‘Well, do you think you could ask one of them?’
Ange huffs to herself.
‘Right, they’re not going until they get an invite to your wedding,’ she says.
‘What?’
‘They want to come to the wedding.’
‘Ooo, a wedding! We’re going to a wedding!’ A woman dressed in typical ghostly attire like a white wedding dress, cries.
‘A wedding! How wonderful! I’ve been to a few of those!’ Another spirit roars with laughter.
‘But they can’t come to my wedding, Ange!’
‘Well, they’re not leaving until they get an invite. I can assure you of that,’ Ange says.
‘Miracle, they won’t go because they want to come to my wedding,’ I whisper.
‘Well, it looks like you’re going to have to extend your guest list then.’ Miracle laughs her throaty laugh.
What? Oh bloody marvellous! Now I have dead people requesting to be put on the guest list. It’s one way to make up the numbers, I suppose!
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
So just how do you explain to your fiancé that your wedding guest list has expanded tenfold?
‘Don’t tell him,’ Ange advises.
‘But why? We tell each other everything.’
‘You don’t think it’s a teensy-weensy bit strange to say to your future husband, Oh, and by the way, we have an additional two hundred guests coming, only they’re all dead?’
She has a point.
‘And besides, he won’t be able to see them anyway, will he?’
‘I guess not.’ Jack has never seen so much as a spooky shadow, let alone a dead person, which is probably a good thing really because he is such a baby at the best of times. He can’t even watch Scooby-Doo without hiding behind a cushion – and this is the guy who is supposed to be looking after me until death do us part, forever and ever amen.
‘So I won’t tell him then.’
‘Correct. It will only unnerve him,’ my spirit guide says very sagely. ‘Anyway, I’ve got a surprise for you, Sammy girl!’ Ange adds.
‘Hang on one mo, Ange. Let me get the phone. Here, here’s the latest copy of Fate & Fortune for you to read.’ I leave the copy of Ange’s second favourite mag on the armchair and watch in amusement as the pages turn as if by themselves.
‘Hey Paul. How’s it all going down under?’
‘Sammy! How’s things? It’s ninety degrees in the shade here,’ my brother gloats.
‘How lovely for you, but don’t you miss the wind and the rain of good old England?’ I say to my lovely brother who is a gazillion miles away in sunny Australia right now.
‘Hum, let me think for a second … no.’
‘So why are you calling me at what must be an ungodly hour over there?’
‘I’ve got some info for you, on Jack’s mum,’ Paul says.
Oh. Suddenly my stomach does one of those lurch things. Do I really want to know? I am the crappiest of crappiest people at keeping a secret.
‘And?’ I say apprehensively.
‘Well,’ Paul begins, ‘I found a total of eight women called Marianne Lewis who would have been born around the same time as Jack’s mum. Two were Nigerian and members of the same tribe, so I counted them out for obvious reasons – Jack’s not black, is he?’
‘No Paul, as far as I’m aware Jack is not black and never has been.’
‘That’s what I thought. One woman is married to a Scottish vicar and lives somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Another is living in Leicester, again married, kids in their twenties, etc. Another one …’
‘Paul, just cut to the chase.’
‘Yeah, well, you get the idea. Now, having had no luck on my list of eight, I thought she might have married, or that Lewis wasn’t her original name, so I dug around a bit. Now, there was a woman born in 1963 by the name of Marianne Ranger who, according to my sources, had a relationship with a wealthy American entrepreneur by the name of Peter Lewis. Lewis was killed in a car crash in Florida in October 1984. When was Jack born?’
‘On 18th February 1985.’
‘Right. According to a newspaper report Lewis and Marianne were due to get married once the baby was born, but obviously that didn’t happen. It looks like Marianne had Jack and gave him Peter’s surname on the birth certificate, which was registered at York register office.’
Just talking about Jack makes my heart ache. I can’t imagine how Gem feels, knowing that she will never see Simon, the love of her life, again.
‘So why did she put him into care?’ I ask. I really feel for Jack. We all want to know where we came from, right?
‘That I have yet to find out. Can you not just ask the woman yourself?’
