Eleanor had no idea how to find a psychic. She wanted one who came with a stamp of authenticity but didn’t know what criteria to apply. She supposed if she moved in different circles, she would know people who would recommend one, like an acupuncturist or a therapist. Instead, she started with the internet. Late on Sunday evening, after she’d retreated to her bedroom to rest and heard Richard go upstairs to his study, she went downstairs to get her laptop and took it back up to their bedroom. She sat with it on her knees on the edge of the bed, tentatively typing in searches, half afraid of what she might conjure up.
The internet was a dark and unforgiving place for this kind of search. She kept finding things that disturbed her – something unsavoury, ghoulish or unconvincing – and having to hurriedly shut down the lid of her laptop before gathering the strength to begin again. The patent falseness of some of the sites, and the air of duped, desperate people that accompanied them, made Eleanor sad and afraid. She scrolled through acres of dark purple, constellations, butterflies, gothic script and headshots. Some of the head shots were unnerving – bald women, leather trench coats, blank stares and bad moustaches – while others looked as polished and bland as television presenters.
But as the same phrases recurred again and again, a kind of logic started to emerge – a story that made sense to her. ‘Does your house make you feel uncomfortable?’ ‘I feel unhappy every time I walk into my house.’ ‘Houses can hold on to negative energy.’ ‘Emotional events can leave imprints in buildings.’ When she read the line ‘Stop wondering if it’s just you’, Eleanor was on the verge of tears. She wanted, more than anything, for it not to be just her.
She settled on an organization that looked more corporate and formal than the others – it was an aggregate of mediums that claimed to work only with the most ethical psychics, which she found reassuring. She rang them the next day, during Isobel’s nap, explaining her situation, her voice guarded and low. The woman on the end of the line behaved as if Eleanor’s story was the most normal thing she’d ever heard. Something inside her collapsed – it was so lovely to be believed.
She was put through to Sarah, a medium who dealt with ‘house clearances’. Sarah claimed she could feel tension in the house even from their telephone conversation, and said she could come and visit the next day at two. Eleanor agreed, while rapidly making plans: she would email her manager and say she had to wait in for an engineer. She would not tell Richard. As she hung up, she told herself this was just another thing to try. She would remain sceptical. But a grain of excitement was beginning to form.
The next day, Eleanor took the children to nursery and then, instead of going to work, went to a cafe. It felt pleasingly audacious having a coffee and reading a newspaper by herself. The excitement mounted. She waited until she was sure Richard and Zoe would have left the house before going home. She got on with household tasks, enjoying the anticipatory jumpy feeling, which curdled to anxiety as it got closer to 2 p.m. Sarah was fifteen minutes late, and Eleanor started to get more and more nervous: she had no idea how long this would take and they would both have to be out of the house before Zoe got home. Her stomach clutched when the doorbell rang; for a second, she thought about ignoring it.
Sarah was overweight, with inexpertly dyed black hair, pale at the roots. It hung down her back, almost touching her waist. A fringe of thin gelled strands arched over her forehead and her eyebrows were painted on. Her white foundation was cakey and uneven; her face looked greasy. She wore a deep purple sheer top with a velvet pattern imposed on it, a long black skirt and surprisingly functional trainers.
‘Oh my God, where is this place!’ she said as she wiped her feet on the mat. She complained about the Overground service and the walk from the station in such a way that Eleanor understood she was to be held responsible. She set her backpack down in the hall. It was childishly small, with a print of the sky: constellations of tiny indistinct stars set against a background of lurid turquoise, purple and pink. It looked incongruous against their skirting boards, next to the buggy; for a moment, Eleanor wanted to ask her to leave. But she waited politely, while Sarah went into the living room and paced slowly round, muttering under her breath. Eventually, she said, ‘This is a bad place. A very bad place.’
Eleanor felt afraid, despite herself. Sarah walked into the kitchen, while Eleanor hovered in the living room, watching from the double doors, unsure if she should follow. Sarah stopped in front of the fridge-freezer and muttered something else, running a strand of hair between her fingers. Then she turned to Eleanor and said, ‘You have a portal in the house.’
‘A what?’
She smiled benevolently, arranging her hair around her shoulders like a cloak. ‘A portal: an entrance place for spirits, from the other side. Not all mediums believe in their existence but I’ve certainly felt them in my time. You may have heard that when people begin to cross over to the other side they talk about a tunnel, a light tunnel? It’s my belief that they’re talking about the pathway between their world and ours, which the spirits use to visit us. And the portal is the entrance to that tunnel – that’s what you have here. It isn’t surprising you’ve been disturbed, with all this traffic. Oh yes, it’s like Piccadilly Circus in here!’
‘And the portal is – here?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Next to the fridge?’
She smiled again. ‘That’s right.’
She walked back through to the living room. ‘I’m feeling good energy here too. Some good spirits have come, come to look after you. I think I’m receiving messages from your father’s mother? Is that possible? Has she passed over?’
‘She . . . yes.’
‘She’s with us now. I’m getting an “A”. Anne? Anna? Alison?’
‘Her name was Marianne.’
‘Ah, there you are, that’s how I heard Anne.’
‘I never met her.’
‘Well, she’s here all right. Here to look after you.’ There was a false kindness in her voice and Eleanor suddenly felt angry, with Sarah for being so unconvincing and with herself for allowing this to happen.
‘So, what do you suggest we do?’ she asked, to conclude it politely.
‘Well, I could do some cleansing spells, but I can’t say they’d do much good unless we closed the portal. I don’t believe anyone could live here with it open.’
‘So can you close it?’
‘I would try.’
‘How much will it cost?’
‘That’s something I’ll have to ask the spirits.’
‘What – really?’
‘I ask the spirits to guide me on everything.’
Eleanor let Sarah out with the same meaningless placeholders she used in shops – ‘I’ll have to think about it, talk to my husband, thank you so much for all your help!’ – and then sat down at the kitchen table. Her latent headache suddenly mushroomed in her skull and she started to feel shaky. She would have to go out. First, she cleared the browsing history on her laptop and deleted the calls she’d made from her phone, pressing her fingers into her temples. She would have to think of something else.