Eloise Read online

  ‘My dad left my mum,’ she revealed carelessly, peering hard at the portrait of Bettina’s uncle. ‘So did Allie’s. Is that what happened with your parents, too?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Bettina admitted, and might have said more, if Peter hadn’t jumped in. He doesn’t seem to like people talking about their parents splitting up. He probably feels left out, because his own mum and dad are still together.

  ‘Okay,’ he interjected. ‘So where will we do this? In here? We could close the blinds.’

  ‘In my bedroom,’ Bettina decided. ‘Just in case Josie comes home.’

  ‘All right. Where’s your bedroom?’

  There were three bedrooms in Bettina’s house, plus an enclosed verandah where Josie slept. It was spilling over with dog-eared textbooks and skimpy clothes and beat-up old wardrobes and empty cassette-tape boxes. Bettina slept in the smallest bedroom, which was only big enough to fit in one single bed and a chest of drawers. Looking around, I saw that the light-shade was made out of plain, white paper; that the carpet was orange; that there were venetian blinds at the window and a simple green quilt on the bed. The only clutter was under the bed, and on top of the chest of drawers.

  But clutter, I decided – especially Bettina’s clutter – wasn’t the same as ornament. There were no discarded bracelets or china figurines scattered around her room. All I could see were hairclips, exercise books, dirty plates, balls of screwed-up clothes, empty chewing gum wrappers, cassette tapes and dead flowers.

  ‘Good,’ I said. ‘No ornament.’

  ‘But we can’t fit a table in here,’ Peter objected.

  ‘We don’t have to. We don’t have to sit around a table. We can sit in a circle on the floor. There’s enough room – there’s only four of us.’

  So we shut the door, closed the blinds, and sat down. It wasn’t really dark, just dim. But that didn’t matter, I assured everyone. Some mediums were known to work in full light.

  ‘Now what?’ asked Peter.

  ‘Now we hold hands,’ I replied.

  ‘Activate the mind meld,’ Peter intoned. (He has a tendency to drop into sci-fi speak without warning.) ‘Let’s all merge on the atomic level.’

  His hands were hot and sweaty. Michelle’s were cool and dry. I don’t know what Bettina’s were like, because I wasn’t sitting next to her.

  Someone’s stomach rumbled.

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Now we open with songs and prayers.’

  ‘Songs and prayers!’ Peter exclaimed.

  ‘Like the Lord’s Prayer. Does anyone know the Lord’s Prayer! Apparently, people usually start with the Lord’s Prayer.’

  It turned out that everyone in the room knew the Lord’s Prayer, except me. They recited it. Then Peter recited two other prayers.

  ‘I should have brought my mum’s missal,’ he concluded. ‘She’s got a million prayers in that book. She takes it to church every Sunday.’

  ‘What about songs?’ asked Michelle. ‘What kind of songs should we be singing?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ I had to confess. ‘I couldn’t find out.’

  ‘Something soft,’ Peter suggested. ‘Nothing loud.’

  ‘A lullaby,’ said Bettina.

  ‘What songs did Michael like?’ I looked at Bettina, who swallowed. ‘Think,’ I urged her.

  ‘Well …’ She knitted her brows. ‘He liked Smashing Pumpkins, Garbage, Pearl Jam.’

  ‘Oh!’ Peter’s face brightened. ‘I like Pearl Jam. I like that song “Alive”.’

  Michelle and I exchanged glances. We’d never heard of it.

  ‘Can you sing it?’ I asked Peter, who grimaced.

  ‘I don’t have to sing it, do I?’ he groaned. ‘You’ll all laugh.’

  ‘We won’t laugh,’ I promised.

  ‘Cross your heart?’

  ‘Cross my heart.’

  Michelle and Bettina crossed their hearts, too. Then Peter sang a really depressing song about some bloke whose father died and who wanted to know if he deserved to die as well, and Bettina sang ‘Cherry lips’, because her sister often played it. (I don’t know what that song was about.) Bettina had a pretty good voice, I thought. After she and Peter had finished, I addressed Michael directly, closing my eyes and tilting back my head.

  ‘Michael,’ I intoned. ‘Can you hear me, Michael, son of Astra?’

  Someone snickered, and I opened one eye.

  ‘Stop it!’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Michelle, composing her features. ‘Sorry, you sounded funny.’

  ‘You do it, then!’

