Lady Oracle (15 page)

“It gives me the willies,” I said.

“I keep getting messages from that Scotsman,” Aunt Lou said musingly. “The one with the red hair and bagpipes. I wonder what he meant about the mats. Maybe he meant mutts, and I’m going to be bitten by a dog.”

“Who is he?” I said.

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Aunt Lou said. “Nobody I know of ever played the bagpipes. He’s certainly not a relation.”

“Oh,” I said, relieved. “Have you told them that?”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” said Aunt Lou. “I wouldn’t want to hurt their feelings.”

I fell into the habit of going regularly to the Jordan Chapel on Sunday nights. It was a way of seeing Aunt Lou which, by now, I preferred to the movies, as I was absolutely certain that nobody from Braeside High would ever see me there. I even spent a certain amount of time worrying about the Spiritualist doctrines: If The Other Side was so wonderful, why did the spirits devote most of their messages to warnings? Instead of telling their loved ones to avoid slippery stairs and unsafe cars and starchy foods, they should have been luring them over cliffs and bridges and into lakes, spurring
them on to greater feats of intemperance and gluttony, in order to hasten their passage to the brighter shore. Some of the Spiritualists also believed in multiple incarnations, and some in Atlantis. Others were standard Christians. Leda Sprott didn’t mind what you believed as long you also believed in her powers.

I was willing to watch it all, with the same suspension of disbelief I granted to the movies, but I drew the line at putting a number on the tray. I didn’t know any dead people and I had no wish to know any. One night, however, I did get a message, which was much more peculiar than anything I’d feared. It was during Leda Sprott’s number session, and she was just about to process the last folded paper on the brass tray. As usual she’d closed her eyes, but then she opened them suddenly.

“I have an urgent message,” she said, “for someone without a number.” She was looking straight at me. “There’s a woman standing behind your chair. She’s about thirty, with dark hair, wearing a navy-blue suit with a white collar and a pair of white gloves. She’s telling you … what? She’s very unhappy about something I get the name
Joan
. I’m sorry, I can’t hear.…” Leda Sprott listened for a minute, then said, “She couldn’t get through, there was too much static.”

“That’s my mother!” I said to Aunt Lou in a piercing whisper. “She’s not even dead yet!” I was frightened, but I was also outraged: my mother had broken the rules of the game. Either that, or Leda Sprott was a fraud. But how could she know what my mother looked like? And if she’d snooped around, she wouldn’t have made the mistake of using a living person.

“Later, dear,” Aunt Lou said.

After the service was over I confronted Leda Sprott. “That was my mother,” I said.

“I’m happy for you,” said Leda. “I had the feeling she’s been trying to contact you for some time. She must be very concerned about you.”

“But she’s still alive!” I said. “She isn’t dead at all!”

The blue eyes wavered, but only for a moment. “Then it must’ve been her astral body,” she said placidly. “That happens sometimes, but we don’t encourage it; it confuses things, and the reception isn’t always good.”

“Her
astral
body?” I’d never heard of such a thing. Leda Sprott explained that everyone had an astral body as well as a material one, and that your astral body could float around by itself, attached to you by something like a long rubber band. “She must’ve come in through the bathroom window,” she said. “We always leave it open a little; the radiator overheats.” You had to be very careful about your rubber band, she said; if it got broken, your astral body could get separated from the rest of you and then where would you be? “A vegetable, that’s what,” said Leda Sprott. “Like those cases you read about, in the hospital. We keep telling the doctors that in some cases brain operations do more harm than good. They should be leaving the window open a bit, so the astral body can get back in.”

I did not like this theory at all. I particularly didn’t like the thought of my mother, in the form of some kind of spiritual jello, drifting around after me from place to place, wearing (apparently) her navy-blue suit from 1949. Nor did I want to hear that she was concerned about me: her concern always meant pain, and I refused to believe in it. “That’s crazy,” I said, in as rude a voice as possible.

To my surprise, Leda Sprott laughed. “Oh, we’re used to being told
that”
she said. “We can certainly live with that.” Then, to my embarrassment, she took hold of my hand. “You have great gifts,” she said, looking into my eyes. “Great powers. You should develop them. You should try the Automatic Writing, on Wednesdays. I can’t tell whether you’re a sender or a receiver … a receiver, I think. I’d be glad to help you train; you could be better than any of us, but it would take hard work, and I must warn you, without supervision there’s some danger. Not all the spirits are friendly, you
know. Some of them are very unhappy. If they bother me too much, I rearrange the furniture. That confuses them, all right.” She patted my hand, then let go of it. “Come back next week and we’ll talk about it.”

