I Hear You Calling Page 6

  I was apprehensive to say the least as I drove to the Banks’ house. Should I launch into them straight away and warn them off playing any more tricks? But then would I be giving Chris a platform to preach from if I did?

  I made the decision that I would make no mention what had happened as I was leaving the day before; I was not going to give Chris the pleasure of thinking that I was remotely interested in, or affected by, his little stunt.

  This time the whole Banks family was in the sitting room when I arrived.

  ‘I spoke with Mrs Wilkes this morning and she tells me that when you return to school tomorrow, Richard, she will be expecting things to change.’

  Richard lowered his head but I could tell he was listening.

  ‘By this she means there can be no more incidents where you are telling people that you are talking to dead people. Do you understand that?’

  I could feel the air around Chris Banks getting warmer by the second but, refusing to look his way, I continued directing my speech to his son. ‘You need to stop doing this at school otherwise you are going to be permanently excluded. Do you know what that means?’

  Richard raised his face to look at me and the sadness I saw in his eyes touched me.

  ‘Yes,’ he answered quietly. ‘It means I won’t be able to go back there ever again.’

  Hardening my heart to his obvious distress I carried on.

  ‘That’s right. I don’t think you want that to happen do you Richard?’

  The boy lowered his head again as he shook it to confirm that no, he didn’t want to be permanently excluded from school.

  ‘Well that’s good,’ I said. ‘And it won’t happen if you just make sure that you don’t scare people in this way again. You can do that can’t you?’

  There was no answer from the child but his father could keep out of it no longer.

  ‘This is preposterous.” he said. ‘Ma son is being bullied.’

  Recalling the conversation with Jen last night and my suspicion that the Banks’ were using their son to make their own point regarding victimisation of their religion, I drew on every ounce of authority I possessed to answer.

  ‘I am sorry you see it that way Chris but I am sure there are parents of the other children in the class who feel that their children are being bullied by being on the receiving end of Richard’s claims. Whatever the perception I am afraid that you have no option on this one, if Richard is to stay at Springhill Primary he must comply with this. I suggest it will be more helpful to your son if you help him to do this than if you continue to make him feel torn between pleasing you and pleasing his school.’

  I was aware that Chris Banks was looking at me with open hostility as I turned my attention to his wife.

  ‘Janet, you impressed me yesterday, you really made me think when you talked about taking responsibility for our own reactions. I think this is a prime example of the need for that. Can you talk with Richard about how he has a responsibility not to upset other people and how he can stop this permanent exclusion happening to him by changing what he does? And, for my part, I will be talking with Mrs Wilkes and assuring her that Richard will be back in school tomorrow and there will be no more messages from the dead.’

  After that I couldn’t wait for the working day to end so that I could get home to Barney and walk it all away in the woods. The day had been bleak, cold and grey with a serious threat of snow in the sky so I finished work early and changed into warm cords and a thick sweater adding an extra pair of socks to wear under my wellie boots. I was in the hall struggling to pull my wellie up when the loud knock on the front door just two feet away from me made me leap out of my skin.

  Opening the door I came face to face with the chiselled features that I had once found so appealing. Many times, in the early days, I asked myself what would happen if Jim managed to track me down. How would I feel? What would I say? What would I do? But as time went on and he didn’t appear I had slipped into believing it was not going to happen.

  Now it was happening and it was so unexpected that I did absolutely nothing. Just stood there with my heart hammering in my chest and my mouth wide open.

  ‘Hello Sweetheart. Surprised to see me?’ I had forgotten how strong his northern accent was and how his top lip curled slightly as he spoke showing his perfect white teeth.

  ‘How did you know where I was?’ My voice sounded as if I was being strangled. I cleared my throat.

  ‘That’s not a great welcome, what happened to Happy New Year?’

  Sensing the tension in the atmosphere Barney gave a low growl. Jim scowled down at the large dog as he appeared by my side defensively.

  ‘I suppose you have started smoking again as well?’ he asked.

  ‘No, no I haven’t and I didn’t get a dog to annoy you, I got him because I wanted one.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to ask me in out of the snow?’

  In my shock I hadn’t registered before that it was now snowing quite heavily and Jim’s black hair was fast turning white in the fall.

  I took a deep breath before I trusted my voice to answer his question. ‘No.’

  I was surprised to hear how strong my voice sounded considering that every part of me, inside and out, was shaking. ‘I am just on my way out and I would like you to leave and never come here again.’

  Jim did his “false” smile, the one that didn’t quite reach his eyes. A stranger might not have recognised the edge to his voice when he spoke again but I knew it all too well. It was only a slightly veiled threat when he said:

  ‘I’ll leave now but I can’t promise that I won’t come back sweetheart.’

  I watched him disappear down the path before almost falling back inside the house and bolting the door. Only then did I realise that I had been holding my breath all the time he was walking away.

