They Came From SW19 by Nigel Williams Page B

he looked in my direction. I had adopted the sort of half-and-half attitude to prayer I had perfected for the rather less intense religious services on offer at Cranborne School, Wimbledon. I sat at a slight angle to the vertical, with my eyes hooded like a hawk’s. This was the only concession I made to the spiritual. You could see this freaked Quigley. Was I on the team or wasn’t I? Was I working for the opposition?
    ‘Motorwayth’, said Emily Quigley, picking up the ball and moving well with it, ‘are an evil, Lord! They blight the beautiful countwythide. Thupport and thuccour uth in our thtwuggle to thtop thith ditheathe that thweatenth the thtandardth of the Thouth-Eatht!’
    She has no shame, Emily. She looks for the nineteenth letter of the alphabet and she works it in whenever she can. Contentwise, however, she had clearly scored a hit. People were nodding as if they all felt this was something that needed saying.
    My mum’s eyes were blinking very fast. She pulled at her straggly grey hair and, in the reedy, worried tones she always used to talk to him, she said, ‘Norman . . .’
    This was clearly something that had to be stopped. The guy had not yet had clearance from air-traffic control and here she was weighing in with a direct address, using his first name. You could tell from the way both Quigleys looked at her that the death of her husband had not improved her standing in the very competitive field of psychic phenomena.
    Mrs Quigley made her move. I felt her hand flutter in mine slightly. And then, one or two firm tugs at my wrist. On the other side of her, Emily started to brace her right shoulder. She knew her mum. When Mrs Quigley goes for it, you get out the protective clothing and nail the furniture to the floor. She is serious business.
    ‘Oh!’ said Mrs Quigley. ‘OH! Oh! Ohhhh!’ We all knew the main show had started. There is a fantastic amount of upstaging in the First Church of Christ the Spiritualist, but nobody was going to give Marjorie Quigley anything to worry about. They knew a class act when they saw it.
    ‘Oh!’ she said, as if someone was pushing a large cucumber up her bum. ‘Oh! Oh! Oh! Ohhhhhhhh!’
    Then she started to tug hard at my hand. I held on as hard as I could, but she was moving into top gear. On her other side, Emily had whipped away her hand as if someone had just passed a few thousand volts through it. Her mum was sort of snaking forward and then bouncing back in her chair, then giving us a few good pelvic thrusts, before starting the whole movement over again. She looked as if she was in the middle of some complex, experimental swimming stroke.
    ‘Oh!’ said Mrs Quigley, as if she was getting used to the cucumber – even, perhaps, to like it a little. ‘Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!
Ohhhhhhhh
!’
    She was bucking like a rodeo rider now. At any seance the rule was always to give Mrs Quigley a good strong chair, because there was no chance it was going to keep its four legs on the floor for any longer than was absolutely necessary.
    On the other side of the table, Quigley was waving his hands. ‘O
Jesus
!’ he was saying. ‘Oh
Jesus Christ
!’
    It was hard to tell whether Quiggers was talking to the Son of God or was merely in a panic at the unexpected violence of his old lady’s seizure. She always gives good value, but this one was a real corker. Everyone else was, quite literally, keeping a low profile. Pike’s profile was so low his nose was hitting the table. Toombs, one hand in my mum’s, the other grasping Hannah Dooley, was getting his head well down between his knees. He looked as if he was about to chunder all over the carpet. Only Marjorie’s old man, who had broken away from his two tablemates and who had bared his lips above his yellow teeth like a nervous horse, was giving it anything at all. But he never fails her.
    ‘O Jesus,’ he said, ‘are you come amongst us?’
    As if in answer to this, Mrs Quigley gave a loud howl and headed for the floor