I never went back. I’d been shaken by the apparition of my mother (who, when I returned that Sunday night, didn’t look at all as if she’d been astral-traveling; she was the same as ever, and a little tight). Leda Sprott’s opinion of my great powers was even more terrifying, especially since I had to admit I found the thought appealing. Nobody had ever told me I had great powers before. I had a brief, enticing vision of myself, clad in a white flowing robe with purple trim, looking stately and radiating spiritual energy. Leda Sprott was quite fat … perhaps this was to be my future. But I wasn’t sure I really wanted great powers. What if something went wrong? What if I failed, enormously and publicly? What if no messages would come? It was easier not to try. It would be horrible to disappoint any congregation, but especially the one at the Jordan Chapel. They were so trusting and gentle, with their coughs and reedy voices. I couldn’t stand the responsibility.

Several months later I confided in Aunt Lou. At the time, she’d seen I was upset and hadn’t pressed for details. “Leda Sprott told me I had great powers,” I said.

“Did she, dear?” Aunt Lou said. “She told me the same thing. Maybe we both have them.”

“She said I should try the Automatic Writing.”

“Do you know,” Aunt Lou said thoughtfully, “I
did
try it. You’ll probably think I’m silly.”

“No,” I said.

“You see, I’ve always wanted to know whether my husband is still alive or not. I felt that if he wasn’t, he might have the, well, the politeness to let me know.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“Well,” Aunt Lou said slowly, “it was quite strange. She gave me a ballpoint pen, just an ordinary ballpoint pen. I don’t know what I was expecting, a goose quill or something. Then she lit a candle and put it in front of a mirror, and I was supposed to stare at the candle – not the real one, the reflection. I did this for a while and nothing happened, except that I could hear a sort of humming noise. I think I fell asleep or sort of dozed off or something, just for a minute. After that it was time to go.”

“Did you write anything?” I asked eagerly.

“Not exactly,” said Aunt Lou. “Just a sort of scribble, and a few letters.”

“Maybe he’s still alive then,” I said.

“You never can tell,” said Aunt Lou. “If he is dead, it would be just like him not to say anything. He always wanted to keep me in suspense. But Leda Sprott said it was a good beginning and I should go back. She says it takes them a while to get through.”

“So did you?”

Aunt Lou frowned. “Robert wanted me to. But you know, I’m not sure it’s a good idea. I looked at the paper afterwards, and it wasn’t at all like my handwriting. Not at all. I didn’t like that feeling of being, well, taken over. I felt I should leave it alone, and I would too if I were you, dear. You can’t fly on one wing. That’s what I think.”

Despite Aunt Lou’s advice, I was strongly tempted to try some Automatic Writing myself, at home in my bedroom; and one evening when my parents were out, I did. I got one of the candles from the dining room downstairs, a red ballpoint pen, and my mother’s Jot-a-Note from the telephone table. I lit the candle, turned out my bedroom light, and sat in front of the vanity-table mirror, staring at the small flame in the glass and waiting for something to happen. I was trying very hard to keep from moving my hand consciously: that would be cheating, and I wanted it to be real. Nothing happened, except that the candle flame seemed to get bigger.

The next thing I knew my hair was on fire: I’d leaned imperceptibly towards the candle. At that time I had bangs, and they’d started to sputter and frizzle. I slapped my hand over my forehead and ran to the bathroom; my front hair was badly singed, and I had to cut it off, which caused a scene with my mother the next day, as she’d just contributed five dollars towards a hairdo. I decided I’d better leave the Automatic Writing alone.

There was something on the notepad, though: a single long red line that twisted and turned back on itself, like a worm or a snarl of wool. I couldn’t remember drawing it; but if that was all the Other Side had to tell me, why should I go to the trouble?

