Underbelly (50 page)

“
Take your ticket to the front desk tomorrow and you’ll get your money back,” Grey said, wanting to be left alone with his wife.

“
I don’t want a refund. I’m sorry for what happened back there. This can be a horrible town. I would like to see you perform,” she said earnestly.

“
All right. I just need to walk my wife home first and then I’ll come back with you to yours if that’s convenient.”

“
Not really. I’m staying with my brother and his family. Could you perform at your place?”

Grey looked to Germaine to see if she had any objections, which she didn’t, and Grey offered to walk the middle-aged woman, May, home afterwards. If he had been a con man May would have told him everything he needed to know to fool her, giving detailed descriptions of her dead husband and daughter. Grey couldn’t receive her husband or daughter, but he did manage to contact her mother, who wanted to know why she was staying with her brother and his large family in the town that she despised when she had a son who was doing well for himself in Charlotte.

“
I can’t bother him, Momma. He doesn’t need me dragging him down,” May said, feeling like she was an embarrassment to her son who had risen above his start in life.

“
Hush. I know he doesn’t feel that way. You’ve raised a fine boy. You don’t have to stop raising him just because he’s out of diapers. He’s had to work twice as hard to succeed because of what he is and he could use your support. He’s not married yet, is he?”

“
He was engaged and they broke it off.”

“
Get yourself there. I know you’re scared of moving and our angel’s buried there – you’ve got to though. I stayed with your brother until I died in the room you’re sleeping in now. Don’t copy me,” Grace said through Grey, unaware that she was advising her to copy her by suggesting she move in with her son, like she had moved in with her only son.

“
I thought that you liked living with Cyril.”

“
Of course I did, because a mother takes a pride in her children that she doesn’t feel in her brothers and sisters. What are you going to do then?”

“
I wish I knew what John and Ruby thought,” May said, referring to her husband and daughter.

“
They’d say the same as me and you know it. They’re dead, and so is your life there without them. What are you doing going to see spiritualists? You wouldn’t have done that when they were alive.”

“
You’re right, I wouldn’t. I don’t want to be a burden to Ben.”

“
I don’t want that either. He’s worked too hard to be brought down by anyone. Go there and help him.”

“
I’d be in the way.”

“
He’s a good boy. You think he’d turn you away?”

“
No, he’d welcome me, but I don’t want him feeling that he has to.”

“
Ruby’s gone. I know you were closer to her…”

“
I loved both of my children equally,” May protested.

“
Whether you did or you didn’t, Ben’s all that you have left. Don’t go looking for ghosts while you’ve still got someone to hold,” Grace said sagely, her final words before her spirit faded away.

May asked Grey for his opinion of what she should do as he walked her home. At first he tried not to express any opinion, not wanting to advise her wrongly and instead asked her what she thought was best for her but by the time he had reached her brother’s house he said that in her position he would probably go and join her son in Charlotte, just as an escape from the town.

As he walked back to the small hotel that he was staying at with Germaine, another spirit broke through, a male spirit in a severe state of panic.

Please let me be dead this time.

I’m afraid to say that you are. This state that you’re in now is only temporary, you will find peace, I promise you, friend.

Peace! What the hell is that? I’ve suffered for so long – I don’t know if it’s years or months. I wish I was dead but they can bring me back.
The terror in his voice and what he was saying suggested insanity to Grey, who tried to keep an open mind.

My name is James Grey, I’m a medium and I’m going to try and sort this out for you. What’s your name, pal?

Larry Whitlow.

Who do you think can bring you back, Larry?

The Alieus. They’re going to kill my boy when they’re done with me. I should be praying for the strength to withstand the torture to spare him it.

Perhaps I can warn him.

If you could it would mean the world to me. They’re not done with me yet though.

You have passed over, Larry.

I’ve passed over a dozen times. She ripped my heart open, but the other one will fix it. She always does
, he said, too tired to express the bitterness he felt.

Are we talking doctors or witches?

Larry was gone, either at peace or brought back from the brink. For Larry’s sake Grey hoped that he was at peace.

May’s brother lived far from the small tenement that Grey was staying at and by the time he returned he was ready for bed, glad for the day to end. An excessively loud spirit woke him up.

It’s done. It’s done
, the elderly male voice said, the relief audible.

After Grey had gone through his usual introduction and explanation, and learned that the spirit was called Jim Silcox, Jim revealed why his passing was such a release. Even the manner of his death, a combination of burns and smoke inhalation from a cigarette he’d deliberately let fall onto his bed, was bearable because it ended an unfortunate life.

I was quite the sportsman before the war and was popular with the ladies. Not Valentino levels but I did all right. When I lost both legs in the war sport was out and ladies too – they don’t come running when you can’t.

Some see beyond such things.

Only if they already love you, otherwise it’s not what they’re looking for, and I don’t blame them – a legless woman doesn’t appeal to me so why should a legless man appeal to them?

