Please Release Me (20 page)

Sally glared at her, but Grace knew she was right. Sally needed her. Getting away from Sally would be difficult, but it wasn’t impossible. In fact, it might just be the catalyst she needed to change her life. Ordinarily, she would have balked at the idea, but now she was tired and heartbroken and very, very angry.

‘Now kindly get out of my way.’ She walked through Sally. It took all her self control not to gasp out loud as the cold seared through her. Once through, she walked briskly until the blood pumping around her body warmed her up. When she got the door, she risked a glance behind her and saw Sally glaring at her, with murder in her eyes.

Sally watched Peter get into a taxi. He had cuts all over his face and there were flecks of blood on his shirt. He looked pale. She had done that to him. She noted, with some satisfaction that Grace didn’t go with him. She too stood watching the taxi drive away, her back straight, her shoulders set back too stiffly.

Sally drew back into the shadows, carefully pulling her skirts back so that Grace wouldn’t see her. When Peter and Grace had come out of the building, with the big man in tow, there had been a space between them. The intimacy she had seen as they stood together hand in hand, was gone. Instead there was an odd formality. Sally felt a flare of satisfaction.

She wondered what would have happened if the statue had hit Grace, as she’d intended. At least now, Sally was the one wronged. Sure, she’d chucked things, but who wouldn’t do that if they’d found out their husband was being poached by another woman. While the poor wife was in a coma for Christ’s sake. She had no doubt that Grace would have come up with an explanation so that no one thought she was a bonkers, ghost spotting, freaking nutso, but Peter had known Sally was there. He had seen her.

She needed to do something about Peter now. As she remembered the look in Peter’s eyes, Sally shuddered. All this time following him around and he had finally seen her when she’d lost control. All the work she’d done, carefully being all sweetness and light to him. Making sure he was so totally swept up in life and love and sex that he didn’t have time to stop and think. All that laughing and simpering and sucking. All that couldn’t be unravelled by a single moment where she lost her temper. Not now. In that brief moment between waking and unconsciousness, Peter had looked at her. She’d spent all this time yearning for him to look at her again. Yet the look he’d given her was anything but adoring. There had been shock, anger, fear and … contempt.

Sally knew that, for the moment, he was falling out of love with her. He had been looking at the poor cow in the bed for too long. She needed to talk to him. To talk him round. She couldn’t do that without a body.

Another taxi drew up and Grace spoke to the driver. She looked like she was going to cry. Well good. She should cry. Bitch.

Once the taxi had driven safely out of sight, Sally emerged from the shadow of the wall and returned to the casino foyer. She plonked herself down on one of the plush seats. A nervous looking woman who was sitting there shivered and moved to a warmer seat. Sally scowled at her, which of course, the woman didn’t see. Bloody annoying.

She needed a body. Grace’s wouldn’t do. She needed to find that girl that lived in her mother’s house. Sally frowned. The girl was fairly attractive. If she could get her stoned enough to let Sally take control, but not so stoned that the limbs were hard to work … then she’d have to get her to Peter. She wondered what it would be like to seduce Peter in someone else’s body. A plan started to form.

Grace didn’t cry until she got home. She went straight up to her room and tore off the orange clothes. Tears fell, silent and unchallenged down her face. She got into her comfy old pyjamas and sat on her bed. It was late, but she knew she wouldn’t sleep. She drew her knees up and leaned her head against the wall.

The house was silent apart from the usual creaks and thumps. No Sally. Thank god. Hopefully, Sally’s sense of outrage was such that she’d stay away. Grace didn’t want to have to explain. To tell Sally that yes, she was in love with Peter, but that Peter wasn’t in love with her. He had let her down gently, telling her that he couldn’t leave his wife.

If Grace had been in any doubt about his feelings towards her, the moment when he asked her to let Sally possess her had put her straight. Sally had nearly killed him, but all he thought about was her. He wanted to explain to Sally that he wasn’t intending to stray. Grace was nothing to him. Just a vessel for communicating with his wife.

‘I’m such an idiot,’ Grace said to the empty room. ‘What was I thinking?’

There was no answer. The house felt big and empty. A few weeks ago, she’d have felt her mother’s stamp in the walls and the furniture, but not any more. The house smelled of new paint and dust. In revamping the house, all she’d managed to do was clear her parents away from it. Nothing had come in to replace them.

Grace wiped a palm across her face. She hoped Sally wasn’t going to come back here either. Which meant no more unexpected chills. No one watching her, commenting on her choices. No one demanding to watch TV. No one chatting, incessantly about things that Grace couldn’t care less about. Finally there would be peace and tranquillity.

