CHAPTER NINETEEN
A Roller Coaster Year Continues
July to December 1998
In the morning, Kristen told me someone had sat beside her on the bed during the night, caressing her hair, as one does when comforting a child. Thinking it was Tianni, she didn’t think too much of it until she heard Tianni say it was “Granny”. Needing to know more, she asked me to ring Jason McDonald. I knew there was no way she could get an appointment with him that day or even that week, but she was lucky enough to get one for later in the month. When you’re desperate, though, three weeks is a long time to wait. Ann told us about a man at Gordon Park who was supposed to be good so I rang him. He could see Kristen and Ann the next day and Tamara and I the day after.
A reading with Tim was something one had to experience to believe. All I can say is I am grateful he recorded it for it was akin to pieces of a jigsaw puzzle lying scattered in a box. Linear time, he had warned, is irrelevant to Spirit. If he sees or hears something he has to say it when he sees or hears it, regardless of whether it is applicable to the conversation or not. A perfect example of this occurred when he was talking about Che.
In November 1997, he finished up with the labour hire company he was working for when he was offered a renewable six-month contract directly with Queensland Rail. He was so happy, but by July 1998, having had his contract renewed, he developed a cavalier attitude to his good fortune. Afraid he could jeopardise his future prospects with QR, I asked Tim if he would sort himself out. In the middle of a sentence, Tim suddenly asked if somebody had hit him. Not as far as I knew, I said. When I asked why, he said he could see Che with his hand on his face, saying: “My jaw hurts”. Thirteen months later, almost to the day, Che had been hit and he did have his hand on his face, saying: “My jaw hurts”. My first thought was: Where have I heard that before? When it came to me I was stunned for I had dismissed Tim’s reading as a waste of time and money. Yet, when I replayed the tape, I realised he had more hits than misses.
The incident happened at Geebung railway station a few nights earlier. Underneath his rebel persona of long hair, ragged pants and Metallica T-shirts, Che was a gentleman so when he came across two men harassing some girls, he didn’t think twice. A few hours later, a friend of the girls came around to see if he was alright and to thank him for his chivalry. His response was to shrug his shoulders and mumble something about his phone. It beggared belief that he was more concerned about his mobile phone being broken than his dislodged tooth, black eye and bleeding head. That girl went on to become his future partner. At the time, though, he was spoken for.
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| Che 1997 |
Carolyn picked up on the first girl when looking at Che’s photo the second time I consulted her. She was an interesting-looking girl with an equally interesting name. Whilst making wriggling movements with her fingers near her face Carolyn asked: “What’s she got all over her face?”
“Metal”, I told her. “Lots and lots of metal. Eyebrow studs, nose studs, lip rings, and rows and rows of ear studs. There’s even a stud in her tongue!”
“She’s had a hard life, that girl. I can’t see them staying together for much longer, though. There’s a new girl on the horizon.”
I quite liked Dzintra, although I am sure Che started seeing her purely for her shock value. He met her some months earlier when she was with one of his mates. Despite the metal, tattoos and the fact that she was an “exotic dancer”, I sensed her vulnerability and often felt like giving her a big hug. I still smile when I recall the day he showed me a risqué picture of her in a girly magazine. I knew what he was up to so I viewed it in silence for a while before saying: “What’s she done to her hair?” He was so upset with me he never tried to ‘shock’ me again.
Jason McDonald also mentioned this girl in one of my readings with him, and like Carolyn, he said Che wouldn’t be with her much longer. “There’s another girl in the wings. I think he knows her, or has seen her, but they are not together yet. She’s a blonde girl, the kind of girl you’ll be able to have a chat with over the kitchen table.” That was Jen, the girl who came around to see how Che was and to thank him for being so brave. It was to be several more months before they got together. Sadly, Jen always felt she had big shoes to fill and it took many years before she realised she didn’t need the tatts and the studs.
On Friday July 3rd, the day of my reading with Tim, I heard about Andrew Fitzherbert’s arrest on the six o’clock news. I had been following the “Cat Woman” story in the newspaper and on television because of its connection with the Windsor spiritual church. When Tamara asked me if I thought he did it I had to say I honestly didn’t know. The first time she met him she took an instant dislike to him, saying he was “creepy”. Highly strung is how others described him, and it was a fairly accurate assessment. He was wound up tighter than a coiled spring and to be sure, if something pushed him over the edge….
