Nick was right, if his body hadn’t been found after six days something could be wrong; this could be more than a simple accident. He couldn’t be in his hotel en suite or around a friend’s house or in a car accident; someone would have raised an alarm by now. The only alarm bells seemed to be the ones tolling in my head.
Nick spent days six and seven of his permanent business trip in death, searching online again for any more clues, with no success. Lurching downstairs as the day’s light was fading, he found me a few chapters away from finishing pride and prejudice “Has anyone called? Any news?” The hotel had called and left a message, delivering one final communication regarding his missed checkout; His belongings would be held for thirty days before being disposed of. Nick didn’t seem to bothered by this and his voice was sombre and disheartened “no pockets in a shroud I guess…” it must be a strange feeling hoping for your own body to be discovered; not knowing the atrocities that turned out to be your last. A whole life of learning and dreaming ended by something, probably mundane and disregarded, like faulty wiring or a puddle on a bathroom floor.
“What happens now then? I asked getting up to put the kettle on; this was a situation where tea was needed. “I just don’t know what I can do,” Nick replied “the police will search the room at first thing tomorrow, there must be something in there… we have to wait” I hated waiting, for things like this anyway; we knew the corner piece of this puzzle was that Nick is actually dead, we were just waiting for the living to catch up.
I got a couple of mugs out of the cupboard, marvelling at how they hadn’t broken yet with the web of hairline cracks that embellished the handles “do you want tea?” Nick joined me in the kitchen, his bottom lip was being gnawed; an idea was forming in him “I need something a little stronger, how does alcohol sit with the dead?” that was a very good question indeed, one I had never investigated. I shrugged my shoulders, but in theory we could; our minds attempt to keep reality alive, so if we drank enough surely placebo would dictate inebriation, we would make it real enough. The now, forgotten kettle clicked off with a surge of bubbles in the background; It almost sounded like a round of applause commending the idea “surely Jasmine, it would benefit mankind, if we attempted to get plastered for the sake of scientific experiment” despite the poor argument, I wasn’t going to argue “it is a question that’s plagued mankind for decades…” “…and I have a bottle of matured single malt upstairs… It was meant to be a Christmas present but… hey… who’s going to know?!”
Whisky wouldn’t do it for me “I never drank whisky; I wouldn’t even be able to pick the bottle up… how about wine?” “Red or white?” I wasn’t about to make him drink white like the sexy cat burglar “red, of course”. We thought there must have been a bottle in the house somewhere but after searching the wine rack and every cupboard in sight it appeared the house was dry.
I stood with my hands of my hips I scanned the kitchen, visually rifling for inspiration “there must be a bottle kicking about somewhere!” Nick looked just as stumped “I wasn’t meant to drink with the pills I was on, so didn’t restock the wine rack,” his eyebrows sprang up in unison with an idea bouncing into his mind “how would you feel about a little Grand Theft Vino?!” steal a bottle? “What did you have in mind?” I suspiciously asked but you could see a plot thickening in Nick’s mind like a vine wrapping around his thoughts and squeezing the information out “corner shop. Borrow a bottle. I’m guessing, if we drank it, the bottle would stay full, like the cereal boxes. We could return it tomorrow?”
It wouldn’t really be stealing, more creative borrowing “we have to keep a low profile though” one reasonable condition I imposed on this madcap scheme “with the keeper twins on the radar, we don’t want to draw any attention to ourselves” Nick agreed “quick, stealthy and painless”.
I suppose you’re only dead once…
Walking to the shop, I felt oddly exhilarated; it was like going to a miniature bank heist or something. I had never done anything like this when I was alive! I spent a moment wondering if we should have balaclavas or water pistols, or anything associated with your usual stick up. I felt like a right moron remembering I was actually dead and no one could even see us anyway. Forgetting that you’re dead is a welcome holiday from the usual macabre reality, not so pleasant when the memories come flooding back though. Crunching bones as my body tumbled down the stairs, breaking a fraction more with every collision before striking the floorboards. Seeing sticky, scarlet blood running into the grooves of the polished floor boards and my soul evacuating its fragile shell; it slapped me back to the fact I was dead. For a second I hoped Nick never remembered how he died, to spare him the feeling of dying is worth more than the curiosity of what happened to your body. Dying isn’t awful in itself but it depends how you went, and Nick wasn’t exactly ninety in his favourite tartan pyjamas surrounded by family.
It’s like when you hold your breath for as long as you can, then you go a moment longer; your pulse thumps in your ears, and you can feel the breath in your chest struggling to get out like a wild animal in a cage too small. Your head is light and the ball of gas in your lungs feels like its expanding and pressing on your ribs, but then you liberate it, and the hot air stampedes to freedom, except the cool chaser to refill your lungs doesn’t follow. Your life force, the electricity that keeps your body running like a battery, hitches a ride out on the last breath; pours out of you like effervescent steam and everything fades to black. It’s that life force that keeps the soul in a body, like an electric fence and once the life is gone and our bodies are in the ground, the soul can escape to whatever is next for it.
The street was still covered in an ashen coat of snow when we got outside. It was bizarre not feeling cold in the slightest; especially for Nick wearing just those ridiculous colourful socks on his feet with no shoes. “This is really eerie” he declared “my feet aren’t even wet or cold” “You have no body heat to melt the snow” Our rush of rebellion was paused as we passed the keepers house; we walked briskly on opposite sides of the road so to not draw attention to ourselves.