‘I told you it doesn’t work like that. All Jack has is a photo and note saying how sorry she is and that she will return to get him, but she never did.’
‘Well, leave it with me. I’ll see what else I can dig up, but Sam?’
‘Yes?’
‘This is Jack’s business. You don’t have to be the fixer of all problems, you know, and he might not even want to know,’ Paul says quietly.
This takes me aback a bit. Paul is usually the one who goes in all guns blazing and thinks about the consequences later – usually much too much later – and here he is advising me to leave things alone.
‘Perhaps you’re right,’ I say, and maybe he is; maybe Jack really is quite happy and doesn’t need to know.
As I finish my call with Paul, I notice that the pages of the magazine I gave to Ange are still flicking over of their own accord.
‘So, what’s this surprise you have for me then, Ange?’
‘Ange?’
There’s no reply from my slightly wacky spirit guide, and yet the pages of the magazine I gave her are still flicking over and over. Does this mean she’s not speaking to me again?
‘Ange?’
Suddenly the outline of a figure emerges on my sofa – and unfortunately it’s not Ange. It’s Clive.
‘Oh Jesus Christ!’
‘Now, now Samantha. We should not use the Lord’s name in vain, should we?’ Clive says in his usual sinister manner.
‘What are you doing here? What do you want?’ I look around the room.
‘There’s no point looking for your little friend. She’s not here. She’s gone.’ Clive sneers. My little kitten Dorothy hisses at him then runs away to the kitchen.
‘Gone? What do you mean, she’s gone? What have you done with Ange? Ange?’ I find myself screaming into thin air for my spiritual buddy. Despite having been assigned the most useless spirit guide in the world, I feel quite an affinity with Ange and am quite protective of her.
Clive smiles at me. He looks just as I remembered him when he was alive – lanky with ill-fitting clothes and glasses that are far too big for him. I wonder if when we die we get to choose how we look? I make a mental note to ask Ange.
‘I like how I look, actually,’ Clive says, as if reading my mind.
‘What do you want, Clive? Haven’t you got something better to do than annoy me, like oh, I don’t know, ghost train spotting?’ I know, I know, but this guy is seriously pissing me off now. Not content with being a pain in the butt when he was alive, he has to be a pain in the butt in the afterlife too!
‘We have unfinished business, remember?’
‘What unfinished business?’ I look at Clive with defiance. I will not be intimidated by a ghost.
‘You were going to cure me of my phobia, remember?’
‘And you became a weird pain in the butt, remember?’ I retaliate. This is madness; I’m arguing with the ghost of someone who once had a crush on me and held a grudge because I wasn’t interested. You’d think he’d let it go now, wouldn’t you? I mean, don’t dead people have better things to think about, like, oh I don’t know, like comforting their loved ones? Mind you, Clive didn’t really have any loved ones to comfort, being your stereotypical trainspotting loner.
‘I’m here to stay,’ Cl
ive says as he settles back on my sofa and crosses his legs.
‘Right, if that’s the way you want to play it…’ I snap. I will not be intimidated by a lanky ghost in bad clothes. I furiously stamp out to the kitchen, empty the veg rack and arm myself with enough varieties of vegetables to make Paul McCartney proud.
‘Right, you want to play games, do you?’ I shout as I return to the living room armed with my very own harvest festival.
‘What are you doing?’ Clive stutters, and despite him being somewhat washed out, I can still see the shocked look on his face.
‘Come on then. You want me to cure you of your vegetable phobia, do you? Well, here have some carrots …’ I throw a bunch of them at Clive, who visibly squirms, ‘… and how about a turnip? Do you like them too, Clive?’ A turnip flies through the air. ‘Or what about a …’ I look at the strange orangey vegetable in my hand, trying to recall what it is, ‘… a squish, no a squash. Is that it? Do you like whatever these bloody things are called, Clive? How about some sprouts for good measure?’ I launch sprouts like missiles at my unwanted visitor.
‘Yoo-hoo! It’s only me!’
Ah, it’s my mother.
