Outside, walking along the familiar pathway, which took her down past the beach and then turned to bend around to the shops, she felt strange, as she had in those first weeks after Danny had died. Once again, the rest of the world felt foreign to her and she was out of place within it. Despite the heat of the day, she wrapped her arms around herself as goose bumps prickled her skin.
She was almost considering turning back, returning to the safety and comfort of her own private space. But giving up now seemed silly. She was already out – she was halfway there, she may as well at least complete her task. Get in, grab the right books, avoid too much contact with others, get out – go back home.
She began to pass people out walking their dogs, or strolling along the footpath hand-in-hand with their partner. Mothers pushing strollers, teenagers on school holidays. Juliette managed to keep her face averted so she didn’t catch anyone’s eye. She didn’t want to have to smile or say hello. She ticked off the shops as she passed them on the way to the bookstore – the newsagent, the milk bar, the deli. The café that served all day breakfast, the surf-wear clothing store, the café that only served breakfast til 10am.
Finally, she reached Pages & Chapters. She turned in, mumbled a thankyou to the guy who was exiting the store and had kindly held the door open for her, and headed straight for the counter. When she finally lifted her head to face the person standing behind the computer, she groaned inwardly. The girl’s name tag said, Kaylee. Wonderful, why couldn’t Chris be back from his deliveries? Or any one of the other staff members that she knew well, who would certainly clear up the mistake immediately?
She realised that Kaylee was staring at her, waiting for her to speak, not bothering to offer any form of greeting to start the conversation.
‘Hi,’ said Juliette. ‘I called earlier. My books were delivered this morning but it was the wrong order. I came to collect the correct ones.’
Kaylee frowned. ‘Where are they?’ she asked.
‘Excuse me?’
‘Where are the books that you got. The ones that are wrong?’
‘Well, they’re back at my apartment.’
‘You’ll need to bring them in if you want to exchange them.’
Juliette felt her shoulders tense. The only good thing about this altercation was that Kaylee’s irritating manner was bringing out Juliette’s more assertive side, stopping her from being too shy.
‘No,’ she said firmly, ‘it’s not an exchange. They’re not the books I ordered. You can have someone come and pick them up later. In the meantime, I want my books so that I can start reading.’
Kaylee looked ready to argue with her further, but thankfully a voice exclaimed from behind.
‘Juliette, it’s so brilliant to see you here in the shop. You haven’t been in for such a long time!’
Juliette swung around and sighed with relief. It was Suzanne. She would get everything straightened out immediately. Juliette would have her books and be out of the shop in minutes. She couldn’t help glancing back at Kaylee, and was pleased to see that she was looking suitably impressed by her boss’s enthusiasm for Juliette. She knew full well that Suzanne only reserved her (albeit fake) voice of delight for certain customers. Juliette threw a look of superiority at Kaylee and then turned her attention back to Suzanne.
‘Yes, I’m here because of a problem though. My book delivery—’
Suzanne cut her off, ‘I know darling, I’m absolutely furious. Chris actually managed to mix up three different orders today, can you believe it? Yours is right back here. I’ll have Chris walk back with you and carry them inside for you. Give me just one moment.’
Juliette smiled, this was exactly what she wanted – her problem fixed and to be on her way to the apartment as quickly as possible.
Within two minutes, Suzanne had returned, Chris by her side holding Juliette’s new box of books, an apologetic look on his face.
‘Umm, they’re not really that heavy,’ said Juliette, ‘I could just take them back myself.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Suzanne. ‘I’m absolutely mortified that you had to come down here at all, chasing up your order. We must get together for a coffee some time, Juliette,’ she added, the suggestion holding as much sincerity as a casino owner wishing you the best of luck on your bet. Then she leaned in to kiss the air to the right of Juliette’s cheek, before turning and flouncing away.
Juliette smiled politely at Chris. ‘Okay,’ she said with a shrug, ‘I guess you’re coming with me.’
He followed her out of the store and she headed down the street, setting a brisk pace, glad that Chris seemed to be keeping up despite the box of books he was carrying.
‘Hey, I’m sorry about this,’ Chris said as they walked. ‘Just been getting over a bad summer cold. I think that’s why my brain’s been scattered.’
‘No worries. It’s all taken care of now.’
She tried to keep a note of finality in her voice to avoid any further conversation as they continued to stride back towards her apartment block. It seemed to work – or perhaps he was just out of breath from trying to keep up with her. She supposed she shouldn’t really have kept walking so quickly, since he had said he was getting over a cold. But she’d been outside long enough. Her desire to return to her home was becoming stronger and stronger.
Back inside the building, she jabbed at the button for the lift and tapped her foot rhythmically as she waited, ignoring the curious looks she knew she was receiving from Chris. Inside the lift, as it ascended smoothly, Chris almost dropped the box as he began to cough rather violently and Juliette had to reach out to steady it for him.
‘Ahh,’ she said quietly, ‘yes, that does sound like a bad cold.’ And she felt a little guilty for rushing him back here.
‘I’m really sounding much better than I was,’ said Chris, once he managed to stop coughing.
