I take a deep breath and pause for a moment.
‘Because it was just my time to go, tell her,’ Simon whispers. ‘I never wanted to leave her, but we don’t have a choice in the matter. If more people realised that, then they would cherish every moment they did have on earth.’
‘I don’t know, Gem, I just don’t know,’ is all I can manage to say.
‘Is he here? Now?’
I nod. Gem nods too.
‘I can feel him here. I can smell his aftershave. Can you smell it?’ she says, before dissolving into floods of tears. ‘What are we going to do without him, Sam? How am I going to cope without Simon? How am I going to bring up a baby on my own? A baby who will never know his or her dad. I love him so much. It’s so unfair!’
It’s another three hours before I get back to my house. I wanted to stay with Gem for as long as she needed me, but naturally all she wanted was her mum. Having phoned her I waited with Gem while she drove the forty miles to be with her daughter, and we sat in almost silence, punctuated only by the occasional blow of a nose on a Kleenex.
‘I must phone my next client, she’ll be wondering why I can’t make her appointment,’ Gem said all of a sudden. She jumped up and started rummaging around in the sideboard drawer for her client address book. It would make no difference whatsoever if I tried to make her sit down with another cup of rose hip tea, she wouldn’t listen. I know, because this is how some people react when they hear the news that someone they love so much that it hurts has died. I know this, because this is exactly how I reacted when my dad died.
Having spent the whole day at the hospital, watching and waiting for any slight sign of improvement in my dad, I’d driven home to get a quick shower before going back to give my mum a break for the evening. As I was unemployed at the time and still living at home with my parents, it was only natural for me to share the role of caring for my dad while he was in hospital, fighting prostate cancer. For eight weeks I was at his bedside: reading out the news headlines in the paper for him; doing the crossword in the Daily Express with him; and popping down to the lobby where the drinks machines were kept to get him a hot, milky coffee and a small packet of three custard creams from the vending machine for his supper.
Although he was having morphine pumped into him morning, noon and night, to ease the pain, he still had the energy to voice his opinions on the crap daytime programmes they would show on the small hospital TV monitor just above his bed. He would insist I topped his TV card up with five pounds every day, even though he would watch every programme that came on with a critical eye and moan about it.
We would religiously watch Countdown every afternoon at four o’clock and guess whether the contestant would ask Carol Vorderman for a vowel or a consonant, invariably guessing the wrong one. Then we would try to form a word from the chosen letters and get that wrong too.
As I’d stepped out of the shower, my mobile began to ring and I knew that it was my mum – maybe I had psychic skills back then and just didn’t know it. ‘Sammy, get here now, your dad’s going,’ my mother shouted down the phone. Going? Going where? the logical part of me wanted to ask.
By the time I got to the hospital he was no longer with us. He had gone to wherever he was going. Where? I didn’t know. Why? I didn’t know that either. And do you know what the first thing I did was after I saw my dad for the last time? I started tidying up the area around his bed. While my mum was crying her heart out on my dad’s chest and pleading with him to wake up again, I was busy brushing up biscuit crumbs from under his bed with a dustpan and brush, cursing whoever it was who invented custard creams. How stupid was that?
I don’t even remember how I got home that night. My mum refused to leave my dad alone, but insisted I drove home to put the lights on in the house so that we didn’t get burgled. All I remember is texting Jack and Amy as I walked out of the hospital, with a simple message that read, my dad is dead.
I sit on my sofa, cradling Missy on my lap, and I cry and cry. I don’t know whether I’m crying for Gem or for myself. It’s a close call really.
‘She’ll be fine, Sam,’ I hear Ange whisper in my ear.
‘But it is so unfair, Ange!’ I scream out loud, disturbing Missy from her sleep.