‘Sammy, what on earth are you doing, dear?’ She looks at me as if I’m completely bonkers, and given the sight she is looking at she has every right to assume that I have totally lost the plot.
Clive has disappeared and in his place a veritable feast of vegetables adorns my sofa and I am in mid throw, taking aim with a beetroot in my hand.
‘Mum! Hi!’ I say in a panic.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
I managed to convince my mum that I am not going mad and that the reason my sofa was covered in an assortment of vegetables was a stress relief method that the Dalai Lama swears by. I know, but what else could I say and it was the first thing that came into my head.
After I had discussed the virtues of his Royal Highness Lama with my mother and thanked her for dropping off a bag of cat litter for my feline family, she left to allow me to finish my ‘stress relieving programme’ in peace. Little did she know I had been doing battle with her boyfriend’s dead cousin.
I have worked out that Clive is still deeply fearful of vegetables and in particular the wonderful orange root vegetable, the humble carrot, and I decide it’s time to take action and remove all the ornaments and vases from my window sills and replace them with bunches of carrots. That will sort the bugger out. I hang a bunch above the front door for good measure.
‘What the f…?’ Ange says.
‘Ange! Where have you been?’ I swivel round towards the sound of her voice and … oh my God! There, standing in the middle of my living room, is Ange. And I mean really standing there in all her Essex glory.
‘Ange?’
Ange does a twirl.
‘What do you think? And why the hell are you hanging carrots above the door? Is it some kind of witchy ritual, because if it is I don’t want to know,’ Ange says, looking up at my choice of house decoration.
‘Good Lord, look at you! You’re real!’ I squeak. I can’t believe it. All this time I’ve been able to hear Ange, but I haven’t been able actually to see her and she looks stunning. Her hair is golden blonde and curls all the way down to her bum and she’s a real woman. By that I mean she is not a stick insect, but a normal size twelve to fourteen, with gorgeous womanly curves. She reminds me of a cross between Marylyn Monroe and Adele. Ange’s fashion sense isn’t quite what I would choose to dress myself in – short, stonewashed blue denim skirt, a pink lace vest top, with a purple leopard skin bra underneath it, the biggest pair of gold hoop earrings you could ever wish to own and a pair of fluorescent orange wedge sandals. She has an equally orange tan.
This reminds me a bit of that old eighties movie Mannequin, when the mannequin comes to life. I’m looking Ange up and down; Ange is looking herself up and down, both of us in awe of the sight before us.
‘How did you do that?’
‘I have no idea!’ Ange says as she examines her shapely legs.
‘But you look so … so real!’ and she does; not like Clive or the other visiting spirits who all looked slightly washed out. I poke my finger at Ange and as you would suspect it goes right through her.
‘Did you feel that?’
‘Nope. Do it again,’ Ange says excitedly, so I do and again and again. We’re like two kids who have discovered something very interesting.
‘Look, I can do this too,’ Ange says as she closes her eyes tightly and concentrates. She actually looks as though she needs a poo.
‘Hang on, it’s coming …’
I stare at Ange as she concentrates hard on whatever she’s trying to do and she suddenly disappears before my eyes.
‘I’m still here,’ I hear her say.
‘Cool. Now come back, I want to see you in all your glory again.’ I feel so happy for Ange right now because I know how much she has wanted to be able to show herself to me.
‘See! I’m here again,’ Ange says.
‘Err, no you’re not, Ange.’ And she isn’t.
‘Oh shit, hang on a minute.’ Ange makes a huge grunting sort of noise.
‘Taadaa!’
There she is again. Amazing!
‘Ange! This is brilliant! How did you do it?’
‘I have no idea. Someone up there told me that we can show ourselves given the right frequencies, or something, so I thought I would give it a go. What do you think?’ Ange spins around again, wobbling slightly on her six-inch wedge heels.
‘I think you look bloody marvellous. Is this the sort of thing you used to wear, you know when you were … you know?
‘Alive? Yeah, why? Don’t you like it?’
