No Use Crying

Fiction - by Dan Micklethwaite

Imelda Whitworth had been a medium for seven years and sixteen days, and as such had grown accustomed to hearing disembodied voices. At times, they seemed as ubiquitous as birdsong in the garden, and this was fine and right and absolutely as she'd planned. But the actor she employed to make them wasn’t with her in her kitchen, or nearby at all, which meant these current whispers were a source of great concern. Her hand began to tremble as she reached towards the fridge.

Then the whispers abated, as abruptly as they’d come, and she felt her cheeks flushing with panic and shame. She gave a slight cough, to try cover her pause, and then shook her head subtly; almost laughed at herself. Tiredness was to blame for lapses like this, a sporadic belief in her own mystical bunkum. She hadn’t been sleeping too soundly, that's all. She’d been dreaming a lot about David, of late.

She opened the fridge without further delay, so as not to alarm her new client, Marge Cartwright, who was sat at the small antique table behind her. To Imelda's surprise, the cold of the milk bottle did not worsen her shake.

“It was tea you wanted, wasn’t it, dear?” she said, in as level a tone as she could muster.

“Yes, thanks,” said Marge, and if the past thirty seconds had made her uncomfortable, she didn't let on.

“Would you like any sugar?”

“No, thanks. I’ve got to watch my intake these days. Diabetes risk, my doctor says.”

“Oh, me too, dear. Me too. It is a pity, because I’ve always had such a devilish sweet tooth. But I suppose we all have to make sacrifices for our health, don’t we now?”

“Colin never could,” Marge sighed. “I don’t know if… I suppose that it probably…” She turned away for a moment, her eyes going wet, hands anchored tight round the porcelain cup.

“It’s okay, dear,” said Imelda. “You can tell me anything you like, anything you need to get off your chest. You don’t have to, of course, but it often helps me to filter through the spirits as well, and find the right one just a little bit faster. Which should give you more time with your husband tomorrow.”

Marge quickly turned back, perhaps slightly incredulous; but if she suspected that something was off, she nonetheless chose to keep playing along.

“Whenever we went to the comedy club, he’d cheer the performers he loved with this clap like a drum. You know, really booming. It embarrassed me sometimes, but I miss it lots now.”

Imelda reached out both of her hands in support, and was herself comforted when her client reached back.

Eight years and three weeks ago, Captain David Whitworth had gone out to buy milk. Imelda had asked him to fetch it for breakfast. He’d been hit by a post van, just two streets away.

Their daughter, Ellen, had already moved out of the country by then. She came back for the funeral, but left shortly afterwards; teaching English in Malaysia was important, apparently, and she couldn’t be absent for more than a week. Imelda lacked a sister or even a brother to talk to, and had never been close to her sister-in-law; perhaps surprisingly, the tragedy did not deepen their bond. Her best friends from Secondary School were, by that point, only a handful of names on her Christmas card list. A couple of David's army colleagues had stayed over after the burial, but although she could hear them sharing stories in the living room, fueled by the stash of his left-behind whisky, they grew muted and civil once she emerged from the hall. She had gone to bed early, with their laughter as lullaby, and David's pillow held tight between her orange-peel thighs.

There were a series of false starts in the long weeks that followed—a flirtation with the dregs of that whisky collection; an unsuccessful (and too-expensive) trial with a therapist—before she attended a séance herself.

Not for a moment was she convinced by the show that she witnessed, especially not when she had to correct the medium, Madame Violet, as regards her husband's name. And the things that Madame Violet had him saying were about as unlikely as possible, for he’d never been the great romantic, not soppy in the least.

Yet, she was heartened by the cathartic effect the performance seemed to have on the rest of the group: their shared smiles and tears in the candlelit gloom; their apologies and promises, and loving, raucous valedictions; the tired and bashful gratitude upon their faces as they left.

She had attended as many as she could, for a while, purely to bask in the echoes of that.

It was peripheral, unintended, that she began to deduce how each trick was accomplished; began to practise and refine them in the comfort of her home.

Imelda awaited her clients in the basement, with only a candle in a glass skull to provide any light. As they came down the stairs, gingerly, they caught glimpses of paintings and sculptures and cobwebs, and the mirror in the corner, which seemed like a portal to an alternate realm. They could see themselves within it as they drew nearer to the table, but no matter how intently each of them stared, they could never pass through it, never journey to the place they most wanted to be.

