I Hear You Calling

By Helen Line

“So, I am nine years old and in year five at school and I am a weirdo. I know I am a weirdo ‘cos all the other kids at school tell me that a lot. The teachers don’t call me weirdo but they do get angry with me, a lot…… Dad and Mrs Wilkes argue sometimes and they both get very angry and me and Mum sit in the middle of them watching, like at a tennis match. And then I get sent home for the rest of the day and when I go back to school it starts all over again.”
Rae Simpson, Education Officer, is struggling to recover from her marriage to a control freak. Richard Banks, 9 year old student, is floundering as he tries to please both his controlling father and his Headmistress. A difficult task, as the very thing that pleases his father is the thing that most puts his school place at risk; Richard gives messages from the dead. Whilst sceptical Rae tries to work with Richard, his overzealous father and a head teacher who thinks compromise is a dirty word, her ex-husband arrives back on the scene. As control rapidly begins to fall away from them both, Rae and Richard find themselves victims of dramatic events that unite them in a way that Rae never thought possible. And now the question is not ‘Can Rae save Richard’s school place?’ but ‘Can Rae save Richard’s life?’  
I Hear You Calling is a fast moving story of love, loss, trust and control that will take you into areas you may never have visited before.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Sep 17, 2018
• ISBN: 9781785897726

Book preview

I Hear You Calling

Helen Line

Copyright © 2016 Helen Line

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study,or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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ISBN 9781785897726

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Matador® is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

To Angela Hale – who believed in me even when I doubted myself and without whom this book would never have made it to the bitter end.

Contents

1.Richard

2.Rae

3.Richard

4.Rae

5.Richard

6.Rae

7.Richard

8.Rae

9.Jen

10.Richard

11.Rae

12.Richard

13.Rae

14.Jen

15.Richard

16.Rae

17.Richard

18.Tom

19.Rae

20.Richard

21.Rae

22.Richard

23.Rae

24.Richard

25.Rae

26.Richard

27.Rae

28.Richard

29.Rae

30.Jen

31.Rae

32.Richard

33.Rae

34.Richard

35.Rae

36.Tom

37.Rae

38.Richard

39.Rae

40.Richard

41.Rae

42.Richard

43.Rae

44.Richard

45.Rae

46.Tom

47.Rae

48.Richard

49.Rae

50.Richard

51.Rae

52.Richard

53.Rae

54.Richard

55.Rae

56.Tom

57.Jen

58.Richard

59.Rae

60.Jen

61.Richard

62.Jen

63.Rae

64.Jen

65.Tom

66.Richard

67.Jen

68.Rae

69.Richard

70.Rae

71.Richard

72.Jen

73.Rae

74.Richard

75.Jen

76.Rae

77.Jen

78.Richard

79.Rae

80.Jen

81.Richard

82.Rae

83.Richard

84.Rae

85.Richard

86.Tom

87.Rae

88.Richard

89.Tom

90.Rae

91.Tom

92.Richard

93.Rae

94.Richard

95.Rae

96.Richard

97.Rae

98.Jen

99.Tom

100.Acknowledgements

It was Tom’s idea that I should write it down – he said it might help me to feel better about it all. When I told Rae that I couldn’t write down everything, ‘cos some of it wasn’t good she said she would write hers down if I did mine. And then she said, ‘Why don’t we both write our stories and then put them together so that they become one story.’

And so we did – but then we saw that there were gaps that only other people could fill in, so we asked Tom and Jen to write their bits.

So this is it – me and Rae, Tom and Jen, telling our stories that became our story.

Richard

I think it all starts with my granny Banks. I am about five at the time and I am lying in my bed, snuggled under the covers and I have been crying because Daddy has been shouting at Mummy again. I can feel the softness of the sheets and the coldness of my pillow against my cheek.

And then I feel the bed dip and I know that someone has sat down on it. I feel a warm hand touch my back and a very quiet voice says: ‘Richard.’

I peep out from under the cover and there’s my granny, sitting on the edge of my bed and smiling at me. Granny Banks is my favourite granny; she is my Dad’s mum and Scottish like he is. I sit up quickly and wipe my eyes on the back of my hands so that she doesn’t see the tears. When Granny smiles her face crinkles up a lot and she closes her eyes a bit. I am really happy to see her and go to give her a hug but she moves away quickly.