  How the hell had he found me? I really thought I would be safe here in the Midlands, so far away from London. How long had he known I was here? Oh my god, the Christmas card. The unsigned card delivered on Christmas day; it was from him. It would have amused him so much to leave a cryptic clue like that, leading up to his letting me know he was around again.

  My heart was hammering and I could hear the blood rushing through my head. Shit, my whole body was shaking. I felt the sweat on my brow and recognised the meaning of the cold clammy feeling beginning to envelop me. I just had time to get to the bathroom before I was sick.

  ‘Rae, you must take some leave and come and stay with us for a while.” Jen’s voice suggested that she was verging on hysteria. ‘You can’t stay there on your own now.’

  ‘I can’t keep running away.’

  I was struggling to play down my fear because it would only worry her more if she knew how I really felt. I shouldn’t have upset her by telling her really, knowing how she worried about me, but I had had to speak to someone.

  ‘Then you must go to the police.’

  ‘And say what? That someone I don’t want to see went away when I asked him to but might come back?’

  ‘But Rae, he abused you.’

  ‘Mental cruelty may be grounds for divorce but it isn’t a criminal offence.’

  ‘Well it should be.’ Jen shouted this so fiercely that we both giggled.

  ‘I just don’t know how he found me. I really didn’t think he would be able to.’

  ‘That man is so manipulative he could get anything if he really wanted it. I am so worried for you Rae.’

  ‘Well, I guess I’ll just have to be firm. If I don’t let him back into my life then he can hardly manipulate me can he?’

  I slept for about two hours that night; when the clock finally moved round to six the next morning I got out of bed. Stumbling into the bathroom with a head that felt full of concrete I groaned as I caught sight of myself in the mirror. My eyes looked like small pools of mud and were in
danger of being completely enveloped by the large folds of puffiness that used to be my eyelids. The constant tossing around on the pillow all night had resulted in my hair sculpting itself in homage to Medusa. Dragging my weary body into the shower I hoped that the hot water would work miracles!

  Richard

  So, Rae comes back to see us again. Dad hates her now, he says that she is the devil incarnate operating under a sheep’s clothing. I don’t know what incarnate means but I know it’s nasty ‘cos Mum tuts at him and tells him to calm down.

  Rae doesn’t look like a devil, or a sheep really. She looks a bit like Miss Wright who teaches in Reception. Miss Wright is a bit cuddly and has a squidgy, smiley face.

  Rae isn’t smiling much though. She still says I have to stop speaking with Solly in school and stop telling people about the spirits around them. Dad is getting really mad, that vein in his neck, just under his left ear, is showing and that’s never a good sign. Mum is pretty quiet really and Dad keeps looking at her like she is doing something bad.

  They have started rowing a bit lately, like they used to do before when Dad first got sick. They think I don’t know ‘cos they wait till I’m in bed to do it but I can hear them through my wall. It scares me a bit ‘cos I don’t want things back the way they were before. I used to think they would get divorced like James’ mum and dad did, but then it all got better again. Until lately, until I made things bad again.

  After Rae leaves our house that afternoon Dad takes me to the Spiritualist Church in Eadstone to talk to the President. It’s funny – he’s called Tom Little but he’s really a giant. He is much taller than Dad and he has a lot of fuzzy brown hair and when he talks he rubs his nose a lot. I like him though. He’s not a real president, like Barak Obama in America, he’s like a vicar really, but in Spiritualism it’s called being a President.

  Tom gives me a glass of squash and a biscuit and then he asks me to wait in the kitchen while he talks to Dad in the other room.

  Tom

  Chris and Janet had been coming to our church for a few months before I met Richard. They always seemed like a nice couple although Chris could get a bit fired up and kind of zealous during discussions. When Chris rang me that day and asked if he could come and talk to me about his young son’s spirituality I certainly didn’t expect to hear the story that I did.

  Young Richard was really just a little boy at the time and he looked scared to death, I thought. So when I could see that Chris was going to get on his soap box again I took the decision to leave the lad out of it. I left him in the church kitchen with a drink and biscuits and took Chris into the office. And that is where Chris told me the story so far.

  ‘Well,’ I said, when he seemed to be coming to an end, ‘it certainly sounds as if young Richard has a mediumistic ability. But, all mediums, whatever their age, need to learn discipline. When the communication first begins it is very common for the medium to feel completely overawed by it all. I have heard of developing mediums giving messages to strangers in supermarkets and bus queues.’

  This obviously wasn’t the response Chris had wanted.

  ‘But stopping him will be bad for him. Richard wasn’t hurting anyone, he was carrying out the work of the spirit, the most natural thing on the planet. Why should he be punished for that?’

  Although I had some sympathy with the man’s frustration I couldn’t help thinking that he was deliberately missing the point.

  ‘What do you want to happen really Chris?’

  ‘I would like the school to let Richard be himself. When he is himself he sometimes communicates with the spirit world. When he is himself he is happy. I just want them to get off his back and allow him his human rights.’

