The Unhappy Medium, page 17
‘It did occlur to me,’ burbled Newton. ‘But then that suggeds a clertain level of altruism, gluilt or atlonement that I can’t say flits the bleed.’
‘Well forget it for now sweetie – I’m sure it will all be clear in the morning.’
‘Yeah, I am a blit knalckered,’ said Newton.
‘Exactly,’ said Viv. She forced down hard onto his neck and shoulders; he crunched like a cheese cracker. Newton’s eyes sagged and drooped, and as the tension lifted, he found himself drifting pleasantly away from the day’s weirdness.
At least, he did until he realised that the toy cars on the mantelpiece were moving.
The movement was so subtle, little taps forward, like the smallest of nudges from a single finger. But as his eyes widened, he could see the blue Citroën 2CV that Gabby had given him for Christmas begin a careful and deliberate trip along the shelf, from one end to the other.
‘Blimey,’ said Viv, ‘you’ve tightened right back up again! We’ll have to work a bit harder!’ With that she leant hard down on his right shoulder resulting in a spectacular crack.
‘Argghhhhhnnnn!’ shouted Newton, biting the pillow.
‘Oh don’t be a baby,’ said Viv. ‘Better out than in!’
Nearly all the cars were moving now, until one, pushed too hard perhaps, shot off the mantelpiece and looked like it was going to crash noisily onto the floor. But just before impact, the car stopped dead in mid-air. A striped-shirted arm, disembodied in the air just inches from Newton’s face, caught the toy.
‘Howzatt!’ said the voice of Alex Sixsmith triumphantly. ‘I think I might be getting the hang of this!’
‘Did you hear that!’ asked Newton, hoping she hadn’t.
‘Hear what,’ said Viv and Sixsmith simultaneously.
‘Oh you were talking to your girlie, sorry,’ said Alex.
‘Hear what Newton darling?’ said Viv. ‘Are you getting a bit weird on me again?’
‘You didn’t just hear a voice?’
‘A voice? Nope, only yours,’ she laughed.
‘I wouldn’t worry,’ said Sixsmith. ‘I told you, I can decide who hears me, or sees me. Pity I couldn’t do that while I was alive. It would have got me through a lot of dismal cocktail parties. ’
‘I’m not listening,’ whispered Newton at the arm, as it played with James Bond’s Aston Martin.
‘I didn’t say anything sweetie,’ said Viv, applying her knuckles.
‘It takes an awful lot of energy to move things though,’ said Sixsmith. ‘I’m just moving these around for practise. Opening a window, pushing someone off a bar stool – that’s beyond me at the moment. I’ll get there though.’
‘Oh you’re a hard man to calm down,’ said Viv sternly. She shoved him back into the bed linen.
‘Ouch!’ said Alex. ‘I felt that! A nice girl, your Vivienne. Much nicer than that awful woman you married, what was her name?’
‘Wowena,’ said Newton from deep within the pillow.
‘Ah yes, that’s it!’ said Alex.
‘What about her?’ said Viv. ‘She on your case again? I blame her for all this. Bet she’d love it if you lost your marbles.’
‘I’m not losing my marbles!’ protested Newton, not at all convincing himself.
‘If you say so,’ she replied.
‘Not going to tell her about me, eh?’ said Alex, examining a pre-war Bugatti racer. ‘Probably best. Maybe later – see how it pans out. I can manifest to her if it helps?’
‘No!’ protested Newton.
‘OK, OK!’ said Viv. ‘Sheesh, just trying to help.’
‘Sorry! I didn’t mean to ...’ Newton backtracked. ‘You’re being great, Viv, it’s just I’m keen to find a rational explanation for things. You know what I’m like.’
‘I do!’ laughed Alex.
‘Sure,’ said Viv. ‘But not everything is as cut and dried as all that, is it?’
‘Yes it is!’ Newton replied. ‘Or rather, it should be.’
‘Emphasis on the word “should”,’ said Sixsmith. ‘I tell you, if you thought the whole quantum thing was weird, you should see what it’s like this side of the divide. Bizarre! I mean, it would never have occurred to me that antimatter would be so ...’
But as he started elaborating, Viv began talking again, rendering Sixsmith’s scientific titbit inaudible. ‘Do you really think that everything can be explained?’ she said. ‘Seems unlikely to me.’
