Page 85 of The Interview

“Yeah?” I drag out the word, so it sounds more like a question. “Why? Shouldn’t I be? What’s happened? What’s the time?” Raking my fingers through my hair, I stare at my wife.

My sister exhales heavily down the phone.

“You all right?” I ask her.

“Yeah, I just… It wasn’t a dream, but I was asleep, and then I thought I heard Sean…” She trails off.

“Yeah? What’s he say?”

“He just shouted your name really loudly. So loud it made me jump and woke me up…” She trails off again, but this time I say nothing because the vivid dream I’ve just been having suddenly comes back to me.

“I was dreaming about him,” I say through a yawn.

Reaching out, I pull Ash down onto the bed next to me, because this hard-on is going nowhere and needs to find a home.

“Coffee?” she whispers in my ear.

I nod, pulling her in for a kiss before letting her get up.

“Then we’re gonna fuck,” I whisper in her ear while holding the phone away.

“You what? You was dreaming of him? What the fuck is going on, Marls, cos this is freaking me the fuck out,” Georgia says as I put the phone back to my ear.

“Fucked if I know, George. It’s probably because we’ve been talking about him, looking at the photos and all that. He’s on our minds, and our heads are just fucking with us.”

“But he told me about Carla. No one knew that except the three of them, and the big mouths…”

I put the phone on speaker and set it on the bedside table while I pick up one of the three hundred and twenty-eight cushions off the floor that my wife insists we have on the bed to put it behind me.

“I don’t know. I don’t know what to say, George. I don’tnotbelieve in all that kind of thing, but nothing has ever really happened to me till now tomakeme a believer.”

She’s quiet for a while, and because it’s my sister—one of my best mates—I know her and know that she’s got something more to say. She’s just working out how to say it.

“I know I’ve had a few mental health issues over the years, but if I tell you something, Marls, will you promise not to laugh?”

“I won’t laugh,” I tell her, even though I might, because this is me, and it’s what I do.

“He’s always come to me. Ever since we lost him. I can smell him, Marls, feel his hair between my fingers. I know when he’s here, and I know when he’s leaving. It’s a mixture of a feeling and like an energy. I don’t know how else to describe it.”

“Can I be honest and tell you something?” I ask.

“Go for it.”

“Yesterday, when we were all on the sofa, he was there. Don’t know how I knew, so don’t ask me to explain, cos I can’t, but he was there,” I tell her.

“Did you feel it, too?” Ashley asks me as she walks across our bedroom, a cup of coffee in each hand.

“You felt it?” I question her as she hands me my coffee.

“I didn’t wanna say anything and upset anyone,” Ash starts, “but when we first sat there, I got really sad. Like sad to the point where I could easily have cried. I was missing him, thinking it was wrong that we were all together like that, that he should’ve been there. And then it was gone, and I just had this feeling, this sense that he was there with us, and it was all okay.”

“So, what is it. What’s happening?” George asks. “Are we in danger? Is he trying to tell us something, warn us?”

“George, this is Maca, not fucking Lassie,” I say, making us all laugh because I’m a funny fucker.

“Then, what is it?” my sister asks again.

“I think,” Ashley begins, “Maca just has a case of FOMO and wants to be part of everything. He wants to be with us when we’re all together like the old days. Sorry, George, if that upsets ya, but I think that’s what it is.”