The Memory Game (11 page)

‘Beth! There’s
something inside your front door, don’t stamp on it, go and get some water to
put it out!’

She frowns like
she hasn’t understood me.

‘Go and get some
water to put out the fire by your front door!’ I shout again.

I wait for a few
minutes.  Then the front door opens a tiny crack and Bethany
looks out. She beckons me over.

‘What the hell
was that about?’ she asks in a fierce whisper.

‘Matt and
Ingrid,’ I say. ‘The dog shit on fire trick?’

She looks
puzzled.

‘You know,
whoever sees it on fire comes and stamps on it to put the fire out and then
they’ve stamped dog shit everywhere.’

‘Well, that’s
just stupid,’ she hisses.

I shrug. ‘Did
you get some water like I said?’

‘Yeah,’ she
says. ‘Thank God my dad didn’t see it. It’s still made a mess and it stinks,
I’ll have to clean it before he gets back from the pub.  She darts a
nervous glance up and down the street. 

I catch sight of
her hand as she holds open the door. It looks badly swollen. ‘What did you do
to your hand? Is that why you’re not at school today?’

‘No,’ she says,
pulling it out of sight quickly. ‘I trapped this in a door. I’m not at school
because I didn’t feel well today.’

‘Are you ok
now?’

‘I’d be better if
some idiot wasn’t pushing dog
poo
through my
letterbox.’

‘Yeah, sorry about that.’
  I feel responsible somehow
for what Matt did.

She looks at me
thoughtfully. ‘I can’t believe you’re friends with someone like him.’

‘
Was
friends with him.  Not now.’

‘Only because he can’t see you now.’

‘No, because
I’ve realised he’s a dick.’

‘That’s good,’
she says. ‘Sorry, but I have to go so I can clean up.’ She starts to close the
door.

‘Beth,’ I say.
The door opens again and she pops her head around it with a questioning look.
‘What about papers tonight?’

‘What about
them?’

‘Will you be
able to go?’

‘Don’t worry,’
she says, ‘we’ll get your money.’

‘I don’t mean
that,’ I say quickly, though, of course, the only reason she is doing it is to
get money for me. ‘I just wondered if you ought to let Bert know you’re ill.’

‘I’ll phone
him.’ The door starts to close again.

‘Beth!’

‘What?’ she says
as she appears once more.

‘Does that mean
you’re not coming out tonight?’

She hesitates before answering. ‘Sorry, I can’t tonight,’ she says and
closes the door.

I don’t know
how many days Bethany has been off
school, but it feels like a lot. Most of the nights she was missing, I sat on
the wall outside her house, talking to the horse and waiting for her to come
out, but she never did.  When she finally came out to see me, she didn’t
say a thing about why she’d been off and I didn’t dare ask.  She looked
even thinner than before, but she went to see old Bert and got her paper round
back and we just carried on as if nothing had happened.  By the time she
packed the paper job in, we had enough for Raven and some to spare.  I
liked to see how happy she was about that.

Raven lives in a tiny cottage that
stands on its own on the outskirts of the village.  It’s not one of those
cute cottages you imagine with roses growing around the door and a thatched
roof; instead, it sort of looks like a second world war bomb shelter that
someone turned into a house.  It’s a squat bungalow with a roof of green
tin and a garden of lumpy black concrete and rough grass.  Mum always said
it was the ugliest building she’d ever seen and that the land would be worth
more if someone pulled the house down.  

Bethany
shoves the rusting gate.  From the way it scrapes on an overgrown tussock
of grass at the edge of the path I’m guessing that Raven doesn’t get much in
the way of custom.  Or actual live visitors, for that matter. The sky is
grey with low clouds.

‘I feel snow
coming,’ Bethany says as she looks
up. ‘I’m glad it’s not a school day.’

‘How can you
tell?’

‘I don’t know, I just can.
I’m always right too.’

I used to love
snow. I try to remember what it felt like. ‘You should be a medium,’ I laugh,
‘you’d make loads of money.’

‘I don’t think
so,’ she says, but she smiles.

We walk down the
path and stop at the front door, looking up at the bead curtain behind the
panes of glass that conceal what’s waiting inside.  Bethany
turns to me.

‘Are you ready?’

‘No,’ I say.
‘Are you?’

‘No,’ she says
with a nervous laugh.

