The Things We Learn When We're Dead

by Charlie Laidlaw

  ‘What did Tom die of?’ asked Suzie, swinging her legs. Lorna saw that the cut on her knee still hadn’t healed. They’d been playing on the beach and Suzie had fallen and cut her knee on a piece of broken glass. It seemed like a carefree eternity ago.

  ‘Germs,’ she told Suzie.

  It started to rain again, the sky darkening over. There was a rumble of thunder out to sea. Big raindrops dripped from the overhanging roof and fell into a bed of blue flowers bordering the putting green.

  ‘Hello, you two.’

  It was her dad, glass of whisky in one hand and a wicker basket full of sausage rolls in the other. He handed the basket to Suzie.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Love,’ said Suzie, and popped a sausage roll in her mouth. Then another, before she’d swallowed the first.

  ‘You should try and eat something, Lorna,’ he said, although Lorna hadn’t seen him eat anything – except pills from his plastic bottle, and that didn’t count. He looked out across the putting green to the first hole, where a group of golfers were sheltering by the professional’s shop. ‘My father used to say it never rained on a golf course,’ he said. ‘When I was your age, I believed him.’

  Lorna guessed that he had no idea what to say either, like everybody else, and had said the first thing that came into his head. Now that he’d said it, it seemed to be the only thing in his head. The golfers by the pro shop were packing up and heading back to the car park. If anything, the sky had darkened still further, rain falling vertically, and thunder edging in from the Firth of Forth.

  ‘I’m sorry about Tom,’ said Suzie.

  His glass needed refilling and he had half-turned to go back to the clubhouse. Now he stopped, his bottom lip trembling. ‘Thank you, Suzie,’ he said before escaping to the bar.

  Lorna watched him, his slow ponderous progress. Until recently, he’d seemed like a rock, upright and strong. Now his shoulders were full of sand and sagged.

  * * *

  Inside, adult hands patted her and said soothing things. Lorna knew they were trying to be nice, but she wished that they’d say nothing. She didn’t need any more sympathy, and she didn’t need to know that Tom was with God or, worst of all, that only good boys and girls go to Heaven.

  That was said by a maiden aunt who Lorna rarely saw and whose breath smelled sickly-sweet. Her mum sometimes smelled the same when she’d had a glass of sherry. Not only didn’t she know whether Tom had been good – he’d only weeks before pushed her off their canal boat – but she didn’t want the same thing to happen to her. She didn’t want to go to hospital and catch germs.

  ‘Only the good die young,’ said the maiden aunt, thinking this was a nice thing to say. She was smiling sadly, one plump hand resting on Lorna’s shoulder.

  She was large and had smudged lipstick. Lorna couldn’t remember her name or why she was related to them. All she knew was that she was a maiden aunt and lived a long way away. Lorna looked at her and felt tears prickle. Her aunt shouldn’t have come all that way, just to say something like that.

  By now, most people had left. Her father was still at the bar, his glass full. Suzie had her coat on, her parents hovering at the door.

  ‘We could give you a lift home, Lorna,’ suggested Suzie’s mother. ‘Your mum’s at home, isn’t she?’

  Lorna nodded and fetched her coat. She didn’t want to be there, and hadn’t wanted to come in the first place. Suzie’s mother had a quiet word with her father and Lorna saw him look over and wave.

  It was the first time she had been driven in a Porsche. The back seat was cramped but the engine sounded like a wild animal. She liked it when Suzie’s father revved the engine like a racing driver.

  They were only able to park some distance from the flat. The small High Street was packed with day trippers who were sheltering inside the town’s many coffee shops.

  Suzie walked with Lorna to her front door.

  ‘My dad says your dad should sue the bastards,’ said Suzie suddenly. ‘That’s what I heard him telling Mum. He said that Tom shouldn’t have died.’ A raindrop clung to the end of her nose then fell. ‘My dad’s a lawyer. He knows about things like that.’

  ‘Stop it!’ Lorna hadn’t meant to shout; it had erupted from nowhere. She didn’t want to know that her brother needn’t have died, that the germs could have been defeated.

  ‘Anyway, that’s what he told Mum,’ said Suzie.

  ‘Please stop, Suzie.’

  ‘I just thought ...’

