They Came From SW19 Read online

  I smiled and said, ‘OK.’

  Walbeck pointed at the sky and shook his head vigorously.

  ‘I’m sorry, Walbeck,’ I said, making sure he had a good, clear view of my mouth, ‘but they probably won’t come if I stay. You know?’

  I’m sure it’s true, actually. I’m sure none of this would have happened if I’d been there. Nothing ever happens when I’m around. I have to be surgically removed to create an event. If you see what I mean.

  They were still looking up into the night sky as I was led away by the delegation from the First Spiritualist Church. Mr Marr was drinking deep, straight from his Thermos. Purkiss was sitting cross-legged on the grass, trying to read Flying Saucer Review. And Walbeck, his big, round face anxious and pale, was looking after me. Every so often he would point up at the stars and give me a rather woebegone thumbs-up sign. He puts a lot into his gestures, and when I gave him one back I tried to make it worthy of his very high standards. I got my thumb to sit up straight and then I made it quiver like a dog that has sighted a rabbit. Walbeck is a connoisseur of sign language, and even he looked impressed.

  ‘I got this terrible feeling,’ said my mum as we turned down towards Stranraer Gardens, ‘that something was wrong. Just after you went out.’

  Mrs Quigley came in here, before Mum said anything embarrassing. ‘Emily’, she said, ‘had a very strong feeling in the toilet.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘Dad spent a lot of time in there.’

  Everyone nodded seriously at this remark.

  Mum clutched my arm. ‘I went into the spare bedroom,’ she said in a low voice, ‘and he was there! He was ever so tangible, Simon. And he isn’t happy about something.’

  Quigley nodded seriously. ‘He has a lot to tell us – a great deal to say. We all feel it.’

  Dad had absolutely nothing to say to Quigley when he was alive. I couldn’t see why being dead should have made him any more communicative. But, in the First Spiritualist Church, people tend to get a lot livelier after they’ve croaked. Guys who, when they were alive, would not give you the time of day can’t wait to tell you how terrific it is on the Other Side, and where they went wrong in the brief period of time allotted to them to hang around South Wimbledon.

  Dying is a big event for the First Spiritualist. I sometimes think that what would really suit them would be a gas explosion right outside the church – and then the whole lot of them could get blasted over to where the action is.

  I noticed that they had formed up into a kind of protective shell around me. Pike was a little way ahead, over to my right. Hannah Dooley, Mr Toombs and Mrs Quigley were behind to my left. The north-west exits were covered by my mum and Quigley. Emily hung in close to my offside rear in case I should try to bolt west-south-west as we came in to Durham Gardens.

  ‘Well,’ said Quigley, in a conversational tone, over his left shoulder, ‘has Jesus Christ entered your heart yet, Simon?’

  ‘Not yet, Mr Quigley,’ I said. ‘But you never know!’

  ‘You never know,’ he repeated, with somewhat forced cheerfulness.

  The big thing in the First Church of Christ the Spiritualist is honesty. Everyone is very honest with everyone else. If you have body odour, people will tell you about it. You know? And they are razor-sharp about Faith. It’s not like the golf club. You don’t just join. It’s not really enough to be born into it, which is perhaps why so many people leave – especially around my age. They are always asking you whether you really believe, and whether Jesus has really entered your heart.

  I think the only reason I haven’t left is that I have nowhere else to go. While my dad was alive, none of it seemed to matter too much.

  ‘Norman,’ Quigley had once said to him, ‘are you happy with the Lord Jesus? Are you comfortable with Him?’

  My dad had given him a cautious look. ‘I think we get along pretty well. You know?’ And he turned to me and gave me one of his broad winks. Then he raised his right buttock and mimed a farting movement.

  He never really liked conversations about JC. And he never talked to me about those things. Maybe now he was dead he would have a bit more to say about it all. I found myself quite looking forward to his views. What he said, of course, depended on which of us got to him first.

  We were marching, in good order, down Stranraer Gardens. We were coming up to the shabby front door of number 24. We were waiting patiently while my mum groped in her apron for the key. We were stepping over the threshold.

