George: Love should be the opposite of death. It should be our biggest reason for wanting to be here. I mean, what else have we got? Football? Shoes? But love gets complicated. It gets twisted up with other things like possession. Heartbreak. Lust. And death.
Mitchell: Woah! We can’t go in there. It’s not safe. It’s PMT. She wrote it on the calendar.
George: How could she possibly have PMT? She’s a ghost.
Mitchell: I don’t know, but it’s not worth the risk.
Mitchell: If you want, I could grab the steaks and we could just make a dash for it.
George: No way! I’m not eating raw meat like an animal just because a ghost is ovulating.
Annie: Do you know what Thursday is? It was the day we set for our wedding.
George: Oh no. You poor thing. You should have said.
Annie: I don’t want to think about it! I don’t want to make it real, to think that he’ll be spending it with her! Janey “Tango Face” Harris! And she’ll be cooking him parsley sauce and boiled ham.
Mitchell: Annie, Owen’s moved on with his life. You need to as well.
Annie: I’m dead, in case you hadn’t noticed.
Annie: Maybe we can go out. But just for a bit.
Mitchell: Excellent. George, get your lead.
Mitchell: Annie, this is Gilbert. Gilbert, Annie. My housemate.
Annie: Nice to meet you.
Gilbert (Alex Price): Is it?
Annie: So you’re… Are you?
Gilbert: Dead. Yeah. Since 1985.
Gilbert: Hang the DJ! That tune came out in 1990! {Annie looks at him.} Sorry.
Annie: Who are you, the ’80s police?
Gilbert: No no no. Just someone with taste.
George: Are you sure this is a good idea?
Mitchell: This is what she needs! To meet someone with the same condition. Anyway, it’ll take her mind off of Owen.
George: Fair enough. It was such a success last time you encouraged one of us to meet someone with the same condition.
Mitchell: I never know with you whether it’s Jewish guilt or werewolf guilt.
George: They’re pretty much the same thing.
Gilbert: Look Annie, you’re beyond that now. Human needs, cravings, all that. Alright, but the beauty of the world, I mean it’s all still here for us. It’s a better place, Annie.
Annie: A better place. Isn’t that where we should have gone?
Gilbert: No no! No, see that’s what I used to think, right? But then I stood by my grave. I felt the peace, you know, and the stillness of it. And I knew this is where I wanted to be. Forever.
Annie: Forever?
Gilbert: Oh yeah. Unless you find some kind of resolution.
Annie: To what?
Gilbert: Your life. Your death even. You know. You’re still here for a reason, Annie.
George: And where have you been, young lady?
Annie: I met up with Gilbert. We went to the cemetery.
Mitchell: He knows how to show a girl a good time.
Annie: No, it was really nice actually. Because it made me realize something about why I’m still here. There’s clearly some unfinished business. Something that I didn’t do in my life. Something unresolved. And when I figure it out, I can move on. {The pipes above start creaking in a foreshadowy sort of way.}
George: So what needs to be resolved?
Annie: Well if I knew that it wouldn’t need resolving, would it? Keep up.
Mitchell: So what are you going to do?
Annie: Aha!
Mitchell: You don’t know, do you?
Annie: No. But I’m pretty sure it’ll involve some highlight pens and a pad of paper.
George: What’s that face?
Mitchell: It’s just my face.
George: I think that’s a good thing, don’t you?
Mitchell: Ugh. God only knows what she could uncover. Why do you think I’ve never said any of this to her? Now you’re doing a face.
George: Do you see what you’ve done? You’ve turned us into a “Hello, how are you?” program with the whole sodding neighborhood.
Mitchell: We’re valued members of the local community.
George: Yes, ’til we inadvertently kill one of them.
Annie: Would you help me?
Gilbert: Who me? Really?
Annie: Yeah. It could be like a task. Or a project we do together.
Gilbert: Like collecting every Echo and the Bunnymen Japanese import.
Gilbert: It’s time you had some fun, girl.
Annie: I thought fun was a bourgeois concept.
Gilbert: No no, I’m talking about Gilbert fun.
Janey (Sama Goldie): You’re not their friend! Let them get pal-y and they’ll take advantage. Look what happened to my cousin. She got all matey with that scuba diver, next thing you know she’s got a condom, full of heroin, shoved up her special place.
Annie: I know that’s why I’m here now. I want to be Owen’s wife. I want to love him and cherish him and look after him. So that’s what I’ve gotta do, right? If I want to find peace.