‘Ok.’ I nod towards
the doorbell. ‘Let’s do it.’

Bethany
presses the little circle of plastic.  We can’t hear it from
outside.  We wait.

‘Maybe it
doesn’t work?’ I say when nobody comes.

Bethany
presses again and we wait.

‘You’d think
she’d know we were coming,’ I say, ‘being psychic and all.’

‘I don’t think
that’s the same thing as seeing the dead,’ she laughs. ‘Shall I press it one
more time? I did phone her first so she should be expecting us, at least she’s
expecting
me
,’ Bethany
raises her eyebrows, ‘psychic or not.’

I nod, and she’s
just about to reach for the bell when there’s the sound of a chain rattling and
the door swings open.

‘Bethany?’
Raven asks. Bethany nods. 
‘Come in.’ Raven steps to one side to let her through the door. We’re greeted
by a sweet smell that I can’t quite put a name to, but I think it’s something I
used to like.  

‘It’s lovely and
warm in here,’ Bethany says as
Raven closes the front door.

‘Yes, it’s not a
big house – easy to heat,’ Raven replies.

‘And it’s all
made out of metal,’ I say to Bethany.
‘I bet it’s like living inside a radiator.’

Bethany
gives me a small smile.  

The hallway is
lined with photos of what looks like Raven at different ages; they look like
they’ve been taken in some pretty exotic places – deserts, temples, jungles –
but she mostly stands in them alone. I know that she lives on her own now, but
wonder if there’s ever been a Mr or even a Mrs Raven. There’s a shelf running
the length of the hall with loads of carved wooden stuff: wild animals, a
boomerang adorned with aborigine designs, a little set of ornate drawers. Bethany
looks at them with an awed expression.  We follow Raven down to her living
room.  The door is gone from the frame but she has a curtain of coloured
beads hanging there instead, like the ones behind her front door, and they
click together as she passes through them.   When we get into the
room she scratches a hand through her dreads and crams her huge backside into
an armchair.

‘Sit down,
sweetie,’ she chirps, waving Bethany
to a chair.  Her voice sounds like she looks – bold and happy,
larger-than-life. Not what you’d expect from someone who makes her living from
the dead.

Bethany
sits across from her and shoots me a sideways glance.  Raven doesn’t look
at me once.

‘What can I do
for you, sweetheart?’ she asks Bethany.
‘Is it your mum you’d like me to reach?’

I’m just about
to be amazed by her knowledge. I’m pretty sure that Bethany
didn’t tell her on the phone what she wanted exactly, only that it was a
consultation. But then I remember where we live. It’s pretty likely that
she knew about Bethany’s mum
anyway.

‘Yes…’ Bethany
says, ‘but I need you to do something else too.  Will it cost me more to
do two things?’

Raven flashes a
smile full of brilliant teeth. ‘I don’t think so.  Depends on what it is,
of course.  Why don’t I make us a cup of tea and then you can tell me?’
She heaves herself from the chair and shuffles towards the open kitchen door.

‘Thanks, but I
don’t like tea,’ Bethany says.

‘I have green
tea… much cleaner taste. Or cocoa…’ Raven offers.

‘Green tea?’
I whisper. ‘Only fruit loops drink green
tea.  We’re not going to get any sense out of her.’

Bethany
shakes her head in a tiny movement and frowns at me.

‘Just saying…’

‘I’m really ok,
thanks,’ Bethany calls to her.

We listen to the
sound of the kettle starting to boil as Raven searches in a cupboard for a mug
and then
drops
a teabag in it. I glance across at Bethany. 
I wonder what’s going through her head.  She looks nervous.  We
talked about how she might be able to speak to her mum too and she seemed cool
about it, but I suppose things are different now that she’s here.

‘It’ll be ok,’ I
say.  She looks at me and tries to smile. ‘I mean, I won’t let her con
you. If I see your mum in the room, I’ll tell you, but if she’s not here
and Raven says she is, I’ll tell you that too… ok?’

‘But what if you
can’t see her?’ she whispers. ‘You can’t see your dad, so maybe you won’t be
able to see my mum. What about that different dimension idea that you had?’

‘I don’t know,’ I
say. ‘I just thought I might be able to somehow.’

‘You’re just
trying to make me feel better,’ she smiles. ‘I know that.’

‘You’re scared
though?’

‘In case she can
get my mum?’

I nod.

