Heaven Can Wait Read online

  It was shocking, really. I’d lived in London for six years and I still couldn’t read a bloody map. How many times did I get lost on my way to Computer Bitz? Too bloody many, in fact, I was fairly certain I was still lost … Oh! … 113. At last!

  I wrenched the door open and my jubilant grin immediately slipped. In front of me was the steepest staircase I’d ever seen. I swiped my brow with my jumper sleeve and groaned. If I got any hotter I’d drown in my own sweat. I looked back at the stairs. No, it was fine, I could do it.

  I stomped up, step after step after step, until there it was, finally, the door to Computer Bitz. I glanced at my watch: 2.59 p.m. Right on time. If I was lucky the receptionist might take pity on me and let me have a sit down and a glass of water before my interview. I might even have time to pull a comb through my hair and transform myself from bedraggled stink-pot to efficient web designer.

  I took a deep breath, pulled open the door, and fixed my mouth into the ‘nicest’ smile I could manage.

  ‘Hello,’ I announced. ‘I’m Lucy Brown.’

  A roomful of blokes stared back at me. I’d never seen so many men with long hair, beards, glasses, or a combination of all three and they were all gawping at me like I’d just beamed down from Planet Woman. The only clean-shaven bloke with short hair and no specs was wearing a Red Dwarf T-shirt.

  Get Smegged indeed.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I said to the nearest beardy bloke. ‘I’m Lucy Brown. I’ve got an interview with Graham Wellington at 3 p.m.’

  Beardy peered at me through his curtain of thick hair.

  ‘Just around the corner there,’ he nodded. ‘I think Graham’s on the phone.’

  I drifted around the corner, horribly aware I was being watched by dozens of pairs of eyes. Oh my God. Archie was somewhere in the room. If I just shouted out his name he’d react and I’d know who he was.

  But I couldn’t do that. Silly idea.

  If I started screaming ‘Archie, Archie’ at the top of my voice he’d probably flee through the nearest exit and I’d never get to play Cupid. I had to play it cool.

  ‘No,’ bellowed a loud northern voice that made me jump, ‘you’re wrong. I’m the expert on voice-activated software, not you.’

  In front of me, leaning casually on a wide desk, was a middle-aged, ginger-haired man with a generous potbelly hanging above black trousers that were a size too small. His face was so red he looked as though he was about to burst something, and not just his trousers.

  I cleared my throat politely.

  Belly Man looked me up and down. ‘Yes,’ he said into the phone, ‘that would be acceptable. Now, if you’d just suggested I take charge of the marketing at the beginning of the conversation we would have saved each other a lot of valuable time.’

  ‘Lucy Brown,’ I mouthed. ‘I’m here about the—’

  ‘Sit.’ Belly Man gestured for me to sit down in one of the chairs lined up against the wall in front of the desk.

  I sat, feeling like I was about to be told off by the headmaster at school. Belly Man snapped his mobile phone shut and lowered himself into his chair.

  ‘Graham Wellington,’ he said, beaming at me across the desk. He had the whitest teeth I’d ever seen.

  I squirmed in my seat and tried not to look unsettled. ‘I’m Lucy. I spoke to you earlier.’

  Graham leaned back in his chair and folded his hands behind his head. I almost expected him to put his feet up on the desk and let out a massive yawn. He didn’t. Instead he said, ‘Ah yes, the nice Miss Brown.’

  ‘That’s me.’

  ‘Sooooo, Lucy …’

  Here it came – the first interview question and probably one I didn’t know the answer to. Blag-head on, Lucy, I thought. Put your blag-head on.

  ‘Do you like wine, Lucy, or beer?’

  ‘Wine,’ I shot back without a moment’s hesitation. A strange question, admittedly, but at least it was one I knew the answer to.

  Graham shook his head. ‘Wrong! Here at Computer Bitz we like a nice pint of beer after work. But the question is, should we make an exception for you, nice Lucy Brown?’

  Hmmm. Obviously a trick question, but what was the right answer? I’d just have to chance it.

  ‘I think you should make an exception for me, yes,’ I said. ‘Equal opportunities and all that.’

  Graham smirked. ‘Ooooh’ he said. ‘Equal opportunities. Very feminist. Are you a lesbian, Lucy Brown?’

