Above the Vaulted Sky - Page 106

                ‘Take me out of here,’ Teague commands. ‘Now.’

                ‘You can’t tell me to do anything,’ I reply. ‘You can’t hurt me in here.’

                He shakes his head. ‘So arrogant. Don’t you realise that I’m doing important work.’

                ‘And my life isn’t important to you?’ I reply. ‘Why else would you research into the dead if that wasn’t important.’

                ‘Because the discovery outweighs the means,’ he snaps. ‘Don’t you realise how monumental this is? How much I’ve done for science, for the world. I can’t stay connected to someone who’s passed.’

                ‘So your life outweighs mine, that’s what you’re saying?’

                He puts his hand to his forehead like a headache’s sprung from nowhere. ‘Dead? What is dead? You shouldn’t be afraid of what comes next? I’m doing you a favour!’

                ‘You’ve got a severely twisted view of the world if that’s your idea of a favour.’

                Teague looks at me and for the first time I see some truth in his gaze. No malevolence, no malice, no desperation. It’s like he’s sorry for me.

                ‘We all move on,’ he says. ‘We all end up the same. The world isn’t full of spirits. They go somewhere else in the end.’

                I hadn’t expected him to say that. Something I’d thought myself not long ago. But then he’s in my memories. How much of me does he know? He knows I’m a scientist, so he plays to my love of knowledge. He knows I doubt and question everything I come across, so now he brings that up.

                ‘But I’m not ready,’ I say. And the scene changes. There’s no Edge this time. One second we stand in Isobel’s living room, the waves of my anxiety breaking beside us. The next we’re on Kingston high street. Night has fallen, and me and Penny walk home together after one of our many trips to the cinema there. The cold of the evening bites at my exposed neck but I’m glad to leave the stifling warmth of Isobel’s living room. I welcome the cold, and the silence of a town past 10.

                ‘Oh of course.’ He sighs. ‘A girl, a man, a wife, a husband, an attachment that keeps you here. I understand, believe me, I do, but what comes next is better for everyone.’

                ‘How do you know that?’ I snap, tearing my eyes away from myself and my girlfriend. We’re laughing. The sad thing is, I can’t remember what we laughed about.