That was what she was there for, to ensure that the traffic was only one-way.

She was dressed all in black, but nothing too fancy—just a thick woollen cardigan and an ankle-length dress. She hoped to convey a sense of both occult proficiency and respect for the dead, without being tacky; the purple satin and lacy trim of Madame Violet were out. That kind of frippery always struck her as the wrong kind of distracting, and made the proceedings feel far too overtly theatrical, which was the last thing she wanted. The life-size glass skull was the only exception, and she felt it was all the more effective for that.

She requested that her clients obeyed the same downbeat dress-code, to better blend with the darkness, and was satisfied that the four, unrelated mourners tonight had done exactly that. Besides Marge Cartwright, there were two younger women, Sandra and Jenny, as well as a man named Benjamin Kemp, whose father had recently died from a stroke. Only the latter really stood out, not just for his gender, but more due to the reflection of the skull in his glasses, the twinned candles dancing as he squeezed into his seat. Although he wasn’t sitting next to her, and the group hadn’t yet linked hands, Imelda could tell that he was shaking a little, with anticipation or fear, or perhaps even both.

He was primed to respond well.

She decided to make him wait, however, and crank his tension even further. Marge had been the most effusive with her descriptions of her husband, and so that made more sense as the opening act.

Imelda instructed them to close their eyes, which meant that she alone witnessed the candle flame waver, but they all felt the gust as she spoke Colin's name, and they all shivered slightly as a voice first called back. A breathy voice, which rumbled up from beneath them, spreading out to the walls, to the mirror, to all available surfaces, only to return and reverberate within the candlelit skull. It was emotionless, featureless, unnervingly bland, but developed distinctness the more questions it answered. Soon enough, ‘Colin’ was confessing how much he had longed for his wife, how dearly he had wished to be in contact again.

“It really is you!” said Marge, reacting to his distinctive, coarse Yorkshire accent.

“There hasn’t been anyone else. There won’t be.”

I know, love. It’s reet.

“I miss your breath. Is that weird?”

I miss yours an' all.

As the conversation continued, Imelda stayed focused on Benjamin Kemp, the skulls in his lenses, noting the way the images shook. He was almost where he needed to be now, she thought; he was just about ready to break down in tears.

She led her clients back up to the narrow beige hallway, and then to the door, where they each clasped her hands on the porch as they left. Benjamin’s palm was particularly damp, still holding a tissue, and his eyes remained reddened behind misted glass.

“Thank you,” he croaked, and as she watched him walk briskly across to his Volvo, she sensed that a weight had been removed from his shoulders. From his whole frame, in fact.

While she knew there were those who would think her a fraud, an exploiter, she felt more like a vicar at moments like this. She thought of the actor in the crawlspace as a benevolent angel, or perhaps just a prophet, speaking in tongues.

Even though that actor, Graham Dobbs, was a drunkard she paid with bottles of rum, under strictest insistence he came to work sober.

Once, in the early days of their collaboration, the sound of a bottle cap being unscrewed had come out through the speakers, as though the skull on the table was grinding its teeth. She had passed it off as a kind of spiritual static, and then threatened later to withhold his pay; only to forgive him when she noticed his eyes.

It frequently seemed he’d been weeping for real, method acting, and such was the depth of the pity he conjured, on top of the other emotions dredged up by a séance, that she often asked him to stay there and share a few drinks. He had alluded, in the past, to having also lost a relative who'd served in the army, and she kept thinking that maybe they would find things in common, some shared consolation. But he always had something else to do, somewhere else to go—a drunk with a diary.

By the time he emerged from the basement tonight, he was already looking the worse for wear. But, if anything, Imelda felt even rougher still. Almost as soon as the front door had closed, she had begun to hear another whisper. A chorus of whispers, writhing and mingling, filling the silence as she stood in the hall.

She practically begged Graham to keep her company, placing her trembling hand on his shoulder. But she was unable to clearly explain her confusion, her desperation, and so, with even more awkward impatience than usual, he simply picked up his liquor and slipped out the back.

