Walking Talking - Trent Jamieson (SOLD!)

[marianne]

This is not an uncorrected proof; in fact it is several stages before an uncorrected proof. If you were to hold an uncorrected proof of this book in front of a mirror, then put another mirror behind it at a slight angle, then count back the reflections you would just see this proof at the point where the reflection is starting to blur off into infinity (about reflection 18, see, the one where I'm waving).
It is also © Trent Jamieson 2007, which has been a remarkable year.

I suppose Walking Talking is a paranormal romance, think Zig Zag St meets The Night Stalker by way of Felafel.

WALKING TALKING
Trent Jamieson
Chapter One

Eddie, I know something's wrong the moment I see the dead girl in the Wintergarden food court in the middle of Brisbane. Just not the right sort of wrong, as it turns out.
I'm starving hungry, still in my favourite suit, though the jacket's folded over my arm, and a few minutes back in Brisbane from a funeral service in Logan City where I had been expecting a Stir. Nothing had come of it. The relief's a heady thing, let me tell you, palpable. Stirrers aren't common, but everything had been suggesting that one was on its way. By everything I mean the usual portents, a little blood in my spit, nonsensical txts on the work mobile, though one had been from Sally; I'd even had a couple of cluster headaches, real bastards. You do this job for any length of time and you're chewing down on codeine on the bad days.
So, I see her and there is a moment, when that dissonance, between relief and uncertainty, hits me. But it passes and I'm certain; painfully certain, in fact.
She's standing by the escalator. Elizabeth St is behind us, loud and busy with its usual stream of lunchtime traffic. No one else can see her, though they can feel her. People unconsciously avoid the space she occupies. None of them do what I do. All those oblivious, slightly uncomfortable, folk; eating their lunch, and talking, or reading or texting, but it's just me and her, and that indefinable something. A bit of déjà vu. A bit of lightning.
Which is wrong, utterly, utterly wrong. She shouldn't be here. This isn't my gig. Mr Morrigan hasn't called me, nor his offsider Derek with his far, far too officious manner (prick). But, to be honest, I don't care, because the moment I see her, the very first moment, I feel it happening, and am at once sorry for myself.
It isn't going to end well.
You don't fall in love with a punter.
You don't fall in love with a dead girl.
"It's all about emotions, this business," my father told me once. "Which is why you can't become emotionally involved. You mustn't. Believe me when I say the dead don't."
I know I am about to become emotionally involved. Too late, am emotionally involved. I resign myself to the fact. Look, Eddie let me tell you. I could fall in love at the drop of a hat. Start mooning around pretty girls, girls that play guitars or paint, or laugh in a charming way. But this girl is dead; our relationship had to be strictly professional. And, besides, there's Sally to worry about, and every time I do this, this crashing into love, though I don't do anything, I feel guilty as all hell.
I pull an earbud from my ear, letting the Clash spill out into the foodcourt, there's a tinny splash of "London Calling".
The dead girl comes right up to me, and I've got electricity prickling my spine.
She whispers in my ear. "Run."
And then someone starts shooting at me.
Not good.
But we'll get back to that.
See, she's dressed well, real well, like she has serious style. I'm not sure I can pinpoint what it is, and I don't do brands, but it's there, and it's unique, I suppose you could call it edgy. The dead project an image of themselves, normally it's something comfortable like a pair of tracksuit pants or jeans and a shirt, or nothing at all, but she's in a black dress, her hair shoulder length and ragged cut, she's into silver jewellery and what I assume are ironic broaches of Disney characters. Yeah, serious style. You'd know if you saw her, but maybe not. Anyway, it was definitely something. And her eyes, they're remarkable, green, but flecked with grey, and wide, because she's dead, newly dead, and I don't think that she's actually come to terms with that yet. Takes a while, sometimes it takes a long while.
She's got my heart beating, even before she opens her mouth, which I've already decided I wanted to kiss – it's a gorgeous mouth – and I can't decide whether that means I'm exceedingly shallow or prescient. Don't get a chance to think about it.
Two shots: both go wide. And then, funny thing, my phone starts ringing.
The food court's crowded, people are screaming, throwing themselves to the ground. But not me, I run. The shooter's after me. Lying down is only going to give them a motionless target.
Now I'm in pretty good shape.
I'm running, and a gun at your back gives you a good head of steam. Hell, I'm sprinting, jumping over tables, knocking over people's lunch, hands sticky with someone's spilt coke, ducking for cover, action style, and the dead girl's keeping up in that effortless way dead people have: moving like a drop of water skimming over a red hot plate.
We're out of the food court and down the street. Those gun shots haven't settled on anyone's consciousness out here. People don't shoot each other in the city that much. It's Brisbane. Look, it happens, but not enough that people are reacting as you might expect, this isn't a movie. All they know is that maybe a car backfired on Elizabeth St, and that there's a lanky little guy, jacket bunched in one fist, running like a madman down Elizabeth, and up Edward, and into Queen Street Mall. I slow down in the crowded mall, moving with the flow of people, and trying to look casual. My phone's stopped, all I'm getting on the screen is missed call, and private number. Probably someone from the local dvd rental calling to tell me I have an overdue DVD, which, come to think of it, I do.
"You're in danger," the dead girl says.
"No shit!" See I'm not even needing to catch my breath, I am also thinking about overdue DVDs, which is crazy. If I smoked this would be the time to light up and look into the middle distance and say something like: "Now, what the hell is going on? I've seen trouble, but in the Wintergarden on a Tuesday lunchtime, cmon!" But if I smoked I'd probably be out of breath and panting interrogatives instead.
I don't say anything, just wipe my coke-sticky hands on my tie, admiring all that je ne sais quoi stuff she's got going on. And feeling as guilty as all hell about it, because I'm not single. Sally would kill me. Predator, definitely Predator. Now, hang on didn't I take that back? Okay, so it's season three of West Wing. No, Deadwood, shit, I watch too many bloody DVDs.
And then she's gone. But here's the thing, I don't Pomp her. She's just gone.
And that's not how it's meant to happen. After all death is my business.