Kristen decided to spend that Friday night at Ann’s place and ended up staying the weekend. She said she was trying to sort herself out. The following Monday, Tianni was enrolled at the Enoggera Child Care Centre. This indicated to me that decisions were made I was not privy to. On Wednesday July 8th, I resumed my physiotherapy sessions with Annette. My ankle had stiffened so much while I was away I was forced to endure one of the most painful sessions I had had since getting my cast removed. The next day, Kristen heard from the Home Hill funeral director, Ken Wright. What he did after talking with us a fortnight earlier was to send Joyce the bill, which she promptly returned, along with a nasty letter denying responsibility. It didn’t matter how long it took, Mr Wright told Kristen, she could pay off the debt at her own pace. Before the call ended he and his wife urged her to call them anytime she needed to talk, about anything. They were lovely people, and to this day, they still exchange cards at Christmas.
She was so distraught I urged her to ring Sister Sue. The nun was able to help like she always did, but Kristen needed more than kind words so I suggested she take her crystal to bed with her, programming it first to see her through the pain. The next morning she woke looking and feeling good. She said she doesn’t know if she had a dream or an out-of-body experience, but she saw a man she thinks was her guide. He took her to a place she felt was the ‘other side’. People were wandering around an idyllic scene of beautiful trees and flowers, lush green grass, and clear blue skies. The guide told her everything would be alright. She said she then saw Danny walking towards her. He told her he was angry at what his mother and sister had done, but that she was not to worry for he would help her see it through.
It was a timely message, but the growing hopelessness of her predicament soon cast a shadow over her ability to think rationally. We knew the sooner she got her own place the better off she would be, although she kept finding ways to delay the inevitable. I felt this had more to do with Ann than what she had been through. Ann could be controlling and manipulative, but someone else was more so. During our first trip to Ayr, Ann often asked for readings about the state of her marriage because she suspected Jason of being unfaithful. I didn’t see that. I did, however, come to believe the man I met at the Mitchelton psychic fair, the one I told the eye-at-the-door story to was the problem. He may have been good at what he did, but I was suspicious of his motives when it came to Ann, an attractive girl. He was supposedly helping her explore her past lives, but her sessions deteriorated into a curiosity show, leaving Ann confused as to which life she was living. I am convinced he planted the thought in her mind that Jason was having an affair so he could manipulate her for his own purposes. And then there was Kristen, a woman Ann saw as a free agent, unfettered by a partner or husband.
On July 15th, Ann told Jason she was leaving him. He took it so well he must have believed she was only reacting to Danny’s death and would return to her senses. He had no idea what had been going on with Ian. Two days later, when the girls went house hunting together, my heart sank because I knew this could not be good. The very next day, Jason went shopping with Ann to buy furniture. It beggared belief. They didn’t get the first house they looked at but they did get one shortly afterwards. On Monday, July 20th, I resumed work experience at Centrelink. Two days later, a bomb threat saw everyone spill out onto the street. What had I gotten myself into?
On July 22nd, at the end of my last physiotherapy session, Annette took me by surprise by offering me a job. She explained Vicki (her receptionist) wanted to spend more time with her children and she thought I would be the perfect person to share the job. As I tried to absorb this bombshell, the last thing I thought of was Ann Ann’s prophesy that I would be offered something with more responsibility within the next two years. She was a month out but that hardly mattered. What could Annette have been thinking? I was forty-eight years old. I knew nothing about reception work and I was yet to start my computer course. She said she could teach me the things I didn’t know, but she couldn’t teach me respect, common sense, and an intuitive insight into people’s needs. By the time I left I had reached an agreement with her.
Tamara had graduated from TAFE the previous year with a Diploma in Business Management, but had yet to find a job. She was deemed too old for entry level jobs and over-qualified for other work. This had left her demoralised and despondent. My CRS case manager was shocked when I told her of Annette’s offer because nothing like that had ever happened before. Yet, when I told her about the deal I made with Annette, she admonished me for not taking the job. She settled down when I explained Tamara’s situation and when she decided she would try to get Tamara into the program I left, feeling all was well with my world.
