Heaven Can Wait Read online

  I thought about my parents, their arms wrapped around each other and hopeful, welcoming looks on their faces, and then I thought about Dan – Dan who’d find my dead, naked body on the upstairs carpet, Dan who’d gather me into his arms and say my name over and over again as he cried and rocked me back and forth.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered to the up escalator. ‘I love you so, so much, Mum and Dad, and all I’ve dreamed about for years is one more chance to see you both, to hold you, to tell you I love you, but …’ – I wiped a tear from my cheek but another quickly took its place – ‘…but I’m not really dead. Not yet. Bob’s giving me a chance to have my life back and Dan’s all alone and he needs me. You understand that, don’t you? We’ve got another chance to be happy and I think you’d want that for me. But I’ll be back. One day I’ll come back and we’ll all be together and—’

  ‘Lucy?’ Bob said. ‘Everything OK?’

  I shoved him out of the way and sprinted towards the down escalator before I could change my mind. ‘Thanks for everything but I’m going back to my flat now.’

  Bob was quicker than Linford Christie after a bad burger. He darted in front of me and stood in front of the down escalator, arms spread wide.

  ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘You can’t take this escalator until I’ve explained everything to you.’

  ‘What’s to explain?’ I said, trying and failing to squeeze past him. ‘If I go down that escalator I’ll be reunited with Dan. You said I could see him again, you said—’

  ‘No I didn’t,’ Bob said like a petulant child. ‘I said you’d better come with me. I didn’t give you your options.’

  ‘Which are?’

  ‘You can go up to heaven, be with your parents and wait for Dan to die, or return to earth as a member of the living dead.’

  ‘A WHAT?’

  ‘A member of the living dead.’

  I opened my mouth to speak, then closed it again as I took in what Bob had just said.

  ‘I can only go back if I become a … a … zombie?’ I said finally.

  Bob held up a hand. ‘We prefer the term living dead, Lucy. Anyway, you’d go back to earth as an undead and complete a task that would allow you to become a ghost. Only then would you be reunited with Dan.’

  The only way I could be with Dan again was as a ghost?

  ‘Lucy,’ Bob said, ‘are you OK?’

  I shook my head, totally unable to speak. If I went up to heaven I’d have to wait for Dan to die which, if he lived to a ripe old age, meant I wouldn’t see him for … I counted on my fingers … fifty-one years! I really was dead. I was a dormouse, a stiff, a corpse, a dodo, a doornail, a … hang on, something didn’t quite make sense …

  ‘Why can’t I just become a ghost?’ I asked. ‘Why do I have to be a zombie first?’

  ‘Living dead,’ Bob snapped.

  ‘Whatever.’

  ‘In order for someone to become a ghost, as stated in clause 550.3,’ Bob said, clasping his hands behind his back and looking very officious all of a sudden, ‘the deceased must perform a suitable task for the good of humanity.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Hmm,’ he said, reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out what looked like a black, plastic calculator. He pressed a few buttons, sighed and pressed a few more.

  ‘You,’ he said, looking up at me, ‘would have to find love for a stranger who had never been in love before.’

  That was it? All I had to do to become a ghost was find someone a boyfriend?

  I’d match-made some of my friends when I was alive. OK, so none of the relationships had ever worked out, in fact one of my friends had said I’d mentally scarred her for life after her date with a taxidermist I’d met on the train, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t do it. I’d just been unlucky.

  ‘How long would I have?’ I asked.

  ‘Twenty-one days.’

  ‘Are you kidding me? Three weeks to find someone the love of their lives? It took me twenty-two years to find Dan.’

  Bob shrugged. ‘Twenty-one days is the standard term, Lucy. Any longer than that and wannabe ghosts get too settled on earth. It can be very traumatic if people refuse to go to heaven when they fail to complete their task.’ He glanced in the direction of the grey-faced people behind us. ‘Traumatic and busy.’

  I felt bad for getting pissed off with the people who’d bumbled around me outside Bob’s office. They were obviously shell-shocked by what had happened to them. Not that I could blame them. I’d just been told I could have a go at being some kind of celestial Cilla Black and it still didn’t feel real.

