If This Is Paradise, I Want My Money Back (7 page)

‘Dec, just listen to me,’ he’s growling down the phone, spewing out cigarette smoke, then sitting forward and tipping ash into the empty pizza box.

That is disgusting!

‘It’s been a rough few days, what with Charlotte and everything . . .’

Suddenly I catch my breath. That weird, intriguing feeling of eavesdropping on a conversation about yourself.

Declan says something I can’t hear, but it must be sympathetic.

‘. . . thanks, yeah, thanks, man, I appreciate it. It’s so hard for me, being here without her . . . I’m still in shock, I suppose . . . yeah, you’re right . . . time will heal but, man, I really hope you never have to go through this. Wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. You really don’t know how much someone means to you, until you see them lying in a hospital bed and know there’s damn all you can do for them . . .’

Oh my good God.

‘. . . yeah, I know, she’s one gal in a million. Can’t believe how much I’m missing her . . .’

I’m sitting right beside him now and I’d almost swear I can see his eyes glistening.

‘. . . no, I haven’t the first clue what I’m going to do, I mean, how do you even begin to get through something like this . . . hey, man, thanks for being so understanding.’

No, there’s no mistake. He’s actually
crying
, he really is. Definite tear action going on. Half of me is so overwhelmingly touched, and the other half wants to hug him and let him know I’m actually right beside him, with my bum wedged on top of the remote control, to be exact. I move in close and gently put my arm around his shoulders. He shudders like a wet dog, then gets up and staggers to the kitchen, also like a pigsty, but right now I don’t care.

I did not come back from the afterlife to load dishwashers.

‘Sorry, man,’ he mumbles to Declan down the phone, ‘gotta switch on the heating. It’s like a fucking fridge in here.’ Then he stumbles back to the living room and slumps back on to the sofa, pulling a throw I got in Avoca around his shoulders.

You should see him. Dark circles under the eyes that Jack Sparrow would be proud of, stinking of stale booze, with nesty hair and days of stubble covering his pasty, knackered-looking face. Right now, there are hobos sleeping rough out there in better nick. He keeps grunting down the phone at whatever Declan’s saying, and all I can do is stare open-mouthed.

I had no idea. None. Only that I’ve seen it with my own two eyes, I’d never have thought he’d be this . . .
lost
without me. He’s even still talking about me in the present tense, like he just can’t accept that I’m gone. There’s only one logical conclusion. The whole Sophie Kelly thing was just a blip, temporary bewitchment, no more, and now that I’m not around any more, James is officially falling apart.

Which means that all this time, he really, truly loved me. Without question.

Next thing, there’s a knock on the door and he goes to answer it.

‘Someone here, Dec, probably FedEx with a delivery, yeah . . . great . . . call over and pick me up now if you can . . . oh, thanks for offering, man, yeah . . . ehh . . . some Marlboro Lights and maybe an Americano . . . great, see you shortly. And . . . hey . . . thanks,’ he says, hanging up as I follow him to the front door.

I do not bloody well believe this.

Sophie bleeding Kelly. Wearing her usual dressed-down faux-hemian gear that tries its best to say, ‘Look at me, classically trained, ready to play Chekhov at a minute’s notice, and yet still finding the time to dress like a bargain-basement Sienna Miller.’ Her Mini Cooper with the top down in
my
parking space, and the blonde hair in stupid-looking curly pigtails.

Wish I had the power of my hands; right now I’d love to rip the beret off her poodley head and pour extra-strength Domestos all over the car seats.

And by the way, Sophie, on Carla Bruni, berets look chic and sophisticated, on you, more like you’re trying to channel Frank Spencer.

‘What are you doing here?’ James almost hisses at her, grabbing her by the arm and dragging her into the hall. ‘Declan’s on his way over, suppose he sees you?’

‘Well, excuse me for being worried!’ she snaps back, and I’m not messing, anger makes the screechy voice sound, if possible, worse. Thank God we don’t have a dog, is all I can think, the poor creature would be persecuted listening to her. Then a horrible thought hits me right in the solar plexus: he must really be in love with her. Because, let’s face it, you’d have to be; there’s no other way you could put up with that decibel level otherwise.

The bastard. Bad, bloody bastard.

‘Your phone’s been off all last night and all this morning, I’ve been out of my mind. And what’s more, I was right to be worried: it’s a Monday morning and look at the state of you!’

