Afterwife (22 page)

Sam throws his shaven head back and laughs.
“Fevered?”
He drops his head in his hands and lets out a mock groan. “Mum, please. This is not a period drama.”

“Skittish, not happy, not sad, not bereaved even! Not like I was when poor Mark got tongue cancer! I couldn’t get out of bed for two weeks. I lost sixteen pounds. That was the only upside,” she reflects, sipping tea.

“Mum, will you please just leave it?” There’s a growl to his voice now that shakes the air particles in the room like a maraca. He gets up, walks to the window and looks down the street. His eyes flicker and focus in recognition of someone or something.

I swoop over to the curtain rail.

Ah, Jenny’s back! Getting out of the car, glancing around. Up the street. Down the street, like she’s seeking someone. Looking, yes,
fevered
! Oh, dear. I want to sound out a warning. Mother-in-law’s here! Stop the divving around. Approach with caution. But all I can do is madly wave my nonatomic arms in frustration. I am the world’s most useless guardian angel.

What the hell is the point of
me
?

J
enny glanced behind her one last time. No, no sign of Sophie’s hubcabbed celestial chariot, or whatever it was. Was she imagining stuff? Had she lost it, like Sam said? The thing was she’d come out of the hairdresser, jittery on coffee and
Hello!
magazine ingestion, and was walking down the street to her car, sharply aware of the pins in her ill-advised wedding rehearsal Sarah Palin updo—the overbearing stylist had insisted—pulling at her scalp, when something caught her eye. She’d turned. It was a woman walking quickly away, her beige trench coat flapping open in the wind like a tent, a mass of glossy brown hair piled up on her hair, tendrils loose around her neck. A gash of red scarf. She got into her car—and yes, it
was
a white Fiat—slammed the door and revved off, starving Jenny of proper scrutiny of her face. But she was pretty damn sure it was the same woman. The same woman who’d turned up at her apartment all that time ago, the one who looked like Sophie. How could she forget her?

More important, how the hell could she forget that Penelope was
coming over? And now she was late, for once. Standing on the doorstep of her apartment, she checked her iPhone, which had turned itself on to silent as it so often did in her handbag, and saw she’d had four missed calls from Sam. Anxiety bubbled in her tummy like gas. She knew she was in for another earful from Sam. And some silences that could kill from Penelope.

She would fail as a potential daughter-in-law before she even opened her mouth. What with her bad Sarah Palin hair. Her pimply chin. The insomnia and bad dreams bagging around her eyes, the bad dreams that had bugged her ever since visiting the grave on Sophie’s birthday. The same ones over and over, like an endlessly repeated miniseries. The most popular was the one when she spilled red wine on her bridal dress then on closer inspection realized that it wasn’t wine but blood and that she’d got her period early and Sophie had to run off to find Tampax but couldn’t because all the shops were shut because they were in the country and shops were never open in the country and so the vicar had to ask the congregation, “Is there a Tampax in the house?” And the day and the dress were ruined. After that dream the following day would always pass in a blur. Like she was wearing a pair of glasses that weren’t the right prescription.

The wedding was beginning to feel like a reptile bought from a pet shop that had grown bigger and fiercer than its owners could cope with, and unmanageably hungry. She’d said that she’d prefer a simple, small ceremony but kept getting shouted down by Sam’s family, who had forked out a small fortune. Now her own parents, who could ill afford it but didn’t like to feel they weren’t stepping up to the high-water mark set by Penelope, had felt compelled to donate seven thousand pounds of their savings. It left her feeling guilty and beholden and anxious. And, no, she still hadn’t bought the dress.

Penelope would be bound to ask about the dress today. It would be top of her bullet point list. And to prove to Penelope that she had actually
tried
to find a dress and wasn’t a complete timewaster, she’d
have to relive the shopping trip with her mother the week before, which had ended with a tense coffee and a stale Eccles cake in John Lewis’s fourth-floor café and her mother saying she was “the world’s fussiest bride.”

