Afterwife (16 page)

A word on this extraordinary event: Jenny hates swimming. More than this, she hates swimming in municipal pools. She hates the changing rooms with their wet verrucular tiles, their lack of privacy. She hates exposing her body to the indignities of a swimsuit. And she hates getting her hair wet. (FYI, chlorine makes her highlights go green.) So imagine my shock when a few minutes ago I spread out through the filter vents into the lukewarm, urinated water of the local pool. There was Jenny standing upside down, her hair whipping around her, her navy swimsuit—Speedo, only Jenny would wear Speedo, as if it were Basingstoke, 1985—gaping at the top, those fantastic bristols dropping toward her chin, only her pale chunky feet stamping above the surface, like a drunk synchronized swimmer. A couple of feet away, swinging on a metal ladder, wearing his red goggles, was Freddie, howling with laughter. And I realized then
that Jenny will do anything, absolutely anything, to make Freddie happy, even if it involves standing upside down in a pissy municipal swimming pool on a Saturday morning when she could be in bed with Sam. And I love her completely for that. Feeling reassured and not wanting Freddie to pick up on my distracting wavelength—am wondering if he is in fact sensitive to my presence and has a hardwired mum-sensor—I shot back through the vent, deep into the labyrinth of heaters and pipes in the pool room; then, passing like a small cloudette of chlorine-scented vapor back over the streets of north London, I came home. And here I am.

As time goes on—can you believe I’ve been dead for more than four months now?—I’m getting more confident about leaving the house and getting out and about, like a person learning to live with a new disability. My disability is that I don’t exist—quite a handicap, when you think of it. And I really don’t like being invisible. There are no second glances. No whistling builders. I can’t help but wonder if this is what old age would have been like.

On the plus side, there are no fares up here. No queues. No sticking an Oyster card into a machine and the machine not being able to read it and dozens of people behind you clicking their tongues. (Whenever I see that now I want to swoop down and yell, “One day you’ll be
dead
!” in their ears, just to see if it makes them jump the turnstiles. Really, what’s the worst the London Transport police can throw at you?)

Sometimes I can get to a place miles away in the time it takes a live human to inhale and exhale their coffee breath: I’m a Japanese high-speed train of a spirit. Other times I cannot move, just cannot; I’m leaves on the line. It’s as if I’m falling asleep, or zoning out, or whatever you call sleep when you’re in my state—dead to the world?—and when I come to hours later, sometimes days later, I am filled with a terrible fear that something might have happened to
Freddie and Ollie while I wasn’t watching over them. But, thank goodness, it never does. It won’t strike twice, will it?

Ollie is walking upstairs now, one hand on the banister, the other dug deep into his pocket. He’s always got his fisted hands thrust into his pockets these days, giving him the air of a moody teenager. I follow softly behind him, like a whisper of breath against the iron filing black hairs on the back of his neck. With every step, his body releases a tiny whiff and I gorge on it, swilling his essence round and round inside of me, like a sommelier with a fine wine. It is never enough.

He walks into our bedroom, slumps on the blue velvet throw and drops his head into his hands. I curl around his shoulder blades like a feather boa and feel the rise and fall of his bones. He sits like that for some time, head in hands, listening to the sounds outside the window. A car revving. Birds. Someone calling their dog. He flicks through photos on his iPhone. Me in different settings—leafy parks, Cornish beaches, coming down a slide in Kew Gardens with Freddie on my knees, naked in bed eating an almond croissant—and he stops at the naked in bed one, which I think was taken in the summer because I’ve got strap marks. Then he clicks off his phone, gets up and walks to the dresser. For one awful moment, I wonder if he’s going to rummage through my drawers and find the letters. But he doesn’t. He opens his sock drawer, that unfathomable cargo hold of mismatched socks. And he pulls out…

My knickers! Lordy. The palest pink Agent Provocateur knickers he bought me for Christmas last year, the ones with the little red ribbon ties at the hips. How did they escape Jenny’s knicker cull?

Ollie always did love these knickers. They are the kind of knickers that proved their worth by the rapidity with which they were removed. I can barely watch as Ollie takes the knickers and buries his nose in them. He falls onto the bed, knickers still covering his mouth and nose, red ribbon tickling his chin. And then…Oh,
God. He unzips his fly, shoves his hand down his jeans, grabs his erection and starts to move his arm.

