Pack Up the Moon Read online

  “Have you got it?”

  I nodded yes.

  “What colour did you pick?”

  “Red.”

  “Good, now what are the three words?” He was grinning smugly.

  I read my words aloud: “Space-hoppers, cigarettes and lipstick.”

  “What?” he asked, obviously perturbed. His grin faded and he was looking at me funnily.

  “Space-hoppers, cigarettes and lipstick,” I reiterated.

  “I heard you the first time. It doesn’t make any sense – you’re doing it wrong.”

  I couldn’t believe it and frankly had had enough of his poxy game. “What the fuck do you mean I’m doing it wrong?” I screamed over my hairdryer. “It’s a psychological test. You asked me to pick three words that I associate with red and I picked them. How can that be wrong?”

  Bewildered, his hand reached for his forehead and it became obvious that he was fighting the urge to scratch his head. “How do you get space-hoppers, cigarettes and lipstick from the colour red?” he yelled.

  I was struggling with a new-found cow’s lick and not having the laugh that had been promised, but, as I had anticipated that laughter would not be the outcome of John’s little game, I just answered him in the hope that he’d leave me be.

  “When I was a kid my space-hopper was red. I smoke Marlboro, the packet is red, and my favourite colour lipstick is red. It’s that simple.” I turned up the hairdryer.

  “Well, that just doesn’t make any sense,” he mumbled, rereading the page.

  Then he shouted something about the three words and how they were supposed to describe how I saw myself. He was clearly disturbed with my answer, so in an effort to relieve his pain I turned off the dryer and thought for a minute.

  “Maybe it’s revealing that deep down I’m a chain-smoking space-hopper who likes red lipstick. That’s amazing. You’re right. I’ve really learned something about myself.” I was laughing now, but he remained perplexed.

  “When we did it in the lecture hall it worked really well. You must be mentally challenged, Em. I swear it works with everyone else.” He crumpled the page and threw it in the bin.

  As he left the room I heard him mutter, “Fucking space-hoppers!”

  * * *

  By the time John and I reached the party it was in full swing. The hall door was open and there was a couple sitting on the stairs kissing. As we passed them, John made a huge wet kissing sound. Fortunately they didn’t seem to hear it. We headed straight for the kitchen, where Seán was already sitting at the table skinning up a joint. John plonked down beside him, while I went looking for Anne and Richard and found them in the sitting-room. Anne was busy making sure the assembled crowd was having a good time while Richard was throwing alcohol down his throat like it was a gaping hole that required filling.

  There was a big homemade sign hanging over the fireplace with the words “WE’RE IN THE MONEY” printed on it. I smiled when I saw it and told Anne I liked her style. She, disgusted at her husband’s sense of humour, asked me not to remind her while attempting to keep her back to it.

  The music was loud, people were standing about chatting, some were dancing and all were drinking. I didn’t really know most of them, they were the workmates of the two hosts, so I returned to the kitchen to find the two lads bleary-eyed and John choking.

  Seán looked at me and smiled stupidly. “Have a drag,” he said.

  So I did and I felt the back of my head blow off. “Sweet Jesus! I need a hat.”

  They both laughed and Seán told us how a friend of his had posted a sample selection of differing strains of cannabis from Amsterdam. The little plastic bags were name-tagged and accompanied by a menu. We were busy being sincerely impressed when Anne burst into the room with an empty tray. She took one look at us.

  “Oh lovely, what a pack of wasters! You’re only here five minutes and look at the state of you!”

  I smiled at her. Anne was Den Mother. John used to say that she was born an adult. She was the one we all relied on to be sensible and she never failed to deliver.

  “Got any glasses?” I asked, unable to move.

  She handed me two large pint glasses before leaving the room, with her tray now stacked with sandwiches. I filled my glass with wine and John’s with beer. I looked at the wine for a few minutes before taking a sip and made a mental note never to put wine into a pint glass again. Having said that, it tasted fine. Seán had started to skin up again and I was really beginning to relax after my stressful day.

  “Where’s Clo?”