[marianne]

Eddie, I'm a Pomp. A psychopomp, and I know you have an inkling of what that entails, but here's some more dirt.
Talking to dead people is a job. Usually a family trade, well it was. Not that you're born with "the gift" or anything. You're given that, in a ceremony, it's one of the major roles of the regional managers. Now you can't be too surprised that such a job exists. Eddie, stop laughing, that's doing you no favours. I'm serious. There's enough tv shows and books about this sort of thing, Ghost talkers, whisperers and so on.
Of course, it's all bullshit. We're not out there fulfilling last wishes, helping solve crimes and what not. The dead don't really care all that much about that kind of stuff, and if they do, they're usually Pomps, well ex Pomps, Pomp Mortes. There's no post mortem depression, there's just passing through. The dead have their own host of crap to deal with. Letting go is about the easiest side part of dying. And on the rare occasion that they do have a problem with that, we're there to make sure they slide on through into the afterlife. Usually a pomp's presence is enough.
We're not guides, more like conduits, really, a doorway through which souls can pass to the underworld. Most of the time we don't even need to step in, death (not dying Eddie, dying's something different) is the most natural thing in the world, after all. You just feel them moving through. There's another element of the job, involving Stirrers, but we'll talk about that later.
Right now, all you need to know is that there is an afterlife and there is a Death, one of many, our regional manager. He's the one that facilitates the Pomping process. Mr D., as we call him, pays very well. Death and taxes. Yeah I pay tax on my earnings, I'm in one of the higher brackets. My income tax has me down as Sales Rep for Mortmax Industries, Brisbane Branch, we call our head office Unit 4. There are Pomps working for their own deaths, or R.M.s, in all the regions of the world, our Death's region is Australia.
So death is my job. And what's most vexing of all is that I was standing next to a dead girl, falling in love, and then she disappeared and I had nothing to do with it. Most unprofessional. Most unprofessional, indeed.

