I could have written that song. If I could actually write songs.
So what I’m going to do is actually answer this weird page honestly; just for the heck of it.
*
Chapter 4
‘Miss Hadday?’
A young guy’s just come through one of the doors leading off from reception.
He’s holding the application form I’d handed back to the receptionist once I’d filled it in.
I raise my hand, smile, like there are hundreds of other people sitting out here rather than just me.
He’s smiling too, but it fades a little as he quickly looks me up and down.
Up close, he can probably see that my blouse isn’t a master class in ironing.
My suit’s good quality, but as it’s stolen off the peg, the fit leaves a lot to be desired.
The makeup, well that’s one step up from Styling Head; even I know that.
As I stand up to take his hand, he grins again anyway.
He’s cute in a Hanna Barbera cartoon sorta way; all square chin and eyes that are a little bit too large for the real world. Hair most women would sell their kids for.
‘Jake, Jake Frasen,’ he says. ‘Interesting answers you’ve given,’ he adds, raising the form I’d filled in.
‘Oh, er, yeah, yeah. Twice, Twice Hadday.’ I say my nickname before I’ve had time to think better of it.
‘Twice Hadday?’ He grins. ‘Yes, I’d noticed that on the form; in the area where we ask you to tell us what your friends tend to call you?’
‘Oh, yes, I wondered about that; why would you want to know anything like that, if you don’t mind me asking?’
‘Well, the name a person’s friends give them can be particularly revealing, don’t you think? You know, about that individual’s character; and how they’re perceived by those closest to them too?’
I grin, nod.
With a wave of his hand, he indicates that I should follow him over towards the room he’d just stepped out of.
The room’s much larger than I’d expected, more like some kind of boardroom than a regular office. A massive table dominates the room, surrounded by chairs.
One of the chairs is pulled back from the table, a pad, pen and half-finished cup of tea laid out before it.
Jake waves me to the chair next to his, pulls it out for me like he’s some attentive Victorian gentleman.
‘Some of your answers surprised me…’
‘Oh yes yes.’
Oh no no! He’ll be calling security any moment now!
‘Particularly the reason behind your nick name that we just touched on now…’
Even as we sit down, he flips through the forms.
‘Ah yes, here it is…very interesting, very very interesting.’
‘Very interesting? For an advertising agency?’
He grins, like we’re sharing a private joke.
Fact is, I’d thought it was all a bit much, demanding such incredibly personal details.
How mum had lost what would have been her first child while pregnant.
How I’d come along and, as a precocious three year old, had announced to my parents that I had planned to come along earlier, but realised it wasn’t the right time after all.
How, when mum and dad sat down and worked it all out, there was an incredibly good chance that we would have shared the same birthday.
So this was, you could say, my second coming.
I’d been planning to come along once before.
But now here I was after all.
So I’d come along Twice.
Yeah, that’s all pretty personal in my book, even though mum and dad are no longer around, God bless them.
Yet I’d filled in the boxes anyway.
Like I wanted, needed, to open up to someone other than a close friend and get it off my chest.
‘Er, if you don’t mind me asking again? Why are there all these other odd questions on the form?’
‘Odd?’ He looks at me like I’m the odd one for asking.
‘Well, as I said; this is an ad agency, yeah?’
He gives me the private joke smile once more.
It fades when it dawns on him that I’m not smiling, that I’m posing him a serious question.
‘Ad agency?’
He says the words like all this is complete surprise to him. Like when we came through the door, we stepped through into a room involved in a completely different line of business.
Is that what this is?
Is it really some sort of front for some criminal organisation, like that Tom Cruise movie about the dodgy law firm?
‘You weren’t expecting it; the questions?’ he says.
‘Well, no.’
He purses his lips. Another surprise for him, obviously.
He turns to the front two pages.
‘And you’re Vietnamese, yes?’
Times like this, the best form of defence is attack.
‘Ago naway hiatir rotophan erga snay.’
I say it with the nearest to a lilting musical tone I can manage.
I smile benignly.
‘Ban da noi nhung gi?’ he replies.
Oh gawd; what’s the chance of that eh? The only Vietnamese speaking ad executive in the whole of the bleeding city, I’ll bet!
I nod, smile.
It sounded like a question.
Fifty-fifty chance it’s the right answer, right?
He frowns.
Wrong?
‘Thing is,’ he says, ‘I picked up my Vietnamese while serving an arduous tour a few minutes ago on Google translation. I’m not quite sure where your Vietnamese comes from though.’
I smile benignly again.
‘Ngay,’ I say musically.
It’s the only Vietnamese I know.
It means right.
I think.
But, come to think of it, is that as in right and left?
Course, I could have said, ‘Mum and dad didn’t really stay alive long enough to teach me it.’
But somehow I think that’s a misuse of mum and dad’s memory.
‘Now,’ he says brightly, like I’ve just passed that test with flying colours, ‘can you see anyone else in this room?’
I raise my eyebrows at that one.
Trick question, right?
There was no one else in here when we came in.
