Dead Girl Walking (7 page)

He frowns.

‘You’re falling, almost there and then – bam! Your whole body just spasms? Like that. Like I was suddenly jolted back to life from the biggest sleep ever. Does that make sense?’

‘It was that quick?’

‘Yep. One minute nothing, the next I’m sitting up stark naked surrounded by corpses and freaking out.’

‘What did you do when you realised where you were?’

I close my eyes. ‘Jumped off the table. I didn’t have a clue where I was, but then I saw the stuff that was in the room and it all just hit me. I knew my family would be in there. I don’t know how, but I did. I couldn’t find them but I stumbled into an office and told the staff there everything. They just looked at me like I was a cancer, something so unnatural and repellent that they couldn’t bear to be anywhere near me. Sure, people were considerate, they looked after me, said nice things, but their eyes… their eyes said something else. Nobody wanted to touch me; nobody wanted to be left alone with me. I begged them to show me where my family were. Tish was the first. I didn’t cry, I just stared at her. I grabbed her hand and that was when it happened for the first time…’

‘This is the thing that happened when you touched her?’ He shifts in his chair. I have no idea what possessed me to tell doctors about the extra perception that came with me when I came back to life, and I have no idea how the information reached Robert, but I guess even people under a confidentiality oath must slip up when faced with something so weird and unlikely. However it happened, he already knew about it when he contacted me. ‘How do you know it wasn’t just a one-off event? Some sort of reaction to your shock and grief?’ he insists.

‘I asked them to show me mum and dad. They said they shouldn’t but eventually they gave in. And then it happened again. I lived the crash three times – once for each member of my family. Everyone’s was different. My own experience is the only one I can’t actually recall.’

‘Did you tell anyone what had happened? When you touched the bodies, I mean?’

‘I did, but not right away. At first I didn’t know how to explain it. I could barely process everything myself. They just took me into an office and made me a drink. It
was such a weirdly normal thing to do but what else
do
you do for someone who has just come back to life?’

‘Were they shocked that you appeared alive and well? What did they say when they first saw you?’

‘Just that I was supposed to be dead, as if by not sticking to my previous state and following the rules for dead people I was somehow being terribly rude. I suppose I was.’

I follow the guy outside to the front of my house. He positions me with a light touch of the shoulder so that the front door is in shot, but not the number. It’s weird, but even though having photos done outside in full view of everyone is bound to attract unwanted attention, there’s something about him that makes the idea of him in my house distasteful. As soon as he stepped into the hall, I wanted him out again. Maybe it was the vague look of covetousness I thought I saw on his face. It’s completely irrational, of course, but then that’s a word I associate with a lot of what I do these days. It doesn’t alter the fact that I don’t seem to have any control over my reactions to situations like this. Perhaps I’m simply annoyed with myself that Robert persuaded me to let the damned photographer come, and the poor guy tasked with the assignment is getting the brunt of that today.

‘Relax… I’m not going to murder you or anything.’ He smiles. ‘You know in some parts of the world primitive peoples think that having your photo taken steals your soul?’ He leans in and whispers, ‘It’s not actually true.’

I try to force a smile for him but my face won’t obey.

‘Of course,’ he continues, ‘we want photos that are suited to the story so I don’t expect you to be jolly and laughing. I just don’t want it to be a trauma for you.’

‘It’s not,’ I assure him. ‘I’ve never liked having my picture taken.’

‘I bet your sister did,’ he says casually as his face disappears behind a huge technical looking beast of a camera. All I can see now is his beanie hat, pulled low over his eyebrows, and gloves so thick it makes me wonder how he can operate any equipment while wearing them. His comment makes the hairs on the back of my neck prickle. ‘She was a pretty girl,’ he continues, ‘I bet she loved being photographed and admired. As the only survivor of the crash you must feel so alone now.’

I can’t keep the scowl from my face. I don’t like him talking about Tish in that way.

‘You don’t have to look quite so aggressive,’ he says as he clicks away. ‘I’m looking more for melancholy than outright anger. Could you try to look at bit more wistful… you know, stare into the distance?’

