‘Ta-ra, then,’ I sigh to the empty ladder. Taking down the black hood, I scan the length of Uxbridge Road for a decent boozer, desperate now for a celebratory White Russian and a sit down. I crack my knuckles and pick up the scythe. Belushi’s looks bearable, on the other side of the green, its innards not yet slurried with the rowdy, dowdy after-work crowd. I’m about to head off, when something very red and white on the ground catches my eye-socket. Despite being mangled, with its jaw missing and spine bent out of place, the thing appears to be George Best circa 1971.
‘Alright?’ I ask.
‘Alright,’ says George, yanking his jaw back into place.
I stroke the back of my cranium. What’s George Best doing underneath a Fiat Punto, in the Capital, in the year 2008? The last time I saw George was in Cromwell Hospital in 2005, shortly after his ‘Don’t Die Like Me’ photo shoot – bearded, jaundiced, and hooked up helplessly to a ventilator.
I decide it must be a ghost. After all, it is the Dia de los Muertos – the spirit equivalent of Christmas. Maybe George came back to Earth for one last pint in his favourite Capital watering hole. Maybe one pint led to another, as it does, and George ended up so trolleyed he couldn’t help being run over on his way back to Heaven, despite technically being made up of only transparent ectoplasm.
‘Do you need a hand, mate?’ I ask.
‘Er …’ says George.
‘Actually, do you fancy a pint?’ I add. ‘I’ll pay, like, if you’ve gone and, er, if you’ve gone and shquandered all your money on booze, birds and fasht cars again …’
George says nothing. He must be smashed, after all – unless I got his quote wrong.
Rolling up the gown sleeves, I use my scythe to fish-slice George off the pavement, then carefully rearrange his limbs and features until he looks more or less human again. Luckily, the blood blends into his Man U top quite well. Brushing him down, I can’t help but notice George is wearing a bra, but maybe it’s just some daft, kinky game he’s been playing with one of his many fancy-ladies. I grin, a bit starstruck. Despite the dodgy jaw and mangled left foot, George looks almost as handsome and healthy as the photo of him on the side of my Subbuteo box.
As we stand there amidst the rushing and wailing of policemen and ambulancemen, and the eerie silence of the onlookers, suddenly a grand idea strikes me.
Instead of taking George for a bev, then flinging him back up to Heaven, I grab his arm and drag him out of the crowds, back towards the bus stop. George looks confused, but it’s probably down to all that drinking he’s been doing. Or the car crash. He sits silently as we rumble back towards Holland Park on the 94, all the sirens fading to mere whispers behind us.
Back at Bernard’s, me and Bestie stand awkwardly in the lift, twiddling our thumbs and phalanges as we zip up to P. He’s not very talkative for a ghost that’s been on tons of chat shows and quoted in loads of books. The last ghost I came across was William Shakespeare last month down the Shakespeare’s Head in Holborn, and you couldn’t fuckin shut him up. Fuckin sonnet this, soliloquy that; fuckin prick. It’s all me me me with some of these celebrity spirits, like all they’re bothered about is their own immortality.
‘Thish way,’ I say to George, when the lift doors finally break the silence, shunting open. George follows me, with his head down, into Bernard’s apartment. I chuck the scythe back in with his golf clubs, then point at the table I want George to sit at. As he takes his place on one of the high-stools, I shake up another carton of milk and crack open the vodka. I ask him, ‘Do you want one?’
George looks up with eyes like size-5 Mitre Deltas.
‘Naw, naw, you’re alright,’ he replies, a bit more high-pitched and a bit less Irish than I remember.
‘Don’t be shy,’ I say, but George just shakes his head and looks down again.
After glugging down a good bit of the cocktail, I march across the laminate flooring, creak creak, and stick my skull and shoulders into Bernie’s broom cupboard. There aren’t any brooms in here now – not since all the witches were evicted in 2006, and Bernard moved in. Now there’s just a pile of board games – everything from Mousetrap to Guess Who? – stacked behind Bernie’s plastic macs and ironing board. I remove Subbuteo with Jenga-like dexterity from the bottom of the pile, then dust off the box and turn to George and smile.
‘Look, there’sh your ugly mug on the side!’ I jest, bringing it over. George doesn’t laugh. He just sits there with his arms crossed, munching on his bottom lip.