Everyone said when you saw the right dress you knew it was the One. But she didn’t know. They all just looked like shockingly overpriced bits of fabric to her. She had yet to find the dress. And the dress had yet to find her.

As she fumbled for her keys it started to rain lightly. She stopped for a moment, resting her hands on her knees, thankful that she wasn’t being watched and that she could snatch this one moment to realign herself, catch her breath before Penelope, before the party.

Something caught her eye. She looked up through the bead curtain of rain. Oh! There was someone at the window of her apartment, waving. It was Sophie! Clear as day. Sophie standing there in the frame of her sitting room window, her dark hair tumbling over her shoulders, waving manically! She stumbled backward, wobbly with joy. But then, slowly, heartbreakingly, the arm disappeared and all she could see was Penelope’s stern, frowning face looking over the mountain range of her bosom. Get a grip, she told herself. Dead people do not wave from windows. Nor do they drive Fiats. Get a grip.

F
orget knock, knock, knocking on heaven’s door, I would just like to know if I am on the waiting list, thanks all the same. I can pinpoint the moment when it all began—collision between big bus and big pants—but I have no idea when it will end. And don’t all things end, eventually? Blair. Bootleg jeans. Teething. Youth. Isn’t that the lesson we don’t want to learn?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m in no hurry to leave. Not when Freddie and Ollie are still here. It’s just that it’s exhausting and frustrating not being able to make my presence known to anyone but terrified household pets. Ah, the restless ghost of Sophie Brady. Wooo!

It’s so frustrating not being able to alter the course of events, only to see them. Like Jenny’s wedding. She’s about to marry a toad and I can do damn all to stop it. I can’t even sleuth down Sam’s secrets. I can’t do anything.

People have existential crises about the point of life. (Is this it? Well, no, actually, it ain’t.) But I guess I’m in crisis about the point of being dead. It’s not like I’ve got wiser and more spiritual. In fact,
worryingly, the opposite appears to be happening. I’m getting pettier, more irritable. Yes, more like a live human in fact! Let me list the ways.

J
enny maneuvered her Sarah Palin updo out of the orbit of a particularly unflattering downlighter and surveyed Suze’s party, still disbelieving that she’d actually dragged Sam up here, despite the showdown with his mother earlier that day. There were twenty, thirty people in the living room, she guessed, clutching large wineglasses or small bottles of beer, laughing, shouting over each other, their tongues working within their cheeks to extricate bits of Suze’s sticky cocktail sausages from between their teeth. They seemed to meld into a certain type that she’d become familiar with on her visits to the neighborhood: women in their thirties and forties, nicely dressed, media-ish, tired looking, a few pregnant; fortysomething men with superfluous body hair. Yes, she definitely recognized some of the individual faces. The man in the suit and the trilby, the self-conscious twiddle of mustache. The lady with the white-blonde Gaga do. It took a moment for her to realize that she recognized them from Sophie’s funeral all those months ago.

Snatches of conversation slid about the room. “How is your new
nanny working out?” “No, honestly, thanks, I’m on the wagon. Total torture.” “I know I shouldn’t say this but she looks fabulous on the chemo. She’s lost a ton of weight, hasn’t she?” “She only gives you the time of day if she thinks you might be able to offer her eldest a work placement; I wouldn’t worry about it.” “I hear you’ve got gay guinea pigs too! Let’s throw a gay guinea pig disco!”

“No Ollie, then?” whispered Sam into her ear. “If he’s a no-show I predict a riot.”

Jenny swallowed hard. Ollie was late. He wouldn’t come. No, he wouldn’t. It was probably better like that. What with Sam being so chippy about him.

“Ow. What the…” He stepped away from a large urn of twigs, one of which was poking him in the backside.

“It’s a twig, Sam. They’re ornamental. You can’t be angry with a twig.”

“Jenny!” Suze’s hair suddenly engulfed her, teased into an even greater fro for the occasion, a candyfloss fire risk. “It’s good to have you back in the ’hood, lady!”

