The Memory Game (13 page)

She laughs.
‘Does that mean you’ll sit staring at me all night?’

‘I might not
mean to,’ I say.  ‘But I might not be able to help it.’

‘Maybe I won’t
mind so much,’ she says.  Her smile is sleepy but it still lights up her
face.

‘Maybe I’ll
stay, then.’

‘Maybe that
would be cool.’

‘Maybe it
would.’

She pulls her
legs up and swings them under the covers, snuggling down.  ‘You want me to
leave the lamp on?’

I look at her,
cocooned in her warm bed. I wish I could feel that safe. ‘If it won’t get you
in trouble,’ I say.

She reaches over
for the lamp from the bedside table and puts it down on the floor, placing a
book over the opening of the shade so it’s as dim as can be. ‘Dad won’t notice
it now if he comes past my room,’ she says.

‘You’ve done
that before,’ I smile.

‘Sometimes, I
get scared of the dark,’ she says as she settles into the pillow again.

I move to the
floor and sit where I can see her.

‘What will you
do all night?’ she asks.

‘I’ll just sit here
and think.’

‘Won’t that be
boring?’

‘I’m getting
pretty good at sitting and thinking, I get a lot of practise now. If I get
bored I can always go out for a walk.’

‘Ok. But you’ll
be here in the morning when I wake?’

‘Yeah, I’ll come
back.’

‘Good.’

She closes her
eyes. I gaze around the room.  She doesn’t really have much stuff,
now that I come to think about it. The jeans she wore today are hanging
neatly over a chair and three pairs of shoes, including the boots she seems to
wear for both school and home, and trainers for PE, are lined up beneath
it.  There’s a hairbrush, some deodorant and some ponytail bands on the
old desk.  My mum’s dressing table is crammed with face cream and hair
products and the bathroom shelf has twice as much again. Ingrid is always
pulling lip gloss from her bag or spraying herself with perfume, but I don’t
see any of that in Bethany’s room.

‘You want to
remember about sleeping?’ she whispers.

‘I thought you’d
already gone to sleep.’

‘Not
yet. You want to play the memory game first?’

‘I don’t need to
sleep.’

‘I know that,
but don’t you want to remember? Don’t you miss it?

‘Not sleeping. I
miss dreaming, though,’

‘Close your
eyes,’ she says. 

I do.

‘Imagine you’re
on a gentle sea in a little row boat. Let the waves tilt you this way and
that and then let your thoughts go with it, rocking this way and that…’

I try to empty
my mind and let myself sway with the blackness.

‘Are you all
calm?’ she asks in a quiet voice.

‘Yes.’

‘Now, just let
nice pictures come into your head, whatever gets there first, let it grow into
a story...’

I see my
mum.  I’m on the swings and she’s laughing.  I can tell I’m only
small because my legs don’t reach the ground.  The sun is high and warm
and the park smells of newly cut grass.  She pushes me, higher and higher
and each time the earth tilts a little more until I feel like the blue sky is
breaking over me in waves.  My stomach is doing somersaults and I’m
giggling… I feel myself drift onto the next image… I’m chasing a red balloon
around our kitchen. I’m still small. I smell home baked cake and
fruit juice and candle wax. Mum and Dad are singing happy birthday to me…

I open my eyes.
‘I was dreaming!’

But Bethany
is asleep. I know I said I would try not to stare at her but I can’t help it.
Her mouth is turned up a little at the corners.  I figure she’s having a
nice dream.  Her chest rises and falls with slow breaths and her eyelids
flicker.  Now that her eyes are closed I see that her lashes are really
long and much darker than her golden hair.  She looks tiny, frail, like
someone you want to scoop up in your arms and keep safe.  I said that I
would go out for a walk if I got bored in the night, but I don’t think I will
get bored.  I think I could watch Bethany
sleep for a hundred years and not get bored.

And then the idea comes to me.  Perhaps that’s why I’m still here.
It’s not to find my dad or the person who killed me or even to make Ingrid fall
in love with me.  I’m like a guardian angel or something. I can save Mum
and I can keep Bethany safe too. I
think about the bruises on Bethany’s
arms. That’s definitely it.

The morning peeks in through a
chink in Bethany’s curtains and she
stirs.  Her eyes half open and she sees me and smiles.

