Love In The Wrong Dimension (Romantic Ghost Story) (2 page)

They walked on in amiable silence, each of them lost in their own thoughts. It was a lovely morning, the roads were quiet because it was Sunday, and the warm September sunshine felt welcoming and soothing. The girls decided to walk on up to Belsize Park and have breakfast in their favourite café. Their coffee was so strong it could grow legs and walk on its own. Just what they needed right now.

The walk from Swiss Cottage, where Jack lived, to Belsize Park was just long enough to help clear their heads. By the time they reached the café, Jemma had managed to convince Alice that Jack really had no idea that she had got the wrong idea about him, and that with a bit of subtle flirting, he was still within reach. Feeling much better, Alice went in to order while Jemma tried to find an empty table.

This part of Belsize Park was one of Jemma’s favourite areas of London, with its wide tree-lined pavements, and several cafés and restaurants spilling out onto the pavement. Young cosmopolitan couples were sitting at the Parisien style tables, quietly enjoying their morning coffee, whilst reading the Sunday papers, looking suitably fashionable and cool.

“
Ooh that’s better, I feel almost human again.” Jemma sat back in her chair and basked in the warm sunshine. It was amazing what some caffeine and a bacon sandwich could do, and now, sitting contentedly watching the world go by, Jemma started to feel a bit more positive about this college idea.

Ambition wasn’t something that had seemed that important to her before, and she had always been happy to plod along, earning her way as and when she could. Maybe losing her mum at a young age had left her without the direction she needed to work for her GCSE’s. When she went to live with her aunt in Tunbridge Wells, she was pretty much left to her own devices, and when she discovered boys, cigarettes and cheap cider, she stopped going to school altogether.

Alice came back out with another couple of coffees. “Penny for them?” she said.

“
What? Oh, I was just wondering what I’m going to do at college. I’m not exactly the academic type, I’m not really good at anything.”

“
Don’t put yourself down,” scolded Alice. “You’re a lot cleverer than you give yourself credit for, and I’ll bet there are loads of things you’ll be good at. How about doing some sort of foundation course that lets you try out a few subjects before you decide for real? A bit like ‘try before you buy’.”

“
Hmm, I guess I could do that. In fact, it’s not a bad idea, why didn’t I think of that?”

“
Because I’m psychic and I know what you want before you do.” Alice winked at her friend and held up her coffee cup. “Here’s to us, babe.”

Jemma picked up her already empty cup and they toasted their new lives. “What are you going to do after this workshop? If you do have a gift, how are you going to use it?”

Alice’s eyes lit up. “Well, I’d love to be a healer, and perhaps also help people who have lost loved ones by working as a medium. Maybe the people I meet on Wednesday will be able to help me.”

“
Oh, so you are going then?” grinned Jemma.

“
Oh absolutely, if you enrol at college tomorrow, I’ll be there on Wednesday, and I’ll be as cool as a cucumber around Jack.”

“
So what’s the story with Jack then? How come he lives in that big house all by himself?”

“
Well, I don’t know too much about him, but I think he inherited the house from his grandparents. He lives there alone because no-one else will live there, every time he finds someone to share with, they leave after a few weeks.”

“
Why, do the ghosts scare them off?” laughed Jemma.

“
Actually, yes. Seriously, the house is haunted, I felt it last night. That’s how me and Jack got talking, I said that I could feel some sort of presence and asked if the house was haunted, and he told me that he believes there are two, or maybe even three, ghosts there.”

“
Oh come on, you’re not serious are you? Alice, there’s no such thing as ghosts.” Although Jemma begrudgingly accepted Alice’s beliefs, she certainly didn’t believe in all that stuff herself. “The only spirits I came across last night were in the form of a very potent punch!”

“
Right, come on.” Alice stood up and stretched. “Let’s get back to the flat, if you have any more of that coffee you’ll be like a hyperactive gecko!”

“
Gecko?”

“
Yeah, climbing the walls.”

When they got back to the small flat they shared in Camden – well Chalk Farm really, but Camden sounded so much cooler – Jemma went to her room for a rest. She had a serious hangover to recover from and besides, it was her turn to do the washing up. Jemma was allergic to washing up, and tidying, and hoovering. In fact, any household chores really. She had learnt a long time ago, that if she was tired and retreated to her room for ‘a rest’, then miraculously the chore had done itself by the time she came out again. Poor Alice couldn’t bear clutter. She was a complete ‘clean freak’, the exact opposite of Jemma, who believed that a little bit of clutter never hurt anyone.

After a few minutes of tossing and turning in her bed, though, Jemma got up again, feeling too restless to sleep. Alice was right about all that coffee, she thought, making her way into the kitchen.

“
Here, let me help you with that,” she said and picked up a tea towel. Alice obviously hadn’t heard her come in and jumped at the sound of her voice.

“
I thought you were tired.”

“
Couldn’t sleep, I can’t stop thinking about going to college. Are you sure it’s such a good idea? I mean, I’m in my late twenties, totally set in my ways, and I’m not exactly the student type.”

“
That’s exactly why you need to do this, hun,” sighed Alice. “Your age is irrelevant, but you do need to unset your ways and I think you’ll find that once you find something you like, there’ll be no stopping you.”

They continued chatting as they worked, and after a while, Jemma was surprised to see that they had finished the dishes. “It’s quite therapeutic this washing up lark, isn’t it?” She mused.

Later that evening, sitting alone in her room, Jemma logged on to her laptop and did a search for colleges. She found a site that listed every college and university in London, along with a very comprehensive list of their courses.

“
Wow,” said Jemma, out loud. “I had no idea there are so many subjects.” She found herself getting more enthusiastic by all the possibilities that seemed available to her.

