The Unhappy Medium, page 12
‘That’s original,’ said Newton, forgetting his promise. The guide pretended not to hear him and carried on regardless.
‘In the night, strange, eerie sounds echo down the narrow stairwell. And no one can sleep in the master bedroom, where the poor wife was ripped and violated by the maniac’s savage blade.’ The guide was clearly enjoying the sound of his own voice. ‘So friends, spare a thought for the soul of the fair daughter. Some said she was a rare beauty. Brutally torn by the madman’s flailing assault she was found, still alive ... just ... but unable to talk, her beautiful blue eyes staring, staring ... in horror!’ The guide looked with satisfaction around the gathered audience, pleased with himself until he noticed Newton’s disdainful expression. He turned back to the more receptive faces. ‘She did not last the night. So is it her poor spirit that still lingers in the darkened attic bedroom, weeping quietly, trapped forever on this earth?’
‘Oh puullease ,’ muttered Newton, a little too audibly.
‘Dad, shut up,’ hissed Gabby.
‘Sorry, did you have a question?’ the guide frostily barked at Newton.
‘No, don’t mind me, please go on. What happened next?’ Newton said, smiling apologetically and sarcastically in equal measure.
‘Er, well that was it really,’ the guide continued hesitantly.
‘Didn’t they find the wrongdoer that murdered the poor darlin?’ asked a fifty-something from South Carolina.
‘No madam, they did not,’ flourished the guide with renewed emphasis. ‘The beast was never caught. We’ll never know why he perpetrated the heinous crime, my friends. The spirits that haunt this very pub have taken their secrets with them to the other side.’
‘I thought the ghosts were still here?’ said Newton.
‘Well yes, yes they are, I just said so.’ The guide was looking and sounding annoyed, the lights of the pub catching the greasy frown on his forehead.
‘Well has anyone asked them who did it?’ said Newton. He felt a small boot pressing down on his right foot.
‘Ha my friend, you raise an interesting point. Maybe they should arrange a séance and ask that very question!’
‘Hell yes,’ replied Newton. ‘If this place is as haunted as you’re suggesting then surely we can pretty much guarantee a reply. Why don’t we help clear up the whole story? I’m guessing you believe in séances?’
‘Er yes, quite so. Anyway, if you will be so kind, we’ll continue apace with our journey through the spiritual underbelly of London.’ And with a little less confidence than he started with, the guide scampered away with his cane held aloft .
‘Dad, what is wrong with you?’ barked Gabby as they rushed on down the darkened streets behind the guide. ‘You said you wouldn’t ... you bloody said!’
‘Sorry, sorry,’ whispered Newton, who was not really sorry at all. In fact, he was starting to enjoy himself.
The small party weaved on through the backstreets. Occasionally, they were in almost total darkness, only the faint glow of distant offices illuminating the ancient, rugged walls of Roman Londinium. These once-impressive barricades were now strangely toy-like beneath the glass and steel of banking headquarters and cranes. At other times, the group would burst out of an alley alongside a bright busy pub where smokers spilled chaotically onto the street, piles of cigarette butts beneath their feet.
‘Gather round, please, gather round,’ called the guide as they stumbled up to a church. It loomed blitzed and weathered above them, its old walls crowned with gargoyles and scarred by shrapnel. The group edged into the churchyard, the more superstitious desperate to avoid treading on the graves between the headstones around them, the slabs at crazy angles like the teeth of a Somali pirate. ‘Before you is the old church of St Barnabas, once one of some 100 parish churches in what was then a much smaller City of London. You will note the many gravestones that have been placed against the wall. Some of these were blown over by German bombs during the blitz, but many were moved at an earlier date. I want you to cast your minds back, if you dare, to this particularly dark time in London’s past.’
‘Oh, here we go again,’ muttered Newton. He was treated to narrowed eyes by a woman in her sixties in a shiny pac-a-mac.
‘I refer of course to the Black Death!’ the guide declared.
‘Oh I’ve heard of that!’ said the Canadian woman, pulling her animal-print fleece tight around her so that the timber wolf on its back became boss-eyed. ‘Isn’t that a disease?’
