Chapter Two
Jake
On the twelfth day of Christmas, my psychopomp gave to me: an ex-girlfriend out cold in a haunted manor house.
I feel weird. Exposed. A little bit naked, even. This is the first time I’ve been seen in ten years. Years of invisibility, loneliness, and no one but a grumpy angel of death to keep me company – and this is my welcome?
I stand here for a moment, shuffling and waiting for a fanfare, another sob, anything. And nothing comes, at least not from Belle, who’s out cold.
The thing is, I’ve had ten years to feel things, and I’ve not been able to, which seemed fine until about thirty seconds ago.
It’s not like I haven’t tried to connect with my emotions.
I’ve tried a lot of things: revisiting the scene of my death, listing out all my regrets (there weren’t many – mainly swapping my shiny gold Charizard Pokémon card for a tuck shop Twix at school), experimenting with extravagant, ghostly pranks on family members.
But none of it worked. It turns out that it’s really hard to knock things off shelves and flicker lights on and off.
Gabriel says it can take centuries to learn Poltergeistology … Ah, yes, him.
Gabriel would like to be introduced as my spiritual guide or soul chaperone. Still, he’s really just a super annoying life coach (or, rather, inter-life coach) who likes to pontificate about purpose and missions in a really cryptic way that feels more frustrating than encouraging.
I blame him for my ten years of purgatory … Okay, technically, not the actual purgatory. I’ve been in the ‘in-between’, as Gabriel calls it. Which I always thought was purgatory, but apparently not; there’s another in-between bit. This bit. It’s something I still haven’t fully got my head around.
I’ve spent ten years waiting to cross over to the afterlife.
But, apparently, before I can do that, I have to have a nice little chat with my ex – who is currently regaining consciousness after passing out at just the sight of me – and explain why I’m here.
I must have been really bad in my earthly life to deserve this kind of torture.
So here I am with Belle. Belle, with her perfect life, her perfect family in this perfect manor house, and that perfect face, which has hardly changed.
Focus, Jake. Can’t get distracted. I need to get this over and done with quickly so I can move on to whatever comes next – preferably, a version of eternity without her in it.
‘Jake … Is that you?’ she asks, groggily.
‘Hi, Belle. It’s me. The ghost of your ex-boyfriend, Jake Marleigh.’ I resist the temptation to add a ‘woOOoOOooo’ on the end. There’s no easy way to say it, is there? I look around. ‘Cool room,’ I add. ‘Scary as fuck, though. Loving the plague bed.’
She looks less scared now. In fact, she’s looking scar-y.
She’s angry. With me? After everything? I take a step backwards.
Her brow is doing that thing where one of them points up sharply, and now I know I’m in trouble.
I used to tease her about that all the time, but this isn’t the time for teasing – she’s up and marching over.
‘What the actual fuck, Jake?’ she growls.
‘You’re not real.’ She’s swiping at me, and I’m dodging her.
The button from her blazer is dangling by a thread, and she’ll be fuming once she notices.
Even more than she is already. What’s that Shakespeare quote …
Though she be little, she is fierce? And fierce she is, so I try to slip off out of her sight, but I can’t – I’m not invisible now.
‘Nice to see you too, Belle.’
‘Fuck you,’ she screams, her hands batting the air, so I dodge to my left, just as the tip of her nail catches my chest, and it hurts. Wait. She can touch me? I look down in disbelief. So not only can she see me, but she can touch me? I’m solid!
She crumbles to the floor, again, her head buried in her hands, sobbing.
I squint and make out ‘Why … my bedding (or could be wedding) … ruined.’ My eyes flick to the white gown hanging on the door of the wardrobe behind her.
It’s not what I expected for Belle; it’s so structured, formal, and …
posh. We spoke about weddings – of course we did.
We were young and in love. And when I imagined ours, she was in something more rustic, flowy, a flower crown in her hair or something.
I guess styles have changed since then. She quietens down and straightens up, still looking furious.
‘For what it’s worth, I’m just as unhappy about being here as you are,’ I mutter, rubbing the spot where she caught me, but also savouring the feeling of being touched after so long.