At the first séance she’d attended, Imelda had been more frustrated with herself than with Madame Violet, for allowing her hopes to rise, for believing that somehow there might be a way. And yet, she could understand that others might not take it so lightly if they thought they’d been scammed. She had long since retained her husband's solicitor, just in case anyone decided to sue.

Although no-one had done so, she was now forced to confront the possibility that somebody, or perhaps several, might have opted instead for more direct revenge. Might have conspired to place a radio transmitter somewhere in her house, and be orchestrating and broadcasting these whispers between them. She imagined them sitting in a parked car nearby, or on the sofa in one of their own fancy lounges, with the same kind of voice-changer she’d purchased for Graham; muting it every few minutes to laugh.

She tried to think of all the customers in the past fortnight who’d asked to use her bathroom, or left her presence for another reason, but this was difficult as there’d been several, and few were as distinctive as Benjamin Kemp.

Given the timing, of course, she was forced to consider him as a suspect, though she couldn’t imagine what motive he’d have, as his ultimate reaction had seemed wholly sincere. She considered herself to be an expert on fakery, and he hadn’t triggered any alarms.

Neither had Marge, though Imelda now remembered the earlier incident. She decided to focus her search on the kitchen, which was the only room, beside the basement, into which that particular client had stepped. She inspected the doilies on the small antique table, the flowery cushions set out on the chairs. She lifted the picture frames and flipped through the calendar—Wildlife of Britain. She checked all the drawers thoroughly, then the microwave and the toaster, and even the magnets on the front of the fridge—gifts that her daughter had brought from abroad. But no matter how closely she scrutinised everything, she couldn't find any malicious device.

Approaching midnight, she allowed herself to consider that it might be Graham's doing. He had hurried off, even faster than usual. Perhaps this was the old souse’s way of negotiating a raise.

In the basement, she examined the life-size glass skull. A dot of still-lukewarm wax splattered out on her hand, in the shape of a teardrop. She picked it off like a scab and then flicked it away. She unplugged the speakers, but the murmurs persisted. She rolled aside the dark rug to uncover the trapdoor waiting beneath.

There was a definite dankness down there, and if it wasn’t Graham now then she could easily foresee a time when it might be; when he would turn up on her doorstep with a lawyer of his own, after a dire bout of tetanus or some grim mould infection. As she crawled along the tunnel, with a torch between her teeth, she made a mental note to have a specialist come and replace the insulation; to have somebody else come and check it for spores.

She, however, found nothing untoward. Except for a little bent nail with the hem of her dress, and another, larger nail with her outstretched right palm.

In the weakening torchlight, the damage seemed negligible. Beneath the sixty-watt bulb of the basement, however, blood fairly gushed along the lines in her skin, staining and gumming the wool at her wrist. She bathed the wound in saltwater, and then dabbed it with witch hazel, astringent and sharp. She stuck on a plaster, then another, and when those began spotting, she wrapped on a bandage, layered like an onion, and tried not to cry.

The voices persisted, and so did the pain, but she swallowed a couple of paracetamol tablets, which seemed to have a blunting effect on them both.

She thought about giving Ellen a call, but could never remember what the time-difference was—in China, now—and didn't really want to risk waking her up. Especially not over something like this, as cynical about spiritual things as she was.

Nevertheless, Imelda picked up the receiver, and held the tone against her ear to try and cancel out the noise.

If Imelda had hoped that a good night’s rest might rectify the situation, she was to be frustrated. Not least because she’d only slept for about three and a half hours. And the symptoms had grown even worse overnight.

A kind of chattering, chuntering, pervaded every waking moment. Sometimes a hiss or a sibilant snore. A breath on her neck, shifting the curls of her thinning grey hair. Whispers like fingers, at rest on her shoulder, squeezing her hip. Turning and turning and still nothing there. Just her, reflected in the kitchen window, like a dog chasing its tail. Leaving the room when she realised, flustered. Dizzy as well. Slumping into the faded maroon wingback armchair, reaching behind herself for the cushion, and holding it down on her lap with both hands as if to prevent it from floating away. Drumming her fingers and hugging it tightly. The memory of touch on her goosepimpled neck. She reached up to scratch, and then shifted her bandaged right palm there to warm it. When she covered her ears, the voices all sloshed like the sea in a shell.