‘Yes madam, it most certainly is,’ confirmed the guide theatrically, and he let the beastly subject congeal in the air for a moment for effect. ‘A disease so vile and hideous that it lay waste to this and many other cities!’ Imagining himself on the History Channel, he trotted out some patter from a Wikipedia entry he’d learnt nearly off by heart earlier in the season. ‘The year is 1348. London is a bustling centre of commerce and the busiest port in Europe. But this year it is more than fine silks and wine that are landed on the city’s teeming wharfs, for with the ships come rats, and with those rats come fleas, and with those fleas come ...’
‘The Yersinia pestis bacterium?’ suggested Newton provocatively.
‘The what?’ said the guide wearily.
‘It’s the plague bacterium. Yersinia pestis ,’ said Newton smugly.
‘Well I er ... I knew that,’ bluffed the guide.
‘Ignore my dad,’ Gabby suddenly announced to the crowd. ‘He thinks he’s being clever.’
‘Yeah,’ said a thick-spectacled student from Pasadena, ‘what’s yer problem dude?’
‘Just trying to be helpful,’ shrugged Newton, keen to do the opposite. The guide hesitated awkwardly before continuing.
‘Well, er ... with the fleas came the ... um ... bacteria ... which we call the plague, or the Black Death. London was prosperous but very, very dirty and its dark narrow streets, devoid of proper sanitation, were alive with filth. Down these streets stalked the pestilence, with no respect for wealth or status, piety or honour – it killed all it encountered.’
‘Woaah. No it didn’t,’ said Newton.
‘Yes it did!’ replied the guide with indignation. ‘It wasn’t called the Black Death for nothing!’
‘Actually, it was called the Black Death because it covered its victims in nasty black acne. But in fact it only killed 30 to 60 per cent of the population,’ said Newton.
‘Well, that’s pretty bad I’d have said,’ the guide retorted, and the group staged a ripple of approval.
‘Yes, but you said “everyone” was killed, and that’s not factually correct.’
‘I don’t think you’d like to die of the black plague, young man!’ said the Canadian woman.
‘It’s the Black Death, not the black plague. Anyway, what’s this got to do with ghosts – I thought you were going to show us some ghosts?’
‘Well they were all buried here, under here!’ the guide blurted. He was used to a suggestible audience and warm applause, not some smart-arse undermining his street theatre with pedantic backchat. He began to look hunted.
‘So that means there are ghosts here does it?’ said Newton, enjoying what was now looking slightly like overkill .
‘Yes, lots of them, moaning ghosts.’
‘Moaning you say,’ replied Newton. ‘And just what are they moaning about?’
‘Well they were buried alive!’ said the guide indignantly.
‘I thought they were all dead?’ Newton persisted, despite an unspoken wall of disapproval.
‘Some were nearly dead, dying ... you know,’ the guide blurted. ‘They did it to save time!’
‘Well even I’d moan about that,’ said Newton, unstoppable. ‘I’d complain rather strongly. In fact ...’
‘Why don’t you just shut up?!’ Gabby suddenly shouted. Then, in pure frustration, she let out a long, alarming scream which seemed to vibrate the very ground beneath her. Everyone, Newton included, stopped and looked at the young Goth. ‘I hate you I hate you! Why do you have to ruin everything!’
‘Gabby ...’ Newton was cut short as she jumped furiously up and down on the spot, screaming her young lungs out amongst the gravestones, the shrill yelps of frustration echoing off the masonry.
‘You think you are sooo smart, well you aint! You’re a sad lame old fart!’ Her black eyeliner was running freely down her pale cheeks. With one last burst of wild fury, she screamed as if she was going to explode before suddenly turning on her boots and storming away into the night. All eyes turned back to Newton, who awkwardly stood still for a second returning the angry stares.
‘Ah! Now I know who you are,’ the guide suddenly announced, his memory jogged by the tension. ‘Bubbles! Bubbles! You were on TV!’
