‘Going to report yourself, are you?’ I sneered.
‘No,’ he said, scooping up his mobile phone from the floor where it had fallen out of his trouser pocket earlier, ‘I’m going to report you. I shall tell the police exactly what’s happened here before you blacken my name and press all manner of fabricated charges against me. You,’ he said, pointing a shaking finger at me, ‘are going nowhere, until the boys in blue arrive, and a female sergeant examines you and confirms you were perfectly willing to sleep with me as evidenced by the fact that you have not been beaten black and blue, nor are you covered in grit and scrapes where you’ve been dragged down some dark alley and, in fact—’ he paused and pointed the mobile at me, quickly capturing the image of me sitting quietly on the sofa. ‘Perfect! Here you are,’ he flashed the screen at me, ‘enjoying a post-coital cup of tea and bar of chocolate, both thoughtfully provided by muggins here. You’re not even crying, are you? Hardly a picture of distress.’
His finger swiped the mobile’s screen, switching it from camera to numerical keypad. As his finger hovered over the number nine, a whole host of thoughts barged their way through my brain. The police would interrogate me. I’d respond, explaining that up until an hour ago, he’d been my boyfriend. That I’d accepted an invitation to the cinema. Gone out on a date. Indeed, I’d been seeing the accused for the best part of four years. Would they believe my side of the story if they knew I’d accepted a cinema invitation and willingly gone back to his flat afterwards? How did that square up with my purporting to end the relationship? In my head, I then saw Martin giving his explanation to the police: that he’d confessed to infidelity with a colleague, and the angry girlfriend had dumped him on the spot and was so mad she’d decided to wreak revenge in the worst way imaginable. I could imagine some thin-lipped female DCI, a dead ringer for Helen Mirren, listening to Martin who, even now, was looking self-righteous and full of indignation, informing me that it was women like me who gave genuine victims a bad name. Martin was right. There was no overturned furniture in his flat. No one had come beating down the door to see what the hell had been going on. I didn’t have a mark upon me. Not one bruise. Not even a scratch. My tongue prodded the graze on my inner cheek where my teeth had made contact as we’d crashed onto the floor, but that wasn’t evidence of a tussle, was it? Many people bit their cheek, simply by eating a sandwich. And he’d just taken a picture of me looking perfectly calm, cuppa in hand, choccy bar on lap, the photographic evidence – complete with digitally recorded date and time – very much at odds with the allegation from a supposedly distressed woman.
I gulped. Watching myself sitting there, I could easily read my body language and private thoughts: Perhaps it had been my fault, after all? Perhaps I’d sent out the wrong signals? Worn the wrong outfit? Maybe earlier, when I’d been getting ready at home, I should have tossed aside my favourite fire-engine red lipstick and opted for pale pink instead, so he’d not thought I was giving him the come-on?
All these thoughts played out in a nanosecond. Martin had already pressed the keypad’s number nine twice. As he went to press it a third time, I leant forward and lightly touched his arm.
‘Forget ringing the police,’ I said quietly.
He stared at me, for a moment not saying anything, then slowly lowered the phone.
‘Sudden change of heart?’ he snapped. ‘Why’s that then, Hattie?’
‘It’s my fault,’ I said quietly.
‘How awfully good of you to say that,’ he said sarcastically.
Take care, Hattie, Josh was suddenly speaking urgently into my head, because this is most definitely not your fault. Remember, you can edit the script and rectify those words to move on with your life. Do it. Now.
‘It’s my fault for coming to your flat,’ I corrected, ‘and making myself vulnerable to you taking advantage of me, but understand one thing, Martin. If I ever hear a whisper of another woman claiming that you did the same thing to her, I’ll be crawling out of the woodwork faster than a termite.’
‘Get out of here,’ he hissed, snatching back the tea and chocolate.
‘Don’t worry,’ I said, just about managing to stand up on still-wobbly legs. ‘I’m going.’
‘Go to hell,’ was his parting shot.
At the time, I’d wondered if there really was such a place as Hell and, if so, had secretly wished with vehemence that Martin would be delivered there forthwith to spend all eternity in a place full of burning brimstone. Such had been the anger behind that thought, I’d even blamed myself for what had happened next. Because hours later, Martin was involved in a fatal car crash. His vehicle had become a fireball, and he’d exited this world in the devil’s own flames.
