15
The Voice of the Wind

Hannah and Pip sit side by side on the swing seat with Finnegan across their laps. I realize that the children are the first real visitors I’ve had at the bungalow.

Hannah seems more than a little irritable about having the boy so close, but Pip pulls off his old boots and settles in like he’s swinging in heaven.

I love the early evenings in this part of the world – when the heat of the day has softened but it’s still warm enough to sit in your shirtsleeves and listen to the song of the crickets and smell the blossom in the air.

The two of them rock backwards and forwards, forwards and back, and when they are quite settled I begin my story. I take them right back to the Old Country where I was born . . . ‘It’s a colourful tale,’ I tell them, ‘and the way my parents met was more than a little romantic . . .

‘See, between the wars my father worked in the theatres of Dublin. He had his own show three nights a week and people flocked to see him. He worked under the name “Morrow the Mesmerist”.’

‘What’s a mesmerist, Jack?’ asks Pip.

‘Well, Pip, a mesmerist is another name for a hypnotist, and my father was the best in the business. He never had a night without a full house. At one time Morrow the Mesmerist was the most famous stage hypnotist in Ireland – maybe in the whole world.

‘My da specialized in fast techniques of hypnosis such as his incredible “handshake induction”. Here’s the way it works – maybe you can picture this, Hannah . . . There’s five hundred or a thousand people in a gorgeous theatre on a Saturday night. When everyone is settled, the house lights go down and my father enters the stage in almost total darkness. He was a small fellow, but good-looking – like me! – and with a colossal stage presence. He stands in the dark with nothing but a few candles below his face. Now, my da had the same thing with the eyes as me, so you can imagine the effect. He says absolutely nothing at all, and after a few moments everyone stops chattering and the whole theatre falls silent, and there’s not one person in the room who isn’t staring at him.

‘“I’d like a willing volunteer,” he says, ever so quietly. Loads of people raise their hands. Then a spotlight plays slowly around the audience and my father is selecting “his man”, or “his lady”. Exactly what qualities he’s searching for I’m not about to reveal, but what he’s not looking for is the drunk fellow who wants to show off to his friends, or the shy girl who’s being pushed forward by her girlfriends. It’s like I told you, there are certain people who are naturally susceptible to hypnosis—’

‘Like me!’ says Pip.

‘Like you, Pip . . . and my father and I can spot them a mile away. When I was a nipper, we used to play a game down Drumcondra road. “Is that one, Da?” I used to say. “Is that one there?”

‘In the theatre Morrow the Mesmerist picks out his “mark”. Let’s say it’s a quiet but confident lady in her thirties. Well, right from the start Da has blocked out the rest of the audience and he’s fixed straight onto her eyes. She comes forward down the aisle and the audience are making a hell of a din, but there’s not one second when he hasn’t got those startling eyes locked right onto hers. She approaches the steps in front of the stage, and – this is important – my father reaches out his hand to help her up . . . It’s an invitation, see! As far as anyone can tell he’s helping her up the steps, but what’s he’s actually doing is asking permission to control her mind . . . Are you with me, so far?’

Their wide eyes tell me they are.

‘Now, what you have to understand is that by accepting his hand and stepping onto his territory, the subject has given her consent. In the few seconds it takes her to climb the steps, my father begins whispering to her – he’s imparting a whole series of what we call “subliminal commands”, so that by the time she stands on the stage, the transaction is complete and our quiet but confident lady is in a deeply hypnotic state—’

‘Jack! Jack – that’s what you done with Erwin!’

‘Exactly, Pip. It was the same thing. I used the old “handshake induction”. I invited him up here on the deck, and when he took my hand, he was actually giving me permission to put him into trance.’

‘He was lying right here,’ says Pip. ‘Exactly where we’re sittin’ now. You shoulda seen it, Hannah!’

‘In the theatre two dramatic spotlights pop on – one on my father, and the other on the lady, who looks for all the world like a dummy in a shop window. By now, you could hear a pin drop in the auditorium.