‘No shit,’ Ange says, ‘you don’t think I don’t know that? One minute you’re having an awesome time and the next, poof! Gone!’ Ange puts it so eloquently. ‘Still, it’s not so bad once you get used to it,’ she muses. ‘I can get as pissed as a fart here and I never get a hangover. And you do get to listen in on all the best gossip!’ Ange continues. ‘I saw that tart from that talk show, you know, the one who tried to stitch you up last year. She was in the bathroom at The Ivy the other night and you should have seen the amount of powder she was putting up her nose!’ Ange informs me. I smile at the thought of Miss-too-much-make-up’s secret. ‘And you know that Jeremy Brown? The host on Other People’s Lives? Well, I bet you didn’t know that he’s gay. He is, you know. All that wife and three happy kids crap is a cover-up. I’ve seen him with his lover, you know – a lad aged about eighteen. They meet at The Arosfa every weekend. He claims he goes there to lean his lines. Learn his lines, my arse!’
God, I could get a lot of people into trouble if I wanted to, couldn’t I?
‘But it doesn’t make any sense to me, Ange,’ I whisper. ‘I mean, why do good people have to die?’ This is the one question I am asked the most when someone who is recently bereaved phones me up and I always have a problem answering it. It just seems so unfair all the time. The most wonderful people are suddenly snatched from this world, just like that. No warning. No nothing. Just gone. And yet other people, vile people who should be hanged get to live long lives. I am so pissed off about it right now.
‘Like your dad told you, sometimes it’s just their time, hun,’ Ange says kindly. ‘We don’t have a choice in the matter. You think I prefer to be up here than down there with you? When people realise that we don’t actually have a choice in this game, only then will they bloody well learn to really live every day of their lives. Most people take it all for granted, Sam. I know I did. You don’t ever think that today could be your very last one on earth, do you? No one does. If they did, then they wouldn’t spend so much time being petty with each other and arguing over stupid things.’
You know, I’m learning that for someone who is usually brash, loud and more than a little bit bonkers, my little spirit friend can be quite philosophical when she wants to be.
‘Now, enough of this bollocks, let’s go shopping tomorrow to cheer ourselves up, shall we?’ Ange finishes in typical Ange fashion as only Ange can.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
It’s after lunchtime before I finally manage to pull myself together again to drive into Bristol to meet the team from Living Today TV. As I stop at the traffic lights in the centre of Bath to turn off to the main road to Bristol, I fiddle with the radio to try to find something to cheer me up. Ironically the old eighties song ‘The Only Way is Up’ by Yazz comes on. Oh well, it’s a good tune I guess, although the only reason I remember it is because my mum used to sing it to me in the bath when I was eight years old – my mum was a bit of a eighties fan at the time. She even sported one of those big hair hairstyles, all backcombed, and vivid blue eyeshadow, if I remember rightly.
As Yazz tells me to hold on, hold, on, hold on, I look down the high street and notice the HMV store where Jack used to work. It seems a million years ago now since we used to meet up at lunchtimes in Royal Park; Jack filling me in on the latest tracks to hit the store; me telling him about my attempts at finding meaningful employment. Now look at us – one a successful psychic and the other a successful rock star. Don’t get me wrong, I’m truly grateful for the success and I am so proud of how Jack is doing, but sometimes, just sometimes, I long for the good old days when I had nothing more to worry about than making sure Valerie got her rent on time and deciding whether a Pot Noodle could be considered a nutritional lunch or not.
; I look at the entrance to McDonalds and do one of those double takes one does when they think their eyes are playing tricks on them.
‘Spare change, luv?’ a voice from the pavement shouts to a passer-by. There was a time when Bath City Council introduced a no tolerance policy about begging on the streets, but no one really bothered about it. Of course, for a few weeks the police community officers would walk the streets and move people on, but after that, no one would bother calling them out, or if they did, the police would fail to turn up due to understaffing or something. Since then the beggars of Bath have come out in force so it’s not unusual to hear the familiar request for small change coming from the pavement.
What is unusual, in this case, is the voice in which it comes. It doesn’t sound like your usual street beggar. In fact, the voice I hear is very middle class, which is why it caught my attention in the first place.
‘Change? You got any spare change?’
‘Marjorie?’ I mutter to myself. The woman dressed in a red Marks and Spencer wool suit, sitting cross-legged on a tartan picnic blanket on the cold pavement outside the fast-food establishment, certainly looks like my mum’s friend Marjorie. A passer-by tosses the woman fifty pence to which she responds, ‘Cheers, darling.’
