The Memory Game (3 page)

I follow them to
the nurse station and watch as they haul Bethany
onto the bed. It’s not really a nurse station – we don’t have a school nurse –
but, for some reason, everyone calls it that. Really, it’s just a tiny room
with a bed and a first aid kit in it. Mostly, it gets used for stuff like this,
like in the summer when kids faint in the heat during assembly or get knocked
on the head playing hockey. Miss Jacobs loosens Bethany’s
tie and undoes the top buttons of her shirt.  Underneath, Bethany’s
neck is covered in purple and black marks that sort of look like fingerprints
and Miss Jacobs seems to go white as she looks up at Mr Bauer. Neither of them
says anything about it.  

‘Could you get
some water, please?’ Miss Jacobs asks Mr Bauer. 

He nods and
leaves the room. Miss Jacobs looks down at Bethany
with a helpless expression. It’s sort of beautiful,
though,
sad but hopeful, like she’s desperate to do something to make things better for
her.  Of all the people who saw my body after I died, nobody looked at it
like Miss Jacobs looks at Bethany Willis now. If Miss Jacobs had seen me after
I died, would she have given that look to me?

Bethany’s
eyes start to open but she can’t seem to focus and she’s groaning
slightly.  Then her gaze settles on me and her eyes open wide as she tries
to clamber up the bed away from me.

I shrug. ‘I was
just having a laugh.’

Bethany
shoots a questioning look at Miss Jacobs and then looks back at me. Miss Jacobs
turns around but she doesn’t see me.

‘Are you
alright, Bethany?’ Miss Jacobs’
voice is small and
tweety
, like a bird. It’s a bit
like her - dainty and cute. I always fancied Miss Jacobs. She’s so nice to Bethany,
even though she must think Bethany
is a freak. Everyone thinks Bethany
is a freak, I don’t see how the teachers can be any different.

Bethany
nods slowly, trying her hardest not to look at me, though I can feel her gaze
pulling my way like it’s on a fishing wire.  My eyes travel to the marks
on her neck and Bethany must
realise that it’s bare and fumbles with her top buttons to do them up. Now I
know that she can definitely see me and hear me properly.

‘I’m ok now,
Miss,’ she says, looking away from me. ‘Can I go back to assembly?’

‘I don’t think
that’s a good idea,’ Miss Jacobs says kindly. ‘Perhaps we should phone your dad
to come and pick you up?’

‘No!’ Bethany
almost shouts. Miss Jacobs raises her eyebrows slightly in surprise and then Bethany’s
voice goes quiet again. ‘I don’t want to go home, I’m fine now.’

Miss Jacobs
watches Bethany for a moment, her
expression thoughtful. ‘Did you hurt yourself over the weekend?’

‘What do you
mean, Miss?’

‘You seem to
have some bruises…’

‘Yeah, I bruise
easily, Miss.  I fell over and hit myself on the end of my bed.’

‘Funny place to hit yourself.’

‘It was a funny
way that I fell, Miss.’

Miss Jacobs
pauses. ‘So… there’s nothing you would like to talk about?’

Bethany
shakes her head forcefully. ‘No, Miss.’

‘You’re sure?
Because whatever you tell me will be in absolute confidence.’

‘I’m sure, Miss,
there’s nothing. Can I go back to assembly?’

Miss Jacobs
looks at her watch. ‘Assembly is nearly over, Bethany.
Perhaps we’ll go to the canteen and get you a drink and a bit of air? Then you
can go back to your lessons.’

‘Will you stay
with me in the canteen, Miss?’ Bethany
asks, glancing at me.

‘If you like.
But, Bethany,
we will have to tell your parents what happened.’

‘You mean my
dad?’

‘Sorry, your dad.’
Miss Jacobs looks a bit
embarrassed. 

‘It’s ok,
Miss.  People forget all the time.’

Mr Bauer comes
back with a glass of water. ‘You’re up, then?  How are you feeling?’ He
hands Bethany the glass.

‘Better thanks,
Sir,’ Bethany says, taking it from
him and sipping. ‘Can I go now?’

‘Canteen?’
Miss Jacobs asks.

‘Don’t worry, I
won’t follow you in there,’ I say to Bethany.
She tries not to look at me. I shrug. ‘I didn’t mean to make you faint.’

‘Yeah, canteen,
Miss,’ Bethany says, ignoring me. I
suppose she can’t reply, though. I suppose that might make her look like she
really isn’t alright at all to Miss Jacobs and Mr Bauer.  ‘You’ll stay
with me, won’t you?’ she asks Miss Jacobs. ‘I don’t want to sit on my own.’

