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Chapter 7: Gypsy’s Alluring Mystery
“It’s good to be back here, showered, shaved and shampooed. Now where’s Nita disappeared to?” asks Colin, “Has she left a note?”
“You’d be kidding mate, says Sharky. “Nita leave a note? Chance would be a fine thing.”
“Nah,” Mystery chips in, “Just as we were heading out this morning she surfaced. I told her our movements and she said, ‘I’m off to reconnoitre on this cat. It’s best we know her movements, so we can keep an eye on her until we’re ready.’”
“Then we’d better have lunch and go looking for her,” Colin says. “She shouldn’t be hard to find, although it’s a big patch the fair covers.”
“Hey!” says Mystery, “What’s this here? She must have had some papers out, and this fell on the floor under the table. Well I never! You know how Nita said we’d read the same newspaper articles about the cat as she had. Of course that’s only in her mind, mostly she’s kept her cards really close to her chest on this stuff. Here, get me a coffee would you Colin, while I have a quick gecko at this article from the local rag. Then I’ll read it to you.”
“It must be good stuff anyway, because it starts with my name. Nice one eh,” says Mystery, reading as Colin returns.
Gypsy’s alluring Mystery
By Donna Pallodino.
The glamorous Gypsy is back in town. It is the sixth year she’s attended our fair (which finishes Sunday 26th at 4 pm) and if the queues lengthening outside her tent are anything to go by, this dark chocolate cat isone of the great mysteries. What sparks this interest?
I shadow her. She wears a classy Italian pinstripe waistcoat and layered skirt, boldly patterned in autumn pastels. In each ear Gypsy has one, small, red-gold hoop. Even in London, on the South Bank on a Sunday, she’d not pass unnoticed. Here in Poneke. it’s the parting of the Red Sea all over again. As she lopes up Moore Street at a steady, graceful gait, nearly everyone moves left or right, spilling around her. This is not a big muscular V8 charging through a field of micro-mini cars. Confound it, she’s one solid but ordinary-sized cat.
However, seeing is believing.
At the intersection with Walton Street I cross the road. I get well in front of her and re-cross to wait 100 metres ahead. I try to remain calm, waiting casually for her approach, but it’s hard not to get excited. In the midst of the crowd arcing past her, one person moves towards her and touches her. Inexplicably, she allows this, and why not I guess! Here amidst a mass of people in the lunchtime crowd, she welcomes an occasional pat, a quick stroke; and I see a young man join her in a hand-on-paw high five. Gypsy pauses and as someone bends to whisper to her, a broad smile creases to her ears. It is ridiculous. This has to be just simply my wild imagination.
I wait.
Gypsy moves closer: comes to my feet: and stops. She sits back on her hindquarters, holding both front paws up to me. I feel a little unnerved, but I grasp them. We are confederates. I feel myself swallowing a star. It bursts deep within me. Exploding, I am that star, infused with hot, bright, radiant cosmic power from my crowning glory to my painted tippy-toes.
It’s hours since I had coffee so it has to be an adrenaline rush! A line by Brad from the sci-fi horror film send-up, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”, comes to mind and I cry “Help! Mummy, help me please.”
In the quantum physics micro-world, it is said events are often unpredictable… even bizarre. Near Gypsy, in her presence, I swear it’s no different.
Goodness, she talks to me. I understand her. She says, “Donna, come and see me tomorrow at 9.45. You’ll meet Pippin and Winky. Then you can chat with people as they arrive, or after they’ve had a reading with me.”
I turn up on time as invited. Over the next few hours her friends Winky and Pippin, courteously introduce me to scores of people. A few visitors to Gypsy’s tent say they are ‘just curious,’ but most I ask describe themselves as “seekers”. Through the day I interview many people coming away from a meeting with Gypsy’s.
Gina’s story is typical.
I ask her, “What is it like meeting with Gypsy – having your fortune told?”
“I can only imagine what it feels like to meet a super hero, Batman, Spider man, Wonder Woman… but it’s like I think that meeting would be… Zapp! – Bamm! – Pow!… a force wave, a friendly life power, cresting and breaking. All you can do is immerse yourself in it, go with it, enjoy the experience and afterwards wonder what it’s about.”
“It sounds bizarre. An improbable, ‘mind over matter’, fire-walking, hypnotic, mystical, magical ritual. What do you say to that?” I ask.
“When a friend first took me with him to hear his reading, I was really hyper- sceptical. I thought it would be a load of old rubbish. It wasn’t, because she told him things… about both happy times and unhappy occasions that were formative for him as a child. Gypsy uncovered some deeply buried experiences, and explained to him how these had been transformed – turned from dross into gold by him. She couldn’t possibly have known any of this stuff, yet she had ‘got it in one,’ as John said. John and I grew up together, I know this man almost as well as I know myself. It was a fascinating experience.”
“So you were an observer, and became interested… where did you go from there?”
“John and I talked about it, discussed and argued over it at length for many months, with friends and flat-mates. Instinctively the experience we had sort of felt right, but it was a very big challenge. Talking animals! Interacting with us as if they are sensate beings. Appearing to know and see something of a person’s life plan. Come on! Of course we asked, ‘Is this real?’ It wasn’t easy, but we kept exploring and asking, ‘What do we mean by reality?’ – and once we’d got tentative answers, we went on to explore our next question, ‘How do we experience the things we call real’?”
“Tell me what you’ve concluded so far?” I ask.
“Absolutely nothing final. We’re sure the five senses don’t cover it all.And we can’t see ourselves as just some kilograms of bone and tissue with an unreliable computer on top. So we keep in touch with Gypsy, returning every time we have the opportunity, as we seek to learn more and continue the quest. T hat’s about it really.”
“What happened today Gina?”
“You saw me coming away from Gypsy’s tent. This is the first time I’ve been there by myself. Apart from a general reading, which was fascinating, I asked her some specific questions. In answer she said, ‘Gina, I’m happy to comment. But because of the strange workings of the mind, if you knew about these ideas and possibilities, your mind might work on them, and they could become ‘self fulfilling’.So, if you agree, I’ll write my thoughts down. Then we’ll seal them in an envelope, and make a time in the future when together we’ll review events. How’s that?’ she asked .
“Well I thought it couldn’t be a fairer test. Here’s the envelope fixed with gold wax and imprinted with her seal. So Donna, do you reckon you’ll have a reading with Gypsy?”
“Watch this space!” I say.
“So Sharky, Colin, what do you make of that?” enquires Mystery.
“You know what I think,” says Colin. “And that rubbish hasn’t changed my mind. Talking animals, and they even write too. It’s nonsense, and if you believe it you’re not only stupid, but thick as well. It’s best you shove the paper back where you found it, and we’ll pretend we haven’t seen it.”
“I reckon it’s worth a go,” says Sharky. “I mean to go see the cat. We’ve a fortune riding on this latest job, so what have we got to lose eh?”
“That’s what I say too,” replies Mystery. “Now, let’s go catch up with that woman.”