered Cully. She pointed out a card which read: “Geo. Footscray. Candelabra & Pot Holders. Chandeliers to order.” “We could have a chandelier.”

“But they’re only to order.” Nicolas too spoke with quiet reverence. “You said we wouldn’t be coming back.”

“Damn.”

“How’s he doing – Mr. Sparkle?”

They both stared across at the MC. He was in earnest, not to say excited, conversation with the woman who had responded so positively to the advent of the final visitant. Cully gulped down the remains of her cucumber sandwich. No one noticed them slip away.

“I don’t know why we’re bothering,” said Nico, following Cully down the deserted aisle. “She won’t be any different from the other two.”

“She’s already different.”

“How?”

“That last connection was pretty strange. And what’s with the ‘we’?”

“I’m here to help.”

“So wait in the car.”

Cully climbed on to the platform, her hand stretching out to the velvet drapes.

Nico, a step behind, whispered, “Shall I take notes?”

The two people already behind the curtains had very little room to move. Ava Garret was sitting on a fold-up chair by a small table, staring into a mirror on a stand. Her hands were raised, the fingers loosening gauze that secured a wig. The only other piece of furniture was a moth-eaten old chaise longue. A child was drying glasses by a small stone sink. She saw the intruders first. Flinging her tea towel down over the table she gave a sharp cry.

“What do you want?” Ava Garret jumped to her feet. “No one’s allowed back here.”

“I’m sorry, Miss Garret. I didn’t realise—”

“If it’s healing, George will be in the Salamander Suite at five.”

“I was hoping to talk to you.”

“Then you’ll have to take your chance in the vestibule with the others. And I’m quite exhausted so I shan’t stay long.”

Pompous cow, decided Nicolas. Who did these people think they were? Take your chance indeed. She’d be giving them her autograph next.

“Do you see people privately?”

“No.”

“Not even on special—”

“Not never,” said the child.

Cully responded with an apologetic smile. She studied the little girl without seeming to, taking mental notes as she always did, storing stuff away. The most utterly colourless creature she had ever seen. Totally washed out. Long straight hair, blonde as far as one could tell – it looked pretty filthy. Skin, fine as paper. An almost perfectly heart-shaped face, which was not nearly as appealing as it sounded in fairy stories. The chin came to a very sharp point indeed. You could have eased the lid off a jam jar with it.

“It was all just so…amazing.” Cully gave Ava Garret a deeply admiring smile. “I’m longing…that is, if you could possibly explain how—”

“I’m just a channel through which departed souls contact the living.” She rattled it off, plainly bored.

“Do they come to you one at a time?”

“They throng, dear, and that’s the truth. Once one’s through they’re all at it.”

“I see. Any special ord—”

“Mother’s family on the left. Father’s on the right.”

“And do you see them clearly?”

“Not always. There’s a lot of murk around the openings to the dromeda stratosphere.”

“What’s she asking all these questions for?” said the girl to Nicolas. “What d’you want?”

“That final…connection was rather—”

“I don’t encourage common curiosity. Now I have to change. Go away.”

“But it isn’t common curiosity.” Nicolas spoke hastily, having noticed a certain stubborn persistence tightening Cully’s lovely profile. “My wife is an actor. She’s playing a medium, you see—”

“You’re in the business?” Ava Garret stared at them, an expression of longing softening her hard, heavily painted face. A wistful smile completed the transformation. She looked at Nicolas. “The theatre?”

“Yes.” Eagerly Cully seized this stroke of luck and ran with it. “I’m rehearsing Blithe Spirit at the moment. For the Almeida.”

“Aahh…” sighed Ava, “the Almeida. I used to dance there as a little girl. I was in all their shows.”