‘You have to be strong now boy,’ she tells me. ‘Your Daddy is poorly again and he and your mummy need you to be really good.’

The tears begin to fall again. ‘I don’t like it when he is poorly….he shouts at us and Mummy cries a lot.’

‘I know sweetheart, I know. But things will change, you will see. Just not yet. But you hold on in there and always remember they both love you an awful lot. And so do I, I love you very much.’

‘I love you too Granny.’

I don’t see her open the door to leave but I am probably wiping my tears on my sleeve at the time and miss it. She must have gone downstairs. I need to tell her that I am going to paint her a picture tomorrow, a picture of her garden with all the roses in it.

At the top of the stairs I stop to listen; if Daddy is still shouting and being angry I won’t go down.

It is all quiet, I can just about hear the music from Coronation Street drifting up from the living room. Mummy and Granny Banks love Corrie, they will be sitting together on the sofa staring at the screen without speaking. I push the door open slowly so it doesn’t make a big noise, I am going to creep up behind them and shout ‘boo’ and make them jump. And then I see Daddy; he is sitting on the floor leaning against the armchair and his face is as wet as mine was earlier. Daddy is crying and I stand and stare at him because I didn’t know that Dads could cry. Suddenly I feel very scared and I start to cry again but this time I make a lot of noise. Mummy comes rushing out of the kitchen and picks me up and holds me really close to her woolly sweater that smells of sweetness.

‘Where is Granny?’ I sob. ‘Granny can help Daddy – she’s his mum, she can make him better like you do to me.’

I struggle free from mum and run to the kitchen to find Granny – she needs to come quick. ‘Granny, Granny, Daddy is really poorly. Come quick.’

‘Granny isn’t here Richard,’ Mum is right behind me now. She bends down and picks me up and this time I see her face and she is crying too. She begins to stroke my hair and I can feel her hand shaking. I am very scared now – kids cry all the time but not Mums and Dads.

‘But where is she?’ I ask. ‘She was here in my bedroom and I need to tell her about the picture and she needs to give Daddy a cuddle.’

Mummy stops crying then and stares at me with a funny face. ‘Sweetheart, we have had some bad news – Granny Banks got very poorly this afternoon and she died a couple of hours ago.’

And then Daddy is there, he takes me from Mummy and almost pushes me into the living room. ‘When did you see her? What did she say? How did she look?’

As I tell him everything that happened just a few moments ago in my bedroom Daddy stops crying and starts to smile.

‘She made it,’ he says to Mummy. ‘Bless her, she made it. And you….’ He turns to me and squeezes me so tight I can’t breathe, ‘You, mister, are a very clever medium.’

I have no idea what he is talking about but I am filled with a great warm feeling. Daddy is better and it is because of me.

Rae

I want to start my story in the way that all the best stories start.

Once upon a time there were two sisters whose parents were very clever; they were scientists and worked alongside each other in a huge laboratory searching for a cure for cancer. Busy, important people who really had a lot of love, but very little time, for their two daughters and so Jennifer and Rae spent most of their time together reading books by an author called Enid Blyton. In Enid’s stories families always did things together, they went on smashing picnics and trips to the sea and the children always got tucked up in bed each night; things that never, or very rarely, happened to Jen and Rae.

As the girls got slightly older they moved on to the books of C S Lewis and the world of Narnia. In Narnia the children looked after themselves, there were never any parents in sight, but they had the overall love and protection of the magnificent Aslan. In this world good always overcame evil and, no matter how scary things got along the way, everything always ended up just as it should be.

As the girls grew up Jen also became a sort of scientist, moving into the world of computer science and technology. But Rae never lost the yearning for the magical childhood that she never had and it was this deep need that drew her into teaching and continued to feed her need for the happy ever after ending.

And then I met Jim – hardly tall, dark and handsome, but definitely my knight in shining armour. Or so I wanted to believe. He swept into our staff room one Monday morning as a supply teacher covering year four whilst Mrs Ferguson had her varicose veins treated and, within five minutes, he had the whole room captivated with the hilarious story of his last job. He was warm, he was funny and he loved the kids. He said he wanted a traditional family life and I was sold. Jen asked me much later if I thought I would have rushed into marrying Jim if our parents hadn’t been tragically taken from us in a car accident on their way back from a large medical research conference. Truth be told, I think I probably would have, but there is no doubt in my mind that the way in which he supported me during those few traumatic weeks following the accident cemented my feelings for him.