  ‘I’ve got another question,’ I said.

  Bob nodded.

  ‘If I go back to earth as one of the living dead and pass my task I’ll become a ghost which means I can be with Dan again …’

  ‘Yes,’ Bob said. I had the distinct impression he was getting a tiny bit sick of me.

  ‘Can I go to heaven afterwards?’

  He shook his head. ‘If you decide to become a ghost, that’s it. If you choose to haunt a building you have to remain on earth for as long as that building exists. If you haunt a person you’ll be a ghost for as long as the person is alive. You can only go to heaven when they die.’

  ‘Oh God!’

  ‘Ssh, he might be listening.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Do you need to think about what you want to do?’ Bob asked.

  I nodded vigorously. ‘Can I have five minutes?’

  ‘You’ve got all of eternity,’ Bob said, ‘but I’d rather you were a bit speedier than that. You can use my office if you’d like.’

  I sat down heavily in the chair opposite Bob’s and put my head in my hands. It just wasn’t fair. My life had been going so well. OK, so my graphic design job was a bit tedious. I’d left art school dreaming of designing funky magazine covers and cutting-edge packing and I’d ended up designing boxes for supermarket own-brand washing power and leaflets for conservatories. Then there was the fact that our living situation wasn’t ideal. The house was tiny and had a dodgy boiler that kept cutting out in the most freezing part of winter, leaving us cold and smelly for days on end. And I didn’t have any living relatives, but I had friends, and I had Dan. Dan who’d promised to love me for ever. All I did was try and find a present for him that would put a big goofy smile on his face on the most special day of our lives, and God decided that was the perfect time to kill me off. How fair was that? It’s not like I wanted too much from life. I just wanted to get married to the man I loved, have a half-decent career, and maybe have kids one day. Was that too much to ask?

  A pang of guilt shot through me as I remembered the last time Dan had seen me alive. I’d pushed him away when he’d tried for one last hug and then I’d ranted at him about not helping out with the wedding. And then … oh God … I hadn’t even bothered to say ‘I love you,’ as he left, and he’d driven away thinking I was angry with him. That was his last memory of me.

  ‘Lucy?’

  I looked up. Bob had poked his shiny bald head round the door. He looked vaguely apologetic.

  ‘Sorry to hurry you, but there’s a bit of a backlog of new arrivals waiting in limbo. Have you made a decision?’

  I sat back in the chair and looked Bob straight in the eye.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I have.’

  ‘OK,’ said Bob, ushering me out through the door. ‘What’s it to be?’

  ‘I really, really want to see my parents but I can’t go up to heaven without seeing Dan again,’ I said. ‘I can’t spend the next fifty years wondering if he’s OK. I need to be with him, Bob. I need to say sorry and let him know I love him.’

  ‘Is that your final decision?’ Bob asked, looking the tiniest bit disappointed. ‘It would make the paperwork so much easier if you just went to heaven.’

  ‘It’s my final decision,’ I said, sounding a lot more confident than I felt and a tiny bit like I was a contestant on a bizarre heavenly game show.

  ‘OK,
Lucy.’ Bob thrust a large brown envelope into my hands. ‘Everything you need is in here and if I’ve missed anything, I’m sure your new housemates will be able to fill you in.’

  I stared at him. ‘What housemates?’

  ‘Lucy, you’re about to join the House of Wannabe Ghosts. You’ll meet your housemates soon enough.’

  I clutched the envelope to my chest as Bob slid a key into a small slot in the front of the down escalator. When the red and white striped barrier slid back, he held out his hand. ‘Good luck, Lucy. See you in twenty-one days.’

  ‘Thanks, Bob,’ I said, squeezing his hand tightly.

  My heart, if I still had one, bounced in my chest as I stepped forward and grabbed hold of the handrail.

  ‘Don’t forget,’ Bob shouted. ‘You can come back whenever you want. You don’t have to stick it out for three weeks. The instructions are in the manual.’

  ‘Manual!’ I shouted back. ‘OK! Got it!’

  The escalator juddered and I nearly ran back up the steps. What the hell was I doing? Who did I have to find love for? And would Dan really be pleased to see me if I became a ghost?

