by Cally Taylor
‘Sorry,’ she mouthed. ‘Lucy, I’m so sorry.’ And then she ran towards me, grabbed my hand and pulled me down the street away from the party, and Dan.
Claire’s voice croaked back into life about ten minutes later, as we hurried down the steps of the nearest tube station, but it was still decidedly husky. She’d also changed colour. Her face, arms and the tiny bit of calf that poked out between the tops of her army boots and the bottom of her leggings were mottled. The veins in her neck and arms were raised and dark. She looked so unwell I would have worried about her health if she wasn’t already dead. Claire, however, seemed completely oblivious to her change in appearance.
‘Did you see the look on Anna’s face when I pushed her off the wall?’ she croaked proudly as we walked along the platform. ‘She was absolutely mortified.’
I nodded, too shocked and miserable to comment. My arms were covered in goosebumps, the hairs refusing to relax and flatten. I felt like I couldn’t breathe, like my heart was thumping against my lungs, squashing them as I slowly suffocated. Dan had kissed Anna back. My Dan. Dan who’d promised he’d love me for ever had put his hands in my best friend’s hair and kissed her. He could have laughed her off, made a joke, pushed her away … anything, anything, but kiss her back.
I took a step closer to the edge of the platform and gazed down at the dark tracks. I could hear a train rattling through the tunnel, drawing closer and closer. The only thing that stopped me from jumping was Dan’s reaction to what Claire had said. He’d looked genuinely upset. Shaken. But why? Did he feel guilty about kissing Anna? Maybe he just wanted to forget all about me. Oh God, what if Anna really was in love with him and he was in love with her too. That would explain why he’d called her an angel and kissed her so desperately.
‘She really loves him,’ I said, turning back to Claire as the train thundered down the tracks and pulled into the station. ‘And I think he loves her too.’
‘Lucy,’ she said, her hand on my arm. ‘I wish I knew what to say to make this right.’
I wished she did too.
‘Claire,’ I said, stopping on the corner of our street.
‘Yes,’ she said, looking up at me, her face soft with concern.
‘I just wanted to thank you for what you did for me tonight.’
She pulled her jumper over her hands and shrugged. ‘No problem. You’re my friend and I wanted to help you out. I just wish, I dunno, that it had turned out differently.’
We both looked down at Claire’s fingers. They were now the colour of concrete. From the look on her face I knew she’d noticed she’d changed colour, but if she was scared or concerned, she didn’t show it.
‘But what if limbo punishes you?’ I said. ‘What if they tell you you can’t go to heaven? It’s all my fault.’
‘No, Lucy,’ she said, her face firm. ‘Whatever happens now is my doing. When I was alive I blamed other people for how shit I felt about myself. I can’t go back and change my life or rewind time and stop myself from committing suicide, but I can decide what happens next. And I don’t want to be some kind of psychoghost out for revenge. It wasn’t Keith Krank’s fault that I was so unhappy. It was mine.’ She smiled. ‘If you’re right and you can find love in heaven, I’ve got my second chance, haven’t I? I can still be happy.’
I gazed down at her with new-found admiration. For someone so young, she’d become incredibly wise.
‘You will,’ I said softly. ‘You will be happy, Claire.’
‘Come on,’ she said, taking my hand. ‘Let’s get back to the house and see what happens next.’
As it turned out, we didn’t have to wait long to find out because there, standing side-by-side in front of the door, were two men in grey suits I’d met before.
‘Claire Walters,’ said the one on the left.
‘I’m Claire,’ she said, letting go of my hand and stepping forward.
‘Claire Walters,’ the man said sternly, ‘you have broken rule 520.5 of the manual of wannabe ghosts – aiding and abetting a member of the living dead by making verbal contact with one of their life acquaintances.’
‘I didn’t abet,’ Claire interrupted. ‘Lucy asked me not to do it, but I did it anyway.’
‘We are aware of that,’ said the second grey man. ‘Lucy Brown’s attempt to stop you has been noted and, as a result, she was not found guilty of rule-breaking on this occasion.’
