Ghost Diaries 1_Gigi's Guardian_Paranormal Romance

by Michele McGrath

  “Marvellous.” I patted my stomach. “But I’m glad you still love to cook.”

  “I can’t resist. The ingredients are so fresh and I can get everything I want. All the famous chefs give me tips.”

  She pulled down a large book and flipped through the pages. Famous name followed famous name and recipe followed recipe. “I’m working my way through them. Now go and get your coat on, we’ve got a surprise for you.”

  “What is it?”

  “You’ll find out.”

  Granddad was waiting in the hall and we went out into the street. People streamed towards a tall glass building, which shimmered with light. I blinked hard. I was sure the building hadn’t been there when I returned to the house and where had all these people come from?

  “What’s that?” I pointed to the building.

  “The Concert Hall.”

  “We’re going to a concert?” I asked in surprise. I knew they both liked music, but they’d never gone to concerts on Earth, because Granddad couldn’t walk far in those days. He seemed to be having no difficulty now.

  “The Concert. You haven't seen anything to beat this one. We call it the Celestial Variety Show.”

  “Like the Royal Variety Show?”

  “So much better. Lots of entertainment happens all the time of course, but, occasionally, the famous artists put on a special performance. Every culture has their own version and I’m developing a taste for sitar music. Wonderful - once you get your ear in. We wouldn’t want you to miss the show, especially since this is your first one.”

  “What’s on?”

  “We’ve got so many performers, they draw lots. You’re never sure who you’ll get, but everyone's excellent, of course, as you’d expect. Last month Lawrence Olivier and Sarah Bernhardt played scenes from Othello. Shakespeare was the director, so the play was acted the way he actually intended it to be, although I did see him tearing his hair at one point. Tommy Cooper told jokes which made even the angels laugh and they can be a glum lot at times. The finale was Elvis Presley. He hasn’t been on for a few years. He’s been having a rest, doing other things, but he brought the house down.”

  “Sounds wonderful.”

  The doors opened. We entered a shining glass box which rose up into the air, at the side of a huge stage. Other boxes were rising besides ours. The place was enormous, but everyone had an excellent view.

  “There must be thousands here.”

  “Millions,” corrected Granddad.

  “Even so, many people mustn’t be able to get in.”

  “The whole thing’s duplicated. Very clever. We have concert halls and theatres everywhere. You can always find one nearby, wherever you are. The acts perform in all the theatres at the same time.”

  “Holographs,” I giggled, “like in Star Trek.”

  “Hush, they’re starting,” Nanna said.

  An orchestra filed onto the stage to rapturous applause. A small cue screen on our box read ‘The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra 1923’. They swept us into the second half of the last night of the Proms. I lost track of the acts, but a few stand out in my memory: ‘The Warsaw Concerto’, Buddy Holly, and a group of dancers from Ancient Egypt who had been favourites of Ramses II.

  “That was marvellous,” I said, as we walked home in the starlight. It was lovely to be with my grandparents again. I had missed them both so much. Yet I still felt as if my world had fallen apart. I had an odd feeling of apprehension too, as if something was about to happen to me soon. Something unpleasant, which I would not be able avoid.

  Day Three, Heaven.

  “Ariane, where are you?” A familiar voice woke me up from a deep sleep.

  “Pam!” My favourite aunt threw herself onto the bed and gave me a hug.

  “Whatever are you doing here at your age? I always told you to be careful.” She wagged her finger at me, like she used to do when I’d been naughty.

  “Look at who’s talking! I never got wiped out on a motorbike!”

  Pam laughed. “Cheeky! But what did happen to you?”

  “It wasn’t my fault, honest. The surgeon made a mistake and I died on the operating table.”

  “Your poor family! Such a terrible shock for them.”

  “I hope they’re okay. I wish I knew how they all were.”

  “We can find out later. Get up now, lazybones.”

  “Where’s Nanna and Granddad?”