Jenny kissed her warmly on both cheeks. It was surprisingly good to see her again too. She realized she’d missed them all. “Suze, this is Sam.” She glanced at Sam nervously, daring him to behave. “Sam, Suze.”

“Ooh, the divorce lawyer!” Suze giggled, poking Sam in the ribs. “I’d better keep you away from my husband. Don’t want him getting any tips, eh.”

Sam shot Jenny a hard WTF look over his wineglass. Oh, dear.

Suze swayed on her high, wooden-heeled clogs. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she hiccupped. “It must be like being a doctor and having people ask you questions about their gallbladder all night.”

“Ha!” Sam said with a gritted smile.

“Jenny’s been a real star these last few months,” Suze continued obliviously. She put a hand on the sleeve of Sam’s crisp blue shirt,
dusting it with canapé crumbs. “We wouldn’t have been able to run the Help Ollie committee without her.”

“Oh, rubbish,” said Jenny quickly. “You’re the one who put in all the donkeywork, Suze.”

Suze looked satisfied at this, not being sober enough to feign modesty.

Sam brushed the crumbs off the sleeve of his jacket with a subtle flick of his hand. “So Ollie’s survived. The operation’s over?”

“
Well
, the last few weeks have certainly been a bit quieter because of”—Suze hesitated as if she couldn’t quite bear to say her name—“Cecille.”

“The precocious French girl?” Sam brightened, looking around the room. “Is she here?”

Suze laughed. “No, Sam. Hopefully, she’ll be babysitting tonight.” She leaned toward Jenny. “Now, hon, have you heard the latest on Cecille?”

Jenny shook her head. Something knotted in her stomach. Thinking about Cecille gave her a feeling much like bad indi-gestion.

“Our little
fille
has changed,” said Suze cryptically. “Let me tell you.”

“Like how?” asked Jenny, fearing she was going to like this conversation less and less as it went on.

Sam raised an eyebrow. “Go on.”

“Remember those sweet little sweaters and loafers she used to wear?” Suze paused for effect. “Gone! She now wears miniskirts. Little T-shirts.” She pulled her silk blouse tight across her breasts to illustrate the point. Sam spluttered into his drink. “There are even reports of a
tattoo
!”

“A tattoo!” Oh, God. She had a vision of a terrifying
maman
appearing at her door, armed with a pastry rolling pin, to fish out her darling
fille
.

“There are also rumors of her going out and coming back rat arsed.”

“Aren’t French girls meant to sip half a glass of wine over a three-hour meal?” said Sam archly. “I do like the sound of this Cecille, Jenny. Sounds like you picked the right one after all.”

Jenny ignored him.

Suddenly Lydia popped out of the crush of partygoers like a cork. “Hi! I’m Lydia.” She stuck her small, diamond-encrusted hand out at Sam.

“Delighted,” said Sam, shaking her hand. “Another Help Ollie foot soldier?”

“Absolutely.” Lydia beamed. Jenny noticed how her neat breasts were contoured candidly by her pale pink pussy-bow blouse. She noticed Sam noticing them too. It hit her that she, Jenny, would never wear pale pink. Only women who thought they were pretty wore pale pink.

“Jenny!” Liz was striding over now, legs kicking out of a green silk dress that contrasted with the punkish red tips of her hair. She reminded Jenny of a firework. Jenny hugged her warmly. “Love the green dress.”

“Love the hair!”

Jenny patted the Sarah Palin updo. “Can we not mention it, Liz? Misunderstanding in the salon.”

“Ah, one of those. I like it, though.” Liz laughed, and turned to Sam. “And you must be Sam. So we get you up to Muzzy Hill at last. We were all beginning to wonder if you existed at all.”

Sam eyed Liz with obvious wariness, circumspect of any woman who dyed her hair a color that wasn’t pretending to be natural for the obvious benefit of the male gaze. “Great minds, Liz. For all I knew, the whole Help Ollie could have been one huge conceit cooked up by Jenny and she was up here having rendezvous with a mysterious lover,” he deadpanned.