‘Did you have
nice dreams?’ she says in a
groggy
voice.

‘Yes,’ I
lie.  I spent the night watching her and thinking about how I could keep
her safe.  If there are ghost skills or tricks, or whatever, things that
will give me some control over the world around me, I need to learn them.

‘What did you
dream about?’ she asks, closing her eyes again.

‘Mostly about
stuff that happened when I was little… nice stuff.’

‘That’s good,’
she says, drifting into a doze. 

The sound of a
hacking cough from another room opens her eyes again.

‘Dad’s awake.’

‘Is it Sunday?’
I ask.

‘Yep.
  At least he won’t want to get up early today.’

‘Does he
normally get up early?  He doesn’t work.’

‘Still gets up,
though. He likes to be around before I go to school.’

‘Is that because
he won’t get any breakfast if he doesn’t?’

She frowns
slightly and doesn’t reply.

‘Just saying...’

‘You don’t know
about my life,’ she says.  ‘You can’t judge if you don’t know.’

‘I know what I
see here.’

‘It’s hard for
him. Mum used to do everything.’

I bite back the
words I want to say because I liked staying here last night and I don’t want to
make her angry. ‘Do you have plans today?’

‘With Dad, you
mean?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I doubt it. We
could do something, if you like.’

‘Maybe I would
like that.’

‘Maybe I would
too,’ she whispers and snuggles under the covers to sleep again.

My grave finally has a marker.
White stone with pale grey flecks, new and polished so that the edges gleam.

David
Cottle

Much loved
son

There are flowers arranged at the base
and old toys still lie undisturbed on the freshly turned earth.
To be honest, that last fact surprises me, knowing the kids in this
village.
 I’m quite surprised too that there is a stone here so
soon.

‘Bethany,’
I say quietly, ‘how long have I been dead? I can’t keep track any more.’

She shrugs. ‘I’m
not sure.
A couple of months, maybe.’

‘That long? You
said to Raven that it’s nearly Christmas, how close is Christmas?’

‘It is in a
couple of weeks.’

‘What will you
do? For Christmas, I mean?’

‘I don’t know.
Dad doesn’t talk about it.’

‘I suppose he
wouldn’t. I suppose you’ll be pretty upset too on Christmas day.’

She nods.

‘My mum will be
too,’ I say. ‘You know she had presents for me already? I found them under her
bed, a few days before I died. There wasn’t anything there that I had asked
for, but I knew they were mine. I suppose she was going to get the other things
later.’

‘Was Christmas
nice in your house?’

‘It was ok,’ I
say. ‘Not too good since Dad died but Mum made an effort for Roger. I think
she knew that I would never enjoy it again no matter what she did.’

‘Maybe you could
come to my house for Christmas day?’ Bethany
says. ‘It won’t be exciting but at least you won’t be alone… that is, if you
want to, of course,’ she adds quickly.

‘Won’t you be
doing stuff with your dad?’

‘We’ll have
dinner, and then he’ll probably have some beers and fall asleep.’ She laughs.
‘He used to do that when Mum was with us, so I can’t imagine this year will be
any different.’

‘If it’s ok then
I’d like it,’ I say.
‘As long as it wouldn’t be too difficult
for you.’

‘It’ll be fine,’
she says. ‘You can stay in my room if you like and I’ll come and talk to you
when Dad nods off.’

We turn to the
stone again.

‘It looks nice,
doesn’t it?’ I ask Bethany as we
stand and look at it together. 

She doesn’t say
anything.

‘It’s ok,’ I say
as I turn to see that she’s biting her lip to hold back tears. ‘It’s not really
me under there… at least, not anymore.’

‘It’s not that,’
she says, wiping a sleeve across her eyes. ‘It’s just so… so final.
 Seeing your stone there is like it’s really the end of you.’

I don’t like to
see her cry; I like it when she’s happy. I try to smile to make her feel better
but she doesn’t smile back. ‘But it’s not the end of me, is it?’ I say
  ‘We
know that now. Think of it like the end of the
end.’

‘The end of the
end means beginning again.’ She looks at me and I see fear in her eyes.
‘But the beginning of what?’
 

