Page 5 of This is Where I Leave You

“Oh god, what drugs have they got me on?” Richard thought aloud, staring in surprise at the woman walking towards him. “I mean, what a cliché!”

“Cliché am I, honey? Well I am from your imagination precious, so whose fault is that?” She sat on the floor near him and beckoned him to sit. Richard swallowed hard, running his dry tongue over his arid mouth. It felt like rubbing sandpaper on wood. He gingerly edged closer to her, and leaving a sizeable distance between them, flopped down onto his knees.

“I need a drink,” he whispered, “you would think they would keep me hydrated, stuck in a coma. That’s the NHS for you, no private healthcare when you can’t tell them who you are.”

The woman eyed Richard with a slight smile on her face. “Honey, you are dead. Not in a coma, dead. As a doornail. You understand me?”

Richard glared back, “YOU are my imagination! You said that yourself, well buzz off, I don’t want or need you here, I need to get back to my life! Who are you anyway? I don’t know you!”

The woman folded her arms over her more than ample bosoms and exhaled slowly. Looking at him with hooded eyes, she started to speak.

“Richard, honey, I am here to help you with your transition. I look like this because this is how you imagined me. You got hit by a car, and you died. You are not in a coma, you are in transition. Or the unfinished business department, as we call it up here.” She chuckled at her own joke, her hefty cleavage bobbing up and down.

“Bollocks,” spat Richard. “What’s this place then, Heaven?” he scoffed.

“No honey, that’s next, when you are ready.”

Her words sent a chill down his spine. “Ready? Ready? I am not fucking ready!! I am 34! If I am to play along with this little hallucination, then tell me, how come I can see my family down there? How come I am not a floaty ghost? And how come I just tossed that photo frame around? Huh, you got an answer for that lady?”

The rotund woman pulled herself to her feet, and straightening out her dress, she smiled at him. Which just infuriated him further. “Come on then, HOW?”

“First of all, she replied, wagging her chubby polished index finger at him, “you do not speak to me like that boy; vision or no vision, I have feelings. You can call me Gerty. No cussing, and no hissy fits. You is a grown man, and will damn well act like one in my company, d’you here?”

Richard’s eyes nearly popped out. This woman had attitude. Better not annoy her further. “Yes, Gerty.”

“Good,” Gerty nodded. “Now, as for the photo frame, the newly crossed, that’s you, they have some residual energy left from their lives. If people die suddenly, before their time then that energy buzzes around their spirit with nowhere to go. You channelled that energy because your emotional state spiked. Basically, you got ticked off, honey, and your spirit punched that frame. It will cross over with you when you go, the anger can’t. That’s why you are here, your spirit is not ready to let go.”

Richard had been shaking his head vigorously throughout. It couldn’t be true, it just couldn’t. He surveyed the strange woman in front of him. He was in a bad Martin Laurence movie, on repeat. He had to wake up.

“Richard honey, you are dead. Don’t think I can’t hear those thoughts of yours, whirling round that big fat old head of yours. I will prove it, you want a drink, think of one.”

“What?”

“THINK of a drink, go on.”

Richard puffed his cheeks out. Oh well, better humour her. At least this way he can prove he was right and get rid of her. Closing his eyes, he visualised a drink. His dry mouth watered at the mere thought of refreshment.

“Open your eyes, honey.”

Richard peeked out from behind one lid. He slumped forward, head in his hands. At his crossed feet stood a bottle of Evian, and a glass of ice, as though plucked right from his own head.

CHAPTER 8

Cady awoke to the sound of pounding. “Muurr?” she slurred, lifting her head from the pillow. She was in the spare room, legs and arms akimbo on the double sofa bed. Sitting up quickly, she gipped as a wave of nausea overpowered her. Oh Lord, she felt ill.

“When did I last eat anything?” she asked herself aloud. Stumbling out of the guest room, she zombie walked to the bathroom. Not a pretty sight, she thought, horrified as a baggy-eyed wild-haired bush woman stared back at her from behind the mirror. Impending birthday, yeah right! Cady looked like she was hurtling towards a half century, not flirty 30! She scraped her blonde straggles back into a ponytail using the ever present bobble from her wrist, when she heard pounding again. Oh yeah…what was that?

Walking into the front master bedroom she peered out from behind the curtains. The sight behind those drapes made her want to curl up into a microscopic ball and float away on one of the many dust motes fluttering around the light. Bugger! Priscilla and Cynthia, looking like two floral specials from the elderly sofa catalogue, were peering through the downstairs windows, taking it in turns to tut, mutter to each other and pound on the front door. Oh my god, what are THEY doing here! She had a phone! Cady then realised that she had pulled the landline socket out of the wall last night, and she hadn’t switched her mobile on since…..well, just since. Georgie! Shit! Cady palm slapped her own forehead. Georgina was going to kill her, and she was due back from Paris today. Double bugger.

She could not deal with this today, no chance. Peering down again to see if they had gone, Cady looked straight into the upturned podgy faces of the dumpy duo. Damn, busted. Cady sagged, waved wanly and headed downstairs to open the door.

***

An hour later, Cady was wrapped up on the sofa, tea and bacon sandwich in hand, swaddled in patchwork blankets (obviously brought from home, Richard would never have allowed such a thing to cross the front door) staring at the Kim and Aggy monstrosity that was currently tearing through her nooks and crannies.

As they worked, primping, scrubbing, dusting and bleaching everything in sight, they took it in turns to keep silence at bay, chattering away at Cady, and not waiting for a reply.

“Have your parents been in touch at all, Cady dear?”

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