Hating Valentine's Day Read online

  ‘Yes. Then I stopped,’ she says, directly into my right ear.

  Instantly, my stomach contents rise up to my throat. In the space of a few seconds Mrs Batty-Smith has moved over to stand beside me. Right beside me. So close I can see the wisps of stray hair that have come out of her bun. So close I can count the frown lines on her forehead. So close I can see how the cameras are pulling around her neck, swaying because of her movement. Her dust is settling on my suit. I start panting in fright.

  ‘Stopped just like you will.’ With her final four words she pokes me in the chest with one finger and I stumble back to the wall, startled by the feeling. I hadn’t thought she’d be able to do that. A ghost. Touch people. It felt so real.

  ‘Wha…what do you mean?’

  She looks at me with those cold eyes again, her neck craned uncomfortably up against the weight around it, and I know that at this moment she hates me. Really hates me.

  ‘You stupid, silly little girl,’ she hisses. ‘Don’t you know why I’m here? Don’t you know what I’m trying to tell you?’

  I press into the wall once again, more scared than I’ve ever been before in my life. ‘No,’ I say. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know!’ I yell at her.

  She steps forward, closer, the cameras bumping. ‘I’m here to warn you. Because you are just like me.’

  I laugh at this. A short, frightened laugh. ‘What? I’m nothing like you. Look at us. Look at us when you were alive. I’ve got a job. I’ve got a life.’

  Mrs Batty-Smith pauses when I say this, a mocking smile on her face. ‘Not for long.’

  When I hear this, I turn cold. So very cold. I look down and I have goosebumps all over my arms. I was boiling before, and now my feet and hands are freezing. I cross my arms for warmth and safety. What does she mean, not for long? I’m going to die? I move my gaze slowly back up to meet hers.

  ‘I don’t…I don’t understand,’ I say weakly, thinking I just want to wake up. I want to wake up and have this all go away. This isn’t real. I am unconscious. I’ve hit my head on the sink as I’ve fainted and fallen, and my thoughts have turned nasty, just like my night-time dreams. All I have to do is wake up for it all to go away.

  But I don’t wake up. Mrs Batty-Smith moves closer still. Right up to me. Her ashen face in mine. One of the cameras pushes into my stomach.

  ‘Because I was offered all kinds of love in my life and turned it away I must roam the world for ever. I pushed love aside time after time, and now I have to stand by and watch what I might have had. I must suffer, as I made myself suffer in life, because of my own selfishness. Because it was safer not to give of myself.’

  Shaking, I try to follow what she’s saying—something about how because she pushed away everyone’s love she’s being punished for it now. This much I understand. But what’s it got to do with me? I was always nice to her. I tried. I’m even taking two of her cats, for God’s sake. The old ones that no one else wants. What else could I have done?

  Mrs Batty-Smith reaches out an arm to touch mine and I start shaking even more fiercely. ‘You are not going to die. You have a choice. You do not have to be like me. You can change. There is still time for you to change.’

  The news sinks in that I’m not going to die, like I thought she was suggesting before, but right now I don’t feel all that relieved. I shake my head, trying to come to grips with what’s going on. ‘Change? Why? What for? I’m not like you. I’m not. I don’t understand. I have a job and friends and—’

  ‘You will be visited by three spirits,’ Mrs Batty-Smith interrupts me.

  What? I stop babbling. Three spirits? For some reason my mind returns to home and I remember the story I was reading only a few weeks ago from my Dickens collection—A Christmas Carol. There are three spirits in that book too. And their names aren’t Jim, Jack and Johnny. These were scary ghosts—the ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Yet to Come. But wait a second. It’s not Christmas. It’s not even close to Christmas.

  ‘Without these spirits, you will not change.’

  I tune back in. ‘But I don’t want to change. I—’

  ‘Olivia,’ she breathes. ‘You must change.’

  And with this she moves backwards a step or two, and then starts shuffling towards the powder room, slowly, her load making her movements awkward.

  ‘You must change.’

  ‘No, I…’

  Mrs Batty-Smith puts her hand up and I stop talking. When I’m silent again, she turns and keeps going. I want to stay here, to let her go, but I can’t. Something drags me along with her. I’m swivelled on the spot and turned ninety degrees to face the doorway, still being pulled.