She thought about maybe calling the doctor, but then realised she would have to speak to a receptionist first, and she had little faith that they wouldn’t somehow let news of her condition slip. And if this got around, the game would be up. Generous though her husband's pension had been, there was no way it would cover the lawsuits she’d face.

Anyway, she told herself, it was just a temporary problem.

She would have to make do with the paracetamol for now.

She walked back to the kitchen to get a couple more tablets, but then leaned against the doorframe, with no idea why she’d come. Opened a cupboard, shut it again. Crouched to check the dishwasher, but it hadn’t yet finished. Noticed herself in the window again. Grew flustered again. Turned around to go back and sit down in the lounge.

The old wingback armchair was no longer empty, and the murmurs coalesced as she observed its new occupant, levelling down to just the one word.

Hello.

His dress blues had smeared mud across the white antimacassars, and shaken it down onto the cream shagpile rug.

It was all that Imelda could do not to scream, she was so shocked at seeing her husband like this; just bones loosely packed in what remained of his uniform, which was darned with the rootlets of fungi and weeds.

She stumbled backwards, fortunate to be standing next to the couch and not the coffee table, with all of its glass and sharp wooden sides. She hugged another cushion to her thundering chest, and waited to grow accustomed to his bold new appearance; waited for David to say something else.

But he didn’t.

He just tapped at the hilt of his ceremonial sword.

She couldn’t stop staring.

Was it possible, she wondered, that the incantations she had pantomimed had actually worked? Or was this a punishment on behalf of all the bereaved she'd defrauded, in the form of a demonstration that she had truly done so? That there was a world beyond the bounds of this, and she had failed to reach it every time.

Either way, she considered, this was probably it.

The whoosh of that blade being drawn, then a quick slash at her throat… and then she'd be found in a week, and rushed through cremation, and nobody would try to get in touch after that. Least of all Ellen.

But no.

David left it in the scabbard.

I am sorry, he finally told her instead, his yellowed teeth chewing over the unfamiliar words. It was my fault, entirely. I didn’t look both ways.

Then, in response to her gasp, the prickling of her tears, her silence, he added: Tell me, my darling, just how long have I been gone?

She didn’t quite know how to answer, not yet, and so fell back on a tactic she employed with her clients: she offered him a choice of coffee or tea. She followed him to the kitchen, as damp scraps of dirt crumbled off in his wake. As if on autopilot, she went to get the milk from the fridge, and only realised her mistake when she set it down on the table. Fortunately, however, David didn’t seem perturbed.

Tea, please, he said, but give me five sugars.

Of course, she thought, with a touch of envy, he doesn’t have to watch his intake now.

Though, as she watched him sip, then slurp, then gulp it down, she realised that the sugar was not really for flavour, but rather for the root-system that had colonised his cranium, coiled around his clavicle, and unfurled like hanging gardens across the ruins of his ribs.

It was her turn to apologise. She hadn’t meant to leave his grave untended. To stop visiting. To stop sharing the latest hearsay with his headstone, with him.

But it was okay, he told her. He didn’t mind, really. He had felt the unkempt flowerbed, and the weight was somehow pleasing; had felt in some way integrated, or perhaps even reclaimed.

He had kept thinking of that line by Rupert Brooke: 'There is some corner of a foreign field…' Kept thinking about the friends he had lost overseas, and hoped the native flora entangled them likewise.

Imelda knew it was petty, but felt another jolt of envy, that he had been dwelling on faraway warzones and comrades, rather than the home that they could have been sharing. Should have been sharing, for many years yet.

As if reading her thoughts, he told her: Don’t worry. I love you. In the dirt, in the darkness, it was you I missed most.

If it was a surprise to hear him talk so openly, so soppily, it didn't dampen her reaction. She swept her teacup aside, right onto the floor. Took hold of his wrists—unexpectedly warm—and wept between the petrified fronds of his palms.

It happened later, when she touched his skull. They were upstairs, with the light off, and she was as nervous as the first time, and yet, just like the first time, when she reached out towards him she uncovered skin. Felt it bloom and restore. The slight bulge of his cheeks, with the first hint of stubble. The cauliflower ears, from his rugby-playing youth. The flattened nose and furrowed brow. And his thinning, sandy hair on top.

The more she touched, the more came back. She unfastened his jacket, and set her hands on his ribs, where the roots all transfigured into arteries and veins. The pulse of his heart of a sudden beneath.

