No Dress Rehearsal Read online

  Well, she had to go for a drink after that. Just to show that she was able.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Half an hour later she met Shane in the pub. He was a normal, nice-looking man. She was surprised by how good it was to see him. She was glad she’d made the effort to come out. She tried to remember why they’d broken up, and couldn’t.

  Sinead had a small stable of ex-boyfriends. For some strange reason she was still on speaking terms with them all. She didn’t know how she’d managed that. Everyone else she knew spat when they mentioned an ex.

  Maybe because none of her boyfriends had mattered that much to her. Oh, she’d liked them and all that. But not one of them had been The One.

  Of course, she’d thought some of them were. When she’d first been going out with them. But it had always turned out to be a case of mistaken identity.

  To be honest, Sinead wasn’t even sure if she could be bothered hoping to meet The One any more. She was weary from the whole business. And look at the misery it brought to poor Lizzie, hanging around with that Neil. He was a decent enough man – she wasn’t saying otherwise. But he was also thirty-three going on sixteen and very slow to make a commitment. She couldn’t be doing with that.

  Sinead was a romantic. But not really in the hearts and flowers way. More in the broader sense of the word. She dreamt about travel and adventure. Of freedom and excitement.

  And she had no doubt in her mind that it would happen for her. At some stage. But at the moment her life was more about doing the immediate things. Buying her dad’s birthday present. Washing her clothes. Hiding the grey that had the cheek to start appearing in her hair. These things had to be done. And when she was on top of everything, then she could start making her plans.

  Of course, she didn’t go round thinking this. Not out loud, anyway. But humming away at the back of her mind were thoughts of another life.

  Once, a couple of years back, Sinead and Lizzie had gone to get their fortunes told. And the tarot reader had told Sinead that she’d find true love and happiness in a foreign country. Lizzie had got all excited about it. She urged Sinead to jack the job in and go off on an adventure. But Sinead clung to her demanding job and her awful flat with the noisy head-the-ball living upstairs. “You can’t move countries just because some old biddy with a deck of cards says you should,” she insisted.

  “I know, but you want to go,” Lizzie pleaded. “Why don’t you go and have a look? Even if you decide to hate it, at least you’ll have found out.”

  “It’s low self-esteem,” Sinead had laughed. “Because I’m not worth it!”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  At midnight Lizzie decided she’d better go to bed. But Neil still hadn’t returned. In the cold, lonely bed, she lay staring into the darkness. There was no hope of getting any sleep. She was too worried. She had a horrible feeling that very bad things were about to happen.

  Where was Neil? He’d never done this to her before. He was a decent fella. But where the hell was he? Was he with someone else? In bed with someone else?

  No, she couldn’t believe that. They’d had a row, that was all. Okay, so they’d had lots of rows lately. But he loved her. He’d told her he loved her. Only that very morning.

  “I just don’t want to get married,” he’d said. “We’re fine as we are.”

  “But … but what would be the harm?”

  “I love you,” he’d said. “You’re the woman for me. But I’m not ready for all that business. Buying a house. Having babies. Not yet.”

  “But you’re thirty-three!”

  “I still feel too young. Come on, Lizzie, we’ve a good life. We have a good laugh. Let’s enjoy it!”

  “But …”

  And then she’d said no more. Best not to push him too far.

  But it looked like she might have pushed him too far. The alarm clock by her bed clicked as each second ticked by. Each tick sounded as loud as the crack of a whip. She decided she was getting a digital clock. At least they were silent.

  She kept switching on the lamp to check the time. One o’clock. Half-past one. Ten past two. Each time, her panic got worse.

  At five past three she heard a key in the lock, then a thump as a shoulder pushed the front door. Thank God! Thank God! He was home.

  He barged into the bedroom and turned on the light. His eyes were wild.

  “Where were you?” she asked. Her voice shook.

  But he just stared around the room, not really looking at anything. His eyes slid over her. As if he couldn’t see her. Then, as she smelt the drink from him, she understood. He was jarred.