  ‘Please, Suzie!’

  Lorna put both hands over her ears, turned on her heel, and marched off. Back home, her mother had gone to bed. Aunt Meg was in the kitchen, but not really doing anything. Lorna didn’t know what lawyers did, except that they drove nice cars and got people money, if you could afford them. She heard the Porsche accelerate down the High Street.

  ‘Your mother’s asleep,’ said Aunt Meg, whose bulk filled most of their small kitchen. ‘It’s been a tiring day, poor dear. Do you want something to eat? I could fix you a sandwich or something.’

  ‘There was stuff at the golf club,’ said Lorna, although she’d only eaten crisps. ‘Dad’s still there,’ she added, just in case Aunt Meg was worried about him.

  He came back much later and slept on the sofa in the living room. Lorna could hear his snores through her bedroom wall. He also seemed to be muttering in his sleep, although the words were just a low grumble.

  By then, she had taken kitchen scissors to the drying area at the back of their house and cut Tom’s T-shirt into little pieces. Then she’d put the pieces into the bin and replaced the scissors in their drawer. She didn’t want to be good. She didn’t want to die young.

  Then she walked to the beach. She wanted to be alone, to gather her thoughts. It had stopped raining and the sky had cleared. Under a full moon, Lorna could see stars.

  Curtains

  On her birthday before Tom died, Lorna’s parents bought her a bicycle. She chose it from a shop in the Grassmarket in Edinburgh. High above Mike’s Emporium, the gaudy shop which her dad had been recommended, was the looming mass of Edinburgh Castle. On the way, he spouted history in a loud voice.

  ‘See that pub there?’ he asked, waving airily. ‘That used to be the city prison. Long time ago, of course. Before I was born, in fact.’ He paused theatrically to laugh, then gestured further down the street. ‘Now, see that pub? It’s called The Last Drop. Know why that is?’

  Lorna shook her head, trying to keep pace with him. When he strode purposefully, which was rarely, it was hard to keep up. ‘They used to take the criminals to be hanged on the Royal Mile,’ he informed her. ‘But, being nice people, the jailors would first take the condemned man for a last drink.’

  Lorna looked at him blankly.

  ‘For a last drop before the last drop,’ he finished. ‘There, we’re here.’

  She had wanted a new bike for a long while now. Her old bike, a dilapidated Raleigh, had gears that slipped and a chain that kept falling off. Her father, bemused by anything mechanical, couldn’t mend it, and nor could Tom, not that he had even bothered looking at it.

  The shop was dimly lit and it took her eyes some moments to adjust. She then saw that the Emporium was lit from above with small lights, each angled theatrically to illuminate particular machines. Lorna walked around the shop reverentially, touching and gazing, pausing at a particular bicycle, then moving on to the next, only to pause again and look back to the one before. Most of the bikes were for big boys. She was joined in her search by a tall man with grey teeth.

  ‘They’re all lovely bikes,’ he confided, bending towards her and lowering his voice. ‘See anything you fancy?’

  Lorna shrugged. ‘Just looking.’

  The shop assistant – Mike? – cleared his throat but didn’t speak for some moments. He had large ears like radar discs that stuck out squint. Her dad was standing by the door and surveying the street. He said, ‘You choose, Lorna. It’s your birthday.’

  ‘In that case,’ said t
he shop assistant, ‘we’ll have to find you something really special.’

  Her father brushed a hand through his hair, stroking it flat against his scalp. ‘What kind of bike were you thinking of?’ the shop assistant asked, clasping her shoulder and steering her towards the girls’ section of the shop. ‘A racing bike, perhaps? All the kids are after them, you know.’ His challenge to her conformity hung like a question mark. ‘It’s the telly that does it,’ he confided to her dad, who had his hands in his pockets, jangling change. ‘The Tour de France, all that stuff. Yes indeed,’ he added, motioning Lorna towards a particular machine. ‘What about this beauty? Take my word on it; ask anything you like.’

  ‘She’s maybe a bit young for a racing bike,’ said her father.

  ‘Then how about this one?’ asked the shop assistant.

  It was perfect. It smelled of oil and gleamed like silver. Lorna didn’t need to ask any questions. She already owned the bike and was far away, bent tightly on a sweeping bend, a roaring breeze in her ears. It was like the feeling of flight, of being free.