First thing I do is get on the phone, and try and call dad. I could just walk around to Mortmax's Brisbane Office, its two blocks from here. But I'm feeling too exposed, and, besides you never know who you're going to meet there. And, while part of me is itching for a fight, the rest of me, just wants answers.
"Yes," Derek answers the phone, and the tone is ice cold.
"This is Steven De Selby." I can't hide the grin from my voice.
"I know who it is."
"I just want to talk to Dad."
"Do you know how busy we are?"
I wait a while, just let the silence stretch out. "No," I say at last, "would you like to discuss it with me? I'm in the city, how about we have a coffee?" I resist the urge to ask him what he's wearing.
Derek sighs, doesn't bother with a response just transfers me to Dad's phone.
"Hey, Steve,"
"Dad, someone tried to shoot me." Now I probably should have mentioned something of this to Derek, but the guy's a wanker.
"What? You sure it wasn't a car backfiring?"
"Hmm, now, let me see. Do cars normally backfire amo into the Wintergarden Food Court?"
"That was you?"
"Yeah. Well, no, because I wasn't holding the gun."
"Are you ok?"
"Not bleeding if that's what you mean."
"Good."
"Dad, I wouldn't be talking to you if someone hadn't warned me. Someone not living." Which isn't exactly true, Dad's my go to man. I call him when I get a stubbed toe.
"There's no Pomping calendared in the Wintergarden until next July. There shouldn't be…"
"There was, I'm telling you, I was there, and there was a dead girl, and someone started shooting at me."
Then I tell him about the dead girl, and am surprised at how vivid the details are. I hadn't realised that I had retained them. The rest of it is blurring, but I can still see her face so clearly.
"Who was she?"
"I don't know. She looked familiar, but she didn't stay around long enough for me to ask her anything."
"I'll look into it."
"I'd appreciate that, dad. Maybe I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, but it doesn't feel like that. Derek says you're busy."
"Yeah, a lot of Stirrers."
"One didn't show up in Logan."
"Hmm, you're lucky then. Your mother had two." Dad sighed.
"So Derek wasn't lying."
"You've got to stop giving Derek shit, Steve."
"I don't like the guy, and you can't tell me that the feeling isn't mutual."
"Well, he's your boss, try not to piss him off too much," Dad says and though I know the tone he's going for is lecturesque, he sounds more than a little amused.
"Ok, I'll send him some flowers, gerberas everyone likes gerberas don't they?"
Dad grunts.
"Can you see anything?"
"Yeah … I'm … looking into… alright, let me." Keys tap, loudly and slowly, Dad's a one-finger typist, glaciers, if they possessed fingers could type faster than him. His computer chirped. "I can't see anything unusual in the records, Steve. Just put it down to bad luck, well, good luck. Maybe you should buy a scratch it, one of those $250,000 ones."
Another phone starts ringing.
"Dad, maybe I should go into the office. If you need a hand…"
"No, we're fine here," Dad says, and I can tell he's really just trying to keep me away from Derek.
"If you're sure," I say, "I mean, Derek did say you were busy, just let him know I offered, will you."
Dad just sighs, long and loud. "I've got another call, you take care of yourself."
"I will, dad. You take care of yourself as well." I say.
I hang up. Maybe Dad's right, I really should stop giving Derek so much shit. The problem is it's fun.
I take a deep breath, feel slightly reassured about my own living-breathing-walking-talking future, if Unit 4's computers can't bring anything unusual up, then nothing unusual is happening.
But I don't feel that reassured by the whole thing. Something's wrong. I just can't put my finger on it.
But, like I said, I don't get shot at every day. Nor fall in love with a dead girl. I think I'd almost be happy to be shot at again if I got a chance to spend more time with her. Which is just ridiculous.
The phone's ringing a moment later, and I actually jump and make a startled sound, loud enough that people turn and look at me.
Sally. I feel a twinge of guilt.
"Steve, I'll be around your place in an hour. Dean's thing is at six."
Shit, is it that late already?