  “Still not talking to me?” she asked. “Even though I’m worried out of my mind.”

  She watched his mad eyes fix on a pile of clothes on a chair. He picked a jumper off the top of the heap. It was one of hers. Then he sank onto the bed. As she watched in disbelief, he pressed his face into it. Was he going to puke? On her good jumper?

  But he didn’t. Instead Neil took a deep breath and inhaled the smell of the wool. That threw her. She hadn’t a clue what he was up to. But whatever it was, it was very odd. She eyed him, as he rocked back and forth, the jumper to his face.

  After a while he got into bed, then turned off the light. Seconds later, in the darkness, she heard a noise from him. Again she thought he might be about to puke. Until she realised that he was … surely not? … crying?

  The sound broke her heart.

  “Let’s be friends,” she said softly. She couldn’t be doing with this fighting. She moved across the sheets and pressed herself up against his back. But he shivered like a wet dog and drew away.

  Badly hurt, she moved away again.

  She thought she’d never be able to sleep as she was far too upset. But she did doze off. And when she woke up, he wasn’t beside her. Terrified, she hopped out of bed and ran around the flat. There was no sign of him anywhere.

  Of course, Lizzie wasn’t to know that the night before Neil had rushed over to her parents. To try to comfort them and himself. And that after he’d come to bed and nodded off, he’d only managed two hours sleep. At five a.m. he jerked awake. Wide awake, yet he still felt like he was in the middle of a horrible nightmare. When he went to the kitchen to boil the kettle, he found he couldn’t bear being alone in the flat. Especially because he didn’t really feel alone. Not after he’d found a fresh butt in the ashtray. Who had smoked that? Neil didn’t smoke. Neither did Lizzie. Lately, anyway. So who’d smoked it?

  Suddenly all his neck hairs were standing on end and he was pulling on clothes and racing back to her parents.

  Lizzie knew none of this. All she could see was that he was gone again. Misery wrapped itself around her like a heavy, grey cloak. Things were much worse than she’d realised. He’d never behaved like this before.

  Panic rose in her throat. She had to talk to him. This had to be sorted out once and for all. She decided to ring him at work as soon as she got in herself.

  Half-heartedly she got ready for work. Then she did her daily ritual of standing on the weighing scales. This was to see if the cycling was having any effect. But instead of whizzing up to nearly ten stone, the needle on the scales didn’t budge. Even when she bounced up and down, it stayed stuck at nought. Broken, she thought, like everything else in my life.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Neil and Lizzie weren’t the only ones who’d had a bad night’s sleep.

  Sinead had spent eighty-nine minutes between three and five a.m. worrying about all the work she had to do the next day. She got back to sleep but awoke exhausted.

  By eight o’clock she was at work. The phone rang at ten past. Who could be ringing so early? Ginger probably. Telling her he couldn’t remember how to breathe. Or asking her what side he parted his hair on. But it wasn’t Ginger. It was Neil. What did he want?

  “I’ve some bad news,” he said.

  Now what could that be? Had someone scraped the side of his car? Had Man U lost last night?

  “It’s Lizzie
,” he said. And immediately Sinead stopped her sarcastic thoughts. She felt a sudden and terrible fear.

  “She was in an accident yesterday,” Neil said.

  “Where is she?” Sinead was already pawing for her bag. “Which hospital? I’ll go now.”

  “No.” Neil said. “You can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because … because she’s …”

  Dead. What a funny word it was, Sinead thought, calmly. Dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead. It was a good word for dead. Because it sounded so dead.

  Neil was mumbling into her ear about removals, funerals. But she wasn’t really listening. Her gaze was drawn to the floor beneath a filing cabinet. Look at how dusty it was. Thick with it. I suppose there wasn’t enough space to get a brush beneath it. That’d be why it’s so dusty, she thought.

  “I’m at her parents,” Neil said.

  “I’m coming over.”

  As she was leaving, Ginger was just arriving.

  “Where are you going?” he asked in alarm.