‘Terrified.’
She pauses for a moment. ‘I’m actually a bit
scared that she might have the answer to your problem too.’

I’m about to ask
what she means when Bethany looks
up quickly. Raven has a mug of tea and a biscuit tin and settles back into her
armchair, pulling her long skirt in around her legs.  The plump toes of
her bare feet peep out from beneath the expanse of fabric and I can see rings
on them, just like in that nursery rhyme.

‘It’s been about
a year for your mum now?’ Raven says to Bethany
in a warm voice. I can see why people feel happier when they’ve been to see
her.  Even if she doesn’t see their relatives, she has such a kind,
friendly voice that she makes you feel better just listening to it. She
still doesn’t look at me, though.

‘A year at
Christmas,’ Bethany replies,
twisting her fingers together.
‘Christmas day, actually.’

I give Bethany
a sharp look that she doesn’t notice. She never told me her mum died on
Christmas day. Come to think of it, she doesn’t tell me much about it at
all.

‘So, why don’t
you tell me what you want to know?’ Raven prises the lid from the biscuit
tin. ‘Would you like one?’ she asks offering the tin to Bethany.

Bethany
shakes her head. I look in the tin. There are chocolate covered ones and
ones with cream in the centre. I’m pretty sure I used to like those. When we’re
alone I think I’ll ask Bethany to
remind me of the way those biscuits taste.

‘I’m not sure
where to begin,’ Bethany says
glancing at me.

‘If you want to
speak to your mum first, it’s cool,’ I say to her.

‘No,’ she says,
‘we came for you, so we’ll do that first.’

Raven’s biscuit
stops half way to her mouth as she watches Bethany
talk to me.  Or rather, talk to thin air, I suppose.  Bethany
turns back to her.

‘It’s like
this…’ Bethany begins slowly,
‘sometimes I feel like dead people are around me but I don’t really see them, I
just get a sense of where they are.’

‘And you think
you can sense your mum nearby?’ Raven asks. ‘That’s understandable, I’m sure
she’s watching over you all the time.’

Bethany
shakes her head. ‘I don’t think she is. That’s not the reason I’m here,
although I would like to talk to her if you could get her. It’s someone else.’

‘Ah,’
Raven
nods knowingly, ‘so you have a little
sight
too. How long has that been going on?’

 ‘I can’t
really remember when it started – it’s just always been.  I suppose that
was how it was for you?’

Raven nods.
‘Since I was a little girl in
Jamaica
.
Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?’  

‘Sort of,’ Bethany
says. ‘But when you see those people, do you ever see them as though they’re
actually there with you, real and solid, just as if they were alive?’

‘Do you?’ Raven
asks. Her voice drops. She puts her biscuit back into the tin and places
it on a small side-table next to her tea, never taking her eyes from Bethany.

‘You remember
David
Cottle
?’

‘Yes…’

‘Tell her I came
to see her and she couldn’t hear me,’ I say. ‘Tell her that I know she’s a big
fraud.’

Bethany
frowns at me. ‘I’ll get to that bit.’

Raven stares at Bethany
now. ‘Who are you talking to, sweetie?’

 ‘David,’ Bethany
says. ‘He’s here.  Sitting right next to me and I can see him just as
though he was alive.  We want to know why he’s still here and why I can
see him.’

‘He talks to
you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Only you?’

‘Well, we
haven’t met anyone else who can hear or see him yet, Bethany
says.  ‘Can you?’ she asks Raven.

Raven shakes her
head, still staring at Bethany.
‘No, sweetheart, I can’t.’

‘Do you know
what it means?’

Raven looks at Bethany
like she wants to hug the life out of her.  She doesn’t speak at first.

‘Are you ok?’ Bethany
asks.

Raven nods. ‘I’m
sorry, I can’t help you.’

‘But I brought
the money…’ Bethany begins, pulling
a wad from her coat pocket.

‘It’s not the
money,’ Raven says.  She shrinks back in her chair, suddenly looking half
the size she did.  Her big, cheery expression is replaced by something
that looks like fear or pity, I can’t decide which.

‘What then?’ Bethany
asks. ‘Don’t you know why?’

Raven hesitates.
‘No, I don’t know. I’m sorry but I can’t help you.’

Bethany
looks at me.

‘Told you so,’ I
say.  But it’s only to distract her because I can see she’s freaked out by
Raven’s reaction.