The Things We Learn When We're Dead

by Charlie Laidlaw

  He said, ‘I suppose we should lie down.’ Lorna dutifully spread her legs and, with great care, took hold of him and guided him inside her. It was over within five seconds.

  ‘Is that it?’ she asked.

  Lorna never did find that pair of knickers. They must have twanged off into the undergrowth. She had a surreptitious look for them the next day but found only an empty vodka bottle.

  * * *

  Coincidentally, she was also wearing Marks & Spencer underwear on the evening they drove back to North Berwick from the Norfolk riverboat holiday. She and Tom were in the back and trying to sleep. From the front seats, at least for the first couple of hours, there was silence. Their mother, usually voluble, was again being silent. It had been like that for most of the holiday.

  It wasn’t until they were on the M1 that she spoke. ‘All those bloody years,’ she said softly. ‘Can’t you say something to them?’

  Another swearword. Lorna’s ears pricked up. She’d only been half asleep; now she sat with her eyes closed and ears open.

  ‘Say what to whom?’ replied her dad. ‘It’s a done deal, that’s the fact of it. All signed and sealed by some management hotshot in London. There’s nothing to be said to anybody.’

  ‘Then what about seeing a lawyer?’

  She heard her dad’s sharp intake of breath. It took him a few moments to reply. ‘Lawyers cost money.’

  ‘A good lawyer might also get you some money.’ Lorna peeked through half-closed eyelids. Her parents were looking forwards into the gathering night. She had no idea what lawyers did, or why her dad should speak to one.

  They drove on in silence, and then Tom was sick. Not badly sick, but sick enough for a stop at a service station. While her mum took him off to the loo for a clean-up, her father did what he could with the interior of the car. The rest of the journey was completed in near-total silence, the smell of Tom’s vomit all-pervasive.

  Eventually her mother spoke. ‘I’ll take him to the doc’s in the morning.’

  Tom snored softly, a string of saliva anchoring him to a cushion propped against the door. Lorna sensed, with the prescience of childhood, an undertone in her mother’s voice.

  * * *

  The episode of her virginity should have ended on North Berwick beach but it didn’t because, two years later, she was also wearing Marks & Spencer underwear when she travelled down to Bristol to see Austin Bird. They hadn’t seen much of each other since ... well, it had taken place, and they hadn’t repeated the experience, at least not with each other. For the rest of the summer until they went their separate ways to university, they’d kept a distance from one another. Lorna felt embarrassed about it; no doubt he felt bad about it not lasting longer. Her friends had assured her this was normal the first few times, but it didn’t stop them giggling when they saw Austin in the street. It was her fault. She shouldn’t have told Suzie all the grisly details and Austin, of course, guessed wrongly that she was spreading stories and didn’t find it remotely funny, particularly when he heard giggles behind his back. Losing their virginities together could have brought them together, but it hadn’t. Old enough to have sex, but not old enough to understand its ramifications, Lorna had merely come to see it as a rite of passage. She was a woman, and now it was official. That brief, simple, and not unpleasant act on North Berwick beach was the proof of it. No, she should have left it there, a first and last fling before escaping to somewhere better, and putting childhood things behind her. But, although she didn’t much want to remember that first time, she did want to think fondly of the person she’d done it with.

  * * *

  But of course none of it was coincidence. Random memories, plucked from nowhere, and meaning nothing. She’d always worn Marks & Spencer underwear. It was a habit inherited from her mother and she’d never seen any reason to break it. Now, her face turned to the upper levels of the entertainment complex, she probably never would.

  ‘Yes, Irene,’ said Lorna. ‘Very nice underwear.’

  Barbeque

  Irene led her up crystal walkways, past shimmering diamonds and designer dresses, across deeply carpeted aisles that smelled of Dior and Chanel. The entertainment complex was absolutely quiet and entirely empty. In the shops were clusters of emeralds and rubies, chains of topaz and gold. Lorna wanted to stop, to run her hands over silk. She had never seen such insane riches: diamonds that could have built wells in Africa, emeralds to feed the starving. She felt vaporous indignation coalesce in her stomach then well up inside her. These were fripperies that she’d never seen the point of owning, not when their value could be put to better use.

