Oh Great, Now I Can Hear Dead People: What Would You Do if You Could Suddenly Hear Real Dead People?

by Deborah Durbin

  ‘Oh you know, much the same.’ I say. If my mum knew that it was Amy who had started all of this I don’t think she would ever forgive her. My mum was one of Lorraine’s dumpees for many years and has always treated Amy as if she were her own.

  ‘Obviously this business with the papers has upset her.’ I add and take a sip of my coffee.

  Amy reaches out a hand to me and pats my leg.

  ‘Yes it must have been awful!’ she coos dramatically, ‘I don’t know how you managed to keep going. Some of the things that had been said in the papers about you… I mean, God, I was livid when I read them.’

  ‘I thought you said you hadn’t heard about it until I told you the other day?’

  ‘Ah… well yes, but when you told me I went straight out and bought all the papers,’ she says, slightly flustered, and starts to fidget uncomfortably in her chair.

  ‘What, in Spain?’ I say, taking another sip of my coffee.

  ‘No, I mean, I got back issues sent to me…well, I got my mum to get them for me. She knows a nice little Asian who runs a shop out there and…well, he…’ Amy stutters. Before she has chance to make herself look even more stupid I stop her.

  ‘Look Amy, quit the acting. I know it was you who went to the papers.’ I say quietly but firmly.

  ‘What? I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Amy flushes a shade of red as if she has just come out in a nasty rash.

  ‘I think you do. You see Amy, when I was beside myself at what the press were writing, I just happened to notice that all the newspapers were carrying the same photograph of me. All the papers were carrying a photograph that was taken at the awards ceremony and all were taken by the same photographer, McIntyre. All I had to do was find out who had supplied the photograph to them and contact them to find out who it was that sold the story on me,’ I pause for effect – wow, I feel like Hercule Poirot summing up his murder theory to Hastings. ‘Paul – you know, my brother – the one with the detective agency in Australia – well, he tracked the photographer down and it just happened to turn out to be one Lord Kenzie McIntyre. Your gorgeous Lord Kenzie McIntyre was the one that took that photograph, Amy.’

  ‘What? My Kenzie? Sam, you’ve got to believe me, I don’t know anything about it. I don’t know what he works on. He helps his dad out occasionally on magazine shoots and….’

  ‘Award ceremonies.’ I spit.

  ‘I swear on my life, Sam, all I know is what you told me and what I read in the papers.’

  ‘The copies your mum ordered?’ I confirm.

  ‘Yes, the copies I back-ordered...from my mum…from the little Asian…’

  ‘Newsagent.’

  ‘Yes. From the newsagent.’

  ‘Look, Amy, I don’t know why you can’t just admit that it was you who went to the press. For whatever reason, jealousy maybe because you couldn’t come to the awards ceremony, or because you knew your own job was on the line…’

  Amy stands up and puts her hands on her hips, which means she’s about to get all shouty and defensive.

  ‘Now just you hang on a minute!’ As if on cue her voice raises an octave. ‘I don’t know what the bloody hell you are going on about, and I find it quite offensive that you could even think of suggesting that I had anything to do with this.’

  ‘Amy, I know it was you – Kenzie told me,’ I say wearily – I do wish people would just own up to things they did, it would make life so much simpler if they did.

  ‘What? Don’t be so stupid! My Kenzie wouldn’t do that!’

  ‘Me, stupid? Was I the one who got my boyfriend to take a photo and then make up a whole bunch of lies about my best friend? Was I the one who almost ruined my best friend’s life because of it? Err, no that was you Amy!’ I try very hard to stay calm, but I think it’s about time Amy had a taste of her own medicine.

  ‘It wasn’t me who was so jealous that she had to go and make up a whole load of lies about her best friend!’ I shout. ‘I can’t believe you would do that to me, Amy. I thought we were best friends.’

  Amy looks furious and I’m not altogether sure if it’s because she’s been found out or whether it’s because her boyfriend has dobbed her in.

  ‘Well it serves you right!’ Amy snaps, ‘you said yourself that you made the whole thing up and that you didn’t know what you were doing. You said you were only doing it for the money…’

  ‘That was at the start Amy and besides I confided in you. That’s what best friends do, they confide in each other and keep each other’s secrets!’ I shout at the top of my voice.