I loved the way he took charge of everything for me, I was too upset and shocked to deal with it myself and he was my rock. He spoke to my friends when they rang to say how shocked and sorry they were to hear the news, which was great because I didn’t have to try to find the right words or make polite conversation when I didn’t have it in me. He even chose my clothes for the funeral so that all I had to do that day was put them on and let him lead me through the process. And every night I lay in his arms and he told me how much he loved me and how he would always be there for me and I fell asleep feeling loved and protected.

We were married in a quiet registry office with just two witnesses six weeks after the accident.

A few months later, when I started to feel strong again, and was ready to pick up my life Jim told me, very lovingly, that I wasn’t as well and strong as I thought I was, that I was no longer the person I used to be and that I really needed to take things very slowly. He reminded me often that my clothes didn’t match, that I had forgotten things he had told me the night before and that my driving was a little erratic. I hadn’t noticed any of these things but he assured me that not noticing them was part of the symptoms of the state of my mental health. And so I returned to my school on a part time basis and spent the rest of my time at home, resting and restoring my health.

The real rot began to set in a year or so after that, when I was in no doubt that I felt ready to live again and it became a daily battle to convince Jim that this was the case.

He told me he was just concerned for me, that I was so precious to him that he wanted to keep me safe and the part of me that was desperate to hear that told him that he was right, apologised for not appreciating him and gave in to his demands. But the part of me that was growing stronger said I needed to live again and this man was stopping me from doing so.

It took three years before that part of me became strong enough to leave. Three years of inner and outer battling, a time when I doubted my own mind so much that I had frequent panic attacks and got prescribed anti-depressants. And then, one day, when Jim was trying hard to convince me that I really should not attend a colleague’s leaving do because I would only drink too much and make a fool of myself, something inside me went cold. I never did go to that party but I did pack my things and move out.

But the coldness left with me. I was independent, I was free to start again, but I was emotionally numb.

Richard

So I am about seven when the next thing happens. I am lying on the sofa in the lounge watching TV when I hear someone say, ‘Richard.’

‘Yes mum,’ I call out to her in the kitchen. She doesn’t answer so I carry on watching the programme. Then it goes again. ‘Richard.’

I think maybe Mum has hurt herself and is lying on the kitchen floor or something so I jump up and run down the hall. Mum is sitting at the table peeling potatoes in the large yellow bowl. She looks up at me and smiles.

‘What did you want?’ I ask her.

‘Nothing.’

‘But you called me, twice.’

She shook her head and smiled at me. ‘No, I haven’t said a word for the last twenty minutes.’

It happens a few times after that. I hear my name but nobody is calling me.

And then that night, just as I am falling asleep, I hear, ‘Richard, my name is Solly.’

So I am a bit scared to be honest, I get up and back downstairs and tell my Dad.

I think he will tell me not to be so stupid but instead he smiles and tells me not to be scared of Solly, just to try talking to him.

‘But there’s nobody there,’ I tell him.

And then he gives me that smile again, you know that one that grown-ups always give when they know something you don’t know.

‘Just try it,’ he tells me.

Solly used to live in Africa, he was a kind of a leader and he is dead now. He says he is speaking to me because he is going to be my spiritual guide. I ask him what that means and he just laughs, he has a really deep, loud laugh and it makes me smile when he does it.

So, I start talking with Solly every night and Dad starts going to the Spiritualist Church every Sunday. And everybody is happy until Dad gets sick again.

I don’t know exactly why Dad is sick again but I know it is something to do with work. He hardly goes anymore, he is usually at home either not speaking or he is at home shouting at Mum and sometimes me. Mum cries a lot when he shouts at her but when he shouts at me I just start talking to him about Solly and he stops shouting and smiles at me again. Maybe Mum should have a Solly too.

