The universe wants to play with you (part 24)

What does weirdness smell like? Sanders asked me yesterday. I had to think about it, ignoring the woman on TV demonstrating a revolutionary new vacuum cleaner, 'Well. I think it's like this, everything strange that has happened to me has had an associated smell, more than a smell I suppose, a taste, a sound, an odd visual feeling but there's more, something intangibly tangible'.

He burst out laughing but it's true. It's just hard to explain. I was thinking of this after I'd got home from work, sitting on the sofa, drinking hot chocolate, cat on my lap, just staring into space (and time) waiting for them to stare back at me.

I couldn't put my finger on it but something was bothering me, somewhere in my mind there was a glint of a thought, an idea, a ghost fragment of information that I needed to know, that was important. I closed my eyes, just letting my thoughts drift to their own place through boxes of memory.

I needed to find out what was hiding there and the memories that came out could be the key. Or not, sifting through the crevices and caverns of my mind often shot me off in the most bizarre directions, usually dead ends or cliff edges.

I remember when my brother Oscar died in childbirth, I was four and a half; we were sitting on the green in front of our house, neighbours were around us and all our furniture, we'd been evicted and mummy was in hospital giving birth. I was sitting on my big sister's lap, Granddad and Dad were talking in whispers, kept looking up the road towards the hospital.

Then we saw Auntie Cadi running towards us, Dad and Granddad jumped up to meet her. I remember thinking there was something really wrong, in the abstract way of a child, as adults never run. Unless they’re playing football and then they run a lot. They shouted at the rest of us to go with them and we set off running towards the hospital, with Ciara was carrying me on her back.

They all looked scared and very probably ridiculous as we rushed up the lane but before we got to the entrance, Cadi led us off into the wood on the right until we stopped in a clearing.

She got us to stand in a circle holding hands and my Granddad started chanting and one by one the others joined, like they’d rehearsed it (which they had and that was why we were standing within a chalk circle).

It was a calm, sunny day but it went cold, a breeze began to blow and I felt the sensation of moving even though we weren’t; instead, it was if the world was moving around us very fast, through a kaleidoscope of colours and sounds, through a tunnel that seemed to be made of bone, into a whirlpool of fragments, all the time getting faster as a mist began to envelop us  as a hissing sound got louder and louder and then it all stopped abruptly and we were still again. No wind, no movement, no noise, until we clearly heard the cry of a baby.

Everyone started laughing and crying and hugging so I joined in despite being totally unaware of what was going on. If they were happy, I was going to be happy too. In those days, I was always keen to join in.

I asked my Dad once, 'What happened to Oscar, did we go back through time'. 'No, the other.' Other what?' 'Space, dimensions, whatever you want to call it.' As he said, for every act of magic, or creation as he called it, there was a price to pay.

In Oscar’s case, his was to become a cynical, arrogant twat who cared for very little except himself and money and believed in nothing.

He could get hysterical if any of us even began to talk about anything slightly paranormal, let alone magic.When he got older, he’d only bring his friends around when he could guarantee there would be no-one else in the house, such was his horror that anyone would meet his weird family.

Maybe the answer to Sander’s question is, it smells like me.

I wanted to go to bed but I started thinking about when I was eleven and we stayed with Nana and granddad Flode. They lived in this run down house in the country, quite big with lots of rooms but crammed full of stuff, books mainly over three or four rooms.

 Staying there was a challenge especially if all of us went but this time it was just me and mum and dad and we went on the train which was unusual. I slept on a camp bed in the garage, surrounded by arcane bits of machinery of unknown  purpose and an ageing parrot who at different times of day and night went into free form chattering in what seemed like ancient language as I lay on the bed drifting away into my imagination.

On the table was my very own copy of the Flode family's magnus opus, The theory of cosmic mischief, which meant it was time for my initiation into the family trade, sorcery, being the only one of this generation who was notably odd. When I told Sanders he almost choked, having visions of ritual sacrifices, chickens, babies, smearing of blood all over me, choking on incense.

Unfortunately, there was none of that, just four grandparents and two parents, talking about my responsibilities to the Flode and Villan tradition, an undercurrent worlds away from Crowleyism, wicca and anything else you care to mention.

Mind you, it was better than being told you had to join the family undertakers business and it did have certain benefits.

I went to bed thinking of parrots, cosmic tricksters and the smell of oil but without feeling any more enlightened.
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At ten to eight, I was sitting in the car, waiting for Sanders to come out. I couldn't help noticing that further down the road, there was a classic Beetle in a horrible greeny colour with blacked out windows; paranoia never sleeps.

Sanders was talking before he'd got inside the car, 'it happened again in the same room but this time, a man came through it, we're going to pick him up from round the corner'.
I just stared at him, 'repeat slowly'.

'In the same room where I saw the doorway yesterday, the alarm went off again. I checked the cameras and there was nothing so I walked down to it and there was a man on the floor. He said he fell off his bed in London and straight into the room. He was definitely freaked out by it and there was no other way he could have got in'.

'So where is he then?'
'Hopefully sat at the bus stop where I told him to go, waiting for us to pick him up'.

'Áre you winding me up Sanders?' 'No, drive round the corner and I'll show you.'

Just as I was starting the car, the beetle shot past, screeching round the corner, so I did the same, Sanders shouting at me, 'I haven't got my seat belt on.'

Round the corner at the bus stop, we saw the bizarre sight of three hairy dwarves trying to pull a man into the car. 'It's him, it's him,' shouted Sanders.

I drove straight at them, sending them jumping, shouting 'open the back door' to Sanders. Eventually, not being a man of action, he did. The man jumped in and I drove off.

'What the fuck was that about? They were dwarves. They tried to kidnap me.' He was slumping into the seat like this was yet another thing for him to endure and it was then I realised it was Corrado Fenn in the car. Now that was even more bizarre than rampaging dwarves.

'How's things Corrado?'

He sat up, suspecting yet more skulduggery, 'How do you know my name? Where are you taking me?'

This was fun. I stopped the car, turned round and said, 'You can't have forgotten me already', flashing my biggest smile.

'Hawthorn! Jesus, I can't believe it. Thank god. I'm safe...'
And he started crying.