Seeing Other People (12 page)

‘Mummy says she’s busy, Daddy, and she’ll call you back in a bit.’

I said my goodbyes to Jack and then the line went dead. I tossed the phone on the bed next to me, painfully aware of the truth that Penny wasn’t going to call back any time soon. The man next door had another violent coughing fit and was only drowned out by the siren of a passing police car. This was my life. And what a spectacular mess I’d made of it.

‘And so say all of us!’

A sudden whiff of perfume filled my nostrils. I looked up to see Fiona leaning against the rickety wardrobe in the corner of the room. She smiled coquettishly at me as our eyes met, almost as if she were a bashful schoolgirl and not a figment of my imagination.

Having reasoned away my previous encounter with Fiona as a one-off brain malfunction brought about by extreme stress – and therefore nothing to worry a doctor about – it was disconcerting in the extreme that she was back. This couldn’t just be written off as ‘one of those things’ like the time as a kid when I flipped a coin ten times in a row and got heads, or the time Penny and I went on holiday to Marbella in our early twenties and ended up in an apartment next door to our actual downstairs neighbours back in London. No, if this was happening again then it was officially in the realms of the weird and therefore needed a strategy for dealing with it. I just couldn’t afford to lose my mind on top of everything else. I had to stay sane. Whichever broken part of my consciousness had churned up Fiona it wanted me to engage with it, and so I reasoned that if I refused to do so there would be a pretty good chance it would get the message that I wasn’t playing ball and would give up hassling me.

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘so that’s your game now is it? Ignoring me? Do you honestly think you can do that when I can quite clearly read your mind? You really are as stupid as you look, aren’t you? You can’t escape me, Joe, unless I want you to.’

I squeezed my eyes shut. She wasn’t going to get to me that easily.

‘Actually, that’s where you’re wrong,’ she said in response to my unspoken thoughts. ‘It is going to be easy. Have you any idea how many men tried to ignore me when I was alive? Quite a few, I can tell you. And have you any idea how many of those men succeeded in their endeavour? Absolutely none. So if you think ignoring me is going to make me disappear, you can think again. You may recall that I know all the words to every song from
Madonna: The Immaculate Collection.
Do you really want me to sing them in your ear every second of every hour that you’re awake – which believe me will be all of them – because I’m game if you are.’ Just to underline her point Fiona started singing the opening lines to ‘Crazy For You’ in a voice that was eighty per cent honk, seventeen per cent screech and three per cent pure unadulterated caterwaul; exactly as I remembered it being. It was excruciating. I wouldn’t be able to last sixty seconds, let alone a whole day.

‘Fine! You win! What do you want?’

‘What do we all want, Joe? Peace, happiness, goodwill to all men.’ She strode purposefully across the room to the window and wiped her hand across the glass to clear the condensation so that she could look out, but then she glanced at her hand and pulling a face of disgust proceeded to dry it on my coat that was hanging off the back of the chair next to her.

‘Where did you find this dump? Is this really all you can afford? I know you’re broke and everything, but come on, have some respect why don’t you? I wouldn’t send my worst enemy to a place like this.’ She turned and took a few steps forward until she was only a couple of feet away from me. I stared at her as hard as I could. She could not have looked any more real than she did.

‘That’s because I am real,’ she replied clearly, doing that mind reading thing again. ‘Or at least as real as I need to be for what I have to do.’ She paused. ‘I guess you’re missing Penny and the kids right now.’

‘Of course I am,’ I snapped. ‘How could I not be?’

‘Do you think you’ll make up eventually?’

‘Why wouldn’t we?’

Fiona shrugged. ‘Who can say? We women are funny creatures. We never know what we really think about anything until it happens.’

‘But she loves me. We have a family. All she needs is a bit of time to understand that I’ll never do this again.’

Fiona laughed. ‘Says you.’

‘But I wouldn’t!’

‘Says you.’

‘You’re saying you think I would? You’re the one out of your mind, not me.’

Fiona shrugged. ‘We’ll see about that.’

‘Are you suggesting that I am mad?’

‘Those words never left my lips.’

‘So what are you saying?’

‘I’ve told you. I’m dead, you’re alive, and I’m here to save your marriage.’

I looked around the room, pointedly making a special effort to linger over the threadbare carpet. ‘Well, you seem to be doing a spectacular job so far.’

Fiona tutted loudly. ‘Joe, Joey, Joe, is that any way to talk to someone who’s trying to help you out?’

‘But you’re not helping me out, are you? As far as I can work out all you’re doing is taking great pleasure in being a one hundred per cent grade A bitch to me.’

Fiona offered me a cheeky wink that was every bit as annoying as it was hateful. ‘Why don’t we put a pin in that for another day? For now what I really want to do is talk about that night.’

‘What night?’

‘
That
night, Dumbo!’ Fiona rolled her eyes with exasperation. ‘The night you cheated on your wife.’

‘But last time we spoke you said that I didn’t cheat on Penny and that seems to make a kind of sense because I don’t remember doing anything wrong. I remember texting Bella—’

‘And that isn’t cheating?’

‘What? Sending a text?’

‘There are texts and then there are
texts
, aren’t there? And those were definitely
texts
. Would you be happy if Mrs Clarke saw those, because I can make it happen if you like?’

‘No, no, don’t do that!’

‘So, you’re not so blameless after all?’

‘I never said I was blameless. I just don’t understand why you’re here if I never actually cheated on Penny.’

‘Teaching you a lesson,’ replied Fiona. ‘Weren’t you listening last time?’

‘So you’re telling me I’m being punished for something I didn’t do?’

‘No, I’m telling you you’re being punished for something you would’ve done had I not stopped you.’