‘There are plenty of stage hypnotists who’ll do all manner of foolish things to entertain their audience – they’ll get their subject to bark like a dog, or take their clothes off, or cluck about the stage like Zachery’s hens! But Morrow the Mesmerist never lowered himself to that. He was a professional! He was a genius! My father would never humiliate people – on the contrary, the point of the show was to reveal the hidden talents we all carry inside. Why, I have seen the shyest of people belting out opera tunes in front of a crowded theatre, or speaking in languages they didn’t know they had. The most extraordinary feat of all was what my da called regression. Regression is where a subject is taken back through the years to their childhood and even – so my father believed – into past lives!’

Hannah and Pip swing their bare toes in unison, backwards and forwards, forwards and back, and I see they are right with me in the foggy gaslit streets of old Dublin . . .

‘Well, the story goes that one evening, long before my six siblings and I were even a glimmer in those amazing eyes, Morrow the Mesmerist heard that a rival hypnotist had set up another show in a theatre not two streets away. He was more than a little irritated because people were forever copying his ideas. So my da decides to investigate – he buys a ticket, and on his next night off he pops round the corner to see a performer calling herself “The Voice of the Wind”.

‘Well, all I can tell you is his annoyance quickly changed to delight – in fact he was literally entranced by what he saw! As I’m sure you’ll have guessed, The Voice of the Wind was the wonderful woman who became my mother.

‘Ma was a performer through and through. She loved to dress in fancy clothes, bless her! She adored veils and bangles and exotic costumes with backdrops of pyramids and whatnot. The long and the short of it was that, for the first time in his life, Morrow the Mesmerist fell under a woman’s spell!

‘See, my mother had developed a truly sensational act in which she hypnotized not just a couple of volunteers . . . Ah no! My mother hypnotized the entire audience! I witnessed the act many times, and I can tell you it was something to behold! Every night of her life the punters would leave slapping their heads and rubbing their eyes with disbelief. What’s more, it was the real thing – no tricks; no illusions. The thing I’m trying to tell you is that both my ma and my da possessed that rare thing we call The Gift. In Ireland it’s sometimes known as “The Charm” or “The Cure”, but we Morrows always called it The Gift.

‘My mother was a star all right, but more than anything, it was that voice! I can hear it now – My voice is the voice of the wind . . . My voice is the voice you have always known . . . the gentle whisper of the trees and the soft roll of the waves on the shores of Kerry . . . My voice will accompany you deep into trance . . . and so on. My father adored it, and from the moment I was born, so did I.

‘After the show my father managed to charm his way into her dressing room. He stood a head shorter than her, but she knew the reputation of his act. Within a month they had combined their talents, and for many years to come “Morrow and The Voice of the Wind” performed to capacity crowds in famous theatres in London and Paris and all over the world. I have a photo of the two of them entertaining wealthy passengers aboard a famous ship called the Queen Mary.

‘And that’s how they met. And for their next act they conjured up seven healthy, happy babbies, of which I, Jack Morrow, was the last! As soon as we were old enough to totter, my parents began to teach their children every secret they knew. But it was only the seventh of those seven children who truly had The Gift.

‘However, as I grew up, I realized that I did not want to be a performer. I was a bookish lad and, to be honest with you, I suffered from terrible stage fright. Although I never told my parents, I was being bullied at school on account of my eyes and diminutive height, and that didn’t help my confidence. As I got older and found my way in science, I became more self-assured, but the theatre was never for me. After school I got a place at Trinity College to study Psychology and set out on my lifetime’s work of combining scientific study with the mysterious art of hypnosis.

‘After university I had my own hypnotherapy practice in a cosy little office in Lower Baggot Street with a magnificent chestnut tree outside the window. As a therapist, I was able to help half the population of Dublin with their eczema, their smoking, their fear of flying or public speaking. You name it, Jack Morrow sorted them out. And I often used the old regression technique, to unravel the source of their suffering.