Because a lot of people see beyond the body.

I thought that might be the case too. When I came back for the first few years me and the other dismembered boys were lauded. By the mid ‘20s sympathy and interest had waned. I never left my flat for six years.

That’s a shame, Jim.

The tedium was indescribable. My flat was tiny, but I still took pride in it. Room 16 in 21 Stanhope Street, my tomb.

The location was not immediately familiar to Grey, but within two minutes he realised where he’d heard the address before. It was the building they were inside. He shook Germaine awake, a dangerous move which, fortuitously, did not earn him a punch (the nightmares that saw her wake up by lashing out in a disorientated state were more infrequent though not completely behind her), and he told her that he thought there was a fire and they had to get up. Germaine looked around the room and sniffed the air for some sign of smoke, while Grey told her that he believed the fire was on the floor above them, the top floor of the three level building and he quickly explained about the spirit as he passed her her dressing gown.

“
Could it have happened in the past?” Germaine said, yawning as she spoke, believing that he was mistaken but prepared to get up and go outside with him to allay his fears.

“
I get the impression it’s just happened now,” Grey said, asking Jim for the date and learning that he was correct, and Germaine followed him out to the wide corridor where he banged on all of the rooms on the first floor shouting at the other residents to wake up because there was a fire. Germaine lingered in the doorway of their room, imagining what would happen if he was mistaken – her first impressions of the few neighbours she had seen were that they wouldn’t take kindly to being woken up unnecessarily.

“
Go down the stairs and I’ll follow you out,” Grey said to Germaine as he kept banging on the doors, a weary looking man in his late 40s finally opening his door and asking him what was going on.

“
There’s a fire upstairs. We need to evacuate the building. Can you wake up the other residents on this floor while I go upstairs,” Grey asked him.

The man did the same as Germaine, looking in every direction for fire before taking a deep breath. His wife came to the door and her husband asked her if she could smell smoke.

“
I think so,” she said, the only one of the four who could.

Another door opened, that of a young prostitute, who shouted, “I need my sleep. Keep it down.”

“
There’s a fire,” Grey said.

“
I don’t see any smoke,” she said, her mood foul.

A Latino man a little older than Grey appeared behind her and brushed past her, doing up his shirt buttons as he descended the stairs. “It’s a false alarm. You can come back,” she called after him to no response, which made her look at the others even wilder.

“
He’s got the right idea,” Grey said. Two black men in their late 30s came down the stairs and confirmed that Grey was right, coughing as they said that there was a fire upstairs, and they began to evacuate the building. Grey took Germaine outside to safety and saw that others were following them out from the top floor. He checked with Jim, describing everyone who was outside, and Jim told him that there was still three left inside, a mother and her two young children who lived in the room next to his. Jim was distressed as he realised that others could die as a result of his actions

Grey re-entered the building, the first floor now filled with smoke, and the second floor blazed, the room that he had to enter impossible to breathe inside. Through the smoke and his own teary vision he saw the mother sprawled on her bed, naked except for a bra and with drug paraphernalia laid around her. She was unconscious and couldn’t be roused and proved a dead weight when he tried to move her so he realised he’d have to make two trips and carried the two children who were both scared and alert, a four year old girl and baby boy. Grey handed Germaine the children and went back inside, the smoke even thicker, making it impossible for him to see in front of him, and he only found her room by retracing his steps, coughing like a sick dog all of the way. He had no time to dress her and took her outside where she remained unconscious as he tried to revive her. Germaine saw him unbuttoning his pyjama top to cover her exposed body with and she told him to leave it on, about to take her robe off until Grey forcibly insisted she kept it on. Looking around at the others Germaine realised that he was probably right – she would be more exposed without her robe than he would be in his pyjama bottoms, her very short silky red slip more revealing and sexual than the attire of the other women assembled outside, many of whom were blatantly prostitutes. Germaine held the woman’s one year old son, a big-eyed, cute little thing which sent her maternal feelings into overdrive, another young mother trying to console the woman’s four year old daughter along with her own two. As Grey tried in vain to revive her he noticed two men attempting to enter the building and he shouted at them, asking them what they were up to, unable to move from his position with the woman who was still not breathing.

“
There’s an old cripple still inside,” they shouted to Grey.

“
He’s dead, don’t risk yourselves,” Grey shouted back and they stayed outside. He turned back to the woman and said, “Come on, you, you’ve got two children who need you,” as he attempted to resuscitate her again. Grey felt that she was likely gone and he was pleased to see the ambulance men revive her before they loaded her into the ambulance, taking her children also. The rest of the residents watched as the firemen finally arrived, too late to save their belongings as the fire spread down to cover every level. Germaine wrapped her robe around both of them as they sat together watching the flames, Jim’s impressive funeral pyre, and she tried to persuade him to seek treatment when the next ambulance arrived.