But Newton was already running after his daughter in a panic. He had visions of Gabby sitting amongst needle-wielding pimps in an alleyway near King’s Cross and he ran helter-skelter through the narrow alleyways and courtyards. After a brief but frantic search, he finally caught sight of her in the distance, a blob of black angst on the steps beneath some bland civic sculpture. Cautiously, he walked up and sat down gently beside her, half expecting her to bound away like Spring-heeled Jack.
‘Sorry Gabby. I really shouldn’t have done that.’ He put his hand on her shoulder but she instantly pulled away.
‘You’re an arsehole.’
‘Yup, you’re right. I am an arsehole. ’
‘And you’re a dickwad.’
‘I’m most certainly one of those,’ confessed Newton.
‘You said you wouldn’t act up! But you did! You’re a liar!’ Gabby wasn’t shouting now but Newton felt every word hit him like pebbles.
‘You just don’t get it do you! It’s not all about you,’ Gabby sobbed.
‘What is it about?’ asked Newton.
‘It’s about me,’ she said softly. ‘Well sometimes it is. I hate myself, I want to die.’
‘Oh come on Gabby, you can’t say that.’
‘Yes I can ... I just did, I can say anything I flipping bloody, stinking well want and right now I want to say I want to die.’ She hissed the last line through clenched teeth, some spital mixing with the steam on her breath in the cold air.
‘Woahhh OK ... fair enough. You want to die.’
‘Yes I do.’
‘OK,’ Newton said. ‘A 14-year-old girl wants to die, I can respect that ... I think.’
‘Good,’ said Gabby, ‘because that’s what I want.’
They sat in silence for a while, a passing crowd of drunken office workers scrutinising them as they made their way to a nightclub.
‘I want to die too sometimes,’ Newton said suddenly.
‘No you don’t,’ Gabby snapped back.
‘No I do, really, why not? Can’t let you young folk have all the fun.’
‘Why would you want to kill yourself, you’re grown up.’
‘Well that’s one reason straight off.’ Newton sat back and looked up at the orange clouds scudding low above the streetlights. ‘Then there’s the small matter of what happened with my career, my marriage, oh and hardly ever seeing you these days.’
‘You don’t care about me, no one does,’ Gabby continued, and it made Newton bite his lip briefly with emotion.
‘Oh Gabby, I care about you alright. I love you. You’re my daughter, of course I love you.’ It sounded so like an excuse that Newton regretted it leaving his clumsy mouth. ‘If I could see you all the time then I would. Of course I would.’
‘I hate living with Mum, she’s such a cow.’
‘That’s not a nice way to talk about your mother Gabby,’ said Newton, without conviction .
‘Well she’s just so lame. She doesn’t understand me.’
‘I guess she’s just busy with her own stuff Gabby,’ said Newton. ‘Look, I’m sorry about tonight, about everything. I shouldn’t have done it ... the poor guy, he didn’t deserve that.’
‘Why don’t you believe in anything?’ asked Gabby after they’d sat in silence for a while, as she played with her laces.
‘I don’t believe in nothing,’ said Newton. ‘I just don’t believe in everything.’
‘No one believes in everything,’ said Gabby, ‘that’s just stupid.’ Newton, sorry for his earlier evangelism, thought carefully for a second and opted not to persist.
‘You must be sick of me.’
‘No ... well yes ... Look at all your stuff, all that science. Doesn’t it just make the world less interesting? Makes it all boring.’
‘Yes I suppose it does really ... sorry,’ said Newton.
‘Don’t just say that, you don’t mean it, do you,’ she grumped from inside her folded arms. ‘Why can’t you be more open minded?’
‘I am open minded. But my mind is not so open that anything can crawl right in. Or just fall out for that matter. But look, you don’t want me to go on any more do you? I’ll just make you more annoyed.’ Newton seriously wished for once he could finally be allowed to shut up, but his daughter had other ideas.
‘Actually Dad I do.’