‘Sophie,’ says James, folding his arms and sucking in his lips, something he only ever does when he’s at boiling point. He also tends to talk reeeeeealllllly reaaaaaalllllly sloooooowly when majorly pissed off, the way FBI counter-terrorists do in films. You know, ‘Step awaaaaaay from the veeeeeehicle.’

‘I thiiiiiink I made it cleeeeeear,’ he says, ‘that this is a veeeeeery sensitive time right now, and that it’s an unbelieeeeeevably bad idea for you to be seeeeeen here.’

‘I know, I know, you already spelt it out to me. Suppose Charlotte’s elderly, interfering bag of a mother, or that poker-faced sister of hers, who’s more tightly coiled than a walnut whip, called to pick up her things, seeing as how they both feel they’ve carte blanche to barge in here at any hour of the day or night. Suppose that happened, and suppose they found me here? Believe me, I know all the risks; I just wanted to see you.’

WHAT did she just say?

I’m looking at Screechy Sophie now, shocked. I mean, how bloody dare she? I just stand there speechless, trembling with rage, giving her the evil eye and wanting nothing more than to bitch-slap the stupid, poodley head off her. If I wasn’t dead, that is.

‘They’re still Charlotte’s faaaaaamily, and right noooooow, we neeeeeed to respect that, OK?’

Next thing, completely ignoring his hung-over narkiness, not to mention the stink of stale booze, Sophie’s right in on top of him, rubbing his arms suggestively and pulling down the throw he has around his shoulders.
My
throw.

‘Oh, now come on, babe, don’t be annoyed with me just because I was worried,’ she half-whispers with studied sexiness, moving in to nuzzle against his earlobe, which I happen to know is a major turn-on for him.

‘I missed you, that’s all, Jamie,’ she murmurs slowly, sensually.

Jamie?

‘I was lonely without you. We haven’t been together since before, well . . . what happened to Charlotte . . .’

Oh PLEASE, it’s eleven in the morning!

‘Mmmm,’ he mumbles thickly, letting her play with his lank hair, then letting her kiss his neck. With the eyes darting guiltily around the front drive in case Declan arrives, I notice.

OK, if it’s possible for angels to barf, then I think I’m going to throw up. Right now.

‘You still feel the same about me, don’t you?’ she murmurs, moving up to kiss his face now, the voice so saccharine, it would nearly give you diabetes.

‘Mmmm,’ he half-groans, kissing her back and feeling up her thigh at the same time. ‘And I’m sorry for snapping at you, baby.’ He’s breathing heavily now, murmuring into her ear.

‘It’s OK. I understand.’

‘Still love me? Even though I’m a cruel bastard?’

‘Still love you. And you’re not cruel, you just like people to think you are. Underneath, you’re really a pussycat.’

‘Even though I’m narky? And I haven’t been treating you right?’

‘Still love you.’

‘Even though, at the moment, I’m sure I stink like Calcutta at low tide?’

Vintage James Kane: get around a woman by giving her the little-boy-lost look, then cracking a gag. Albeit a rubbish one.

‘Still love you,’ she giggles. ‘Now stop talking and take me upstairs.’

OK, now . . . actual vomit is beginning to rise at the back of my throat.

‘RIGHT, THAT’S IT, THAT’S ENOUGH! You can bloody well STOP that carry-on this instant!’ I find myself yelling at the top of my voice, starting to feel like a voyeur and hating it, and not able to take any more of this crapology.

‘What?’ says James, pulling back.

‘Nothing, darling,’ says Sophie, puzzled.

‘You just told me to stop.’

‘Did not.’

‘Did, too.’

‘OH, WOULD YOU HAVE A LITTLE BIT OF RESPECT FOR THE DEAD,’ I snarl at the pair of them, furious. With myself as well, for being dozy enough to think that the bastard actually loved me and was in tatters without me.

Blinded to reality in life, and now in bloody death too.

‘Sophie, did you just say something about respect for the dead . . . ?’ says James. But there’s no shutting me up now.

‘SOME OF US ARE STILL WARM IN OUR GRAVES, I’LL HAVE YOU KNOW, AND HERE’S YOU PAIR ACTING LIKE . . .’

‘Can you hear that?’ he says, looking all around him, like there’s a burglar loose in the house.

‘Hear what?’ says Sophie.

‘Stuff about . . . graves?’

I do not believe this. Can he actually hear me?

‘James?’ I say, tentatively.

‘Who is saying that?’ he shouts, half-terrified. ‘Is someone in here?’

‘Would you please mind telling me what’s going on?’ says Sophie, the voice getting back to its usual screechiness. A big improvement, by the way, on her sexy voice.