  “There was a big pile up on the M6 and Nanna ran off to greet the newcomers. Granddad’s diplomat is getting into trouble again and he had to go too. I’m in between jobs at the moment, so I offered to take care of you. Get dressed. We've got fresh coffee and maple syrup pancakes waiting for us. Nanna was baking again when she took the emergency call.”

  After breakfast, we walked out into a crisp autumn day, with dry leaves crackling under our shoes.

  “How odd.” I looked around me. “Yesterday was like summer.”

  “Oh don’t worry about the weather. The seasons do all sorts of strange things here. Somebody in the Met Office obviously fancied a change. Occasionally they go mad and send us four different types of weather in the same day - sun, fog, sleet and hail. We had a Canadian in charge a while back. He loved skiing, so we had snow for ages when he took over. There was almost a rebellion. Here we are. This is the first place I wanted to show you.”

  A white wall stretched into the distance. Hanging on the wall were pictures, rows and rows of wonderful paintings. “You always loved art, didn’t you?” Pam asked. “This is one of my favourite places. I come here to be peaceful.”

  A small bench rose out of the ground as we approached. I sank down into its deep purple cushions. Pam pressed a button and everything started to glide past us. All the famous artists had their work displayed - paintings from the earliest times to the modern day. Many had been destroyed in the real world and others must have been painted since the artist arrived in Heaven; they had a translucence I had never seen on Earth.

  “I’m drunk with all this,” I told her. “How beautiful they are!”

  “I think so too. Certainly this is the most comfortable way of visiting an art gallery I’ve ever known. You can go into the paintings if you want to and meet the people who inspired the artists. I particularly enjoy Monet’s garden. No wonder he painted the same scene so often. Now, for a complete change, I’m going to take you to the Mall.”

  “The Mall?”

  “The Americans named it originally and the name stuck. It’s a meeting place cum shopping centre. This way.”

  I don’t know what I expected to find in Heaven, but certainly it wasn’t a shopping centre. The Mall was laid out in loops: one built of elegant white marble; another like a medieval city, with narrow winding alleyways. Everything anybody could want was advertised for sale, but the price was always the same – free. A shopaholic’s dream. Several people passed us by, pushing huge floating trolleys piled high with goods. They all had wide smiles and dreamy-looking eyes.

  “They’re new here.” Pam giggled. “Newcomers can’t believe they're allowed to take away everything they want instantly. So they load themselves up until they can hardly move. The feeling wears off after a while, when they accept the fact that they really are in paradise.”

  We wandered along, looking in shop windows until the smell of coffee stopped us in our tracks.

  “Coffee?” Pam suggested. “This is another of my favourite places, The Cosy Nook. Dreadful name, isn’t it?”

  Pam led me into the large fragrant cafe. The aromas of baking bread and espresso made my mouth water. The place seemed to be full, yet we found a table without any trouble and keyed our order into the pad. I settled for my usual pre-holiday treat – Danish pastries and an Americano.

  “Good heavens, President Kennedy is sitting over there,” I exclaimed, recognising a familiar face.

  “Would you like to meet him?”

  “Can I?”My eyes went wide with amazement.

  “Of course. He’s used to str
angers coming over to shake his hand. He told me he’d miss it if it didn’t happen.”

  So, unbelievably, I found myself shaking hands with the former President of the United States. He hasn’t lost any of his charm. He asked me about myself and he seemed genuinely interested in my answers; he certainly hasn’t stopped being a politician!

  “Wow!” I kept repeating for a long while afterwards. Pam just laughed at me.

  “Takes a bit of getting used to, doesn’t it?”

  “I never imagined I would meet someone like him without a security man in sight!”

  Pam grinned. “No one needs security here or police or soldiers. The people, who enjoyed that type of work in their previous life, play war games or host murder mystery parties. The clues they think up are amazing. We’ll go to one when we get time.”

  I kept looking around, spotting all the celebrities. Some musicians sat in one corner and film stars in another. I recognised Buddy Holly, Marilyn Monroe and Judy Garland. One group wore hula shirts, as if they had just come off the beach and left their surfboards outside. Most of them seemed quite elderly, though, with white hair and long flowing beards.