‘That makes no sense! How could you possibly know what I would or wouldn’t have done without it happening? I’ll admit that yes, I let myself get carried away for a minute with the texts. And yes, I was flattered by Bella’s interest in me but I would never have actually gone to meet Bella. I’m just not that type of guy.’

It felt like a huge relief to say these words aloud. To admit – no matter how barking – that this could actually be a reality, that I didn’t cheat on Penny, that I had been faithful after all.

‘I didn’t do anything wrong,’ I said aloud. ‘I always knew there was something off about that night. It just wasn’t like me.
I
don’t do things like that.
I
didn’t cheat on Penny!’

Fiona snorted. ‘Says you.’

‘But it’s true! You know it is!’

‘Says you.’

‘Look, just because I entertained the thought of meeting up with Bella that night doesn’t mean that I did anything wrong. I was simply trying on the idea for size for a second . . . just, I don’t know, trying to work out how I felt.’

‘Says you.’

I felt my sense of exasperation increase sharply.

‘Look, just because you keep adding “Says you” to everything I say doesn’t mean you’re right. Just because I
thought
about sleeping with Bella doesn’t mean that I
would
have slept with Bella. Penny and the kids are my world. I’d never do anything to hurt them.’

Fiona laughed. ‘Says you.’ She cleared her throat theatrically. ‘  “Is whispering nothing? Is leaning cheek to cheek? Is meeting noses?”  ’

Now I really did know that this was a hallucination. At sixth form Fiona studied maths, physics and chemistry because she thought the arts were ‘pointless’, so the idea that she might actually be able to quote lines from
The Winter’s Tale
was simply too much to believe.

‘Says you,’ said Fiona out loud as though she’d read my thoughts again. ‘I’ll have you know that I got quite into the arts after I dumped you. In fact I played Dorcas in a university production of
The Winter’s Tale
in my final year to rave reviews, thank you very much.’

It was impossible to keep her on track. ‘But what’s your point?’ I asked. ‘In the play Leontes falsely believes his wife, Hermione, has been unfaithful to him with his friend, Polixenes. The “whispering” and “leaning cheek to cheek” lines were him misinterpreting innocent actions. You haven’t made your point, Fiona, you’ve proved mine because like Hermione
I
didn’t do anything wrong.’

Fiona arched her left eyebrow disdainfully. ‘Didn’t you? Do you really think Penny would be happy with the way you’ve behaved? “Let every eye negotiate for itself, And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch, Against whose charms faith melteth in blood.’’’

‘That’s Claudio from
Much Ado About Nothing
,’ I said.

‘No,’ said Fiona. ‘That was you after your coffee date with Slag Face. You wanted her. She wanted you. Even if by some miracle you’d managed to escape her clutches that night it still would’ve happened because your ego wouldn’t have been able to resist the temptation. But we’ll get there, Joe, you and I will definitely get there.’

From behind me I heard the door slam hard. I turned around to see what was going on but the door was locked and bolted as I’d left it and when I looked back Fiona was gone.

I made a decision on the spot that this would be the last time I would ever see her. I picked up my phone and called Dr Frank Bennett.

‘Hi, Frank,’ I said when he picked up. ‘It’s Joe Clarke here from
The
Weekend
magazine. I was wondering whether you might be free for lunch at the Grange tomorrow?’

12

Every journalist worth their salt has someone like Dr Frank Bennett in their phone book, a medical expert who can be relied upon to offer an authoritative opinion on any health-related matter you care to mention.

I’d first met Dr Frank about ten years before when he was promoting his book,
I’m Sane, You’re Sane – A Light-hearted Look at the Mental Health
Industry
, and we’d hit it off so well that he’d quickly become my go-to medical expert. The last time I’d used him was when I’d needed him to make a few informed suggestions about a politician’s state of mind following a big scandal about eighteen months ago. He’d provided me with all the quotes I’d needed and the reason I hadn’t called him for anything since was because Camilla had spotted his picture in a feature of mine and commented to the entire floor, ‘He looks about ninety-three!’ After that I’d used Dr Caroline Westbury for all my medical quotes, a funky-looking twenty-seven year old with a look of Angelina Jolie.

‘How have you been keeping?’ asked Dr Frank between wheezes as we sat down to lunch. ‘I’d assumed you must have forgotten my number. It must be a couple of years since we last spoke.’

‘That can’t be right,’ I bluffed breezily. ‘And if it is then it’s something we’ll have to get around to correcting. But for now I have a few questions I need to ask you in relation to a sort of hush-hush feature I’m working on at the moment: it’s about a guy I’ve met who’s been having hallucinations.’

This was my plan to get rid of Fiona once and for all. Rather than go to my GP and run the risk of having an official note made on my permanent record or being sectioned on the spot I’d reasoned that the next best thing would be to fake an interviewee for a feature, attribute my exact symptoms to them and see what a medical professional of Dr Frank’s calibre might have to say about the situation.

‘So,’ mused Dr Frank, once I’d given him a rough outline of the facts, ‘you say this young man is seeing things?’

‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘His dead ex-girlfriend to be precise.’

‘And is it significant that it’s his ex?’

I shrugged. ‘It’s hard to be exact. It’s been over twenty years since they were together but she did die not so long ago and he did attend the funeral.’

Dr Frank nodded sagely. ‘Was it a long-drawn-out death? I mean was she ill?’

‘No, it was very abrupt. An accident. But they weren’t in touch at the time or anything.’

‘And so this young man believes that he can see her?’

‘Yes, he does, he’s seen her twice now.’

‘And does she talk to him?’

‘Yes,’ I replied, shifting in my chair. ‘She talks a lot.’

‘About what exactly?’

‘Well, apparently, she’s mainly very offensive towards him, calling him names and so on. Oh, and claims she’s a ghost.’

At this Dr Frank’s brow furrowed until it resembled a corrugated roof.

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I see.’