On the Other Side Read online

  ‘Yes.’ She nodded. ‘I am absolutely sure.’

  ‘In that case, you need to figure out what to give the wall so it can find your son and take you to him.’

  Evie stood back from the wall, looking at it through narrowed eyes. ‘First of all, I need to know what to expect when I get to the other side. How do I speak to my son? Will he be able to hear me? See me? Will I have to explain why his dead mother is visiting him from beyond the grave?’

  Lieffe smiled. ‘I’m sorry, dear girl. I’ve not given you much of a briefing, have I? You’ve handled everything so remarkably well up until now that I forgot all of this is new to you.’ He took the desk chair and wheeled it over to Evie again, gesturing for her to sit down. Then he stood between her and the wall, like a professor standing between his pupils and the blackboard.

  ‘When you cross the wall, no living person will be able to see you, and you won’t be able to make any kind of impact on the world around you. Your soul may be too heavy to pass on, but it’s very calm and collected, is it not?’ She nodded. ‘Good. Now, as I’ve said, you won’t be seen by your loved ones, and for the most part they won’t be able to hear you either.’

  ‘For the most part?’ Evie asked.

  Lieffe started to pace the length of the wall, back and forth. Evie imagined a pipe in his hand and a tweed jacket on his shoulders, much like Mr Autumn. I should probably be taking notes, she thought.

  ‘There is a certain time when the living are more susceptible to our world. When their minds are most open to believing the impossible. Tell me, have you ever dreamed of people who have passed on? Have they ever said things to you in dreams that you never heard them say when they were alive?’

  ‘Maybe …’ Evie thought back through her life and vaguely remembered dreaming of a friend who had died suddenly of a heart attack in her forties. In the dream, her friend had told her that she’d once stolen money from her purse, and it had plagued her with guilt throughout her life. Evie had no way of knowing if this was true, so had written it off as an odd dream brought on by eating cheese on toast before bed, but she had been left with a strange, lingering feeling.

  ‘When the living are sleeping, we’re able to seep into their dreams and whisper our secrets to them. When they wake up, they remember those dreams because it was more than just their subconscious having fun while they slept. It wasn’t even a dream at all, really. It was us.’ Lieffe gestured around him, puffing out his chest, proud to be part of this weird world full of lost souls. His face was so full of affection and warmth for this place that he’d loved so much in life. ‘The more open-minded the person, the easier it is to get into their dreams. Some poor souls here have had real trouble getting people to hear them, but eventually, in times of need, everyone is able to open their mind enough to let the impossible in.’

  ‘So I just need to whisper my secret to my son while he’s asleep?’

  Lieffe nodded. ‘Do you think he’s open-minded enough to listen to you?’ he asked.

  Evie couldn’t help but smile. ‘Oh, I think my husband and I raised him well enough for that, yes.’ She thought about her husband, left in the land of the living. She doubted he’d be far behind her. He’d never been able to cope without her, even when she was only in the next room, and he’d always made excuses to be close to her. She doubted it would be any different this time.

  She used her feet to wheel herself closer to the silent wall, and Lieffe moved aside. ‘Why’s it so quiet now?’ She tapped the knuckle of her index finger against the cream-coloured surface.

  ‘It’s trying to listen. It’s waiting for you to tell it where you need to go.’

  ‘Just one strong memory is all it needs? To make a connection?’

  ‘Just one.’

  Evie, eyes closed, the tip of her nose against the wall, breathed out slowly, the warmth of her own breath flushing her cheeks. She opened one eye and spied Lieffe on her left, watching her closely.

  ‘Sorry. Shall I give you a moment?’

  ‘No, no. I’m just being silly. No point in being shy when I’m dead, is there? But you are going to have to put up with my singing. That OK?’

  ‘Nothing would please me more. If I remember correctly, you had quite a nice voice.’

  ‘It wasn’t anything to write home about, but for its ultimate purpose, it was perfect.’