  If I was a cartoon character my eyebrows would have flown off my face and danced above my head. Somewhere in the office someone snorted with laughter.

  ‘Just joshing, Miss Brown.’ Graham leaned forward and peered at me from across the desk. ‘A sense of humour is important in this job. You do have a sense of humour, don’t you?’

  ‘Well yes,’ I said. ‘Of course. Ah ha ha.’

  I continued to titter, unsure when to stop until Graham interrupted me.

  ‘We do have another member of staff of the female variety, but she works from home. Accountants, eh? Number-munchers, the lot of them.’

  ‘Number-munchers,’ I tittered. ‘Oh yes, very funny. Very good.’

  Graham nodded and looked pleased. Thank God.

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘tell me a little about yourself, Lucy.’

  Finally, a proper interview question. I’d even rehearsed this one on the tube, lies and all. I reached across the desk and handed Graham a plastic sheet containing my fake CV and a CD and print-outs of various websites I’d found on the net. None of them had a ‘designed by’ tag at the bottom so I was pretty certain I could get away with claiming they were mine. Finders-keepers and all that.

  ‘Well,’ I began as Graham flicked through them, ‘I’ve designed websites for everyone from bands to estate agents to photographers to crane firms to actors to—’

  Graham held up his hand. ‘Not the boring stuff, Lucy. We all know you can do the web stuff.’

  Do we, I thought. I don’t.

  ‘Tell me about you,’ Graham continued. ‘Tell me the juicy stuff.’

  ‘I’m … ’ What the hell could I say? I couldn’t tell him I was a dead almost-bride, my fiancé thought I was mute and I lived with a train-spotter and a goth and …

  ‘I’m single,’ I lied.

  Graham nodded encouragingly. ‘Go on.’

  ‘And I like reading, dancing and singing karaoke, although I’m not very good at singing, and I like going to the cinema and the pub. I love going on holiday, particularly beach holidays.’

  I glanced across at Graham. Was I saying the right thing? He cracked his knuckles, stood up and walked round the desk. He was, I realised with a sudden lurch of horror, heading for one of the seats next to me.

  ‘So,’ he said as he sat down, his generous thigh pressed against mine, ‘tell me about these beach holidays.’

  His aftershave was overwhelming. It smelt like a mixture of musk, pepper and oranges. I cleared my throat. ‘What would you like to know?’

  Graham scratched his head, revealing the cufflinks on his shirt sleeves. Silver handcuffs. Uh-oh. I stared at the carpet and tried hard not to look too alarmed.

  ‘What do you like to do on beach holidays?’ Graham asked.

  Oh God. If I’d been at any other interview I would have made my excuses and left. In fact, I probably would have left the minute Graham had made the lesbian comment, but I desperately needed the job. I had to get it so I could get to know Archie. It was the only lead I had.

  ‘I like the beaches,’ I said, ‘and I like swimming and sunbathing.’

  Graham leaned towards me. He was so close I could count the sweaty pores on his nose.

  ‘Do you skinny-dip, Lucy?’ he asked, almost blinding me with his glow-in-the-dark teeth.

  OK, now was the time to tell him to sod off and run away. Fast.

  ‘No,’ I said instead. ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Shame,’ he said, looking down at my chest, ‘you’ve got a fine pair.’

  Thwakkk!

 
My open palm made contact with his cheek before I knew what I was doing. Graham jumped back, clutched at his jaw, and stared at me, his eyes wide.

  ‘Um,’ I said, standing up. ‘Um.’

  And then I ran round the corner, out of the door and down the stairs. I didn’t stop running until I was halfway down the street.

  Then I shouted, ‘Fuckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk!’ at the top of my lungs.

  Chapter Ten

  Drink, I thought as I pushed open the door to the White Horse, my favourite pub in the whole of West Hampstead and just a stone’s throw from my old house … and my new one. Drink lots. ASAP.

  ‘Glass of dry white wine please,’ I said to the first barman that caught my eye. ‘Large one.’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘Hard day?’

  ‘You could say that,’ I sighed.

  I carried my drink to the darkest corner of the pub and sat down heavily in a chair. What was I going to do? Who slaps their potential boss during the most important interview of their life? Me, that’s who. I’d totally screwed up my task and it was only day three.