  The escalator whirred and clunked and carried me down into the thick green mist. I was going back to earth and there was no turning back.

  Chapter Five

  Day One

  ‘Ow,’ I said, rubbing my nose and stepping back. ‘What the hell?’

  The escalator had stopped suddenly and I’d just charged head first into a white, painted door. With no handle. I stared at it for a couple of seconds and then tentatively tapped it with my toe. When nothing happened I knocked politely.

  ‘Hello?’ I said.

  No answer.

  ‘Hello?’ I said, knocking harder. ‘It’s Lucy.’

  When there was still no answer I started to feel a bit scared. I was far too unfit to run up a down escalator for a start. I had to get through the door. There was nowhere else to go.

  I thumped the paint with both fists. ‘Oi! Let me in!’

  The door swung open revealing a tall, thin, middle-aged man with a mop of curly dark hair and a thick moustache below his large nose. He was wearing cords, an acrylic, lemon-coloured jumper and white socks with leather sandals.

  ‘Can I help you?’ he said.

  ‘I’m Lucy,’ I said, waving my envelope in front of his face. ‘Bob sent me.’

  The man rolled his eyes and sighed. Not exactly the warm welcome I’d been hoping for.

  ‘Right,’ he said, stepping back. ‘You’d better come in.’

  I took a step forward and immediately hit my head on a clothes rail. Coat-hangers, each one holding a pastel-coloured jumper or a pair of pale cords, jangled noisily as I stumbled forwards.

  ‘Mind the shoes,’ barked the man.

  Beneath my feet were pairs and pairs of neatly arranged brown sandals, each set containing a pair of balled white socks. I was in a wardrobe and, from the look on the face of the man in front of me, it was his.

  ‘All right,’ I said, taking a step back. ‘Keep your hair on. I didn’t know it was your wardrobe.’

  ‘Just hurry up and get out.’

  I ducked my head, jumped forwards, tripped over my feet and sprawled head first onto a grubby sheepskin rug. It smelled like overboiled veg.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, scrabbling back to my feet and staring around wildly. Where on earth was I?

  A bedroom. Yes, definitely a bedroom. And a very nerdy one at that. In the corner of the room was a single bed with a Thomas the Tank Engine duvet cover. Beside it was a bedside table stacked high with books. Every wall was covered with posters of trains; there wasn’t an inch of uncovered wallpaper.

  I was just about to comment on the décor when the wardrobe door shut with a bang. Train Man was staring at me, his hands on his skinny hips. His skin wasn’t peeling off and he didn’t walk with a limp, but he was still the most singularly unattractive man I’d ever laid eyes on.

  ‘Are you a zomb … living dead?’ I asked.

  ‘Yesssssssssssss,’ he said slowly. ‘I am.’

  I looked him up and down and chewed on my fingernails. Just because he looked human, it didn’t mean I did too. I looked down at my hands. They looked pink and soft, but that didn’t guarantee my face wasn’t hanging off. I patted my face to check for blood or drool.

  ‘Something wrong?’ asked Train Man.

  ‘I’m not sure yet. Have you got a mirror?’

  Train Man nodded and rummaged around in his chest of drawers until he found a shaving mirror.

  I held my breath and peered into it.

  OK, so I still had brown hair, blue eyes and angular eyebrows. I hadn’t grown a preposterously large forehead and my mouth wasn’t hanging down in a groaning zombie kind of way. The dark circles under my eyes freaked me out for a couple of seconds before I realised I’d removed my concealer before I had a bath. Phew. I was still me. A little bit peaky without make-up, but attractive in a forgiving light.

  I handed the mirror back. ‘Thanks … er …’

  ‘Brian. I’ll introduce you to Claire and then show you your room.’

  There was another woman in the house. Thank God. Maybe she’d be someone I could talk to; a friend who’d understand how I felt and who’d tell me what the hell was going on!

  Brian bumbled out of his bedroom and I followed him into a narrow corridor. The carpet in the hallway was as grubby as the one in the bedroom. Where it wasn’t threadbare, it was decorated with huge, orange swirls. The woodchip walls were off-yellow and peeling and through an open door at the end of the corridor I could see a sink. It was grey with limescale and looked as though it hadn’t been cleaned for years.

