Heaven Can Wait

by Cally Taylor

  Dan looked down at his feet. He was scuffing the toe of his shoe against the doorstep. I’d seen him do the same thing a thousand times before, when he was forced to do something against his will.

  ‘I haven’t got my wallet,’ he said.

  ‘No problem,’ Anna said cheerily, ‘I’ve got cash. Come on, please. I’m lonely. Come and have a drink with me, Danny.’

  She yanked at Dan’s hand again and pulled him onto the path. To my dismay, he reached round and pulled the door shut after him as he let her lead him to the street. I ducked down behind the car again as they approached me.

  ‘We can go clubbing afterwards,’ Anna said. ‘I’ll even let you take me to an indie club. I know how much you like a bit of indie.’

  ‘I don’t want to go clubbing,’ Dan replied, pulling his hand from Anna’s. ‘Actually, let’s just forget this whole thing. I just want to be at home tonight.’

  Anna laughed, but there was something desperate in the tone. ‘I can come with you,’ she said. ‘We can get a bottle in and watch a film or something.’

  Dan took a step back and folded his arms. His jaw was tense, but his eyes looked exhausted. ‘I just want to be on my own, OK?’

  Anna stood up straighter, straining to make eye contact with him.

  ‘This is about the other night,’ she said, her voice tight, ‘isn’t it?’

  ‘Just leave it, Anna,’ Dan sighed. ‘Please.’

  ‘No!’ she shouted, stalking back and forth on the pavement. ‘I don’t want to leave it. I want to talk about the other night. You’ve ignored all my phone calls, which was a surprise considering how much you seemed to enjoy kissing me.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Dan said, passing a hand over his forehead and shielding his eyes with his fingers. ‘I was drunk.’

  Anna stopped pacing and froze. For a split second she looked devastated, then almost as she blinked, defensive Anna was back.

  ‘Oh yeah?’ she spat out. ‘Well, you seemed to know exactly what you were doing. You called me your angel, remember? You told me to save you? You wanted me as much as I wanted you, Dan.’

  ‘I was confused, Anna,’ Dan said, stepping away from her. ‘I didn’t know what I was doing. It shouldn’t have happened.’

  I hung onto the back bumper of the car, my heart thumping like mad. I’d made a terrible, terrible mistake. Dan didn’t love Anna. He didn’t want to be looked after or cared for by her. I’d got it totally wrong. And I’d told Bob I’d go up to heaven. What had I done? What the hell had I done?

  ‘Confused!’ Anna said, thumping him on the chest. ‘ You were confused? You told me I was important to you. You told me I was helping you deal with Lucy’s death. You told me how much you liked being with me.’

  Dan shrugged. ‘I do … did. You were one of Lucy’s best friends.’

  ‘You don’t get it do you, Dan?’ Anna screamed at the top of her lungs. ‘I’m in love with you. I have been for weeks. I thought you felt the same way. Kiss me again, Dan. Kiss me and tell me I’m wrong!’

  I stood up just in time to see Anna launch herself at Dan, her arms round his neck, scarlet lips on his. Dan’s hands floundered on her back until they found her waist, then he pushed her away. He took a step away from her, towards the road.

  ‘You’ve got the wrong idea, Anna,’ he said. ‘The kiss meant nothing. I’m sorry, but it didn’t. I was drunk and miserable. It was a mistake.’

  ‘You love me,’ Anna said, grabbing hold of his wrist and pulling him towards her. ‘You love me but you won’t admit it.’

  ‘I don’t,’ Dan shouted, pulling away from her. ‘I’m still in love with Lucy, Anna. I’m still in love with her.’

  He yanked his arm out of Anna’s grip and stumbled backwards. His ankle twisted and, almost in slow motion, he slipped off the kerb and flew backwards into the road. There was a squeal of brakes and two women screamed. One of them was me.

  The short, stocky bus driver was shaking as he stepped from his bus and stared, open-mouthed, at the crumpled man laying metres from his front bumper.

  ‘Call an ambulance,’ he shouted at Anna. ‘Call an ambulance now.’

  Anna, pale and trembling, fumbled in her bag and pulled out her mobile phone. She stabbed at the keypad.

  ‘Hello,’ she said, her voice shaky. ‘Come quickly! A man’s been hit by a bus and he’s bleeding heavily. Yes. Yes. White Street. No, I don’t know if he’s breathing or not. Please come quickly. Please, I don’t want him to die!’