******
They found themselves a pizza house in the heart of old Smithfield Market and as father and daughter waited for a table, Newton wondered just how diplomatic he was capable of being. Used to fighting the supernatural with gratuitous sarcasm and glee, he was thinking hard and fast for an approach that would spare them both an awkward confrontation whilst still holding the line for the age of reason.
‘Go on then,’ she said as they sat down at the table. ‘Prove to me there is no such thing as the supernatural.’
‘OK,’ said Newton, wondering where on planet earth to start. Mercifully, ordering food gave him time to get his ducks in a thin wavering line and after the waitress left them, he began. ‘Well, firstly it’s impossible to prove a negative. I can prove this table exists; I can prove you exist, but I have no way of proving there is not a large invisible water buffalo over there by the piano. I can’t see it, can’t hear it and no one else can see it, but to prove it does not exist is impossible. I can only say with certainty that there is no evidence for it.’
‘You say that ghosts don’t exist!’ said Gabby.
‘Well I do, well ... what I say is that there is no evidence for ghosts, therefore the probability is that there are no ghosts.’
‘There is evidence,’ countered Gabby, ‘loads of evidence.’
‘What evidence?’ said Newton.
‘Ghosts have been in history since the year dot! Every culture has ghost stories.’
‘Stories are not evidence,’ he replied. ‘And if you’re relying on another person to give you a single, accurate and truthful report about a phenomenon, then you’re on a sticky wicket straight away.’
‘Why?’
‘Because people are unreliable, Gabby. They lie, they get confused, they get scared, hell, they get drunk. People aren’t like digital cameras; they can interpret things the wrong way for all sorts of reasons. The brain doesn’t always give accurate signals – it can trick you. You can see things, hear things. But people mostly just lie and that probably explains 99.9999 per cent of it.’
‘But why lie about a ghost anyway?’ said Gabby. ‘What can you gain? There’s no point to it.’
‘There are loads of incentives to lie!’ continued Newton. ‘You may want to look interesting to your neighbours. You might just want attention from your peers. If Scooby Doo is to be believed, it’s nearly always because you’re trying to buy the old funfair below the market rate.’ Gabby cast him a sarcastic smile. ‘And ... it might be because you’re fooling yourself and need other people to help build your delusion.’ His daughter wrinkled her nose.
‘Why would anyone want to do that?’
‘Oh lots of reasons,’ Newton replied looking for the waitress. ‘It might be guilt, like in Macbeth, when he sees his victim’s ghost. It could just be a need to have some drama in your life. Boredom.’
‘Are you saying that we create all ghosts in our own heads then?’
‘Yeah, sure.’
‘Well,’ Gabby countered, ‘how do you explain when a whole bunch of people see the same ghost at the same time? ’
‘A whole bunch?’ said Newton. ‘Well, it sounds more convincing, of course, but it’s not enough to just have the word of two people, or four people, or even four hundred people. There could be, and probably is a reason why they are all mistaken, deluded or lying. No matter how many people see the ghost, or rather say they have, it will mean absolutely nothing unless the phenomena is genuinely recorded, duplicated and tested. That’s how all the big discoveries are made and verified. It applied to electricity, magnetism and a host of other observable phenomena – why should the supernatural be any different? It’s the absence of any meaningful data that indicates it’s a delusion. A delusion at best, mind you, at worst it’s just downright fraud. Nope, to call it real, you have to have proof.’
‘What could possibly make for proof though? What would it take for you to be convinced?’ asked Gabby.
‘Well, OK. To really prove something like that, you’d need to have an experiment where, say, three independent viewers with no connection to each other were able to see the same ghostly phenomena from differing positions. If they then gave identical responses, identical descriptions, and you could rule out any optical effect or hoax, then maybe, just maybe, you’d be on to something.’
‘OK Dad, but that’s not likely though is it, I mean ghosts don’t work to order.’
‘Well why not? If they are derived from people, then why shouldn’t they cooperate like people? If you can have live scientists then why not dead ones, keen to show us what the “other side” is actually like? Why hasn’t Einstein popped up at the Royal Society and said – look it’s me ... ich bin ein phantasm!’