  ‘Ah, so you admit it now! Well it still serves you right then!’ Amy shouts back and pushes me back against the sofa, ‘you thought you were so clever getting that job at the BBC, you couldn’t shut up about it! You knew I might lose my job and you still harped on and on about how clever you were and how many new deals you were going to get! And even when I asked you if I could help you, you told me you didn’t need any help!’ Amy shouts in my face. I’m certainly not having that and as I stand back up so Amy pushes me down again.

  ‘Why, you little…’ I jump up and push her back. She totters unsteadily in her four-inch heels and falls backwards to the floor. Call me a mad woman but I just can’t help myself. Amy has been asking for this. I launch myself Spiderman style off the sofa and straight on to my former best friend who yelps like a puppy as I land on her.

  ‘You bitch!’ she screams in my face and grabs a long curl of my hair and tugs on it until I let go of her throat.

  ‘Ow! You cow!’ I counter attack as she pulls a clump of my hair out and digs her long fake nails into my cheek.

  Amy rolls over with me clinging on to her. Her leather trouser clad legs fly in the air as I cling to her blouse in order to keep my balance.

  We’re so busy rolling around on the carpet taking chunks out of each other that neither of us hears the door open. As I am in mid roll I look up to see the lounge door open.

  ‘Oh shit,’ Jack says as he looks down upon the two of us scratching, biting and generally beating a pulp out of each other.

  As I look up I hear Amy’s hundred and sixty pound blouse rip. Good!

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  ‘Time out, girls!’ Jack shouts as he tries to separate the pair of us. I am not giving up without a fight and no amount of Jack shouting ‘time out’ like a teacher in the playground, is going to stop me from thrashing Amy.

  ‘Samantha! Amy!’ Jack shouts louder as if he is telling a pair of seven year olds off for unruly behaviour.

  ‘Oh fuck off, Jack! Look what she’s done to my shirt!’ Amy shouts back as she grabs my leg and pulls it toward her in the attempt of preventing me from escaping her clutches. As she pulls I kick back like a reluctant donkey at a donkey derby. Amy flies back in the air, giving me a breather to compose myself.

  ‘Girls! This is not solving anything!’ Jack shouts, panic rising in his voice – you’d think he’d be quite pleased, isn’t this every man’s fantasy, two girls fighting with each other?

  ‘Fuck off, Jack! Do you know what she did to me?’ This time it is me who screams, ‘It was that cow that went to the papers! It was that cow who tried to ruin my reputation.’

  ‘Reputation? What reputation is that then? A reputation as a lying bitch?’ Amy screams in my face as she grabs for my hair again. Ow, I have such a headache now.

  ‘Ha, you’re a fine one to talk! At least I have a career, loser!’ I shout back into her face – I know, childish, isn’t it? But she did start it.

  ‘Please girls!’ Jack begs, ‘Sam, get off her now!’ He adds as I launch myself onto Amy’s back and sink my teeth into her shoulder.

  ‘Ow! That hurt!’ Amy yells, reaching behind her to try and claw my eyes out with her inch long talons

  ‘Good! You deserve it, you little cow!’ I yell back – I have to say, as a rule I don’t generally promote violence, but given the circumstances I don’t feel that I have a great deal of choice, it’s fight or be smashed to a pulp w
ith Amy.

  ‘I give up.’ Jack sighs and raises his arms in the air in an I-give-up kind of a way. He walks out of the room.

  Phewwwwww! A loud whistle blows at high pitch making us freeze on the spot.

  ‘That is enough!’ Valerie shouts at the top of her voice. ‘You! Yes you madam!’ she points at Amy who looks up, terrified. ‘Get off my tenant this instant and get yourself out of my flat.’

  ‘But…she…’ Amy stutters.

  ‘But nothing. I know all about you, you little traitor. Go on with you. Get out!’ Valerie says sternly. It reminds me of our school days when Amy was often the instigator of the daily school fight. She would start a rumour about someone – usually one of the younger girls in the third form – and before you knew it a fight had broken out on the school playing field and Amy would be right in the middle of it.

  Amy stands up and hobbles to the door. One of her four-inch heels has been snapped off in the brawl and is wedged in the cushion of my sofa. Amy bobs up and down as she tries her best to strut out of the flat. She flicks her now straggly hair behind her and manages to catch one of her red talons in it.