O-kay
. Weird now. I sink back into the wall. He has always had a high sex drive. And sex is life, so I don’t know why I’m shocked. Perhaps it’s because the sight of Ollie masturbating reminds me of everything I have lost and will never know again: his pumping heart against my breastbone, his soft groan, the salty stickiness dripping down my thigh.

Doorbell!
It’s like a scream in the softly panting silence. Once, twice. Ollie curses and starts hopping downstairs, one sock on, the other in his hand. Flushed and sleepy—he’s a postcoital dozer—he is shoving his shirt into the back of his jeans, lolloping down the stairs two at a time. He trips over Ping Pong, who is regurgitating a Garibaldi biscuit onto the sisal matting.

Tash is standing in the doorway.
Tash!
Wearing red lipstick.

Now, call me paranoid, but I have never seen Tash wear red lipstick. She is not a red lipstick woman. She wears soft pinks and taupes. She is from the Bobbi Brown school of discreet makeup, not a
woo!
M.A.C. girl. Things have changed.

Tash beams. She is holding a heavy white plastic bag that pulls on her palm. “Beer.”

“Ah, brilliant.” He stands there for a moment, as if trying to remember what social convention dictates he say next. She doesn’t budge. She is waiting. “Er, come in,” mumbles Ollie.

Tash steps over the threshold and hands him the bag of cold beers.

He smiles. “You don’t need to keep doing this, Tash.”

Tash waves her hand. “It’s the least I can do.” She glances around, taking in the details, looking for signs of not coping. “Where’s Freddie?”

“Jenny’s taken him swimming.”

Tash grins. They are alone!

“Would you like a cup of tea? I have a range of water-boiling appliances in which to make it.”

Tash puts her hand across her mouth and laughs like a little girl. “I wasn’t the only one to buy you a kettle?”

“Nope.” He goes into the kitchen, bag of beers in one hand, old sock in the other. “But thanks anyway.”

“Looking tidy in here,” notes Tash approvingly, sitting down at the kitchen table and resting her bosom on its surface for support, which has the effect of pushing up her cleavage and making it spill out over the top of her blue denim shirt like a rising loaf of bread. As I have settled directly above her, on the smoke alarm, I get an eyeful.

Ollie throws his spare postmasturbatory sock on the work surface then begins to open all the cupboard doors, looking for biscuits. He’s clearly had practice at this tea game, knowing that all women would rather have a biscuit with their tea than not, even if they don’t realize it until it’s winking at them from a saucer.

“Jammy Dodger?”

Tash is not a Jammy Dodger type of woman either. She is a low-carb cracker woman. She takes the Jammy Dodger.

Ollie glances at the clock and sighs. “I guess it is too early to have a beer.”

Yes, far too early.

“Never too early.” Tash grins. “It’s the weekend. I’ll join you.”

He grabs a beer from the bag, puts the rest in the fridge, sloshes it frothing into two glasses. Then he sits opposite Tash. He stares. No, he cannot help but notice how beautiful she is, can he? No man could. Nor can he help but notice that cleavage. He’s always been a boobs man.

“How
are
you?” she asks in that way that suggests he can confide in her, even if he can’t with other people.

I’m starting to prickle now. I mean, I
like
Tash. I did like Tash.
We were thrown together at the school gate at reception and her son Ludo gets on well with Freddie, which I’m grateful for as Ludo’s one of those slightly thuggish testosteroney boys you don’t want to get on the wrong side of. And Tash has been so helpful since I died.
But
…she’s not the kind of friend I’d have if I didn’t have Freddie. She’s one of those fun but intense women who always leave you slightly drained. Her conversation is urgent, dramatic, especially if it involves her, which it usually does. And you know the telling thing about her? The screensaver on her phone is not a photo of Ludo. It is a photo of herself, in a white vest, laughing, holding a tennis racket, like something from
Sports Illustrated
! What mother has a photograph of herself rather than her child on her phone screensaver?

Ollie’s eyes dart to her cleavage and away. She squeezes her arms together. His eyes are sucked back again. She’s waiting for an answer to her question.

“Up and down,” says Ollie, trying not to look at her tits.

“Tell me about it.” Tash bends down to stroke Ping Pong under the chin. She looks up and fixes him with an eyelash-fluttery stare. “Oh, Ol. Are you not able to find pleasure in
anything
?”