It can’t be Marjorie, but it certainly looks very much like her. OK, so she hasn’t got her half-moon glasses on and her usually immaculately tight-permed hair is hidden beneath a red felt hat that would be better suited to Paddington Bear, but I’m sure it’s Marjorie from the WI. As Yazz warbles on about the only way being up, I sit in my car, open-mouthed and staring at her – I swear if it’s not Marjorie, it’s her double.
The car behind me sounds its horn to tell me to get a bloody move on as the lights have turned green and I quickly pull away, looking over my shoulder at the posh beggar woman.
I hit the speed dial on my hands-free and pray that my mum is no longer worshipping Bob Marley and can hear the phone ringing.
‘Hello? Cathy Ball speaking.’
‘Mum, it’s me. Are you OK now?’ I ask nervously.
‘OK? Of course I’m OK. Why?’
‘Oh, nothing. Listen, can you get down to the high street. I think Marjorie is … well, I’m not quite sure what she is, but I’m certain it’s her sitting outside McDonalds begging for money,’ I whisper into the speaker.
‘What? Marjorie? Oh don’t be silly, Sammy. Marjorie wouldn’t be begging, for goodness sake! Malcolm, her husband, is an investment banker!’
‘Mum! I’m sure it’s her. She’s got the same features and she’s wearing Marks and Sparks!’
‘Oh, Sammy, you are funny sometimes.’
‘Mum, I just saw her. She was sitting on the pavement asking for spare change.’
‘Who was?’
‘Marjorie, Mum! Marjorie was sitting outside McDonalds.’ God, keep up mother!
‘No, it wouldn’t be Marjorie, she doesn’t like McDonalds, love. She makes her own mince, you know. It’s so much better than anything you can buy at a supermarket. She often adds mint to it. Anyway, what would Marjorie be doing outside McDonalds? She doesn’t go to town on a Tuesday. If she’s going into town it would be on a Thursday or a Friday, not a Tuesday; that’s when she usually does her chores.’
‘Well, how the hell should I know?’
‘Well, there’s no need to shout, Samantha,’ my mum scolds. ‘You’re very stressed lately, aren’t you dear? You have to stop getting yourself so worked up, you know, it’s no good for you. Oh, Missy’s turned up here again by the way.’
That damn cat! I take a deep breath.
‘Mum, will you just pop down to the high street and take a look, please!’
‘Oh very well, Sammy.’
‘Look, I’m on my way to Bristol at the moment, so you’ll have to keep Missy at yours until I get home. Oh, and can you phone the Abbey back and tell them that we definitely want to book 21st December?’
‘Yes sweetheart. Now you drive carefully. Boomchacawahwah!’ my mother finishes.
Boomchaka what? God, I despair sometimes, I really do.
Due to being temporarily delayed by why my mum’s best friend was sitting in Bath high street, begging for money, I am now running late. I eventually arrive at a small hotel on the outskirts of Bristol twenty minutes late to find Georgia, Maria and Mark waiting for me in the car park – not a good start.
‘Sorry, sorry, sorry,’ I pant as I lock my car and rush over to the patient trio. ‘Got a bit delayed, in traffic.’
‘Oh, don’t worry. It happens to the best of us,’ Mark says and smiles. I notice that Georgia’s smart dress she wore to the first meeting has been replaced by SAS combat-style gear. Even covered from head to toe in black, she manages to look as though she’s about to step out on the catwalk and I wouldn’t be surprised if she told me it was Stella McCartney.
‘Right, Sam, if you follow me inside, we’ll get you miked up,’ Maria says efficiently. ‘Now, as planned, you and Mark are going to go into the nursing home just round the corner, posing as Mr and Mrs Spears looking for a home for your mother.’ Now there’s an idea.
‘Mark is going to have a hidden camera on him in his holdall and we will be recording everything in there.’ Maria points to a black van with blacked-out windows that is sitting discreetly hidden behind some trees that line the public car park. It’s all very CSI-esque.
‘All we want to do is to see what you get, if anything. Don’t worry if you don’t feel anything. Now, remember, we don’t want to give away the fact that we are investigating them, so don’t mention Petra or her mother Pearl to anyone. We’re just there to see if you get anything. Any questions?’