  Irene marched on, ascending the walkways until they reached Heaven’s upper floor. Here there was a discreet restaurant, walled in oak. Picassos hung on the walls, and looked real. Tables were draped in damask and set with silver cutlery. Like the rest of the entertainment complex, the restaurant was entirely empty. Irene flapped open a serviette. A bottle of red wine was already open on the table, and Irene filled their glasses. Lorna looked round for a waiter. There didn’t seem to be one.

  Irene sat back and appraised her. ‘You were asking about God, Lorna. Is he the real God? I suppose I should fill in a few gaps.’ She sipped from her glass, laid it back on the table.

  ‘The fact is, petal, your race was dying out. It was a time of dramatic climate change: ice caps were melting, sea levels rising. There was torrential rain and heat-waves. Your world was either flooded or parched. In the middle of all that came a new disease. But this wasn’t just another pandemic that would wipe out a few million and then fade away. This was an illness against which you had no protection and no means of developing protection. A new illness that had crossed a species barrier. Within a generation the human race would have been history.’ Irene sipped red wine and looked wistfully into the glass. ‘We hadn’t been here long and God simply didn’t know what to do. Not at first, anyway. The prime directives governing our mission didn’t allow us to interfere artificially with other worlds.’

  Lorna understood this, having watched wildlife films. As a child, wildlife documentaries had saddened her. Why couldn’t the film-makers scare away the lions? How could they allow the pride to kill the innocent zebra? Only later, watching Star Trek, did she realise that nature was red in tooth and claw and that Captain Kirk wasn’t allowed to change things. She still didn’t like it when the zebra/deer/antelope was brought down, but now she understood the ways of the world and that lions aren’t vegetarians. But unlike Captain Kirk, Lorna had tried to change things. She’d marched against foxhunting in a dreary procession through Edinburgh, being pelted by tomatoes by fat agricultural men in Barbour jackets, and for whales – being photographed by bemused Japanese tourists. Lorna had always been on the side of the underdog. She could empathise with them and, placard held aloft, had trudged the city’s streets to demonstrate her support.

  ‘God, however, eventually decided that he had to do something. We were stuck far from home without any means of knowing whether our home planet still even existed. We could be in its future or its past. It seemed to God that prime directives didn’t therefore now apply and that mankind was your planet’s best hope of advancement. He decided to act independently, on his own authority. He therefore set about saving the human race.’ Here Irene sighed and swilled her glass. The wine coiled and twisted in a whirlpool, releasing heady fragrance that Lorna could smell over Irene’s cigarette. ‘However, it wasn’t a decision that met with universal approval, particularly when he unveiled his plans for your salvation. But he felt he had to give you immunity against the disease. That required some of our DNA being transferred into the human species.’

  Lorna anticipated what Irene was going to say. ‘He used his own DNA, didn’t he?’

  Irene looked up, her chiselled eyebrows raised. ‘He made you in his likeness, Lorna. A small vanity on his part, but he was God, and it was his decision. However, the old fool decided to not only give you a specific immunity against the illness
, but to give you a whole bunch of immunities. He wanted to give you the best possible chance of surviving every possible pandemic we could foresee. That, I’m sorry to say, was a mistake. His mistake, Lorna, and one he has come to regret. He was warned that it was risky, but even then could be a cantankerous old devil. He chose to ignore the scientific advice and proceed with his plan.’

  In her short acquaintance with God, Lorna could hardly have described him as cantankerous. However, Irene had known him a lot longer and probably knew best. ‘The DNA sequences that we injected into mankind contained too much of his genetic imprint. Before that, the concept of God was alien to your people. Afterwards, people started to believe in him. If it’s any consolation,’ said Irene, twirling her glass again, ‘he’s very sorry. He never meant for it to happen. However, once it became clear that it had happened, it was too late.’

  Lorna thought of her own mother on bended knee, incense in her nostrils: all around, the certainty of salvation, at least for those sensible enough to go to church. ‘That’s utterly ridiculous,’ said Lorna.