  “She’s here,” said Seán, while dispersing tobacco with expert hands.

  “Where?”

  “Upstairs with some guy,” he answered, grinning.

  I felt suddenly alert.

  “I tried to get into the bedroom to leave my coat,” he continued. “The door was locked and Clo’s voice told me to fuck off.”

  John started to laugh. I wanted to check it out, but my legs wouldn’t work. Anne kept entering and restacking her tray, only staying long enough to warn us about overdoing it. Richard, who was pissed, was holding court in the sitting-room. We remained in the kitchen drinking, smoking and laughing at rubbish.

  After a while Anne arrived back into the room.

  “How’s it going?” I asked.

  “Richard is on his fourth we’re-filthy-rich speech. I really don’t know what’s got into him,” she said and suddenly I was reminded of my mother.

  Seán was laughing. “Half a bottle of vodka, four Slippery Nipples and at least two joints,” he noted as though reading a shopping list.

  Anne remained unimpressed. “Yes, very funny, Seán. You’re a fucking comedian.”

  Seán was so inebriated he was fully sure that her jibe was a compliment. “Cheers!” he said, lifting his glass and John and I followed suit.

  “You’re a bunch of wasters,” Anne said and we fell about the place laughing, delighted with our title. She smiled and threw her eyes up to heaven like an amused parent admonishing bold children.

  She was piling more food onto trays when Clo walked into the room with a guy trailing behind her.

  “Hey, folks,” she said, relieving Seán of his fresh produce. The guy just stood there, not sure where to put himself. She parked herself on a chair and patted the one beside her. “Sit here,” she said, smiling at her new friend again.

  But he didn’t see her, as he was too busy looking at us, who in turn were staring at him as only stoned people can. He sat, appearing perturbed. We were waiting for an introduction. Clo smiled at us, as if forgetting about the sexual object beside her. Eventually John asked her to introduce us.

  “Oh,” she said, “this is Philip.”

  Anne, now finished piling the tray, welcomed him to her home and headed off into the sitting-room. We all just smiled at him until he excused himself to go to the loo. The second the door closed behind him, I asked the question on everyone’s mind.

  “Did you just have sex with him upstairs?”

  “No!” she stated categorically while nodding her head yes.

  “So where did you meet this poor bastard?” Seán asked tactfully.

  “The taxi rank.”

  We laughed again.

  “There really is an awful lot to be said for public transport,” she noted and Seán nodded in agreement.

  Anne arrived back in. Seán asked her to sit with us, but she was on a mission to find more ice. John called her Doris Day and, as she left, he was given two fingers for the second time that day.

  Philip returned and sat down. We all stared at him again. After a few seconds he spoke. “So this is an inheritance party?”

  We nodded again.

  “What exactly is that?” he asked, appearing unimpressed. It seemed pretty obvious to the rest of us, but Seán decided to answer him. “It’s when a very, very rich grandparent dies at a very old age and leaves you pots of cash.”

  We all smiled at him, stupidly delighted with the simplicity and hone
sty of his answer. Philip wasn’t convinced. “So, somebody died?” was his question.

  John looked at him as though he was retarded.

  Seán said, “He was very old.” He took a drag of the joint directly after he said it, blew it out slowly and smiled at Philip. He reminded me of Steve McQueen in The Magnificent Seven and we stoners laughed again. Philip was a grown-up and therefore not impressed. He excused himself from our presence by saying he was going into the sitting-room, but we all knew that he had every intention of leaving the building. We waited till we heard the front door slam.

  Seán looked at Clo and stated the obvious. “You do realise he’s gone, don’t you?”

  She smiled at him. “‘Gone But Not Forgotten!’” She laughed at her own joke.

  I turned to John and with surprising ability grabbed his chin and turned it towards me, looked into his eyes and said in an American hillbilly accent, “I hope you give me somethin’ I won’t forgit tonight.”

  Without missing a beat he answered in the same stupid accent: “You and your sister, honey!”