I slide the White Russian to the edge of the table, then lay the green felt pitch down and remove the little blokes, corner flags, goalies-impaled-on-sticks, and the plastic balls.
At last, a worthy competitor! I feel almost like an infant skeleton again, back when I had skin around me, long before I lost touch with the living. The last time I played Subbuteo, against myself, it went to penalties and, since my left hand (holding the goalies) was psychic as to where my right hand was going to flick the balls, the shootout lasted more than four fuckin hours. ‘Sudden death’ was more like a slow, agonising death, until I threw the pitch earthquake-like against Bernard’s bookcase, just to get it over with.
‘Go on, George mate, kick off,’ I say, knees knocking together with excitement.
George just sits there dumbly, staring at the plastic statuettes. He raises a hand, puts it back down, puffs his cheeks out, then goes back to staring at the players with a queer expression.
‘Alright, you can be reds, if you musht,’ I sigh, shovelling up the blues I’d set up in perfect 4 –3–1–2 formation in front of George.
‘It’s not that,’ he says, playing with his lace-up collar. ‘You see, ehm … you see, I’m not actually George Best, you know. My name’s Kimberly. Kimberly Clark, sir.’
A line of cream dribbles down my mandible.
‘You what?’ I snap. ‘Who have I just sent up the Shtepladder-to-Heaven, then? And why are you dresshed like fuckin George Besht?’
Kimberly/George keeps her eyes on the pitch. She sniffs, and replies, ‘It might sound daft but, er, I was trying to fool you, sir. Disguise myself, I mean. Like, I had this feeling I was going to die today. A premonition, sort of, so … I disguised myself. See, er, that girl you sent to Heaven, ehm, she’s not Kimberly Clark, she’s … well, naw, she is Kimberley Clarke, but it’s Kimberley with an “e”. Er, two “e”s, I mean. Kimberley with two “e”s and Clarke with one “e” on the end. I think you sent her when you should have sent me.’
This is doing my fuckin skull in. I take another sour gulp of milk, straining my eye-sockets, trying to see past the disguise. Looks like God’s not so omniscient after all, the supercilious shit. The name wasn’t written down twice; it was two different people.
‘But how do I know you’re the good one? The “nice young lady” one?’ I ask, feeling foolish. ‘You’ve got evil eyesh, you know.’
‘Ask anyone,’ Kimberly/George replies, blushing.
Suddenly, the booze casts bad spells over me: anxiety, paranoia, potential unemployment, eternal damnation, etc. Through the French windows, all the black clouds seem to be glaring at me with fluffy, knitted eyebrows.
‘Wait here,’ I say, slamming the glass on the imitation oak. I stride over to the Gold Telephone, and my shoulder blades drop. 2 MESSAGES, it blinks on the interface. My phalanges tremble over the PLAY button for a few seconds before pressing it. And with that, God’s voice bellows through the penthouse suite, rattling the mock Ming vases. The first message is pleasant enough:
MESSAGE #1: Hello Reaper, old boy. Just a quicky, er … it turns out there’s been a further fatality at this here car accident in Shepherd’s Bush. Another Kimberley Clarke, no less. But with an “e”. Er, two “e”s, I mean. Kimberley with two “e”s and Clarke with one “e” on the end. Well now, this particular Kimberley is a nasty piece of work. Drunkard. Loudmouth. Suicidal. Murderous. Split personality. Drunkard. Did I just say that? Complete and utter bitch. Pardon my French. Just to let you know, you’d
better bring Hell’s Bells with you, along with the Stepladder-to-Heaven. Hope you get this. Sorry. Cheers. Ciao.
The second message is less pleasant:
MESSAGE #2: Reaper! God! Are you there? Pick up! Pick up, you old fool! What the heck! You’ve sent the wrong effing Kimberley up here! You drunken fool. Did you not get my message? I’ve had it, Reaper – you’re effing finished. You’re fired. You’re going to Hell. Call me when you get this. Effing idiot. Ciao.
An image flickers in my skull: all my bones turning to charcoal. I shudder. In times of crisis, when your cards are up and you’re down on your luck, all you can do is drink and disappear. Like a soldier falling on his own sword, I crack open another bottle of Absolut and a two-pinter of milk, and pour them double-barrelled down my neck. Kimberly/George carries on contemplating the tabletop, glumly wiping away the rest of her stubble with the back of her hand. Thinking about it, she looks nothing like George Best – especially when she takes the fuckin wig off.
