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As I reach for the phone it goes dead. I look up at him, deadpan. “You couldn’t have been anywhere near me,” I say sternly, “you were lying in a hospital bed in a coma, you almost died.”
“No, I didn’t almost die.”
“I think you’ll find that you did.” My mobile phone tinkles with a message on the table.
“No,” he shakes his head, takes a step back. “I died, Audrey, the doctors said my heart stopped beating for about fifteen minutes. And I leapt out of my body and came straight to find you.” We stare at each other silently. The wall clock tick, tick, ticks in the background like a time bomb.
“Died?” I murmur, stunned.
“I know, sounds strange, doesn’t it?”
“But that’s impossible; you’re here…now…I…” I touch my lips and notice that my hand is trembling.
“You must’ve heard of it before?” he asks, pushing my long fringe off my face and gently tucking it behind my ear. “People dying for a few moments, minutes even? And then coming back to life again.”
I nod as I vaguely recall an article I read on the internet recently about a little girl who’d drowned and, although pronounced dead at the scene, was resuscitated in the ambulance ten minutes later.
“Well, that’s what happened to me,” he goes on, stroking my cheek with the back of his hand. I close my eyes, it feels warm, familiar. I’m sinking, sinking, sinking. “When I hit the car, I flew off my bike and landed on the pavement.” I open my eyes and take a step back, turning my face away. I can’t be intimate with Nick. His near-death experience doesn’t change anything. “My body was sprawled on the ground.” He lets his arm drop by his side, “Blood was squirting everywhere and the pain in my head.” He shuts his eyes tightly, “Was excruciating. I just wanted to die so that it would stop. And then…”
“And then?” I say, swallowing hard.
“And then I saw the light.”
24
“You’re kidding me!” Tina exclaims as she charges over the road bumps on Dukes Avenue. I’ve had three days to mull over Nick’s near-death experience and I still can’t get my head around it, let alone convince Tina. “You mean he ACTUALLY died?”
“Yes!” I say, bouncing around in the passenger seat, my head almost touching the roof. “And watch it, will you?” I cry. “You’re going to give me cystitis, those speed bumps are there for a reason, you know.”
“Sorry.” She slows down and rides the next one smoothly. “I can’t believe Nick didn’t tell me.” Nick doesn’t want many people to know, said they might think he’s a nutter. But agreed that I could tell Tina. She twists her lips to the side. “So, come on, then, spill.”
“Well, he said he was sprawled on the pavement in agony, and then suddenly the pain stopped and he felt himself rise above his body. When he looked down, he could see people rushing around him. He reckons he tried talking to them but they couldn’t hear him. So he just stood there, next to his body, completely helpless. A passerby rang the emergency services, then about ten minutes later he was being bundled into the back of an ambulance.”
“Wow, that’s just amazing. I wish I could do it.” I give her a worried, sideward glance, “Well, I don’t mean actually die but, you know, just pop-out for a bit.”
“I think you do enough of that already, love.” We both look down at her cleavage. She’s wearing a low-cut black ribbed vest top embellished with words Crazy Baby in Rhinestones. Not the most appropriate attire for visiting friends who’ve just lost their unborn child.
“He was actually dead for fifteen minutes,” I go on, “said it was the most bizarre sensation imaginable.”
Slowing down at the zebra crossing, Tina narrows her eyes, mulling it over. “Did he see a light?” Her eyes shine with excitement as she shifts into first gear.
I tell her that he did see a warm, alluring glow in the distance and it was only the thought of me that kept him from going to it. “And the moment he called out my name,” I say, “he fell back into his body again. The last thing he heard before losing consciousness was a voice crying out, “We’ve got him back” And then the wail of an ambulance siren. How surreal is that?” I stare at the traffic ahead and glance at my watch. I’m never going to make it to Louise’s and meet up with Connie in Hampstead at this rate. It’s not usually this busy at this time of day. What’s going on? Perhaps there’s been an accident or a burst water pipe or something.
“Nicky’s story is bloody awesome.” Tina shakes her head. “Just, AWESOME. He could sell it to a magazine, you know. I’m sure he’d get a few hundred quid for it. I’ve always been interested in the paranormal.”
We slow down in traffic, she puts the car in neutral, and pulls on the handbreak so hard, I’m surprised it doesn’t come off in her hand.
“I thought I saw a ghost once!” Tina says suddenly. Traffic starts trickling along. “I was staying with my aunt Mary in Devon during summer term one year. She had one of those big, creepy houses, you know, those detached ones on the seafront. Very Dickensian.” She gives a little shiver. “Anyway, I was hanging out of the bedroom window having a sneaky fag when I thought I heard a noise. I looked round and saw a woman’s reflection in the dressing table mirror. Just sitting there, staring at me.”
“Really?” I say in a high-pitched voice. “What did you do?”
“What do you think I did? I chucked my ciggie out of the window and frigging legged it to Aunt Mary’s room. I insisted on sleeping with her for the remainder of my stay. She and Uncle Robert tried to convince me it was only the reflection of the clotheshorse, but I wouldn’t have it. Poor old Uncle Robert was forced to sleep in the guest room.” She laughs loudly. “Naturally, I was never invited back,” she says, glancing in her rear-view mirror. “What do you make of Nick’s story, then? Do you believe him?”
“The thing is, Tean. Well, Nick’s always been an agnostic, so…” I trail off.
“Hmmmm…but wasn’t he in a coma for weeks? He may have dreamt the whole thing. I mean, he probably believes it happened but…well, he did have a knock on the head, didn’t he? And his injuries were quite serious.”
I nod slowly, she’s only repeating thoughts that have been bouncing around in my mind like a basketball since he told me. Yes, he was very accurate about the events on my plane journey home, but, having slept on it, I can’t be a hundred per cent sure that I didn’t relay my entire experience to Louise, even bad-breath- hairy-mole-man. I was a bit jetlagged the next day. My head was all over the place.