  Suddenly I want to stop.

  Because, and I’m not sure why, when I see inside the powder room I get the distinct feeling I don’t want to go in there. I put both my hands up, holding onto the doorframe, and try to stop moving forward with all my might.

  I’m not strong enough.

  In the middle of the room Mrs Batty-Smith turns and moves her head to meet my eyes, waiting for me to follow. My hands are ripped from the doorframe and I’m forced to take a step forward. And in that one short moment everything changes.

  Now there are people everywhere. Surrounding me. Women. Grey women. Ghostly, dusty figures like Mrs Batty-Smith, but younger and in sparkly grey evening outfits. There must be thirty or forty women crammed in here, circling me. They’re standing, talking in groups—like a normal party. One of them walks past holding a tray of canapés. When she sees me, she stops and offers me one. I go to take one off the tray, worried about what will happen if I don’t, but when I pick it up, it turns to dust. The woman doesn’t seem to notice.

  ‘You know…’ she leans in towards me conspiratorially. ‘I should have answered that man’s ad that I liked in the personals. The one that caught me eye.’

  I wipe the dust from my fingers on the hem of my jacket and notice that I’m shaking again.

  Another woman turns, hearing this, and takes a canapé off the tray. I notice it doesn’t turn to dust. She nods first to the woman holding the tray, then to me. ‘I always wanted to join a singles dinner club, but all my workmates told me it was a ridiculous idea.’ That said, she turns away and starts talking to her group of friends again.

  I look around for Mrs Batty-Smith, but she’s gone.

  While I’m trying to catch a glimpse of her in the crowd, another woman walks over and selects a canapé from the tray. She eats it, studying me as she nibbles. ‘I should have accepted that dinner invitation from my co-worker,’ she says, and then taps a woman on the shoulder, the one who’s just turned back to her friends.

  But it’s not just that woman who turns around.

  They all turn. Every single one of the women stops talking, turns and looks at me.

  ‘I should have,’ they say together. ‘I should have, I should have, I should have…’

  They start to chant, getting louder and louder. ‘I should have, I should have, I should have, I should have…’

  I cover my ears as their voices rise, but it’s not enough. They get louder still and I take a step backwards, moving towards the toilets. I stumble through the doorway, almost falling as my feet hit the slippery tiles. The women’s words are piercing my eardrums. I keep stumbling, turning halfway as I enter the room, and hit my knee hard on the edge of a basin. I grab it to steady myself, both hands gripping the porcelain so tight I think it will break.

  The chanting keeps going. Louder and louder and louder. When I don’t think it can get any louder, it does. Time and time again. I reach down and quickly turn on the tap, hoping to drown out the sound and close my eyes.

  The noise stops.

  I wait for what seems like for ever and then, very, very slowly, I open my eyes. There’s nothing there. Only me. And the mirror. And the toilet stalls.

  I turn around equally slowly. No Mrs Batty-Smith. No women. Again, just me.

  I move over and peek into the powder room. Nothing
.

  I take a few hesitant steps into the room itself and lower myself into one of the chairs, sitting for a minute or two until I feel slightly more normal. And then I get up and walk out, shakily, to the car.

  As I cross the bitumen Sally winds the passenger side window down and yells across the parking lot for everyone to hear, ‘God almighty, girlfriend! You could have told me it was number twos. I’m baking in here!’

  Y Y Y Y

  Tuesday 9 February-five short days left…

  I’m late leaving home for work on Tuesday morning, because I make myself drink five large glasses of water. I remember to take my medication and force-feed myself a proper breakfast of a poached egg on toast, strawberries and yoghurt, and green tea. Then I pee three times and, in between each trip to the bathroom, spend a good fifteen minutes hunting down cool natural fibres in my wardrobe.

  I hate being late. But I am not going to have a repeat of yesterday’s dehydrated delusion in the crematorium ladies’. No siree.

