The Strangling on the Stage

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‘And the trouble is,’ said Storm Lavelle, ‘it’s just total murder.’

‘What is?’ asked Jude.

‘My life. Everything.’

Storm Lavelle was stretched out on the treatment table in the front room of Woodside Cottage in the seaside village of Fethering. It was February, cold outside, but snug with the open fire in Jude’s front room. The scent of aromatic candles on the mantelpiece mingled with the smell of burning wood.

Storm had in theory come for a healing session, though Jude knew by experience she was basically there to unload the latest aggravations of her life. Which was fair enough. Jude also knew that listening was frequently as effective as any other form of healing.

The irony was that Storm Lavelle also practised as a healer, and she was the ultimate example of where the ‘healer, heal thyself’ principle broke down. Though very good with her clients, impressing them with her calm and stability, Storm was actually as mad as several container-loads of frogs. Her volatile personality ensured that she skittered from one alternative therapeutic cure-all to another. It was remarkable that she’d stuck with the healing, though it was now only as a practitioner rather than a patient. Storm had long since decided that healing was inadequate to her own needs, and embarked on courses of reflexology, kinesiology, homeopathy, naturopathy and any other ‘ologies’ or ‘opathies’ that came to her attention.

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