  ‘No, no. I wouldn’t know what to say.’

  ‘Maybe we shouldn’t say anything,’ Peter proposed. ‘Maybe we should all shut our eyes and breathe slowly and sort of see what happens.’

  So we did. And nothing happened except that I started to feel hungry. My head filled with pictures of milkshakes and potato chips and fried rice. My stomach started to growl.

  ‘Sorry,’ I muttered. ‘That was me.’

  ‘Shh!’

  We sat for a little while longer, before I suddenly remembered that we had forgotten Michael’s cap. Bettina was sent to fetch it (and take careful note of its position, so that it could be restored to the exact same spot without upsetting anyone). When the cap was passed to me, I studied it, and smelled it (it smelled of dust) and placed it on my head. Then I shut my eyes and clasped my neighbours’ hands again.

  ‘We’re awaiting you, Michael. Come, Michael,’ I said. ‘Your cousin awaits you.’

  But it was no good. Nothing happened, not even after we’d placed one of Michael’s photographs in the centre of our circle. After half an hour, my legs were cramping, my bladder was bursting, and my stomach was groaning. I couldn’t concentrate. I was about to ask if we could wrap it up when Peter said, ‘This is no good. This isn’t going to work.’

  ‘Just try,’ Bettina pleaded. ‘A little bit more.’

  ‘I can’t.’ Peter shook his head. ‘I’m starving. I have to have something to eat.’

  ‘Me, too,’ said Michelle. ‘Is there something we can eat, Bettina?’

  ‘Oh yes. Yes, you want food? I’ll get you food.’

  Bettina jumped up eagerly, and led the others into the kitchen. I went to the bathroom first. When I rejoined the group, everyone was already tucking into Saltines and olives and cream cheese and sultanas. Then Bettina made us each a big, peanut-butter sandwich and poured us huge glasses of milk. By the time we’d got all that down, we were starting to feel satisfied.

  So we returned to her room and tried again. Having reminded the others that not every séance is successful, I plopped Michael’s cap on top of his photograph, and focused my attention fiercely on both items. ‘Close your eyes, Bettina,’ I instructed. ‘Think about Michael. Think about what he looked like. Think about what he used to do. Think about what he used to wear.’ Obediently, Bettina shut her eyes.

  ‘The rest of you, look at the picture,’ I said. ‘Concentrate on the picture. The curly hair. The brown eyes. The crooked teeth –’

  Bang! A sharp noise startled us all. I heard the sound of footsteps in the hall, and looked at Peter in alarm. But Bettina was saying: ‘That’s Josie. She’s home.’

  ‘Bettina!’ a voice called. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I’m in here!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’M IN HERE!’

  The bedroom door burst open. A girl with dark hair piled on top of her head and a very short uniform looked in. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ she demanded.

  ‘Nothing,’ Bettina mumbled.

  ‘Ah!’ Josie’s gaze had snagged on the baseball cap. In gloating, triumphant tones, she began to rattle off words that I didn’t understand. Bettina responded sharply in the same language.

  They both snatched at the cap – which Josie managed to capture.

  ‘You’re in big trouble!’ she cried gleefully.

  ‘Give it back!’ cried Bettina.

  ‘I’m going to tell Auntie!’

  Be
ttina chased her sister out of the bedroom; I could hear thumps and shrieks as they spilt down the hall and into the garden. A screen door slammed. Voices were raised.

  Peter sighed.

  ‘Well,’ he said. ‘I guess that’s it, then.’

  ‘We could try by ourselves,’ I suggested.

  ‘No. I don’t feel like it.’ Stiffly, Peter began to rise. ‘As a matter of fact, I’m hungry again.’

  ‘Me, too,’ said Michelle. ‘Do you think Bettina would mind if we had some more bread?’

  Sighing, I realised that there was no point trying to hold a séance with people who were only interested in their stomachs. I also realised that I, too, could have done with a few more mouthfuls of peanut-butter sandwich. So I followed Michelle and Peter into the kitchen, where we made ourselves sandwiches, finished off the sultanas, and found a couple of apples.

  We were still stuffing our mouths when Bettina returned from the backyard, sweaty and panting and very upset.

  ‘She won’t give it to me,’ Bettina wailed. ‘She says she’s going to tell Auntie Astra.’

  ‘Have a biscuit,’ Michelle advised, sympathetically.