  I was just about to ask if there was a second bathroom when Brian stopped at a closed door and knocked. ‘Claire, we have a visitor.’

  ‘Door’s open,’ shouted a female voice. ‘I won’t bite.’

  Brian snorted and turned towards me. ‘That depends on how close you get.’

  I took a step back as he turned the door handle. Claire obviously wasn’t the only one you shouldn’t get too close to. Brian smelt worse than a pig in a sauna.

  ‘Are you coming in or what?’ shouted the voice.

  I shuffled into the room after Brian and stood, slightly nervously, by the door. The room was filled with thick smoke, a stomach-churning mixture of cigarettes and incense sticks, and the walls were plastered with posters of a band I vaguely recognised. I say vaguely because black and red lipstick kisses were plastered over the lead singer’s face; only his eyes and wiry, blonde hair were still visible. The floor was covered in clothes, most of them black, with the occasional dash of red or pink. In the corner of the room, sitting cross-legged on a single bed, was an overweight girl dressed in black leggings, an oversized crocheted jumper, army boots and a pink tutu. She looked at me through narrowed eyes. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Lucy Brown.’

  ‘Claire.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you.’

  ‘Whatever.’

  Nice, another lukewarm welcome. Actually, it was worse than lukewarm, it was downright arctic.

  It was hard to tell how old Claire was because she was plastered with make-up, but I guessed she was about eighteen. Her foundation was so pale she looked ghoulish and her eyes were piggy small beneath thick, black eyeliner and super-thin pencilled-on eyebrows. A black crocheted top revealed her bra strap and thick crêpe bandages around each of her wrists. She caught me looking and sighed. ‘Oh goody, we get to play the death game again.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, trying and failing to avert my eyes from her wrists. ‘What game?’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘We swap stories about how we died and the person who died in the most tragic way is brought back to life.’

  I caught my breath. I’d died the night before my wedding. How much more tragic could you get? Maybe I’d win and—

  ‘Jesus, you’re gullible,’ Claire cackled. ‘Look at your face. Aw, so sweet and hopeful.’

  I
looked desperately towards Brian but he shook his head. ‘There’s no death game, Lucy. Claire thinks she’s being funny.’

  ‘Well I laughed,’ she said, sneering at Brian. ‘Anyway, I committed suicide and he had a heart attack.’ She tossed back her pink dreads. ‘Your turn.’

  ‘I broke my neck,’ I said, ‘falling of a stepladder.’

  ‘Oops.’

  I glared at her. ‘On the night before my wedding.’

  ‘Really?’ she said, looking me up and down. ‘And I thought you were on your way to a toga party.’

  Bugger, I’d totally forgotten I was still wearing the bloody sheet. I folded my arms across my chest and tried my best to look nonchalant but Claire kept sniggering.

  ‘OK,’ said Brian, raising his arm to guide me out of the room and subjecting me to a whiff of his evil armpits, ‘I think the introductions are over for now. Cup of tea, Lucy?’

  I nodded. Even stinky, sandalled Brian’s company was more appealing than Psycho-Goth-Cow’s.

  ‘See ya, Bride,’ she shouted as I hurried out of the room.

  ‘See ya, Goth,’ I muttered as I shut the door behind me. Not my wittiest comeback ever.

  I followed Brian across the hallway and down the rickety, uncarpeted stairs to what passed for the kitchen. A rusty stand-alone oven coated with grime leaned against one wall and a sink full of dishes cluttered the other. Every single work surface, apart from one, was covered with crumbs, dishes and empty food packets. What should have been a bowl of apples in the middle of the kitchen table had wrinkled into a bowl of what looked like old men’s testicles.

  ‘Sorry,’ Brian said, sweeping a pile of newspapers and magazines off one of the plastic-backed chairs and onto the floor. ‘It was reasonably clean when I got here. Then Claire moved in.’

  I shrugged in sympathy and glanced at the tea-stained cups on the table in front of me. There was something thick and mouldy growing in one of them. It vaguely reminded me of the first meal I cooked for Dan (a particularly unsuccessful Thai green chicken curry).