Unless this place is like really weird, and someone’s been hiding in here all along, ready to jump out and surprise me.
I look cautiously to my left, taking in everything I can, even turning in my chair to get a full view.
Nope, no one there.
I do the same on my other side.
Nope, no one there eith–
No, wait!
In the far, badly lit corner there’s a coat stand.
The way a coat hangs there, together with a hat casually flopped across the highest array of hooks, and the way the shadows fall over it all – yeah, you could see that as a figure.
You know, in the way some people see a picture of the Virgin in the charred bits of a piece of toast, or could swear there’s a rock formation that looks like Jesus himself.
Or like how I saw swans instead of elephants in the picture out in reception.
That’s it, isn’t it?
This is a test of my imagination, this being an ad agency.
‘Well, I suppose that coat and hat over there could be–’
It moved!
It just moved, I could swear it!
No – it’s not moving anymore.
If it moved at all.
I’m just a little freaked out, yeah?
See, the long coat, the old style hat; it just looked for a moment like one of those weird guys I’d seen attacking that poor girl in the alleyway yesterday.
(Am I using the word weird too many times here? But how else do I describe what’s happ
ening to me these days?)
I turn to the guy.
He’s making notes on the form I’d filled in.
Hopefully, he didn’t see me twitch and gawp in surprise when I thought I’d seen the coat moving.
‘You know, it could be taken as a sort of figure,’ I say, completing the sentence I’d originally meant to say.
‘Good, good,’ he says. ‘Now, just one final question; who recommended you?’
‘Recommended?’
‘Well, someone must have recommend you. Your psychiatrist perhaps?’
Psychiatrist? Does he think I’m…
‘Do you mean you think I’m…’
‘No no, not all! But you can’t have just turned up here, applying for this particular job…’
He spots my anxious frown.
‘Can you?’ he says doubtfully.
‘I, er, just sort of turned up on the off chance…’
‘Off chance?’ He manages to make it sound like it’s the craziest thing he’s ever heard.
I nod wanly.
‘Off chance.’ I repeat, managing to make it sound like the craziest thing anyone’s ever heard.
And it had all been going relatively well up until this point.
He stands up from his seat, smiling, offering me his hand.
‘Thank you for coming to see us Miss Hadday,’ he says smartly. ‘We’ll be in touch.’
Which, of course, means they won’t, ngay?
*
Chapter 5
‘We always think interviews go worse than they actually did,’ Chris says, trying to reassure me.
He wraps his arms around me, hugs me close.
‘Least you tried, eh?’
I grimace, determined to tell him the less-than-rosy truth.
‘Trust me Chris; this isn’t just a gut feeling that it went wrong. It went really really wrong.’
We pull apart, I stare into his eyes.
‘It was all – well, really weird.’
He laughs.
‘Twice, everything seems weird to you!’
(See, I knew I was using that word too much!)
‘No, no Chris – you don’t understand, honestly. This didn’t seem anything like an ad agency. It was like I’d stepped through the wrong door into a sort of Alice in Wonderland madhouse, where nothing much made any sense.’
He reaches out, gives me another affectionate hug.
‘Well then Twice; you’re perfect for the job, eh?’
We chuckle together.
Know what I thought had been really, well, weird about Jake?
The way he wasn’t freaked out by me.
See, most people are usually just a little bit nervous around me. A little bit unsure about why I look the way I do, why I come across all shy one moment, yet the next won’t give way on certain points.
And I just wasn’t sensing that edginess in Jake.
Like he was used to dealing with people like me.
Like I was as normal, as far as he was concerned, as any of the other girls at school.
And, see, I know I’m not like the other girls at school.
‘I’m expecting the call saying you’ve got the job any moment now,’ Chris says archly, glancing down at his watch like it’s all going to happen in the next few minutes. ‘You gave them the home as your address, yeah?’
‘Ha, you kidding? If I’d said I came from there, no way would I get a job in a swanky pla– ohh!’
Chris’s look is half admonishment, half well-what-was-I-supposed-to-expect.
‘Twice!’ he says sternly, before breaking out into a deep laugh.
*
I’ve got to show up every now and again at the home, if only to let them know I’m not completely falling off the rails.
In the morning, as I’m getting ready for school, there’s a knock at the door. Before I can answer it, it’s followed by a shout.
There’s someone with an important message for me down in reception.
For me?
An important message?
Someone in reception?
Like, wow!
I mean, that doesn’t even happen on my birthday.
Course, our reception is nothing like the one proudly put together by Misters Zoofelt, Dunnstedt and Ernst.
There’s a lot of people here for a start.
Probation offices. Social workers. Plain clothes cops. ‘Uncles.’
All here to check on their wayward charges.
I look over towards our dour receptionist.
All the time she’s worked here, she’s never offered me a coffee; how about that?
I’m hoping she’ll give the nod towards whoever’s here to see me.
But I don’t need to.
I can see who’s here to see me.
She already rising from her seat. She’s gives me a richly beaming smile as she catches my startled gaze.
