Flights of Angels (17 page)

Immediately, Claudie could feel tears prickling the back of her eyes as she felt the connection of a fellow sufferer. And she knew that there wasn’t a single herb that could vanquish what he was feeling.

‘Oh, Mr Woo.’

‘So many thing I remember. So many thing I wish can come back.’ He paused for a moment, and then quickly shook his head as if coming out of a trance, and held his hands up.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Claudie whispered.

‘I also sorry for you,’ he said, looking up with gentle eyes

‘We’re two sorry people,’ she said with a nervous giggle, blinking back her tears.

Mr Woo nodded in agreement. ‘Now I make you sad.’

‘No,’ Claudie said. ‘Don’t think that.’

There was a moment’s silence as they wondered what to say next. ‘It’s just that I’ve never thought that the person who died might actually miss the people they left behind,’ Claudie said.

Mr Woo nodded again. ‘Angel school teach us to comfort bereaved. But person dead also hurt.’

‘You mean Luke will be mourning for me too?’ Claudie’s eyes widened in the dark room.

‘Yes.’

Claudie felt a lump in her throat, and her eyes welled up with the thought of Luke confessing as much on somebody else’s desk somewhere. ‘Oh, Mr Woo, can’t I please see him?’

Mr Woo shook his head. ‘You know cannot do, Claudie.’

‘But that’s such a silly rule. I’m sure I’d be fine if only I could see him again. And don’t you want to visit your wife, and comfort her?’

‘Very much,’ he whispered, as if anxious not to be overheard. ‘But not working tha way.’

‘Why isn’t it?’

‘Have to continue life, go to new thing - what you say? “Move on”.’

‘Move on!’ Claudie gave a laugh like a splinter of glass. ‘That’s the most ridiculous thing about all this. People keep telling me that, but they obviously have no idea about what you’re feeling.
No idea
.’

‘I have same feelings also.’

She looked down at him. ‘I know. I’m sorry. It’s just, I get so angry sometimes. It’s like I’ve swallowed a volcano and I’m about to erupt.’

‘I feel same also. Except from other side.’

Claudie blinked. ‘Do you suppose Luke was angry too?’

‘I thinking leaving you make him have fury of dragon.’

‘Then, you’ve met him?’

Mr Woo shook his head. ‘I look for him now.’

‘You will?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you’ll tell him how much I miss him? How much I love him?’ Claudie’s voice was breathless now.

‘But no say anything to other. You in much trouble if find out.’ Mr Woo gazed up at her, his expression serious.

Claudie felt her shoulders slump in defeat. ‘Okay,’ she said, ‘I promise.’

‘You understand,’ Mr Woo began again, ‘anger is most difficult feeling.’

‘Do they teach you that at angel school?’ Claudie asked.

‘No. I learn in life.’

Claudie gave a half-smile. ‘I saw this little boy in the street the other day screaming his head off,’ she said. ‘He was just standing there howling. His mother didn’t know what to do with him, and everyone was staring. And do you know what I thought? I thought that what he was doing was the most natural thing in the world, and I really envied him his ability to stand in the middle of the street and just let it all out - all those pent up emotions - for everyone to see.’

‘Adult not show feeling with freedom?’ Mr Woo said.

‘But why? When does that happen? When do adults tell children that they have to pull themselves together and bottle it all in? It’s so unnatural. And imagine if adults took a leaf from the children’s books. The whole world would be filled with a cacophony of crying!’

‘Best medicine in world.’

Claudie looked at Mr Woo. ‘Bert told me it was laughter.’

‘That one reason why we not okay together,’ Mr Woo said, but Claudie could see a little twinkle in his eyes.

‘But you not cry in street?’

Claudie rested her head on her hands. ‘I wanted to at first,’ she said. ‘And I think people expected me to. It was awful. Everyone was treating me like a pressure cooker about to go off. But I was just too aware that it wasn’t the done thing.’ She paused for a moment, her eyes a very soft brown as she gazed into her past. ‘I wanted to shout more than anything.’ She gave a little laugh. ‘You know, Luke once gave me shouting lessons!’

Mr Woo’s eyes narrowed and he cocked his head on one side.

‘We’d climbed up this mountain in the Lake District, and he insisted that we couldn’t leave before we’d shouted something from the top.’ She felt herself smiling at the memory, as if she had travelled back to the very scene she was describing. ‘He was always a little bit mad.’

‘You shout for him?’