I wasn’t sure how this was going to play out and when we got the corner shop I was actually pretty nervous, irrational as it was. Then again we were ghosts going to ‘borrow’ a bottle of wine for the evening, to see if we could get drunk; the whole situation was about a nine on the surreal scale. Nick stole a glance in the window “the door has a bell, we’ll have to wait till the guy leaves the counter or someone else goes in. Shouldn’t be long” Turned out it took two hours for someone to come along; our tickets into the shop were two vagrant youths plotting to buy cigarettes before their time. We slipped in after them, lurking in the fumes of cheap aftershave and racing hormones. Nick pointed to the alcohol section, hidden in the far corner of the shop “you grab a bottle, I’ll keep watch and shout if anyone catches on” I nodded dutifully and scurried to the back of the pokey little shop, Nick’s head and shoulders could be seen towering above the isles like a meerkat watching for danger.
I needed to be quick but the choice daunted me “wine, wine, wine” I affirmed to myself surveying the choice. Although I was a seasoned professional at drinking wine, I knew next to nothing about it besides it grapey origin. I grabbed a bottle with a pretty label in front of me and crept back to Nick’s lookout. On receiving the bottle he studied the label “all the offerings of the twenty four hour off licence and you chose a £3.49 bottle?!” I had completely forgotten we weren’t intending on paying for it and picked up the special offer on residual reflex of my budgeting days, Nick gave the bottle back to me “go and grab something a little pricier!” “SNOB!” I called in jest as I descended back to the booze corner.
The cashier was asking for proof of ID from the nicotine craving rascals at the counter and they began patting their pockets and checking their wallets in false promise. We didn’t have much time and I placed the pretty labelled bottle back on the shelf silently, plucking a £15 bottle of merlot instead. Keeping the bottle low to the ground I skulked back to Nick “Is this any better your highness?” I said passing the bottle back to him for inspection “really Jasmine, this is an awful year!” I had no time to send him on the next run as the cashier was turning the teenagers away “you’ll live Nick, when the cashier turns make a run for the door” I sprinted over to the till and ducked under the divider. My eyes darted around the objects behind the counter, I needed to get his attention, Nick was watching and waving his hands at me “what are you doing?!” the door was closing and we needed to get out but the cashier couldn’t see the bottle; I needed to knock something over but I wasn’t familiar with anything here!
Picking up a bottle of wine was easy, I was more than familiar with wine; we were practically family, but I didn’t smoke, or like chewing gum or know how to use a cash register so was out of dice. Scanning the near vicinity a display of reduced chocolate bars caught my eye; now chocolate was something I could relate to. I swatted the top level of the cocoa tower, sending chocolate bars clattering to the floor in a sea of ruffled cellophane wrap “RUN!” I shouted as the cashier bent down to gather his wares back into uniformity. Nick darted out of the door, holding it ajar for me to slip though just before the bell rang.
We hid momentarily behind the bin outside so no one would see the ghostly, floating bottle of vino. Nick was cradling it like a new-born child “that was close… now we have to get it home” It was already dark when we left but the evening had rolled into night with a knavish chill in the air, the snow looked brittle, like milky glass in the moonlight. We didn’t leave footprints in the pale blanket covering the ground but still kept to the shadows to conceal our prize from living pedestrians that occasionally ambled past. A few times the bottle was thrust into a flower bed or shrub to avoid a walker’s gaze, what was intended to be a quick jaunt to the shop had taken hours. This had better work.
When we got to our street, the keeper’s house loomed dark and foreboding in the line of petite cottages. The keepers were standing in the front window, emptily glaring into the night. We crouched behind a car “shit!” I cursed “do you think they saw us earlier?!” Nick handed me the bottle of wine “run through to the back door when I give you a signal” I didn’t like the sound of this at all “signal?” he made an okay sign with his hand “what are you going to do Nick?” “Just distract them for a bit, nothing stupid” this had gone far enough now, it was just a bottle of wine; I wasn’t losing him over a nightcap
“You don’t know what they want; they could deport you or something. I’m not letting you go out there” “deport me?! You can come with me, and judging from last time that would cause even more trouble or you could get into the house and I’ll be along in a second” I don’t like either of those options! “Don’t be a hero over a bottle of wine Nick. Let me distract them, I’ve been a ghost longer… I’m older than you” a petty argument but I never was any good at arguing “how old are you?” god, this man was as pedantic as I was “I’m twenty five, but I’ve been dead for seven years” “you stop aging when you’re dead and I’m twenty eight, so I win” With that he kissed me on the cheek, winked and confidently strolled out from behind the car, in front of the keeper’s house.
For Christ sake, you stupid man! I think I’m going to have a heart attack, If I didn’t love him I would punch him right now. I peered round the edge of the car and saw the keeper’s glazed eyes, trailing Nick’s every movement into the centre of the road “evening!” he crooned, waving up to the window “I have a message for your controller… line manager… whatever is in charge…” having the twins attention, despite their frozen, indifferent faces, Nick gave me the okay and I dashed underneath the window and down the passage to the back garden, mouthing at him to please be quick as I sank into the darkness. Every inch further away from Nick I got, the faster my heart ricocheted round my body like a pinball.
I got to the house, climbed through the window and set the bottle on the breakfast bar. I stared at the window waiting for him to come round the corner, then at the clock to mark the time, and then back out the window tapping my foot with impatience. Why was he taking so long? What if they had got him and he was gone? I remembered back to when he was alive and I thought he would leave the house; it felt like years ago and it was only last week. I thought that would break my heart but losing him now would put it in an incinerator; not even a trace would be left. Things were different now, I had a claim on him; the love I used to feel paled in comparison to the vivid rainforest that had blossomed inside me. It was three dimensional now and taking over my whole body with curling branches and unfurling leaves. My lungs were working too fast and I couldn’t get enough air into me, I shouldn’t have left him.
Fuck, I shouldn’t have left him.
