DEAD GOOD (27 page)

‘I’m really sorry,’ she says as we find a table by the ovens and pull a chair out each. ‘I was a real bitch at break time. I don’t know what got into me. And to be honest I do feel a bit jealous. I mean, you can see ghosts. Jeez. And fit ones too. I thought I was the one with the paranormal predisposition. So I do feel a bit cheated that Great Aunt Esther was probably just a scatty old bat with cataracts or something.’ She rolls her eyes exasperatedly.

I laugh. Good old Amber. I’ve missed her.

‘Is that her?’ she hisses at me behind a menu as Antonella glides through the swing doors of the kitchen with a tray of something hot and tomatoey-smelling.

‘No, but… well you know, technically speaking… and yes, she’s very attractive. God, it feels weird to be looking at the living mum of the dead boy you keep talking to.’

‘I know.’

We sit for ages like this, just staring around us. Leo’s mum nips between tables, pops behind the bar to make coffees and scans the room with her dark eyes to check on the customers. There aren’t that many and I know she knows we’re here; she’s very efficient like that. She nods over at us and I smile back.

‘So just tell her,’ Amber says, playing with the candle in the middle of the table. ‘Tell her you’re living in her old house, tell her you’ve met Leo, Mia and the grandparents, tell her they all know about the baby and then “bam” everything’s better… dead people move on, Leo’s Mum can have closure, everything’s sorted.’

‘Oh, god, you make it sound so easy, Amb,’ I wince at the very idea of doing all this. In my head it’s a slo-mo train crash.

‘But it is, isn’t it? Why should it be difficult? What’s stopping you telling her all this?

‘Er…. Maybe,’ I lean in towards her, lowering my voice, ‘because it might freak her out? Maybe it might make us look like weirdo morbid ghost-stalkers or something, and what happens if my Dad loses his job just because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut?’

Amber frowns and sits back in her seat. ‘Good point,’ she concedes. Then she draws her chair in underneath her and pulls my hand towards her across the tablecloth. ‘But you have to start letting go too, Maddie,’ she holds my eyes earnestly; ‘this is not helping anybody, being in love with a ghost and trying to hold onto him.’

thirty-six

I swallow hard. I think it’s the first time I’ve ever realised that Amber might know me better than I truly know myself. She’s probably been hitting nails on heads for longer than I remember. She’s right. She was right at break time when she lost it with me and she’s still right. Right now. What the hell am I thinking, how can I possibly believe I can have any kind of relationship with Leo? I mean he died three years ago. He’s dead. He’s a corpse. In fact, scrub that, he is charred remains somewhere in a cemetery. What kind of future would we have? He’d never be able to hold down a job, not with his hands going through everything he tries to touch. How would we survive? In fact he would survive me, wouldn’t he? He’d always be a 16 year old ghost and I’d get old, wither and rot before his eyes. Oh god, this is getting far too Twilight for my liking now, and it’s beginning to make my heart race – not in a good way.

‘You’re right,’ I tell her. ‘I’ve been an idiot. What was I thinking?’

‘You were probably thinking “wow, this fit, gorgeous guy really likes me and he makes me laugh” and loads of other stuff…so what if he’s dead! No, seriously, it IS natural, Mads, don’t beat yourself up about it. I just think you need to decide to move on now. It’s not fair on any of them – including you. I’m saying this for your own good ‘cos I love you, you know that, right?’

Now I have tears in my eyes. I love her too, and so I tell her. And we must look like a proper couple sitting in here, holding hands and getting all teary and loved-up over the checked tablecloth.

‘Ah Maddie,’ Antonella is standing over us with a pencil poised over her paper pad. She smiles broadly at Amber who beams back. ‘Do you girls want something or did you just come for Davey?’

I frown hard. ‘Davey?’

‘Your mum said she was going to text you to let you know to pick him up from here. Your Dad’s been holding the fort for the last half an hour, but your little brother’s not the easiest thing to keep track of, especially now he knows how to open the fridge!’ she laughs and Amber joins in.

‘Davey’s here?’ I repeat.

Antonella nods. ‘Didn’t you get the message? But you’re here… of course you got the message. I know, let me get you girls some Coke and I’ll tell your dad to get Davey ready, okay?’

When she comes back, there’s a child on her hip. It must be Milo, I decide. In fact there’s no question. He’s just a little Leo. Same dark eyes, same cheeky mouth and he even laughs like him. My stomach churns as I try to imagine how Antonella must have felt, how she must still feel seeing this gorgeous little replica of her dead son every day. Amber is SO right – this has to stop. I have to make it all right somehow.

I automatically stand, the way I do when Mum comes at me with Davey on her hip, and Antonella hands her little boy over to me. I can feel tears pricking the backs of my eyes and Amber is the picture of reserve. She taps Milo’s feet and coos a little but she gives absolutely nothing away.

‘Ah, here… Davey…’ Antonella bends down and scoops up my tearaway brother who’s just rounded a table. ‘Come on, let’s get your coat buttoned up, Maddie’s come to take you home.’

‘Don’t wanna go!’ Davey snarls up at me, holding onto Antonella’s trousers with his good arm. ‘Wanna stay and p-lay!’ he spits the “p” at me like I’m Cruella de Vil. Maybe I am.