  I could ring up and apologise, but there was no way a grovelling ‘sorry!’ would change anything. The chances of Graham replying, ‘Oh, how lovely, an apology. I don’t think you’re a psycho-bitch from hell any more. Want a job?’ were less than nil.

  Oh shit, oh shit, shit, shit. What had I done? How the hell was I going to get to know Archie now? I didn’t know anything about him apart from where he worked.

  I rested my head in my hands and stared around the pub. It hadn’t changed at all since I’d last been in with Dan. The walls were still panelled with dark wood, the oak floor sticky with spilt beer and the beams so low Dan had to duck his head when he walked in. Unlike the harsh, bright glare of a wine bar, the White Horse was dimly illuminated by wall lights topped with dusty crimson shades and wine bottles stoppered with candles on the tables and window sills. There was something very calming and warm about the pub’s dark nooks and crannies, where you could hole yourself up with a drink and remain undisturbed for hours. That was probably why Dan and I had spotted so many famous people in the pub. It was somewhere to hide. Not that there was any sign of Pete Doherty or Sadie Frost at the moment, but the regulars were in, as usual. Sleeping Man was in his favourite corner, his mouth open, half a pint of bitter on the table in front of him. Shopping Woman was sitting at one of the round tables in the middle of the room, two bags of food at her slippered feet. Bob the Talker was, as always, propped up next to the bar, being ignored by the bar staff. Despite the horror of my predicament it was good to be back in my local. It made me feel safe. I’ll just drink and people watch, I decided as I took another sip of wine, until I’m drunk. There was nothing I could do about the Archie situation anyway. It would have to wait until day four.

  The bell above the door chimed loudly and I looked up. Wine slopped in my glass and I nearly dropped it. Anna and Jess had just walked in.

  My Anna and Jess. My best friends in the whole world.

  I watched, open-mouthed, as they made their way to the bar. They both looked great. Jess, who was my best friend at uni, worked as a make-up artist in the theatre. She was exactly as I remembered her – short, cute and messy – her black hair pulled into an untidy ponytail, fixed in place with a silver clip, a black pinafore dress over a white T-shirt and a pair of ridiculously clumpy boots on her feet. And she looked happy. Things must be going well with Stuart, I thought. Excellent.

  Jess looked great, but it was Anna who really made me gawp. Her hair was shorter and sleeker than normal. Her blonde curls had been replaced with a straight, smooth bob that curved under her jawbone. She’d also swapped her boho flowing skirts and loose, off-the-shoulder tops for smart jeans, heels and a fitted blue top with a low neckline that showed off her impressive cleavage. She looked magnificent, there was no other word for it. All the men in the bar dribbled into their pints as she angled herself through the crowd and pressed her bosom against the bar. Wow, I thought, I wonder if she’s got a new man?

  I’d met Anna at one of Dan’s friend’s parties three years before and we’d clicked immediately. She made me laugh my arse off and she was the most singularly fascinating person I’d ever met. She’d worked as a lap-dancer for a year after university to fund a trip around the world where she’d swum with dolphins, lived with a Nepalese family, worked in a Romanian orphanage, trekked the Inca Trail, and learned four languages. Then she’d returned to London and wangled herself an amazing, high-paid job in the city.

  Right before I died, she’d been on a hunt for a sperm donor. She was obsessed with getting pregnant before she hit thirty-five and the old biological clock had started to tick, loudly. But Anna wasn’t looking for a husband. In fact, she wasn’t even looking for a boyfriend.

  ‘I’m done with men,’ she’d said when her eighteen-month relationship with Julian ended when she found out he was cheating on her. ‘More trouble than they’re worth. I don’t need one to have a baby. I just need the sperm.’

  She’d even created a list of ‘must-haves’ in her potential sperm donor which included:

  1) Nice face

  2) Height (no shorter than six foot, no taller than six foot five)

  3) Intelligence (degree absolutely necessary, IQ over 135 preferred)

  4) Sense of humour

  5) Warm and passionate personality

  6) Close group of friends

  7) Good health (very, very important)

  8) No sexually transmitted diseases (obviously)

  Anna’s plan was to find the right man, date him for long enough to find out if he met her criteria, get him to agree to go to a STD clinic to be tested before they had sex for the first time, and then claim she was going on the pill. She would then have sex with him until she got pregnant and break up with him (without telling him about the pregnancy). Then she’d stop answering her phone, ‘disappear’ from his life and go through the pregnancy alone.