Claudie giggled and covered her mouth. ‘Yes! I did.’ Claudie looked at Mr Woo, but the happiness had melted from her eyes. ‘I shouted,
I love you
.’

For a few moments, they were silent, lost in their own private web of thoughts. It was as if both were trying to get back to their own past lives because the present was a hard, hurtful place.

At last, Claudie spoke.

‘I know I’m probably not meant to ask this, but what do you miss the most?’

Mr Woo looked up, startled by the question. ‘Miss?’

‘If you had to name one thing. Other than your wife, of course.’

Mr Woo pursed his narrow lips together and rubbed his knees. And then he gave a little chuckle.

‘What?’ Claudie asked.

‘I miss sweet almond jelly. And also cake’

‘Cake? Really?’

‘Yes!’ He laughed again, a great vibrating sound that seemed to roll around in his stomach until it built into such a size that it had to be released. ‘You’re not allowed cake in heaven.’

‘Really?’

‘I know what you thinking. You thinking you allow favourite thing in heaven: but not true. You eat salad and rice and brown bread. It not fair if you spent earth life with good diet. But they say indigestion and cholesterol not good for angel.’

‘I suppose not,’ Claudie laughed, trying to imagine an angel with indigestion. ‘So you’d advise us to enjoy our food whilst we’re here?’

‘In moderation, yes!’

They laughed together, and then silence fell again, broken only by the chime of a distant church clock.

‘I suppose I’d better go,’ Claudie said at last. ‘It’s getting late.’ She pushed her chair out and stood up.

‘Claudie?’ Mr Woo’s voice sounded cautious.

‘Yes?’

‘You want me come with you?’

She looked down at him. Was he serious? ‘Can you do that? I thought you weren’t meant to.’

He looked a little bit embarrassed. ‘That not question asked. You want me come with you?’ he asked again.

Claudie thought of walking home alone, of the evening stretching darkly ahead. She thought of what it might be like to take Mr Woo with her. Would he sit comfortably on her shoulder and watch films all evening? She couldn’t quite imagine it somehow, and yet his kind offer made her positively glow with warmth.

‘No, thank you,’ she said. ‘It’s very kind of you, but I’ll be fine. I’ll see you in the morning.’

Mr Woo didn’t look convinced. ‘Here,’ he said, digging deep one of his pockets which appeared to have no end. ‘Take. Put under pillow for sweet and easy dreams.’

‘Thank you.’ Claudie took the familiar little package and placed it in her own pocket and, when she looked up, he had gone.

‘How much further is it?’ Kristen asked, stumbling on the uneven pavement for the fifth time in as many minutes.

‘Patience. We’re almost there.’

‘You said that ten minutes ago.’

‘Are you sure you’ve got your eyes closed?’

‘Yes!’ Kristen wailed.

‘You’re not peeping?’

‘Through your massive hands? I don’t think so! Come on, Jimmy - let me see!’

‘Okay. After three,’ he said, milking his opportunity for every ounce of suspense. ‘One …’

Kristen pictured a restaurant with a table decorated with red roses.

‘Two …’

She imagined Jimmy on his knees in the street outside the restaurant, a red rose between his teeth.’

‘Two and a half …’

She imagined them outside a jewellers, and Jimmy holding out a little black velvet box.

‘Three!’ he whipped his hands away. Kristen was smiling from ear to ear until she saw where they were. They were in front of a shop all right, but it wasn’t a jewellers. It was the shop where Jimmy sold most of his model boats.

‘Well?’ he said, a child-like glee edging his voice. ‘What do you think?’

If Kristen had told him precisely what she was thinking at that moment, they would probably have had a parting of the ways. Instead she stared at the shop window, trying to spot what it was that was so important to him. Maybe, she thought optimistically, he’d attached a diamond ring to the mast of one of his boats? She scoured the models for evidence, but couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. There were definitely no eye-socking solitaires in this window.

But something did catch her eye. In the centre of the window, for all to see, was a large sign. Models and display by Jimmy Stanton.

‘What do you think?’

Kristen bit her lip as she tried to hide her disappointment. ‘It’s - er-’

‘It’s my biggest display yet! The owner let me have the whole window this time,’ he said excitedly, grabbing her shoulders from behind and giving them a firm squeeze.

‘It’s - wonderful.’

‘I knew you’d like it! I’ve been keeping it a surprise all week.’ He kissed her hair. ‘Took me three days to put together.’

Kristen nodded, trying not to let her smile drop.

