Just Can't Help Believing, page 3
“How apt,” Heidi says, knocking back her last drop of wine.
“Care for a dance?” I ask, holding my hand out.
“Come on then, let’s see what all these girls see in you,” she says, getting to her feet and mock curtsying as she takes my hand.
When Amber sings the words “only fools rush in” I feel a twinge of embarrassment, and wonder what Heidi really thinks of me. “Do you find talking awkward when slow dancing?” I ask her.
“You mean doing the two together, like patting your head and rubbing your stomach?”
“Not quite,” I say. “I mean, slow dancing is quite intimate, isn’t it? So I always struggle to know what to say when slow dancing with someone who I’m not intimate with, sexually speaking.”
“Right. I’m not sure if I can make this less awkward for you then,” Heidi says. “If I were you, I’d just concentrate on making my legs move a little more. At the moment you’re moving me round so slowly I can feel myself age.”
Silence. For four seconds.
“But I’m also no fan of silence when I’m slow dancing,” I say.
“Sorry, I think I slipped into a coma briefly. You were saying?”
“I wish I could cry. I haven’t been able to cry over Grandad. Finding his body, reading the eulogy, eating Keith’s sandwiches, nothing has forced my tears to flow. It’s just not natural, is it?”
“Says who? Grief affects people in different ways. You, of all people, should know that. You don’t have to question yourself.”
“Do you believe in miracles?”
“What’s with the random questions? If this is how grief is affecting you, I’d rather you just sobbed on my shoulder.”
“I’m serious,” I say.
“Do I believe in miracles? Given what you’ve just told me, I guess I have to, if I’m still to have a job.”
“Good, because there is something you can definitely help with.”
“I’m all ears,” Heidi replies.
“Okay, so on the night Grandad died he was about to tell me a story he said would prove very valuable. It was a secret; one of such importance to him that he’d sworn not to tell a single soul. And what he planned to divulge has something to do with two books.”
“Sounds like it could be one of your Grandad’s wee jokes?”
“I really don’t think so. He was deadly serious when he said he knew about my money troubles.”
“What stopped him telling you there and then?”
“About five too many pints and the always unnecessary whisky. I was a bit all over the place,” I confess.
“What are the books?”
“One’s called Autobiography of a Yogi, and the other’s The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Google tells me they’re both about spirituality.”
“That’s what you’ve got to go on?”
“That’s it.”
“So, in order to benefit from this financial miracle, you actually need a regular miracle?”
“In a nutshell, yes.”
“And what are Amber’s thoughts?”
“I haven’t told her any of this yet. Or the fact that we’re in a financial mess.”
“What? You have to tell Amber about the business and the possible implications, Jimmy. She’s your wife,” Heidi orders, alarmed.
“That’s why I haven’t told her. I want to ensure she stays my wife. I certainly can’t afford another divorce!”
“Well, she needs to support you,” Heidi states, suddenly irate. “That’s the whole point of marriage. ‘For richer or poorer’ ― isn’t that still one of the vows?”
“Actually, that wasn’t one of our vows. Out-of-shape Elvis just asked if we’d adopt one another as hound dogs.”
“I see. You have to tell her, Jimmy. And the sooner, the better.”
“Mind if I cut in?” Amber asks, having already done so. I hadn’t noticed her song had ended and that I was circling slowly to a wretched rendition of Celine Dion’s ‘My Heart Will Go On’. (Unfortunately, so will her career…)
“Be my guest,” Heidi says. “He has two left feet and neither one has any rhythm.”
“Aw, my poor baby,” Amber says, as if comforting a child. “We’ll show her!”
She pulls my arms to rest low on her waist and presses herself against me.
“I’m sorry for the nasty things I said about your grandad. I didn’t mean any of it. It was just, you know, difficult,” Amber says, while forced to revolve at a glacial pace.