  ‘French-made, reliable, and very reasonably priced. Go on,’ he urged, anxious to please, indicating that she could try it out. Lorna felt the contours of the bike like a blind person, running her fingers down the handle bars, sensing its speed and oily newness.

  ‘Sit on it,’ whispered the shop assistant, his breath against her cheek. Once again she was hurtling on a down-slope, gears cranked forward for maximum speed, feet churning in slow sweeps.

  ‘It’s very nice,’ she said.

  The shop assistant clapped his hands together, setting up an echo. ‘I told you, didn’t I?’ although Lorna had no idea what he’d told her.

  Her dad had brought old blankets which they spread across the back seat of his car. The bicycle lay on top of the blankets and jerked and twitched as they drove home to East Lothian. They took the coast road, her dad, as always, driving too fast.

  Coming into North Berwick, she saw Suzie sitting at a table outside a café, flanked by her parents. They seemed to be eating fish and chips. Suzie recognised the car and waved. Lorna waved back.

  ‘Who’s that?’ asked her dad, who did try occasionally to take an interest in her friends.

  ‘Just somebody from school,’ she replied, still not sure if someone as posh as Suzie could be friends with her.

  They parked her bike at the bottom of the communal stairwell and her mum came down to admire it, wiping her hands on a dishcloth. Upstairs was the smell of baking, and birthday candles laid out on the kitchen table.

  * * *

  Suzie became her best friend the Christmas before Tom’s death. Lorna was looking through curtains, watching her parents’ progress to the front row. The curtains were heavy and black and she wasn’t really supposed to be peering through them. She was wearing a green dressing gown and a towel was wrapped round her head and she thought, with some reason, that she looked ridiculous. Completely bastard shit fucking ridiculous. Despite her feeble protests, Lorna was the mother of God.

  She saw her dad make his way through the auditorium and was again reminded by how tall he was and how he stooped when he was around people, as if embarrassed by his size. He was wearing a grey suit, white shirt, and purple tie. Her mum was wearing a blue dress and her hair was newly cut and set. She was smiling at anyone she recognised. Her father, who didn’t know many people, was looking nervous.

  ‘Places, children!’ Mrs McPhail clapped her hands and Mrs Thomson sat down behind the piano. Lorna let the curtain fall back, obscuring the sight of her mother finally taking her seat. Her father, hands twined on his lap, had been in his seat for some minutes. As the curtain flopped closed, she knew that he’d seen her. He’d winked towards the stage in the same way he did when pulling money from her ear.

  Writing the Nativity play had been a collaborative activity. Everyone was asked their views on the birth of Jesus and many of those ideas had been incorporated into the script and storyline. Mrs McPhail, so she told everyone, was very keen on amateur dramatics and attended night-classes in creative writing for the theatre. This year’s Nativity play was therefore an experiment. By allowing free rein to collective imaginations, she had rewritten the story to make it more relevant to our own lives, or so she told the school. Mary and Joseph were therefore a pair of tourists in Edinburgh who couldn’t find a bed for the night. That being the case, Lorna really didn’t see why she should be wearing a green dressing gown and a towel on her head. Mrs McPhail told her we must mix the new with the old. That made absolutely no sense because Lorna had never seen anyone in Edinburgh wearing a green dressing gown with a towel on their head.

  The curtains were hauled back by Mrs Crabtree, who had to pull on a rope. She was a large woman and not very fit and the curtain opened erratically to uncertain applause. Nobody seemed quite sure whether they should applaud at the beginning or the end or both. This underlined in Lorna’s mind that they weren’t really theatre people. Everyone knew that you only applaud at the end, and only if the actors deserve it.

  Although they had been through a full costume rehearsal, Lorna was uncertain in the bright lights. She looked out at the audience but could only see shadows. A chair creaked. Someone coughed. She stared out at where she knew her parents were sitting. Her mum would be rigid in her seat with a handkerchief knotted through her fingers. Her mouth would be fixed in a set smile. Her dad would be thinking about something else. He often was.

