Tales for the Fireside - Five Stories of Love and Friendship

by Lisa Dyer

  “The records show that you killed a chicken”

  “What?”

  “She means, Mildred.” shouted God helpfully from his hiding place. “Or maybe Betty. Who knows? Don’t engage with her.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” said Alice irritably. “Firstly, I didn’t mean to kill a chicken and secondly…well, there isn’t a second but if there were…oh, hold on…no, there is a second…how am I supposed to find a chicken…up here?”

  The Principalities stood up. “Not my problem.” And she strode off, her heels making a sharp clicking sound as she went.

  God scrambled to his feet, dusted off his robe and looked rather pleased with himself.

  “Bad luck, old bean,” he said with a bit too much smugness. “She’s got you and good on that one.”

  Alice frowned; a thought was trying to push through. She closed her eyes and thought harder.

  God was intrigued. “Are you having a stroke?”

  Alice opened her eyes: “You’re coming with me to the office!”

  “No! For the love of me, no! That nutter George works down there,” he howled like a kid who can’t get his own way. He screwed up his eyes and began to yell.

  Alice remained resolutely unimpressed: “Don’t be a baby.”

  God unscrewed his face and stared at her.

  “Let’s go, big guy.”

  ***

  In a scene, reminiscent of every bad TV cop show ever, the lights in the office were out. A single point of light shone on Julian’s table. Everyone, except for The Seraphim - who was having a lively conversation with the defaced poster - was focused on something unseen on that desk.

  “C’mon,” said Julian who prowled the desk in mean cop mode. “So, you had a foul death, but you can’t go around not giving a cluck. This chick needs you!”

  Alice gestured WTF but Julian just shrugged.

  “I’m winging it.”

  The Principalities sat in the corner, legs crossed, lips pursed, pen ready, monitoring the situation. Every now and then she jotted something down. God leaned over to look but he got a swift rap over his knuckles with the pen and a warning look.

  “Can I go now? I’m missing Hart to Hart on ITV 3,” he whined.

  In unison, Alice and Julian yelled ‘no’

  “I bet Ganesh doesn’t get shit like this.”

  Alice gestured to the chicken, the subject of Julian’s bad interrogation skills. “You must know which one she is, Mildred or Betty.”

  “I might do,” replied the Diddy Deity in an attempt

  to be enigmatic. “But, Divine Intervention is expressly

  frowned upon as it negates the free-will clause. Isn’t that

  right?” God winked at The Principality who gave him a

  withering look in return.

  “And when, exactly, did that apply to chickens?” Alice was feeling exasperated. She couldn’t believe she was having to interrogate a chicken.

  God was quick to point the finger of blame on The Principalities

  “Okay, forget Chicken Little here. How many farmers’ wives are there in heaven?”

  The Principalities got out her heavenly iPad and tapped the screen. She got the results and peered over her glasses to deliver them, not without a hint of relish.

  “Ten million, six hundred and fifty-two thousand.” She paused as new data came in. “Fifty-three thousand.”

  “And you won’t give me even the teeniest clue where to find her?”

  “Like I said...”

  “Not my problem.”

  “Does that mean I can go now?”

  When no one answered God, he sidled up to Alice who reacted in a manner rather reminiscent of when the local town drunk tried to have a conversation. She screwed up her lips and hunched herself up to make herself small and less of a target.

  “Stephanie Powers! Arf! Arf!” and with that God wriggled his eyebrows, flipped up his eye patch, popped a cigar in his mouth and exited in the manner of Groucho Marx “See ya later toots.”

  “Fat lot of use he was,” grumbled Alice.

  “Easy to blame God when the chicken doesn’t talk.”

  At that moment, The Principalities stood up.

  “You failed in your task therefore Clause 63, sub paragraph eight, sub-section D of form B452A immediately kicks in.” She smiled to be nice and failed miserably but, really, it was obvious she didn’t care. “Have a nice death.”

  Alice pounced on the form that The Principalities had left on George’s desk. As she scanned the document, her expression registered a look of utter disbelief.