And silence. There was silence. Grace slid off the bed and padded downstairs. A hot chocolate should help get her to sleep. She turned on the kitchen lights, half expecting to see Sally standing there holding a knife. No one. When she heated up the milk, the whirr of the microwave seemed too loud. The ping bounced off the walls.

She made the drink quickly, feeling slightly uneasy. Having got used to the ghost being around, now the house seemed creepy without her. When she turned the kitchen light out, she had to force herself not to run up the stairs in a panic.

Sally got to the house her mother lived in to find it in darkness. Of course, it was well past midnight now. Sally stepped through the closed door. Now then, where could she find the girl, Chloe? She lived in this house, but where? In the past few weeks, Sally had been back in search of Chloe and twice, she had been lucky enough to find her in the hall. It was easy enough to possess her, but it was still not easy to control her limbs. Tonight, Sally was worked up enough to throw an object, so she would surely be more powerful than before.

Sally had been in the hall, the kitchen and Glenda’s room, but nowhere else. So even if she found out which room Chloe was in, she couldn’t get into the room.

There was a light on in the kitchen. Sally drifted along to look in the door. The fridge door was open. A skinny body was silhouetted against the light that spilled out of it. Sally couldn’t believe her luck. It was her. It had to be. There couldn’t be two people who were as skinny as that. She cleared her throat.

Chloe turned around. It was a peculiar movement, like a startled spin, but in slow motion. Her face was slack and her mouth hung open. She was wearing nothing but a pair of knickers and a vest. When she saw Sally, she grinned. ‘Oh, it’s you. You gave me a fright.’ She pulled out what looked like cold takeaway rice and kicked the fridge door shut behind her. ‘I’m just getting food. You want some?’

She opened the plastic container and started to shove handfuls of cold rice into her mouth. ‘Haven’t seen you in ages,’ she said, through a mouthful. ‘You been okay? Going to another wedding?’

‘Actually,’ said Sally. ‘I’ve just come from a party.’ The girl was stoned. Good. That would make her body easier to control.

‘Wow. You have such a cool life. What kind of party? Did they like your dress?’ She was swaying. ‘Your name’s Sarah, right?’

‘Sally. And it was a very nice, party. A bit intense.’

Chloe nodded. ‘Oh yeah. Things can get intense around here too.’

‘I bet. Look … er … Chloe. I need your help. I need to get into your head again.’

‘Oh can’t do that.’ She shook her head gravely.

‘Why not?’

‘Got to eat this rice.’

Sally glared at her. Bloody dopehead. What was she on about? ‘Oh for God’s sake.’ She walked around the girl and stepped into her.

The girl went rigid and dropped the box of rice. There was a moment when there was a spark of a struggle and she tried to keep Sally out. Angry and strong, Sally easily displaced her. With the control gone, Chloe’s body started to fold. Sally caught up with it as the knees hit the ground. Ouch. Sally felt the pain second hand through Chloe. Sally managed to persuade the hands forward so that Chloe didn’t land on her face.

Now, on her hands and knees, Sally tried to move Chloe’s body upright. It was harder work than she’d expected. She was stronger now than she’d been before, but still not quite strong enough to override Chloe. This made her angrier. Angry, she realised, meant strong.

‘Grace,’ she growled. ‘She pretended to be my friend and then she nicked my husband. Bitch.’ She was able to lift Chloe’s head.

Suddenly, the body started to respond to the threat of Sally. Something flooded into the blood. Despite her anger, Sally felt the stomach drop away. The heart rate rose, pounding and roaring in the head.

‘Ugh. Stop it.’ Sally tried to turn the heart rate down. But nothing would stop the galloping pulse. She could feel the heart, contracting faster than she could breathe. She tried to influence it. Slow it. But it only beat faster. She lost control of Chloe’s head, which crashed to the floor. As Sally grappled with slowing the heart back to normal, the arms gave way and Chloe crumpled. Sally pushed and pulled and kicked, no longer knowing what she was doing. The noise in Chloe was deafening. It suddenly occurred to Sally that something was going very wrong. She had to get out before whatever was happening affected her too. She leapt forward, like a runner leaving the blocks. Her momentum took her through into the corridor.

A gagging noise came from inside the kitchen. Sally peered back in. Chloe made another gargling noise, ending in a sob. And then went still. Liquid trickled onto floor. The stupid cow had wet herself.

