Tamsyn Murray-Afterlife 01 My So-Called Afterlife by Tamsyn Murray Read Free Book Online

local Sainsbury’s when I was eleven, and if that doesn’t paint you a picture of my state of mind, nothing will. When I get like that, my mouth tends to go into overdrive, and this was no exception. Jeremy put up with my motor-mouth tendencies with a wry smile. It had become a little strained by the time the bus deposited us at the side of the North Circular Road in Edmonton.
    ‘OK, you can go now.’ I turned expectantly to Jeremy and wiggled my fingers in a cute little wave. ‘Have fun.’
    He didn’t move. ‘You haven’t given me the address yet. How can I pick you up if I don’t know where you are?’
    I was beginning to wonder if there was some kind of joke going on. Jeremy could not possibly be expecting to pick me up. Any moment, a ghostly TV presenter with an inane grin was going to step through a wall and tell me I’d been set up.
    ‘That is a very good question.’ I folded my arms and adopted my most sincere expression. ‘And the answer is that you’re not. Tell me where you’re going and I’ll come and find you when I’m ready to head home.’
    ‘All right.’
    It was too easy. I blinked suspiciously. ‘You’re OK with that?’
    He smiled. ‘Of course. I’ll just follow you to make sure you get there safely.’
    I sighed, seeing where he was going. There was no way I wanted him trailing along behind me. ‘The party is in a deserted factory behind that industrial estate over there.’ I waved an arm towards the dark buildings silhouetted in the fading light. ‘Hep says there’s a pub beside those houses on the other side of the dual carriageway.’
    ‘The last bus is just before midnight.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Why don’t we meet here at quarter to twelve?’
    Nodding, I turned to go.
    ‘Lucy?’
    For the love of Marmite, what else did he have to say? Arranging my face into a patient expression, I turned around enquiringly.
    ‘Stay off the spirits.’ Chuckling at his own wit, he walked towards the passageway under the road.
    ‘And you wonder why I don’t want you to come with me.’ Shaking my head in pity, I set off in the opposite direction.
    Hep met me by the overgrown trail leading to the factory.‘You ditched your minder all right, then?’
    ‘Yeah, wasn’t sure I’d find this place though. What made Ryan have the party here?’ I asked, picking my way through a sea of discarded beer cans, crisp packets and other rubbish. It was a long way from classy, but I don’t suppose there are many places where the dead can let their hair down undisturbed.
    Shrugging, Hep said, ‘I think it’s because he died near here. Did you see all the flowers by the roadside back there?’
    I nodded. There had been a lot, and they’d looked fresh. I’d never paid much attention to things like that when I was alive. Now they told me that there was probably another member of my peculiar world nearby.
    ‘His mum brings them every week,’ she went on. ‘It must have been really hard, losing her son and her husband at the same time.’
    Death wasn’t easy for anyone, I thought, but at least my parents had had each other, and my brother and sister. My mum had spent the weeks after my murder in my toilet, daring anyone to deny her access to fuss over flowers and talk to the empty air for hours. I swung from screaming anger to helpless sorrow as I struggled with the agony of not being able to reach her. More than anything, I battled for a way to tell her I was still there, listening to her broken-toned stories about the memorial assembly at school and the picture my bewildered little sister had drawn of me in heaven with the angels. The frustration was almost too much. Gradually, hervisits lessened and in a way that helped me. It hurt too, until the last time she came with my dad and told me through streaming tears that they couldn’t bear to use the streets where I had walked, or avoid my bedroom door any longer. The house where I’d once used my red felt tips to draw a giant dragon on