  “I’m screwed.”

  “Hot spooning by imps for all eternity?” asked George.

  “Perpetual Wedgie Machine?” asked Julian

  “Worse,” said Alice glumly. “Much, much worse.”

  And to be fair, she wasn’t exaggerating.

  If Alice Mutton had felt aggrieved at being thrown into an office who’s only task was to argue for the souls of poor, hapless humans whose only sin was to die stupidly, her new role should give her real cause to complain.

  God, having had his tiny fill of Hart to Hart, had slipped back onto his Holy Throne and clicked his fingers.

  From somewhere in the perpetual distance came the sound of platform heels galumphing on the whatever the surface of the Heavenly Throne Room was.

  God wriggled excitedly in his seat and clapped his tiny hands together.

  “Over there!” he ordered and when that instruction had been, reluctantly, obeyed, he poured over the playlist he’d complied.

  With a gleeful laugh, he hit the play button and out of the speakers came the opening bars of Tina Charles’ I Love to Love began on the karaoke machine.

  “Let me hear ya sing!” he yelled.

  Alice Mutton, resplendent in a white, sequined jump suit with flared bottoms, would have plenty of time to reflect upon the unwise decision to challenge the authority of Heaven as she perpetually serenaded God who had a rather soft spot for nineteen seventies cheesy disco.

  FIN

  IV

  “Excuse me!”

  Robbie turned abruptly at the sound of her voice. He’d been following the signs from the car park and had eventually found the mortuary tucked deep inside the hospital, along a poorly lit corridor.

  “You're not supposed to be in here. Authorised personnel only. See.” And she held up her ID card suspended on a lanyard around her neck.

  He wasn’t really listening. The fridge doors had taken his attention.

  “Am I in one of these?”

  His choice of words momentarily threw Scarlett but she quickly recovered as her thoughts split into two: deal with him; am I in damage?

  “Not unless you're dead. It's where we keep the bodies.”

  Robbie turned to Scarlett. Just below his ribs, to the right, the green tee shirt was soaked with blood.

  Scarlett noted it and said with a firm voice: “I think you need A and E.”

  Scarlett reached for the phone and punched in a number.

  “Yeah, hi, it's Scarlett down in the mortuary...hi, I've got this bloke down here. He's got some kind of injury. No, alive. I think he might be in shock...His name? Hang on...hey, what’s your name?”

  Robbie had gone. Scarlett replaced the receiver and pushed open the doors to the corridor. It was empty. She gave it a few moments head room before deciding that he must have taken her advice and gone off to A&E

  She returned to the post-mortem room and pulled on the water hose humming to herself as she sluiced down the metal table.

  It was only as she turned to replace the hose that she leapt out of her skin at the sight of Robbie standing at the head end. Her fear turned immediately to anger.

  “Right, that's it, I'm calling security.”

  “Don't! Please!”

  There was something in his tone; it wasn’t hostile or threatening, it sounded helpless, scared.

  “You're injured. You need to see a doctor.” />
  Robbie looked at his tee shirt as if realizing for the first time that there was a lot of blood there. With a curious fascination, he touched the ragged hole and then slowly, he lifted the shirt to reveal a small, puncture wound.

  “You've got to help me.” His voice sounded distant, like he was physically present but his mind wasn’t in the moment.

  Scarlett knew it was the brain’s defence mechanism kicking him; slowing everything down, preserving and protecting.

  Robbie touched the wound. “They got me! They did it!”

  His face twisted with anger, and confusion: he lunged forward, not at her although that did not stop Scarlett grabbing the nearest thing, the mop and gripping it tight.

  “Don't come any closer.”

  Robbie didn’t hear her; he was too involved in his own internal drama as he relived the events that had led to this moment.

  “Sammo, he had a gun an’… an’ Reg…Reg was yelling, telling him to do it, do it, over and over and then there was this noise and blackness.”

  Robbie looked wildly about him.