‘I do … I just …’ Oh crikey, how do you tell your spirit guide that less is often more without upsetting her? It’s a bit like when your best friend bought that silver dress in the Next January sales and ended up looking like a turkey ready for the oven. Ange’s large bosoms are almost hanging out of her lace top and the skirt could do with being a few inches longer. The diamante belt on her hips is a bit too glitzy for Bath, but other than that …
‘You don’t like the way I dress?’ Ange snaps.
‘No, no I do. You look very …’
‘Classy?’ Ange ventures.
‘Um … very … fun loving,’ I say, ‘very Essex, like that girl off of TOWIE.’
‘Oh good, because I love TOWIE – not as much as I love Mark Wright though, but he loved Lauren. Maybe if I paid him a visit he’d love me, wouldn’t he?’
Eh?
‘I don’t think Mark Wright is looking for love at the moment, Ange. He’s too busy presenting that new reality show, remember? And there’s the little matter that he’s alive and you’re … well … you’re not.’
‘Well that’s OK, because I have someone else in mind.’ Ange smiles with sparkles in her eyes. ‘Which is the reason I am here today, showing myself to you.’
‘And this new guy, is he dead too?’
‘He is!’ Ange says with excitement.
‘I didn’t know you could date dead people when you were dead.’ And I didn’t. I mean, who’d have thought?
‘I know! Me neither!’
‘And this dead guy, where did you meet him?’ I have visions of some speed dating club in the sky for dead peeps.
‘Well, I was just wandering around up there, taking things in, when there was this great crashing sound. I thought it was thunder, as you do when you hear a great crashing sound in the sky. Anyway, next thing I know there’s this guy on the floor in front of me dressed from head to toe in black leather with a crash helmet on his head,’ Ange says as she settles herself down between the assortment of vegetables on the sofa.
‘Ooo!’ Ange shrieks as she produces a carrot from beneath her. ‘That could have been unfortunate!’ She laughs her loud laugh.
‘So? This dead guy?’ God, this girl has the attention span of a goldfish sometimes.
‘Oh yeah, well there he was, just l
ying there at my feet – probably looking up me skirt if I didn’t know any better. Anyway I said, Who are you? And he groaned, opened his visor and said, “Who the fuck are you?”’
‘A nice gentleman then?’
‘Well I said, I’m Ange and who the fuck are you to ask who the fuck I am? I mean who the fuck does he think he is?’
‘Quite.’
I am still in awe of the sight of my sassy little spirit guide, although I do wish she would pull her skirt down a few inches, you can almost see her knickers – that’s if she’s actually got any on. Ange was a great fan of going knickerless when she was alive, apparently.
‘So, it turns out he’s a guy called Danny, he’s twenty-four, or should I say was twenty-four – he’s dead see.’
‘No kidding.’
‘Yeah, he is. Anyway he died in a motorbike accident – hence why he was wearing the leathers, and he was in a right mood when we met.’
‘Well, I expect he was, Ange,’ I say. ‘One minute he’s out on his bike and the next he’s flat on his back looking up at you. Oh God, you weren’t wearing that skirt, were you?’ I have visions of Danny waking up and getting an eyeful of Ange’s privates.
‘What’s wrong with this skirt? It’s my fave!’ Ange looks shocked.
‘Nothing. It’s just a little - short.’
‘That’s what Danny said,’ Ange says with a surprised tone to her voice. ‘After he asked who the fuck I was! He’s lush, mind, Sam, even if he is an arrogant git.’
Oh no, where is this heading?
‘So? Are you going to see him again?’
Ange’s eyes light up.
‘Well, that’s where you come in.’
I thought as much. I sit on the sofa next to Ange.
‘Go on, but it will have to be quick; I have a radio show to do today.’ I say, looking at my watch. With Annette out of action it’s all hands to the whatsit at the moment at Town FM, and with Jeff permanently wearing the carpet out with his walking up and down all the time, rather than reading the news, it’s up to me and Liam to run the show. I have to say, though, it is good fun being a stand-in radio DJ and I keep name dropping Jack’s band in the hope that it will encourage people to vote for Otherwise at the Vibe Awards – cheeky I know, but hey, you have to get the publicity where you can.
Oh Great, Now I Can See Dead People Page 15