On Wednesday, July 23rd, Kristen had her first reading with Jason McDonald. Although guarded about it with me, she did say he confirmed she hadn’t been imagining messages from Danny that all would be well. She just couldn’t see how. After the events of August 1st, I couldn’t see how either. Ann and Kristen moved into a highset house at Stafford. It was supposed to be their house only Kristen and Tianni were relegated to the barren downstairs area like the hired help while Ann took over the house. I was furious, but Kristen had to be the one to say enough was enough. But she didn’t, not even when it became obvious Ann’s real reason for wanting to share a place with Kristen was so she could create a secret ‘love nest’ with Ian. Ten days later they stopped playing games and made it official. I was so upset. That house was supposed to be half Kristen’s, a place she could feel safe while coming to terms with her situation. I didn’t know this Ann, this wicked witch of the west.
Life for all of us was like a giant roller coaster. One minute everything seemed fine and the next minute chaos reigned. Tamara and I went to see Annette on August 4th and it was agreed she could start the following week. The very next day Kristen received an appalling letter from Joyce. Among the many things she mentioned in her vile diatribe was “having to get in professional cleaners to clean the filthy house she left behind”. She also complained about the money she had spent on petrol taking Danny to and from Townsville hospital. “I have a right to be recouped, don’t I?” What sort of mother says something like that? Then there was the funeral bill. “How dare you try to pass that off onto me?” She didn’t say anything about the other bills, though. No doubt she had done as we had and obtained legal advice. The biggest shock for Kristen, though, was the envelope the letter came in. It had not been re-directed. It was personally addressed to Kristen, at the address Ann told her to use as her forwarding address that day at Ayr post office. Joyce erroneously believed this was our address. It wasn’t. It was the address of Ann’s husband’s family-owned business at Enoggera. The only way she could have had access to that information was if somebody gave it to her. I told Kristen to burn it but I would hang on to a photocopy she had so graciously included for Steve and me. It would be used as evidence if ever that woman, or any member of her family, attempted to seek access to Tianni through the courts.
Something was clearly happening in Ayr. We may never know the details, but reading between the lines told us Joyce’s plan had backfired. Ayr is a small town and in small towns people talk. The letter was a hateful and bitter tirade against Kristen, a person she was convinced could never be a threat to her. If getting the funeral bill made her angry, I could only imagine how enraged she felt when she realised she was legally responsible for all those bills we found when looking through Danny’s personal papers.
There were so many, along with reminder notices and letters threatening legal action. The majority were in the name of the kiosk Joyce owned, while the others, with the exception of the electricity account, were in Danny’s name. And then there was the other thing we found. Danny must have suspected his mother might try something underhanded because he kept a letter confirming a loan she made to his brother who was originally running the kiosk for her. She had been trying to get Danny to go to Ayr for some time but he kept refusing. We'll never know what made him change his mind, but whatever it was, it was clear he had no intention of being his brother's keeper. That letter was his insurance policy – and Kristen’s.
On August 13th, I realised how much I missed the student’s life when I enrolled at TAFE. I was like a little kid on the first day at school. I finished up at Centrelink the very next day. I would not miss that. I spent the bulk of my time putting files away, a job none of the staff had time for. Working at Centrelink changed my mind about the term “work experience”. To me, it was nothing but glorified slavery. I accept that people need to gain experience in a workplace situation, but what can a person learn from spending hour upon hour, stepping on and off a foot stool, walking up and down and back again putting files away? My neck ached from constantly looking up. My back hurt from the constant bending and standing. My ankle hurt from constantly stepping up and down on the foot stool. Other than brushing up on my alphabetical skills, I achieved nothing. Just once, I was shown how to refill paper in the photocopier. Just once, I was shown how to open and sort the mail. Just once, I was left to attend to outgoing mail.
By the third week of August, I felt a strong need to put protection around Kristen and Tianni as well as the house at Stafford. I found this to be rather ironic in light of the protection being aimed at the man who helped me understand what the eye at the door was all about. Kristen had exchanged one dire predicament for another. As for me, I thoroughly enjoyed college life. Once I mastered manoeuvring the mouse and conquering my fears of not being able to ‘get it’, I liked working with computers.
Things were looking up for Tamara, too, especially when her CRS case manager, and mine, started sending through faxes about various jobs she thought Tamara would be suitable for. One was a twelve-month traineeship at the Aspley branch of the Department of State Development. On applying for it she was told it would be some time before the position would be determined. In September, she was interviewed in regards to another job, but like so many before it, she was unsuccessful. I couldn’t understand it. She was intelligent, bright, loyal, and possessed of a normally happy and bubbly personality.