  My little hallucination completely freaked me out all afternoon and well into the evening. So much so, I drank a litre of water as soon as Sally and I arrived back at the studio from the funeral, ate a healthy dinner of steamed veggies and brown rice and made sure I took a multivitamin. Two, in fact. And later that night I indulged in more herbal treats—valerian, to be precise—because I wasn’t able to sleep. The thing was, I couldn’t stop thinking about Mrs Batty-Smith. And Tania—she’d said this kind of dream could mean things. That I could be trying to tell myself something. Mrs Batty-Smith kept telling me that she was there to warn me. That I had to change.

  But change what?

  Why I should change, I didn’t understand at all. And, staring at the ceiling for hours as I tried to fall asleep, I still couldn’t figure it out. I liked my life. I was happy. Everything was fine. Is fine.

  Isn’t it?

  At two thirty-seven a.m I got up, fetched myself a glass of water and gave myself a good talking to. I was being ridiculous. There was no ghost. Ghosts didn’t exist. But Snickers bars, Diet Coke and forgotten medication did, and if I looked after myself a little more I’d probably fare a lot better on the seeing things scene. So, I decided, that was it. Easy. No more junk food before midday.

  Standing in the lounge room, searching for my car keys, I shake my head, bringing myself back to the real world. Work. I have to get to work.

  But then I pause. Because I catch a glimpse of it again—the tiny bruise on my arm that I can’t seem to stop looking at. Reaching out to grab my keys from the basket near the phone, I’m unable to help myself. For the hundredth time this morning I bring my arm up closer. There’s definitely a bruise. Right where I pinched myself during my Batty-Smith encounter. I look away quickly and let my arm drop. I’m not going to think about it. I should be thinking about work.

  As I lug my equipment downstairs, my mind races, thinking about anything and everything. Anything and everything but. I try being positive about the world, Tania-style, and as my camera case bashes against my right leg with each step I take I give myself a quick pat on the back for having the foresight to bring everything with me from the studio in the first place, thus saving a few minutes. It weighs a ton and it’s a pain bringing it all home after what’s already been a long day, but the times I actually do, it’s worth it. This way I can head straight off to my first booking for the day—an engagement shoot—without having to go to the studio first.

  I open up the garage, load everything into the boot of the car and rest my handbag on top so I can check my diary for the couple’s names. Kirsty and Shaun, that’s it. And, thankfully, this time the shoot’s not at the park at the end of the world. It’s at the park I used to live across the road from, so I know exactly where it is and how to get there.

  It’s a good twenty-minute journey, even using my insider knowledge. I turn the radio up loud and sing along as I go, trying to keep my mind occupied. Late as I am, as I pass my old apartment I turn the radio down, slow the car and take a look up at it. I can’t help but think of Mike as I sit there and stare, because Mike and that apartment—well, they used to go together like, I don’t know…I catch myself about to think ‘horse and carriage’ and move the car on before I can take the thought any further. Mike still lives around here as far as I know. With his son and…her.

  I reach forward and turn the radio up again, not wanting to think about anything this morning. Not yesterday. Not Mike. I should be concentrating on work. I’m only going to think about work. As I pull into the dirt car park, I pray that Kirsty and Shaun are running late too.

  They’re early.

  I take a deep breath, tell myself to get on with it, then open the car door and go over to them. I remember them now, though their names hadn’t really rung any bells before. And they’re not bad, this couple, even if they are getting married on Valentine’s Day. Maybe because they have a better reason than most. From what I recall, they told me his birthday was on the thirteenth of February and hers was on the fifteenth. Because of this, they thought they’d get married on the day in between and make it their own little three-day festival every year. The cost doesn’t seem to worry them because Kirsty’s dad is a rather eminent cardiac surgeon, still has the guilts from running off with one of her mother’s friends when Kirsty was a teenager, and is paying for the whole bit. Thus, they decided to go all out. Including the digital album and all their photos on CD ROM. They haven’t asked exactly what it’s going to cost, but there are going to be plenty of 0s appearing on Daddy’s Amex bill next month, that’s for sure.

  ‘Hi, Kirsty; hi, Shaun,’ I say as I run the last few steps over. ‘Hope I haven’t kept you waiting.’

  They both shake their heads, getting up off the wooden bench they were sitting on.