When they finally made it into Juliette’s apartment, she felt an immediate sense of relief wash over her. She was back. She was safe. She wasn’t going to be leaving this place again anytime soon. She knew she should probably offer Chris a drink of water before kicking him straight back out with the other box, but she really wanted to be alone, and she convinced herself that it wasn’t that rude if she just sent him on his way again.
‘Thanks for doing this, Chris,’ she said, as she lifted the original box and pushed it into his arms.
‘Sorry to rush you out the door, but I have some …’ she hesitated. What was her excuse?
‘… some work to do,’ she finished, hoping against hope that he wouldn’t ask what sort of work.
‘That’s okay,’ said Chris. ‘I’ve actually got a mate in the building. I might drop by and see him before I head back to the store. Chill on his couch for a few minutes.’
‘Sure, sure,’ said Juliette absentmindedly, as she herded him towards the door. Go away, she was thinking. Go away so I can feel like this space is just mine again. So I can relax. So I can figure things out.
When the door finally shut behind Chris, she turned and pressed her back against it, savouring the feeling of being alone in her apartment again. A few moments to just centre herself, and then she would make a new cup of tea, sit down on the couch and read, just as she had originally planned.
Chapter Five
Ironically, after everything that she had been through that day, when Juliette sat down and opened up her first book, she simply couldn’t concentrate on the words. And the tea wasn’t having the same calming effect it normally would on her. After re-reading the same page three times over, she gave up. She rose from the couch and stared at the study door, considering it. Maybe she should just use her mobile phone to do her research. It was how she did all of her online ordering, how she stayed connected to the outside world.
But she knew it would be annoying to search multiple sites and open up various pages on the small screen. Besides, she couldn’t keep that door closed forever. She might be shy, but she wasn’t a coward. She stamped her foot on the c
arpet, just once, to snap herself out of it, and then strode over to the door, turned the handle and pushed it open. The musky scent of a room that had been kept closed for several months came rushing at her. Her eyes took in the familiar sight – Danny’s desk, the old typewriter that his publicist had insisted he be photographed in front of, despite the fact that all of his novels were written on the thirty-two inch Mac that towered above it. The collection of postcards he’d kept sticky-taped to the wall above the computer, and the framed literary awards for best crime fiction novel in 2010 and 2011, proudly displayed on the desk.
Juliette tensed as she waited for her body to be struck by that strange feeling again – but it didn’t happen. Tentatively, she stepped into the room, creeping towards the desk. Still nothing. She eased herself into the chair, then leaned forward to turn on the computer. Waiting for the log-in screen to appear, her eyes wandered across the desk and she caught sight of a photograph of Danny and her in France with her parents, a candid shot taken by a friend of her mother’s as they wandered through the local village. Her mum had one arm resting casually across Juliette’s shoulders and was pointing at something out of view of the photo. Juliette was shading her eyes as she tried to see what her mother was pointing at. Danny and her father were walking behind them, their hands in their pockets and their heads thrown back as they laughed at some joke one or the other had told.
Thinking of her mother made her remember how upset Eve had been with Juliette when she had made the decision to move permanently to Australia. She had started out on a backpacking holiday with friends, but Juliette had fallen in love with Sydney. Being so shy, she had never even entertained the possibility that she might one day move so far from her family. But the pull of creating a life all her own had been too strong. And when she met Danny, she had known she had made the right decision in moving to Sydney. Because if she hadn’t, then she wouldn’t have been jogging along the beach on that particular day, at that particular moment, and they never would have met.
They met at Coogee, the very beach she could see each day from her balcony. Danny was jogging there as well. He’d been so bold, falling into step beside her, asking if she minded having a running partner, chatting effortlessly as he jogged. Within just half an hour he had convinced her to come out to dinner with him. From that first date onwards, they had barely spent a day apart. Getting engaged and then married was simply the most logical progression. They were perfect for one another, they slotted together seamlessly.
Now, as the computer screen lit up, Juliette turned away from the photograph she’d been gazing at so avidly and blinked away tears. How could her life have changed so completely, so quickly? When that first heart attack had hit, what she remembered most of all was the sense of fear. At the time she couldn’t have ever imagined life without Danny. Five years they’d been together – just five. Long enough to know so much about one another – but not nearly long enough to contemplate the thought of losing one another. She had rushed to find out anything and everything she could about heart disease. He was older than Juliette, but still young to have a heart attack. And he was so fit! It just made no sense. She needed to know exactly how to take care of him, how to ensure that he wouldn’t have another attack. The problem was, he was already healthy. He exercised a lot, he ate well.
‘It was just one of things,’ he kept telling her. ‘Don’t worry so much, it won’t happen again.’
When the second heart attack hit him, he was in a hotel room in New York. He had convinced Juliette to stay behind in Australia for this trip, as it was only for two nights and she’d been sick with a bad cold.
‘The last thing you need is to be stuck on a plane for twenty hours,’ he’d said. ‘Stay here, get some rest and I’ll be home to look after you again before you know it.’
The last thing she said before he left was, ‘Don’t go, stay. Stay here with me.’