‘However, Claire,’ continued the first grey man, ‘you also broke rule 501 on 28th April and rule 501.5 on 9th May. You were warned after your second violation that there would be consequences if there was a further incident of rule-breaking.’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ said Claire, who was shaking, despite her defiant tone. ‘Just tell me what the consequences are.’
Both men took a step towards her.
‘You will return immediately to limbo,’ said the second grey man. ‘Once there, you will be escorted to the heavenly escalator. You will remain in heaven for eternity, with no opportunity to return to earth, limbo or any other celestial place, and you will not qualify for angel status.’
‘Sod angels,’ Claire said, grinning at me. ‘I look shit in white. I’m going to heaven, Lucy. See, I told you it would all turn out OK.’
I reached out and pulled her towards me, wrapping her in a tight hug.
‘I’m going to miss you,’ I whispered, inhaling the warm patchouli scent of her hair. ‘I’m going to miss you so much.’
‘Don’t say that,’ she whispered back. ‘You’ll make me cry and I’ve done enough of that for one lifetime.’
‘Claire,’ barked one of the grey men. ‘It’s time to go.’
We slowly peeled ourselves apart. Claire looked up at my face and shook her head.
‘Whatever happens, Lucy,’ she said, ‘whether you pass your task or not, just make sure you do the right thing. Just promise me that.’
‘I promise,’ I said as she put her keys in the lock and walked into the House of Wannabe Ghosts and up the stairs, followed by the two grey men. She paused at the top and waved at me, then disappeared down the corridor, towards my room.
‘I promise I’ll do the right thing,’ I shouted again, but I had no idea what that was.
Chapter Thirty-eight
Thursday 16th May
Day Twenty
Do the right thing, Claire had said. Do the right thing. I crawled out of bed, wrapped my dressing gown around me and sat down in the chair opposite the wardrobe. The house was strangely quiet, and every creaking floor-board and rattling pipe made me jump. For the first time since I’d fallen through Brian’s wardrobe twenty days ago, I was completely alone. I pulled my knees up to my chest and hugged them. What had Claire meant by ‘do the right thing’? Had she been telling me to fight for Dan, or give up and follow her to heaven?
Damn the men in grey for marching her up the stairs. If we’d had just a few more minutes to talk, I could have asked her what she meant. How was I supposed to fight for Dan when I’d obviously failed my task? Maybe she was suggesting I ignore Saint Bob’s warning and try and talk to him? But I’d just lose my voice again. Or was she telling me to move on? She’d told me Anna was in love with Dan and I hadn’t believed her. But I’d seen it for myself now. The way Anna felt about Dan was written all over her face. I’d only seen that expression once before.
I eased myself out of the chair, kneeled on the floor beside the bed and peered underneath. My photo album was still there, lying dustily amongst the vacu-packed clothes and the piles of shoes. I pulled it out and flicked through a few pages until I found what I was looking for, a photo of Anna and her ex-boyfriend Julian. It was taken at Dan’s birthday party, three years ago. Dan and Julian were sitting on our sofa, their arms around each other, cans of beer in their free hands. They were beaming at the camera but it wasn’t them I was looking at, it was Anna, perching on the armrest. She was gazing at Julian with a look of unadulterated adoration.
Anna had met Julian when he’d started as an account
manager at her work. He was her junior and a couple of years younger, but she fell for him immediately. She even rang me after his first day at work and told me she’d just met the man she was going to marry, and Anna wasn’t the kind of woman to make a sweeping statement like that without being very, very sure. She’d even sworn there wasn’t a romantic bone in her body and that she’d rather die than dress up in a white frock and sashay down the aisle, so I was even more excited about her news. By the next weekend they were an item and Anna declared she was madly in love with Julian. He had a few issues, she told me, but they weren’t a big deal. He just liked a bit of a drink now and then, but didn’t we all?
Several months later, when Julian started ringing in sick after drinking binges, Anna covered for him. ‘It’s fine,’ she’d said at the time, ‘we all pull sickies after a big night out every now and again.’
