Apart

Chapter 10

James: Help!

I’m at reception now, waiting to go in to see The Boss.

Pretty much everywhere is calm up here, but this building takes serenity to a whole new level.

Minimalist and yet welcoming. White, but not clinical.

The light is like a warm glow, not like any other light I’ve ever seen.

All in all, it really is what you might call heavenly.

An assistant, maybe an angel, offers me a coffee, but I’m hyped enough without adding caffeine into the mix. Another young assistant dressed in a slick white suit approaches.

‘He’ll see you now, James,’ he says quietly. I take a deep breath and follow him. He shows me to the door of the office and knocks.

Sounds of movement and footsteps can be heard through the door.

‘Ooh, is that my margarita with extra mozzarella? About time. I am totally famished,’ and the door is flung wide open. The Boss looks disappointed to see us rather than a pizza delivery.

‘No, Boss. It’s James Harrington, here to see you.’ The assistant shows me in, then leaves.

‘Ah, I know you, don’t I?’ he says.

Not sure it’s a good thing that he seems to remember me. Perhaps he’ll have forgotten about the cycling.

‘You’re the cyclist, aren’t you?’

Ah. ‘Err, yes.’

‘Thought so. So how’s it all going? You enjoying it up here?’ He wanders over to a huge dark wood desk and sits down.

‘Yes, thanks. Everything’s great. And thanks for seeing me at such short notice.’

‘No worries. Gabe said it was urgent.’

‘Gabe?’

‘Yeah, you know, Gabriel – top bloke, my right-hand man, well, right-hand angel technically speaking. Archangel if you want to be totally accurate. Good guy, Gabe. Keeps me on the straight and narrow, that one.’

‘Ah.’ Really? Shouldn’t it be the other way round?

‘Well, don’t just stand there, have a seat. Did someone offer you a coffee?’

‘No. I’m fine. I mean, yes, they did offer me coffee. But no, thanks. I’m good.’

This is not going well. I need to get on top of this.

I mean, he’s just a bloke, isn’t he? Just a kind of god-bloke.

And it was fine when I bumped into him in the park.

But this feels a lot more significant because now he holds the key to contacting Amy.

So I really need this to go well. I sit down on one of the plush sofas.

‘So, how can I help?’

‘Well—’

‘Nah, wait, don’t tell me. You’re missing the combat side of things from your old job.’

Wow! This guy really likes his guessing games. What’s that all about? I’ll just have to go along with it, don’t want to alienate him.

‘I—’

‘Oh, I know a lot of the ex-military have a problem with that. It’s all a bit peaceful for them up here.

No war. Well, you can’t really, can you?

Not here. I mean, it just wouldn’t look good if I started allowing conflict zones to pop up all over the place.

So, you’re going to have to get used to the peace and quiet, I’m afraid. ’

‘Well, it’s true. I do miss it. But that’s not what I’m here for.’

‘It isn’t? Ah, so is it—’

‘It’s to ask about getting the app early,’ I blurt out.

Oh. He looks a bit surprised at that. Probably doesn’t like the fact that I interrupted him, but I can’t waste the whole appointment on his weird guessing game habit.

I mean, they didn’t tell me how long the appointment would be, but I can’t really expect it to last more than ten minutes. He’s got to be a busy guy.

‘Which app? We’ve got a lot of apps here, you know.’

‘I need the one to make contact with people back on Earth.’

‘Oh, the Earthcomms app.’

‘That’ll be it.’

‘How long have you been here?’

Oh here we go. ‘About ten months, so it would only be a few weeks early. It’s just my girlfriend has got stuck in a rut of grief.

I need to persuade her to move on. She’s young – only twenty-six.

And she’s lovely. Really lovely. I want her to be happy.

She’s still crying every day and she needs to get over me and get on with her life.

But she’s still got all my things, hasn’t even ditched my clothes yet, and—’

The Boss clears his throat. His eyes look like they’re starting to glaze over.