  “But I can't be here. They didn't bring me here. They haven't found me. I'm still out there.” There was a rising panic in his voice but his words made no sense to Scarlett.

  “Okay, maybe…maybe you should lie down.”

  “Oh God! No, no, no, no, no.”

  “You're just, you're disorientated. You’ve lost quite a bit of blood.”

  Robbie began to scrabble around, trying to grab his back, reaching, and feeling for something behind him. He found what he was looking for and suddenly, his world slowed right down and he felt as if he was tumbling through space. He could feel it, even if he couldn’t see it.

  A sort of calm now swept over him and slowly he turned around. He heard the mop clatter to the floor.

  “Is it bad?”

  Scarlett couldn’t respond. She could see the gaping hole in his body, and explosion of flesh and viscera. She stared at the bloody mess and then looked again at Robbie.

  “You couldn’t have survived that.

  “I didn’t survive it. I’m dead.”

  ***

  Scarlett stood in front of a large 'NO SMOKING' sign and dragged furiously on a cigarette. Despite the events of the last half an hour, she had enough common sense left in her to snatch her bag containing her mobile.

  “Smart girl.”

  “Yeah, mad not stupid?”

  At that moment, a woman walked past and Scarlett adjusted the ear phones to leave the woman in no doubt that she was on the phone.

  “You haven't even asked me my name.”

  “I'm not interested in your name.”

  “Why, because I'm dead?”

  “No, because you don’t exist. You can’t exist.”

  “Whoa, whoa, hang on, I think I do. I'm in limbo, me and you've got to help me.”

  “I don’t have to do anything.”

  “You wanted to help me in there.”

  “Yeah, when I thought you were injured.” Scarlett ground the butt with her heel and picked up the flattened remains which she threw in the bin. “Look, I'm not interested, okay but, you know, sorry your dead.” And with that, she left.

  ***

  “What the hell?” Scarlett gaped at the scene which met her return. The inhabitants of the morgue, the dead inhabitants of the morgue, had broken the ever-present silence of the body store.

  Mrs. Ellis had been brought in by the local funeral home two days ago. Her post-mortem had been pretty straight forward, old age had done for her and she was now awaiting collection for her funeral

  Mr. Furnish, who was a much younger man, had sadly succumbed to a drunken driver and was yet to be looked at. The others varied in age, favouring the much older side. All of them were making far too much noise!

  It would seem obvious, that most people, when confronted with the spirits of those whose bodies rested within the mortuary would, you know, feel a little freaked out. Not Scarlett. In her twenty-three years, she had coped with so much; an abusive step-father, a drug addled mother and the overdose that claimed her life. Scarlett had spent her life in the system, seeing the best and the worse it could offer. A few dead people…nothing to write home about.

  “Oi, clear off I was here first,” said Robbie gruffly.”

  “You can all clear off,” replied Scarlett crossly but she left her special ire for Robbie. “Now look what you've done. Flaming well woken the dead.”

  “Excuse me?” said Mr. Furnish rather meekly. “Can you help me?”

  “What?” snapped Scarlett causing Mr. Furnish to hop back a bit.

  “I've forgotten to tell my wife the passwords for all the computer files. I can't settle. I must let her know,” he implored

  “Mr. Furnish, right?”

  He nodded and Scarlett opened the fridge door and pulled out the gurney on which his earthly remains lay.

  “In you get.”

  “But, my wife...”

  Scarlett ignored him.

  “Just so typical of the living,” he grumbled. “Your time will come, then you’ll be sorry.”

  “Not as sorry as I am now,” muttered Scarlett as she watched Mr. Furnish re-enter his body.

  Scarlett turned her attention to the other five.

  “Right you lot, back in your bodies, and don’t let me see you out here again.”

  Mrs. Ellis shuffled towards her body: “It's my cat you see. I died so suddenly. I'm sure they won't remember to feed her.”

  “It'll be fine,” soothed Scarlett in her best reassuring voice. “Cats are very...resilient.”

  “Not Samson,” cried Mrs. Ellis in alarm “He'll starve, I'm sure of it.”