For a while I embroidered Leda Sprott’s advice into a classroom daydream (I could do it if I wanted to; humble beginnings in unknown chapel; miraculous revelations; fame spreads; auditoriums packed; thousands helped; whispered comments, awe and admiration – “She may be a
large
woman, but what powers!”). After several months, however, it gradually faded away, leaving nothing but Mr. Stewart’s sermon, indelibly engraved on my brain, to surface at inopportune moments: the pessimistic caterpillar and the optimistic caterpillar, inching their way along the Road of Life, involved in their endless dialogue. Most of the time I was on the side of the optimistic caterpillar; but in my gloomiest moments I would think, So what if you turn into a butterfly? Butterflies die too.

T
he next job I got, after the Bite-A-Bit Restaurant, was at the Sportsmen’s Show. This took place in March every year, down on the grounds of the Exhibition, in the Colosseum Building. It was like an auto show or a fall fair; speedboat, fiberglass canoe, and kayak peddlers all had booths, and fishing-rod and rifle companies did too. The Boy Scouts put on demonstrations of tent-pitching and fire-lighting, teams of them in their green uniforms grinding away at fire drills, with their pink bare knees sticking out of their short pants. Beside their platform the Ministry of Lands and Forests had a poster on forest-fire prevention. At stated times there were Indian dances, given by a group of bitter Indians in costumes that were too new to look real. I knew they were bitter because they ate hot dogs at the same hot-dog stand I did, and I overheard some of the things they said. One of them called me “Fatso.”

There was a grandstand show too, with log-rolling contests and fly-casting competitions, and a Miss Outdoors pageant, and a seal named Sharky who could play “God Save the Queen” by tooting on a set of blowpipes.

I liked it better than any job I’d ever had. It was untidy and a little tawdry, and I could walk through the crowd without feeling too out of place. For all they knew I was an expert fly-caster or a female logroller. I worked after school and all day Saturday and Sunday. On my dinner break I would eat five or six hot dogs and drink a few Honey Dews, then wander around, stopping to watch the ladies’ outdoor fashion show, the latest in parkas and kapok life jackets, which Miss Outdoors would head off with a demonstration of her plug-casting technique; or perhaps I would go to one of the grandstand archways and look in while someone shot a balloon with an arrow, balancing on the gunwale of a canoe, or a man pushed another man off a spinning log into a plastic swimming pool.

My own job was fairly simple. I stood at the back of the archery range, wearing a red leather change apron, and rented out the arrows. When the barrels of arrows were almost used up, I’d go down to the straw targets, leaving the customers standing back of the rope barrier: a few children, some sports-minded younger men and their wives or girl friends, quite a few boys in black leather jackets who otherwise hung out around the shooting gallery. I’d pull the arrows out, drop them into the barrels, and start over again.

There were two other employees. Rob gave the spiel; he had experience as a huckster and carneyman, he worked the Ex in the summers – rides, cotton-candy stands, win-a-Kewpie-doll games. He stood with a foot on either edge of a barrel and called, “
THREE
for a dime, nine for a quarter, step right up and show your skill, break the balloon and you get one free, would the little lady like to try?” Bert, a shy first-year university student with glasses and crew-neck sweaters, helped me pass out the arrows and rake in the quarters.

The difficulty was that we couldn’t make sure all the arrows had actually been shot before we went to clear the targets. Rob would shout, “Bows
DOWN
please, arrows
OFF
the string,” but occasionally someone would let an arrow go, on purpose or by accident. This
was how I got shot. We’d pulled the arrows and the men were carrying the barrels back to the line; I was replacing a target face, and I’d just bent over to stick in the last target pin when I felt something hit me in the left buttock. There was a sound from behind, a sort of screaming laugh, and Rob yelled “Who did that?” before I had time to feel any pain. The fellow said he didn’t mean to, which I didn’t believe. The sight of my moonlike rump had probably been too much for him.

I had to go to the first-aid station to have the arrow taken out, and hitch up my skirt while the wound was plugged up and dressed. Luckily it was only a target arrow and it hadn’t gone in very far. “Just a flesh wound,” the nurse said. Rob wanted me to go home but I insisted on staying till closing time. Afterward he drove me back himself, in his ancient Volkswagen. He was very sweet. Although he was cynical about almost everything else, he was sympathetic to anyone who had been injured due to this kind of occupational hazard. He himself had nearly been killed once by a Mighty Mouse car that went off the track. When we stopped at a red light, he took his right hand off the wheel and patted me on the knee with it. “Too bad you can’t piss standing up,” he joked. That was my third sexual experience.