A year later, when Julian finally acknowledged that he had a problem and went off to rehab, Anna called him every day and cleared her flat of bottles. When he returned to her, pale and exhausted, she held him, talked to him, and arranged for them to go out and do stuff that didn’t involve drink. She would do anything for him, she told me once, because she knew he was the right man for her. She really believed that too, right until she returned home from work one evening to find Julian in her bed with one of his fellow rehab attendees.
Jess and I nursed her through her heartbreak. We drank with her, talked with her, we slept beside her on her bed, and we held her as she cried herself to sleep night after night. Slowly, over the next few months, Anna became hard, bitter and cynical. She slept with so many men we lost count. She fed them false numbers and false names, then kicked them out of her apartment in the middle of the night. No one, she told us, would ever screw her over again, and we believed her.
Last year she decided she wanted to get pregnant more than anything in the world and came up with her sperm donor plan. Jess and I were both worried about her, but what could we do? She was so headstrong that there was little we could do to stop her. And after hating men for so long, it almost made sense.
I slapped the photo album closed. Anna had hated all men … until Dan. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t forget the tender look on her face right before she kissed him. Somehow Dan had melted her hard heart and she’d changed back into ‘soft’ Anna again, the Anna that secretly believed in soulmates and love. ‘Soft’ Anna would stop Dan from feeling lonely and drinking himself into an unconscious mess. She would hold him, comfort him, protect him and look after him. She would do all the things I couldn’t. Even if I hadn’t screwed up my task, I’d never be able to physically comfort Dan or talk to him. What could a ghost actually do? Hover around at the end of the bed? Who’d be comforted by that?
I pulled myself up from the floor and padded over to the wardrobe. My wedding dress was still encased in its plastic tomb, but it had been pushed over to one side, revealing the door to the limbo escalator. The escalator Claire had taken the previous night. I pulled down the zip of the plastic bag and my fingers wandered over the silk. When I was alive my wedding dress represented my future. Now it symbolised everything I had lost. I’d been so convinced I was returning to earth to help Dan, but I was fooling myself. I’d been fooling myself for nearly three weeks. I wasn’t trying to complete the task for Dan; he didn’t need me, not in ghost form anyway, but I needed him. I needed to pretend that I wasn’t really dead and that we could still be together for the rest of our lives. But there was no rest of our lives. Mine was over, but Dan’s could still carry on.
How selfish was I to think he should mourn me for the rest of his life?
I zipped the wedding dress back into its bag and stared at the door to the escalator, Brian’s words echoing in my head. ‘Sometimes, Lucy,’ he’d said, ‘people pass their tasks and choose not become ghosts.’
I hadn’t understood that at the time. I’d just felt hurt that Mum had returned to earth to be with me and then chosen to go up to heaven instead. Now it made sense. She would have seen Dan taking care of me and holding me together. There was no need for her to appear as a ghost to reassure me she was with me, if Dan was looking after me. And now Anna was doing the same for Dan, and he’d called her his angel and kissed her. He still loved me. I was sure he still loved me, but he was doing what everyone does when they lose someone they love; they grieve and they cry, and then they move on and rebuild their lives.
I reached out and laid my hand on the doorknob to the escalator. If I really loved Dan, there was only one thing to do …
A piercing squeal made me jump back from the door. What was it? Some kind of alarm? The squeal continued, ringing out through the house. It was the phone, I realised slowly. Was Saint Bob calling to tell me not to open the door? I sprinted out of the bedroom and ran down the stairs, two at a time.
‘Bob?’ I panted into the phone. ‘This is Lucy.’
‘Who’s Bob?’ said a familiar voice.
‘Archie?’
‘Yes. Who’s Bob?’
I said the first thing that came into my head. ‘He’s my uncle.’
‘Bob’s your uncle?’ Archie started to laugh and promptly stopped himself. ‘Listen, Lucy, I can’t talk right now because Grandmother’s about to come home, but I do need to talk to you about the other night.’
