Chapter 20 #2
“Yeah?” I drag out the word, so it sounds more like a question. “Why? Shouldn’t I be? What’s happened? What’s the time?” Raking my fingers through my hair, I stare at my wife.
My sister exhales heavily down the phone.
“You all right?” I ask her.
“Yeah, I just… It wasn’t a dream, but I was asleep, and then I thought I heard Sean…” She trails off.
“Yeah? What’s he say?”
“He just shouted your name really loudly. So loud it made me jump and woke me up…” She trails off again, but this time I say nothing because the vivid dream I’ve just been having suddenly comes back to me.
“I was dreaming about him,” I say through a yawn.
Reaching out, I pull Ash down onto the bed next to me, because this hard-on is going nowhere and needs to find a home.
“Coffee?” she whispers in my ear.
I nod, pulling her in for a kiss before letting her get up.
“Then we’re gonna fuck,” I whisper in her ear while holding the phone away.
“You what? You was dreaming of him? What the fuck is going on, Marls, cos this is freaking me the fuck out,” Georgia says as I put the phone back to my ear.
“Fucked if I know, George. It’s probably because we’ve been talking about him, looking at the photos and all that. He’s on our minds, and our heads are just fucking with us.”
“But he told me about Carla. No one knew that except the three of them, and the big mouths…”
I put the phone on speaker and set it on the bedside table while I pick up one of the three hundred and twenty-eight cushions off the floor that my wife insists we have on the bed to put it behind me.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what to say, George. I don’t not believe in all that kind of thing, but nothing has ever really happened to me till now to make me a believer.”
She’s quiet for a while, and because it’s my sister—one of my best mates—I know her and know that she’s got something more to say. She’s just working out how to say it.
“I know I’ve had a few mental health issues over the years, but if I tell you something, Marls, will you promise not to laugh?”
“I won’t laugh,” I tell her, even though I might, because this is me, and it’s what I do.
“He’s always come to me. Ever since we lost him. I can smell him, Marls, feel his hair between my fingers. I know when he’s here, and I know when he’s leaving. It’s a mixture of a feeling and like an energy. I don’t know how else to describe it.”
“Can I be honest and tell you something?” I ask.
“Go for it.”
“Yesterday, when we were all on the sofa, he was there. Don’t know how I knew, so don’t ask me to explain, cos I can’t, but he was there,” I tell her.
“Did you feel it, too?” Ashley asks me as she walks across our bedroom, a cup of coffee in each hand.
“You felt it?” I question her as she hands me my coffee.
“I didn’t wanna say anything and upset anyone,” Ash starts, “but when we first sat there, I got really sad. Like sad to the point where I could easily have cried. I was missing him, thinking it was wrong that we were all together like that, that he should’ve been there.
And then it was gone, and I just had this feeling, this sense that he was there with us, and it was all okay. ”
“So, what is it. What’s happening?” George asks. “Are we in danger? Is he trying to tell us something, warn us?”
“George, this is Maca, not fucking Lassie,” I say, making us all laugh because I’m a funny fucker.
“Then, what is it?” my sister asks again.
“I think,” Ashley begins, “Maca just has a case of FOMO and wants to be part of everything. He wants to be with us when we’re all together like the old days. Sorry, George, if that upsets ya, but I think that’s what it is.”
“So, you think it’s real. That his presence is real?” G questions.
“I do,” Ash admits. “I think his presence is all around us, probably all of the time, but makes itself known when we’re all together.”
“Thanks, Ash. That definitely makes sense and makes me feel better,” George says. “What was your dream about, Marls?” she asks, catching me off-guard.
“Nothing really. We’d been to see Seven Words before they blew up, and we were just backstage getting stoned with the band. That was it,” I lie.
My sister remains quiet.
“What you doing today?” I jump in and ask cheerfully, knowing I have two of the best bullshit detectors listening to the cadence of my voice in an attempt at catching me in a lie.
“The kids are all here. We’re going to Full Bifta for breakfast. Wanna come?”
I look at Ash, who nods. “Yeah, we’ll come. What time? I’ll ping Len, see if they wanna come, too,” I tell my sister, grateful that I’ve managed a successful diversion.
“About half ten. Don’t forget Mum and Dad get home later with Bails and Sam. The carvery’s booked for six,” she reminds me.
Our parents and brother Bailey, and his wife Sam, all now live out in Portugal, only coming home a couple of times a year. Today is one of those times.
“Yeah, but six is a long way from now, and a Bifta’s will set me up for the day. We’ll see you down there at half ten,” I tell her. “And, George?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for calling to check I was all right.”
“Not a problem. And, Marls?”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t care who you and Sean were banging in your dream. It all happened a long time ago.”
My sister ends the call.
“Fuck,” I hiss, forgetting that my wife’s sitting right next to me.
“Who was she?” Ash asks, making me laugh.
“How do you do it? I tell ya, if Jim was here, she’d already have their socials up on her phone.”
Ash shrugs, her perfect brows remaining raised while she waits for an answer.
I sip my coffee. “It happened years ago, right before I met you, actually. Before Maca got back with George. We had been to see Seven Words, that bit was true, but the rest? We ended up back at a hotel with a random bird and this mind-blowing weed. If I recall correctly, she was actually from Essex. We didn’t leave that room for about three days,” I admit, knowing there’s zero point in lying.
“What was her name?” Ash asks.
“Why?”
“You just said she’s from Essex; I want to be prepared in case I get another tap on the shoulder while I’m in Marks’s doing my shopping,” Ash says, making me wince.
She was out shopping with Jimmie and all the kids one time when a woman tapped her on the shoulder and said, ‘I fucked your husband.’
Ash looked around her to the bloke she was with and said, ‘Good for you, but you’ve got nothing to worry about, love. I wouldn’t touch yours with a ten-foot barge pole! If I was going home to that, I’d fuck my husband, too.’
“I think you handled that situation like a champ,” I tell her.
She rolls her eyes. “I’d rather not have to handle situations like that at all,” she says quietly, her words hitting me right in the heart.
I pull her in for a kiss.
“Morning breath,” she complains.
“I’m sorry.”
“You need to shower and clean your teeth.”
“Not about the morning breath. I’m sorry for putting you in those situations.”
Her eyes are bluer than brown today, and they dance all over my face. “What was her name?” she asks again, very quietly.
“Jessie, and I only remember that because it was the last threesome me and Mac ever had. He got back with G, I met, fell in love, and married you,” I say with a smile, hoping that last little line will get me out of any trouble I might be in.
“We need to talk,” Ash replies.
My stomach drops.