  ‘It’s all right, Bettina,’ I said. ‘We’ll tell your aunt what we’ve been trying to do, and I’m sure she won’t get mad.’

  ‘Josie laughed,’ Bettina went on. ‘She says we’re being stupid.’

  ‘You are!’ her sister bellowed, from the next room. (The enclosed verandah was right next to the kitchen; you had to pass through it to reach the backyard.) ‘You’re all crazy!’

  ‘Don’t pay any attention,’ Peter murmured. ‘She’s only trying to annoy you. My brothers do the same thing to me all the time.’

  ‘Maybe she’s right, though.’ Bettina accepted a biscuit and took a bite. ‘Maybe this is a stupid thing to do.’

  ‘It’s not,’ said Michelle firmly.

  ‘It’s not,’ Peter echoed. ‘It’s a good idea.’

  ‘But it’s not working!’

  That was undeniable. Michelle scratched her nose, and Peter began to counsel patience: you couldn’t expect miracles immediately. ‘If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again,’ he quoted. ‘Maybe we should do it in here, next time. Around the table. What do you think, Allie?’

  All eyes turned in my direction. I hesitated, my own gaze travelling up the side of the fridge, across the ceiling, down to the cracked linoleum. I saw a drooping calendar; a damp tea towel; a chipped coffee mug. A tap was dripping into the sink. A power cord was wrapped around with silver duct-tape. The whole room was … I don’t know. Dingy. Ordinary. Clean, but depressing. And hardly what you’d call a place steeped in colourful history.

  ‘I think, if we’re going to do this, we should get Delora to help us,’ I sighed. ‘It’s not going to work, otherwise. It’s just not.’

  ‘But you said Delora would charge us!’ Michelle objected. ‘Forty dollars an hour, you said!’

  ‘Because she’s a professional. Because she knows what she’s doing.’ I looked at Bettina. ‘Would your mother have that sort of money? I guess not.’

  Bettina shook her head. ‘Not to spare,’ she replied.

  ‘Well, okay. What about this, then?’ Taking a deep breath, I tried to summarise my thoughts on the matter. ‘We’re starting a club, right? The Exorcists’ Club. Now a proper club has not only regular meetings, and a set of rules, and a president, but a treasurer as well. And the treasurer takes care of the club funds. Right?’

  There were no disagreements.

  ‘Right,’ I continued, pleased with my progress so far. ‘Then what if we agree to do some fundraising in the future – like baking cakes, or something; we’ll work that out – and in the meantime we each donate a portion of our pocket-money savings? Like ten dollars each, say. What about that? Does everyone agree with that?’ Seeing pursed lips and raised eyebrows, I added: ‘We’ve got to have some kind of policy on people with no money. If we only do things for people with money, we might never do anything at all.’

  Slowly, Michelle nodded. ‘That’s a good point,’ she said. Peter pulled at his bottom lip. Bettina cleared her throat. ‘You want me to pay, too?’ she asked.

  ‘Of course,’ I told her.

  ‘But I’m not a member of the Exorcists’ Club. Am I?’

  ‘Of course you are.’ Again I sought Michelle’s agreement, with an inquiring glance; again Michelle nodded.

  ‘That’s if you want to be,’ she said, glancing at Bettina. ‘Do you?’

  ‘Oh, yes! Please!’

  ‘But ten dollars,’ Peter protested. ‘That’s a lot of money.’

  I frowned, because although Peter’s family is big (he has two brothers and three sisters), he lives in an enormous house with five bedrooms and two bathrooms and a double garage and a grape vine and a special pen for the dogs. But then I saw how his eyes flicked towards Bettina, and realised what he was trying to say.

  ‘Oh,’ I muttered. ‘Right. Um …’ I thought about my savings account, which contained sixty-eight dollars and thirty-five cents. I’ve always been a good saver. And Dad’s always sent me money for my birthday. ‘Okay, how about this?’ I said. ‘I’ll pay Bettina’s share, and she can pay me back some time. Whenever she can. Maybe her mum or her aunt wouldn’t mind paying ten dollars for a session with Delora, since Delora’s a real professional.’

  ‘I could ask,’ Bettina offered timidly. ‘I could ask them.’

  ‘Okay. You do that.’ Noting her troubled expression, I added: ‘If you want, I can do it. Since they’ll be back here soon.’