  Mrs Quigley stepped in first, her long red nose twitching with excitement. As she moved down the hall she was practically pawing the carpet in her excitement. When she got to the bottom of the stairs she turned round and flung her arms wide. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘oh yes! He is very strong. Very, very strong. Still!’

  If anyone was going to get on the line to the late Norman Britton, her face seemed to say, it was going to be Marjorie Gwendolen Quigley.

  6

  Mrs Quigley is a sensitive. I don’t mean she is sensitive. She’s about as sensitive as tungsten steel. She is a sensitive, the way some people are bus conductors or interior designers. She is in touch with things that dumbos like you and I did not even know existed until people like Mrs Quigley clued us in on them.

  She knew, for example, that Emily was going to fail Grade Four Cello. Not because Emily Quigley is tone-deaf and has fingers about as supple as frozen sausages, but because she knew. The way she knew that that ferry at Zeebrugge was going to roll over and kill all those poor people. Why, you may ask, did she not get on to the ferry company and tell them not to bother with this particular service? Or, indeed, get at the Associated Board of Examiners? She knew, that was all. It was fate – right?

  She usually keeps quiet about her prophecies until they have been proved correct, but occasionally she will go public a little earlier than that. Remember the nuclear war in Spain at the end of 1987? That was hers. Or the tidal waves off Boulogne in the August of the following year? Seven thousand people were going to die, according to Marjorie Quigley. A lot of us thought that house prices would be seriously affected.

  She was extra-sensitive tonight. After she had pawed the carpet, she lifted that long, spongy nose of hers and sniffed the air keenly. Her nose is the most prominent thing about her face. The rest of it is mainly wrinkles, that dwindle away into her neck. On either side of the nose are two very bright eyes. They are never still. They come on like cheap jewellery.

  ‘Norman!’ she said, as if she expected my dad to leap out at her from behind the wardrobe in the hall. ‘Norman! Norman! Norman!’

  ‘He wath in the toilet,’ said Emily. ‘I had a thtwong feeling of him in the toilet!’

  You could tell that nobody much fancied the idea of trying to make contact with Norman in the lavatory. Marjorie’s nose and mouse-bright eyes were leading us to the back parlour, scene of some of her greatest triumphs.

  They always have the seances in the back parlour – a small, drab room looking out over the back garden. It was here, a couple of years ago, that Mrs Quigley talked to my gran. Never has there been such an amazingly low-level conversation across the Great Divide.

  ‘Are you all right, Maureen?’

  ‘Oh yes. I’m fine.’

  ‘Keeping well?’

  ‘Oh, yes. On the whole. Mustn’t grumble. You?’

  ‘We’re fine. How are Stephen and Sarah?’

  ‘Oh, they’re fine. They’re all here, and they’re fine.’

  It really was difficult to work out who was dead and who was alive. My favourite moment came when La Quigley, running out of more serious topics, asked my dear departed gran, ‘What are you all doing Over There?’

  ‘Oh,’ said Gran – ‘the usual things.’

  The usual things, my friends! They are dead, and they are still running their kids to piano lessons and worrying about whether to have the spare room decorated. What was the point in dying if that was all you got at the end of it?

  I had the feeling, however, as Mr
s Quigley settled herself at the table, that tonight’s rap was going to be a little more heavyduty. The team got into their chairs and pulled themselves up to the table like they were the board of some company discussing a million-pound tax-avoidance scheme. Only I remained outside the circle.

  ‘Come,’ said Mrs Quigley. ‘Come, Simon!’

  I came.

  Have you ever been to a seance? Do you imagine something vaguely exciting? With the curtains drawn and the doors closed and the night wind banging at the window? A weird, blackmagic affair, where people push glasses around on heavy tables, or levitate, to the sound of heavy breathing? With the First Spiritualist Church of South Wimbledon, it isn’t like that at all.

  For a start, there is no build-up. You draw the curtains, yes. But after you have taken the hand of the person next to you, off you go. There are no preliminaries apart from a short prayer, which Quigley was giving out as I sat down.

  ‘O Jesus,’ he was saying, ‘all of us here at 24 Stranraer Gardens are very keen to get in touch with Mr Norman Britton, of this address, who died earlier today at a hospital in the Wimbledon area.’