“You don’t have to apologise. I know our first three months together haven’t exactly been easy for you. But we’re okay, aren’t we?” I ask, hoping for some resounding confirmation.
“We’re more than okay. We’re perfect,” she responds, leaning in to plant a long, lingering kiss on my lips.
That’ll do it every time.
3
I wake with a start.
In my dream I was falling. It wasn’t a graceful fall, no eagle-like descent through downy clouds. It was more of an ugly, skin-shredding tumble down the side of a cliff, my fingers having finally slipped off the ledge I was clinging to.
I inhale deep into my stomach then release the breath slowly, before turning to see that Amber has already left our bed.
Something’s burning. I look to my bedside table and Grandad’s urn to provide the answer. Do ashes smell of burning? I call for Amber but hear no response, and so I decide to launch a wider investigation. Not by looking inside the urn, having quickly considered that to be a foolish idea, but by following the scent downstairs.
It leads me through the kitchen and out to the garden, where the answer confronts me angrily; a raging fireball, at the heart of which is Grandad’s chair.
I grab at Amber and pull her out of harm’s way. Then I lift a stray branch from the ground and start to beat Grandad’s chair with it, determined to bash the flames into submission.
You hear tales of people lifting cars off loved ones with their bare hands ― and other such inspirational stories where mind has won out over matter. And I so desperately want to douse these flames. Yet when the branch I’m wielding also catches fire, I realise this is one tale not likely to be heard by a wider audience.
Amber finally extinguishes the flames, using the garden hose.
“Why? Why did you do that?” I angrily ask, watching as smoke rises rapidly from the sodden remains of Grandad’s chair.
“Because the fire was getting out of control,” she replies, as though I’d missed the blindingly obvious.
“What? I meant, why did you see fit to start the fire in the first place and use Grandad’s chair as kindling?”
“For you,” Amber says.
“For me?” I shout. “For me?” Louder still.
“I read somewhere that when someone is grieving, it’s bad for them to be surrounded by things that are likely to upset them.”
“What was the book called? Tact and Diplomacy: A Fucking Idiot’s Guide?”
It’s the first time I have sworn in anger at Amber, and she recoils.
“You didn’t think it would upset me more to find my grandad’s chair alight and my wife guilty of arson?”
“I’m sorry, I thought I was doing the right thing,” she says, and there’s a momentary silence between us. “I’m sorry,” she repeats.
“Is this because you hated him?” I then ask, looking at her quizzically.
“What? How dare you! How could you even think something like that of me?”
How could I? Another question I can’t answer.
I’m walking round the garden, raking my fingers through my hair, and I don’t say a word. Not because I have nothing to say. It’s more a case of not being able to speak.
Amber is frozen to the spot. The hose is still in her hand and the water now barely trickles from it, having created a muddy pool at her feet. She has tears streaming down her cheeks, and her arms are trembling.
I go to her and use my thumbs to stem the flow from her eyes, but she pushes me away. Undeterred I try again, and again her hands move to block me. This time I lean in, gently, my hands at my side, and rest my forehead on hers.
Seconds later, I can feel myself convulsing with grief. The tears I feared I was incapable of shedding are suddenly, violently, erupting.
* * *
“Are you sure? Nothing at all?” I ask Ian Wallace, the balding but thinner half of Wallace Donnelly solicitors, as though doing so will suddenly make him remember something of vital importance.
He’s had a good thumb through the books I handed him, albeit with his glasses off. He slips them back on to say, “I’m afraid I have no clue as to what it was your grandad wished to tell you, Jimmy, and can’t shed any further light on these books, beyond that which is obvious from the handwriting inside them: these books belonged to someone else before your grandad took possession of them. Someone who was clearly fascinated by the subject matter, judging by the number of passages underlined and the notes written in the margins.”
“Someone who’s clearly going to remain a mystery at this rate,” I add despondently.