‘And you really like it?’

‘I do,’ she said, thinking it would be the only time she’d be likely to say those words to Jimmy.

‘I thought you could take a photo of me here some time,’ he said excitedly. ‘For the scrapbook.

‘Yes. Good idea,’ Kristin replied, forcing a tiny smile onto her face.

‘Great! Now, how ‘bout a Chinese? I’m starving,’ he said. Kristen looked up and smiled. It was, at least, a step up from a bag of chips.

Poor Mr Woo, Claudie thought as she walked passed the pub where she had spotted the man who had almost stolen her Judy Garland book. Tonight, music was blaring and the pub walls were vibrating with laughter as she walked by. It was just the very place where she and Mr Woo should spend a couple of hours. Just imagine that: sitting in a pub with an invisible, six-inch high herbal practitioner. Who was dead.

She slowed her pace and peeped through the window. There wasn’t a chance of her going in on her own, but she couldn’t resist a quick look. She couldn’t see the snooker table from this angle, but she could see that the place was packed. Heads nodded in animated conversation as cigarette smoke turned the air grey. These were people who knew nothing about lonely nights in with MGM musicals.

Claudie watched the strangers for a moment, her eyes skipping over their faces until they fell on one in particular. There, sat in a quiet little corner was a raven-haired woman in a tiny skirt and low, revealing top. Claudie squinted, taking in the flirtatious bat of her eyelashes and the letterbox-red mouth. But it wasn’t the woman who was the focus of her attention. It was the six-foot giant with long, dark hair next to her.

So, Claudie thought, Daniel hadn’t left Whitby after all.

‘Poor old Kris,’ Simon said, ruffling her newly-hennaed red hair.

‘I mean, I’m not being unreasonable, am I?’ she looked up at him with eyes the colour of wet slate.

‘Of course you’re not,’ he said. He’d lost count of the number of times they’d had this conversation.

‘It’s been two years after all, hasn’t it?’

‘It certainly has,’ Simon agreed.

‘You’re a man.’

‘Yes,’ Simon nodded, trying to keep the smile from out of his voice.

‘Wouldn’t you have done something by now - proposed or something?’

Simon swallowed hard. This was dangerous ground. If she took a close look at his own life, then she’d see what a great mess he’d made of it. She’d see how having not proposed to the feckless Felicity had been the best thing he’d ever done. But Kristen didn’t want to hear that.

He took a deep breath. ‘Perhaps he just needs a bit more time to get comfortable with the idea of marriage again.’

‘Comfortable!’ Kristen all but shouted.

‘Shush!’ Simon waved her. Even with the television on full blast, there was still a chance that Jimmy might overhear them, and Simon did not want to get in a row with Jimmy.

‘Comfortable! If we get much more comfortable,’ Kristen whispered angrily, ‘we’ll stagnate.’

‘But some men need more time than others.’

‘Do they?’ Kristen’s voice dripped sarcasm.

‘Yes they do. Don’t forget he’s only just got out of one marriage.’

‘Two years, Simon. It’s been two years!’

‘But that’s not long. He probably just wants to make absolutely sure. Look at it this way - it’s probably for your own good. You get a chance to back out too. He’s doing you a huge favour really,’ Simon smiled, trying his best to cheer her up.

‘And how do you work that one out?’

‘Because you’re getting to see him in all his glory. You’re getting the best of both worlds here: living together, but with none of the forced commitment of marriage. You can up and leave any time.’

‘But I don’t want to up and leave.’

‘And you don’t have to.’

Kristen screwed her face up, not understanding any of Simon’s logic.

‘Look,’ Simon began, ‘I’m not the best person to ask for advice on relationships, am I?’

‘Oh, Simon! I’m sorry,’ Kristen said, her face falling into a frown. ‘How selfish of me to keep going on and on.’

‘You’re not selfish. Just a bit worked up, that’s all.’ He took a swig from one of Jimmy’s cans of lager. ‘So tell me,’ he said, a slight smile curving his mouth, ‘was this window display any good, then?’

Kristen pursed her lips together and made as if she was going to hit him.

‘Only asking!’

‘God, Si,’ she said in frustration, ‘I feel as if I’m going to go out of my mind sometimes. Is it so wrong to want just a little bit more?’

‘No. ’Course not. And it will happen. Trust me,’ he said, reaching out and giving her arm a squeeze. ‘You’re one of the lucky ones, Kris. You’re going to be fine.’