‘And I’m probably boring you with the details now…’ I tail off.

‘Nah, you’re all right. I never get bored of hearing people’s life stories. They’re all so different from mine. But there is a danger you could end up spending the next two months telling me all about her instead of doing something about the situation.’

‘Fair point. So, doing what about the situation?’

‘Well, I thought you were planning to use the app.’

‘So you’ll let me have it early?’ Maybe this conversation isn’t going as badly as I thought.

‘Well, maybe. I’m in a good mood today.’

‘Are you ever not then?’ I’m curious now. He doesn’t look like the sort of person to get angry. Despite the bad rap he had with some people down on Earth. No obvious sign of hellfire and damnation here so far.

‘Nah, not really. Always cheerful, me. But then, to be fair, I’ve got it pretty good, haven’t I? I mean, I get to give people hope, answer people’s prayers, perform miracles – well, what’s not to like?’

‘Well, yes, it’s a pretty good job description.’ I wait for him to let me know about the ‘maybe’. But he’s just gazing into the distance, perhaps reminiscing about some of his favourite miracles? Okay. Still waiting. I’m going to have to say something here.

‘So, you said “maybe” – is that a yes?’ That jolts him back into the here and now.

‘Hmm. Well, I can’t be seen to be favouring some people. I’m going to have to make you earn this app. Let’s have a think. I don’t suppose you play chess, do you?’

‘I do, as it happens. Why?’

‘You any good?’

‘Not bad.’ I am pretty good at chess. My dad taught me well. But I’m good by human standards, not god standards.

‘Really?’ He sounds cautiously hopeful. ‘I don’t suppose you fancy having a go, taking me on at chess sometime?’

Oh, this could be bad. Is there a catch in this?

I mean, surely he’s going to be so good that it’ll be really humiliating.

But I think he’s suggesting that getting the app early depends on this.

And I need this app. And besides, he seems like a nice guy, and he does provide a pretty good place up here.

‘Sure. Why not?’ I find myself replying.

‘Really? Oh, cheers mate. That’s brilliant. When can you play? You free tomorrow?’

His eagerness is bordering on desperation.

Weird. I mean, there are a lot of people here, how hard can it be for him to find someone to play chess with him?

Although maybe everyone else is wiser than to get into this kind of situation.

But at the end of the day, how bad can it be? I’m just going to have to go for it.

‘Yeah, sure. What time?’

‘Brilliant! Well, I’ve got quite a lot on tomorrow, so could we say seven o’clock in the evening?’

‘Seven’s good.’

‘Really? Oh that’s fantastic. I’ll get some beers in. Or would you prefer something else? Whisky? Wine?’

‘Beer’s good.’

‘Cool. Beer it is. Cool beer it is.’ He chuckles. ‘See what I did there?’

How are you meant to react to a dad joke from God? Should I pretend to find it funny?

‘So here’s the deal,’ he adds. ‘I’ll give you the app for tonight, so you can see what it does, have a go. But you only get to keep it early if you beat me at chess tomorrow – otherwise you have to wait like everyone else. Happy with that?’

Jeez, how rusty am I at chess? I’ve not played since I got here – and now I have to take on The Boss tomorrow night?

‘Of course, no problem,’ I reply.

‘Awesome. Pass me your hPhone then.’

‘hPhone? Is that what it’s called?’ I hand over the mobile I was given when I arrived here.

‘Yeah. Did no one tell you? Neat, eh?’

‘You’re lucky no one down there knows about that name. They’d probably try to sue you for copyright infringement or something.’

‘You don’t think they invented the one down there, do you?

’ He shakes his head. ‘No, no, no, my friend. The heaven phone came first – I even came up with the name, hPhone. I just happened to be feeling generous a while back and shared my tech with you lot down on Earth, well, with that one guy in particular. What’s his name?

Tim Apple or something. And obviously I suggested the letter after mine – H comes before I, you know – just a little symbolism there. ’

‘Huh. So this phone came first?’