The call had come in from Danny’s agent. ‘I’m so sorry Juliette,’ she had begun. And the waver in her usually steely voice had made the words that followed redundant.
Another heart attack. She had told him to stop travelling. To cancel his book tours. Known it would add extra stress to his body. He might have been healthy and fit, but with his heart condition he should have been taking things easy. He should have stayed home with Juliette.
‘Write your novels,’ she’d told him. ‘Publish your books – do what you love. But just stay here to do it. Stay here with me.’
Hadn’t she been enough? Hadn’t their life been enough for him? Couldn’t they have gone on? He was all she ever needed. Danny was enough for her. She could have lived her life never making contact with another soul if it had meant that just she and Danny could be together – could stay cocooned in their own world. Their own perfect life.
She couldn’t imagine how her grief-stricken mind would have dealt with the situation if Danny’s spirit had appeared to her back then. Perhaps it would have sent her spiralling out of control. But if what she thought was happening really was true, then right now she was ready for it. And she needed to know more.
An hour later, she was done. She had gathered all sorts of research on haunted locations, supernatural incidents and various people’s experiences of being ‘contacted’ after a loved one had died. Some of them were quite similar to what Juliette had experienced, and she found the idea simultaneously comforting and slightly irritating – part of her wanted this all to be unique to her own situation. In one case, a woman had sworn that her boyfriend, who had died in a car accident, had returned to her the night of the funeral in order to spend one night of passion with her. At first, Juliette was slightly excited at the idea – the prospect of being able to make love to Danny one more time was quite thrilling – but then she read the end of the story: the woman claimed she had fallen pregnant with her dead boyfriend’s baby. The fact that she was now seeing the boyfriend’s best friend had absolutely nothing to do with the pregnancy and despite what her deceased boyfriend’s family were saying, the baby was definitely his and would probably possess superhuman powers due to being part spirit, part human. She was also suing the family for child-support payments.
Juliette snorted when she finished reading the story. The things some people did for fame or money. She printed out a few pages of the more credible information and then logged into her local supermarket’s online store. She needed a lot more supplies for her baking – she wanted to make sure she delivered something to every door on one floor, every night. She should have enough ingredients left to cook up plenty of cakes and slices for at least the next two nights – but she would need a new delivery by the day after tomorrow, at the latest.
Finally, she stood up from the desk. Gathering the few pages of information she had printed off, she stopped as she was overcome by a sneezing fit – three, four, five sneezes in a row. Then she rubbed her eyes and left the study for the kitchen; she really had to do something about all of that dust in the study.
But for now, it was time to bake again, to give her mind a break from all the intense thoughts that had been running through her mind so far today. Plus, she wanted to make sure she had enough cakes to cover the twenty-fourth floor tonight.
Chapter Six
By the time Juliette had returned from that night’s cake deliveries, she had to admit that the sneezing from earlier was not just a result of the dust in the barely used study. Her sinuses were blocked, her eyes were itchy and her throat was feeling scratchy. Bloody Chris! When he’d coughed everywhere in that lift, he’d obviously shared his cold with her. She supposed it was inevitable, really. After all, she’d been keeping her contact with the outside world to the bare minimum for such a long time now that her immune system was probably reduced. That must be why she’d caught the cold so quickly, and why it seemed to be taking such a strong and immediate hold on her. She was just thinking to herself that she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had such a bad cold, when she realised that she actually knew exactly when. I
t had been the week that Danny had died. The reason she’d stayed behind when he flew to New York.
Great, now not only did she feel sicker than ever, but she had a reason to dredge up the awful memories of that day once again. Feeling more miserable than ever, she snatched up a box of tissues from the kitchen and took herself straight to bed. Hopefully she would be able to sleep it off.
Instead, what followed was a horribly feverish night of confusion, half dreams and continuous tossing and turning. At one point she sat bolt upright in bed, startled by a nightmarish dream. Touching her forehead, she realised that it was damp with sweat. She tried to swallow but her throat was dry. She was just about to drag herself out of bed to go and get a drink when she turned and saw an ice-cold glass of water right there on her bedside table. She stared at it for a moment, trying to understand where it had come from, and then decided that she must have poured it for herself earlier. She picked it up and drank thirstily.
Throughout the rest of the night, several more strange things happened. Once she woke, shivering with cold, only to discover that the covers were tucked warmly around her, though she couldn’t recall having reached down to pull them back up. Later, when her temperature spiked again and she felt so hot she could barely stand it, she suddenly felt a cool breeze on her skin, as though someone had turned on a fan and pointed it directly towards her. Instead of questioning it, though, she closed her eyes and allowed the cool air to help her fall back to sleep.
It took Juliette three days to recover from her bad cold. As her nights became less feverish, the frequency of the strange incidents lessened, until eventually she began to think that she must have been delirious – that she had simply imagined all of it, including the first few occasions from before she’d even fallen sick. Despite the fact that each unexplained moment had felt so real, as though Danny was right there with her, once his touch had vanished it was so hard to imagine it ever happening again – or to believe that it had ever really happened to begin with. Now that Juliette was well again, and more than five days had passed with no contact whatsoever from Danny, her surety was fading further and further away.
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