Gilbert: How will he know what it’s for?
Annie: I’ll tell him. Suggest it to him. I’d like to be like his guardian angel and stop anything bad from happening to him.
Gilbert: Can you stop him from listening to Michael Bublé?
Lauren (Annabel Scholey): It’s all I can think about. When I can kill again. When I can feed! It’s this screaming pain in my blood and nerves, right under my skin. And it gets shorter and shorter, the time I feel good after I’ve killed.
Mitchell about the lighter: Is that an ironic post-feminist fashion statement?
Nina: What’s the deal with you and George? Every time I see you, you’re together. It’s like you’re attached at the hip.
Mitchell: You checking me out or him? You know he worries about me getting harassed in the workplace.
Nina: Don’t worry, you’re not my type. Not anymore.
Mitchell: What about George? Is he your type?
Nina: George… George is weird.
Mitchell: No one’s denying that. But once you get past the weirdness he’s actual the nicest bloke you could ever meet.
George: No, hold on. We need to set some ground rules here about guests.
Mitchell: Like what?
George: Like, don’t kill them.
Mitchell: Ugh. That’s such a bourgeois concept.
Annie: See, I realized that I never got to be a proper wife to Owen. I never got to do all those loving little things to show him how much I care about him.
George: Like making parsley sauce?
Annie: Not just parsley sauce. There’s boiled ham as well. I’m going to put it in a casserole dish and I’m gonna take it ’round.
George: Right. Okay. Well aside from the fact that’s a mental idea on so many levels, do you think you could possibly do it another night? Only I have a friend coming over for dinner. A female friend.
Annie: Oh, okay. So I’m contemplating resolving my death so that I can move on to the next dimension. And you’re worrying about gettin’ your leg-over!
George: Oh Annie. I really like this woman and it would be so nice to spend an evening with her without worrying about her discovering the existence of the spirit world. As well as what I am.
Annie: What happens? Has anyone you know ever passed over?
Gilbert: Alright. This mate of mine, he used the haunt the VIP toilets at Leyton Orient Football Club. Singing Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Variations. Famously composed because of a bet he made with his cellist brother on an end-of-season match against Hull City in 1977. Anyway, they brought in this exorcist to speed up his spirit into the afterlife.
Annie: And did it work?
Gilbert: One minute he’s giving it “Tell Me on a Sunday,” the next poof.
Annie: Poof.
Gilbert: Maybe it’s something about love that’s keeping me here. ‘Cause I never was in love in life. I didn’t believe in it. I just thought love was a miserable lie. But since I’ve met you I… You’re thinking about Owen, aren’t you?
Annie: I’m sorry, Gilbert. I need to go. I need to be with Owen.
Gilbert: Hey, I’ll come with you. Make sure you get there safely, eh?
Annie: What are you doing, Owen? {She starts to remember.} The thong…
Gilbert: Annie? What’s wrong?
Annie: Owen killed me.
Lauren: You know, I don’t really see where this relationship is headed anymore.
Mitchell: You can’t do this on your own.
Lauren: So maybe I won’t.
Annie: He must have flushed it away, but it’s like the house hung on to it.
Annie: But the man I loved killed me. Am I really that hard to love back?
Gilbert: Hey hey. Come on. You are loved. By loads of people…. By me.
Annie: What?
Gilbert: I love you. I really love you.
Annie: Hang on. That door wasn’t there. What is it?
Gilbert: Death.
Annie: Well… do we go through it? What happens? No, don’t go near it!
Gilbert: No no, it’s for me. It’s come for me.
Gilbert: Come with me.
Annie: I can’t.
Gilbert: I don’t want to go on my own.
Annie: No I mean I can’t. This isn’t for me. This is your death.
Nina: I guess we’ve cured your, you know, your… premature ejaculation thing. {The door slams shut.} Oh, you are a dead man.
Mitchell: Annie was killed by Owen.
George: Five minutes. Could I have not just had five minutes with the biggest news?
George: Are you all right?
Mitchell: You know what I think? The house was telling us. All that stuff about the pipes and the taps. It’s like it was all part of you. It was your memories. They were—
George: Affecting the plumbing.
Mitchell: It’s stopped now, hasn’t it? Now everything’s numb.
Annie: He loved me. And I was in love. It felt like he owned me.
George: Nobody owns you, Annie. Nobody can.
Annie: Why didn’t I go? Being with him wasn’t it. Finding out what happened wasn’t it. So what now? What’s left?
Mitchell: I guess that’s what we find out.