It’s the girl.
The dead girl from the alley.
*
Chapter 6
‘Miss Hadday?’ she says. ‘I’m ever so pleased to meet you! I’m Mary, Mary Colderson; from Zoofelt, Dunnstedt & Ernst Advertising?’
‘Oh yes, yes.’
Okay, okay – so what was I supposed to say to her?
‘Er, excuse me; but aren’t you dead?’
Or would you prefer, ‘Oh yes; we’ve already met. I rifled your pockets while you were dead, remember?’
‘Well Twice – it is all right if I call you Twice, isn’t it? – I’m really pleased to tell you that: you did it, you’ve got the job!’
‘Job?’
I’m too bewildered to respond in any other way than like a complete idiot.
She’s shaking my hand, this girl I saw lying dead only yesterday.
There was no doubt about it – she was dead.
But there’s no doubt about it now too – here she is, every bit as alive as I am.
Sure, her hand’s a bit cold. But nowhere near as cold as you’d expect the hand of a dead person to be.
‘The job as courier liaison, of course! It’s a wonderful, wonderful job, Twice! I should know, because I was the one doing it just before you came along to take over from me! You said you could start immediately? On the form; you ticked the start anytime box?’
I nod, dazed.
‘S…s…sorry. It’s all a bit much to take in.’
She grins, like she understands.
‘Well, would a nine a.m. start tomorrow be okay with you? Obviously, we need someone to start straight away, of course.’
She giggles, like she’s cracked a funny joke.
‘Yeah, I’ll be starting dead on time Mary!’
No, no; I didn’t say that.
‘Don’t worry Twice; I’ll be there to help you bed in. We’ll be working together for a while. Isn’t that exciting?’
‘Together?
Wow, does everyone who starts working at Zoofelt, Dunnstedt and Ernst Advertising just automatically start repeating what the other person has just said?
There seems to be an awful lot of it going on lately.
‘I mean, well, what; so…you’re keeping your job, right?’
‘No, no, course not!’ she says, her voice and eyes all sparkly excitement. ‘I’m still going to be courier liaison; but now I’ll be representing the other side, of course!’
‘Yeah, yeah, of course, course.’
I chuckle along with her.
Such fun, talking to a dead girl!
*
After all the weird stuff that had been going on, I naturally thought my first day at Zoofelt, Dunnstedt & Ernst Advertising would be a magic mushroom
version of a Tim Burton movie.
But no; it’s all just regular advertising stuff, far as I can see.
Oddest things here are the people turning up from film production companies and photography studios, either pitching their wares or here for meetings.
Pony tails on guys who are well into their male-pattern baldness phase. Younger guys and gals who think they’re a gift to the art world because they’ve come up with lines like It’s creamy screamy or Just a second Bert!.
They scrutinise the ads on our walls, whispering amongst themselves that they can’t see why it beat them to an award they obviously thought was a shoo-in.
Actually, that’s one of the tag lines on the endless loop of TV commercials that’s already driving me crazy: It’s a shoo-in at Farn’s Shoes!
The picture of the elephants on the wall manages to raise the most sniggers.
‘Salvador Dali!’ they say with an awed, disbelieving shake of the head.
There’s no sign of Jake.
Pity; I would have liked to have met him again, thanked him for recommending me for the job.
There’s no sign of Mary, either; thank God!
There is a girl here to help me, however.
She’s called Franky, Franky Gordon.
Franky actually works on the night shift (yeah, that’s what I thought too – night shift? In an ad agency?) but as a favour both to Mary and me, and ‘recognising the awful urgency’, she’s come in specially to quickly show me the ropes.
So she sits alongside me, showing me how to put calls through, who I should call, particularly when someone comes in looking a bit vague about who they need to see. The quickest ways of using the phone and room booking lists, the best way to call them up on the computer screen, the easiest way of making sure there aren’t any booking clashes.
Making sure I don’t make any mistakes, basically.
Come lunch time, Franky’s still here, insisting she’ll be okay for tonight thanks to her Energy+ pills. Perfectly legal, she insists; ‘Each one is about the same as fifty concentrated coffees, that’s all!’
That means she’s here when Chris pops in to see how I’m getting on on my first day.
‘Chris – Franky,’ go the quick introductions.
Chris can be a bit of a charmer when he wants. As a thank you to Franky for helping me settle in, Chris picks up her doodle sheet from the desk, deftly folding it into one of his amazing butterflies.
Okay, so I admit that doesn’t sound too enthralling, right?
But I defy anyone not to be just simply gobsmacked when he gently pulls down on the butterfly’s lower body and it begins to flutter its wings like it’s going to take off from his hand at any moment.
Well, Franky’s delighted anyway.
Fact is, she breaks down in tears.
‘No no, sorry, it’s beautiful, it really really is,’ she explains through her tears. ‘It’s just that, well, it’s my Granny Gordon’s funeral on Friday – and she just loved butterflies. She said they were like the souls of angels, they were so small and fragile and beautiful.’