He said nothing, and she got the distinct feeling he was having a silent conversation with someone in his head.
“Stop it,” she snapped. “
I’m
the one in the room—talk to me.”
He blinked and focussed. “Sorry.”
“Who was it—my father again?” She let the sarcasm ring in her voice.
He shook his head. “I was just thinking… It doesn’t matter.” He got up, retrieved his underwear and pants and pulled them on. His mouth was set in a firm line. Whatever he’d heard, or imagined he’d heard, it hadn’t pleased him.
She went cold. Hurriedly, she finished dressing, slid her glasses on and then walked out of the room.
“Grace, wait.”
She walked down to the hall, collected her books and bag from the living room and returned to take her jacket from the hook.
“Grace.” He caught her arm and turned her around.
She looked up at him. His hair was ruffled where she’d run her hands through it, and he looked rumpled, sated and ever so slightly pissed off. She reached up and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you.”
He heaved a sigh and the pissed-off look evaporated. “You are very welcome, and likewise. I’ll put the payment into your account.”
“Payment?”
“For tutoring Jodi, love.”
“I thought for a moment you were talking about paying me for my services.” They both started laughing. “I’ll see you next weekend?”
He pulled her to him and stroked her cheek. “You promise you’ll come back?”
“How could I not? I’m addicted now.”
He didn’t smile, however, and she knew her eyes were reflecting her unease. “Grace,” he said, pausing awkwardly. “I’m crazy about you—crazier than I’ve been for anyone ever, I think. But you have to understand—I can’t change what I am. I won’t, not after all I’ve been through.”
“I understand.” She took his hand from her face and squeezed it gently. “Nor should you have to.” She slipped on her jacket. “I’ll see you next weekend.”
She left him standing there, went out to her car and slid into the driver’s seat. She knew she would be coming back the following Sunday. But equally, she also knew she needed to sort out in her head what she was going to do about Ash’s strange occupation, and her feelings toward it.
Grace only realised she hadn’t pinned up her hair again when she walked in the house and Mia’s eyes nearly fell out of her head.
“Wa-hey,” said Mia. “You’ve had sex again.”
“Oh for God’s sake.” Grace walked past her into the kitchen, grabbing an elastic band as she went and tying her hair up into a loop, then retrieved some water from the fridge and poured herself a glass.
Mia followed her out and leaned on the breakfast bar, watching her. “Well?”
“Well what?”
“Did you find out any more about him?”
Grace opened her mouth to give her a sarcastic reply, saw the look of concern in her friend’s eyes and sighed, collapsing onto the barstool and putting her head in her hands. “He told me all about it. How he first started seeing spirits. Why he gave up being a doctor. How his wife left him because she didn’t believe in him.”
“Ah.”
“Ah exactly.” She turned her head to look at Mia. “Puts me in kind of an awkward position, don’tcha think?”
Mia studied her. “How do you feel about the things he told you?”
“Confused. Scared.”
“Do you believe him?”
Grace thought about it hard. “I believe
he
believes in what he’s saying.” She gave a growl of frustration. “But I can’t believe he’s lying to me, Mia. He’s too nice, too gentle and kind. Unless I’m being completely blind to obvious signs of deception, and I don’t think I am.”
Mia nodded. “So going by the theory of Occam’s Razor, which is that the simplest explanation is most likely the correct one, he
is
telling the truth. And therefore he
can
talk to the dead.”
Grace bit her lip. “He heard my father’s voice again tonight.”
“Oh my God! What did he say?”
“He wouldn’t tell me.”
Mia pulled Grace’s hand away from her face and forced her to look up. “What did you say to him?”
Grace shook her head tiredly. “I may have been a bit sharp.”
“Grace…”
“I know.”
Mia went quiet for a moment. Then she went into the living room. She came back carrying three squares of paper and put them on the worktop.
Grace spread them out. They were tickets, printed in silver and black on shiny cream paper.