  Evie closed her eyes once more, and images of her first-born, her son, flooded her mind. Memories of rocking him in her arms only moments after he’d been born, and singing him to sleep with words she’d made up herself to a tune her childhood music box had played. When he was older, and fell off the tyre swing in the back garden, she’d sung to him to take his mind off his stinging knees and to stop him from crying. And as she lay in hospital, weeks before she ended up here, he’d held her hand and sung with her, just in case he never again heard her sing the song he loved so much. It was that song that she sang now, because she knew it would find him, no matter where he was.

  If I were to follow you,

  Would you lead me astray?

  I’m trusting you with all my heart

  To lead me the right way.

  So hold my hand and take me through

  The darkest of my days.

  Because if you were to follow me,

  You know you’d be OK.

  The wall started to hum and pulse and shimmer, and the energy it created rolled Evie’s chair halfway across the room. She watched its cracked paint smooth itself out and turn a charcoal blue. Small ripples started to appear, at first just a few, but then they came in their hundreds, dimpling the surface over and over, giving the illusion of a puddle in the rain. The hum turned into a low rumble that reminded Evie of her father clearing his throat, which he did whenever he felt uncomfortable.

  ‘I think wherever your son is, Evie, the weather’s bad,’ Lieffe chortled.

  A shock of light passed over the wall like lightning. Instinctively Evie started to count – one, two, three, four – and then thunder shook the room. The wall wobbled and the chair rolled a little closer to it.

  ‘The weather must be really bad,’ Lieffe said, the laughter replaced by a nervous tremor as he held on to the desk to steady himself.

  Lightning struck the wall again. One. Two. Three … This time the thunder was louder, and as Evie’s chair rolled even closer to the wall of water, she realised that it was more than just the thunder shaking the room and making the chair move randomly; she was actually being pulled towards it. Lightning filled the room again but it was brighter and Evie was sure she heard the zap of electricity. One. Two … At the next lightning strike, the chair jolted so hard that she was tipped out of it and landed only inches from the wall. She looked behind her at Lieffe, who was righting the chair, its wheels spinning.

  ‘I think the thunder’s counting!’ she shouted over the noise of the rain and the wind that was whipping at her hair and her dress.

  ‘I’m sorry, Evie,’ he shouted. ‘Some souls are lucky enough to find their loved ones on holiday in the Bahamas, or at home, snug in their beds. This isn’t the best introduction you could have had to the journey back.’ He tried to smile, but flinched a little as the lightning hit once more.

  One … Thunder. Evie ran to retrieve her coat from the Lost Box. It looked like she was going to need it. She had a feeling that she wouldn’t have time to put it on, so she swung it by the shoulders around her body and held it over her head. The moment the fabric touched her hair, a fork of electricity pierced the wall, picked her up by the waist and dragged her through the water.

  Dinner

  Evie had been restless all day. She crossed and uncrossed her legs under her desk and tapped her pencil against her sketchbook, which didn’t speed up time at all but did earn her some quizzical looks from Grayson.

  ‘Something the matter, Princess?’ he asked, putting his hand gently on her pencil to stop the incessant noise. ‘Am I making you … nervous?’ He smiled a wide smile.

  Don’t be
taken in by his welcome grin, he’s imagining how well you’d fit within his skin, she sang in her head. Evie hated the fact that Grayson was good-looking. Someone so arrogant didn’t deserve to be attractive. She’d watched various women meet him after work for dinner dates, only to hear him brag the following morning about bedding them, tearing apart their performances in a minute-by-minute relay to The Teller’s photographers. His phone would buzz on his desk, flashing whatever horrendous nickname he’d saved them as in his contact list, but he’d press decline. Evie’s blood would boil at the sight of the malicious delight on his face when he knew he’d conquered another woman’s affections – affections he would never return.

  ‘No, Mr Pear,’ she replied, without so much as a glance in his direction. ‘You’re making me sick.’

  It was Friday evening, and tonight was the night she was having dinner with Vincent. She hadn’t thought through her wardrobe decisions hard enough this morning. She’d opted for comfort at work over dazzling for dinner and now wished she had chosen the latter. She was feeling a little sweaty and grubby in the stuffy office, and having Grayson leer at you was enough to make anyone feel as though they needed a shower … or two. She had perfume in her bag, so she hoped that would do. She’d watched the clock with nerves in the pit of her stomach all day, and her sketches were misbehaving, coming out scribbled and scratchy.