  ‘Did you see it?’ the bus driver said to me. ‘Did you see what happened? He just fell in front of my bus. I tried to stop, but I couldn’t stop in time. Did you see what happened?’

  I walked, as though in a trance, past the bus driver and the passengers that had spilled from the bus and were surrounding Dan. I walked past Anna and crouched on the cold concrete beside Dan’s body and stroked the bloodied hair from his face.

  ‘Lucy,’ he said, opening an eye. ‘Lucy, is that you?’

  ‘It’s me,’ I whispered, brushing his lips with mine. ‘It’s me, Dan.’

  ‘I knew you’d come back,’ he sighed. ‘I always knew you would.’

  I pulled away from him so I could look into his eyes again, but they were closed. His lips were slightly parted and his chest was still.

  ‘CPR!’ Anna screamed, pushing me out of the way. ‘Can someone do CPR? Please, please don’t let him die. Please do something. Someone do something!’

  Chapter Forty

  I burst through the front door of the House of Wannabe Ghosts and took the stairs, two at a time, to my room. I’d stayed at the scene of Dan’s accident until the ambulance had arrived. They immediately took over CPR from one of the bus passengers and, when that didn’t work, applied two paddles to Dan’s chest.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ they’d said to Anna who was crouching next to Dan’s body. ‘There wasn’t anything we could do. He’s gone.’

  When Anna screamed, two of the male passengers immediately rushed to her side. No one noticed me slip away from the scene and sprint, as fast as I could, down the road.

  ‘Shit,’ I shouted, wrenching open the wardrobe and pulling at the handle to the limbo escalator. ‘Open up! Let me in, Bob. Let me in!’

  I was just about to turn the handle again when I remembered … my ring. It was still on the bedside table. I snatched it up and pushed it onto the third finger of my left hand and ran back to the door. When I twisted the handle again the door opened.

  *

  I ran up as many steps as I could before I ran out of breath and sat down.

  ‘Come on,’ I begged as the escalator rolled upwards and the atmosphere gradually turned from murky green to dull grey. ‘Come on.’

  My emotions were so all over the place I couldn’t pick them apart. Watching Dan die had been horrific and I couldn’t wipe the image of the bus hitting his body and tossing him into the air from my mind. But he’d recognised me. He knew I’d come back for him. He knew.

  ‘Please,’ I said aloud. ‘Please let him be in limbo. Please.’

  Saint Bob was waiting for me at the top of the escalator, looking even more golden and sparkly than the last time I’d seen him.

  ‘Lucy,’ he said, opening his arms wide. ‘I’m so glad you could make it. You cut it a bit fine, mind you, but you’re here now.’

  I hugged him. ‘Good to see you again, Bob.’

  He looked at me with surprise. ‘Really? I thought you were dead-set on becoming a ghost. At least, that’s what you said before you left here.’

  ‘Things change,’ I said. ‘People change their minds.’

  ‘Good, good,’ grinned Bob, steering me towards the up escalator. ‘I hoped that might happen.’

  ‘No, Bob,’ I said, pulling away from him. ‘I can’t go up there now.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ he said, raising his bushy eyebrows. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I will go up there,’ I said, taking a few steps back. ‘I promised I would and I will, but there’s s
omeone I have to find first.’

  ‘Lucy,’ Bob shouted as I sprinted away and threw myself into the crowd of grey people. ‘Lucy, come back here now!’

  I ignored him and ploughed through the crowd, pushing grey people out of my way as I squeezed past them.

  ‘Dan,’ I shouted. ‘Dan, it’s Lucy. Where are you? Dan! Dan!’

  No one replied and no one reacted to me. I pushed on, cold bodies brushing against me as I weaved through them.

  ‘Dan,’ I screamed. ‘Dan, where are you?’

  I burrowed my way through the crowd until I reached a wall.

  ‘Where are you?’ I shouted as I followed the wall round. ‘Dan, where are you?’

  ‘Could Lucy Brown please report to the up escalator, immediately,’ an overhead Tannoy boomed.

  ‘Give me a minute,’ I shouted. ‘Please, just one more minute.’

  I was just about to round a corner when I spotted two men in grey suits charging towards me. I darted back into the mass of moaning grey people.

  ‘Dan,’ I called. ‘Where are you? It’s Lucy. I love you.’

  ‘Lucy,’ a male voice croaked above the hum. ‘Lucy?’

  ‘Keep shouting. I’m coming to get you. Keep shouting.’

