The Guardian Angel

by Liam Livings

  He returned, closer to the mirror so I could see his twinkly eyes and his smile.

  I continued to stare at him in the mirror. “Or could it be that bloody temp’s fault I never found the right man? That’s always an option, I suppose.” I raised my eyebrows and looked him in the eye through the mirror.

  “There is one way we can be together. I checked. Turns out being at a college all the time can have its uses. Marvellous library, they’ve got.”

  “And?”

  “There was a case a few thousand years ago. Two women, but the principle's the same. The guardian angel and the woman fell in love with each other. It was very hush-hush. Down on Earth they all thought she was a witch. She wasn’t, of course. Whoever heard of anything as ridiculous as witches?” He rolled his eyes.

  “Are you coming to a point soon? I’m just aware that I’ve been talking to my reflection in the mirror for some time, and I don’t want to attract attention.”

  “It was only when the woman died, naturally, that they were together. Until then she continued to be her guardian angel, but they had to keep contact to a minimum, as they found it too painful to see each other but not to be able to properly see each other.”

  “So they were reunited and remained together for eternity? How beautiful.”

  “Something like that.”

  Another figure appeared behind Sky in the back of the mirror. The figure walked closer until I recognised Luke. He tapped Sky on the shoulder. “That’s enough, you two. You’re on the meter here. Too much time, and someone’s going to look at this in more detail. And what are they going to find, I hear you ask.” He cupped his hand behind his ear.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “They’re going to find there’s a breach of regulation 42, section A—namely there being two guardian angels at one time, with one allocated human. And that’s not to mention what would happen if they looked back to before I came—that’s a whole different regulation breach.” He led Sky away from in front of the mirror. They walked farther and farther into the mirror, getting smaller and smaller until they were just a dot, which remained.

  I touched it, and it turned out to be a mark on the mirror.

  Amy carried my weekend bag she’d brought into hospital for me, and she left it next to my bed. I followed her, not quite believing I was in my flat. I hadn’t expected to see it again for a number of reasons. I sat on the sofa while she bustled around in my kitchen. I looked at the shelves for evidence of Bobby. There was lots of empty space on the shelves, where his films had stood. “When did he go?” I shouted to her.

  “Last week,” she shouted back and promised to tell me all about it once she sat down next to me.

  I walked to the bedroom—what had been our bedroom but was now very clearly my bedroom once again. The wardrobes hung open, great swathes of empty space next to my clothes and shoes. Four footmarks where his bed had stood. The room felt enormous with nothing in it. In the spare room, the desk stood empty. No sign of Bobby’s laptop.

  “In here!” Amy shouted from the living room. “Or do you want it there?”

  I returned to the sofa. “Here’s fine.”

  She told me how, while I was in hospital, she’d contacted the Citizen’s Advice Bureau about evicting someone from my flat “Fortunately he wasn’t paying any rent and didn’t have a tenancy agreement, so that made things easier.” She found a friendly lawyer who had agreed to write letters on my behalf from Amy’s instruction. “You’d been sectioned, love. Your mum was given temporary power of attorney. I rang her, and she said I could sort out the flat stuff for you. You could hardly say your name, never mind deal with all this. The hospital was great. I had visions of bureaucracy and forms, but once your mum had introduced herself with me there, and explained I was your friend and that you’d tried to kill yourself before, this helpful woman at the hospital said she’d seen it all before and told me about a special form to use. I never saw her again, but that form sorted things my end. Imagine all the things your mum could have done with power of attorney. She could have signed this place over to herself, kept you in the nuthouse, anything.” She smiled.

  “But she didn’t, though, did she?”

  “She didn’t.”

  “Because I knew I could trust her with this sort of thing, I asked my medical records to have some sort of note that if I ever went a bit off my rocker again, I wanted her to be left in charge, and you’re mentioned too, like a wingwoman.”

  “I guessed something had been already arranged because it was all so smooth, so simple.”

