Desperately Seeking Heaven - Jill Steeples

Скачать книгу

my front door that night, it was a huge relief to find that Jimmy was still there and to be greeted by the most delightful cooking smells wafting from the kitchen was an added bonus.

      ‘Ah, you’re home! Good day?’ Jimmy welcomed me from the kitchen doorway wearing black chinos, a tightly fitted white T-shirt, my pinny and a big grin. Simple but dazzlingly effective. He looked as if could have just wandered off a film set, the sight sending a ripple of excitement fizzing along the length of my body. His gaze appraised me and his mouth parted as if he were about to say something before he obviously thought better of it.

      ‘New clothes?’ I asked, dropping my gaze. Either that or he must have had an account with a Chinese laundry somewhere.

      ‘My old clothes,’ he said, matter-of-factly.

      ‘Really? What, did you go back for them or something?’

      ‘No. I got them sent over,’ he said casually, as if this was indeed the Heavenly Hilton. My brow furrowed in confusion as I looked for clarification. ‘I couldn’t stay in those old things, the whiff of diesel and cow pats wasn’t a great combination so I, um, willed them over,’ he added. ‘A new start and everything.’

      ‘You willed them over?’ I gave a nervous giggle. ‘How did you do that exactly?’

      Jimmy laughed too, turning his attention back to the frying pan.

      ‘Well, I’m not sure about the technicalities but in the same way that I can transport myself from one place to another, I can do the same thing with projecting an alternative form of myself. This is my casual weekend look,’ he said with a wry grin. ‘Do you like it?’

      ‘I do,’ I said, sounding like a star-struck fan, but still struggling to get my head round what he was telling me. ‘So you don’t actually change your clothes at all. I’m just seeing what, a different version of you?’

      ‘You got it!’ he said, as though that was a perfectly reasonable explanation. If it wasn’t for the seriously impressive magic tricks then it would have been easy to forget that Jimmy was a ghost. He was such a vibrant, larger-than-life force occupying my flat and now my head and part of my heart too.

      ‘Something smells good.’ My nostrils picked out the aromas of garlic, tomatoes and onions. ‘You didn’t need to go to all this trouble.’

      ‘It’s the least I could do after everything you’ve done for me. It’s just pasta with a tomato sauce. I hope that’s OK?’

      ‘Sounds perfect,’ I said, accepting the glass of chilled white sparkling wine he was offering. Our glasses chinked, our eyes meeting as we took a sip together, the bubbles on my tongue matching my own fizzing excitement. ‘What about you? How was your day?’

      ‘Yeah, not bad. Although I missed you, Alice.’ His expression was deadly serious, but his eyes twinkled with mischievousness. ‘I did a bit of cleaning.’ He gestured around him at the gleaming surfaces. ‘I hope you don’t mind?’

      ‘No.’ I shook my head in amazement. ‘Anytime you get the urge, you go straight ahead.’ I laughed, feeling a pang of guilt that he’d had to resort to getting the duster out. I couldn’t see him sticking out this new role for long. Going from being a feted celebrity to my domestic lackey didn’t seem like the best career move in the world.

      In my own flat, I felt redundant wondering what I should do next. I looked around at the uncharacteristically spotless living room and settled myself on the sofa, trying not to mess up the careful display of cushions. For some reason, I felt vaguely nervous as though I was waiting for a job interview.

      ‘Can I help at all?’ It was a half-hearted offer, but one that went a small way to making me feel better. I slipped off my shoes and kicked them under the coffee table, trying for relaxed.

      ‘No,’ he said, turning and giving me an indulgent smile. ‘It’s all under control. Just sit back and enjoy.’

      ‘So where did you learn to cook then?’ I asked a bit later, when we were sat at the table tucking eagerly into the tagliatelle. I hadn’t realised how hungry I was.

      ‘At uni. I had a few months living off pot noodles, and then decided, for the sake of my health, I needed to learn a few basic dishes that included some green stuff. Thinking about it, I needn’t have worried. Could have stuffed myself silly with burgers, fries and beers.’ He gave a wry shrug. ‘Funny how you spend a lot of time sparing yourself for the future when in a lot of cases there won’t be a future. Let that be a lesson to you, Alice.’ He pointed a friendly finger my way ‘Get out there and live your life to the full, young lady. And eat as many burgers and fries as you want to.’

      I laughed, my insides squirming uncomfortably at the further reminder of Jimmy’s perilous condition.

      ‘Hmm, trouble is, knowing my luck, I’d do exactly that, put on sixteen stone, become an alcoholic bag lady and live to 105. Very old, very fat, drunk and lonely with no one to care for me.’

      ‘Now that is hard to imagine. But you know what I’m saying, don’t you?’ There was a sincerity in his voice which was hard to ignore. ‘Make the most of what you’ve got, your time here because it could all be over in an instant.’ He clicked his fingers in the air. ‘Work out what’s important to you and go for it.’

      I twirled my pasta around my fork, absent-mindedly. That was easy for him to say but then I guessed he had the benefit of hindsight; he was looking at it from the other side. Literally. Like a lot of people, I had a vague idea of the things I wanted from life, but most of those I had pencilled in for some time in the future. But what if my future were to be cut short, like Jimmy’s? A feeling of unease tempered with impatience niggled along my veins.

      ‘Do it, Alice, before it’s too late,’ he said, as if reading my mind. ‘It’s all too easy to put things off, but my advice to you is to go out there and grab life with both hands. And it’s not things like your career and money that are important, you know that. It’s your friends and family.’ He paused. ‘Your relationships.’

      I laughed, looking up into his eyes.

      ‘Oh dear, you’re beginning to sound like my mother. And my sister.’

      ‘Really? I’m in good company then. What is it they say exactly?’

      ‘That I should get our more. Start dating again. I think they’d like to see me settled with someone. It’s been a while since Mike.’

      ‘Mike?’

      ‘Yeah, he was my last serious relationship. We were together for about five years and everyone thought we would have the Happy Ending, but it wasn’t to be. We sort of fizzled out.’ I laughed without a smidgeon of self-consciousness. It was such a long time ago now it was almost like talking about another person. ‘That’s not strictly true. Not so much a fizzle as an explosion when I found out he was cheating on me with a couple of other girls. I haven’t really got back into the dating scene since.’

      ‘His loss, definitely,’ said Jimmy, looking at me intently from beneath long dark lashes. ‘There’ll be some good guy out there for you, Alice. Someone you can be happy with. You’re such a great girl, you deserve to be happy, but you need to get out there and find him. Take it from me, you don’t have as much time here as you might think.’

      ‘I suppose you’re right,’ I said with a pang of regret. It felt so easy to be talking with Jimmy, safe and reassuring as if I could tell him anything and he would never judge me in any way. Perhaps that was because I knew he wasn’t of this world. That we had something special and sacred that would only ever exist between the two of us. How many conversations did we have left, I wondered, before Jimmy would leave our strange twilight world forever?

      ‘That’s what they say, isn’t it? You don’t get to your deathbed wishing you spent more time in the office. Was there someone special in your life?’ I probed again. ‘Someone you wished you’d spent more time with.’

      ‘No, sadly not.’ Now it was Jimmy’s

Скачать книгу