Ollie reddens. He was wanking less than ten minutes ago. “Um…”

Tash grins. And it’s like she knows. She’s sniffed out the fug of sex. I want to shout down at her that it was
my
knickers he was bringing himself on, not her boobs. Put the bazookers away, woman! Save them for Marko the Wildebeest.

“I’ve been busy. So much stuff to do…” He drifts off. He is thinking of court cases and compensation claims and all that other stuff that his brain is so not able to deal with right now. “Thank you for having Freddie after school. It’s helped a lot.”

“God, anytime!” She rolls her eyes. And it’s then that I realize she’s wearing false eyelashes. Falsies! At eleven o’clock on a Saturday morning. I’m willing a false lash to drop off and stick on the end of
her nose like a giant nostril hair. “Freddie’s been a pleasure. A civilizing influence on Ludo. You wouldn’t know that—” She stops herself.

Wouldn’t you? Something tightens inside of me.

“That’s good. I guess that’s good.” Ollie is studying her face in that quietly intense way he’s perfected, his eyes feeling their way across her perfect features like a blind man’s fingers on braille.

“Ollie…”

There is something about her tone of voice that unnerves me. It is quiet and intimate. It is a voice that I have never heard her use before. It is certainly not a voice that she would ever use to address my husband while I was alive.

“I know it must be hard, so hard on your own. If ever you need…” She looks up at him from beneath the falsies. “…female company.”

Female company! She’s been spending far too much time with corny Poles. I am shaking with indignation. The little red light on the smoke alarm starts to beep on and off very quickly. Ollie looks puzzled, then something passes over his face and I know that he knows what Tash is referring to.

“Dinner. A comedy night…something that might cheer you up.” She stares at her fingers, clearly disappointed that he hasn’t jumped.

The more indignant I get, the faster the light on the smoke alarm flickers, as if it’s picked up some kind of energy. Or perhaps I really am so incensed I’m actually smoking.

“Thanks.” He shifts his feet under the chair, fingers the edge of the newspaper on the table. The air in the room is beginning to vibrate like a plucked guitar string.

“It’s just that, you know…” She speaks very quietly. “I’ve been on my own since divorcing Toby. I know what’s it like. That’s all. I know what it’s like.”

You have no idea! I want to shout but can’t. The light on the smoke alarm blinks even faster.

“Not that I’m equating what I’ve been through with what you’ve been through,” she corrects quickly. “Not at all.”

“Fucking smoke alarm.” Ollie suddenly stands up, walks across to Tash’s side of the table, stands on a chair and reaches up toward me on the ceiling. His T-shirt lifts up at the front as he stretches, showing a slither of adorably hairy brown belly. He presses the reset button and it stops misbehaving. He steps off the chair but before he has a proper chance to launch himself out of her orbit Tash throws her arms at Ollie’s waist, lassoing him like a bison. She rests her blow-dry against his belly as Ollie stands there helplessly. “Oh, Ollie, you poor love,” she says.

And it is only then that I see something that hits me harder than the No. 23.

Tash is wearing my Acne Pistol ankle boots.

The smoke alarm starts to wail then. Tash and Ollie leap apart.

J
enny couldn’t shake the feeling she was being followed. She’d first noticed the white Fiat, one of those cutesy bubble-shaped ones, near the woods. It had been on her bumper all the way back from Highgate. It was that woman again. The woman who looked like Sophie who was hanging outside of the apartment that evening the previous month. She was sure of it. Again, a stupid, irrational part of her wondered if it really were Soph—admittedly somewhat plastically altered—come to tell her that she’d staged her own death. If only she could stop the car and ask the woman questions that only Sophie would know the answers to. (Q: In what year and where did I end up in A&E because of dry martini poisoning? A: 1996. St. Mary’s, Paddington. Q: What was the name of the man with whom I was violently sick while snogging? A: Chris Butterworth, outside Hacienda, Manchester, 1992. Q: What is my favorite sexual position? A: Head in the pillow, bum in the air. Blimey, hadn’t done that in a while.) And, yes, she would ask Sophie about the love letters too.

Checking her mirror again, she was relieved to see that the car had gone and she rationalized that there were hundreds of Londoners who might drive from Muswell Hill to Camden at any hour of any day. She was being paranoid.