  There was a silence as we both sipped our tea—mine proper tea and hers one of those dandelion-and-burdock concoctions that smelt like piss.

  Amy closed her eyes as she swallowed hers. “Really, and I’m saying this with love, Richard, but really, you should drink this infusion. It has health-giving properties.”

  I pursed my lips. “As you may have said before. But, and I mean this with love, I couldn’t get past the fact it smells like piss.”

  “As you may have said before.” She smiled at me out the corner of her eyes and took a deep sniff of her drink.

  I sipped my proper tea, and we sat in silence for a few moments, exchanging smiles at each other.

  She looked at me. “Good job you did that, gave your mum power of attorney, because when it all happened, it was all kicking off at work. I mean a full-on ‘Enya on random shuffle, dreamcatcher aimed to the sun’ week. I even got the guys to agree to me playing her out loud. They said it helped calm them down too. We were all in the lab till late most nights. I checked my horoscope, and it said I was in for a bumpy ride that week, so when you went into hospital, it wasn’t that much of a surprise. I was just glad of the Enya and my chanting to keep me calm.”

  She held my hand and stroked it gently. “Promise me this is the last time, Richard. I can’t take it again. I can’t face losing you. No amount of chanting or Enya would help me cope with that. Nothing’s so bad you have to kill yourself, surely?”

  “If you found out your boyfriend had lied to you about something, which made a mistake all the worse, I don’t know if you’d agree with your sentiment. In fact, I think you’d be first to the nearest bridge.”

  “You really meant it this time, didn’t you? No cry for help. No fucking about. Getting hit by a car or jumping off a bridge, that’s pretty final, isn’t it?”

  “I couldn’t tell you what I was thinking, really. It’s all a blur. All I remember is thinking it made sense in my mind at the time, and so I took one step at a time until I was on the A40.” I paused, trying to remember the sequence of events. “How come I wasn’t injured at all? I still can’t understand that.”

  “Don’t you remember the woman truck driver? She called the ambulance. She worked out you weren’t quite right.”

  “You’d think I’d remember that, wouldn’t you? A female truck driver. What was she called?”

  “They didn’t say. She was well gone by the time I got to the hospital.” Amy looked around the flat. “Empty, isn’t it?”

  “In comparison to the times when three of us were here, yes, it is. But I like it this way. I like the silence, the calm. That’s what I think I need at the moment. I felt like I wanted to stop my life and get off for a breather, because it was all spinning past me, out of my control. Sometimes, I used to sit in the graveyard up the road, just to be alone, because I didn’t want to face what would be here when I got back. It could have been anything—walking in on them two at it, or them sitting laughing together behind my back. And they wondered why I felt paranoid, eh? Is it any wonder? Betrayed not once, but twice, in my own home, of all places. What a twat. What a complete and utter twat I am.”

  “You glad to have it back?” She looked around. “This place isn’t bad, really, is it? You’ve not got bad taste, I suppose. I mean, it could do with a few more knick-knacks, some character injected into it. But apart from that you’ve done well, I’d say.”

  “If you had y
our way, it’d be wall-to-wall dreamcatchers, wishing sticks, and crystals. It’d be like a craft stall at some festival.” I smiled—for the first time in a long time.

  “What are your plans now?” she asked casually, but I could tell there was something behind it.

  “Thought I’d get myself a new boyfriend. A quick trawl through a few websites, and someone’s bound to turn up, aren’t they? If that’s no good, I was going to drive to the M4—that’s got a really good elevated section, I’ve heard—and throw myself off it. Just to make sure I do it properly this time.”

  Her eyes were wide, and her mouth open. “If you have any thoughts like that, you must tell me. You must, straight away. Your mum and I have been briefed by the hospital when they discharged you. And they said you weren’t to date, or anything really, for a few months. Too fragile, they said.”

  “I am joking. Come on, have a laugh. You’ve got to laugh about it, haven’t you?” I chuckled and hit her elbow playfully.

