Later, the music abruptly changed from Kylie to Led Zeppelin and the Real Men thundered onto the dance floor. There were an awful lot of them and suddenly great swaths of hair were whipping around in a blur and air guitars were being played with verve. Eventually a circle cleared around Shake; they were giving the master space to do his thing. Shake played and played, sinking to his knees, leaning right back, his head almost on the floor, his face a picture of ecstasy as he twiddled his fingers on his crotch.

“Doesn’t it look like he’s…at…himself?” Mum murmured.

“Hmm?”

“Playing with himself. You know.”

“You’re obsessed,” Helen said. “You’re worse than the rest of us put together.”

98

Neris Hemming here.”

“Hello, it’s Anna Walsh. I’m calling for my reading.” I was curious. Curious but not hopeful.

Okay, maybe a bit hopeful.

Silence whistled on the line. Was she going to tell me to shag off again? More builders?

Then she spoke. “Anna, I’m getting…I’m picking up…yes, I’ve got a man here with me. A young man. Someone who was taken before his time.”

Well, top marks for not trying to fob me off with a dead grandparent, but when I’d originally made the booking, I’d told the reservations person that my husband had died. Who was to say that she hadn’t passed that information to Neris?

“You loved him very much, didn’t you, honey?”

Why else would I be trying to contact him? But my eyes welled up.

“Didn’t you, honey?” she repeated, when I remained silent.

“Yes,” I choked, ashamed of crying when I was being so crudely manipulated.

“He’s telling me he loved you very much, too.”

“Okay.”

“He was your husband, right?”

“Yes.” Damn. I shouldn’t have told her.

“And he passed on after an…illness?”

“An accident.”

“Yes, an accident, in which he became very ill, which caused him to pass on.” Said firmly.

“How do I know it’s really him?”

“Because he says so.”

“Yes, but—”

“He’s remembering a vacation you took by the ocean?”

I thought of our time in Mexico. But who hasn’t had a vacation by the ocean with their husband? Even if it’s just in a trailer in Tramore.

“I’m getting a picture of a blue, blue sea, a blue sky, barely a cloud in it, a white beach. Trees. Probably palm trees. Fresh fish, a little rum.” She chuckled. “Sounds about right?”

“Yes.” I mean, what was the point? Tequila, rum, they were both holiday drinks.

“And, oh! He’s interrupting me. He has a message for you.”

“Hit me.”

“He says, don’t mourn him any longer. He’s gone to a better place. He didn’t want to leave you, but he had to, and now that he’s where he is, he is happy there. And even though you can’t see him, he’s always around you, he’s always with you.”

“Okay,” I said dully.

“Have you any questions?”

I decided to test her. “Yes, actually. There was something he wanted to tell me. What was it?”

“Don’t mourn him any longer, he is gone to a better place…”

“No, it was something he wanted to tell me before he died.”

“That was what he wanted to tell you.” Her voice was “don’t fuck with me” steely.

“How could he have wanted to tell me, before he died, that he was gone to a better place?”

“He had a premonition.”

“No, he didn’t.”

“Hey, if you don’t like—”

“—you’re not talking to him at all. You’re just saying stuff that could apply to anyone.”

She blurted out, “He used to make you breakfast.” She sounded—what? Surprised?

I was surprised, too—because it was true! I’d once remarked that I loved porridge and Aidan had asked, “Is porridge the same as oatmeal?” I’d said, “I think it is,” and the following morning I found him standing at our barely used stove, stirring something in a saucepan. “Porridge,” he’d said. “Or oatmeal, if you prefer. Because you can’t eat at the lunches with those scary beauty ladies in case they judge you. So have something now.”

“I’m right, yeah? He made you breakfast every morning?”

“Yes.” I was meek.

“He really loved you, honey.”

He did. I remembered what I’d forgotten: he used to tell me sixty times a day how much he loved me. He’d hide love notes in my handbags. He’d even tried to persuade me to go to self-defense classes because, as he said, “I can’t be with you every second of every day, and if anything happened to you, I’d shoot myself.”

“Didn’t he, honey?” Neris prompted.

“What did he used to make me for breakfast?” If she could answer that, I’d believe in her.

Confidently she said, “Eggs.”

“No.”

Pause. “Granola?”

“No.”

“Toasted muffin?”

“No, forget it. Here’s an easier one. What was his name?”

After a silence she said, “I’m getting the letter L.”

“Nope.”

“R?”

“Nope.”

“M?”

“Nope.”

“B?”

“Nope.”

“A?”

“Okay. Yes.”

“Adam?”

“That’s my sister’s boyfriend’s name.”

“Yes, of course, it is! He’s here with me and is telling me—”

“He’s not dead. He’s alive, in London, probably ironing something.”

“Oh. Okay. Aaron?”

“Nope.”

“Andrew?”

“No. You’ll never get it.”

“Tell me.”

“No.”

“It’s driving me crazy!”

“Good.” Then I hung up.

99

Mitch looked like a different person. Literally, like a different person. He actually appeared taller and so sure of himself he was almost cocky. Even his face was a different color. Six, seven, eight months ago, I hadn’t known that he looked gray and rigid. It was only now that he’d lost that terrible stiffness and had become animated and face-colored that I noticed.