  The first scene involved Lorna walking slowly round the stage holding Joseph’s hand. Suzie was Joseph. Mrs McPhail had convinced herself that this gender reversal was a good experiment. However, the fact was, only Suzie had wanted the part. None of the other kids had wanted the leading roles. Having talked her way into Joseph, it was Suzie who had talked Lorna into Mary. But under the bright lights, hearing coughs and someone swearing, she was terrified. The dress rehearsal hadn’t been too bad; the hall had been empty. Now it was full, and hundreds of pairs of eyes were following her around the stage.

  To make things worse, there was a cushion shoved up her dressing gown. Her hand was trembling in Suzie’s. Suzie squeezed hers, but it was no good. Lorna’s mind was fast becoming a blank. The rest of the cast, all dressed casually in jeans and T-shirts, marched around the stage singing a Christmas song about Santa Claus. Mrs Thomson, on piano, was vainly trying to get them to march and sing in tempo.

  Lorna and Suzie were deposited at the end of the song beside a door. Above the door hung a sign saying HOTEL. Lorna knocked loudly on the door, which was opened by a small boy in a suit. He said that all the rooms in the hotel were fully booked, and had they not thought to phone and make a reservation. The audience laughed. Lorna could hear her mother joining in.

  ‘No,’ said Suzie loudly, declaiming to the gods as Mrs McPhail had taught her, ‘because the telephone hasn’t been invented yet.’ More laughter from the audience, who now understood that this year’s Nativity play wasn’t the traditional fare they’d been expecting.

  At this point Lorna was supposed to burst into tears and say, ‘Whatever are we to do?’ On cue, she burst into tears, but couldn’t say anything. Words had become glued together. Her mouth had dried up. Suzie, also dressed in a shapeless gown with a towel on her head, glanced at her and realised that the tears were genuine. She too was also momentarily without words. However, unlike Lorna, she had wanted to be in Mrs McPhail’s stupid play. To compound Lorna’s misery, her cushion had slipped. Now, she thought, I don’t just look pregnant, but stupid and obese.

  ‘Whatever are we to do,’ hissed Mrs Peacock from the wings. She was holding one hand to her brow. Most of the audience heard and someone laughed. Suzie heard the laugh and gave Lorna’s hand another squeeze.

  ‘Whatever are we to do?’ exclaimed Suzie boldly, and led Lorna across the stage to another door. This also had a sign above it. This sign said STABLE. ‘I know,’ she said, although this was also Lorna’s line, ‘we can sleep here for the night. The animals will keep us warm.’ Lo
rna was looking at Suzie open-mouthed. Her cushion was in danger of falling out completely. ‘Let’s go inside,’ Suzie said loudly and pointed to Lorna’s cushion. She was ad-libbing for all her worth. ‘It looks as if little Jesus might be born soon.’

  The audience roared with laughter. Mrs McPhail had both hands to her brow and was shaking her head. But it seemed as if Suzie was in her element. A fish that had found water. Speaking Lorna’s lines and hers, she was invincible and Lorna couldn’t help but feel that she had been saved. It was then that she made up her mind. Suzie was her best friend ever in the whole world.

  * * *

  Trinity hadn’t yet fixed the short-circuit, and Lorna’s apartment was still in darkness. She was lying on her back, her head against the rattan headboard. She could have been back in Edinburgh, except for the absolute silence. In Edinburgh, there was always the distant throb and pulse of the city, something Lorna found comforting; a reminder that she was surrounded by people. Then Lorna felt a stab of pain. It started in her shoulder and worked its way down her arm. She winced with the pain, took a sharp intake of breath. She’d seen Suzie’s face for a fleeting instant. It had been contorted with anger, eyes blazing. Although the image of Suzie only lasted a moment, Lorna was able to feel her anger as sharply as she could feel the pain in her arm. It’s was a jagged pain, like a stabbing knife. Both Suzie’s anger and Lorna’s pain were equally real, except her mind wouldn’t tell her why. The pain was frightening. It came and went without warning, and could presage a lifetime of enduring pain. But if I’m dead, she thought, I have no lifetime. And if I’m dead, I shouldn’t feel pain. Thinking about this made her want to cry or scream. None of this is real! she wanted to shout. Instead, unbidden and unwanted, her mind threw out a snapshot of the day after the Nativity Play.