Arthur & George

infant in her arms, as she tries to locate her forsaken husband. ‘Yes, she says her name is June – and she is looking for – R, yes R – is it Richard?’ At which a man rises straight up from his seat and shouts, ‘Where is she? Where are you, June? June, speak to me. Show me our child!’ He is quite distraught and staring all around him, until an elderly couple, looking embarrassed, pull him back down.
    Mrs Roberts, as if the interruption has never taken place, so total has been her concentration on the spirit voice, says, ‘The message is that she and the child are watching over you and taking care of you in your present trouble. They are waiting for you on the farther side. They are happy, and they wish you to be happy until you all meet again.’
    The spirits are now becoming more orderly, it seems. Identifications are made and messages passed. A man is seeking his daughter. She is interested in music. He is holding an open score. Initials are established, then names. Mrs Roberts gives the message: the spirit of one of the great musicians is helping the man’s daughter; if she continues to work hard, the spirit will continue with his influence.
    George is beginning to discern a pattern. The messages conveyed, whether of consolation or encouragement or both, are of a very general nature. So too are most of the identifications, at least to begin with. But then comes some clinching detail, which the medium will often take time searching for. George thinks it highly unlikely that these spirits, if they exist, can be so surprisingly incapable of conveying their identity without a lot of guessing games from Mrs Roberts. Is the supposed problem of transmission between the two worlds no more than a ploy to raise the drama – indeed, the melodrama – until the culminating moment when someone in the audience nods, or raises an arm, or stands up as if summoned, or puts their hands to their face in disbelief and joy?
    It could be just a clever guessing game: there is surely a statistical probability that someone with the correct initial, and then the correct name, will be present in an audience of this size, and a medium might cleverly organize her words to lead her to this candidate. Or it could all be a straightforward hoax, with accomplices planted in the audience to impress and perhaps convert the credulous. And then there is a third possibility: that those in the audience who nod and raise an arm and stand up and cry out are genuinely taken by surprise, and genuinely believe contact has been made; but this is because someone in their circle – perhaps a fervent Spiritualist determined to spread belief by however cynical a means – has passed on private details to the organizers. This, George concludes, is probably how it is done. As with perjury, it works best when there is a clever mixture of the true and the false.
    ‘And now there is a message from a gentleman, a very proper and distinguished gentleman, who passed ten years ago, twelve years ago. Yes, I have it, he passed in 1918, he tells me.’ The year Father died, thinks George. ‘He was about seventy-five years of age.’ Strange, Father was seventy-six. A longish pause, and then: ‘He was a very spiritual man.’ At which point, George feels his flesh begin to prickle, all along his arms and up into his neck. No, no, surely not. He feels frozen in his seat; his shoulders lock solid; he stares rigidly at the stage, waiting for the medium’s next move.
    She raises her head, and starts looking at the higher parts of the hall, between the upper boxes and the gallery. ‘He says he spent his first years in India.’
    George is now utterly terrified. No one knew he was coming here except Maud. Perhaps it is a wild guess – or rather, an exactly accurate guess – by someone who worked out that various people connected with Sir Arthur would probably be here. But no – because many of the most famous and respectable, like Sir Oliver Lodge, have merely sent telegrams. Could someone have recognized him when he arrived? This was just about possible – but then how could they have discovered the very year of Father’s death?
    Mrs Roberts now has her arm outflung, and is pointing to the upper tier of boxes on the other side of the hall. George’s flesh is throbbing all over, as if he has been thrown naked into a bank of nettles. He thinks: I am not going to be able to bear this; it is coming my way, and I cannot escape. The gaze, and the arm, are