  “Who are those people?” I pointed to the group.

  “We call them ‘The Dead Poets Society’, like in the film, because they are.” Pam giggled. “Shakespeare's the one with the longest beard and the small man in the kilt, is Robert Burns. Doesn’t go with his hula shirt, does it? Would you like to meet them as well?”

  “Another day, perhaps.” I felt utterly overwhelmed.

  We left the coffee shop and strolled towards a tall pillar with mirrored sides.

  “I want to find out how your family are getting on.” Pam led me up to the abstract shape and touched a small panel set into the side.

  “How can we do that?”

  “Watch me,” she said as she entered a code. “This is a portal or opening into the real world. It shows you what is happening, although you cannot go through it and you cannot be seen. Do you ever remember a feeling as if someone was looking at you but, when you turned round, no one was there?” I nodded. “That was when one of us was watching.”

  “That’s creepy!”

  “The first people who came here were very unhappy, not knowing anything about those they left behind. So these devices were invented. You are allowed one viewing a day.”

  A mirror cleared and we saw Mum and Dad sitting on the sofa at home. They had photograph albums piled all round them. Mum was crying and Dad had his arms around her. My sister said “Do you remember…?” and told the story about us falling overboard from the dinghy. They were smiling through their tears and I smiled with them. That Turkish holiday had been so much fun.

  “Good.” Pam nodded. “They’re grieving for you, but they’re also remembering the happy times you had together. The worst bit is accepting the fact you’re really gone. Some people never do. Your parents and Fiona will be all right.”

  “I wish I could talk to them, tell them I’m here and not to worry.”

  “We’d all like to do so. If people found out about this place, they might stop doing the things they ought to do. Imagine. No one would fight disease. No one would bother to struggle for anything any more. What would be the point? Everyone needs to live out their lives in their own fashion. That’s why we can never tell them.”

  “You’re right, of course. We’d all act differently if we knew.” I wondered if I would, though. I regretted very little in my life. Nothing tragic happened to me, until the operation. I didn’t do anything dreadful and I hadn’t needed to be heroic. Another thought struck me. “Did you say we can have one viewing a day?”

  Pam nodded.

  “You mean one each or one in total?”

  “One each, but you’re allowed to watch someone else’s, if they let you.”

  Great! Just what I wanted to hear! Then I made my big mistake. “Can you show me how to do this, please? I want to see Michael. I miss him so much.”

  “Are you sure?" Pam’s voice was full of sympathy. "It might make you feel worse, you know. He can’t be very happy at the moment.”

  “I’m certain,” I said with absolute confidence. She showed me how to enter the code and explained that I had to form a picture of Michael in my mind. Excitement throbbed deep inside me, as I imagined him the last time I saw him, beside my hospital bed. Perhaps, if I did this every day, I might learn to cope, while I waited for him to join me.

  The screen cleared and we looked into Michael’s bedroom, but the scene was dramatically different from the one I had been so fondly imagining. Michael wasn’t crying distraught tears over losing me. Mandy lay stretched out under the sheet beside him and they had obviously just finished making love. My best friend was in bed with my boyfriend!

  “I feel so guilty,” Mandy said.

  “You should, you bitch!” I screamed, wishing with all my heart that she could hear me.

  “Ariane would want us to be happy,” Michael told her, stroking her cheek, tenderly.

  “No I don’t!”

  “Life goes on. If she was here now, she’d tell us so,” Michael murmured.

  “I was so scared she’d find out about us. I never wanted to hurt her.”

  Michael took her hand, the way he used to take mine. Then he said, “I wanted to tell her too, but she was so wrapped up planning in the wedding. How could I say that it was all off and I didn’t love her any more?”

  “Oh my God!” I shouted at the screen. “You’re actually glad I’m dead, you shallow heartless creep.” I started to cry and Pam put her arms round me. “I loved him,” I sobbed. My voice ached as I uttered the words. “Mandy too. We've been friends ever since primary school. Why would she do this to me?”