‘Tell me you just heard that,’ he shouts at her, panicky now.

‘Heard what?’

‘James Kane?’ I say again, slowly and distinctly, and I might as well have added ‘testing, testing, one two three’, on at the end. This can’t be true . . . can it? Can he really hear me but no one else can?

‘My name, someone just said my name, Jesus Christ, Sophie, you must have heard that.’

‘Heard what? You know, I think you’re still a bit drunk from last night.’

‘Who is
there
?’ James shouts now, heading upstairs, as if he’s about to take on an intruder. In his underpants, armed with a mobile phone, the cack-head.

My head’s swimming. I mean, no one in angel school even mentioned that this might happen. But now that it
has
. . . suddenly I get the strongest urge to start messing.

‘THIS,’ I say, following him and talking in a deep, slow booming voice, like a scary Vincent Price, ‘IS THE VOICE OF YOUR CONSCIENCE.’

It’s hysterical. He nearly falls over with fright, then runs back downstairs and starts checking out the living room and kitchen, panicking, looking behind the curtains, then under the coffee table, racing around the place like a lab rat on amphetamines. I’m right beside him, desperately trying not to laugh, hands to my mouth like a megaphone.

‘RESISTANCE IS FUTILE, YOU ARE DOOMED, JAMES KANE, DOOOOOOMED I TELL YOU!’

‘Sophie, will you for God’s sake tell me that you can hear that!’

‘James, I really think that you need to lie down . . .’ she screeches back at him.

‘Can you tell her to shut up?’ I say in my normal voice now. ‘Otherwise half-deaf Mrs Brady from next door will be able to hear her.’

‘Charlotte?’ he asks to thin air, the picture of terror. ‘Is that you? Are you there?’

‘No,’ shrieks Sophie. ‘Charlotte is NOT here, how can she be? It’s ME. Sophie. Your girlfriend. What has happened to the not-insane part of you?’

James waves at her impatiently to shush, and if you saw the sight of him wandering around in his underpants, ashen-faced and shaking, like he’s waiting on the walls to suddenly start talking to him, you’d crack up.

‘James, I’m speaking to you,’ says Miss Screechy Voice.

‘Shhhhhh!’

‘Don’t shush me! Oh, for God’s sake, is there a brick wall here that I can talk to instead?’

‘Will you shuuuuuut uuuuuup!’ he snaps at her.

‘You know, if you think it’s OK to speak to me like that, you’re very much mistaken,’ she yells back, adjusting the beret.

Bloody hell, she’s an awful lot tougher on him than I ever was. A zero-tolerance policy on putting up with all his rudeness. Which, come to think of it, is possibly where I went wrong.

‘Charlotte,’ he says, slowly, very slowly. ‘If you’re there, will you say something?’

‘All right then, if you insist,’ I say, really starting to enjoy myself. ‘Tell Sophie I’m standing right beside her, and can see for myself that all the rumours are true and that she definitely had a botch Botox job. You can tell by the way the eyelids look droopier than a cocker spaniel’s. Dead giveaway.’

‘Sophie has not had a botch Botox job,’ he shouts back, facing the TV, with his back to me, which sets me off in peals of laughter again.

‘And ask her is she still breaking in the new nose?’

‘That is NOT a new nose!’

‘What did you say about me?’ says Miss Screechy. ‘Something about Botox?’

Oh God, this is turning into a sitcom.

‘Furthermore,’ I say, sitting comfortably on the sofa and stretching myself out. ‘At the agency we have rude nicknames for all the clients who annoy us. And hers is Screechy Sophie.’

‘Nor does Sophie have a screechy voice!’

‘Plus, out of all the actors I know, she is by a mile the single biggest drama queen.’

‘That is so unfair . . .’

‘You know what they say, “If the tiara fits . . .”’

‘EXCUSE ME!’ yells Sophie from the door, with the Bette Davis eyes nearly popping out of her head, looking like the flesh is about to melt off her face at any second. ‘If you think I’m going to stay here watching you screaming at thin air about Botox and insulting my voice then you’ve another thing coming, James Kane. Why don’t you sleep off all the booze, then call me when you’re feeling a little bit more like yourself? You have my number.’

‘Still six six six then, is it?’ I call innocently after her.

‘Sophie,’ he says, following her to the door, running his hands through his hair and making it even messier. ‘Please, baby, just hear me out. I don’t know what’s going on, I could have sworn I heard . . . look, I dunno what’s happening, but I’m sure there’s a perfectly rational explanation.’