‘Oh for god’s sake,’ said Sally. ‘Wake up you silly bint. I need you.’ She aimed a kick at the prostrate form. There was no response. She hunkered down to look at Chloe. She couldn’t move her.

Sally scrambled back. ‘Oh my god.’ Chloe was dead. Sally stood up and backed away. She had killed someone. ‘Oh my god.’

She stood there for minutes, staring at the body on the floor. She looked around for signs of another ghost in the room, but there was nothing. She shuddered, not from cold, but from habit from when she had a body. She could see the Chloe’s spine pressing against her skin, which just brought home how vulnerable she had been. Chloe was just a drug-addled, sick teenager. And she had killed her. She felt sick. She had to go home.

At her feet, Chloe made a noise. Not dead. Oh thank god. She was in enough trouble without adding murder to her list. Chloe’s body jerked and a stream of vomit ran into the hem of Sally’s dress. Disgusted Sally took herself back to her home. She looked down at her dress. ‘Still clean,’ she said.

Peter finished his tumbler of whiskey and felt the liquid burn in his chest. He needed to talk to someone. The person he really wanted to talk to was Grace.

He had really blown it with her. Before, she had understood his reasoning, but now she thought he was still in love with Sally. Thoughts clamoured around in her head. He had told Grace he wouldn’t leave his wife. But his wife wasn’t the woman he’d thought she was. The memory of Sally’s hate-crazed face frightened and shamed him at the same time. How had he been so wrong about her? How could he have ever thought he loved her?

He took the bottle with him into the kitchen and poured himself another glass. Resting his elbows on the table, he stared at his phone. He needed to clear things up with Grace. He couldn’t bear for Grace to think that he didn’t care. Because he did. She had somehow found a place in his heart that he hadn’t known existed. He had been wrong about Sally, but he had been even more wrong when he thought he could survive without Grace.

He dialled Grace’s number. The phone rang and rang. There was no answer. It had been at least an hour since he left the casino, she should have got back to her house by now. He hoped everything was all right. He dialled again. After several more rings, Grace answered.

Her voice was cautious. ‘Peter. Is something the matter?’ She sounded raw. Like she’d been crying.

‘Are you okay?’

There was a pause at the other end. ‘I appreciate your concern, but it’s hardly necessary.’

‘Grace, about—’

‘Don’t,’ said Grace. ‘I get it. You and Sally. I don’t need to hear any more.’

Peter winced. Grace was polite, but so stiff. He shouldn’t expect anything more. ‘Grace, I didn’t mean to upset you.’

‘Was there anything else? It’s late.’

‘Is Sally there with you?’

‘No. I assumed she’d be with you. You are her husband, after all.’

‘I was worried …’ He stopped. His thoughts coalesced and the idea that Sally might go after Grace solidified. The hate-twisted Sally that he’d glimpsed was capable of anything.

But Grace was way ahead of him. ‘She’s not here,’ she repeated. ‘If she wants to hurt me, there isn’t a lot that I can do, is there? She’s a ghost. No one else can see her. The only way I can keep her away from me is to move to a motel for the night and I refuse to be driven out of my home by her.’

Peter could hear the slight tremor in her voice. Grace was worried now.

‘You could. Just until she calms down. I’ll pay for it.’

‘No.’ No explanation. Just that. Oh Grace.

‘Grace. I think she’s dangerous. She really meant to hurt you when she threw that statue.’

‘I know she did. She was angry. She’ll have got over it now. She’s not going to hurt me, Peter. She needs me. I’m the only one who can see her. And she’s … we were …. Well, she knows me and I know her.’

Peter gave a short laugh. ‘I thought I knew her too,’ he said. ‘Look how that turned out.’

Grace sighed. ‘I appreciate that you’re worried, but there’s no need. She’s not here, okay. Now good night.’

‘Grace wait—’

The line went dead.

‘Grace. I think I love you.’

He called her again. It went straight to answerphone. Peter stared at the phone in frustration. He drained his glass and poured himself yet another. Where was Sally now? Not at Grace’s. So maybe she was here. He sat very still, trying to feel the cold that meant that Sally was around. Nothing. Bloody Sally. She was always hanging around where she wasn’t wanted and when he needed to talk to her, she didn’t show.

‘Sally!’ he shouted into the empty house. ‘Where the hell are you? Come out here and talk to me.’ But there was no response.

‘You used me.’ Now that he had started, he couldn’t stop. ‘I thought you loved me, but all you wanted was money and this …’ he waved his hands around. ‘This bloody house. It’s too big. It’s too fancy and you wanted it just so that you could stick a finger up to the world and say “hey look, this is mine!” You didn’t love me. It could have been anyone. You only chose me because I was stupid enough to fall in love with you.’