I raise my hand as we walk to the entrance of the hotel.
‘Just the one. What if these people recognise me? I mean, they might have seen me on the TV or in the magazines I write for,’ I add, panicking that I’m not at all prepared for this.
‘This is why we have these.’ Maria produces a bright pink headscarf and a pair of sunglasses that wouldn’t be out of place on Victoria Beckham.
‘Oo, nice,’ Ange says.
‘You don’t think they will think I’m trying to disguise myself then?’ I say, looking at the two items in her hands.
‘When Mark phoned up to make the appointment he gave the owners the impression that the two of you were famous actors from America. They will expect you to turn up in some form of disguise,’ Maria explains.
‘Hang on a minute; you mean I have to put on an American accent?’
‘Hell, it’s real easy,’ Georgia says in a Texan drawl – at least I think it’s a Texan drawl. My own American accent leaves a lot to be desired and sounds more like Justin Lee Collins than Jerry Hall.
‘Hell, it’s real easy,’ I try to copy Georgia’s accent, but it comes out more like a Bristolian Minnie Mouse.
‘Tell you what, I’ll be the American, you can be the Brit. I’ll be Michael Douglas to your Catherine Zeta-Jones,’ Mark says, although it has to be said that Mark looks nothing like Michael Douglas, however much you squint your eyes. Whereas Mr D is middle-aged and somewhat wrinkled, Mark is in his mid thirties, with blonde floppy hair and darned good looking to boot!
‘But she’s Welsh!’ Oh, I’m worried now. My Welsh accent is marginally better than my American accent, but not a patch on Catherine Zeta-Jones’s.
‘No, I don’t mean you have to be Welsh, just be yourself. Tell you what, how about I just do the talking, OK?’ Mark winks at me – ooh boyo!
‘OK,’ I stutter. I’ve come over all girly and weak – not a good look on any woman.
‘You’re blushing!’ Ange teases.
Maria escorts me to a private room to get miked up and ready to enter the nursing home just up the road where Petra’s mum ended her days.
To make it look more authentic, it’s been decided that Mark and I will drive from the car park, round the block and into the nursing home car park in his silver BMW.
‘Now, remember, just leave the talk
ing to me,’ Mark advises as I tie the pink headscarf under my chin and put my big sunglasses on.
‘Ooh, you look like a movie star!’ I hear Ange squeal in my ears. ‘Just like Angelina Jolie!’ she says as she starts clapping with joy. Well, at least one of us is happy with the outfit.
Mark holds the door open for me, and then taking me by surprise he holds my hand as I get out of the car and kisses it tenderly. I peer at him from underneath my shades.
‘Just trying to make it look authentic,’ he smirks.
Hum, so long as that’s all he’s doing.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
As we make our way to the front door of We Care Nursing Home – The Home From Home – Mark switches on the camera in his holdall and it x beeps, signalling that it is now recording. He rings the brass doorbell and we wait for someone to answer. I nervously push a stray curl of hair back underneath my headscarf and take a deep breath.
The house is huge and is set in acres of land. From the outside it looks like one of those houses that are often featured in Country Homes. The sheer elegance of it makes me feel quite small.
A young girl in a nurse’s uniform comes to the door.
‘Yes? May I help you?’
‘Hello, Mam, we’ve come to have a look at your lovely home as a possibility for my darling wife’s mother,’ Mark drawls, in what has to be said is a very convincing American accent. He flashes a smile at the young girl, who smiles back.
‘Have you got an appointment?’ the girl asks.
‘Yes, mam, it’s Mr and Mrs Spears. We just saw your darling little home the other day on our way through and thought, that’s the place for us, didn’t we, darling?’ Mark looks at me. I nod, unsure whether the girl might think it a bit strange that so far I haven’t uttered a word. Maybe she thinks I’m the mute wife of the charming American? And who came up with Spears for the name? I’m thinking that it was probably Georgia’s idea. I just hope Britney doesn’t find out and try to sue us.
‘Oh, right, well, if you would like to follow me,’ the girl opens the door wider and we follow her down a long, narrow hallway that is tastefully decorated in several shades of lemon.
Oh Great, Now I Can See Dead People Page 9