  ‘Ow! Ow! Ow!’ She wails as she struggles to remove the nail from her matted mane. Valerie folds her arms and taps her foot impatiently on the floor as Amy bobs pass her and Jack and out of the door.

  ‘Just look at the state of you,’ Valerie says as she and Jack try to help me up to the sofa. My lip has doubled in size and my nose is numb – and it bloody well hurts. I do hope it’s not broken. I think Amy may well have broken it when her stupid fat arse landed on it. My head, which is now minus many locks of hair, hurts like hell. I didn’t know women could be so bloody vicious. My knees look like two great big blood oranges from all the rolling around on the floor and I have carpet burns and that many punctures in my arm and neck from Amy’s stupid nails that if I have a bath I’ll bet I will be like a bloody shower-head.

  ‘I don’t think we’ll be seeing much of that young lady for a while,’ Valerie says, dusting her hands off as if she had just dealt with something very unpleasant- which isn’t too far from the truth, actually.

  ‘Now, Jack, you help to get Samantha up and I’ll get us all cup of tea, dear,’ she instructs. Blimey, my landlady is full of surprises, isn’t she? One minute I know her as the cantankerous, anorak-wearing old biddy from upstairs and the next she is a fully paid up member of the Save Mystic Sam Society. Jack pulls me up and suddenly, without warning I burst into tears.

  ‘Oh God….Um…Valerie!’ Jack yells back to the kitchen. ‘She’s crying now, what should I do?’ He asks anxiously and drops me back to the floor again.

  Jack, bless him, has had to mop my tears up on many occasions – weddings, christenings, the many times I’ve been dumped by ungrateful boyfriends – but on this occasion I feel he’s entitled to ask for help because I’m not just crying this time, I am positively howling, and not too unlike a werewolf. The fear in Jack’s face tells me that this is way outside of his comfort zone.

  Valerie rushes in with three mugs of tea on a tray and places my mug on the floor beside me – which is where I am lying, curled up in a ball and howling to my heart’s content.

  ‘Just leave her to it,’ Valerie advises Jack in a whisper. Jack looks at me with worry as though I might suddenly jump up from my foetal position and attack him with the TV remote that is clutched in my hand – I have no idea why I have the TV remote in my hand as I’m not planning to watch anything right now.

  And there they leave me for what must be over an hour. As I howl in to the carpet, Jack and Valerie retreat to the kitchen in a bid for a bit of peace and quiet.

  ‘Don’t worry, dear.’ I hear her say, ‘she will be back to normal in a while. With everything that has gone on it’s little wonder she hasn’t had a breakdown before this.’

  ‘Hummm,’ I hear Jack agree. ‘I didn’t really know what to do with her,’ he says. ‘How did you know what to do?’

  ‘I used to be a psychiatric nurse. I’ve experienced much worse than that.’ Valerie says, calmly.

  Oh bollocks, now she thinks I’m mentally insane.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  ‘Are you OK now?’ Jack asks tentatively.

  ‘Mmmm,’ I mumble into the phone from under the duvet. It’s eight o’clock on a Sunday morning. Jack and Valerie stayed for a while, but when they failed after three hours to coax me up from the carpet, they threw a duvet over me and made their excuses – Valerie claiming that she had to go because there was a Morse on telly that she hadn’t seen. Jack mumbled something about popping out to the shop to get some crisps and I didn’t see him again. I just lay there on the living room carpet beneath a 12-tog for the next 15 hours.

  ‘So…um…are you …um…going to work today?’ he ventures.

  ‘Huh?’ I murmur. ‘What day is it?’

  ‘Sunday. You’re supposed to be in the studio at lunchtime,’ he reminds me.

  Oh, bugger, what with the wrestling match with Amy, I completely forgot all about that.

  Annette had left a message on the phone the day before to say that I had my old job back and that the producers were all mightily impressed with my stint on TV. The only problem being that I’d completely forgotten all about it and all I want to do is stay under this duvet forever.

  ‘I’ll come with you, if you like?’ Jack offers.

  ‘Huh?’ I am still a bit incoherent.

  ‘I’ll come to the studio with you. Give you a bit of moral support.’

  I suddenly sit up and shake the duvet from me – ouch, my lip hurts rather a lot.