‘Of course I
will,’ Miss Jacobs replies.

Bethany
shoots me one last glance as she clambers unsteadily from the bed.

Sitting on the wall in the yard I
can’t get Bethany Willis out of my head.  The rain comes down like darts
from the leaden sky but I’m not wet and I’m not cold. I can smell cooking meat
coming from the canteen.  I suppose they’re getting started on dinners. I
don’t feel hungry but the smell sets me longing for something that’s gradually
fading from my memory. Lots of things are starting to fade.  I wonder if
that’s what happens when you die – that you don’t go straight away but
gradually disappear from existence like dust blown away on the wind. Maybe all
this is normal.  Maybe this is what happened to Dad. If it did, where is
he now? Has he gone on or is he wandering around somewhere different to me?
Like maybe we’re all in parallel dimensions or something, because I haven’t
seen any others like me all the time I’ve been dead.  Then again, how
would I know for sure they’re like me if I did see them?  And how would
they know that I’m like them? Maybe we do see each other and just don’t talk
for fear of being wrong.

Bethany
could see me, for sure. How come?  She is definitely not like me; she was
talking to Miss Jacobs and Miss Jacobs could see her.  It’s been two or
three weeks (I wish I could remember) and not another soul has looked at me,
spoken to me, even got a chill down their spine as I entered the room. 
I’m like a walking memory.  Is Bethany Willis a real-deal version of the
medium woman in the village? I should try to get her alone and find out. Maybe
she’ll talk to my mum for me.

I go to the
window of the canteen and peer in.  The walls of the canteen are covered
in green tiles and all the surfaces are dull silver, apart from the plastic
tables and chairs; it’s about the least inspiring place to have your dinner
that you can imagine.  Bethany
is still sitting in there with Miss Jacobs.  She’s twisting her fingers
around each other and staring into a glass of water while Miss Jacobs watches
her carefully. Miss Jacobs says something and Bethany
looks up.  She casts her eyes towards the window as she replies and I duck
out of sight
sharpish
. If my heart was still beating
it’d be going like a trip-hammer. I don’t want her to see me now for some
reason, even though I wanted to talk to her.  I almost feel like I’m the
freak now.

My head inches
up above the windowsill again.  Miss Jacobs is walking out of the canteen
and Bethany is sitting alone
now.  She checks her watch and drags herself up from the table. It looks
like she still feels unwell. I wonder whether to nick in now to try and talk to
her again, but I don’t think I’d be able to deal with her fainting all over the
place and it’s not like I could go and fetch anyone. I couldn’t even waft her
to bring her round, seeing how I don’t even stir the air when I move. So I
watch her leave the canteen.  She throws one last look back at the window
and I shift out of the way but I think she saw me.  When I dare to check,
she’s gone.

I don’t know what to do about Bethany,
so I go and look for Ingrid instead. I don’t really know why. It hurts like
hell, this wanting her, worse than it ever did before. You’d think being dead
would change that but it doesn’t. I suppose it’s because now she’s even more
unreachable than ever before, and even if she did notice me for one solitary
second, there’s nothing I could do about it.

 I find her
with Matt behind the temporary science block. The science block consists of two
parallel buildings that run alongside each other with a narrow corridor in
between and the roof of each sort of juts out so that it’s dry under there when
it rains. It’s meant to be out of bounds, but loads of kids ignore that. Matt
and Ingrid are together under the roof now and there’s nobody else around.
 If anyone was there before, Matt probably told them to get lost; he likes
to think that it’s
his
spot.  I stop and stare at them as the truth
smacks me in the face. I’ve never seen them so much as talk to each other
before, though they are definitely not talking much now either.  
Ingrid and Matt?
That
git
.
 He was supposed to be my best mate. She’s
the reason I was on that road in the first place, bombing round delivering
papers at the village. I know I had an argument with Mum but she had never
wanted me to do the paper round in the first place. But I wanted to get some
money to take Ingrid out. I figured that Ingrid isn’t the sort of girl that
will settle for a bag of chips and a night at the swings, so I was going to
take her somewhere out of the village, somewhere nice.  Matt told me she’d
never say yes and to sack the paper round and hang out with him instead. 
No wonder he was telling me to forget it, he knew that he was going to move on
her and get her. I can’t decide how I feel about this; does that make him a
friend or a backstabber?’