Twenty-Nine
Can you find it in your heart to take back that secret desire about wishing Martin an afterlife of brimstone and fire, Hattie? said Josh, speaking inside my head. All these years later, do you still hope that Martin is in some cavernous place, shovelling red-hot coals whilst confined in chains?
I sighed, suddenly dog-tired from reviewing this piece of high drama. No, not any more. Not after knowing what happened afterwards.
Good. Because despite the outcome of what happened to him, it was nothing to do with your secret desire to have him banished to all eternal Hell. You can’t change someone else’s destiny, only your own. So please finish this episode in a way that is positive for you, allowing no stain to be imprinted on your soul.
Okay, I’ll do my best.
I returned with a whoosh to the scene with Martin, watching as the younger me hauled herself up from his sofa and shakily walked to the apartment door. Martin was walking with me, almost hustling me along. He was probably still over the limit booze-wise, but his manner was as sober as a policeman’s as he practically escorted me off the premises. He leant across me and released the security catch, letting the door swing wide open.
‘I never want to see you again, Hattie.’
‘I have a feeling you won’t,’ I said, pausing on the threshold to look back at him, ‘but nonetheless, I wish you well.’
A flicker of surprise crossed Martin’s face. Had he, in that moment, privately acknowledged that he had been in the wrong after all? That he had deliberately misconstrued my protests for playing hard to get, just because his ego had been dented at my refusal to marry him? Some people can go through life lying to everyone but, ultimately, can you spend a lifetime lying to yourself? Once, I’d certainly thought so. After all, I’d done the same thing. But ultimately, you must own up. Not to others. Not even to a priest in a confessional with a hotline to God. But to yourself. As I turned away from Martin, I knew that my good wishes had jolted him into reflecting upon his drunken behaviour. And as I took myself off into the night, all I knew was that somewhere deep within my body another layer of heaviness was suddenly lifting itself up and being cast aside. I closed my eyes and sucked in a deep breath of sweet night air. When I opened them again, I was back with Josh.
‘You are putting right the past just perfectly,’ he said, giving my hand a quick squeeze. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Different,’ I said slowly. ‘Lighter. Like I’ve just emerged into full-blown sunshine after living in a dark cave.’ I was astonished at how skippy my soul felt just seconds after reviewing such serious trauma. It was beyond liberating. ‘You know,’ I said teasingly, ‘I’m starting to feel like you’re my own personal therapist. Is that what you do here? Counsel lost souls?’
He laughed. ‘Nope. Believe it or not, you are counselling yourself. Although I’d prefer to change that word to “healing”. I’m merely a tool that’s giving you a little cosmic guidance,’ he said with a wink. ‘Now then, Hattie. Having shaken off a huge blanket of negative energy, how about we soup-up your soul with a high-voltage dose of fun?’
I gazed at the man before me, so unlike any other I’d known, and not for the first time found myself wishing he resided on the Earth plane, instead of this halfway place. Why was life sometimes so unfair
?
‘Well?’ he prodded.
‘Yes please,’ I said eagerly. God, did he even have to ask? I didn’t care what we did, just so long as we were doing it together.
‘Then come with me, Madame,’ he said, sweeping low in a mock bow before taking me by one hand, ‘because I do believe your taxi is on its way as we speak.’
‘My taxi?’ I laughed, allowing him to lead me by the hand, out of the pink and white bedroom, across the lounge and out to the veranda, all the while relishing the fizzy tingles enveloping my hand, shooting straight up my arm, and setting my entire being aglow.
He glanced upwards, searching the skies. ‘Here it is.’
I followed his gaze, staring into the lemony light, my jaw slowly being overcome by gravity as an enormous fluffy white cloud zoomed over the horizon and practically skidded to a halt by the veranda. If I lived in this place forever, I’d never quite get used to the bizarreness of it all.
‘Sometimes,’ said Josh, ‘the bizarre can be quite normal.’