  That’s Quigley. He gives it to Jesus straight. Like he was talking to Directory Enquiries, or something.

  ‘You’ – I could tell from the way he tackled the first letter of the word that he meant Jesus – ‘see everything. You see wars, famines, victories, defeats and also, of course, You see . . . us!’

  I breathed out. Once Quigley gets on to the Lord it’s time to go out and get the popcorn. Those two can talk for hours. Or, rather, JC can listen for as long as Quiggers can dish it out.

  ‘Tell us, Lord,’ he went on, ‘about Thy new arrival. How is he? And can He . . .’

  Here he stopped, aware that he had vocalized the first letter as a capital and that he wasn’t supposed to be talking about Jesus but about my dad. He gulped and struggled on, careful to demote the late Mr Britton to the status of mere mortal.

  ‘. . . can he – Norman Britton, that is – talk to Thy children here at 24 Stranraer Gardens on today, Wednesday the fifth of September?’

  That’s Quigley. The date. The time. The map reference.

  Jesus said nothing. He never does. People do not expect him to.

  ‘And,’ went on Quigley, ‘Lord, if Norman has a message for any one of us here – any word of advice from Thy Kingdom on the Other Side – please may he come forward and speak, as we trust in Thy mercy to reveal him!’

  There was absolutely no response to this.

  Quigley, rather like a guy on the radio filling in time between records, prayed a bit more. ‘Thy crop has been a good one, Lord, and the economy, as far as we can tell, is moving out of recession and into Steady Growth.’

  Here he stopped, clearly aware that he was losing all grip on his capital letters. To mask any confusion he might be feeling, he squeezed his eyes tightly shut and drove forward into the next sentence. ‘But Britain still lacks a spiritual dimension, Jesus, and many people live their lives in complete ignorance of Thee.’

  He lifted his head at this point, opened the Quigley peepers and looked round at the assembled company. His gaze ended on yours truly. I could have sworn he was trying to pick me up! It was only one step away from ‘Hi, let’s go back for a cup of coffee!’ You know? There was that much sincerity in the old Quigley glance.

  There was still absolutely no sign of Norman.

  Quigley ploughed on bravely. ‘Television is about to be deregulated and, as a result, there is a danger that pornography will be pumped into our homes. Old values are under threat. Motorways . . .’

  He stopped. He now had his head bowed over the table. His fingers masked his forehead. He peered over them at the assembled company. He obviously hadn’t quite got the heart for motorways. Once again he looked in my direction. I had adopted the sort of half-and-half attitude to prayer I had perfected for the rather less intense religious services on offer at Cranborne School, Wimbledon. I sat at a slight angle to the vertical, with my eyes hooded like a hawk’s. This was the only concession I made to the spiritual. You could see this freaked Quigley. Was I on the team or wasn’t I? Was I working for the opposition?

  ‘Motorwayth’, said Emily Quigley, picking up the ball and moving well with it, ‘are an evil, Lord! They blight the beautiful countwythide. Thupport and thuccour uth in our thtwuggle to thtop thith ditheathe that thweatenth the thtandardth of the Thouth-Eatht!’

  She has no shame, Emily. She looks for the nineteenth letter of the alphabet and she works it in whenever she can. Contentwise, however, she had clearly scored a hit. People were nodding as if they all felt this was something that needed saying.

  My mum’s eyes were blinking very fast. She pulled at her straggly grey hair and, in the reedy, worried tones she always used to talk to him, she said, ‘Norman . . .’

  This was clearly something that had to be stopped. The guy had not yet had clearance from air-traffic control and here she was weighing in with a direct address, using his first name. You could tell from the way both Quigleys looked at her that the death of her husband had not improved her standing in the very competitive field of psychic phenomena.

  Mrs Quigley made her move. I felt her hand flutter in mine slightly. And then, one or two firm tugs at my wrist. On the other side of her, Emily started to brace her right shoulder. She knew her mum. When Mrs Quigley goes for it, you get out the protective clothing and nail the furniture to the floor. She is serious business.

