Page 72 of Postscript

Trembling, I phase out Rita’s words. She’s reading the limerick. All eyes are on her, they’ve forgotten about me. The crowd are smiling, it’s happening. Bert’s wish is coming true, but I am shaking, my whole body is rattling. Joy, Ginika and Paul have moved closer to Rita. Everyone has moved in, the circle tight and close. Eyes and noses are streaming. Smiles decorate every face. I’m squeezing Ciara’s hand as I move away from them all and quietly open the door.

My body is trembling, I can only look at the floor. A burst of adrenaline has shot through me, as though I’ve had multiple shots of caffeine. Everything in me is triggered, my senses heightened, connecting me to something else.

I feel a strong arm around my waist.

‘Are you OK?’ a whisper in my ear.

I close my eyes. It’s Gerry, I feel him again.

Suddenly I feel like I’m floating from the room, through the hallway, out the front door. Gerry’s arm is firm around my waist, his breath is on my head. He takes my hand.

Gerry. It’s Gerry. He’s here.

He opens the front door and sunlight hits my eyes and the fresh air fills my lungs. I drink it up.

I realise I’m still holding hands and I look at him.

It’s not Gerry.

It’s Ciara, of course it’s her, but she’s doing the same thing as me. Taking deep breaths. Smaller ones.

‘Are you OK?’ she asks.

‘Yeah,’ I whisper. ‘That was … weird.’

‘Yeah,’ she agrees, seeming shaken. ‘Did something happen?’

I think about it. Whatever it was that filled my body, my soul and my mind is gone, but I’m still high from what I experienced.

‘Yeah.’

‘I was watching you. Your face just changed. I thought you might pass out. You looked like you’d seen a ghost.’

It’s as if she knows that Gerry was in the room.

‘Did you?’

‘Did I what?’

‘See a ghost?’

She’s not laughing, not teasing.

‘No.’

She seems disappointed.

‘Why, did you?’

‘I felt like Gerry was there,’ she whispers. ‘I got this … feeling.’ She lets go of my hand to rub her hand up and down her arm where I can see goosebumps. ‘Does that sound crazy?’

‘No,’ I shake my head. ‘I felt him too.’

‘Wow,’ her eyes widen and fill up. She wraps her arms around me. ‘Thank you, Holly, you’re right. That was the greatest gift.’

I hold her tight and close my eyes, wanting to relish and remember every single part of that experience. He was there.

I’m on a high. Floating on love and adrenaline and peculiar new energies, I feel possessed. Not by Gerry – that feeling is gone – but from the lingering connection to him. Ciara drives us back to the shop and tells me to take the rest of the day off; she’s pretty shaken up too. On the way there I receive a phone call from the estate agent. An offer has been made on the house, not for the full asking price, but as close as she thinks we’ll get. There is a sign in Ciara’s shop, above a gleeful beaming Buddha, that says, ‘You can only lose what you cling to.’ I can hang on fiercely to the past, to all my things, or I can let go and hold them in my heart.