Once I’m halfway through the vodka, Kimberly coughs into her palm and asks quietly, ‘Erm, Mr Death, sir, what’s going to happen to me? Do you think you’d better phone God back?’
‘Fuck that!’ I screech. ‘Thish is bad enough already … in any case, he’s in Peru now. The shignal’sh shit, and it’s like fuckin 35p a minute.’
Kimberly’s eyes drift down to the table again.
‘Well, what’s the chance of just bringing me back to life, and, like … forgetting all this happened?’ she asks hopefully.
‘Ha. Nay. It was your own daft fault getting squashed, washn’t it? And your own daft fault trying to fuck about with fate. Fuckin dishguises!’ I scoff, feeling victimised.
Kimberly fiddles nervously with one of the Subbuteo men, twirling him like a tiny dance partner. The one with the George Best beard, it looks like – but I could be mistaken.
‘Well, what’s going to happen to me?’ she whimpers.
‘What do you think happensh when you die?’ I ask.
‘I don’t know. That’s the worst thing about it, isn’t it: the unknown,’ Kimberly replies. ‘But I thought you, er, of all people, might know.’
‘Fuck off. I don’t decide your fate, do I?’ I explain. ‘I’m just a glorified usher, me. God makes all the deshishionsh. I do all the fuckin legwork, mind … get paid fuck-all for it as well, the tight sod. He fuckin getsh the hump and all he d—’
‘That message he left, though,’ she interrupts. ‘It sounded like you’ve got all the gear. Why can’t we decide this one? Please? Like, er, you’ve lost your job anyway, haven’t you?’
‘Cheeky shit,’ I say. The cheeky shit scratches the back of her neck. To be fair, the cheeky shit makes a good point. I’ve got all the afterlife equipment downstairs, in Bernard’s garage, gathering dust. God forbid the Grim Reaper – the man on the street – should make the odd decision now and then. After all, I’m the one breaking my backbone, meeting and greeting the corpses, while His Holiness fannies about all day with his head in the fuckin clouds.
‘Alright, then,’ I give in, after another slug of vodka, ‘but I suppose Kimberly with one “e” wantsh to go to Heaven as well, does she?’
Her face lights up, and she breathes, ‘Please.’
I laugh: one of those booming, spine-chilling laughs we’re famous for here in Limbo.
‘Who’sh to say you don’t deserve to go to Hell, though?’ I ask, wishing I could stop grinning at her. I’m trying to be fuckin fearsome here. I continue, ‘After all, you’ve made me loosh my fuckin job.’
Kimberly’s shoulders sink. She glances up at me with her best helpless-woolly-monkey expression and suggests, ‘Well, maybe you or me shouldn’t choose. Maybe we should get someone … impartial.’
‘Who like?’ I ask. Bernard doesn’t get back from work till nine, and I doubt he’d be up for deciding the fate of a young dead lady after a full day’s slog in the office.
‘Well, do you know any other gods who might want to step in?’ Kimberly enquires. ‘The Hindus and Buddhists have some spare, don’t they? And I’ve been rea—’
‘Bah! No chance!’ I spit. ‘I’ll have nothing to do with other gods.’
Kimberly plays with her hands again, anxiously. Whether authentic or not, it looks like she might roll a tear.
‘Well, let’s shee now … I can think of one person who might be able to help,’ I offer, feeling unusually sorry for the girl. I must be going soft in the fuckin bone marrow. I add, ‘You see, we’re not the only ones here, are we?’
‘Who do you mean?’ Kimberly asks, looking about herself. The Subbuteo players stare back at her with glazed faces.
‘Well, what about the Reader?’ I suggest, nodding up at you; yes, YOU, the one holding the book. You stare down at the page, reading this sentence, wondering what you’ve got to do with it.
‘Maybe I shouldn’t be telling you thish, but there’s someone else watching over us, as we shpeak. A kind of transcendental peeping tom, if you will,’ I explain, pointing out your eyeballs, swinging from side to side on the ceiling. ‘The Reader’sh here with us, in Limbo – that strange shtate between life and death; fact and fiction; the known and the unknown …’
‘Oh … I …’ Kimberly mumbles, taken aback. ‘I thought they were just over-the-top lampshades.’
‘Nay. See the stalks?’ I say, pointing to the red cords hanging from the ceiling, holding up your eyeballs. ‘They’re not connected to the electric supply. They’re plugged all the way into the back of the Reader’sh skull.’