Across the top, it said in bright, bold lettering,
ASH RUTHERFORD
. And underneath it,
Clairvoyant and Medium
.
“What are these?” she asked stupidly, knowing full well what they were.
“Tickets to his show on Friday night at the Michael Fowler Centre. Seven p.m.”
Grace stared at her.
“Me, you and Freya,” Mia clarified.
“Are you kidding me?”
Mia gave an impatient huff. “You’ve got to find out what he does. And what better place than at one of his shows? Anonymously? If he gets up on stage, and it’s all a big act with fireworks and staged performances, well you’ll know what he’s about, won’t you?”
Grace looked down at the tickets. “Part of me doesn’t want to know,” she said sadly. “Can’t I just go to his house and have sex?”
Mia shrugged. “Of course you can. But I think we both know that a) you want more than that, and b) you deserve better than that.”
Grace swallowed. “I don’t want him to be a fake,” she admitted.
“I know.”
“But I don’t want him to be a medium either.”
“Well, sweetheart, he kind of is—that’s like saying you don’t want him to be tall. If you like him, and on Friday he convinces you he’s bona fide, it’s something you’re going to have to come to terms with.”
Grace knew she was right. But it didn’t make it any easier to deal with.
She spent the whole week worrying about Friday night. She would have tried to forget about him and think of other things, but it didn’t help that she taught his daughter four times a week and saw her every morning for form time.
And whereas she’d been starting to think Jodi had been looking happier, this week her worries about the girl crept back. On the Monday, Jodi was quiet but seemed happy enough, but on Tuesday, she had dark shadows under her eyes, and by the time Friday came, she’d turned back into the haunted, miserable girl who had given Grace concerns in the first place. All week, Grace watched her come in and out of class and occasionally studied her around the school, trying to see whether there was any teasing from the other girls, but she saw no sign of it.
She went to the guidance counsellor in the school and asked whether Jodi had been in to see her.
“I called her in,” the counsellor said, “but she told me everything was fine. She swore she wasn’t being bullied, and she insisted everything was all right at home.” The counsellor shrugged. “I can’t do much more, if she doesn’t admit there’s a problem.”
Grace wondered if Ash had picked up that Jodi was beginning to go downhill. He’d left messages at the school three times asking to speak to her, but once again, she refused to call him back. Calling him back—like sleeping over—meant it was a relationship, and she wasn’t ready for that. Hot sex, yes. Relationship with a medium-stroke-clairvoyant?
Can we take a rain check?
On the last period of the day on Friday, Jodi was present for a change, presumably because Ash was doing a show in Wellington that weekend. Grace caught the girl as she was on her way out. “Everything all right, Jodi?” Grace asked once the rest of the class had filed out.
“Yes, thanks.” But, like tarnished silver, Jodi’s eyes had lost their shine.
“Anything you want to talk about?”
Jodi shook her head and clutched her books to her chest. Her gaze met Grace’s and then slid to the floor.
“Okay,” said Grace gently. “But you know you can talk to me about anything. That’s what I’m here for.”
Jodi nodded. For a moment, she looked as if she were about to speak. But her lips pressed shut and she studied her feet.
Grace gave up. The girl wasn’t going to confide in her today. “I’ll see you on Sunday?”
“Sure.”
Grace watched her leave.
She’s not your responsibility
, she told herself firmly. If she worried about every student in her classes who exhibited signs of stress, she wouldn’t have a single hair left on her head. But it didn’t help. She had more than a passing interest in Jodi now, and she couldn’t brush over the girl’s unhappiness anymore. She would have to give serious thought as to how to discover exactly what was worrying the girl, because if Jodi was worried, Ash would be worried, and that upset Grace much more than she would have liked.
Chapter Twelve
There must have been close to a thousand people in the auditorium at the Michael Fowler Centre.