  Seán, who was taking a swig from his can, nearly choked at his friend’s comic genius and everybody laughed again. Eventually Anne and Richard joined us. Clo passed the joint to Anne who took her first long and sustained drag and Doris Day left the building. It was a few minutes before she realised that Philip was missing. When she inquired as to his whereabouts, Clo responded monosyllabically with: “Gone.”

  John added, “But not forgotten.”

  We all fell about laughing and Anne said, “Christ!”

  The night pretty much continued in that inane vein. At one point John and I were dancing – well, in fact, merely holding one another up and swaying. Anne put on Prince’s “Purple Rain”, which was our song. We swayed some more and remembered the night we had listened to the song while christening our brand-new ten-year-old Ford Escort. We smiled at the memory and recalled how amazed we were when the windows actually did steam up. John spun me around at the end of the song and dropped me. Despite this little mishap I felt like Ginger Rogers – again the power of mind-altering drugs. After helping me back on my feet, he kissed me and I felt sixteen. John could always make me feel sixteen, which was one of the reasons that I loved him.

  People started to leave and Clo disappeared to sleep under the stairs, a habit she picked up in college. Unconcerned, we forgot to look for her when leaving. It was three in the morning and Richard and John were in deep conversation about some stupid football game. We were standing at the door and I was tired and cold.

  Eventually Anne called time and we headed out onto the street. We hadn’t reached the edge of the footpath when I remembered that I had left my lighter behind. I wanted to go back in and get it but John insisted we’d get it in the morning. I wouldn’t listen. The lighter was a silver-plated Zippo that Noel had given me for my twenty-first birthday. He had it engraved and I loved it, not just because it was a cool lighter but also because, to me, it represented his acceptance of my hedonistic lifestyle. So despite John’s protest I went back inside. He said he’d wait on the street.

  Anne and Richard were in the sitting-room picking up cans; Seán was still in the kitchen, smoking yet another joint. I smiled at him and made some stupid remark while looking for the lighter. He offered me a drag for the road. I accepted. He smiled at me.

  “You’re beautiful,” he said.

  I smiled, waiting for the punch line that didn’t come. The words hung in the air.

  “Cheers,” I said, a moment too late.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t meant to embarrass you,” he slurred.

  “It’s fine,” I said, going red. I saw my lighter on the table and grabbed it. Instinctively I bent down to peck his cheek to signify my exit. He turned as I reached his face and I felt a shock run through me when his lips made contact with mine. We both pulled back and he began to apologise profusely. I didn’t want him to fuss, as it had been an accident. We were friends and it was no big deal.

  Chapter 3

  The End Is Near

  I was moving towards the door when we heard a screech of brakes closely followed by a sickening thud. I hadn’t even properly registered this background noise when Seán was up and running out the door. I heard Anne and Richard shouting. They were calling John’s name. Suddenly I was stuck to the floor, still staring at the spot where Seán had been sitting.

  Anne was now screaming, “Oh Christ, oh Sweet Jesus!”

  My heart started to beat wildly. My chest started to hurt. I heard Richard screaming at Seán. “Don’t touch him, don’t move him!”

  Suddenly my legs started to work. I was moving, running out of the house onto the street. Once outside, I saw my friends. Richard ran past me into the house.

  Anne was standing in the middle of the road, staring down at Seán who was bent over someone who was bleeding very heavily from the head. I looked around for John. I must have been shouting his name because Seán looked up at me with panic in his eyes. I walked towards him and realised that the bleeding head was John. I started to shake and it seemed to take forever to get to where he was lying. I slumped down on the ground.

  “John, John, John.” I kept saying his name over and over again but he wouldn’t move. The driver was sitting on the curb, holding his knees to his chest, mumbling something about not seeing him and that he’d just appeared in front of the car. I looked at this stranger biting his lip and crying.

  Richard came out of the house saying the ambulance would be here in five minutes. Anne ran back into the house. Seán was talking to John. He was telling him that everything would be OK and that the ambulance was on the way. I told him I loved him and that he was to hold on. It was very cold; John looked very cold. I started to try to lift him up to take him into my arms, but Seán stopped me.