  ‘Hang on a minute.’ I say as I replay the events from the previous day in my head, ‘you knew that it was Amy who went to the papers.’ I say, remembering what my brother told me.

  ‘Ah, yeah…’Jack stumbles, ‘I was going to say something but…’

  ‘But what?’ I snap. I’m a bit annoyed that Jack knew about Amy and yet didn’t pass the message on to me. Had he done so I might not be nursing a lip the size of Wales or dousing my puncture marks in TCP antiseptic.

  ‘I… I was going to tell you, honest Sam, it’s just you were having such a blast after the show and everyone wanted to congratulate you and… well I just didn’t want to upset you.’ Jack says quietly and I’m slightly touched - but I’m still angry with him.

  ‘So?’ Jack says.

  ‘So, what?’

  ‘So do you want me to come to the studio with you or not? I just thought you might want a bit of support, being your first day back and all that.’

  ‘Yeah, sure. Thanks Jack. Speaking of which, I’d better get a bath before I go out – I stink.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t like to say anything…’

  ‘You cheeky git. Right, pick me up at ten.’

  ‘Yes, boss,’ Jack laughs, ‘love ya!’

  ‘Loves me too.’

  I’m still a bit nervous as we drive towards the studio. This is the first time since Amy decided to announce to the world that I was a fraud that I will have been live on air. Apart from that stupid psychic test with the studio audience, this is the first time that I have had to face the public and to be honest I’m dreading it.

  ‘You OK?’ Jack asks as we turn off the motorway and head towards the signs directing us to Weston-super-Mare.

  ‘I guess,’ I say with a shrug, ‘a bit nervous about going back on air.’

  Jack squeezes my knee.

  ‘Don’t be nervous. You’ve got loads of adoring fans out there. Just look at the website, more and more people are logging on to it than ever before.’

  ‘Ah, but for what reason?’

  ‘To support you, of course. Why else would they log on? You are daft sometimes, you know. Look, you know what you’re doing, you obviously do a good job and you wouldn’t be feeling like this if it wasn’t for Amy being so stupid and going to the papers. Are you going to name and shame her?’

  ‘What would be the point? It won’t alter what she’s done to me. I still can’t
understand why she would do that. She was supposed to be one of my best friends, Jack.’ I shake my head at the mentality of it all. Jack shrugs too as if he can’t understand the mentality of it all either.

  ‘I don’t know why she did it, Sam, jealousy perhaps? You’ve got to remember, you’ve practically had overnight success when Amy was faced with losing her job. Amy’s always been the ambitious one and I guess it was a bit of a kick in the …’

  ‘Shhh, shhh a minute!’ I say as I turn the radio up, ‘listen.’

  ‘Make time for time’ resonates out of the car’s speakers. Jack looks first at the radio and then at me.

  ‘But that’s….’ Jack stutters.

  ‘You! Jack, that’s your band!’ I scream, turning the volume up on the radio as Jack’s dulcet vocals fill my car with Otherwise’s ballad, Make Time for Time.

  ‘But… but how?’ Jack stutters as he listens.

  ‘I have no idea,’ I am in fact as gobsmacked as Jack is right now. And it sounds fantastic. Although he would never admit it, Jack is not only young and good-looking, he also has a brilliant singing voice.

  ‘And that my little darlings was a fantastic song by an up and coming band called Otherwise and you can take it from me, these guys are going to be big!’ Annette says as the song comes to a soothing end.

  ‘But…’ Jack stutters.

  ‘And I would like to thank whoever left their demo tape on my desk and all of you out there, just remember where you heard them first. This DJ is telling you that Otherwise is going to be big and I should know, I’ve listened to a few a fair few demos in my time.’ Annette says with a familiar laugh in her voice. Oh how I’ve missed Annette.

  ‘Ah!’ I gasp, ‘it was me! You know that tape you gave me? The demo? I put it in my bag and forgot all about it. It must have dropped out of my handbag.’

  ‘Ah man! Did you hear us? Our first radio airing! I’ve got to ring Dillon and tell him,’ Jack laughs. I haven’t seen Jack smile so much in ages.

  ‘Hey, you might be doing your first live interview any minute, if I know what Annette is like,’ I say as we pull in to the studio car park.