  ‘Yes, I suppose it is,’ replied Irene, glass to her lips and reaching once more for her cigarettes. ‘But isn’t everything here just a teeny-weeny bit ridiculous?’

  Lorna’s eyes were drawn to the bottle of Chateau Lafite, from which Irene was replenishing her glass. Several floors below were the golden arches of McDonalds; in between, emeralds and diamonds jostling for shelf space. She sipped her wine, not trusting herself to say anything.

  ‘I appreciate that faith can provide solace,’ said Irene, ‘particularly at times of loss.’ Irene wasn’t looking at Lorna when she said this, her eyes concentrated on a point beyond Lorna’s head. ‘But think of the wars, sweetie. Think of the intolerance and bigotry. Think of all those who die every year because they believe in a different god from everyone else. Then try to imagine what your world would be like if there were no gods.’

  Lorna thought about this. ‘It might feel pretty lonely,’ she said eventually.

  ‘Maybe so,’ said Irene, ‘but without gods, you’d have only life.’ Irene fixed her with steely eyes. ‘After all, Lorna, without a belief in Heaven, wouldn’t everyone on Earth get along just a little bit better?’

  * * *

  They were in a French restaurant, so Irene told her, and were drinking Irene’s usual plonk. Chateau Lafite 1787, so Lorna discovered, looking at the label. Irene explained that a bottle of this muck, once owned by Thomas Jefferson, had recently sold at auction in New York for more than £100,000 – and she’d wanted to know what it tasted like, or how it would have tasted at its best. Now it had become her stable accompaniment to every meal – except breakfast, of course, said Irene, smiling thinly.

  On the way up to the restaurant, Lorna had stopped. She simply couldn’t resist. She’d stepped from the walkway and had a look inside Dior. All the glittering arrays were laid out on glass shelves, but not only were there no price labels, there were no tills or security.

  ‘Why bother?’ said Irene dismissively. ‘Everything is free. Take what you need, take what you want.’ She shrugged. ‘The difference between want and need is immaterial.’ Irene picked out a diamond and emerald bracelet and handed it to Lorna. ‘Take it, sweetie. Suits you ... goes with your eyes.’

  Lorna weighed it in her hand with the usual ambiguity she felt when confronted by obscene extravagance. ‘I just don’t know if I want it,’ she said, although her fingers were still lingering on its tightly arranged gemstones.

  Irene raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Not my style,’ said Lorna, more apologetically, but still unable to quite let go of it.

  ‘So you prefer cheap and tatty, is that it?’

  ‘Cheap and tatty is all I’ve ever been able to afford.’

  ‘Until now,’ said Irene.

  Without meaning to, Lorna had somehow attached the bracelet to her wrist, her eyes drawn to the clarity of its stones and its exquisite gold latticework, but also remembering how the world’s wealth was concentrated in just a few hands, and how just a few of their baubles, liberated by force if necessary, could feed the masses. Reluctantly, she unclasped it and laid it back on the shop counter.

  ‘Then if you don’t want to take it, think of it as a present. From me to you, petal.’

  ‘I couldn’t, Irene. It wouldn’t feel right.’

  ‘But you do like it, don’t you?’ Irene had lowered her voice to say this, as if imparting a secret and, with a shock, Lorna realised that the bracelet had once again become attached to her wrist, and she looked at it again: dark emeralds and white diamonds held in platinum and gold. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. ‘I don’t know, Irene. Wearing this kind of stuff really isn’t my thing.’

  ‘Your thing? What exactly is thing supposed to mean?’

  ‘I don’t believe in conspicuous wealth.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Irene dismissively. ‘Or is it just because you’ve never been able to afford good jewellery? Nothing wrong in that, Lorna. But why transfer all that understandable envy into pseudo-political claptrap?’

  ‘I have principles,’ said Lorna, drawing back her shoulders. ‘They might not be your principles, or make any sense to you, but I’ve always lived by them’

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake! The graveyards are stuffed full of people with principles. None of whom are here, by the way. Anyway,’ added Irene in a softer voice, ‘you don’t exactly have to live by them anymore, do you?’