Ian Wallace, or Wally as his wife calls him, has been a long-standing friend to both Grandad and me, and my parents before us. It was Ian who, in the aftermath of my parents’ sudden death, helped Grandad pick up the pieces and build the financial and legal framework for my upbringing, so that the money and the business my parents left was there for me to inherit.
I’ve always sought his advice, on both personal and professional matters, and he’s never been judgmental. Not even when I had him handle divorce number three while the ink was still drying on the settlement for divorce number two.
He speaks with a soft Scottish lilt which exudes a calm authority, and what’s left of his hair is snow-white, matching his unkempt eyebrows. The only colour is in his nose, which appears to be afflicted by a permanent lick of sunburn. Although it’s more likely a result of the Scotch he used to enjoy whenever Grandad stopped by this office.
“I’m glad you’ve popped in,” he says, removing his glasses. “Better that we discuss this in person.” His tone sounds foreboding.
“I’ve had a look at the financials you emailed over, and I can see why you’re so concerned, especially knowing what the business means to you, what it represents. But putting emotion to one side, as we must in this regard, I’d recommend you contact an insolvency practitioner as a matter of urgency. Though I fear they’ll tell you that a formal insolvency procedure is now the only option.”
He slips his glasses back on.
“I also look the liberty of looking at your spousal support payments. I believe we can make an application for variation to the courts and seek a reduction in the amount you’re paying out. In light of the significant change in Bath Inc.’s fortunes since the arrangements were made, I’m sure we’d have a strong case.”
“I have no desire to lower the amount I agreed to pay my ex-wives,” I say as a statement of cold fact. “However unreasonable their ultimatums, I’ll always feel I failed them by choosing Grandad. That’s why I suggested paying them so much in the first place.”
Ian rests his elbows on his desk and lets his face fall into his hands, releasing a long, pronounced sigh before removing his glasses again, making me wonder if he forgets whether he has them on or off.
“Tell me you’ll at least have a conversation with an insolvency practitioner?” he pleads.
I don’t have to tell him. He already knows the answer.
“Don’t walk wilfully into the abyss, Jimmy,” I hear him warn as I head for the door, already walking.
* * *
As was the case this morning, my nostrils are alert to an unpleasant smell as I enter my house. For a split second I think that Amber may have been inspired by her pyrotechnic display in the garden and taken a match to Grandad’s room. Yet the sight of what logic tells me is my dinner on the kitchen worktop — despite it looking like a petri dish experiment — suggests that Amber has taken up cooking.
“How does it taste?” she asks, all smiles, putting a forkful of what she’s made, or perhaps dug up, into my mouth before I have time to fend her off.
“Like nothing I’ve ever eaten before. And I don’t mean that in a good way,” is what I’d like to say.
“It tastes as gorgeous as its chef,” is what I actually say.
“Really? That’s amazing! It’s the first time I’ve ever followed a proper recipe, but it was really simple, from that TV chef, Abs Fab. Just five ingredients to throw together and five minutes to cook. If it’s as good as you say, I can do more of them.”
A fearful laugh is all I can muster in response.
“Can you open the wine, baby, while I serve up?” Amber asks, bending to retrieve two plates.
By the time she straightens up, my hands are round her waist and my lips nuzzle at her neck.
“Down boy,” she giggles, but I won’t be deterred.
She turns to face me and, as we kiss, her hands grab at my belt buckle.
I lift her top, and in the split second it covers her eyes, I use my arm to scatter the contents of the kitchen worktop onto the floor, laying Amber in their place.
“My shelled bean and Swiss chard panzanella!” she shrieks, seeing our dinner strewn across the kitchen.
* * *
“Do you want the last slice, baby?” Amber asks, holding up a limp-looking triangle of takeaway pizza.
“You have it. I’ll feel a little less guilty about ruining your surprise dinner if you do,” I lie.
We’re sat cuddled up on the sofa, Amber’s gazelle-like legs entwined in mine.
