rose. When I got to the shops I went to buy my usual white flowers but was drawn to the yellow roses. Why was I buying flowers for a woman I’d never met?
On the way over in the car, Debbie and I chatted about which of our deceased loved ones we were hoping to visit. Would any of our relatives really come and chat to us through the medium?
Perhaps our Nan would come through or maybe Mum’s lovely friend Pat who had passed just six months before, and was still very much in our minds. Wouldn’t it be great if Uncle Eric made an appearance? He was such a funny man and we missed him such a lot. We chatted excitedly about what might or might not happen, and in no time at all we pulled up outside the medium’s house.
Sandra was a small lady and she explained how she’d been ‘poorly’. She made us a cup of tea in her very tiny kitchen, and as an unexpected bonus Sandra had her friend Janice helping out for the night. It looked like we were going to have two readings for the price of one.
Embarrassed, I handed over the plant to Sandra. She seemed pleased but confused. I found myself mumbling about how I’d felt drawn to buy her the flowers but I didn’t know why. The medium explained that a dear friend of hers had always bought her yellow flowers when she’d visited. She felt that the roses were a gift from ‘spirit’. I wondered if a passing spirit had manipulated me into buying the plant or if it was a wild stretch of my imagination. Perhaps it was just me after all?
Janice waited patiently before handing Debbie and me a sheet of paper each. Each sheet had a circle drawn in the middle. We were intrigued as pots of paint sat on the table. She sat us down and had us drop splats of paint into the middle of the paper. We had no idea what we were doing or why, but it was a lot of fun. She carefully folded the paper in half and smoothed the two sides together before opening them up and giving us both a reading based on the smears of paint on the paper. I have to say that it just looked like a big smudge of colour to me but she seemed to see something else.
‘Look at the angel shape on the paper,’ said Janice (I couldn’t really see it). ‘Look, can you see, it looks like angel wings … and lots of purple, that’s a very spiritual colour.’
Hmm, interesting. She wasn’t to know that I had already started collecting angel stories with the idea that one day I might write a book. Maybe she could read something in the paint after all. How disbelieving I was in those days.
We hadn’t yet finished our tea but as we’d finished our paintings we were keen to get on with our other reading. We followed the medium and her friend upstairs to a small bedroom with a sofa, a smaller armchair and a collection of small tables; there were even chairs and a cupboard crammed into the tiny space. This was the reading room.
She looked so normal. I guess I didn’t know what to expect but if I’m honest I suppose I was a little surprised she wasn’t wearing a purple cloak with stars on it and a pointy hat. Sandra started her reading.
‘I have a woman here. She’s quite snooty, stuck up. No, that sounds rude and I feel embarrassed now that I know she can hear me say that. Sorry, love. I don’t mean stuck up, I mean posh. Oh dear … well, you know what I mean.’
We laughed and she continued.
‘She’s very well dressed and she’s showing me that she liked nice things and expensive holidays.’
We both leaned forward on the tiny sofa. This was good stuff and we looked at each other before nodding in agreement. This person sounded familiar.
‘She’s showing me a ring.’
‘Um, maybe,’ Debbie added.
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I think I understand.’
Mum’s friend Pat had given my mother a brooch and a gold ring set with a large crystal stone about two years before she died. It seemed a strange thing to do because Pat was several years younger than my mother and I remember thinking at the time that it was more usual to hand down jewellery rather than hand it up. But Pat had sons rather than daughters of her own. Maybe she thought that the pieces might go to her friend’s daughters after she passed? I’d hoped so, as she was like an aunt to us, and it would be natural for Mum to pass us the jewellery at some future date.
The stone in the ring looked like a large solitaire diamond and we jokingly called it the ‘Elizabeth Taylor’ ring. It was a ring I had coveted a lot and I occasionally borrowed it. I secretly wondered if this was the ring she meant, but I was wary of giving anything away so said nothing. My Mum promised to leave it to me in her will, but I teased her that I would get a real diamond instead.
‘Hang on, I’m getting a name now. Pat?’
Debbie and I both slumped back on the sofa in relief. It was Pat! How exciting that she’d given us a great description but then the name too. I was impressed, it wasn’t as if she’d given us a whole list of names … just the one. The medium smiled and we stopped and had a mouthful of tea before she carried on.
I looked around the room. It was fairly dark and dusty in Sandra’s spare room. I knew the medium had been unwell for a long time and when I looked at her now she looked frail. A twinge of guilt hit me in the stomach. Sandra had put off our appointment twice due to ill health and I remembered how anxious I’d felt for our visit, feeling a little cross inside about the inconvenience of the delay. She had a long waiting list and each cancellation meant another wait of several months.
Now as I looked around the room I wanted to search out a duster and rush around the room with it, to help her in some way. But I knew if I’d have even mentioned such a thing I would have totally offended her. The poor woman. Of course she would be offended. What did the dust matter anyway, she wasn’t bothered by it so why should I be? Random thoughts flickered through my mind as I heard gentle chatter in the background. For a moment I just totally zoned out. She was talking to my sister Debbie.
Unusual objects seemed to have been left in the room. A sweater was folded over the back of a chair and a strange newspaper cutting was propped up on the mantelpiece of what would have once been a fireplace. Also on the mantelpiece was a pair of mismatched glasses: one was a wine glass and the other a short tumbler. They seemed out of place. Had someone had a drink and left the glasses in the room? Both had been decorated with glass paints in bright reds and orange. The room was a little untidy and I guess I had wanted mystical chic.
You don’t comment on other people’s things unless you are going to say something nice and I couldn’t think of anything to say which would have made any sense. I realized I had been staring and someone was talking to me. I turned back to face the medium and I smiled as she handed me a pack of tarot cards.
‘Shuffle the cards, dear, and place eight of them on the table. No make it ten, no fifteen.’
Debbie and I looked at each other. We were excited and bemused.
‘Yes that’s it, place them face down on the table. Ok now turn up the first two or three.’
She began talking again and I blurred in and out. Debbie was furiously scribbling notes for me whilst the medium gave me a reading from the tarot cards. I felt that the reader was using the cards more for my benefit than her own. As I turned over each card at her request I noticed she didn’t even look at them.
‘I see you writing,’ she said. I nodded. ‘Writing a book. In fact, although it’s going to be slow at first, eventually you’re going to have more work than you can handle. You’re going to write a lot.’
I