  “Lizzie died,” she said, trying out the new and strange words. Then she decided to try it another way to see if it felt any more real. “Lizzie is dead.”

  Ginger stared at her. “But where are you going?”

  “To see her mammy and daddy. To help them and Neil with the arrangements.”

  “When will you be back? We’ve that big load of ball-bearings coming in today.”

  Carefully Sinead repeated, “Lizzie is dead. I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

  “Er, right. Make sure you have your mobile on.” Then, too late, Ginger remembered his manners. “Sorry for your trouble,” he muttered.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The morning was very misty as Lizzie cycled to work. She had to swerve more than once to avoid hitting people. They kept stepping out into her path, as if they couldn’t see her. Puzzled, she put it down to the mist.

  At the office she said a gloomy “Good morning” to Harry the porter. But he point-blank ignored her. Her throat ached with the onset of tears.

  Clearly something was in the air. Brenda, her secretary, had her head on her desk and was crying for Ireland.

  Further down the hall Lizzie spotted her boss, Julie. Was she imagining things or did she look very sad and grim? In fact there seemed to be an air of misery around the place that wasn’t quite the same as the usual air of misery. It had a different, deeper feel to it. Hey, Lizzie thought sarcastically, has somebody died?

  When she pushed open the door of her little office, she stopped short. To her surprise, there were two people already there. They looked like social workers. The man had a beard and a brown hairy jumper. The woman had frizzy, purple hair and earrings that looked like she had made them herself. And probably out of milk-bottle tops, at that.

  “Excuse me,” began Lizzie, but the male social worker stopped her.

  “Hello, Lizzie,” he said gently, “my name is Jim. Why don’t you sit down. I’m afraid this may come as a bit of a shock.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Please, Lizzie, it’s better if you sit down,” said Jim.

  Shakily she did so. “Is it Neil? Has something happened to him?”

  “No, Lizzie, I’m afraid it’s you.”

  “ME?”

  “Yes, Lizzie.” Milk-bottle-top woman spoke for the first time. “By the way, I’m Jan. Haven’t you noticed anything … well … a little bit odd yesterday and today?”

  “No,” Lizzie said stoutly.

  “Really?” Jan sounded like she didn’t believe her.

  “All right, things have been a bit strange, I suppose,” Lizzie admitted, though she didn’t want to. “But only because I was in shock from falling off my bike.”

  “Lizzie, I’m afraid that when you fell off your bike yesterday, you died,” said Jim.

  “Well I admit I was embarrassed,” Lizzie said. “But anyone would be.”

  “No, I don’t mean that you died of embarrassment,” Jim said. “I mean that you died. That you are now dead.”

  Lizzie started laughing. “Ah, come on!”

  “Lizzie, your reaction is quite normal.”

  Lizzie’s patience snapped. This nonsense had gone on long enough. “What the hell are you talking about?” She raised her voice. “Who are you? Who let you in here?”

  “We are what you might call your welcome committee,” Jan said. “Our job is to welcome you to your new place. To sort out any little problems that you might have while you settle in. And nobody let us in here. We don’t have to be let in, we can appear anywhere we like.

  “Not that I’m showing off,” she added hastily. “That’s just the way it is.”

  “I don’t know what drugs you’re taking, I swear to God I don’t.” Lizzie had enough on her plate with a runaway boyfriend. She felt quite unable to deal with these two oddballs. Leaping up from her chair she ran to the door and called, “Brenda.”

  “No, don’t do that,” Jim said nervously. Oh dear, he had seen all this before and it still upset him. Even after all these centuries.

  “Brenda!” Lizzie cried again. But Brenda – who was now typing with red eyes and sniffing and snorting like a rhino – seemed not to hear.

  “BRENDA!” Lizzie shook her secretary’s shoulder. She couldn’t believe it when Brenda shivered like a jelly, but didn’t react in any other way. She didn’t even turn around. She simply continued typing.

  Bloody hell! Lizzie had always known that Brenda wasn’t too quick on any uptake, but it was almost like she had gone into a trance.