  I didn’t, though, because I didn’t have time. Bettina’s mum arrived home just ten minutes before Ray knocked on the door. (Thank goodness she was there, or Ray would have told Mum that I had been ‘unsupervised’, and Mum would have been really cross.) Bettina’s mother introduced herself as Dubravka. She was lugging a couple of shopping bags full of food and moved as if her feet were sore.

  Something about the distracted way she smiled at us all, and frowned at the mail on the kitchen table, and grunted as she crouched down to stick a tin of olive oil under the sink, made me think twice about bringing up Delora’s fee. I decided to wait until the poor, weary woman had at least sat down with a hot cup of tea and kicked her shoes off.

  Then Ray came, and it was too late.

  ‘What did you say your friend’s name was?’ Ray asked, when we were waiting at the first set of traffic lights on our way home.

  ‘Bettina Berich,’ I said.

  ‘Berich.’ Ray pondered this, for a minute. ‘Where’s it from, do you know? Is it European?’

  I shrugged.

  ‘Polish, maybe. Slavic?’

  He didn’t expect a reply; he was thinking aloud. So I left him to it, and considered the unsuccessful séance. It had been disappointing not to get a result, but also something of a relief. I wasn’t at all sure that I could have coped with Michael’s ghost. Suppose it had tapped me on the shoulder, or lifted the cap off my head? I would have screamed the place down.

  No, on reflection, it would be much more sensible to have Delora taking charge of things. She would know what to do if Michael’s moaning, broken-backed spirit suddenly appeared. For one thing, she would probably know how to get rid of it.

  As soon as Ray stopped the car, I rushed inside and called Delora. Delora consulted her diary. By dinner time, our next séance had been arranged for Saturday night, with Delora Starburn booked for an appearance.

  CHAPTER # five

  ‘What do you mean, you can’t make it on Saturday?’ my dad demanded.

  ‘I’ve got something on.’ Because he sounded hurt, I added: ‘Sorry.’

  ‘But I told you Matoaka wanted to cook you dinner!’

  ‘Friday night, you said. You said Friday night.’

  ‘I said Friday or Saturday.’

  ‘Well …’ I didn’t know what to say. He seemed cross, so I didn’t want to remind him that he had used the words ‘probably Friday’. ‘Can’t she do it on Fri
day?’

  ‘No. That’s the whole point. She has a yoga class. Damn it.’

  There was a long silence on the other end of the telephone line. I felt a bit guilty.

  ‘Can she do it on Sunday?’ I suggested. But Dad didn’t seem to hear.

  ‘What’s so important on Saturday that you can’t come?’ he asked. ‘A birthday party? It’s not something your mum’s arranged, is it?’

  ‘No.’ I hesitated. ‘It’s a séance.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A séance.’ I tried to explain. ‘We’ve hired a medium, you see. I have to be there, because, well, because it’s important.’ I didn’t bother telling him that I had been elected President of the Exorcists’ Club (at a quick bus-line election meeting), so had a duty to show up at our first proper séance. I didn’t think I ought to tell Dad about the Exorcists’ Club before I told Mum – and I hadn’t told Mum, at that stage.

  ‘You’re going to a séance?’ he exclaimed. ‘Why, for God’s sake?’

  ‘Because my friend wants to talk to her cousin. He’s dead.’

  ‘I still don’t see why that means you have to go.’

  ‘I have to. I promised.’

  Another long silence. I was using the kitchen phone, but there was nobody else in the kitchen; Mum had taken Bethan to footy practice, and Ray was in his studio out the back, painting.

  ‘Well, I don’t know if I approve,’ said Dad, at last. ‘Séances and that sort of thing would be harmless rubbish, if they didn’t involve an obsession with death – and an obsession with death is harmful. It creates stagnant energies. Does your mother know about this?’

  ‘Yes,’ I replied. In fact, Mum hadn’t been very happy either, when I’d first revealed my plans for Saturday night. We had been eating our dinner, and she had knitted her brows when I told her that I needed to go to Bettina’s, on Saturday evening, because Delora Starburn would be holding a séance there. Mum didn’t know what it would involve, exactly, so she was a bit anxious. But when I’d informed her that Bettina’s mother and aunt would be present, she had agreed to let me go – as long as she, too, was allowed to attend.

  She’s seen Delora at work before, you see. So she knows how weird things can get, when a psychic is called in.