  She didn’t crack a smile, and she removed my hand from her elbow slowly. “You wouldn’t say that if you’d been to hospital twice after you tried to kill yourself. It’s not much of a laugh from where I’m sitting, okay?” She walked to the kitchen and began fussing with the tea things.

  Evidently this was not a laughing matter of any kind. The way I saw it, it was pretty funny: I tried to kill myself, thought I had it all worked out this time, and the cars kept swerving me—even the artic lorry stopped before it hit me. Even if I’d succeeded, I still wouldn’t have got to be with Sky, so it would have all been for nothing.

  Amy sat next to me with another round of tea, wiping her mascara slightly. “I just can’t imagine losing you. I cannot imagine being without you. So it’s not funny that you tried to kill yourself.”

  I straightened my face. “I suppose I hadn’t really thought about how others would feel. It was just about how I didn’t want to feel at the time. And being with Sky. Sorry.”

  “About that… I thought I could stay for a bit, just to help you out, nothing too much. Just until you get back on your feet. When do you think you’ll go back to work? I spoke to John, and he said whenever you’re ready. He wanted to pop round now you’re out. I said a few days from now. Is that okay?”

  I shrugged. “Do I have any influence over this whatsoever?”

  “I’m just helping you out. Nothing more. Little chores, making dinner together. Come on, it’ll be fun, like we’re an old married couple. You can camp it up, and I’ll pretend to be some spinster. It’ll be great.”

  “I did wonder what the huge bag was in the spare room. So that’s your stuff, is it?”

  She nodded.

  “One condition. You’re not putting up any of your spiritual stuff on the walls. I don’t mind hearing you talk about it, but I’m not having any part of it on my walls. Okay?”

  “Any news on that guardian angel you were on about? The one who disappeared.”

  “About that….” In for a penny in for a pound, I told her about the Australian temp, Kylie, and now Luke’s hard work, but his ultimately dull personality, and how seeing Sky was what had driven me to the A40, as it seemed such a simple, perfect solution. Until Sky had explained why it couldn’t work.

  Amy listened like I wasn’t a mad person, making me go back to clarify some points, and after a while, she started making notes. I asked what that was about, and she said she wanted to keep track of the things I’d said to all these various guardian angels I seemed to have attracted. “At first I didn’t really believe all this temps-and-sabbaticals stuff. I thought you were delirious or something. But now you’re talking about it again. Now, I believe you. You’ve got, or had, three angels. And you’ve met all of them. I think that makes you pretty special, Richard.”

  I hadn’t thought about that before.

  “I’d give my right leg to see mine, especially when I’m going through a shit time. What I wouldn’t give to bollock my temp.”

  Chapter 31

  John visited me at home when Amy had arranged. He brought a box of CDs of music similar to OMD that he thought I’d like. “Thought it’d be something to listen to, if you’re sat here on your own,” he explained. “Everyone’s asking after you. They keep saying, ‘When’s he coming back? Has he gone mad?’ I just tell them to ask you when you’re back. That shuts ’em up,” he said, with a smile and a wink.

  When I returned to work, except for a few colleagues who didn’t know how to talk to me, most of them just asked me how things were. I replied, in that typically English way, by nodding and saying “Yeah.” Which both made no sense and gave no information, but it seemed to work for most people. Some of them were really careful about what they talked to me about, in case I jumped on the tables and started making love to the photocopier, or something.

  John went through some work I’d sent him. He was so pleased, he asked me to manage the special project as well as still doing the wealth-management work for the department.

  “Who left?” I asked, wondering why he’d ask me.

  “No one. Why? Unless it’s too much for you. I can give it to someone else. It’s going to mean long hours, later nights, all that. If we pull an all-nighter, pizza’s on me.” He smiled, trying to be the friendly boss, but slightly too hard.

  I told him I didn’t want to be treated any different from the others. I was back, and that was the end of it. No running around me in case I crumpled into a pile of sobbing on the floor.