  Right then! Time for the heavy guns! Angrily Lizzie marched down the hall to Julie’s office. No better woman than Julie. She’d sort out these two trespassers, if anyone could. After a brief knock, she pushed the door open. Julie was having a discussion with Frank, another senior member of staff.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt,” Lizzie said, “but we’ve got a problem, Houston.”

  Lizzie’s voice trailed off as she noticed several things all at once. Firstly, she noticed she was being completely ignored. Secondly, she saw that her diary was open on the desk. Julie was saying to Frank, “We’ll cancel all the meetings she was due to have this week. Then we can brief Nick and let him take over …”

  “What are you doing with my diary?” Lizzie’s voice was thin and high with outrage – and fear. “And why are you cancelling all my meetings? And giving my cases to Nick? I mean, what the hell is going on around here? Well?” she demanded.

  Their heads remained bent over her diary. They didn’t even look up.

  “Well?” Lizzie demanded again, but she had started to shake.

  “How did that door open?” Julie murmured, crossing the office. She stood before Lizzie, looked her right in the eye – and right through her. Then shut the door firmly in Lizzie’s face.

  For a few stunned seconds Lizzie stood, her nose almost touching the wood-veneer door. She’d been sacked. Hadn’t she?

  But a horrible suspicion was growing in her mind. Getting bigger and gathering force. Something was going on. And she had an idea that, whatever it was, it was far worse than being sacked.

  Panicking, she turned on her heel and ran down the hall, stopping at every office on her way. The same thing happened in each case. No one could see her and no one could hear her. When she laid her hands on people they shuddered and shivered.

  Wheeling around in sweaty terror, she started back up the hall. The feelings of fear and nausea were starting to make sense.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  She burst into her office, and found the two ghostly social workers still sitting there.

  “I’m sorry you had to go through that,” Jan said sadly.

  “No one can see me,” Lizzie screeched. She was no longer a successful insurance manager but more of a dead fishwife.

  “That’s because you’re dead,” Jan agreed.

  “I’m not dead, don’t be so stupid! How could I be dead?You pair of eejits, coming in here, talking
crap …”

  Jim and Jan let her have her little rant. They were used to this sort of thing. All part of their day’s work. It was as well to let her get her anger out of the way. Then they could talk calmly.

  After a ten-minute tantrum, Lizzie paused and said sharply, “Why do you say I’m dead? Prove it to me.”

  Jim and Jan looked at each other, then Jim gave Jan the nod. You tell her.

  “Didn’t you notice Death the Grim Reaper standing by the accident yesterday?” Jan asked.

  And once Lizzie thought about it, she did remember a tall, gloomy-looking man hanging around the accident scene.

  “Well, yes,” she admitted, “but I thought he was a student collecting for Rag Week.”

  “In July?” Jan asked with gentle humour.

  “And no one could hear you on the phone last night,” Jan reminded her.

  “The phone is broken,” Lizzie said quickly. Too quickly.

  “It’s not. It was working fine when your father rang Neil to tell him you’d died. And that business with the weighing scales this morning. Spirits don’t weigh anything, you see.”

  “How did you know about that?” Lizzie demanded. And then, suddenly everything became clear.

  “So that’s why Neil didn’t speak to me and …”

  “Yes,” Jan cut in kindly.

  “Oh thank God,” Lizzie sighed. “I just thought he didn’t love me anymore. And that explains why no one saw me this morning …”

  “Exactly.”

  Then the truth began to hit.

  “But I don’t want to be dead,” exclaimed Lizzie.

  “Oh really?” Jim studied some papers on the desk. “Did you or did you not say to your boyfriend on 12th April at 7.38 a.m. ‘I hope there’s a bus crash and I’m killed on the way to work’?”

  “But everyone hates their job,” Lizzie protested.

  Jim continued, “Did you not just say to Sinead about the break-up of her relationship on January 27th at 9.04 p.m., ‘Life’s a bitch.’?”