He stopped and looked around the again. Still nothing. She wasn’t there. The words boiled inside him. ‘I alienated my family for you. I’ve put my company at risk for you. I’d have given up my life for you. Now I find out that it’s all a lie. And Grace. She likes you. She actually thinks you’re her friend. And you tried to kill her. I saw you. I saw your face. You wanted to harm her. I know you did.’

The realisation punched him in the chest. If he hadn’t intercepted it, the statue could have done serious damage to Grace. Given her height and how close she had been standing to the balcony, it was quite possible it would have taken her over the railing. Then he would be in hospital visiting two women. He would probably have ended up being charged for murder.

Was that what Sally wanted? It certainly wasn’t what he wanted. The idea of a life without Grace to talk to was so enormous, it made him dizzy. He had told her he couldn’t be with her because of Sally. But could he really keep away?

‘I don’t love you, Sally,’ he said, quietly now. ‘I love Grace. But I can’t have her. Because of you.’ He gritted his teeth. ‘And you’re not worth it.’ He reached for the bottle again and stopped. That wasn’t the way out. He’d seen what addiction could do. It could get you in a fight over a stupid lottery ticket, for a start. Sighing, he pushed the bottle away. He groaned, ‘Shit,’ and laid his head on his arms. Just for a minute. When his head stopped throbbing, he would go to bed.

Sitting in the far corner of the kitchen, Sally watched. She would have cried. But ghosts don’t have real tears.

Grace woke up feeling stiff and shattered. She had slept huddled up in the top corner of the bed, safe up against the walls that Sally couldn’t walk through.

Even though she didn’t think that Sally would really harm her, she’d removed all the heavy things from the shelves and put them in piles on the floor, just in case. There was nothing left to fly off a shelf and hurt her. Now, looking at everything lying as she had left it, she felt silly.

She stretched, her arms and back complaining with the night’s tension. Her throat and eyes stung from crying the night before. She felt as though she hadn’t slept at all. She needed a shower and a coffee before she could face anything.

As she showered, she thought about Peter’s phone call in the night. He had seemed genuinely concerned that Sally would want to hurt her. She had assumed that it was a momentary flare of temper that had caused Sally’s outburst. It was probably the strength of emotion that had suddenly given her the ability fling things. She wouldn’t be able to do it again now. Probably.

A few minutes later, she ventured downstairs, feeling much better for having washed the previous night off. The house was still. She turned into the kitchen and her breath caught. Sally was sitting on the kitchen table, head bowed.

Grace hesitated, not sure what to say after the argument the night before. She hadn’t said anything wrong. The one person who should apologise was Sally. So why should she feel bad? Grace took a step into the kitchen.

Sally raised her head. Her expression was utter misery. ‘Morning.’ Her voice was barely a whisper.

They stared at each other for a moment. Grace couldn’t think of anything to say. She didn’t know how she felt towards Sally right now. Nor how Sally felt towards her.

‘I’ve lost him,’ Sally said. ‘After all this, I’ve lost him.’ She raised her hands and dropped them again in a gesture of helplessness.

Grace felt a stab of alarm. Had Sally done something? Had Peter hit his head harder than anyone thought? ‘What are you talking about? In what way have you lost him?’

‘He doesn’t love me any more.’ Sally’s voice was a wail.

The first thing Grace felt was relief. Peter was okay. The next feeling was, unexpectedly, sympathy. Peter had rejected her for Sally. Now Sally thought he’d rejected her too. ‘Are you sure?’ she said.

Sally looked so miserable that there was no doubt. Grace decided that she needed caffeine before she could handle this.

She watched Sally out of the corner of her eye, as she filled the kettle. The ghost sat hunched on the table. She seemed somehow diminished. It was as though her personality had shrunk until she was just a woman in a wedding dress, not the bright, in your face Sally she was used to.

‘He saw me,’ said Sally, not turning around.

‘Just before he passed out? Yes. He mentioned.’ Grace sat down and pulled the sleeves down on her jumper as she felt the chill emanating from Sally.

Sally turned. ‘No. Before that. When I …’

‘When you threw a heavy object at me?’ said Grace.

Sally nodded her head and looked down again. It was a few seconds before she looked Grace in the eye. ‘I’m sorry about that,’ she said. ‘I was angry.’

‘You can’t go around throwing furniture at people just for talking to your husband. That’s just mental.’ Grace stared at her. ‘You could have killed someone.’