  I was in the gents toilets at work, and I had just splashed my face in the basin. Looking in the mirror at the tired, red-eyed man looking back, I saw another man perched on the basins in the mirror. His legs were crossed, and he wore tight white trousers and a thin vest, which would have looked good if he had any muscles on his arms to be proud of. Instead his two thin arms were folded across his pigeon chest.

  “Ssh. Don’t say anything. I wanted to check I’m coming through.” The man waved at me from his perch.

  “Luke, what do you want? I’ve got to get back. I’m in the middle of a meeting. We’ve got highlighters, Post-its, and marker pens. We’re getting right into it. I’ve got to get back. Can’t you tell me when I’m at home?” I started walking to the door.

  “It’s not me. It’s a message from Sky. We’ve got to be careful, or someone will see us. That’s why I picked here.”

  I went back and leaned on the basin, looking at Luke in the mirror. “Can I hear it, then?”

  Luke faded, and Sky replaced him in the mirror. “Hello, Richard.” He waved. “I’ve been thinking about you—”

  “Me too. I just want to be with you….” He had continued speaking while I spoke. “Are you ignoring me? Hello!” I tapped the mirror. Nothing changed; he didn’t move back or stop talking. I realised it was a recording again and not actually him. My heart sank. Then I tried to concentrate on what he was saying.

  “…spoken to the Higher Ones, and they explained the only way we can be together, physically touching one another, is for me to come to Earth as a human. I would have to give up being an angel, and you would have to accept me as just that—a man. You can’t come up here, not of your own doing. I explained that, didn’t I? Or you’ve got to wait until you die before you join me. Then I thought how I had always wanted to feel water, real water, against my skin, because all I can do now is watch it and see how it sparkles. So, could we meet in a pool, where we could meet like we were two strangers meeting, catching each other’s eyes, and this time we’d both be men, so we could do something about it? So that’s where I got to, a pool. We have to agree a time and place, and if we’re both there, then we’re together. If one of us doesn’t turn up, say you don’t want to be with me or I get cold feet about giving up all these angelic perks—and trust me, there are plenty of perks—then we will never see each other again. You’ll be minded by Luke, and you and I will just be ancient history.”

  His face disappeared; Luke reappeared. “All right? Did you get Sky’s message okay? Can I leave that with
you?” And Luke was gone too.

  “We’ve not said when or where!” I shouted to the gents’ toilet, then thought better of it and left, contemplating what all that meant and how the hell I was supposed to arrange a time with a guardian angel I was no longer allowed to see, using Luke as a go-between. Who, in his words, thought, “All these emotions are a bit much, no?”

  And what the hell does a pool mean? Am I meant to pick a pool and tell Luke?

  As the days passed, I gradually settled back into work and got used to Amy being at the flat. She never said it, but her constant phone calls to me and questions about when I would be home each night were nothing to do with helping me settle in and everything to do with keeping an eye on me, so I didn’t try to do it again.

  I kept the message from Sky to myself for a few days. But I was so confused about the cryptic meeting point I had to come up with, that one evening over stir-fry—which Amy cooked—I crumbled and told her. Everything.

  At first she seemed to focus on the wrong part. “It was a video of him? In the mirror?” She held her chopsticks in the air near her mouth.

  “A video, a projection, whatever. The point is, it wasn’t him there, it was a message, which couldn’t talk back.”

  “I wonder if they use VHS or Betamax, or if they’ve moved onto DVDs, or maybe it’s all electronic. Do you think it’s all electronic?”

  “Can’t say I’ve given it much thought. Can we just stop talking about the technology of the video? Can we just take it as read that it was a pre-recorded message? But from that message, I now have a few options… a few things to sort out. Which is why I’m telling you, and not to have a long debate about whether the angels use tapes or DVDs. All right?”

  “Sorry, I think I got a bit carried away. I just wish I could see my guardian angel and have these debates with him.” She chewed the chopstickful of food.

  “Her. It’d be a woman for you.”