The Drowning of Arthur Braxton. Caroline Smailes

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       Madame Pythia and Ada Harvey:

      As the weeks go by I’m starting to get into a routine, knowing who to expect on what days and having my favourite clients, clients I proper look forward to seeing. There’s this woman who comes here to The Oracle every Monday evening. She has a block booking of the six o’clock slot to see Madame Pythia. She’s called Ada Harvey. She’s probably thirty but she’s got what Mum would call ‘an old face’. I think that’s because she was ill a few years ago and is still recovering. Ada knows my name and she’s really kind. If she’s baked on the Sunday afternoon, she’ll bring me a scone or a fairy bun wrapped in a piece of kitchen roll, with a bit of sellotape wrapped around it to keep it fresh and clean. Sometimes she asks me to go in with her when she sees Madame Pythia, but Madame Pythia won’t let me. She says it’s no good for me to learn the ways of the water-healers. She says that I don’t have no gift and that I won’t be around long enough to care how it works. That’s fine with me, I mean I’m getting a bit fed up of all the flashes of titties and willies I get to see around here. I think it’s put me off for life.

      Ada Harvey’s just come in.

      ‘Laurel, you know how I’ve been having trouble with the hubbie since that last family heal?’ she says.

      I nod but I didn’t know, not really.

      ‘Well I was making my scones and I ended up flabbergasted,’ she says and hands me a scone wrapped in kitchen roll with pictures of cats on skateboards on it. I look from the cartoon images, up to her. She continues, ‘He’s only gone and suggested that we should come to The Oracle as a couple, try again. I think he’s intrigued.’

      ‘A lot of people are,’ I say. ‘Thanks for my scone,’ I say.

      ‘To be honest, I think he’s worried that he could have done more to save his mam. She died from breast cancer fifteen years ago,’ Ada Harvey says.

      Then the door to the Males 1st Class pool swings open. Mrs Winter comes out. She’s sobbing. She doesn’t even look at us, she just carries on sobbing and walking proper slowly out through the main entrance and down the steps to the seafront.

      ‘Looks like she had a good session,’ Ada Harvey says, pointing after Mrs Winter. ‘You know we had that family healing a while back?’ Ada asks. I shake my head. ‘Must have been before your time.’

      ‘Was it all that you expected it to be?’ I ask, not really knowing the right words to use.

      ‘Oh Laurel, it went okay, just okay. The hubbie was a little disappointed. I think he expected to see some phenomenon, like Madame Pythia walking on water or something,’ Ada Harvey says and then laughs. I laugh too. ‘Do you know how it all works?’ Ada Harvey asks. I shake my head. ‘Well,’ she says, ‘we all sat around the pool, with our feet in the water, while Madame Pythia chatted. She assured him that his mam was always with him, that she was no longer in pain and that she was clutching her right breast. She tried to explain that at his mam’s level of purification, that she can be in seven places at once. At this the hubbie laughed. So, Madame Pythia told him how recently he’d had trouble with the volume on his car stereo. She told him that it was his mam who’d turned it down. The hubbie went rather pale. I remembered as well how the volume of music in his car kept reducing, to a normal level. I mean the hubbie likes to play his music so loud when he drives, but each time he fiddled the volume to high it’d go straight back down quiet. Of course, he assumed that there was something wrong with his stereo. He even took the car to the garage. It was a newish car, a newish stereo and the garage could find no fault. And still, the volume would turn down. So Madame Pythia tells the hubbie how his mam hates loud music.’ Ada Harvey pauses.

      I’ve unravelled the kitchen roll from my scone while she’s been talking. Now I’m lifting it to my mouth. ‘She’s good like a witch, isn’t she?’ I say.

      ‘Exactly like a witch,’ Ada Harvey says and laughs. ‘Madame Pythia told us that our son was specially gifted. Of course I smiled. The hubbie said something about how she was playing with my ego and with my emotions. She told us of how in a previous life, he was actually my sister. Then Madame Pythia told the hubbie to strip naked and get in the pool. While he did she described his character perfectly.’ Again Ada Harvey laughs, then pauses, watching me devouring the scone.

      ‘Are you hungry Laurel?’ she asks.

      I nod.

      ‘Do they not feed you here?’ she asks, looking me up and down. ‘I’ll bring you more next week,’ she says, placing her hand on my arm. ‘Madame Pythia said how the hubbie was moody and stubborn. She explained that this was because he carried the spirit of a policeman who had died young, who had not accepted his physical death. She told him how, although this spirit was largely positive, he was guiding the hubbie down certain paths, that it was the spirit’s inability to accept his death that was causing the moods, the stubbornness and resentment within the hubbie. She said that’s why he needed to let the water heal him.’

      ‘And your husband is a policeman too?’ I ask.

      ‘Yes, Laurel, the spirit must have guided him into that profession.’ Ada Harvey laughs and then continues. ‘Then, Madame Pythia asked if we would like to see the spirits that were with us. My husband shouted yes, with perhaps too much enthusiasm. And so the spirits appeared in the water. I swear I saw their faces popping up – one, then another and then another. But my husband was blocked and could not allow his eyes to see. He saw nothing and that’s what’s making him angry. He thinks I’m making it all up.’

      ‘Madame Pythia told me that there are some who are blind,’ I say. Then the door swings open and Madame Pythia stands tall in her violet dress.

      Madame Pythia shouts, ‘Laurel, show Ada Harvey in.’