  ‘Get a grip, Evie,’ she muttered to herself.

  The clock ticked over to five o’clock and Evie swiped her stuff off her desk, catching it in her open bag. She threw on her coat as she ran out of the door, without so much as a wave goodbye to Grayson.

  She hadn’t thought about where they might be going or what they might eat. She wondered if she was too nervous to eat at all. All she knew was that she wanted to learn about Vincent. Evie had led a sheltered life, but despite her parents’ best efforts, she’d made sure she had plenty of adventures. One evening, when she was sixteen, she had snuck out of the house with Isla, the Snows’ cook, to a bar in the centre of town. Eleanor was so sure of her daughter’s obedience back then that she hadn’t considered that the Evie-shaped lump under the blankets wasn’t actually Evie at all, but cushions from the sofa arranged meticulously. They’d got back just as the sun was coming up, holding their shoes in their hands, giggling, hushing each other and then giggling more at their hushing. How they’d pulled it off was beyond Evie, when she awoke in her bed two hours later, fully clothed, smelling of champagne and cigarettes and with mascara smudged down her cheeks. Now that she was on her way to see this man whom she knew nothing about, she had that same mischievous feeling bubbling under her skin. She knew that this was a sure sign of an adventure about to begin.

  They were meeting at Vincent’s busking spot, and Evie had kept quite calm during the majority of her journey. It was only when the train pulled into the station that her skin started to tingle. As she stepped on to the escalator, she heard Vincent playing. She thought he must be getting in a last-minute song to round off the evening, but as he came into sight, so did a small round table covered in a red gingham cloth with a pop-up stool on either side, all squished into his designated busking spot. The table was set with two paper plates, one with a single yellow rose laid across it, and a lit candle stood in the centre. Yet again, Evie stopped moving as soon as she stepped off the escalator, and was shoved aside by a kid in school uniform. She shouted a sorry in his wake but her gaze was fixed on Vincent. As usual, his eyes were closed as he played. She slipped off her coat and sat down on one of the stools, trying to be as quiet as possible. She waited and watched him until he played one final, beautiful note, and when she was sure the song had come to an end, she applauded politely. Vincent opened his eyes.

  ‘Miss Snow.’ He nodded.

  ‘Hello, Vincent,’ she laughed.

  ‘You’ve got a twinkle in your eyes,’ he said.

  ‘I do?’ A finger instinctively went to the corner of her left eye.

  ‘Yes, you do.’ He smiled and balanced his violin in its case on top of the coins he’d collected that day, then sat down on the dark green canvas camping stool opposite her.

  A girl with blobs of ink on her hands and permanently dishevelled hair, who looked like she could do with a proper night’s sleep, but that twinkle, in Vincent’s opinion, made her more interesting and more beautiful than anyone he’d met before.

  ‘A yellow rose.’ Evie lifted it to her nose and inhaled its subtle scent.

  ‘Mm-hmm.’ Vincent leaned his chin on his hand and rubbed at his stubble. He hadn’t shaved as he was trying to grow a beard. Meanwhile Evie was wishing he had shaved because she couldn’t help remembering her mother’s warning that men with beards weren’t to be trusted. Maybe she was thinking too far ahead, but she was wondering what her mother would say should she ever meet Vincent. Yet despite Eleanor Snow’s disapproving face flashing through her mind, Evie’s main thought was what Vincent’s rough cheek would feel like under her fingers, and suddenly the station felt very warm again.

  ‘For friendship?’ She set the rose between the paper plates and felt a little silly.

  ‘Mm-hmm.’ He hummed again in agreement, but this time Evie caught the hint of a smile between his fingers.

  ‘I see.’ She straightened her back and her expression, placed her hands in her lap and tried to pretend she was her mother: cold, hard and unwilling to play games. Vincent swiped his hair out of his eyes and gazed at her with sincerity in his expression.