  “We can’t move him, Em. He’ll be OK. The ambulance is on its way.”

  “Please wake up!” I begged. I just wanted to see his eyes. “Please wake up!”

  Anne ran out of the house with towels in her hands as the ambulance came up the street. The medics got out and moved us out of the way. Seán pulled me away and held his arms around me tight, as though he was afraid that I would run away. Richard was staring at the driver who was sitting on the curb, his lip beginning to bleed. Anne was standing in the middle of the street still holding the towels.

  I was allowed to go in the ambulance with John; the others followed in a taxi. I held his hand while they worked around me. They stuck tubes into him and used paddles on his heart. He was still asleep but I talked to him anyway. I told him that we could go on holiday as soon as he was better and not to worry, because everything was going to be fine. I mentioned how much I needed him on a number of occasions and even spoke about some stupid football match he was looking forward to.

  We got to the hospital and I was left standing in a corridor while they wheeled him into a room that only staff were allowed into. A nurse took me into a waiting area and asked me if I wanted a cup of tea with sugar.

  “Sugar is good for shock,” I said.

  She agreed and smiled at me sadly. “I’ll get you that tea,” she said and left.

  The others arrived minutes later and waited. Nobody spoke. I was terrified. I knew it was bad.

  Please stay alive. Please be OK, I kept saying over and over again in my head.

  Holy Mary Mother of God, please save him. Our Father Who Art in Heaven, please save him. Please God, please sweet Jesus, please save him. Glory be to the Father, please, I prayed, then I prayed again.

  Seán suddenly remembered Clo. She was still in the house, passed out somewhere, blissfully unaware of this nightmare. Anne went to phone her.

  The doctor was walking towards us. I looked up at him and it seemed like hours before my eyes reached his. He asked if any family were present. John’s parents hadn’t arrived yet. I stood up. I said I was family and walked towards him.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “John’s head injuries were just too seri
ous. We did everything we could. He wouldn’t have felt any pain.”

  He was telling us that John was dead. My head hurt and my eyes were burning. I wanted to stop my heart from beating because each beat was becoming more painful. The others were staring at me. Anne was crying. I tried to listen to the doctor over the loud buzzing in my ears. He took me into the room where I had been previously denied entry. He stood for a minute, watching me stare at John’s body. Then he left. John was in the room but I was alone.

  No. This isn’t happening. We’re at home in bed. I’m having a nightmare.

  “Wake up! Wake up!” I called out, pinching myself hard. “Wake up!”

  I knew deep down I wasn’t dreaming but I pinched myself harder. Then I held him in my arms. He was heavy and still warm.

  I whispered into his ear. “Just open your eyes. That’s all you have to do. The doctors will take care of the rest.”

  He wouldn’t though. Death was thick in the air, making it difficult for me to breathe with ease. There was a white sheet tucked under his chin. The blood had now stopped flowing from his head and he was clean. I could see his face again. He looked younger, like the teenage boy who had always picked me to play on his basketball team despite my inability to play. I took his hand again and I could feel my heart breaking.

  I briefly wondered if I was about to have a heart attack and I welcomed it. He was dead. He was dancing with me a few hours ago, but now he was dead. It was becoming even more difficult to breathe.

  “I love you,” I said, my voice breaking. “I really wish that you would fucking wake up.” I pleaded with him but he couldn’t hear me, but I couldn’t accept that. I kissed him on his blue lips and rubbed my wet face against his cheek. I whispered into his ear and begged, “Please come back!”

  Then I said “fuck” a lot, tears burning red tracks into my face, hands shaking and numb holding onto his growing colder and colder.

  “Please come fucking back! I’ll do anything!”

  I waited – but nothing. I looked up towards the ceiling. I knew it was stupid but I didn’t care.

  “God, if you give him back to me, I will do whatever you want. I’ll be good. Please God, please God, please God just give him back to me. He’s twenty-six – he’s only twenty-fucking-six. Please God, please God, give him back!”