6pm
Mum and Dad have gone to see my Uncle
Steve’s band, Spaghetti Funktion, play. Jenny and me are too young to watch a
band, so we’re getting dropped off round Nanny Pam’s house.
Mum wasn’t sure about letting us go to
Nanny Pam’s tonight, because she’s having one of her Ladies nights. I heard
Nanny Pam tell her it would be ok though, because Derek’s put his back out, so won’t be able to perform this time.
When we get to Nanny Pam’s, Maeve answers
the door. Maeve works with Nanny Pam on the fag counter in Tesco. I like her, she tells funny stories. Once she told us that her sister had collected
all the hair from her Alsatian out of the carpet for three years, and then made
a jumper out of it. Another time she said an elephant nicked a Wagon Wheel out
of her handbag at West Midlands Safari park.
A few more of Nanny Pam’s friends from the
fag counter and neighbors are sat in her living room. Nanny Pam is showing them her new dimmer
switch by turning the light off, and then turning it back on really slowly.
6.15pm
Maeve gets a fag out of her purse and
lights it with her rudey naked man lighter. Nanny Pam asks, ‘What the hell are
you smoking? They bloody stink!’ Maeve says she’s got a bit of a cold, so she’s
smoking menthols.
6.45pm
I’m not sure I like ladies night so far. A
cheesy looking lady called Lisa, who smells like the sniffy bits in the Avon
catalogue, is trying to sell some plastic boxes. Nanny Pam’s friends keep
asking her really stupid questions about putting them in the microwave.
7pm
After everyone fills out plastic box order
forms, we go into the kitchen. Nanny Pam has put on a buffet. All the food is
brown, apart from the ham, which is grey.
Cheesy Lisa asks what the triangle things
on the silver platter are. Nanny Pam tells her that they are ‘SAM MO SA’S’. Lisa
nibbles one and starts fanning her mouth. She says, ‘I’m sorry, Pam, but
they’re way too spicy for me. I’m not a lover of Chinese food’.
Maeve makes a joke about the little wrinkly
sausages and her husband. Everyone laughs. I look at Jenny and she’s laughing
too. I know she’s faking though, because she’s going really over the top and
pretending to wipe tears away from her eyes.
7.30pm
The doorbell rings, and Nanny Pam leaves
the kitchen to answer it. When she comes back she says, ‘Ladies, say hello to
Mystic Mickey!’
Mystic Mickey is wearing a baggy suit with
a big collar and has weird hair that is white and spiky.
He says, ‘Now then, ladies, who’s ready to
talk to the other side? When I say are you ready to let the spirits enter, you
all need to say, ‘Yes, Mickey.’ So, are you ready to let the spirits enter?’
We all say, ‘Yes, Mickey’
7.40pm
Nanny pam dims the light, and Jenny and me
sit really close to each other on the puff.
Mickey starts by asking his spirit guide,
Gary, to help him. He says that Gary lives on the other side and can go and
fetch people we want to speak to.
‘Are
you there Gary, Gary are you there?’
I hold Jenny’s hand when Mickey starts
speaking in a weird high voice, ‘I’m here Mickey, and I have someone with me.
He wants to say that he’s having a cuppa and he’s happy now.’
Nanny Pam’s neighbour Maureen, says it sounds
like her husband, Ron.
Mickey says in his normal voice, ‘Gary, do
we have Ron with us?’
Then, he says in his weird voice, ‘It is
Ron and he wants to say that he’s ok and he’s remembering a holiday that they
had somewhere hot. Was it Spain…Portugal…Greece?…’
Maureen starts crying and says, ‘Wales…
he’s talking about our holiday in Wales.’
Mickey says, ‘Yes, that’s right Wales!
Anyway, Ron wants you to know the dinners are alright up here, but they’re not
as nice as yours. He’s got to go now, though. His favourite program is about to
start on the telly.’
Maureen says, ‘But he only really liked the
snooker, and that’s not on for another month…’
Mystic Mickey replies, ‘Ron says the
schedules are different up here.’
8pm
After Cheesy Lisa has spoken to her Great
Aunty on the other side and Maeve has spoken to her dead budgie, Mystic Mickey starts
going on about Gary being tired and
needing to pack it in for the evening.
Everyone goes back into the kitchen for a
drink. Me and Jenny watch Mystic Mickey sniff a samosa and eat six vol-au-vents,
while Maureen asks him all about Ron and whether he’s met another woman on the
other side.
9pm
When everyone’s gone, me, Jenny and Nanny
Pam snuggle up on the sofa. I ask Nanny Pam if she was sad that she didn’t get
to speak to anyone. Nanny Pam says she’s not arsed, because everything Mickey said
was a load of crap... it’s never hot in Wales.
Nanny Pam promises that when she dies
she’ll come back and haunt us herself, so we don’t have to waste forty quid on
Mystic Mickey.