  ‘I want to be friends with you. I want to get to know you better. We’ve only properly met once before this, and like I said, we’re not Romeo and Juliet.’ He laughed, a rich and rounded sound. ‘We can take as much time as we want to find out exactly who it is we’re talking to. You might get halfway through this conversation and decide I’m a ruffian who you’d rather not associate yourself with, and I wouldn’t blame you! But that’s what all this’ – he gestured to the table – ‘is for. You and me, just talking for a while. Then maybe, if it’s OK with you, we could be friends, Miss Snow?’ He picked up the rose and offered it to her, hoping she’d take to it more kindly this time.

  Evie Snow studied him for a moment. She’d certainly not let her heart run away with her. It didn’t know how. But maybe she had let herself think that his intentions were different. Romantic. And she didn’t necessarily know how she’d felt about that, though she knew it had excited her, the idea that this unbelievably talented man was interested in her. But now that she knew it wasn’t like that at all, she felt a little … No. She didn’t feel anything, she decided. Like a tap turning off, she didn’t feel disappointed, or disheartened, or foolish. Instead, she channelled her excitement into a new-found friendship and she took the rose with a smile.

  Dinner had turned out to be burgers and chips that Vincent had bought from what he’d called ‘the best burger place in town’. They’d looked atrocious when he’d tipped them out of brown paper bags on to the plates. Evie had struggled to pick her burger up without it falling apart, but once she’d taken a bite, she had to stop Vincent mid-sentence just to savour the sensation. They were indeed the best burgers in town.

  ‘So, you’re an artist?’ Vincent asked, putting a chip into his mouth.

  ‘Well, I’d like to be an animator for motion pictures. That’s the dream.’ In her mind, Evie could see her drawings moving around on the silver screen. ‘But for now, I’m just a cartoonist for the local paper, my drawings destined for my boss’s bin, while he fawns over my disgusting colleague’s work just because he doesn’t have boobs.’ She sighed. ‘And you’re a violinist.’

  ‘Yes. Doomed to play to an audience of uninterested commuters for ever.’ He sighed too, but with an amused smile. He’d made his peace with his lot in life. He’d not given up per se, but he’d found contentedness in what he did have.

  ‘Hey now,’ Evie teased. ‘Not all of them are uninterested.’

  ‘Forgive me. All the unimportant ones are uninterested, but they’re also the ones who pay my r
ent, so in a different and annoying way they’re important too.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose they are.’

  ‘Any brothers or sisters?’ Vincent asked, putting four chips in his mouth at the same time. For a first dinner together he was awfully comfortable around her, but that relaxed Evie too. In her family, every meal was a formal occasion and making conversation was frowned upon, so it was nice to have such a drastic change. She opened up her burger, peeled out the gherkins but instead of discarding them like Vincent had thought she would, she popped one in her mouth.

  ‘One brother. Eddie. You?’

  ‘I have a sister called Vanessa. She’s a heart surgeon,’ he said with a slight roll of his eyes. ‘Any pets?’ He changed the subject swiftly.

  ‘None,’ she answered.

  ‘Never?’

  ‘Mother’s allergic.’

  ‘Not even fish?’ he laughed.

  ‘Oh. We have a koi pond in the garden, but if I can’t cuddle it, it’s not a pet.’ She shrugged, matter-of-factly, and took a sip of Coke from her plastic cup.

  ‘Koi? When I said fish, I was thinking more like … gold.’ Vincent laughed.

  ‘I … er … my family are …’

  ‘Rich?’ he helped, with a kind smile.

  ‘I was going to say fancy, but yes,’ she said apologetically.

  ‘Why do you sound sad about that? Lots of people would give their right arm to grow up wanting for nothing.’

  ‘I know, and I guess that’s what makes me sad. I appreciate everything I’ve had in life, but my parents have tried very hard to keep our wealth … contained. Sharing it with those in need is almost disapproved of. They think money makes them happy, but really it just makes them … secure. Happiness has nothing to do with it. In fact, they’re probably the unhappiest people I know.’

  ‘Does this have anything to do with you roughing it at the local newspaper?’ Vincent fiddled with a chip, hoping this conversation wasn’t making Evie uncomfortable.