‘What did you just say? Say that again,’ Newton whispered urgently .
‘I said, do you really think that everything can be explained ...’
‘Not you, you!’ Newton blurted.
‘Actually I shouldn’t tell you stuff like that. It’s really bad form apparently, can cause all sorts of problems.’
‘What do you mean, not me? For God’s sake Newton, will you settle down.’ Viv delivered a potent mix of pleasure and pain with her elbow.
‘Ow!’
‘Ow indeed,’ laughed Sixsmith. ‘She’s good, I’d keep that one if I was you. Look, I can’t stay, I’ve got some meetings. They’ll want to know how you’re coming along.’ The hallucination began fading again. ‘Byeeeeee!’ came a comical mock-horror laugh that faded theatrically from the room, still audible only to Newton.
‘Oh boy,’ he sighed, ‘oh boy.’ Newton, mentally and physically wrung out like an old dishcloth, and with Viv still working away upon him, faded away into a deep though troubled sleep.
******
Viv dashed off early leaving Newton to have his breakfast alone. The fresh bread, he had to admit, was wonderful, so he made himself some buttery toast before throwing on his leather jacket and heading to work. The bus he caught was badly steamed up, and Newton had to wipe the window repeatedly to see the passing houses and shops.
Any thought that the events of yesterday were isolated were soon dispelled en route. There were three separate sightings of Sixsmith – once in the doorway of a bar, again at a bus stop and then finally, on a bus going in the opposite direction gesturing frantically. Each time the apparition was grinning inanely, clearly enjoying itself. Whatever it was, it irritated Newton enormously. His mind bubbled all day, but deep down he was still confident it was something he could rationalise. Diet, poisoning, stress – it could be any one of those. What it couldn’t be, absolutely 100 per cent could not be, was a ghost. At his desk in the office, he tried to work a few times but got nowhere useful and was still aimlessly rotating his mouse when the first text arrived.
Morning Newton, hope you don’t mind me following you to work. Not familiar with the geography! Best, Ale x
Newton, far from amused, texted back.
Don’t know who U R or why U R doing this, but it won’t work. N
Oh come on N, look at the evidence, it’s stacking up. Sooner or later, you’re going to have to admit it’s a real thing. A
A real what? N
Do I have to spell it out? A
Yes, N
G-h-o-s-t ... ghost. Yours, the late Alex Sixsmith
Pull the other one, it’s got funeral bells on it. N
Please Newton, we don’t have much time. Let’s talk tonight. A
Newton ignored the last text completely and tried for the rest of the day to prove his diet was lacking in zinc or some other key mineral, or that he was having an aneurism. Deadlines came and went. Denise, nice as she was, eventually ambushed him by the photocopier.
‘Newton, look, I really need to see you get stuck in here. We’re not a big outfit and we have to work hard just to stand still. Why are you dragging your feet?’
‘Oh sorry Denise,’ said Newton distractedly. ‘I’ll get the article finished this afternoon, promise.’
He did get it done, though it was hardly going to win him any awards. As soon as the clock hit 5.30 he was away. Denise shouted something after him, but Newton was too preoccupied to digest it. His mental health was on the line; he was fending off an assault on his peace of mind and it was all-consuming.
Back in Crouch End, he elected to head for the bar again, hoping to work things out over a pint. The barman passed him his lager while regarding him closely with scrutinising eyes. Newton sat down and began scribbling furiously in his black notebook.
He carefully listed the phenomena that had been plaguing him, from the souped-up Citroën through to the vision of Sixsmith, as well as emails and texts he was now receiving on an hourly basis. Alongside these, he listed feasible explanations, defiantly excluding anything supernatural, paranormal or just plain weird. There simply had to be a rational explanation; he’d just missed it so far, that had to be the case. He drew lines, he made lists, but still the answer eluded him and he was just on the verge of leaving when the barman arrived by his side with a plate of food.
‘Hunter’s chicken,’ the barman mumbled.
‘Hunter’s what?’ Newton replied, his eyes narrowed. ‘I didn’t order that.’
‘No, but your mate did.’
‘What mate?’
‘The guy who was sitting with you, the bald bloke.’
‘Bald bloke? But I’m on my own!’ Newton said firmly.