[marianne]

I glance at my watch. "Hey, it's only three."
"I promised Dean we would get there early." Sally works at the Brisbane City Council complaints department, she has the best phone manner of anyone I've ever met, and the reserved edge of person used to being shouted at.
"That early?"
There's a long silence down the other end of the phone, I can always manage to push her harder than any of her clients. It's not something I'm proud of. "He needs help setting up."
I try a different tack. "I'm not sure if I can make it. I've had a rough day."
Sally sighs. "A rough day for you is a nine o'clock start and no coffee."
That's not exactly fair. My job is all hours, and no coffee always makes for a rough day. In fact coffee separated by more than two hourly intervals makes for a rough day. I could do with a cup right now, black as coal, and scalding. I've a sudden aching need for coffee, but I know I'm going to have to settle for a coke.
"Someone tried to shoot me today." Now I just sound like I'm making up excuses. It might be true, but somehow I've added a whiny edge to it.
"Jesus, you do mean, shoot as in shoot?"
"As in gun, yes, and I'm alright, by the way."
"They didn't hit you at all?"
"Well, I think I hurt my ankle a little."
"How much is a little."
"Just a little…" Sally knows me well enough, that I can't keep quiet about a paper cut. She says I have the worst tolerance for pain of anyone she's ever met, a fact she likes to illustrate with a hard pinch. "Ok, barely, and only because I tripped over something as I was running away."
"Then you're good enough to go to Dean's book launch."
Dean Gordon, Sally's best friend, absolute tosser. I've known Dean for five years. It's not so much that I don't like him, everybody loves Dean, it's just that I can't stand him.
"Do we have to?"
"Steve, of course we don't…" (I'm waiting for the but, hoping that it doesn't come.) "But" (sigh) "Dean wants us to be there. It's important to Dean, this is his first book."
And don't I know about it.
I've heard nothing from Dean but talk about that first book for, well the last five years really. He's read from it at parties, dragged Sally and me over to impromptu editing dos. And, after two beers, he's pretty much unstoppable on the topic. But then again Dean is like that on any topic that involves Dean Gordon, his multiple illnesses, his pure empathy, his favourite colour, which is purple by the way, and above all his chief desire to skewer, though he's taken to calling it Irwinise, David Malouf on a barb of his prose.
"I'm traumatised enough," I say, but it isn't convincing.
"Well, it's up to you…" Sally says.


So I'm in the pub in Paddington, still starving hungry, even after eating a Chiko Roll, a sere old thing, that had perhaps been sitting in the café's bain-marie for a week too long. Getting here early was not such a good idea, sure we avoided the peak hour traffic, but Sally and Dean had the thing pretty much sorted between them. I end up holding a roll of tape, and standing around listening to Dean talk about his latest trauma, a stress related cyst, I even get to see it, and far too much of Dean's left buttock, though I actually can't see anything, it's more of a hypothetical cyst. Dean's not seeing the doctor until tomorrow, at four, yeah, somehow, I'm giving him a lift.
All of this means by the time of the launch, I'm pretty much four posts to the wind, sitting in the dark with a huge grin on my face, my arm around Sally, thinking about the dead girl.
I have to shake the thoughts away, it's not fair to Sally, but it's a muddy insufficient putsch, and my thoughts slide to more disturbing questions.
Sally and I have been dating for a few years now. We have our own places, but neither of us has committed to moving in with the other. And I wonder why that hasn't been an issue for either of us?
I know it's been one for my parents, who expected Sally to move in with me from about week one. We just haven't gotten around to it. And while I know it’s a somewhat contentious point for my parents, it is also something that more than a little pleases them. Mum and Dad could never claim to be members of the Sally Bronwyn fanclub, and don't even let me get started on Dean. Oh, they hated the guy, which must prove that it's somewhat hereditary, because like I've said the three of us are about the only ones who do.
Dean stands on the podium, looking like he owns the place. He has the sharp handsome face of a movie star, and not one of those pretty boys either, but a De Niro or a Hoffman, and what's more, the bearing of someone who knows this.
"I'm going to make Brisbane my city," Dean says, raising his book in the air to a loud cheer, which is coming from my mouth, a few people join me. Sally looks at me, horrified, then relaxes. She can read the genuine emotion in my face, well I'd like to think she's that perceptive when it comes to me.
I'm happy for him, and even happier for me, that I'm big enough to happy for him. This is his moment, even if I've heard it all before. Errant Prima Press have made his book real. There's piles of it on the table by the microphone, people have been buying it, which is amazing at a book launch, because most people are there for the free booze.
"Brisbane `ain't David Malouf's anymore. Read Johnno and you'll see what I mean. He hates the place, man, he's still living in some idealised past. It's my city now, Malouf."
I'm sighing, the Malouf thing. It's always the Malouf thing with Dean. And I know where this is headed.
"So, I'd like to start the reading with a poem that forms the epigraph of Risable: Collage of the City."
He then starts reading, well screaming really, a poem that if David Malouf ever gets wind of it, well, Dean is going to be in serious trouble. They're fighting words, and not even particularly good fighting words.