‘You must be kidding,’ I snorted, as we stepped on the cloud and sank into billowing, slightly shifting seats. ‘I can’t quite see myself with one of these parked on my driveway, or ringing up the DVLA and asking how much road tax to pay on something that moves without sound and is a zillion times faster than a Ferrari.’ I settled back in my super-soft seat, secretly thrilled to be experiencing such weirdness.
‘Enjoy the ride, Hattie.’
I did just that, privately telling myself not to keep questioning yet another surreal experience, and that the only thing that mattered about being whisked away upon this cloudy vehicle was to enjoy the experience with my gorgeous travelling companion. We were rising upwards now, thankfully at a far steadier speed than the one at which the cloud had arrived. Despite the ever-increasing altitude, neither my breathing nor my feeling of wellbeing was affected. The temperature remained pleasant, although a slight wind was evident. I shook my head, enjoying the breeze lifting my hair, feeling it ripple down my back and tickle the sides of my face. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so carefree. It was invigorating.
Higher and higher we soared, until this strange world was spread below like a vast tablecloth, the trees and mountain range looking like threads of green and white embroidery flanked by the occasional blue strand as rivers, here and there, twisted through the landscape. I was so engrossed in the vista below, that for a few moments I failed to notice the elevated scenery – and light changes – going on around us.
‘I know you’re enjoying the view, Hattie,’ said Josh, interrupting my reverie, ‘but look to your right.’
I tore my eyes away from the ground and gasped. ‘It’s a rainbow,’ I said moronically.
‘And not just any old rainbow,’ Josh smiled. The spectrum of colours reflected on his skin, and bounced off his clothing, distorting his glowing white jeans and shirt into undulations of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, and every shade in between. I looked down at my hands folded in my lap and saw that they too had become a myriad of shifting colour. How strange. And very beautiful.
‘On Earth,’ he said, ‘the arch of colours visible in the sky is caused by the refraction and dispersion of the sun’s light by water droplets in the atmosphere.’
‘Are you about to go all scientific on me again?’ I teased.
He grinned. ‘Possibly. The job of a pilot is to watch his instrument gauges and not to listen to his own heartbeat, as someone once famously said. But what you’re witnessing here is the heart vibration of the seven-plus billion people who inhabit Earth. And each of those vibrations are, just like a pilot’s instrument gauges, being monitored by every Earth individual’s personal spirit guide.’
‘Uh oh, forget the science, you’re going all religious on me instead.’
‘I promise you I’m not. Just keep an open mind for a moment. Everything is made of waves – which includes thoughts. You cannot see or touch a thought, but you know it exists. But here, in this place, it is possible to see all those collective thoughts in all their glorious colour. From this perspective they appear as a constantly moving, shifting and flickering light that registers to the visual senses as a rainbow. But if you were to pluck one piece of gold or red or violet from this enormous structure in front of you, and put it to your ear, you would hear the very thoughts passing through an individual’s mind. Assigned guides do their very best to assist the hearts of everyone. Why are you looking at me like that, Hattie?’
‘I’ve asked you before, but I’ll ask you again. Are you my guide?’
Josh smiled. ‘No, but I am a co-ordinator, although that’s not quite the same thing. You have a guide – but it’s not me,’ he added. ‘Your own guide has been having a tough time.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yeah – trying to get your life, and thoughts, back on an even keel. Back to a place where you feel happy at a soul level. But because you were out of kilter with yourself at a much deeper level and had erected huge emotional barriers around yourself making your guide’s job a very tricky one, that’s where I came in to give some temporary assistance.’
‘Right,’ I said, not liking the word ‘temporary’ at all. I didn’t want Josh to be transitory. I wanted him to be permanent. Even though I knew it wasn’t possible to stay here forever – and nor did I want to anyway, such was the longing for my family and child, even my nutty dog – but if only I could somehow blend this place with my more usual habitat, so that Josh was part of my other life. The real life. The one that was full of wind and sunshine, hail and snow, and where rainbows were rarely glimpsed, and definitely didn’t manifest like this one.
‘You’re looking sad, Hattie,’ said Josh pensively.
‘I don’t mean to be sad,’ I said, my voice wistful with longing.