‘You might be now, but you weren’t,’ insisted the barman. ‘The guy with the glasses ordered it.’
‘When was this?’
‘Just after you came in. Look mate, I’ve not got time for this, he bought it for you, so why don’t you just eat it?’ He plonked the plate down in front of Newton and huffed off to the bar. Newton looked around the pub, but there wasn’t anyone of Sixsmith’s description in the place. At that moment, Newton’s mobile chirped and he found yet another text purporting to be from Sixsmith.
‘Tuck in Newton, me old lad! Soon as you’ve finished, come back to the flat and we can have another quick séance.’
‘Oh for fuck’s sake,’ shouted Newton. He left the food steaming on the table and dashed home in something of a rage.
‘You should have eaten your dinner Newton, I paid good money for that!’ said the ghost of Alex Sixsmith, relaxed upon the sofa as if he owned the place. ‘What on earth is a hunter’s chicken anyway? I mean, if he were any good as a hunter he’d kill something impressive, like a moose. But a chicken ? How hard is it to hunt and kill a chicken?’
‘What are you doing here?’ screamed Newton. ‘And how did you pull that stunt in the pub?’
‘That? Oh, that’s the old selective visibility thing. I’m getting quite good at it. Takes practise, but you get there in the end.’
‘Why are you doing this to me! Haven’t I suffered enough already?’ yelled Newton. He went to grab Alex by what should have been his lapels, but instead of a rough physical encounter, he plunged fruitlessly into the cushions. ‘Why, why, why?!’
‘Newton, my dear boy,’ said Sixsmith, because it really was Alex Sixsmith. ‘I know this is hard for you, what with your history, and the laws of physics and everything. But I don’t know how else to tell you this. I really am a ghost. I’m a spirit, a phantom, whatever you want to call it. But that’s exactly what I am.’
‘You can’t be!’ railed Newton, his head in his hands. ‘It’s impossible, it’s irrational! I’m imagining it, that’s it. It has to be that!’
‘Nope, I’m afraid not,’ said the ghost, as kindly as he could. ‘I’d love to leave you in blissful ignorance, but I can’t. You need to just open your mind a bit and see the evidence.’
‘Evidence!’ shouted Newton. ‘What evidence?’
‘OK,’ said Sixsmith. ‘Firstly you can see me, here in front of you. You’ve looked for projectors and other gadgetry and found nothing. You can see me from every angle and I’m the same. There is no projection system on earth that can do what you see now.’
‘Then it’s in my head!’ said Newton.
‘No, Newton, it’s not. Look, I’ve made this as easy for you as I can. The barman – he saw me, so it’s clearly not just you.’
‘I don’t understand, I don’t understand,’ said an increasingly worn-down Dr Newton Barlow.
‘I know you don’t, and that’s hardly surprising. It’s a mind-blowing situation. Trust me, it took me two weeks to get my head around it and I had some of the greatest minds of the last two millennia trying to explain it to me.’
‘But it’s impossible, what you are saying, what you are ... it’s just impossible!’
‘Well, yes and no,’ said Sixsmith. ‘Thing is, we think we science bods know everything, and with good reason, considering how much time and energy we put into digging out the truth. But we can only understand what we can observe or predict. There seems to be a whole lot more to things than we could ever have imagined.’
‘Like what? What are you saying?’
‘I’m saying that when you die, there are a few things that pop up you weren’t expecting,’ said Sixsmith. ‘Some I can tell you, some I can’t, sadly.’
‘But if you exist,’ said Newton, ‘well, that turns physics on its head!’
‘But that’s just it Newton you see. It wasn’t really upright in the first place. I mean, we try – people like you and me or your dad – oh, he says hi by the way ...’
‘Whaaaa ...’ said Newton.
‘Oops, did it again. Mustn’t tell you too much!’
‘But I don’t understand,’ said Newton sitting wearily, now resembling an end-of-season inflatable beach chair. ‘The car, the money, the flat – that’s not a typical haunting is it? I mean ... what’s it all for ?’
‘Sorry Newton, I don’t like rushing you, but before we go on, we have to have an understanding.’
‘We do?’