A thundercrack.

A bass drum.

She remembered what Marge said about Colin applauding, and felt very much like laughing with the same kind of freedom, for in her own husband’s kiss there was no taste of death.

And now it was as though there had never been a post van. Or a funeral. Or his friends staying over, already treating her like a little old lady, with their jokes coming up through the floor while she slept.

It was like she had never pretended to reach other spirits, and she certainly didn't have a reason to carry on any longer. David nodded in agreement as he sipped his coffee in the morning; they should spend all day, every day, making up for lost time.

Would they ever be able to recover it all?

How many years would feel like enough?

Had his eyes always been so blue? She couldn’t stop staring. She thought she’d remembered him perfectly, but there were so many details she was only reminded of now. The chip in his front tooth. The flick of hair at the back of his head that just wouldn’t stay down. The way he rolled his neck and cracked his knuckles in a morning, the very first thing when he got out of bed.

She had long since forgotten how that used to annoy her, and her chest nearly burst with happiness now, from simple proximity to this physical act. To all of this. Having someone to cook for. Someone to hold her. Someone to talk to about everyday matters, who didn’t become cagey while awaiting the bill.

Though calls still arrived from unknown numbers, prospective clients, Imelda ignored them. She had set out to help others discover such joy, such peace and catharsis, but was prepared to admit now that she had never actually done so, and in fact had no idea how to even begin.

Even Graham, arriving for his usual Wednesday night shift, was turned away at the door. Or, rather, he turned himself away; he spied the tell-tale blue uniform in the armchair behind her, and declined an invitation to join them for cards.

He lurched down the steps, through the gate, to the pavement; thinking of his brother, who had died in the first Gulf War, and his nephew, who had hanged himself shortly thereafter. He stumbled towards a nearby maple, grasped tightly to the wrought iron railing around it, and then buckled forwards and threw up on the bark.

Imelda watched all of this from the doorway, and was tempted to chase him with a bottle of rum. But it was bitterly cold, and the air thick with drizzle, and anyway David was impatient to play.

One time the phone rang and it was another unknown number, but Imelda picked it up when Ellen’s voice crackled through.

“Hello, love!” she said.

“Hey, mum! How are you? Listen, I’ve just landed in Manches—”

“I’m wonderful, dear. I’m better than ever. You won’t believe what’s happened!”

“Mum?”

“I’ve been talking to your father, love. Isn’t that wonderful? He wants to hear from you. Shall I put him on?”

“Mum, please don’t start with this again. You know I don’t believe in—”

“Oh, I know, love! It’s all nonsense, every last bit of it. I’ve been a terrible liar, cheating people out of thousands. But your dad’s really here, love. I don’t know how, but he is. Are you sure you won’t talk to him?”

“Oh, Mum!” Ellen shouted, and ended the call.

Imelda remained holding the handset a moment, until she finally registered what her daughter had said. Then a warm, gummy smile rippled out on her face.

“Did you hear that, love?” she said to her husband. “I think that our Ellie is coming to tea. I’ll do a roast, love, with all the trimmings, and can you try and find where I’ve put the good plates?”

In the kitchen, the chicken was cold and untouched. It turned out that David was not hungry for that, or for the spuds, or the vegetables either. And by the time that she’d gone to the trouble of cooking it, she had lost much of her appetite, too. It might have been different, if their daughter had showed, but it was three hours after the phone-call already, and Imelda was worried she’d heard the words wrong.

Perhaps Ellen had meant to say Manchuria, or some other mysterious, faraway place.

Or maybe Imelda was showing her age.

At seventy-three, she knew she was growing at risk of such troubles, but aside from the voices, there hadn’t been any signs—and even those voices had been something else. There was no need to worry, she reminded herself, now that her David was back by her side. He was her saviour; he would help keep her sane.

As for their daughter, she had probably just become caught up in traffic. The M62 would be manic, at this time, assuming she’d chosen to hire a car.

Sure enough, less than five minutes later, there came the sound of an engine from out on the street. And then the soft drumming of shoes on the steps. And the ring of the doorbell, as if was part of a mesmerist’s act.

Her daughter had always somewhat entranced her; had seemed full of tricks that no matter how hard or intently she studied, Imelda could not discern how they were done. She seemed to have more, every time she came back here, and to guard them more closely. Or perhaps the key to understanding them was simply hidden overseas.