  ‘We’ve only been here for about five minutes,’ Kirsty says. ‘Was the traffic bad? We live just around the corner, so we walked.’

  I pause, wondering whether to lie or not. I mean, bad traffic—it’s the usual excuse, isn’t it? In the end, my smile gives me away. ‘The traffic was fine. It was breakfast that made me late. Sorry. I really needed it this morning.’ I take a quick glance around the park. ‘I’ll just go and get the equipment out of the car. Anywhere in particular you’d like the photos?’

  ‘Any ideas?’ Shaun asks.

  ‘Well, along the timber fence is nice, and I’ve taken a few underneath the tree over there. Those shots always seem to work out really well. Some people like the swings…’ I watch the two of them carefully as I say this and note the quick glance they give each other ‘…but personally, I feel it’s a bit tacky.’

  ‘Thank God for that,’ Kirsty says. ‘I hate that kind of stuff.’

  ‘Good. Great, even. I think we’re going to get along just fine.’

  I remember then that she was the girl who looked at me as if I was crazy when I mentioned lingerie shots. ‘I’m not going to go floozing all over the bed in my underwear looking like a beached whale,’ I think she told me. Yes. My kind of girl.

  ‘Anyway, you guys have a think about what you’d like,’ I say, and with that I turn and do another quick run back to the car. As I busy myself arranging things in the boot, the breeze changes direction and carries their banter across the park. I have to smile as I listen to it. They’re funny, these two. Every so often I stumble across a couple like this. The thing is, at some weddings I find myself wondering as I watch the bride. How does she know he’s the right guy? How can she really promise him ‘for ever’? And just as I’m thinking no one could ever make ‘happily ever after’ work, I’m always met with a pair that aren’t so fairy tale. A pair I can almost believe in.

  When I get back, they’ve decided.

  ‘The tree, we think,’ Kirsty says, and Shaun nods.

  ‘And an excellent choice it is.’ I start off across the grass and Kirsty and Shaun follow me. Halfway there, an idea comes to me. I explain it to them. And then I take my boots off.

  ‘Um, Liv, are you sure about this?
’ Kirsty says, holding my camera as Shaun gives me a leg-up so I can reach the first branch of the tree.

  ‘Umph.’ I make a truly graceless noise as I push myself up, grab the next branch above and swivel around. Perfect. The fork in the tree is a made-to-measure sitting spot, and there’s even a branch placed strategically so that I’ll be able to rest the camera on it. Settled, I get back to Kirsty’s question. ‘Sure about the angle, or sure about me being up here?’ I ask.

  ‘Sure about being up there,’ she says, passing me the camera.

  ‘Ask me again after I fall out, OK?’

  ‘It’s the least I can do. So, where do you want us?’

  I take a look around. ‘How about sitting on that patch of grass right there? In the clover?’ I glance at the sun. ‘We’ll try and get this over and done with quickly, before it gets too hot, OK?’

  The pair position themselves. ‘Um, leaning back like this?’ Kirsty asks.

  ‘That’s good.’ I nod, getting back down to business. Kirsty’s looking up at me, knees bent, leaning back on her hands, which she’s placed behind her. I bring the camera up. ‘Now, Shaun, if you can just do the same thing…that’s great. You’re naturals.’

  Kirsty laughs. ‘I can assure you I’m not a natural. Cameras and I don’t get on very well as a rule.’

  ‘Ah, but you haven’t met my camera yet. Ursula. A girl’s best friend.’

  ‘Your camera has a name?’ Shaun looks at me, then over at Kirsty in surprise, and laughs as well. I snap off a few shots.

  ‘Yep. Kirsty, if you can just lean in a bit more? Into Shaun’s shoulder. That’s it. Right. Now, I’ve got a little trick for you. I want you to look away from the camera then, when I tell you to, look up and smile, OK? Look away. Now, at me, on the count of three and smile. One, two…three.’ I snap away.

  ‘Why look away?’ Kirsty asks then.

  I pause for a moment and rest the camera on my lap. ‘It’s a modelling trick. Gets rid of the fake smile. If you just keep smiling at the camera it begins to look really forced.’