  I followed the sound of his voice, shoving a Victorian gent, a medieval knight and a cavewoman out of my way. The crowd seemed to thin and part until finally, there he was, balled up on the floor, his knees hugged to his chest, his eyes closed. He was wearing the same dirty jeans, black T-shirt and grubby trainers he’d been wearing when his accident had happened, but the back of his head was free from blood and his limbs were straight and unbroken.

  ‘Dan,’ I said softly as I crouched beside him. ‘It’s Lucy.’

  His eyelashes flickered and he opened his eyes. ‘Lucy?’

  I stroked his cheek. It was grey but still warm, his stubble pricking my fingertips. ‘I’m here,’ I said.

  ‘I’m dreaming,’ he mumbled. ‘You’re dead. I’m dreaming about you again.’

  ‘You’re not dreaming. I’m really here.’

  He smiled up at me and stroked my hair. ‘Your hair feels real.’

  ‘That’s because I’m really here with you, Dan.’

  ‘I love you, Lucy,’ he whispered. ‘I never stopped loving you.’

  I pressed my face into the hollow between his neck and his collarbone. He still smelled exactly the same.

  ‘I love you too,’ I said. ‘I love you so, so, much. And I’m so sorry about the argument we had before I died. I didn’t mean what I said. I was a stupid, stressed, selfish idiot.’

  Dan pushed himself up onto one elbow and squinted at the grey legs that milled round us. ‘Argument? I wasn’t arguing with you. I was having an argument with Anna on the street outside our house and then … then I pulled away from her …’ He frowned. ‘… and I’m not sure what happened next. Where am I, Lucy?’

  I opened my mouth to reply but a hand on my shoulder made me pause. Saint Bob was standing beside us shaking his head.

  ‘Let me deal with this, Lucy,’ he said firmly. ‘You can see him again in a minute.’

  ‘Who is this guy?’ Dan said, looking from me to Bob and back again. ‘And why is he glowing?’

  I smiled. ‘Go with him,’ I said. ‘I’ll be waiting for you outside the office door.’

  I crouched outside the door to Bob’s office, my ear pressed against the keyhole, but I couldn’t hear a thing. Dan and Bob had been in there for ages and I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. I’d been really excited to see Dan in limbo but he was so confused I really wasn’t sure how he’d react when he found out he was dead too.

  When the door finally swung open I stepped back and gasped.

  ‘Lucy,’ Dan said, his expression blank.

  ‘Yes?’ I said, my undead heart thumping wildly.

  ‘It really is you, isn’t it?’ he said, staring at me. ‘It really is you?’

  I nodded. ‘It’s me.’

  ‘And we’re both dead?’

  ‘Yes.’ Tears rolled down my cheeks. ‘We’re both dead, Dan.’

  He laughed, charged towards me, wrapped his arms around me and lifted me off my feet.

  ‘Lucy,’ he breathed as he spun me round and round. ‘My Lucy, my beautiful Lucy. I’ve missed you so much.’

  ‘I’ve missed you too, Dan. More than you know.’

  ‘Do you have any idea how much I love you?’ he said, lowering me to the ground, his arms still tightly wrapped around me

  I shook my head.

  ‘I loved you the minute I first set eyes on you,’ he said, gazing into my eyes, ‘and I’ve loved you every minute since. Every single minute.’

  ‘So you don’t hate me for not saying’ I love you, too’ before I died?’

  ‘Hate you? Of course I don’t hate you. I love you, Lucy. I blamed myself for leaving you that night and for putting that damned box in the attic …’ His eyes filled with tears. ‘I blamed myself for your death.’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault, Dan,’ I said, stroking the tears from his cheeks. ‘It wasn’t your fault.’

  He lowered his head and kissed me gently on the lips. ‘I love you, Lucy,’ he said between kisses. ‘I love you so much.’

  Bob cleared his throat. ‘Sorry to break up the reunion, folks, but there’s one more piece of business to attend to before you two die happily ever after.’

  Dan and I turned to look at him.

  ‘What’s that, then?’ I asked, terrified there’d been some terrible mistake and we were going to be parted again.

  ‘Over there,’ Bob said, pointing into the distance, ‘is an escalator marked up. I suggest you both board it forthwith.’

  I looked at Dan and grinned. ‘What do you think?’

  He squeezed my hand. ‘Wherever you go, I’m going too. I’m never going to lose you again, Lucy Brown.’