The TV screen shows the face, his eyes hidden behind his trademark red-lensed glasses, of music mogul Cornelius, a man important enough to get by with only one name, like Prince, Pele, and Bert from Sesame Street.
He’s in the Sky News studio to talk about his charitable foundation, Children of Conflict, which he founded to benefit orphans of war, and the forthcoming new season of his global talent show, I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing. But it isn’t long before, as always, he’s fielding questions about the cult of celebrity and the collective of chart-topping artists he manages, known to the world as The Family.
“Fact is, we live in a world where even the President of the United States tweets his thoughts on a daily basis,” Cornelius says. “There is no mystery anymore. And mystery is what has always intrigued people.”
“It certainly does in the case of The Family,” the segment’s presenter replies, having cleverly positioned herself far enough from Cornelius so as not to suffer the consequences of the studio lights warming his huge body. “Just in case we have any viewers tuning in from Mars, I’ll quickly give a bit of background to The Family. We are, of course, speaking of KP, Target Practice, Nina Tucker, Maverick, Honour and Saint Clare; six superstars who, between them, have notched up twenty number-one singles — that’s the same number as The Beatles, by the way; fifteen chart-topping albums; and a quite staggering level of global fame. All of it achieved despite not one member ever giving a single interview.
“Perhaps even more remarkable is the fact that none of them have a social media presence. How, in this age of shameless self-promotion, has their incredible success been possible?” the presenter asks.
Cornelius smiles, forcing his cheeks to swallow his eyes. “I come from an age when the biggest names rarely, if ever, gave interviews. We knew next to nothing about them, and as a result we put them on a pedestal. These are the stars that shine brightest for longest. Every celebrity overshares these days; The Family stand out in their determination to keep their private lives hermetically sealed.”
“Let’s speak hypothetically for a moment,” the presenter says, smiling mischievously. “What price for the first interview with a member of The Family?”
“Priceless,” Cornelius smirks. “It simply won’t ever happen.”
My mobile rings beside me. “Hello, Heidi.”
“The books, I may have something on them,” she says hurriedly.
“What?” I reply, unravelling from Amber in haste and sitting upright.
“When I started to research them online my dad was looking over my shoulder, as he tends to do whenever I do anything, and he told me the strangest thing.”
“Which was?” I’m already impatient.
“That Elvis owned the same two books. But get this: Dad says that when Elvis died, the books just vanished.”
“Vanished?”
“Vanished. Though, unlike Elvis, no one has ever claimed to have seen them again.”
4
Brian O’Neill was a bag of nerves. Any moment now, he expected his wife to return home, yet the peas were still as hard as bullets. This was the first meal he had ever cooked for her, and it was a surprise too, falling on the occasion of their tenth wedding anniversary, as was spelled out on the banner he’d pinned to the kitchen wall.
He concentrated on the peas as they bubbled away in a pot, willing them to soften quicker than the laws of physics would allow. And as he leaned in further, the rising steam hit his face like a hairdryer, wetting the wisps of red hair that framed his forehead and forming damp curls that stuck to his skin like limpets.
He removed a spoon from the drawer at the side of the stove and lowered it into the saucepan, only removing it once it had captured some peas. He blew hard on them, forcing some to fall to the floor and roll away in scattergun formation. And before he got to taste those which remained on the spoon, he stopped, suddenly, remaining motionless for a second or two, as he registered the sound of his wife’s car pulling up outside.
Quick as a flash, he brought the pot of peas over to the kitchen sink, tilted it, and used its lid to hold the peas in place as steaming hot water flooded the plughole.
He then spooned the peas onto three plates, next to some blackened fish fingers and a dollop of instant mash he had dished up earlier. Then he placed a tea towel over his left shoulder, picked up a bouquet of roses, and smiled at the kitchen door.
In walked his wife. Tall. Elegant. Beautiful. Her hair and make-up immaculate, as if she’d just strolled off a movie set.