When Imelda opened the door to her now, Ellen appeared more inscrutable still, and yet also looked back with a similar confusion. A fearfulness, almost. Though it was possible that she was just jetlagged and tired.

“It’s so lovely to see you,” Imelda said, hugging her.

“And you, mum!” said Ellen, hugging her back. Holding the clinch for a few seconds longer, and then staring again at her mother’s old face.

“Well, don’t just stand there, love,” said Imelda, “else you might catch a cold. Have you brought any luggage? Have you come back for long?”

Ellen stepped into the hallway, pulling a large yellow suitcase behind her.

“I’ve got some things for you,” she said, as she took off her coat. “You know, with it being your birthday and all.”

“It’s what now?” Imelda felt thrown for a moment, and tried to pick back through the days in her head. “Oh yes, love, of course, I almost forgot. It’s a Friday this year, isn’t it?”

“Yes, mum, it is. Are you feeling ok?”

“Of course, love, I’m splendid. I guess I’ve just been distracted, since your father came back.”

“Oh, mum! I thought you were going to stop with this stuff…”

“What stuff? Don’t be daft, now, Ellie. And let’s not keep him waiting, eh? He’s dying to see you!”

She turned and began to walk off down the hallway, into the lounge. Her daughter was saying something, but she couldn’t make it out. She was just too excited, thrilled at the three of them all being together. So much so that the mud on the armchair did not even damp it, much less give her pause.

“He must have gone upstairs, love,” she said, turning round.

“Mum,” Ellen pleaded, but she was not going to stop. No matter how dizzy she felt, of a sudden. No matter how hungry she had realised she was. She simply kept forging ahead up the staircase, gripping the banister, until she slipped backwards, close to the top.

Fortunately, Ellen was right there behind her, and caught her and helped her up onto the landing. But in the process she finally noticed the bandage, and demanded Imelda extended her hand.

“It’s nowt, love,” she protested, but Ellen unpinned and unravelled the gauze. It looked clean but deep, and the bandage had kept it too sweaty to heal.

“How did you do this, mum?”

“Never mind, love. It’s fine. Look, no infection!” She flexed her fingers to demonstrate. “Come on, hurry up!”

She shrugged herself free of her daughter’s strong grip, and followed the crumbs of dry dirt to the bedroom. Heard Ellen step through the doorway behind her, and then gasp at the uniform splayed on the sheets.

They hadn’t allowed Imelda to bring any mementos, nor any accoutrements of her former profession, not even the candle and the life-size glass skull. It was a fire risk, they told her. And besides, this hospice held a lot of patients, and storage was in short supply.

“But don’t worry,” the nurse said. “You’ll have everything you need. We’ll take good care of you.” They smiled as they stirred some milk into her tea, and added two sugars, before bringing the cup to her chair in the corner.

Imelda received it, inspecting the veins on the back of her hands like the roots of a cluster of fungi and weeds. She almost expected them to bloom any moment. But they didn’t. They just shook.

She was able to drink without spilling, however, and so most of the time the staff left her to it. She seemed peaceful enough, as she gazed at her reflection on the opposite wall. The mirror was the only thing that bore any resemblance to her basement, but no matter how long and intently she stared, she could never believe it would work as a portal.

Her only means of contact with the outside world was the telephone on the bedside table, but when Ellen called to say she’d returned safely to China, Imelda heard mainly the static, the distance, as if it wasn’t only patched through from a different continent, but from an entirely different plane of being.

Ellen tried to explain, in their next conversation, that she was going to have to sell the house, to cover Imelda’s stay at the hospice, and her voice seemed more faraway and ethereal still. Imelda had shouted to make sure she was heard, to make sure Ellen understood that it was her house, and David’s, and she intended to live there for a long time to come.

Her daughter had ended their call there and then, and not answered the next time Imelda had tried. Or the next. Or the next.

The doctor prescribed her some sedative pills, because she had grown so upset after that. But whenever she felt clear from them, in the few lucid hours that she had every day, she went straight to the telephone and dialled her own number. Her house's; her husband’s.

He hadn’t answered her either, as yet, but she refused to get worried. In the static, it sounded like whispers were forming, and she knew that she would hear his voice again soon.

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