A Tall Man With Sticky-out Ears, A Gammy Leg And A Black Eye Carrying A Mannequin And A Rubber Plant (Part One)

© 2013 David Jasmin-Green

“Thank you so much, young man,” the elderly woman said as they reached the stairway leading to the flats over the shops where she lived.

“It's no problem, honestly,” Raymond replied. “I was coming this way anyhow, and I don't know how people can walk straight past someone when they can see they're struggling.”

“I don't normally struggle, I have a shopping trolley, but this morning one of the damned wheels came off, and I can't put it back on.”

“You want me to carry your bags up the stairs?”

“No no, don't worry about that, I'll manage.”

“Don't be silly, it'll only take a minute.” Shortly afterwards they were standing outside the woman's flat. “If you want me to see if I can fix the wheel on you're trolley I'm more than willing to help.”

“Really, it doesn't matter,” she said, unlocking her door, and Raymond placed the bags in the hall. “My nephew comes and sees me sometimes, maybe he'll fix it. If not I'll ask Mr. Hosking, the landlord, though he can't see much better than I can. Here, take this as a token of my appreciation,” she said, handing Raymond a fiver.

“No, I don't want it! I was doing you a simple favour, I didn't expect any reward.”

“I'd feel much happier if you took it.”

“No, I really can't.”

“Then at least allow me buy you a cup of coffee and a slice of cake in the café downstairs – Reno, the owner, is a lovely man.”

“I can't eat the cake, my mum will have dinner ready when I get in and she always gives me a mountain of food, but I'd love to have a coffee with you.”

*************************

A few minutes later Raymond and Mrs. Madleigh, having made their formal introductions, were sitting at the table under the window In Reno's. “So how are you getting on with your studies, Raymond?”

“I don't remember telling you I was studying.”

“Of course you did, you told me you that were in the second year of your degree course at Aston University, you're doing a combined English language and literature course.”

“I don't believe I did.”

“No, you didn't tell me any such thing – it was naughty of me to toy with you. I'm, erm, how shall I put it..... I'm slightly psychic, Raymond. How does that sound?”

“Slightly psychic? No offence, Mrs. Madleigh, but it sounds slightly crazy to me.”

“It sounds crazy to the majority of the population, but nevertheless that's the way it is. A tiny percentage of the human race really are psychic – they tune in to some vast reservoir of past, present and future information that, according to conventional science, doesn't exist, cannot possibly exist, and even if it did there would be no way of tapping it. Psychics prove their abilities every day to the few borderline scientists that dare to openly study the paranormal, or supernormal as some people prefer to call it, but conventional scientists sit like the three wise monkeys and refuse to see, hear or speak the obvious truth.”

“Prove to me that you're psychic, then,” Raymond said, sipping his coffee.

“All right, I will. Your mother's name is Miriam, she's Jewish and her maiden name was Cohen. Her first husband, who was killed by a bolt of lightning during a freak storm on a beach in Anglesey in 1981, was called Rupert Jarvis. He was your biological father, but as she met your stepfather before you were born your mum decided to christen you Raymond Rupert Thompson. You detest your middle name, even though it's the only keepsake of your father you have, and in your book the less people know about it the better..... Your favourite colour is yellow. Your birthday is June the sixteenth. You have a scar on your abdomen where your appendix was removed when you were fifteen, you were circumcised four years earlier and you also have a scar on your left buttock where you were injured on a steel security fence as you tried to escape from a group of older boys that chased you when you were nine.”

“Hang on, hang on – you could go on all day dishing out personal information about me, but it wouldn't prove anything. You could be one of these memory freaks who can remember just about anything, or you could have spent months asking other people about me – it's surprising what you could find out if you really wanted to.”

“Raymond, is that likely? We've never met before, and prior to today I had no knowledge of you at all – nothing – and you know that as well as I do.”

“Maybe so, but you can't prove it. To prove that you're psychic you have to predict the future.”

“And if I predict the future you'll believe that I'm psychic?”

“Yes - yes, I suppose I will.”

“In approximately a minute a number fifty nine bus will pull up at the stop over the road. A very fat lady will get off. She'll be wearing a dark blue dress and a red coat, and she'll have a bandage around her..... her left knee. A little girl about seven years old will accompany her, and the little girl will have long ginger hair in plaits nearly down to her waist.”

“Right. Let's see, shall we?” Presently a fifty nine bus did pull up, and an awful lot of people got off. Amongst the last few was a very fat lady and a little child, and they fit Mrs. Madleigh's description down to the bandage on the woman's knee. 'They probably get off the same time every day,' Raymond mused, and the old woman smiled knowingly at the disbelief in his eyes.

“As the woman drags the child across the road she'll drop her sweets, a car will run over them and she'll burst out crying.”

“The woman grabbed the child's hand and made a run for it to beat the solitary vehicle that was coming the other way, a black taxi cab. The little girl dropped her Opal Fruits, the wheels of the taxi flattened them and the kid started blarting.

“Very impressive. Show me more.....”

“That's not enough?”

“Maybe it is, but I'd like to see more. The only thing you couldn't have predicted if you know this road pretty well, which you obviously do, is the kid dropping her sweets, but that could be a lucky guess.”

“Oh ye of little faith. Right, let's see what's hot off the ethereal presses. You see that bench over there with the chubby teenager sitting on it? It's unfortunately placed because it has a lamp post overhanging it, which is a favourite perch for town pigeons, or rats on wings as I prefer to call them. Watch, the girl will get up in a mo and wander off. To the left, I believe. A man with a tattooed head and face and a boy about twelve years old will approach with fish and chips, they'll sit on that bench and the boy won't get very far before a pigeon shits in his food.”

“You sound very confident, Mrs. Madleigh, but that can't possibly come to pass just as you say it will.” Soon the teenager stood up, picked up her bags and wandered off to the left. A minute later a man with a shaved head with crude tribal tattoos covering one side and curling around his cheek and eye socket and a young boy sat on the bench unwrapping polystyrene trays of food, which they tucked into with gusto. After a short time the kid threw his food onto the pavement in disgust and pointed at the top of the lamp post, where a couple of not particularly guilty looking pigeons were sitting, and Raymond's jaw dropped in disbelief. “How did you do that? How could you possibly have known?”

“It's easy-peasy lemon squeezy when you have the right combination of genes, my boy, it's something you either can or cannot do. You still don't look completely convinced, though. Now what can we do to remedy that? I can give you an even better example - it's a beauty, in fact, but you're going to have to wait twenty minutes, maybe half an hour until it happens. Drink your coffee, I'll order us another one.”

“No, let me get this one. Until what happens?”

“You really won't believe this one.”

“Try me.....”