‘Are we going to be much longer?’ I ask, trying to set my expression to something acceptably neutral.

‘A couple more and you can get back inside your cosy little house.’

A few more clicks and he puts the cap back on his lens. ‘I think that should do it. Do you want to take a look through before I head back, make sure you’re happy with them?’

I shake my head. I don’t particularly care what they look like and all I want to do is get back into the safety of my house. Luckily, it’s the middle of the day and lots of my neighbours must be out at work so I haven’t attracted the attention I was dreading, but I don’t want to push it. ‘I’m sure they’re fine.’ I push the front door open and the cat sidles out, rubbing against my legs. The photographer’s gaze is drawn downwards.

‘Well… would you look at that? It seems you have a little friend after all.’ He stoops down to stroke it and the cat immediately backs away, shooting down the hallway to the kitchen. The photographer stands again and shrugs.

‘A bit shy, eh?’

I nod. But as I watch him smile and turn to go, I believe it has nothing to do with shyness. There’s a bit of me that thinks the cat gets exactly the same vibes from this guy as I do. And if I was a cat I’d bolt down the hall to get away from him too.

‘Why were you able to reveal this much information to a journalist but not to me?’

Helen holds the newspaper open at the page that my story fills. There’s no anger or accusation in her question, just a need to know.

‘I don’t know. He had a way of getting it out of me. And,’ I add, trying to bite back the tone of irritation but knowing I’ve failed, ‘I didn’t get turfed out by him after forty five minutes in the chair.’

She regards me steadily for a moment. ‘Would double sessions help? We’d have to get the say-so from your GP –’

‘I didn’t mean it was your fault.’

She pauses. ‘So, how do you feel about the article now? About what telling the journalist has done for you?’

‘I… I’m not sure.’

‘Have you read it yourself?’

I shake my head. I haven’t even bought a copy.

‘Would you like to read it through now? Seeing it in print might give you a fresh perspective. It’s a way of externalising your thoughts, really, in much the same way a journal would. I was going to suggest you might start a journal to note down your
thoughts and feelings. This seems like a good start.’ She gives me what she must think is a reassuring smile. But somehow, her smiles seem less encouraging, more something she was trained to do with her patients. What she doesn’t add, though I’m sure she wants to, is that it’s a very public, attention-seeking kind of start.

‘I don’t. I don’t want to read it. I know what’s in there so I don’t need to.’

‘Cassie,’ she begins slowly, ‘this is exactly what I mean. As soon as I offer you a corner of the paper to rip, you back away. Sooner or later you have to unwrap the gift or it will rot away to nothing.’

‘I’ll keep the journal,’ I say, just to shut her up. ‘How much do I have to write?’

She sighs. ‘It’s not an exam. Just write what you want when you want to. It’s up to you to make it into something useful.’

‘Sometimes, I wish you’d actually tell me what to do instead of throwing it back to me all the time.’

‘It doesn’t work like that; I’ve already explained it to you. I’m here to facilitate your self-recovery. You do the work, I just hand you the tools to get started.’

‘What if I can’t get started?’

She gives me that smile again and runs a hand along the now folded newspaper on her lap. ‘I think you already have.’

Already the deepest parts of winter are moving aside to let the spring arrive and it’s a tiny bit lighter outside than it was last week as I leave the clinic building. But it won’t stay light until I get home and I need to hurry before the cars come with their needle-like beams. Not only that, but now I have a new task and I need to get home to it. This morning, as I woke with my little friend on my bed again, I realised that I really need to settle once and for all whether I can keep it or not. I’m getting too attached to this cat and I suppose if someone is missing it, the longer I keep it the harder it will be to give it up when they come forward. I could just keep it anyway; I know that cats often have more than one home, but somehow it doesn’t seem right if a loving family is out looking for it, to keep it hidden from them.

For now, the road is still quiet, just the odd car whooshing past and a sprinkling of pedestrians wrapped up in their own lives, oblivious to the freak waiting outside the clinic for the right moment to start home. My breath curls into the air as the cold hits me and I survey the street. I shake myself. I have to go so I force myself to start
walking. As the door closes behind me, my bag catches on the handle and flips off my shoulder, scattering its contents over the wet pavement.