Sally looked like she was going to say something else, but then shrugged. ‘You’re right. I overreacted. I knew he was falling for you and when I saw you guys together, holding hands, I just … lost it.’ She nodded towards the kettle. ‘Your kettle’s boiled.’

That was probably the closest thing to an apology that she could expect. Grace made her coffee. The words ‘he was falling for you’ went round and round in his head. Had he been? If he had, he’d certainly got over it now. She turned around when Sally began to talk again.

‘The thing I really loved about Peter was the way he looked at me,’ Sally said, playing with her wedding ring again. ‘But last night, he looked at me like he hated me. Like he was scared of me. It was … horrible.’

‘You’re a ghost. It’s pretty normal to be scared of ghosts, especially when they’re hurling things around.’

‘No, there was more than that. He … There was some stuff I didn’t tell him. About me and my addiction. And he found out.’

‘I gathered.’ She sat back down. ‘Sally, I’m out of this, okay? You and Peter are going to have to sort things out on your own.’

‘But you—’

‘Look, if it’s any consolation, Peter told me to stay away from him. That’s what we were talking about last night.’ Grace felt tears prickling again. This was hard. She should be used to losing people by now. And Peter wasn’t ill or dying. Why was this so hard? She blew on her coffee, hoping the steam disguised her teary eyes. ‘He didn’t want to do anything that wasn’t right by you.’

‘Really?’ said Sally. ‘He said that? Why?’

‘Because he’s a decent human being and he loves you. Or he loved you at some point. He said you needed to have a chance to defend yourself.’

‘He really said that? Wow.’ She looked away. Her posture had changed. Her back was straighter. The hangdog expression had abated. Grace looked away. Good. If Sally and Peter made each other happy, good luck to them. She was better off out of it anyway. Really. She was.

Sally tapped her fingertips on the table, as though she were thinking hard.

Grace blew on her coffee again and took a small sip. So here she was, again. Alone. There was no point moping about it. She had to do what she always did. Get up off the ground and deal with it. She was a fighter. That’s what fighters did. Peter didn’t want her. If she fought for him, she would never be able to shake Sally. Come to think of it, she was saddled with Sally anyway. No one else apart from drug addicts could see her, so Sally would continue to haunt her. The only way out was to go somewhere she’d never been.

‘Sally, have you ever been to Asia?’

‘What?’ Sally looked over her shoulder. ‘Why?’

‘Just asking.’

Sally picked something invisible off her sleeve. ‘We were going to Thailand for our honeymoon. Peter was going to show me the world.’

Grace nodded, no longer listening. She always faced up to things. Peter had made his position clear and Sally, well, Sally would find someone else to hang out with. Peter would sort himself out too, one way or another. She’d spent years doing stuff for other people. Maybe it was time she stopped.

Sri Lanka. She could go there. Maybe track down her father’s family. She wondered if they would want to know her. Probably not, but she’d like to see the country her father remembered so fondly. She could ask for unpaid leave from work and just go. She had some money left from her mother’s insurance payout. She could sell the house too. When she got back, she could move to something smaller. She didn’t need all this space anyway.

She immediately felt better. A long holiday would be just what she needed. She’d always wanted to see Sri Lanka. She could go and see Thailand and India as well. Who knows, she might like it enough out there to stay. Then everything would work itself out.

Except then Sally would be a ghost, drifting unseen and unheard through the world. She looked again at Sally, who was still thinking. Could she really condemn Sally to that? Sally was a pain in bottom, but did she really deserve that? Grace shook her head. There it was again. That irritating drive to worry about other people.

Peter woke up to hear the key in the front door lock. He lifted his head and wondered where he was. His arm had gone numb where his head had rested against it. He must have fallen asleep at the kitchen table. He was still dressed in last night’s clothes. There was a bottle of whiskey and a glass in front of him. His head felt horrendous and he felt as though he’d lost something. Memory crashed into him. Sally. Grace. Shit. He rubbed his face and felt stubble rasp against his palms.

‘Oh my god, Peter!’ His mother was standing in the doorway, holding a cool bag in one hand, keys in the other. ‘Oh my darling what happened to you?’

He looked down and realised that there was still blood on his shirt. ‘Uh …’

Diane’s gaze dropped to the whiskey bottle, which was nearly empty.

‘Oh. I left it open overnight.’ He grabbed the lid and started to screw it back on. ‘I only had a couple of glasses.’ He frowned and winced as the cut on his forehead pulled.

Diane dumped her bags on the table. ‘What happened?’ She picked up the whiskey tumbler with two fingers and moved it.