Eventually, she found a small local college that offered a one year foundation course, which said it would help to improve her general education, and offered access to university degrees on completion of the course. Core subjects included English, maths and study skills, and you could then choose from a long list of more specialised subjects.

Jemma, being the impulsive and spontaneous person that she was, decided there and then that she didn’t need to look any further, and immediately clicked on the ‘enrol now’ icon. Ah, just one small problem, the fee. She had completely forgotten that it would cost money, but hey, it couldn’t be that expensive. Another click. “
How much
?” She nearly fell off her chair in shock.

This couldn’t be right, surely? It said that the one year foundation course was
£1,250
! Jemma felt completely deflated, she had been so excited about finding this course, and now she probably wouldn’t be able to do it. There was no way she could afford that.

Hang on though. She remembered that one of her credit cards had just had the credit limit extended by £1,000, and last month she had managed to pay a bit off, so there was a chance she may just have enough on it to pay for the course. Just one problem though, where the heck was the card?

She looked around her small room. Suddenly the clutter wasn’t quite so harmless, because somewhere in amongst the piles of clothes, stacks of magazines and heaps of shoes, handbags and make up was a small plastic card that was the key to her whole future. She had to find it.

Over an hour later, her room looked like a hurricane had torn through it. Whereas before, the clutter had been relatively organised, now each pile, heap and stack was one giant mound of rubbish, but it didn’t matter because she had found the card. It was just a shame that she hadn’t looked in her top drawer first, before turning her room upside down, as that’s where she had absently left it last month.

Sitting back at her computer, Jemma entered the credit card details and held her breath as she clicked ‘
Pay Now’
. Would there be enough money on the card? She hardly dared look. ‘
Congratulations, your enrolment has been successful
.’ “Yes!” she cried, and jumped up excitedly, promptly falling backwards and landing on the mound of crumpled clothes. She rushed into Alice’s room and threw herself onto her bed. “Guess what?”

“
Go away, I’m asleep.” Alice buried her head under the duvet.

“
No, you’re not. Come on, Alice, wake up,” Jemma could barely contain herself.

Alice sighed and looked resigned to not getting any more sleep for a while. “Go on then, what’s so urgent that it can’t wait until morning?”

“
I’ve done it!” beamed Jemma. “I’ve actually enrolled at college, I just did it online. I found the perfect course, and it’s only in Hampstead. I enrolled and paid for it there and then, and you’ll never guess what?”

“
What?”

“
I start on Wednesday.” She prodded Alice to get her attention.

“
Yeah right, Wednesday,” muttered Alice, yawning. “Great.”

“
Alice, wake up. Wednesday’s the same day you go to your workshop, remember? Don’t you see, this is meant to be. You know, I’ve got a really strong feeling that this is the start of something big for both of us.”

Once Alice had grudgingly accepted that Jemma wasn’t going to go back to bed any time soon, she suggested that they snuggle up on the sofa together with some hot chocolate, and talk about how their lives were going change forever, and how Jack would fall madly in love with Alice.

“
Can I be godmother to your children?” laughed Jemma.

“
Of course, darling. Tell you what, when you’ve made your millions you can pay for a nanny and we’ll go away for luxury spa weekends and shopping trips to New York.”

It was four o’clock before they finally got tired. By this time Alice was a world famous medium with her own TV show, and she and Jack had four children, and Jemma was Managing Director of her multi-million pound empire, with two male personal assistants to attend her every need.

“
Its destiny,” mumbled Jemma, as she was dropping off to sleep on Alice’s shoulder. “This is so right, it’s just meant to be…”

On Wednesday morning, Jemma rolled over in the soft silk sheets, and smiled up at the gorgeous hunk standing next to the bed. He was holding out a glass of champagne, smiling seductively, and wearing nothing except for a small towel wrapped discreetly around his waist. There was an irresistible smell of bacon wafting into the room from the kitchen. What more could a girl want? Gorgeous man, champagne and breakfast in bed, it didn't get much better than this.

“
Wake up, Dogsbreath.”

“
Charming,” mumbled Jemma.

“
Come on, I’ve made you a bacon sarnie.”

Slowly, Jemma opened her eyes and found that, to her dismay, her beautiful, sexy man had morphed into Alice holding a mug of tea, and the silk sheets turned back into her old Garfield duvet.

“
I thought I’d treat you on your first day at college,” Alice sat down on Jemma’s bed and handed her the mug.

“
Thanks,” she croaked. “Did you mention bacon?”

“
In the kitchen. Come on, get up or you’ll be late.”

A couple of minutes later, they were sitting on the sofa with fresh cups of tea and warm bacon sandwiches. Alice was already showered and dressed, whereas Jemma was still in her tatty pyjamas, with yesterday’s mascara smudged around her eyes, and her hair resembling a birds-nest. It was a typical morning, really. With one exception.

“
So, what time’s registration?”

Jemma yawned. “Not sure, bout half nine, I think.”

“
Well, you’d better get a move on, it’s a quarter to nine already.”

“
What?” Jemma screamed. “Oh my god, why the hell didn’t you wake me earlier?”

Jemma dived into the bathroom and emerged ten minutes later, with her long dark hair tucked into a towel, and her face now clear of yesterday’s make-up. Fifteen minutes later, she returned to the living room, dressed, make-up on and hair dried.

Alice sat back in amusement as she watched her friend running round the flat, desperately trying to find the bag she’d packed last night with her notebooks and pens in. When Jemma was finally ready and about to rush out of the door though, Alice casually said, “Oh dear, did I say a quarter to nine? Sorry hun, I meant to say a quarter to
eight
!”

“
Alice! You did that on purpose. Why the hell did you do that?”

“
Duh, if you thought you had loads of time, there’s no way you’d be dressed and ready to go on time.” Alice was grinning as she made her way into the kitchen. “Now, you’ve got time for another cuppa.”