  ‘Chris, we have to fit in with the society we live in. Irrespective of what we know to be true, society on the whole does not cope well with the concept of life after death and the very thought of communication between worlds frightens many people.’

  “That should not stop us doing it.”

  ‘I quite agree, and never will it. However we have to be sensible and considerate of others as we do it.’

  ‘I think you’re wrong.’ Chris’ face went really pale and he stared hard at me, his blue eyes popping.

  ‘And I think Spiritualists need to stand up and be counted instead of hiding away and apologising for our beliefs,’ he said.

  ‘Then maybe you should become more involved with church activities.’ I suggested. ‘And even become a member of the Spiritualist National Union so that you could have a voice in greater decisions. In the meantime what are you going to do about Richard?’

  For a brief moment I saw an expression I can only describe as torment pass over his face before he answered.

  ‘I don’t know. I just want things to be good again and I don’t know what to do. I was hoping you and the woman from the Education authority could help me with that.’

  ‘Well, if you want me to be there when you meet with her again I am happy to do that. And also why don’t you bring Richard round to see me on Saturday afternoon, I will try to explain to him the things that are happening to him and help him to learn to control them.’

  I would be lying if I said that Chris looked happy with that but he seemed to accept it as a beginning at least.

  When we went back into the kitchen Richard had finished his snack and was sitting at the table with his head rested in his hands. His face was almost as pale as his father’s and my heart went out to this tormented family.

  Rae

  The little red digits told me it was 3am. I saw them a lot at that point; it was around this time every morning that thoughts of Jim being back pulled me from my sleep and invaded my brain. What was he playing at? Where was he living? What did he want? What could I do about it? The tension began in my neck and reached out to my shoulders and began to ache. Usually at that point I got out of bed and crept downstairs to make a milky drink.

  It was coming up to February half term and I realised that a whole week of not being busy was going to send me demented.

  “I need to get away,” I told Barney, who was lying in his basket with only one eye open at the time. Bless him, my disturbed sleeping habit was taking its toll on him too. Where could a woman and a dog go on a short break in winter?

  I turned on my pc to find the answer. I found a great little dog friendly holiday cottage to rent in the heart of the Lake District. As I read the details I became more convinced that it was right for us, there were plenty of walks to be had and lots of beautiful scenery to photograph. I used to love photography but hadn’t given much time or thought to it for years. Maybe I would start again. It felt right so, there and then, I grabbed my credit card and booked it, knowing that if I left till the cold light of day I might talk myself out of it.

  Feeling much better for having done something positive I crept back into my bed at 4am and fell soundly asleep.

  ‘Here’s an interesting one for you,’ Pam placed the red folder on my desk with a pride that suggested she had single-handedly invented me a new case. And so for the next two weeks I entered the world of Sam Jackson, a 12 year old drug runner who would leave school whenever he received a text message detailing his latest hit. The Head genuinely did not want to exclude, he had a soft spot for the charismatic lad and a huge sympathy for his family circumstances. The dealer who was pulling Sam’s strings was his older brother who, at 17, ruled the family with a fist of iron. Sam quickly worked his way into my heart too but it soon became very clear that his fear of his brother was much stronger than his fear of exclusion. And so I helped Sam in the only way I felt would be long term beneficial and made the police and social care aware of the situation. Somehow it didn’t feel good.

  ****

  And then it was half term and I was going off on holiday without another person for the first time ever.

  Packing the case with my warmest clothing and l
oads of reading material I could feel myself beginning to get a little bit excited. Barney was somewhat puzzled to see his bed being loaded into the car and clearly thought I had lost the plot when he saw his food bin get hauled onto the back seat and secured by means of the seat-belt. He began to chase his tail around in circles, his short barks getting increasingly louder as he span.

  ‘I think you need to use up some of that energy before we set out young man,’ I told him, attaching his leash to his collar. Leaving the heavily loaded car on the drive, Barney and I walked to the nearby park where he ran like a young puppy for 20 minutes before remembering that he was a mature dog now!

  Turning the corner back into my street my heart froze; Jim was leaning on the bonnet of my car and looking down the street in my direction. Seeing me he gave a cheery wave, as if we were the best of friends.

  ‘Going somewhere darling?’ he called as I got near enough to hear him.

  I carried on walking towards him in silence. “Keep cool and calm” I told myself, “and make sure you sound strong.”

  As I got close I held my voice very steady and said: ‘Please leave my property otherwise I will call the police.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ Jim acted as if I hadn’t spoken – something he used to do a lot of.

  ‘Please leave my property.’

  ‘I will, when I know where you are going.’

  ‘In case you haven’t noticed Jim, we are now divorced. That means that you have no right to know anything about me, or my life, anymore. Now, please go away or I really will call the police.’ Damn, there was a shake in my voice then.

  ‘When will you be coming back?’