The Things We Learn When We're Dead

by Charlie Laidlaw

  Trinity’s sexy voice, using the same words that Irene had spoken only minutes earlier.

  ‘Thank you, Trinity.’

  I appreciate that not everything in your apartment will be to your satisfaction. You must therefore tell me, Lorna, what alterations you’d like made. It will be my pleasure to make those alterations. My satisfaction is to ensure your satisfaction.

  ‘I’ll do that, Trinity.’ For a start, the kitchen, and those ghastly bedroom curtains. ‘But could I ask you something first?’

  Of course.

  ‘Who is Irene?’

  Irene is the person designated to look after you.

  ‘I know that much, Trinity. But who is she?’

  A short silence. Irene is the executive officer of this facility.

  ‘OK, then what exactly is an executive officer?’

  It’s her rank, Lorna. Irene is second in command of this space vehicle.

  Lorna felt flattered. Not just anybody had been assigned to her. ‘You mean, a sort of demi-god?’

  There is only one God, said Trinity who, like Irene, didn’t appear to have a sense of humour. Would you like me to run you a bath?

  ‘Yes, please, Trinity.’

  At that moment all the lights went out.

  * * *

  Ten things that Lorna may or may not have known about hamsters:

  The most common names for hamsters include Daisy, Boo-Boo, Fluffy, Bilbo, Sonic, Barney, Gizmo, Zippy, Twinkle, Hammy, and Sniffles. Tonto is not a common name for a hamster.

  Hamster babies are called puppies.

  Hamsters can live for up to three years, not that hers did.

  Hamsters are colour-blind and can only see six inches in front of their noses.

  They can burrow down up to two metres.

  Hamsters are allergic to cedar, but will eat virtually everything else, storing food in their cheek pouches. Indeed, the word hamster is derived from the German hamstern, meaning to hoard.

  Once hamster babies are a week old, their parents will probably not eat them.

  Hamsters can remember who their relatives are. However, this doesn’t necessarily stop their relatives from eating them.

  Hamsters can give birth as young as five weeks old. They can therefore breed at a phenomenal rate.

  After God created mankind, he tried his hand at other species. However, after inventing the hamster and the kangaroo he decided that nature knew best and didn’t repeat the experiment, according to Trinity. Lorna had never much liked the dark, so Trinity was keeping her company.

  I regret, Lorna, that hamster infestation is a significant problem on this facility. God, however, will not allow his creation to be interfered with and we pay the price in electrical short-circuits. It is, I assure you, merely an inconvenience rather than a danger, so don’t worry. God didn’t much likes rats or mice and wanted to make something nicer. But what he won’t now accept is that their numbers have to be controlled. Lorna detected a hint of disapproval. Some early prototypes escaped, you see, and that’s when the problem started. Now they’re everywhere. You should be aware, Lorna, that God has commanded the crew not to feed them, as if anybody would. So please don’t leave food lying about. It is specifically forbidden. Eventually, of course, we’ll have to do something, but God simply hates bloodshed of any sort. In the meantime, we have to put up with the inconvenience. There, that should do it.

  Immediately the lights came on again.

  ‘Well done, Trinity.’

  Repairing chewed wires is not difficult, Lorna. Your bath is ready. I hope you don’t mind but I’ve added bath salts.

  * * *

  Curiously, despite soaking in the bath for what seemed like hours, her wine glass remained perfectly chilled. In all the miracles that had been revealed to her, it was the small things that were the most impressive. So, for Lorna, it wasn’t the fabulous diamond and emerald bracelet on her wrist that was totally surprising, nor the fact that she was in a Victorian bathtub transported from her childhood. It was the chilled glass of wine that stayed chilled.

  She was enveloped in steam, lost in a private world that wasn’t quite Heaven and wasn’t quite Earth. She was pleased that God had invented hamsters; kangaroos had always seemed a little bizarre. Her diamond and emerald bracelet caught the light as she raised her glass. Then she became aware of someone moaning from the apartment next to hers. Lorna blinked herself back to Heaven; the noise stopped. It must have been her imagination.