‘Come on, big fella, let’s not give your sister a hard time, eh? Let’s get your coat on, yeah?’ Amber bends over towards him from her seat. Davey backs off even farther round Antonella’s legs and scowls furiously at her. She grins. ‘Like brother, like sister,’ she laughs, ‘look at that face!’.

‘But Maddie is way prettier,’ I hear beside me. Leo. I gasp in shock. I didn’t expect him to be here.

‘Well you didn’t exactly expect you to be here either, though, did you?’ he grins. He looks a little different somehow. What’s changed?

‘I think it’s happening,’ he smiles.

I frown. ‘What’s happening?’

‘I’m not entirely sure,’ He shakes his ghostly head and I realise that he’s got more of a kind of glow about him than usual. He’s not so pale and misty – he’s more … I don’t know… luminous.

‘Thanks,’ he says, stroking his cheek with one hand. ‘I think I’m worth it,’

I forget where I am and automatically go to slap his arm, and end up spinning on the spot because there’s nothing to connect with. If it’s possible, in fact, the little particles of glow that make up his body, kind of shimmer a bit where my hand went through and then they reassemble again. It’s like he’s made of a million miniscule fairy lights. Another shape joins him and stands beside his figure. I know it’s Mia although I can’t see her features properly, only her outline. She smiles up at me – I know that because she kind of glows brighter - and I smile back.

‘Wanna stay with Mia,’ Davey stamps his foot down hard and pouts. All eyes turn to him in shock. I look at Amber. She swallows and looks at Antonella and I watch as she bends down to Davey and tugs at the buttons on his padded jacket.

‘Oh, Davey, you know you can come and play with Mia any time you like, okay?’ she smiles at my truculent baby brother. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll tell her you said goodbye, yeah?

‘Bub-bye,’ he waves over at Mia. A golden outline waves back.

‘And don’t forget this, okay?’ Antonella pulls out a key- ring from his jacket pocket. ‘I’m sure Mia would love you to keep this safe for her. Here.’

‘What’s that?’ Amber is curious.

‘Oh it’s just something I kept the key to our old front door on. It’s got pictures of Leo and Mia on it. Davey got quite excited when he spotted it and I haven’t really been able to get it off him since he saw it. It doesn’t matter. It’s not any use to me now – in fact it’s not good to have too much reminding me of that night. If Davey wants it, he’s welcome to it. It makes him happier than it makes me.’

‘Look - Leo and Mia,’ Davey smiles happily, brandishing the key-ring at me. I bend down to take a look and he whips it away from my grasp. ‘Mine. Not Maddie’s. Mine,’ he says proudly hugging it to his puffed out chest.

‘Where’s the key?’’ I say, watching as Davey stuffs it back into his pocket.

‘Oh, I think it must have fallen off when Davey was playing with it. It doesn’t matter. There’s no door for it to fit now anyway,’

I feel a chill creep through me. But a warm kind of chill if that makes sense. Like when you find a piece of a jigsaw that you think you’ve lost and then it’s there – right in front of you all the time. I gulp in surprise. So if this is what Leo meant by “it’s happening”, does it mean what I think it means?

Antonella finishes buttoning up Davey’s jacket. ‘He was pretending he was talking to Leo and Mia and they were chatting about games they like playing and then little Milo joined in, and Davey even got him to say “Mia” – which was… well… it was wonderful actually – almost as if they were all there together… all my lovely children in one place. I didn’t even feel sad. I can’t explain it.’

There are tears in her eyes as she says this; not sad tears, but shining, joyful ones. And I do know what she means. I couldn’t be happier for her. If only she knew – proper knew that all her children really were back together and getting to know one another. I wish I could tell her but I also know that some things are better left unsaid.

‘Hey,’ I feel something warm on my cheek. ‘I think we’re off.’

I turn and see four figures standing in front of me now. The two wider, shorter ones; Nonna and Nonno, are almost just a haze now and Mia is getting blurrier by the second. She’s still holding up a hand to Davey, though.

‘What’s happening?’ Amber squeaks beside me, pulling my hand into hers. ‘Are they here?’

I nod and feel a tear creep down my face. ‘But not for much longer.’

‘It seemed silly to wait for another reconstruction,’ Leo says gently, ‘I thought if we had the key, then why not try it out. Seems to have done the trick. And we wanted to say goodbye to the rest of the family too. I think it’s helped Mum actually – her heart feels lighter. And this Milo is a great kid. Reminds me of me when I was little. So cute!’

His figure is the last one to fade completely but then, just when I think I can bear to breathe once more, I see it forming again, this time more solid, until the Leo I remember is back and standing before me in jeans, t-shirt and Converse. But before I can even gasp in shock, he is beside me. His lips brush my ear and he whispers: ‘Give Ed a break, yeah? At least he’s got a pulse.’

And then he’s gone.

thirty-seven

I spend the rest of the day at home – in my… our… my bedroom, waiting for Leo to appear. Re-appear. Somewhere. Anywhere. And it’s not until it gets dark that I finally accept that he’s not coming back. Which is a good thing. No, really, it is.

‘At least we didn’t end up getting possessed or butchered in our own beds, with furniture flying around the place like a madhouse. We have emerged from this relatively unscathed, with our sanity intact.’ Dad says pragmatically after I’ve told him what happened at the restaurant. ‘I did wonder why you were all standing around like statues when I came out from the back room.’