  “I’m sorry, darling.”

  “Nanna said nobody would hurt me in Heaven, and I believed her! She’s never lied to me before.”

  “People in the real world can hurt you, if you let them. You’re still involved at the moment. I forgot about that when you sounded so certain.”

  “Don't blame yourself. You didn’t tell Michael and Mandy to go to bed together. Once I knew about the portal, I’d have used it, sooner or later!” My voice ended in a wail.

  *

  “It's a shame, darling.” Nanna fed me chocolate and white wine, the family cure for everything. “You can never tell about people.”

  “I thought he truly loved me.” I couldn’t stop crying. The floor was littered with wet tissues. Rory laid his head in my lap, trying to make me feel better.

  “He probably did once,” Pam said, “but some people move on quicker than others. If you had lived, you would have found out about Mandy eventually and been miserable.”

  I hated the thought of Michael loving someone else and he had even been cheating on me while we were still together! No way could he ever have loved me as much as I loved him. I was a piece of rubbish which he had used and then discarded.

  “He didn’t deserve a wonderful girl like you,” Granddad said, bristling with anger. “Better you found out the kind of man he is and stop grieving over him. He’s not worth your tears.”

  “We’d been together for nearly three years.” My mind flooded with images. “I thought we were happy.” I had never known Michael at all.

  “If he was here, I’d tell him a thing or two,” Granddad said.

  “You big softie.” I hugged him, smiling in spite of my tears, as I remembered him sorting out some bullies on the swings, when I was three. “I can fight my own battles now, you know.”

  “Atta girl!”

  “More chocolate?” Pam offered. She hammered away, breaking up a huge slab that almost filled the table, but I shook my head.

  “I think I’m chocolated-out.”

  “Never.”

  “I’ve had enough anyway for now. I feel a bit better for talking to all of you.” I did, in a strange, weepy sort of way. Chocolate and sympathy had taken the edge off my shock. I still hurt, but, as my tears dried, my temper was risin
g.

  “I’d like to haunt them! Do terrible things to them at the most embarrassing moments. Teach them not to forget about me.”

  Pam smiled. “I agree, but that’s something you’re not allowed to do, otherwise there’d be total mayhem. I know, because I wanted to haunt my old boss. Do you remember Karol the Bitch?”

  “Yes. She was really horrid to you, wasn’t she?”

  Pam nodded. “I tried to be a Haunt to give her a hard time in return. Brenda saw through me, though, and packed me off to do something quite different. Good therapy, as it happened. I got so involved, I forgot all about Karol and the problems she caused me.”

  “You could do that too.” Nanna glanced at me sharply. “If you stay here now, you’ll keep peeking at Michael and Mandy and making yourself ill. Get a job and learn to forget.”

  “I don’t want to forget,” I protested and I didn’t. The hurt was too raw and I couldn’t believe anything would take away the horrible images in my mind.

  “Of course you don’t at the moment, but you will in the end.”

  “Nanna's giving you good advice,” Granddad added. “Think about it?”

  “What would I do?” I asked listlessly. I didn’t want any more discussion. I was exhausted.

  “Why not read those books Brenda gave you?”

  “I will, but I’m so tired my eyes are closing. Would you mind if I went to bed?”

  “Of course not. You’ll be better after a sleep.”

  I went up to my room, but I could not fall asleep. My thoughts chased round in circles. Images of Michael and me, Mandy and me, and Michael and Mandy followed each other, never ceasing. I tried everything to break out of the spiral, but nothing worked. Eventually, I abandoned my bed, crept downstairs and found the bag of books that Brenda had given me. I started to read.

  Day Four, Heaven.

  “I’ve decided.”

  Brenda was sitting in the same place, drinking her wine and writing in one of her books. “Already? Goodness you're quick. Are you quite sure?” She seemed startled, but I nodded firmly.