  ‘Oh!’ said Mrs Quigley. ‘OH! Oh! Ohhhh!’ We all knew the main show had started. There is a fantastic amount of upstaging in the First Church of Christ the Spiritualist, but nobody was going to give Marjorie Quigley anything to worry about. They knew a class act when they saw it.

  ‘Oh!’ she said, as if someone was pushing a large cucumber up her bum. ‘Oh! Oh! Oh! Ohhhhhhhh!’

  Then she started to tug hard at my hand. I held on as hard as I could, but she was moving into top gear. On her other side, Emily had whipped away her hand as if someone had just passed a few thousand volts through it. Her mum was sort of snaking forward and then bouncing back in her chair, then giving us a few good pelvic thrusts, before starting the whole movement over again. She looked as if she was in the middle of some complex, experimental swimming stroke.

  ‘Oh!’ said Mrs Quigley, as if she was getting used to the cucumber – even, perhaps, to like it a little. ‘Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Ohhhhhhhh!’

  She was bucking like a rodeo rider now. At any seance the rule was always to give Mrs Quigley a good strong chair, because there was no chance it was going to keep its four legs on the floor for any longer than was absolutely necessary.

  On the other side of the table, Quigley was waving his hands. ‘O Jesus!’ he was saying. ‘Oh Jesus Christ!’

  It was hard to tell whether Quiggers was talking to the Son of God or was merely in a panic at the unexpected violence of his old lady’s seizure. She always gives good value, but this one was a real corker. Everyone else was, quite literally, keeping a low profile. Pike’s profile was so low his nose was hitting the table. Toombs, one hand in my mum’s, the other grasping Hannah Dooley, was getting his head well down between his knees. He looked as if he was about to chunder all over the carpet. Only Marjorie’s old man, who had broken away from his two tablemates and who had bared his lips above his yellow teeth like a nervous horse, was giving it anything at all. But he never fails her.

  ‘O Jesus,’ he said, ‘are you come amongst us?’

  As if in answer to this, Mrs Quigley gave a loud howl and headed for the floor like a rugby forward crossing the line. My hand snapped out of hers. She must have gone about five yards. Then she started to writhe.

  Mrs Quigley writhes brilliantly. She does an aerobics class with my mum, who says she can hardly get her knees in the air. But get her in a darkened room and mention Jesus a couple of times and she is doing things a world-class athlete could not manage. She goes in about eight different directions at the same time.

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p; Quigley got to his feet, his eyes shining. This, his expression seemed to say, beats anything at the National Westminster Bank. ‘What is it, my sweet one?’ he said. ‘What is it, my sweet precious?’

  Mrs Quigley started to grunt. The grunt was new. I thought it was pretty good. I don’t think Quigley was too sure about it. He kept looking at her as if she was about to drop her drawers and flash her gash at us.

  ‘Darling,’ he said, reaching for her hand. ‘Darling . . . Darling . . . What is it, sweet darling?’

  It’s a normal day, Quigley. I always do this. Remember?

  Quigley looked up at the light fittings. ‘Jesus,’ he said, fixing his eyes on them, ‘what is the spirit that is in her? Jesus? O Jesus? Jesus? Jesus?’

  Jesus was still saying nothing. Mrs Quigley started to bang her head on the floor. Over on the other side of the table I saw Pike sneak a look at his watch.

  She made us wait for it. She always makes us wait for it. But when the voice comes out it is always good. This time it had a weird, distorted effect on it. It was hard to see how she could have possibly produced this timbre on her own, but what La Quigley doesn’t know about voice production could be written on a very small postcard. A guy from the Society for Psychical Research once frisked Marjorie just before she got in touch with the late Elvis Presley. Although she was clean, she made, I am told, a noise like a container ship’s fog-horn and broke three windows.

  But this voice was really creepy. It had a sharp little edge to it. It sounded lonely. There was an ugly ring to it, too, as if it belonged to someone who had mean, nasty things to say about the world.

  Whoever it belonged to, it was calling my name.

  ‘Simon!’ it said. ‘Simon Britton! Simon! Simon! Simon Britton!’

  Everyone looked at me.