People are cheering, but I dare you to shout that sort of language into a microphone at a pub and not get a decent bit of cheering going on.

I look over at Sally, expect one of those roll your eyes sort of moments, but she's not looking at me, she's looking at Dean. And far too intently.
"I need to go to the loo," I whisper in her ear.
Her brow creases. "Can't you wait?"
"Sorry, can't."
"Be quick."
I make a dash for the toilets, stand at the urinal.
"Who's publishing that shit again?" a voice whispers in my ear, and I jump. It's the dead girl.
"What do you want?"
"You're really taking this whole, people want to kill you thing very well."
"I don't think people want to kill me."
Someone's walked into the toilet, the movement catches my eye. I spin. The poor interloper hesitates, seeing me having an animated conversation with the air, then heads straight to the stall, and locks the door.
"You need to come outside," the dead girl says. "That poetry's going to kill you, and by my not getting you out of here I'm a party to that evil." The dead girl is standing far enough away from me that I can't Pomp her, and I'm awfully suspicious.
"Are you really dead?"
She nods her head. "The real deal. And you need to get out of here."
That's when the beer finally has its effect on me, and I'm running for the nearest stall, the one next to poor guy I'd scared off the urinal. When I'm done, after a series of loud and desperate sounding hurls, and feeling wretched I look up at her. "Bad Chiko Roll," I explain, half-heartedly.
The dead girl grimaces at me.
"Name's Steven," I say.
"Lissa," she says. "Lissa Jones." Which sounds a hell of a lot better than dead girl.
Lissa frowns. "Sorry, but there's…"
And she's gone again.
"You right in there, mate?" Calls a voice from the other stall.
"Bad Chiko Roll," I shout, in my most nothing to see here sort of voice.
"Okay," he says, dubiously. Though I'm sure he's thinking, yeah right, maybe a bad Chiko Roll laced with mescalin. Hey, maybe it was.



There's an after party, but I beg off. I'm totally trashed. Sally attends, of course, and I know that I'm going to be in so much trouble tomorrow.
Molly's waiting for me at home, and she's hardly sympathetic. Seems I forgot to feed her. And so, you know, Eddie, I don't make a habit of that, but then again I don't get shot at every day.
But it's not Sally or Molly that I'm thinking about, its Lissa. Lissa Jones.
The most beautiful dead girl I've ever seen.
And as I'm crashing into drunken sleep, I'm sure her face is pressed against my window. The moon's near full that night, and the light is passing through her. The window rattles as some car revs its way down the street and I blink, and she's gone again, and I'm too far gone, and full myself, to find a pause from my slumber. No wakefulness, no dreams, just dark, dark sleep; that's where I'm headed.