  In the restaurant, they simply told Trinity what they wanted and food appeared from the magic box beside their table. Irene explained that Heaven was largely self-sufficient because everything was recycled. ‘We can’t just pop out to the supermarket, petal. We grow all our own fruit and veg. Fish and meat we artificially create. What’s important is that our food tastes good and is nutritionally balanced.’

  Irene also explained that the crew all lived and worked in Heaven’s other hull. ‘That’s where the real action takes place, petal. By comparison, this hull is pretty dull. After we get you kitted out, I’ll take you over. From now on, that’s where you’ll be living.’

  Irene let this sink in before continuing: ‘This hull is mostly deserted, Lorna, as you can see,’ she said with a flick of her wrist. ‘Nobody has much need to come over here, so very few bother. However, we wanted to give you a bit of peace and quiet for your first few days. Allow things to settle. In your mind, I mean.’

  Why, Lorna wanted to know, was Heaven so much bigger than it needed to be? Why was this hull deserted? The same thought had occurred to her before; all those corridors, one after another, soulless and white and empty. ‘Will there be other dead people there?’ she asked instead, realising immediately how stupid this sounded.

  ‘Not dead people, no. Dead people don’t often come to Heaven ... virtually never, in fact, although that’s probably a good thing. Dead people aren’t very entertaining, at least in my view. Apart from which, what would we do with them all? Heaven might be big, but it’s not that big. Remember, Lorna, you were chosen.’

  ‘But he won’t tell me why.’

  ‘Well, that’s God for you ... so there’s no point looking at me, petal! Ours not to wonder why, and all that.’ Irene sighed loudly. ‘Anyway, we’re moving you across to the other hull to be with the rest of the crew. It’s where everyone lives, so from now on you’ll be alongside the rest of us. Meet people, make friends. You are, I suppose, one of us now, Lorna. They’re all simply dying to meet you, by the way. Understandable, of course. It’s not often we get visitors. You are a rare species.’ Irene smiled and drank the rest of her wine. ‘Drink up, petal. It’s time to get you tarted up.’

  ‘Irene, I’m not sure that ...’

  ‘You’re going to a party, babe. A welcome party,’ added Irene and gave Lorna’s hand a squeeze. ‘An opportunity to get legless and dance the night away. A chance to meet everyone and for everyone to meet you. So,’ she said, stubbing out the last of her lunchtime cigarettes and indicating the shopp
ing centre with a small nod, ‘for starters, we’ll need to get you a posh frock and a bikini.’

  Lorna looked at her, frowning.

  ‘It’s a beach party,’ said Irene in a matter-of-fact tone, as if this could possibly make any sense.

  * * *

  Lorna’s mother had a wonderful knack of conjuring marvellous picnics from the humblest of ingredients. It was a genius born of long practice. Her sandwiches weren’t just sandwiches: they could have won prizes, or maybe it was just a trick of Lorna’s memory. Back then, the sun always shone and her mum was forever buttering bread. The Loves loved their picnics.

  In contrast, her mum was hopeless at barbeques – which was a pity because both Love children looked forward to them. It was the ritual more than anything, lugging the use-once barbeque across the High Street and onto the beach, setting it alight – not easy on breezy days – and then cooking sausages and burgers until they sizzled and turned black. In Lorna’s experience, her mother’s barbeque sausages never turned brown, the way she sometimes saw them do on films or in adverts. One minute they were raw, the next cremated. There was no halfway stage at which burger or sausage could safely be eaten. They always came with a thick layer of charcoal. Lorna had come to believe that all barbeque food tasted of ash.

  It didn’t stop Lorna and her brother from pestering their mother to have barbeques, and all the better if they were allowed to bring a friend. For Tom, that could be anyone from his rugby team, each arriving on the doorstep with a rugby ball balanced on one finger. For Lorna, that usually meant Suzie Bryce. Suzie also lived in North Berwick, further away from the beach than them, but in a proper house with a garden. In the garden was a swing. They would take turns and if Lorna swung really high, she could see over the garden wall and down into the town. She could just make out her bedroom window. Sometimes, from their bedrooms, they’d signal to each other with torches. The signals meant nothing, although they kept trying to invent a code. But it was fun seeing a twinkle of light and knowing it meant a friend was thinking of you.