‘I can’t read your thoughts, but I can read your heart’s desire, and I know you’ve been without love for a long time.’
‘You’re starting to sound like a gypsy with a crystal ball,’ I said flippantly, hoping to goodness my ‘heart’s desire’ was being discreet and not blabbing its mouth off to Josh.
‘You crave love.’
I flushed. ‘Don’t we all?’ I muttered.
‘Yes,’ he said simply.
‘Actually, I’ll take what I said back. After all, a nun or a monk can spend very solitary lives not having the love of anyone.’
‘They have the love of God,’ said Josh, softly, ‘and that’s the purest love of all.’
‘I’m out of my depth here,’ I said, feeling like I was something of a failure in not grasping all this love business.
‘No, you’re not a failure,’ said Josh, reading my thoughts again. ‘Love is multi-stranded, Hattie. Just like this rainbow. The love you have for your parents is not the same as the love you have for your child and that isn’t the same as the love you feel for your dog or the love you have for your home. Do you understand what I’m trying to say here? Love can be so many things… gentle, like when we care for a frail parent… or savage, as we roar like the lion protecting its young. There are many shades of love, and many colours of us.’
I boggled silently at the rainbow, feeling like I was skirting around the edges of something terribly profound but couldn’t quite put my finger on it.
‘This conversation is getting too heavy,’ said Josh, standing up. My thoughts instantly scattered like skittles being knocked down by a bowling ball. ‘Come on, I didn’t bring you here to get all maudlin and confused. Take my hand.’
‘We’re getting off the cloud?’ I asked, suddenly feeling panicky. What, up here, goodness knows how many miles above sea level? Not that I could see any sea, but still. Josh was obviously reading my mind again because he answered immediately.
‘Are you already forgetting everything so recently learnt? What happened to believing the unbelievable? And allowing yourself to trust? It’s not that long ago you were checking out underwater worlds without drowning, remember?’
I nodded
, and took a deep breath. ‘Right,’ I said, sounding a hell of a lot more confident than I felt. ‘So, we’re getting off this cloud and, er, then what?’
Josh tutted. ‘I told you back down there,’ he jerked his head, ‘we’re going to do some fun stuff and ride a rainbow.’
‘Okay,’ I said uncertainly, ‘and how do we do that?’
‘You’re in one of the universe’s best theme parks,’ said Josh, giving a mischievous grin, ‘and in a moment or two, we’re going to slide down this rainbow.’
I stared at him, my eyes widening with alarm. ‘Slide down it? You mean… all the way back to the ground?’
‘Where else?’ he quipped.
‘B-but what if I fall off?’
‘Come on, Hattie, I’ve already told you. You think yourself back on again. Just like when we levitated off the veranda. If you’re worried, hang on to me.’
I didn’t need telling twice. I grabbed hold of Josh’s arm, clinging on like a limpet as we stepped off the cloud and stood on the rainbow’s apex. I had a bizarre moment of déjà vu, as if a part of me was travelling back in time to the days when I used to go to discos with my school mates, thrilling at the sight of the huge spinning mirrored mosaic ball over the dance floor. It had always twinkled and flashed with a million colours from the DJ’s special-effect strobe lights.
‘A disco, eh?’ Josh chuckled. ‘Well, why not!’
Suddenly the heavens were filled with the sound of ‘Stayin’ Alive’ as Josh danced me across the rainbow, his white jeans and shirt instantly transforming into Tony Manero’s famous white three-piece suit complete with flares. I threw back my head and laughed uproariously.
‘This is too cheesy for words,’ I hooted, as the familiar rhythms of the bass guitar sent my feet tap-tapping across the shifting colours, and the sound seemed to echo joyfully a million times around me. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so ridiculously happy. They say one should dance like nobody was watching. Well, Josh was watching, but as he didn’t seem to mind making a total tit of himself, then neither did I. Which was exactly what we did whilst executing an impressive series of knee-drops, splits and finger pointing. Josh was laughing with me, not at me, and we were still laughing when he swept me into his arms and spun me round and round and round, until I was dizzy and completely out of breath.
The Man You Meet in Heaven: An absolutely feel-good romantic comedy Page 13