 He’s got
his arms folded tight around her neck, trying to suck her face off by the looks
of things. I get up right close to them and try to be menacing, or at least give
them a cold shiver that they can’t quite explain, but… nothing.  I step
back and watch as they mash and sigh, wishing I could throw something.
Eventually, he lets her breathe. She throws her hair back and bats her lashes
at him.

‘The funeral was
the worst,’ he says quietly, glancing at her with that shifty look that I’ve
seen him use on girls before. He knows that she’s soaking up every line and
he’s loving
it. Before, I would have thought it was
funny.  But this is Ingrid…
my Ingrid
.

‘It was a horrible
day,’ she says. ‘I cried for ages and my face was a right mess.’

‘You still
looked amazing,’ he says.

She smiles and
her face just lights up. Score one to Matt.

‘Do you miss
him?’ she asks.

He nods, all
serious. ‘It’s a weird thing, losing your best friend.  It makes you feel
sort of… disconnected.  You realise that life is short and you have to
grab every precious moment.’

‘Like this one?’
she says, walking her fingers up his arm.

He pulls her
closer. ‘Like this one…’  He doesn’t look very disconnected as he tries to
eat her tonsils again.

‘You shit!’ I
snarl. ‘I can’t believe you’d use my death to pull Ingrid!’

‘I had no idea
of what you’d gone through,’ she says to Matt in a voice that sounds like
melted chocolate. ‘I feel like I want to make it all better for you.’

‘You are,’ he
says as he
snogs
her again and his hand slips under
her shirt to find her bra strap.  She grabs it and moves it back to her
waist but she doesn’t seem too worried about where his other hand is going.

If I had
anything in my stomach I’d throw up over the pair of them.  I’m totally
stalking him from now on and if there are any ghost powers I
will
learn
to use them on him.

I think about
watching them some more but then realise that it’s actually a bit creepy. The
rules are different now, I suppose, but I don’t really know what they are
anymore.  Just suppose I followed Ingrid home now and watched her take a
shower, would that be wrong?  After all, she wouldn’t have a clue I was
there and it’s not like I could jump on her, so would it matter? But now I
think about it, I realise that those are exactly the reasons why there’s no
point in following her home. I start to wonder about Bethany Willis
again.  If she can see me and hear me, can she touch me too?  It
would be nice, to feel someone’s skin on mine again.  Not in a
pervy
way… definitely not with Bethany Willis anyway, but
some contact with someone would help to fight this feeling that everything that
once made me is slowly drifting apart.

The school bell
rings and Ingrid jumps away from Matt.

‘We should go
in,’ she says, tucking her blouse back into her skirt.

‘Meet me later?’
he asks.

She chews on her
lip and looks at him thoughtfully, her eyes wide.  Oh God, she looks so
good when she does that it almost kills me again. 

‘Don’t go!’ I
shout. I know she can’t hear me but I can’t help it.

‘Ok,’ she says
finally. ‘What time?’

‘Are you
completely stupid?’ I stamp my foot at her.

As I do this,
she looks in my direction. My heart skips.  She’s heard me? Is that all it
takes, for me to really need something to make it happen? But her eyes are
blank and they’re not seeing me at all. My stomach lurches at the realisation.

‘About seven?’
he says. ‘I’ll call for you.’

‘Where are we
going?’ she says as she swings her bag onto her shoulder.

Matt shrugs.
‘I’ll think of somewhere,’ he grins.

They both go in
separate directions for their next lesson and I just stand there in the rain on
my own.

School is empty now.  In a
way, it feels dead too with none of the kids here, like the blood that moves it
has drained away.  I’m sitting at my old desk thinking about Ingrid and
Matt. Maybe sitting isn’t the right word.  My form is sort of folded as if
I’m sitting but I don’t think I’m actually on the chair, rather, around it. The
classroom is in darkness now already, even though it’s only just after five.
Through the huge window I can see the endless stream of blurred headlights on
the main road that runs past the village as people make their way back from
work. Most of the people on that road don’t live in our village, they just
drive on past to places that are far more exciting.  I suppose they’ll be
home soon in their warm, orange living rooms with steaming mugs of tea and
telly.  They’ll be able to hug and laugh and argue and eat beans on toast
and won’t give any of it a second thought. Right now, Matt’s mum will be
rushing about for him, making him something nice for tea, and he’ll sit there
eating it, thinking about what he’s going to do with Ingrid later, like it’s
really ok. I still can’t believe he’d do that to me; I thought we were best
mates.