– Aye, but we dinnae need one running the fucking country – do we, Agnes?

– Helen Duncan should have stopped practising when they tried her under the UK Witchcraft Laws. She’d been at it for years! Churchill was right to abolish that law. Getting tried as a witch in the 1950s! In Britain! All that cheesecloth and theatre makes a mockery fir those of us who genuinely huv the gift! We’ve had the Fraudulent Mediums Act instead of the UK Witchcraft Act fir three years, Archie! The fakes ken they shouldnae be practising. I’ve had e-fucking-nough ay it!

Agnes roars at the kettle and she hears his silence grow louder at her outrage and frustration.

– Frustration just has to come out, sometimes, Archie.

– Aye! It does that.

Her husband hovers over his telly buttons with a haze of smoke around him. Even though it is early there is already an empty tin of lager by his slippered feet.

– Any jobs this week?

– No.

– Are you just gonna sit there watching Billy Bunter, Andy Pandy and the news?

– Gies a fag!

– Did you have to teach the fucking parrot to say that?

Agnes pulls her headscarf from the parrot’s cage. His eyes are pure black with a bright yellow ring around them. He has a plume of vivid blue feathers which he preens most of each day. He pecks at her through the bars.

– I’m only keeping myself amused, Agnes, fir fucks sake!

– Fir fucks sake fir fucks sake fir fucks sake…

– Say pretty boy, come on Ovid, say pretty boy – fir Mama!

– Fir fucks sake!

– The seance will only take an hour, Archie, something is trying to get through hard this time. I can’t stop them.

– Aye and I can tell you’re nervous or you wouldnae be shouting in our fucking kitchen like that, so, who’s coming from the real world?

– Dora Noyce.

– The Queen of Danube Street! The most famous madam in town, ay, visiting our wee flat! What an honour.

– Dinnae pretend you’re no going down there, Archie. We both ken you do.

– Only fir tea and sandwiches!

– Aye, and the place really is just a YMCA with benefits. Okay then.

– Can you blame me, Agnes? The last time you touched me was in 1932.

– We did it in ’47!

– Aye, and we were on those funny tablets yer pal gave us, I dinnae think it counts.

Archie hunches back into his chair.

Ovid pecks at seeds.

Drinks as noisily as he can from a glass tube.

The wind carries sounds down the close – buses, trams, people, all going about their day. Ovid wobbles his head from side to side and steps from claw to claw.

Agnes places two tapered candles on the table.

She unwraps a soft velvet black cloth and takes out a heavy crystal ball.

– Seers were just like chemists or mechanics in their time, Archie. I don’t know why ye make a fuss.

– Bollocks.