On October 7th, I woke from a strange dream I couldn’t help but feel was a message of hope. In the dream, I was a passenger on a bus when I saw Tamara, looking dishevelled, running to catch it. The driver wouldn’t stop despite my screaming for him to do so. Somehow, Tamara caught up with the bus and as she walked past the driver she transformed into a well-groomed young woman. Just hours later, I took a call from Annette. She was calling to ask me to come in the following Tuesday and share the job with Tamara so I could feel “comfortable” in the role when I took it over. I felt it was a pity she didn’t consider Tamara’s feelings. It was completely the wrong way to deal with the situation. However, that dream told me everything would be alright so I told Tamara to remain positive because something would come up.
Two days later, she was back to square one when she had missed out on another job, this time to someone older. She thought she had a good chance when she was told of the twelve applicants she had made the shortlist of three. On October 13th, I officially started working for Annette. I was still going to college, but the days I was required slotted in very nicely with the days I went to TAFE. I liked Annette, but there was something about her receptionist I didn’t like. Vicki came across as a very nice, very helpful woman, but my instincts told me not to trust her. By the end of the month, Annette’s practice was getting so busy she decided to bring in another physiotherapist. Roberta was much younger than Annette and at first glance, seemed poles apart. I couldn’t help but wonder how they would get along. Then, when Annette told me she and Vicki would be away during the upcoming school holidays, I wondered how Roberta and I would get along.
On October 28th, Kristen rang to say she saw Danny gently rocking Tianni’s bed while she slept, and that three other spirits were with him, Mum and Dad and Uncle Jack. What did he want? The past seemed to be around me a lot at that time because I reconnected with Leigh again at the Aspley Hypermarket. She wasn’t doing checkout duty then, as she was when I saw her three years earlier. She was been promoted to the DIY section and was free to move around. She apologised for not calling me before, but she said at the end of the day her back ached and she was bitterly tired so she just let it slide. When she asked me to visit her on her day off I had no inkling just how much that visit would change my life, and hers.
In early November, Kristen woke from an odd dream about Joyce. She said she felt the woman was trying to apologise and that she was sad and lonely. I didn’t believe it. It would take a lot more than shame to get her to apologise – on any level. The very thought she was psychically active bothered me because the same night Kristen dreamt of her, I felt someone was blocking me when putting white light protection around us. In spite of everything she had done to her, Kristen still hoped Joyce would show some common decency. That changed when she said she again saw Mum, Dad, Danny and Uncle Jack. Kristen said Danny warned her about his mother. But Jack. Why was he with Mum and Dad! Surely they knew what he had done to us. Was he trying to make amends? Is that why he was hanging about?
A little while later I wondered if the person blocking us could have been Steve. He was using the Tarot himself by then, but not properly. One of the first things a Tarot reader learns is that one should never use the cards when one has been drinking. The fear behind his words the night I got my first deck was unmistakable. But so much had happened since that night. Part of him needed to know more. The other part wanted nothing to do with it, so he drank, and he drank.
On Saturday, 22nd November, I met Kristen at Chermside Shopping Centre. Our plan was to track down a simple, concise, definitive, easy-to-follow Tarot book, if such a thing existed. After what I went through I wanted her journey to be easier. We spent three hours painstakingly examining every book we could find on the subject and when she settled on one, we walked towards the counter to pay for it. At that exact same moment, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a book I know was not there before. No other people were around that section while we were there and when I asked the shop assistant if she had just put it there she said she hadn’t. I couldn’t afford to buy two books, but I couldn’t risk never seeing it again either. The instant I flicked it open I knew I had to have it – and the cards featured within its pages. When the shop assistant kindly offered to hold it for me for a week, I felt like I had just won the lottery.
Kristen and Tianni stayed the night because we were going to a psychic fair the next day. At one stall I saw more Tarot decks than I had every seen in my life. How much things had changed in two years. Three decks were all I had to choose from. There must have been fifty decks on that table, but not the one I wanted. When the stall holder asked me which deck I was seeking, he said: “Oh, yes. They are rather hard to get. I ordered several decks three months ago and still have not received them. Look, I tell you what. Give me your name and a contact number and I will call you when they come in. Be aware, though. It could be another three months.” I didn’t care how long I had to wait, as long as I got them.