‘Yes. We need to agree that I exist. I know it’s hard, I know it’s weird. I realise you will doubt your own mind, and I know you’ll probably feel a bit isolated from the rational world that you’ve made for yourself. But I need you Newton. In fact, a lot of very nice people, most of whom are dead, they need you too.’
‘Who are these people? What are you talking about?’
‘Newton I mean it. We have to agree that I’m real. For Pete’s sake trust your own eyes and give in to the evidence.’
Newton looked hard at the phantom again. Despite all the critical reasoning in his vast arsenal, there was now no point in denying it was Sixsmith anymore. He was no projection; he was no hallucination. From the top of his glossy bald patch to the tips of his Oxford brogues it couldn’t have been anyone else. Struggling with the evidence of his own eyes and a lamentable inability to convincingly deny what he was experiencing, Newton looked at the floor between his pointy shoes like a confessional schoolboy. His mind lurched from side to side like a bear in a canoe, the implications rocking his sense of reality from its once-secure foundations.
‘Oh bugger,’ sighed Newton. ‘You’re real, aren’t you.’
‘Yes Newton,’ replied Alex in a gentle, fatherly way. ‘I’m afraid I am.’
CHAPTER 15 – To die fo r
‘Well,’ said Dr Alex Sixsmith, taking a long deep breath he didn’t actually need. ‘I suppose you want to know what happened when I died? Of course you do. Well, this is my story.’ When he was satisfied that Newton was fully receptive, he began.
‘I knew that I was ill. And, by ill, I mean really ill. So, being practical, I’d pretty much resigned myself to the whole process of dying. Having been a black belt in pragmatism for most of my adult life, I decided that I might as well kind of roll with the whole thing and see where it took me. Importantly, I didn’t have a wife or kids, so I felt I could shuffle happily off the old mortal coil, eyes wide open, without leaving too much turmoil behind me. Well, apart from my sister and your good self of course!’
‘Please go on ...’ said Newton.
‘Well,’ Sixsmith continued, ‘with objectivity as my battle standard, I decided I wouldn’t do the whole drug thing. Sure I was in pain, to put it mildly, but I thought – let’s treat the whole thing as one last exercise in the scientific method and see where it goes, my “final experiment” as it were. If I was going to do that I needed a good, clear head, so I said no to the morphine, Valium and whatever else was hiding in the little pot. My sister was very sweet, of course – brought me grapes, the odd magazine, made me as comfortable as it is feasible to make someone with rampant terminal cancer. So, as prepared as I could be, I just lay back and waited to see what would happen.’
‘Spoken like a true scientist!’ said Newton. ‘What happened next?’
‘Well, then Jen told me that you were on your way to see me. That buggered up my little experiment straight off. Naturally I wanted to see you, but I mean, can you literally hang on for someone? You know, delay your own death? Hang on for something important? Now I can answer that one with near certainty. You can’t. Visiting time was from 3pm till 8pm, but by 10am I was already half-way to the angels, and feeling like death. Well, feeling quite close to it to be accurate. Annoyingly, my mind was slipping away too – I could barely focus and I was beginning to regret turning down the happy pills. I knew exactly what it was though, no question. Death was upon me. But with no one nearby to express this to, I just stared at the clock and tried to concentrate on staying alive till you came through the door. Well, that was the hardest 45 minutes of my life, especially, of course, as they were my last. You simply can’t delay the moment with will power; the old body just seems to say “bugger that!” And so, abruptly, about ten minutes before you were due, wallop! It all went blank.’
‘So, you knew that you were dead at this point then?’ asked Newton, his eyes narrowing.
‘Well, to be objective about it,’ continued Sixsmith, ‘yes and no. I mean the first thing you experience is this total blankness, like you’ve been knocked out with a huge dose of horse pills. The pain and the discomfort just drift away so you think “great!” And then, after that comes ... well ... nothing.’
‘Nothing?’
‘Well I’d describe it as a white blank, as if you’ve been buried in pure white snow. Not much you can do but lie there, like an idiot, wondering what to do next. And that’s the thing, I was still thinking, that’s the odd bit. But a sort of distant kind of thinking, like hearing your own thoughts through thick blankets. Oh and I could hear, clearly, I could hear the old heart monitor flat-lining – important bit of evidence that. I was as dead as a bloody doornail! I’d croaked and no mistake. Next thing I know I start downloading.’