As she stands, her long auburn hair falls over her face, her mascara smudged under her eyes.
It reminds me of that scene from The Ring, but I decide not to mention it – I might be the ghost, but she’s far more petrifying than I am.
I stifle a laugh as she walks towards me, glaring.
‘You’re supposed to be dead,’ she growls.
She says it again, louder this time. I scratch my head, about to reply, but a guttural scream erupts from deep in her chest as she picks up a vase from the fireplace opposite me.
‘YOU ARE DEAD! WHY ARE YOU HERE?’ The vase flies from her hand, almost in slow motion, but just as I predicted, it misses me and instead hits the wall to my side.
She always was bad at sports, I think, tutting, as the last of the glass shatters.
‘Belles, calm down—’
‘Don’t “Belles” me and don’t tell me to calm down,’ she snarls back. ‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you? Enjoying ruining the best weekend of my life.’
‘Well, if you just let me explain …’ I say, shrugging, as she paces back and forth, her steps getting quicker.
She’s shaking her hands as if hyperventilating …
Oh, please, don’t let her have a panic attack now, I’d be useless and I’m not sure that googling ‘what to do if someone is having a panic attack after seeing a ghost’ would help me much.
‘This can’t be happening. This can’t be real! I’m getting married tomorrow!’ she pants, this time leaning forward and pausing to take deep breaths.
‘Yeah, and you’re turning into a right bridezilla by the looks of it.’ At this she turns and marches towards me … Uh-oh.
‘Why. Are. You. Here?’ she spits in my face, furiously.
I open my mouth to tell her, but the truth is, I don’t really know.
I was twenty-five when I died, too busy actually living to have really given much thought to what came after.
I just assumed you died and then your soul evaporated and that was it.
I liked the idea of heaven or life after death – who wouldn’t?
But I never expected there would be this much red tape.
The in-between limbo thing isn’t a specific place – I can move around the real world – it’s more …
the effect it has on you. I’ve been utterly numb.
To emotions, to touch, to art, to sound – nothing penetrates.
I’ve mostly spent the last decade in the back row of the Curzon, watching films I can never properly feel.
I can’t smell the stale carpets, and I have to imagine the sweet waft of popcorn or the gooey nacho cheese.
December is the worst time. The lobby must reek of mulled wine and cinnamon, and everyone’s in cosy jumpers and stamping their feet and rubbing their hands and breathing it all in, while I just sit there, watching, when outside, some guy is down on one knee in the snow and I feel …
nada. Nothing feels good, but nothing feels bad.
Life has lost its colour and I’m not allowed to move on from it.
Gabe said (we got on nickname terms after about four years) that I’d get used to it if I didn’t want to do the other thing – this thing I’m doing now – and it’s been a toss-up for a decade about which I’d hate more.
Loneliness has won, though. Honestly, it’s been shit living in a world where everyone is thriving but I’m just there, looking in.
Watching people live a life that I have lost. What I’d give to taste the stolen cola bottles from Belle’s pick’n’mix cup one more time …
I wish I’d nicked more while I had the chance.
I’ve had no one to talk to, joke with, touch. Well, no one apart from Gabe.
Gabe isn’t what I imagined for a kind of grim reaper.
He looks more like a bouncer for one of those really rough nightclubs in Soho.
He’s a big guy, roughly six foot six, and burly, with arms as thick as my legs.
His beard is well maintained, with patches of grey, and he has a shaved head.
He looks like he’d pick you up by your elbows and throw you out of heaven if you hit on a foxy archangel.
I didn’t tell him this until years later, when I was confident he’d find it funny … which he never did.
It wasn’t until after we became properly acquainted that I began to notice he has incredibly kind eyes.
They’re framed by deep-set wrinkles, so I’d age him at fifty, and that hasn’t changed (I too haven’t aged a day since I died).
He’s also a moody bastard to be around. He drags his feet when annoyed, and his low and gravelly voice booms when frustrated, which he often is around me.
His humour is catty and sarcastic, so on paper we should get on better.