Anyway, Solly is talking to me a lot now. He tells me things about being dead, he says that there is another life that you go to when you die in this one and that is where he lives now. He says when he was a little boy, a long time ago in Africa, he didn’t have to go to school but he had to learn a lot of things from older people in his tribe. A tribe is like a big family. I tell Solly that I wish I could do that because I get teased a lot at school because I have ginger hair.

Solly says that I don’t have to talk out loud for him to hear me, I just have to think the words but usually I forget and say stuff out loud. He says it doesn’t really matter but sometimes I do it when other people are there and they look at me funny. That makes Solly laugh and that makes me smile.

Anyway, now Dad is really into Spiritualism and Mum has started going to the church with him sometimes. I like Sundays because Dad is always happy then.

Rae

I knew I had made a good impression at the interview so I wasn’t too surprised when they offered me the job. One good thing about being emotionally numb is that you don’t feel nervous or anxious or any of those negative things that can stop you doing your best in an interview. The downside of that is that you can’t feel excited when they offer you the position; even so I knew it was a good move to make.

I had never been to the Midlands before, which was a good thing because it got me well away from memories of Jim and the possibility of bumping into him on the streets of London. The job itself sounded interesting and challenging – working with schools, pupils and parents to try to stop exclusions. The job title was a bit cumbersome though – Preventing Exclusions Officer – but I could live with that.

My sister Jen was unhappy about me moving me so far away but she understood my reasons and we agreed to speak all the time on the phone.

One of the first things I did when I moved into my little house in Eadstone was to find a breeder of Golden Retrievers and buy myself a puppy. All of my life I had wanted a dog but neither my parents nor Jim would allow one in the house. And so Barney entered my life and I made a discovery – I could feel love for him. It was obviously just people I didn’t trust anymore.

I was based in a small room within the Education Offices with a secretary and a huge pile of case files. The office was cramped, the files were daunting and Pam, the secretary, was highly efficient. Between us we were charged with attempting to reduce the number of students being permanently excluded across the borough.

In the early days Pam tried hard to befriend me but eventually she got to realise that I was not in the market for anything other than a work relationship and we settled into a pattern that seemed to suit us both. I had been in the job two years when I first heard the name of Richard Banks.

Richard

So, I am nine years old and in year five at school and I am a weirdo. I know I am a weirdo ‘cos all the other kids at school tell me that a lot. The teachers don’t call me weirdo but they do get angry with me, a lot.

Mostly I am just like all the other kids in school; I like football, maths and swimming, just like a lot of the others. But they don’t have a Solly, or if they do, they keep very quiet about it. Mrs Wilkes, the Head teacher, would like me to keep quiet about it too but it’s not that easy; and anyway, Dad says that if I don’t speak with Solly a lot I will lose him and never get to be the medium that I am meant to be.

Dad and Mrs Wilkes argue sometimes and they both get very angry and me and Mum sit in the middle of them watching, like at a tennis match. And then I get sent home for the rest of the day and when I go back to school after it starts all over again.

And then the big thing happens.

So, Mrs Granger asks me and Scott to take the paint brushes in the big red plastic bucket to the toilet to wash them after the art lesson. The bucket is too big to fit into the sink so you have to take the brushes out one by one and wash them under the tap. It’s good to start with cos you watch all the different paint colours fill the sink and then mix together like a little rainbow, red and orange and blue and purple and then they disappear in a swirl down the plughole, but it gets pretty boring after you have done a few.

For a laugh I reach over and put my finger over the end of Scott’s tap and squirt water in his eye as he bent over his sink.

Scott squeals and calls me an arse but he laughs and then he scoops some water into his hand and throws it back into my face.

Then we start throwing the cold water all over each other, having a real laugh.

My school shirt is soaked at the front and Scott’s hair is totally saturated, like he had just dunked his head in the sink. The tiles on the floor are sopping wet and it is getting very slippy in there.

I am laughing so much it hurts so I don’t notice my chest tightening and the hamsters starting.

When it happens my chest goes all funny, like ten hamsters are going round in there on wheels and then stopping to do a bit of break dancing before getting back on the wheels again. I can hardly breathe then.

So then they were are, the hamsters, while me and Scott are laughing and still throwing water.

Don’t, not now, don’t do it to me now, I think. But it is too late.

Behind Scott’s head I see the white tiles on