  * * *

  Nearly two years after the episode on the beach, Lorna met up with Austin for a drink in a North Berwick bar. It was just before the start of their second year at university. Austin’s bags were packed for the return trip. He’d spent the summer in North Berwick staying with his parents and had left it until the last day to phone her. He was, he explained, now living in a shared flat in Bristol and heading back the next morning. He wanted to apologise, or so he said over the phone.

  ‘For what?’ asked Lorna, truly surprised, once they had found a quiet spot in the corner of the bar. A couple of friends were also in the pub. They looked over from time to time, obviously speculating whether the Lovebirds were being rekindled.

  ‘For, well ... not being in contact.’ He shrugged and clasped a hand to his pint of beer.

  ‘You don’t have to apologise, Austin. I’ve been just as guilty.’

  ‘I could have phoned. I didn’t.’

  ‘So could I. Ditto, didn’t.’

  ‘Well then,’ he said and lapsed into silence, which made Lorna uncomfortable. She didn’t know what he was thinking, or why he’d phoned her.

  ‘So how’s the course?’ she asked, trying to be jolly. ‘Built any bridges yet?’

  ‘Good, yes ... um ... and no. Yours?’

  ‘Yeah, OK. Bit dull. Still ...’

  That unspoken defining episode was between them, stifling any chance to talk sensibly. In their different ways, they were both still embarrassed by it. In the intervening months, Lorna had moved from halls of residence into a shared flat with Suzie, and had had a brief relationship with an intense Spanish student called Emilio before realising that his ardour and passion was suffocating. He’d wanted to be with her every moment of every day, holding her hand, looking into her eyes, murmuring in Spanish in her ears, and Lorna could never decide if they were words of love or a shopping list. He might just have been saying baked beans, bacon, toilet cleaner. She also found out that Emilio and his father liked to shoot small migratory birds. She’d therefore ended the relationship for both personal and ethical reasons. Emilio, rather endearingly, had cried. Now here she was, looking over the table at Austin, nursing his pint and frowning. Then she remembered why she’d been so fond of him, apart from his rugby-hunky physique: there was an honesty about him. You could always trust Austin. He was dependable. You got what you saw.

  ‘I see you’re still trying to change the world.’ He pointed to Lorna’s lapel, on which was pinned a STOP THE WAR badge.

  ‘Well, someone has to. It would be a pretty crap world if nobody tried.’

  ‘It still happened though, didn’t it?’

  ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom,’ she intoned like a newsreader. ‘Yes, Austin, it did.’ In the build-up, she’d marched through Edinburgh and would have marched through London if she’d had money for the train fare. She’d flirted with the Left then drifted towards conventional socialism, and had campaigned for the re-election of New Labour, pounding the streets with bundles of leaflets, fairly sure she was doing the right thing, and supporting someone who she believed would also do the right thing, even in dim and distant parts of the world. Now, thoroughly disillusioned, she still wore her anti-war badge. It represented her allegiance to a higher moral code, a code that stood against the killing of other human beings and small migratory birds. ‘Please don’t tell me you supported the invasion?’

  Austin looked at the table. ‘They did say he had weapons of mass destruction.’

  ‘Yeah, and they were wrong! Christ, we
fucked up Afghanistan, and now we’re fucking up Iraq. Where’s the sense in all that?’

  He fluttered a placatory hand. ‘Maybe it’ll get sorted. Look, Lorna, I don’t know. Anyway, Saddam wasn’t exactly a saint, was he?’

  ‘No, but that didn’t give us the right to invade his bloody country and kill thousands of his people.’ She paused to breathe. ‘Know what, Austin? Know what’s going to happen next? They’re going to want payback, that’s what. We bomb them, they bomb us. It’ll happen, believe me.’

  ‘It’s not going to happen.’

  ‘9/11 happened and it’ll happen again, because we keep waging illegal wars.’ Not in my name, she reminded herself, remembering the anti-war march through Edinburgh, the wall of protestors; a sea of people so large and so loud that the government couldn’t possibly ignore them, which it promptly did.