‘Shit!’

A quick glance up and down the street and I scrabble to retrieve everything. There’s my pen, just rolling out of reach towards a storm drain. Not that… Tish gave it to me one Christmas. I lunge for it and a slender hand comes into view and picks it up.

‘Did you drop this?’ Dante asks, holding it out to me. Straight away I pick up on his accent. A lilting, lazy stretching of his vowels that belies the angst written on his face. I’m trying to place it and I think maybe Irish.

‘Yeah, thanks,’ I say, taking it from him.

He holds my gaze and, just for a fleeting moment, I see the whole of him. Vulnerable and damaged but something else, something compelling and I can’t tear myself away. Gran says the eyes are the windows to the soul but his are like portals to another world. Just as suddenly, his head goes down, breaking the connection, as if he feels me delving into a place where I shouldn’t be. He stands up.

‘No problem. Is all this stuff yours?’ he asks, sweeping his hand across the pavement at the detritus of my life.

‘For what it’s worth,’ I say, trying to force a smile.

He stoops to retrieve my phone and hands it to me. I nod and take it from him before scooping up the rest of what I can see. What I can’t see now will have to stay behind. I have the most important stuff anyway.

‘You’re ok now?’ he asks, chewing on a finger end.

‘Thanks,’ I say again, not knowing what else to say.

He shrugs. ‘It’s fine.’

I watch as he enters the clinic building, hands deep in his pockets, shuffling.

Dante, like the painter. What’s your problem, Dante?

The quest to find the cat’s owners ended up with me knocking on pretty much every door on the street and a couple beyond. I had to psyche myself for quite a while before I headed out, but knowing that this little kitty was depending on me forced me to go in the end. It’s the first time since the accident that I’ve spoken to most of them and certainly the first time in my life I’ve voluntarily knocked on their doors for anything. I’ve always been a keep myself to myself kind of girl and even when my
family were still alive I wasn’t into mixing with the neighbours. Tish did. Tish and my mum wouldn’t think twice about joining in impromptu chats on street corners, heading around with gifts for newcomers, joining in back garden firework displays or rushing out with everyone else to see Santa on the Rotary Club sled at Christmas. Tish could charm the birds from the trees, or so everyone said, whereas she used to laugh that I could kill them stone dead with a cynical look.

There were a few confused glances today and some downright shocked ones, but nobody seemed to know about my mysterious cat. The old lady at number five said it looked as though it needed fumigating and did I know whether it was a male or female? It made me feel a little neglectful that I still haven’t found out. As it looks as though I’m going to be keeping it, I hopped on Google to work out how to sex it. And from what I can tell it’s a girl. So now I need a name. There’s also a load of other stuff online about what cats need to take care of them – worming, flea extermination, injections for diseases – and looking at my cat it seems to want pretty much all of it. There’s so much to do that I’m almost excited by the idea. It’s certainly going to shake up my daily routine. But first, the greedy little sod wants feeding again.

I don’t have a notebook but I’m pretty sure Tish will have a stash somewhere. She was a stationery nut and she bought bags of this stuff that she never opened. I haven’t really been into her room since I got home, only poked my head in occasionally when I really needed to. I did the same with Mum and Dad’s room. I know I’ll have to deal with what’s in there one day. Just not yet.

For now, I push open the door to Tish’s room. The curtains are closed and the glow from the streetlamp outside struggles in through the heavy fabric. There’s that musty smell you get in a place where no one has breathed for a long time. I reach for the switch by the door and yellow light floods the room.

For a moment I hover at the threshold. Tish has a massive family of teddies and stuffed toys congregated at the end of her bed – glassy-eyed with stitched on smiles, bright bows and waistcoats. A macabre committee waiting to welcome her home, now covered in a thin layer of dust. Dress jewellery and rejected outfits are slung on the bed, still unmade from the morning she left in a rush because Dad was hassling to get going. The cupboard doors are still open and inside, lying on the floor, are a couple of bulging carrier bags.