‘Oh yes. Yes indeed! Well, not this particular model. This one’s a fifty-seventh generation phone.’

‘Fifty-seventh?! How often do you bring out new models?’

‘Well, you know, I like to keep things up to date. Okay, I admit tech is a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine. But there’s just so much good stuff out there.

I know there are people down on Earth who imagine I’m sitting around dressed in a toga, writing on scrolls, but why?

I mean, where would the sense be in that? With all these gadgets at my disposal.’

‘Fair point.’

‘Okay, James, just think your password for me so I can get into this.’

Yeah, get this. These phones are so advanced, you just need to think your password and it uses a kind of machine telepathy to unlock your device!

So, now The Boss is busily tapping away at my phone.

I can’t believe he’s actually installing the app himself.

I thought he’d be packing me off to get one of his angel assistants to sort it out once he’d approved it.

You can tell he loves his tech, he’s tapping so rapidly.

He’s just like Gen Z – their thumbs seem to have gone through some kind of super-rapid evolution in just one generation.

Makes Millennials like me look like clumsy Neanderthals with our phones.

‘Here you go.’ He hands me the phone back.

‘Brilliant. Thanks very much.’

‘I’ve left the app open. Just make sure you have a play around with it before you start using it in earnest, mate.

It’s a great little app, but it’s not been around all that long and people sometimes find it’s harder to use than it looks.

We’re working on an update, but it’s still in beta testing, not ready for release yet. ’

‘Thanks for the tip. I’ll bear that in mind.’

‘No worries. Just don’t go telling too many people about our little deal. If you must tell any of your pals, ask them to keep it to themselves. Don’t want people thinking I’m a soft touch or no one’s going to stick to any of the rules up here.’

‘Yeah, of course. Thanks. I really do appreciate this. Thanks a lot.’

‘All right, all right, that’s enough gratitude for one day. Just let me know how you get on.’

‘I will.’

I don’t want to outstay my welcome. Now seems like a good time to leave. Before I manage to land myself in any more tricky situations.

‘Well, I’ll be off then. Thanks again.’ I head over to the door.

‘Cheers, James, see you tomorrow,’ he calls cheerfully. ‘Now, where in heaven has that pizza guy got to?’

Result! I’d expected it to be far harder than that to get hold of this app.

Although, I’ve still got to get over the hurdle of beating him at chess if I’m going to keep it.

I’ll message the boys in a minute and see if either of them has a chess set.

I’m just checking in on Amy first with the phone viewer when I realise she’s not at home.

Turns out she’s at Janice’s house. Something strange going on there.

They’ve got loads of candles and shiny stones set out on a table in the dining room.

And I might be imagining it, but I could swear I’m getting a waft of incense right now.

Aww! Could do without this sensory transmission.

There’s a strange picture flat on the table – not sure what it is – a flower or a star or something, and lots of letters round the edge, maybe the whole alphabet.

Oh no! That’s not one of those boards is it?

You know, a Ouija board? Oh don’t tell me this is a séance.

Is she trying to reach me? Ahh, this must be what she’s been writing in her letters, and I couldn’t make it out.

I’ve been watching her writing me a letter faithfully every night since I left.

Just like she used to write to me when I was deployed overseas.

It’s not always easy to read what she’s writing, probably down to my viewer playing up again, although, to be fair, Amy’s handwriting is a nightmare to read at the best of times.

So that word she kept writing that I couldn’t make out must have been ‘séance’.

Well, this has put a spanner in the works.

I wasn’t expecting to have to use this app in anger so soon.

Even The Boss said it can be tricky to start with.

Now it’s saying I need to set up my profile before I can go any further.

Really helpful. I just need to use the bloody app.

This is my best chance to reach her. And now it wants me to choose an avatar or upload an image.

Is that really necessary? It’s not like Amy’s going to get to see any of this.

Okay, so that animal’s quite an odd avatar, but it’s the best I can find in a hurry.