  He was smiling and, despite herself, she smiled back. She now also saw that there was perspiration on Austin’s brow, a tremor in his fingers. He seemed on the point of asking something. He was frowning as she remembered; concentrating on some puzzle he would eventually unravel. ‘Anyway, it’s good to see you,’ she finally said, deciding to put aside her soapbox. She’d made her point at the Edinburgh rally, waving her placard and being jeered from the pavement. She couldn’t now be bothered to argue with Austin.

  ‘Really?’ He seemed genuinely pleased.

  ‘Of course it is. After all, we did, um ...’ If he wasn’t going to mention it, she would.

  He swallowed beer and cleared his throat. ‘It does get better with practice, you know.’ Lorna saw with relief that he was still smiling. The taboo subject was being broached. She’d forgotten how rugged he looked when he smiled. ‘Anyway,’ he said, again staring at the table with a concentration it didn’t deserve, ‘... are you ... um ...?’

  ‘Um, what?’

  ‘You know ...’

  ‘Married? Yes, Austin. To Marcel. Polish waiter, but he really wants to be a novelist. We met in a nudist camp.’

  ‘I think I would have heard,’ said Austin, still looking gravely at the table.

  ‘Whirlwind romance, then married in secret. In Prague.’

  ‘Prague’s not in Poland.’

  ‘... and we’ve been blessed with five kids, although we’d like more. He’s from a big family, you see. Oldest is Jamie, named after that irritating chef guy. Then there’s Mary, Joseph, Peter, and Troy. Such a lovely name, we thought.’

  ‘You can’t have had five kids in a year. You should have paid more attention in biology.’

  ‘Quins, Austin. Runs in the family. His, not mine.’ Austin was still intent on the woodwork between them. ‘Actually, I’m exaggerating,’ she conceded, which made him look up. ‘I don’t know anybody called Marcel. But still, living in hope.’

  Unexpectedly, across the small table, he grabbed hold of her hand. ‘Look, why don’t you come down to Bristol? Stay for a weekend, have some fun. Let me prove it to you,’ he said throatily. He was babbling so fast she barely understood what he was saying. Her hand was still clasped in his and she had to struggle free to flex her fingers before permanent damage was inflicted. ‘Please say yes,’ he added, in such a little-boy-lost voice that she had to laugh.

  It was a stupid idea. Prove what, exactly? Austin was rooted in her past, and her future lay in Edinburgh or beyond, not Bristol. But right at that moment there wasn’t anyone else and, in releasing her from childhood, perhaps she owed him the chance of a second fling. With Emilio safely discarded, perhaps some fun was what she needed. It couldn’t do anyone any harm, certainly not to her. Lorna didn’t think for a minute that Austin could feel any differently; that was too ridiculous.

  ‘OK, Austin,’ she said, making him grin like a Cheshire cat.

  * * *

  Lorna was unused to airports, had only once travelled by air by herself, and badly wanted to behave like the assured traveller, knowing which gate to go to, poised and assured. But she was also a little frightened of flying, clutched her bag too tightly at check-in, and needed a stiff drink before embarkation. The security officer who waved her through the scanner looked suspiciously at her STOP THE WAR badge and insisted on searching her hand luggage. She was therefore in a bad mood before she’d even taken off.

  The plane was delayed by an hour and Lorna was in a worse mood when she landed. She had expected Austin to meet her in arrivals, but there was no sign of him. She hung around for a few minutes then tried to phone him, but his mobile was switched off and she didn’t have a number for his flat.

  In desperation, she put a message out over the airport tannoy. The kindly, middle-aged woman behind the information desk smiled at her sadly, obviously concluding that young love had gone badly wrong. ‘There’s still a flight back to Edinburgh tonight,’ she said.

  Lorna waited a further fifteen minutes by the information desk, then went outside for a cigarette. Austin, the idiot, was parked outside in his Fiesta. The same car he’d owned in North Berwick, his mother’s hand-me-down.

  ‘I thought you meant outside the terminal,’ was his excuse. Lorna didn’t kiss him hello.

  ‘You could at least have come inside,’ she protested. ‘Honestly, I’ve been hanging around for ages.’

  ‘Half an hour, actually,’ he corrected, pulling out into traffic, ‘and don’t forget I’ve had to wait as well. Your plane wasn’t exactly on time. In any case, you can’t just leave your car outside an airport these days.’