I shudder. I don’t want to think about that. ‘Come on,’ I say. ‘Let’s go
and sit somewhere else.’

The churchyard clock hits
noon
as we make our way to the cover of the
trees that skirt the old stone walls. Bethany
pulls her tattered blanket from her rucksack and spreads it on the ground near
the trunk of a bare oak.  She sits and wraps her arms around herself
against the cold. The churchyard is white and crisp in the frost that still
hasn’t melted from this morning.  There’s nobody but us here – at least,
if you don’t count the people beneath our feet. After we looked at my new
stone, we went to see my dad’s grave and her mum’s.  We stood next to each
one, not speaking, because we didn’t need to. Bethany’s
mum’s had actual plants around the stone, I’m guessing that Bethany
put them there, but she didn’t say. They look nice. Bethany
glances towards the sky where heavy white clouds are moving in.

‘It’s going to
snow later,’ she says. ‘The sky is full of it.’

‘You said that
yesterday.’

‘And it did,’
she says.
‘Just not very much.
  It’ll be loads
tonight, you’ll see.’

I wonder how
that will feel – cold, wet flakes falling right through me.

‘Can I stay at yours again tonight?’

‘You don’t need
to worry about snow,’ she laughs.

‘I know. 
It’s not that.  I just…’

‘I liked it,
having you around last night,’ she says, stealing my words from me. 

I feel something
flutter inside me, something that has no right to be there.  I’m dead now,
how can that be? I try to focus on something else. ‘I think I know why I’m
still here,’ I say.

She lies back
and stares up at the sky beyond our canopy of branches. ‘Watch the clouds with
me.’

I lie next to
her and follow her gaze. ‘I think I’m here to watch over you.’

‘That one’s full
of snow, you can see it.’ She points up.

‘I’m your
guardian angel.’

‘I bet
it’s
miles thick.  I wonder what it would be like to
fly above it. I’ve never been in a plane, have you?’

‘Did you hear
what I said? I’m here to protect you.’

She glances
across at me. ‘Don’t,’ she says.

‘What?’

‘You’re making
fun of me.’

‘I’m not,’ I
say, ‘I think it’s the truth.’

‘I don’t need a
guardian angel,’ she says.

‘Think about
it,’ I say, ‘what about Gary James? I was there when he attacked you for a
reason.’

She throws me a
sideways glance. ‘I was there for a reason too.’

‘I know that,’ I
say impatiently, ‘the point is that I could help. I can’t make things move or
haunt people but I can tell you about stuff, I can make sure you’re always
ready for what’s coming.’

‘You really want
to spend eternity following me around so that you can shout up if you see a
piano about to fall on my head?’

‘You’re making
fun of
me
now.’

‘I’m not,’ she
says, ‘I’m just being realistic. I really don’t need a guardian angel.’

‘Maybe,’ I
reply. ‘But you have one anyway.’

‘I don’t need
one,’ she repeats.

‘Maybe you need
a friend, though?’

She pauses
before she replies. ‘Friend is good…’

‘Ok, so let’s
just do that.’ I make a promise to myself to watch over her quietly and not
tell her I’m doing it.  ‘Does it get on your nerves, me being around all
the time?’

‘No,’ she says,
‘I like it now that I’m used to you.’

‘I wish I’d
known you like I do now when I was still alive,’ I say, glancing across at her.

‘You wouldn’t
have got to know me if you’d had a choice.’ 

‘Probably.’
I think about whether to say the next thing, the
thing that wants to come from my mouth as though it has a life of its own. Once
it’s out there, it’s too late to take it back. What if she doesn’t like it?
What if I lose her forever? 

‘But at least I
would have been able to kiss you,’ I finally say.

She doesn’t
reply for what seems like a long time, she just stares up at the sky.
 Then she turns her face to me. She doesn’t look angry, she looks sad.
‘You wouldn’t have wanted to.’

‘I know
that.  But I do now.’

She turns her
face back to the clouds.
‘Me too.’

We lie in silence
for a moment. A chill blows across the churchyard. I can’t feel it but I
see it shake the branches above us.  

‘We could do the
memory game,’ she says.

I hesitate.
 

‘Have you ever
kissed anyone?
she
asks in a suddenly shy voice.

‘Of course I
have,
loads of times.’