  Jess and I had tried to talk her out of it, but when Anna set her heart on something, that was it – there was no stopping her. She’d get it – no matter what it took. She’d given everything a go in her quest to meet the perfect man. She’d tried speed-dating, Internet-dating, dark dinner dates (‘too freaky’), singles zoo dates, singles balls (‘too many balding Hooray Henrys’) and danger dates (‘the roller coasters mess up your hair’), but no one matched up to her ideal.

  I stared at her as she and Jess wound their way through the crowd, drinks in hand. Had she found someone since I died? Was that why she’d changed her image?

  Oh my God. They were walking towards me. Maybe they’d actually recognised me—

  No. The two men at the table nearest to me were draining their pints and Anna and Jess hovered beside them. One of the men clocked Anna as he stood up.

  ‘Hello, sexy,’ he said, adjusting his tie.

  Anna sneered down at him. ‘Dream on, loser.’

  ‘Your loss,’ the man shrugged.

  ‘Only if I lost my sight,’ Anna fired back. ‘Have you looked in the mirror recently?’

  Jess giggled as the men walked away. She sat down with her back to me, but she was so close I could smell her perfume. She’d worn the same sweet, flowery scent for years, and it had become synonymous with her in my mind.

  I shivered. I was sitting this close to my best friends and I couldn’t say a thing to them. The bloody mutism rule meant I couldn’t even tell them how much I missed them.

  ‘So,’ Anna said, leaning towards Jess, ‘how are you?’

  Jess fiddled with her hair clip. ‘Not bad. I’ve been working on a new production of As You Like It. It’s been mental and some of the actresses have seriously pissed me off, but there are more important things in life than work. I’ve been thinking about that a lot since …’

  She looked at Anna who finished her sentence. ‘Lucy died.’

  ‘Yeah. Things have changed since she died. I’ve changed. Me and Stuart have changed. We’re so much closer now.
’

  Anna’s expression softened. ‘I know what you mean about changing.’ She touched her hair. ‘When my hairdresser asked me if I wanted to try something different I said yes. I felt like I’d changed after Lucy died, and my style didn’t match who I’d become. Does that sound weird?’

  ‘Yes and no,’ Jess said. ‘I wasn’t really talking about changing superficially, Anna, I—’

  Anna laughed. ‘Are you saying I’m superficial?’

  ‘Not at all,’ Jess said hurriedly.

  ‘I miss Lucy,’ Anna said, stroking the rim of her wine glass with a manicured finger. ‘Did you know she always used to ring me every Sunday morning at ten o’clock? I told her not to ring me until the afternoon because I like a lie-in, but she kept on doing it. It used to annoy the hell out of me, but I miss it now. I keep waking up at ten o’clock on Sunday, but the phone never rings.’

  Oh. Oh, Anna. My wine caught in my throat and I swallowed it quickly before I choked and drew attention to myself.

  ‘Have you seen Dan?’ Jess asked. ‘I keep meaning to give him a ring, but I don’t know if I should.’

  ‘Actually, I rang him a couple of days ago,’ Anna said, putting her drink back on the table. ‘He said something really freaky had happened and he needed to talk to me about it. We’re having a drink in here on Thursday night.’

  Me, I thought, almost jumping out of my chair. I was the freaky thing. He thought he saw me outside the house. That’s why he wants to talk to you, Anna. Thursday, I mentally repeated. Come back to pub on Thursday. Oh. My. God. I’d get to see Dan again.

  ‘I’m so glad you’re meeting up with him,’ Jess said. ‘When I spoke to him at the funeral I got the impression he didn’t really want to talk to anyone.’

  Anna sighed. ‘Yeah, well, you can’t really blame him, can you?’

  ‘I suppose not.’

  They fell silent again and Anna fiddled with the stem of her glass. It was strange seeing the two of them alone. It had always been the three of us on a night out, or me and Anna or me and Jess. They got on brilliantly when we were all together, but they never met up without me. It was like their friendship didn’t really exist if I wasn’t there. It was good to see they were getting to know each other at last.