  He had a point, although Lorna wasn’t going to give in. ‘It wasn’t my fault the bloody plane was late. Anyway, airports do have carparks, Austin.’ She pointed at one as they drove towards the exit, a big sign telling them to turn right for Bristol. Austin turned right.

  ‘... which cost money. Anyway, at least you’re here,’ he said, ‘and it is nice to see you.’

  This took the wind out of her sails. She couldn’t very well have an argument with someone who was being reasonable, let alone nice. Despite herself, she patted his knee. ‘Better late than never, huh?’

  On the way into town they chatted about their respective courses and how he was getting on in Bristol. Austin, so he claimed, was in seventh heaven and, as he had described it, living in a bijou flat in a bohemian part of town. With a couple of other guys, of course.

  They took a short detour to drive under the Clifton Suspension Bridge and Lorna had to concede the brilliance of its engineering, the huge span of the bridge high over their heads.

  ‘Still an inspiration, eh, Austin?’

  ‘The simplest things often are,’ he replied. ‘Look at it. Pure symmetry, pure brilliance.’

  ‘Pure simplicity?’ she suggested.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Austin. Then, to her surprise, he said: ‘I’ve always envied you, you know.’ He was driving with rigid attention, both hands on the wheel and staring straight ahead. ‘I’ve never been the brightest guy,’ he admitted. ‘Everything I’ve done, passing exams, all that shit, I’ve had to work at. You just seem to sail through things.’

  Lorna didn’t know what to say. Sure, he’d never been top of the class, but he wasn’t stupid either. ‘You’re at university, Austin,’ she eventually said. ‘That makes you officially clever. One day you’ll get a certificate to prove it.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant,’ he said, still staring intently ahead. ‘It’s just that, well, I’ve always had to try twice as hard as everybody else.’ Eventually he smiled. ‘I’m trying hard now,’ he said.

  They stopped for a drink at a swanky pub with polished tables and lots of dull chrome. Hidden lights bounced light off metal walls, floors, and ceiling. Austin thought that it was the height of cool; Lorna thought it pretentious. To thank him for the lift, she insisted on buying the drinks, then wished she hadn’t. The plane ticket had been extortionate enough, despite being split down the middle with Austin.

  They clinked glasses. To a casual observer, they could have been first lovers, which in a sense they were. Since they’d last met in North Berwick,
only weeks before, Austin had affected designer stubble that had scratched her skin when she did get around to kissing him hello. He’d obviously been anticipating her visit and making some personal changes.

  Austin’s definition of a bijou flat wasn’t Lorna’s, and nor did it seem to be in a bohemian part of town. It looked like a condemned area just waiting for the bulldozers. Nearby houses were bricked up; graffiti daubed on walls. Only here did Austin’s old car really fit in. Lorna sniffed the air, avoiding dog dirt and crisp packets on the pavement.

  The flat was reached by a thin and winding staircase, probably a fire hazard, which brought them to a battered door on the third floor. It had probably once been green, but the stair light was too dim to see it properly. A TV was blaring from the flat next door, from which a woman in a sparkly silver dress appeared. The woman had straggly black hair and red lipstick. She looked about forty and much too old to be wearing a silver sparkly dress.

  Austin flapped a hand between them. ‘Monica, Lorna. Lorna, Monica.’

  The older lady was rummaging in her handbag. ‘Run out of fucking fags,’ she said. ‘Going to the shop.’ She extracted an inhaler and took a long suck. ‘Fucking hay fever,’ she announced, before pushing past with a smile and heading for the stairs.

  * * *

  Inside, somebody had made an effort to tidy the living room. Magazines and DVDs had all been heaped into piles. A computer and games controller sat on a rickety table. Beside it was a wicker basket full of shredded paper. In front of a giant TV sat a leather sofa. Lorna made to cross the room to the window, through which – dimly – she could see the outside world, before realising her feet were glued to the carpet. The flat smelled of stale cigarettes.

  ‘Well, what do you think?’ he asked, seemingly proud of his surroundings.

  ‘Very bijou.’

  ‘It’s not the Ritz, but it’s handy.’