Paul's Epiphany
Paul would never describe himself as a genius. “I don’t do anything,” he says, “all I am is a channel through which spirit energy can flow. It’s a gift not a talent.” He’s too modest. It takes real skill to handle people like he does: the bereaved; the nervous; the sceptical; even the hostile. And some of the people who come to us are hostile, strange though it may seem. But Paul always manages to send them away smiling. Crying perhaps, but always smiling. Well, almost always. It may be that they sense the presence of friendly spirits, because our little house is a centre of positive psychic energy, but I think it’s his manner that calms people most. He fixes them with his dark brown eyes and talks slowly and soothingly. It sends shivers down my spine, his voice, when he’s in touch with the spirit world; it seems to come from another room. I’ve seen other mediums at work and they make a show of going into a trance and contacting the other side - wheezing and groaning and rolling their eyes. Paul’s not like that. He listens to the departed and talks to them as friends, which of course they are. The spirits are just the same as us, you see, except that they have left behind their earthly cares and been transformed into light. And, naturally, only special people can hear them. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that the ‘theatrical’ kind of medium is a fraud or is putting it on for effect. It’s just that, well, some people are surprised when they see Paul for the first time, he seems so normal, but they all leave convinced.
Paul and I have been together for eight years. At the beginning he had a job in an old peoples’ home and I worked in insurance. He was still a psychic then, of course, but the business side of it hadn’t taken off. It was only later, when I came into a small inheritance, that we could give up work and devote ourselves to it full time. Now people come from all over to see him. I take their bookings, answer queries, do the marketing and handle the finances. I suppose you could call me his ‘PA’. Paul and I both thought it would be better if I took charge of all the money matters. It’s not just that he’s hopeless with figures, though that’s part of it; it’s also that we felt his gift shouldn’t be ‘contaminated’.
The other thing I do is meet and greet our guests. That’s what we call them, Paul and I, ‘our guests’, because they’re more than just clients. They are bringing us their sorrows and we in turn are welcoming them into our home. I sort out the fees and then lead them through into the consulting room where Paul holds his meetings. The ‘consulting room’ is really the old dining room, but as there are just the two of us we usually eat in the lounge. Last summer we painted it purple and hung it with atmospheric pictures. Some of them are great works from the major world religions, while others were drawn by Paul himself and represent his spirit guides and different episodes from his past lives. There are pots of plants and shelves of books and a big comfortable sofa. When I’ve sat our guests down with tea and biscuits and seen that they’re alright I leave them quietly for a few minutes until Paul is ready to see them.
Most of our guests are, how shall I put it, ‘women of a certain age’. They often bring a younger family member, perhaps a daughter, for support. That’s what she did. ‘She’, you might say, was our only failure. She didn’t look much: short and plump with hair like sculpted candyfloss.You could see her face powder collecting in lines. Her daughter was a thin-lipped, small-eyed woman of about forty with lank brown hair and a Macintosh. They had driven down from somewhere in the North East. I met them at the door, smiling, took their coats and money and led them through to the consulting room. There they sat down together on the sofa while I made the tea. I remember asking them about themselves as I arranged chocolate digestives on a tray and unwrapped a nice piece of Cherry Genoa cake. The thin daughter worked in a supermarket; the plump mother had lost her husband. They seemed normal enough. I closed the door and got on with the accounts. A few minutes later the catch clicked again and Paul began.
The thing is, I didn’t hear it at first, so I’m not sure when it started. It was a low, deep moaning, almost obscene, each groan breaking over the last like water. Only half aware, I rose and hesitated with my hand on the doorknob. I’d never interrupted an interview before and wasn’t sure what to do. Suddenly the sound changed. The moaning became a screaming, a series of short, shrill exclamations of terror. I rushed in. In front of me stood the old lady, still screaming. Her eyes were closed; her breath came in small, desperate gasps. But her face was strangely relaxed, like someone else was screaming and she was just looking on. She seemed to fill the room. To her left her daughter clung to her arm. She looked small and scared and irrelevant. To her right Paul was kneeling on the floor, his arms stretched hesitantly towards her. I thought of a painting I’d seen on holiday in Italy: Christ on the cross, his face twisted but calm, Mary Magdalen kneeling on one side; on the other the Madonna, her hands raised in a blessing. And around them the heavenly host like so many spirit guides.
As I stood in the doorway, the noise suddenly stopped and the old woman collapsed slowly into her daughter’s arms. We carried her to the sofa. Her breathing was still short and shallow and the muscles of her face were taut and twitching. The others knelt beside her while I went to the kitchen to fetch some brandy, and when I returned she was sitting up blinking. She took the drink and sat for a long time sipping it while the rest of us stood around in silence. No one looked up or said anything until, as soon as I decently could, I ushered them into their coats and out of the door. I was worried that they might ask for their money back, but they seemed too dazed.
When I heard the car drive off I started to relax again. I suppose we are lucky not to have had more incidents like that. After all, the people who come to us are usually bereaved, frightened or depressed. Perhaps she had been drinking to calm her nerves. When people are that edgy any little thing can set them off; maybe she saw someone through the window who looked like her ex-husband, or the stress made her hallucinate. The mind can play terrible tricks on you. I said this to Paul as I cleared away the chocolate biscuits and washed the plates and mugs. I said that it was pointless blaming himself and that some people, through no fault of their own, were simply in no fit state to be helped. But he wasn’t listening. When I sat down beside him and took his hand he didn’t even look at me. He just stared at the wall; stared and stared, as though he could see straight through it to the other side.
Page(s) 36-38
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