  “If you'd just like to get back...”

  “Would you go and check on her for me? I live at 55 Oakapple Close...”

  This sparked a frenzy from the others who began yelling out requests for assistance with their dearly living relatives.

  “What? No! What am I, a gofer for ghosts? Come on, back inside. Just 'cos you're dead, doesn't make you special.”

  The spirit of Mrs. Ellis resettled itself in her corpse but as Scarlett was closing the door she sat back up and said: “Would you think about it, dear? Samson must be missing me terribly and my daughter-in-law is such a bitch.”

  Safely contained back in their bodies, Scarlett turned her attention to Robbie.

  “So, what do I do with you?”

  He shrugged.

  “Isn't there, like, a light anywhere nearby?”

  “Nope.”

  “Long tunnel? Sound of angels calling you to heaven?”

  He made a big deal of looking around before shaking his head. He frowned.

  “Look, I think I need my body. I've got this whole, I don't know, feeling going on like I'm disassociated.”

  “Disembodied, I think, is the word you're groping for,” Scarlett was feeling very testy now. “Besides, dead is dead is dead, what do you want your body for?”

  He looked very serious and his manner took on a decidedly studious turn. “I'm still linked to it. I can't pass on until I'm found.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Er…I think I have more experience than you of being dead. Seriously. Look, I'll help you find me okay and then you can go to the police and....”

  “Oh what?” Scarlett was outraged at his impudence at walking into her life and expecting her to drop everything and get involved. “You expect me to walk into a police station, tell them I know where you're buried and they're not going to want to know how I know? Do I have 'stupid' tattooed on my forehead?”

  Scarlett turned away from him. This was getting scarily out of hand.

  “I'm really sorry you're dead but I'm not getting involved. You have some serious shit mates and I don't want them finding me.”

  “They won't. Sammo and Reg aren't the mafia. They're two stupid gits who, right this minute, are getting away with murder.”

  “I'll think about it.” She picked up the
mop and shoved it back into the bucket.

  “Thank you.”

  ***

  Scarlett crept up the driveway away from her parked scooter.

  From inside the house she could hear the shrill voice of a woman.

  “No, I said that piece over there. This piece is for the auction house, if they ever get here. And mind you don't scuff the legs. I've taken pictures you know, so don't come the old 'it was damaged already' routine with me.”

  Scarlett stood by the open door and fretted over whether to knock. Something brushed against her leg and she looked down to see a large tabby cat cosying up to her.

  “Hey Samson.” She dropped down to her haunches and fussed the cat. “Hey fella.”

  “Who the hell are you?”

  Scarlett stood up and sized up the woman in front of her. She had a very angry face and her arms were folded tightly over her chest as she gave Scarlett the once over trying to work out what her angle was.

  Scarlett decided the best way to approach it was by being overly perky and totally against type.

  “I'm Scarlett, Mrs. Ellis may have mentioned me. I used to help her out, you know, bit of shopping, feeding Samson, that kind of thing.”

  The woman bristled at the thought of her former mother-in-law doing something she was unaware of. She’d been busy making herself completely indispensable to the woman since she realized how much money was tied up in the house and furniture.

  Mrs. Ellis had a soft heart and had, on more than one occasion, mentioned that her son had everything he needed and what did he want with her old stuff. Mrs. Ellis junior was terrified the old woman would do something completely stupid like leaving it all to that wretched cat. Her tenacity had eventually paid off, that and the regular mentions of being strapped for cash due to this outlay or that.

  “She most certainly did not. What do you want? You know that the will's been read. She hasn't left you anything.”

  Scarlett held her temper in check. Samson rubbed himself around her legs. She looked down.

  “She left me Samson.”

  “I'm sorry?”

  “Samson. Mrs. Ellis said that if anything should happen to her, I was to take him.”

  There was a short pause and with a dismissive flap of her hand the woman said: “Fine, take him. We were having him destroyed this afternoon anyway.”

  With that the woman turned on her heels and disappeared back into the house.