“Fucking hell,” said Mia as they took their seats. They were sitting near the back and to the left, but had a clear view of the stage, which was currently empty, the scarlet drapes shut, the spotlights centred on a single table with a pitcher of water and glass.
“What did you expect—the village hall?” Freya said impatiently. “I told you he was famous. People come from all over the world to see him.”
Grace took her seat between the two of them, her stomach in a tight knot. This was unreal. When Ash had mentioned his shows briefly, she had indeed pictured him in front of an audience of fifty or so grey-haired women in a dusty church hall. She certainly hadn’t imagined such a grandiose setting, nor had she realised so many different people would be interested in contacting the afterlife. The audience consisted mostly of women, it was true, but there were plenty of men scattered about, and the age range was from mid-teens to elderly. Everyone looked nervous and excited, and there was lots of hushed whispering, as if they were in a giant library.
Grace glanced to her right and saw Freya clutching a picture of her grandmother, who had passed away the year before. “What are you doing?” she asked curiously.
Freya shrugged. “They always say it’s easier to contact your loved ones if you hold something that belonged to them, or a picture of them.”
“Oh.” Grace’s stomach churned. She couldn’t believe she was really there. This wasn’t her world at all. This was a world she had no connection with and no idea about—as alien to her as rock climbing, or DIY, or anything to do with cars.
Mia clasped her hand firmly and Grace swallowed, glad of her reassuring touch. She wasn’t here alone. Mia knew all about what she’d gone through when her father died, and she understood Grace’s deep-seated fears and inhibitions. Freya thought Grace’s reservations about the gorgeous Ash partly comical, partly exasperating, not certain Grace wasn’t somehow putting it on, as if she wanted the attention. Only Mia had any idea how difficult this thing with him was turning out to be.
“Stop fidgeting,” said Freya.
“I can’t help it. I’m nervous.”
“Well, imagine how he feels.”
Grace couldn’t. She stood up in front of a class of thirty students all day every day for a living, but even she couldn’t imagine walking onto that stage in front of a crowd of a thousand people. She knew so little about him. He hadn’t spoken to her about any of this—about how he felt before a show, if the thought of walking out there terrified him or if he was excited by it, if he was nervous that he wouldn’t be able to read anyone, or if he felt confident and certain he’d succeed every time. He knew she hadn’t believed him, and therefore he hadn’t spoken to her about it, because he wouldn’t want her to make fun of him, and rightly so. She retrieved her hand from Mia’s and picked her fingernails. He deserved to have someone who believed in him. Someone who wholeheartedly supported him in everything he did. Everyone deserved that, and the thing she and Ash had going might have been fun—and very hot—but it wasn’t going anywhere. She had to end it, and soon. The realisation was painful but as clear as if it were written on a billboard in front of her. And suddenly she wished she hadn’t come to the stupid show.
Unfortunately, she was sandwiched between Mia and Freya, and they wouldn’t let her go anywhere any time soon. She sighed and studied the stage as they talked across her. She’d never been to any performance like this and had no idea what to expect. Would he come out in a sparkly outfit, like a circus performer? Would he have an assistant with him who gesticulated when he made amazing predictions and encouraged the audience to clap? Would there be fireworks and music?
She was soon to find out, because at that moment, the low-level classical music that had been playing went silent, and the lights on stage moved and focussed on a spot in the centre. The audience fell quiet and everyone sat up in their seats. The curtains twitched and parted, and then Ash stepped out.
Grace slunk down in her seat, although there was no possible way he could have spotted her from where he was. She watched him walk forward to the edge of the stage, her eyes widening as the audience erupted with cheers and clapping. He didn’t have a costume, and there wasn’t a sequin or a feather in sight. He wore dark jeans, a light blue, short-sleeved shirt and Chucks, and his hair was as ruffled as usual. He had a microphone clipped to his shirt, and he looked remarkably relaxed. Actually, he looked devastatingly gorgeous. He smiled and waved, and Grace looked around bemused as the majority of women squealed.