‘Oh,’ Kimberly says again, with glowing cheeks. ‘So, what should we do? What do you think? I mean, could the Reader play God, do you reckon? Could the Reader decide my fate? Could they throw a coin or something? Or roll that die?’
She gestures at the six-sided die sat minding its own business on the Ludo board, in the kitchen.
‘Well, I suppose,’ I say, mulling it over, ‘but how are they going to roll that die when it’sh all the way over here in a penthouse suite in some book called Kimberly’sh Capital Punishment, existing not in the Reader’sh reality but represented through language in the form of mere black symbolsh on a white background?’
‘Alright then, smart arse, well maybe they’ve got dice at home,’ Kimberly snaps. I look down, a little shameskulled. She adds, frowning, ‘Anyway, what was that … Kimberly’s what?’
‘Nowt. Anyway, let’s not get ahead of ourshelves. Let’s see what the Reader thinksh first, eh?’ I say, glancing up at your swinging, twinkling eyeballs again.
‘Oi! I mean, er, excuse me, dear Reader,’ I say, referring to you; yes, YOU, you nosy bastard bookworm. ‘I was wondering if you could do me and Kimberly a favour? If you’d be so kind as to find a six-sided die – a real one, not that one on the Ludo board, shtuck here in Limbo – myshelf and Miss Clark would be ever so grateful. And, if you’d be kind enough to roll it when I say so, I promise I won’t appear on your doorshtep waving my scythe for at leasht six months after you finish this here sentence. Cheersh. Ta-ra.’
Kimberly smirks, like she’s not bothered about her fate being decided by a complete stranger. Then again, God’s a stranger to most folk, and even those who go to church every Sunday aren’t automatically invited back to play in Heaven once they’ve snuffed it. The bouncers run a very strict door policy.
‘Are you ready, then?’ I ask, referring to both you and young Kimberly. Kimberly nods, becoming solemn again. I watch her bite her bottom lip as she awaits the nerve-wracking result.
‘Right then, fair, impartial Reader, ROLL THE DIE!’ I yell up at the lampshades/your eyeballs.
You roll the die, doing as you’re told.*
If you roll a ONE, Kimberly is sent to Heaven. Turn to page 229.
If you roll a TWO, Kimberly is reincarnated. Turn to page 270.
If you roll a THREE, Kimberly becomes a ghost. Turn to page 317.
If you roll a FOUR, Kimberly is resurrected. Turn to page 339.
If you roll a FIVE, Kimberl
y rests in peace. Turn to page 371.
If you roll a SIX, Kimberly burns in Hell. Turn to page 413.
Nice one. Have fun. Take care. See you soon.†
* Dearest Grim Reader, if you don’t happen to own any dice, simply pull out six of your teeth and number them 1 to 6 with a saliva-resistant marker. Then, pop them back in your mouth, shuffle them with your tongue, and spit one out at random. Failing that, just pick a fuckin number from 1 to 6 then.
† But not too soon, I swear.
Part 3) Kimberly in Heaven
Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes! Bright white light! In fact, the brightest, whitest, nicest, lightest light I might’ve ever seen! And a wondrous, sloppy feeling in my veins, like pharmaceutical heroin, or another drug I’ve never even done!
The Grim Reaper grumbles into his cloak as he sends me up the Stepladder-to-Heaven, patting my back with the butt of his scythe. Then, all of a sudden, the corrugated metal transforms into a pink marble staircase, and I find myself eight miles high in the sky.
Firstly, there’s vertigo. Then, all feelings of altitude sickness, flu, heartburn, brain tumour, hangover and after-effects of the car crash melt away in the sun. I suddenly have the queer, unselfconscious urge to squeal with joy, wobbling all the stars and planets, like toys on a baby’s mobile.
I carry on up the staircase, each step giving off a scent more and more lovely than the last. Treacle tarts! Rose petals! Sunday dinner! Autumn leaves! Up ahead, the Gates of Heaven twinkle, ringing with a kind of metallic classical music whenever the soft breeze catches them. They must be about a mile tall and, if you look carefully, there are ex-demons in overalls clinging to the sides, polishing them. I squint, trying to make out the delights waiting for me behind the Gates, but it’s far too foggy. Someone’s left a dry-ice machine on, I think, to give the impression of general otherworldliness.
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