I felt sick. ‘I’m so sorry, Archie,’ I gabbled. ‘You’ve got no idea how bad I feel about what—’
‘Save it for tomorrow,’ he said sternly. ‘Meet me in Café Rio on Wardour Street at 2 p.m.’
The line went dead before I had chance to reply and I stared at the phone in my hand. Archie wanted to talk to me. He actually wanted to talk to me. I’d be able to apologise and everything. I couldn’t stop grinning. It was the best news I’d heard in days. Heaven would have to wait.
Chapter Thirty-nine
Friday 17th May
Day Twenty-one
I was in my seat, with a hot cup of coffee in my hands, a good fifteen minutes before Archie and I were due to meet up. I needed the time to go through everything I wanted to say to him. There was nothing else I could do for Dan before I left for limbo, but I could try and put things right with Archie. I could say sorry, at least.
I sipped my coffee slowly, savouring the hot, slightly bitter sensation as it warmed my mouth and throat. It was great that I’d get to see my parents again in heaven, but there was so much I was going to miss about being alive: the sunshine on my face, the wind against my skin, the roar and rush of London traffic in my ears, the sound of an entire room exploding into laughter, the taste of chocolate and ice cream, the softness of Dan’s skin after a shave, the scent of the hollow between his neck and his collarbone …
‘Lucy.’
Archie was standing beside me, his expression grim.
‘Hi, Archie,’ I said, smiling nervously. ‘I’m really glad you came. Do you want to sit down?’
We stared at each other across the table for several seconds until I lowered my gaze and looked away, upset by the anger I’d seen in Archie’s eyes.
‘Can I get you a coffee?’ I asked as he sat down.
He shook his head. ‘No thank you, Lucy. I won’t be staying long.’
‘Archie … ’ I reached for his hand, but he snatched it away, leaving my fingers trailing the plastic table top. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Archie, I’m so, so sorry for what happened the other night—’
‘Did you know,’ he said, interrupting my apology, ‘that my grandmother was married to my grandfather for forty-five years. Did you know that, Lucy?’
I shook my head, too ashamed to say anything.
‘And when he died’ – Archie rested his elbows on the table, leaned forward, and looked me straight in the eye – ‘she didn’t just lose her husband, she lost her soulmate. Her soulmate, Lucy, the man she’d loved since she was twenty years old. And I’m all she’s got left. Is it any wonder she doesn’t want to lose me too?’
‘I didn’t think … ’ I said, feeling wretch
ed. Worse than wretched. Like something you’d scrape off your shoe. And I hadn’t thought, not about the fact that Mrs Humphreys-Smythe was a widow, anyway. All I’d focused on was the fact that she hated me and was hell-bent on screwing up my task. It never occurred to me that she might be grieving for her own soulmate. That she was scared of being alone, too.
‘I’m sorry, Archie,’ I said. ‘I’m so, so sorry. What I did was completely out of order and I can’t even begin to explain why I did it.’
He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. ‘You’ll have to do better than that, Lucy. I can’t explain just doesn’t cut it, I’m afraid.’
What could I say? I couldn’t tell him the truth. I couldn’t say, ‘The truth is, Archie, I’m dead and I came down from limbo to complete a task so I can be with my fiancé again. Oh yeah, and you’re the task.’ The minute the words left my mouth I’d be struck dumb by Saint Bob and Archie would think I was messing around.
‘The thing is, Archie,’ I said, gazing down at my mug, ‘it was really important to me that you and Sally got to know each other. I can’t tell you why, but it was more important to me than anything else in the world, and when your grandmother showed up to dinner I was incredibly frustrated.’
‘Frustrated? Why? It was just one dinner. You could have arranged other meals out for just the three of us.’
‘I couldn’t, there wasn’t time.’ I looked up. ‘You and Sally had to get together that night because …’
‘Yes?’ Archie leaned forward and nodded. ‘Yes?’
‘Because I’m going away tonight.’
‘Where?’ he said, his angry expression fading.
Limbo? Heaven? What could I say? It needed to be somewhere very far away.
‘Australia,’ I finally said.
‘Are you coming back?’ he asked, frowning.