‘But I always felt I was capable of more. And then, one day, I was sitting on the top deck of a bus, browsing through a magazine called Scientific American – which I had sent over each month from New York at great expense – when I came across a great little article about a state-of-the-art Neurology Department they were constructing in a new university down here in the Southern states of America. That very day I sent them a letter, and to my utter joy I was invited for interview and accepted as Head of Department.

‘And that’s how I ended up sitting in front of you in the evening sunshine on this very deck. It’s a grand job and the people I’ve met are some of the kindest I’ve known. But there are things I don’t like here . . . You’ll know what I’m talking about, both of you . . . The Jim Crow Laws and all that.’

‘Ain’t they got that back home, Jack?’

‘It’s a good question, Pip, and sad to say there’s prejudice all over the world. Like a lot of Irish people, most of my sisters and brothers emigrated to England in the fifties to look for work, and they suffered terrible prejudice there. There’s even a special word for it: Hibernophobia, which means prejudice against the Irish. Believe it or not, advertisements for jobs and flats in London often say No Irish need apply. Every Irishman knows about prejudice, and that’s why my heart goes out to you and all the oppressed people in this cruel world. The American Constitution says that all people are created equal, and that’s what I believe. If you keep coming to my little lessons, I’ll teach you about a very great fighter for equality named Martin Luther King Junior . . .

‘But Dr King will have wait for another day because right now Hannah looks like she’s falling asleep. So there we have it – that was the tale of The Voice of the Wind, and that’s the end of school for today. Before you go, I have a little something for you . . .’

I give them each a satchel. Inside are the Flintstones pencil cases, a pen, a bottle of ink, and a couple of children’s books borrowed from the library. I can’t tell you how much I enjoy seeing their faces beam with pleasure, and more so when Pip finds that his Great Expectations fits inside, as snug as you please.

‘Don’t ever forget,’ I tell them, ‘your names are linked. Pip and Hannah – palindromes, see. You stick together forwards and backwards. You keep an eye on each other and I’ll keep an eye out for you.’

Then Hannah begins writing something in her new exercise book:

tank yu mista funi is

It takes a moment, but by now I am getting the hang of it. ‘Thank you, Mr Funny Eyes? Is that what you’re saying? Well, thank you too, Hannah. And you’ve got lovely, magical eyes. Now be on your way, you rascals.’

I watch them cross the dirt track in the evening light, just as school pupils do all across the world. And I see Hannah do something that I had done myself as a small kid – she puts the strap of her satchel around her forehead, with the bag slung across her back, and she balances it just like a Chinese water carrier. Pip watches her and it is clear that he simply cannot contain his admiration and delight at every last thing she does. The boy is in love – it is written all over his face!

Long after they have gone I sit buzzing with excitement. If hypnosis isn’t your thing, you may not quite understand what I have witnessed – I’m talking about the susceptibility tests on Pip. To put it in perspective, it is the equivalent of, say, a sports coach spotting a future Olympian athlete in their team; a music teacher discovering a child prodigy; or an art teacher who finds a young Picasso at the classroom easel.

That boy, Pip, simply has it – that thing my da and I were always searching for on the streets of Dublin. I knew it from the moment I saw him, but now it was confirmed. I had promised that I would consider putting him into trance, but in truth there had never been a moment’s doubt. I couldn’t wait to see where his mind would lead.

As I cook my evening meal, with Finnegan twirling around my legs, I feel optimistic about the world. I had enjoyed my first lesson with Hannah and Pip more than I expected. I had received a message from Professor Cerberus telling me how much he had enjoyed my little show with the ice bath. It seems that Cerberus wants to talk with me in his office – that’s exciting, isn’t it? I’m thinking promotion . . . I’m thinking pay rise . . . I’m thinking of phoning home and having a little brag!

But sadly nothing in this life is perfect. Late that night, an unpleasant sound rumbles into my dreams. Still half asleep, I feel as if my bed and the whole bungalow are vibrating with the drone of approaching engines.

And sinister headlights dance on the walls.