That experience convinced me that Tarot decks chose their readers, not the other way around for just two days later, the man called. The cards had arrived. I could collect them from his shop at Caboolture any time I liked. At my request, Marita collected them for me the next day. We were going to their place for a barbecue on the weekend so it worked out perfectly. Holding those cards in my hands was the most incredible, exhilarating feeling. They were more beautiful than their black and white likenesses in the book TAROT Plain and Simple by Anthony Louis that introduced me to them. The Robin Wood deck was strongly influenced by the Arthur Waite-Pamela Colman-Smith deck, but their creator drew additional inspiration from the natural world and her Celtic roots.
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| The Fool from the Robin Wood deck. This card was featured on the cover of the book I found |
Marita was happy to see us but something wasn’t right with Ralph. She said his mother was dying and he wasn’t ready to let her go. He also didn’t approve of my “meddling with things I couldn’t possibly understand”. After his mother’s passing, Ralph became morose. He wanted nothing to do with Tarot cards, spirituality or anything remotely connected with the supernatural. The more he shut down, the more open Steve became. I didn’t appreciate this at the time, but on looking back I realise Steve truly believed Ralph could benefit from a reading. His suggestion he have one, however, proved to be the straw the broke the camel’s back. Marita stayed in touch with me for a while, but eventually, she, too, fell away.
It was a shame because the day they connected to the Internet she invited me up to send an email to Liz. In the weeks that followed, she acted as my intermediary, sending messages on my behalf when I couldn’t get to Caboolture. This means of communication changed the way I looked at home computers. Unfortunately, one wasn’t in the foreseeable future for me as they were so expensive.
On December 2nd, Kristen called to say she had a bizarre experience in the wee hours of the morning concerning my mother, and it wasn’t a dream. Mum told her to get up because she had something very important to tell her and if she didn’t get up and write it down immediately, she would forget. The message was for me. I had to write a letter to Aunty Glady telling her I forgave her. Apparently, she deeply regretted the ‘house’ incident, was very ill, sad and depressed. It was imperative, Mum said, that she not pass in that frame of mind.
I tried to write that letter, but I didn’t know where to start. Tamara was sitting opposite me at the table quietly observing me tear up page after page before saying, in her ever so annoying matter-of-fact way: “For heaven’s sake, Mum! Just write from the heart! That’s your whole problem. Stop thinking!”
She was right because once I settled in the words effortlessly flowed from my pen. I told about my spiritual development and left nothing out, except that that I knew the truth about the house. I put the letter inside a Christmas card and popped it in the mail box. Whatever happened after that was in the lap of the gods. I got an immediate reply, but in typical Gladys Walsh style, it was a chatty dialogue about nothing. She told me she was going to the Gold Coast to spend Christmas with her daughter in a high-rise unit overlooking the ocean and brought me up to date on the latest additions to the family tree. She never once mentioned being unwell, let alone at death’s door. I truly didn’t know what to think other than feel angry that I expended all that energy trying to do what my mother had asked of me and she threw it in my face.
On December 15th, Tamara received a call regarding the state government traineeship she applied for in October. She was to present herself for an interview the next day. Within hours of that interview she called to tell me she didn’t get the job. The disappointment in her voice was unbearable. I told Mum she would have to do better. Tamara couldn’t keep getting knock back and knock back. It wasn’t fair. About an hour later, Tamara rang back to say she had just taken a call from one of the people who interviewed her. The woman apologised to her for missing out on the job, but said another traineeship was available in the city office. Was she interested? Was she! I thanked Mum for her prompt action and sat at my desk grinning like a Cheshire cat.
Within the hour, Tamara rang to say the same woman called back. Yet another traineeship was on offer, but unlike the earlier one, the second would be in a high stress section of the department. She would have to think on her feet and be able to interact with important and demanding people. Tamara wanted my advice. What should she do? I asked her if she had done a reading. She had, and the outcome was The Lovers. In addition to relationship matters, The Lovers indicates choice, but choice based on intuitive insight rather than intellectual deduction. I asked her which of the two jobs she felt intuitively directed to take. She said the latter.
Thus it was that Tamara found herself in “The Emperor’s favour”, just as Carolyn predicted.
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