by Brigid Coady
She felt the anger and pain from Mel, Barry, Tom and Kitty’s words blow away in the breeze. And underneath all that emotion was a pink piece of her that hadn’t seen the light for so long. It swelled and she found herself opening her mouth and singing along.
Up Charing Cross Road, then left onto Shaftesbury Avenue, waving to the theatre crowds until the limo lurched to a halt outside a club.
“This is where we leave them,” the Spirit said, grabbing the first bottle and then a second bottle of champagne.
Edie stared at her suspiciously.
“It’s for the journey,” the Spirit said.
Edie wasn’t sure ghosts blushed and this one already had rosy cheeks, but she definitely looked pinker.
“Ready for the next visit?” the Ghoul asked.
Was she? She felt vulnerable and raw. She was exposed, but she knew the Ghost’s question was rhetorical; she was in this till the end. She’d better get it done with.
“Yes, if I must,” she said and took hold of the sash once more.
The limo dissolved and they were in a cramped living room in a modern house. It was a Lego style identikit house that builders like to throw up in great streets full as starter homes.
The floor was strewn with children’s toys; a light sabre, toy cars and books. Edie and the Ghost stood with their backs against the staircase, which came straight down into the room. There was no hallway, just a front door straight onto the living room that then led into a kitchen diner.
Light steps came down the stairs, Edie turned to see Rachel Micawber, her trainee run down them with a tired smile on her face. Tired but with a look of contentment.
“Hey you!” she called.
Edie lifted her hand in a greeting before she remembered the rule. She wasn’t here.
“Hey sweetie,” a light male voice came from the kitchen. “Has his lordship gone to sleep?”
“He’s watching the light show and listening to Harry Potter. I said he had twenty minutes before we went up,” Rachel replied.
“You’re too soft on him,” the man came out of the kitchen.
So this was the famous Rob Cratchit, was it? Edie thought, wrinkling her nose.
He was slight with mousey brown hair, which was receding fast. His face was long and toothy, his eyes behind frameless glasses. But when he smiled at Rachel, he was almost handsome. Rachel kissed him on the lips as he held her loosely in his arms.
“Wine?” he asked.
“By the bucket-load,” she said.
“Bad day?” he asked as he released her and they moved together into the kitchen.
“Weird. The whole of this week has just been plain odd,” she said.
“You can say that again,” echoed Edie and looked at the Ghost.
“Have you been haunting her as well? I wouldn’t want to be greedy.”
The Spirit raised an eyebrow.
Edie gritted her teeth and really wished they wouldn’t do that, it made her feel about five.
“Not everyone is a desperate case like you. Some people know the meaning of love and sacrifice.” Then the Spirit put a finger to her lips for silence.
“And the strangest of all happened tonight.” Rachel giggled and that brought Edie back to the conversation. “You’ll never guess who asked me out for a drink?”
“It had better not be that gorgeous rugby player you’ve been swooning over.” Rob replied.
“Chance would be a fine thing,” she retorted.
“Hey!” Rob flicked her with the cloth he was holding.
“OK, you know there is no one for me but you,” she smiled up at him.
“Oh, please.” Edie squirmed embarrassed to be eavesdropping.
“Anyway, it wasn’t Jack Twist. It was Edie.” Rachel continued.
“Edie? The shark? The borg?” he asked incredulously.
“Yup, Miss Snotty Pants herself.”
Why?” he asked. “Not that someone wouldn’t want to go out with you, but why now?”
“It was really weird. You know I said that she had suddenly started doing that mediation stuff? Every day this week, she’s had her friend’s parents coming in for meetings and every day she comes back from them stressed out. And then today, off she goes as usual but then I heard from Angela in Commercial that she’d heard from Bronwyn in Litigation that Jack was going to be taking over this mediation because she was making a complete pig’s ear of it all.”
“A pig’s ear?” Edie said her face burning with anger, shame and general unfairness. “A pig’s ear is a bit strong. How about the way you dealt with the Cohen case, huh? You couldn’t even get your client custody of their pet rat.”
Edie crossed her arms and said to the Spirit.
“I mean, I know I shouldn’t be doing mediation but I thought if I could just get Maggie and Doug talking it would get sorted out. Well I got them talking. Screaming as well. But there is no need for her to be saying things like that.” Edie frowned. “Oh no! If Angela knows, then the whole office knows. Or if not, they definitely will by Monday.”
She knew how the grapevine worked. There wasn’t a part of Edie that didn’t glow with humiliation.
“And then,” continued Rachel, “she comes back from what must have been the disastrous meeting this afternoon and does bugger all work. Never seen anything like it. I almost asked her if she was ill.”
“Oh maybe she and the rugby bloke have a thing going on?” Rob chimed in.
Jack and her? A thing?
Edie snorted.
“Ha!” Rachel started laughing. “Oh yeah that’s likely. Jack could have any woman in the place. There is no way he and Edie…” Rachel laughed again, wheezing for breath.
“I’ll have you know he kissed me last weekend.” Edie waved her finger in the face of the oblivious Rachel. “So take that and shove it up your…”
“If we could concentrate on the matter in hand and not focus on one-upmanship,” the Spirit said taking a sip from the bottle of champagne, “although I wouldn’t mind hearing about that kiss later.”
“Anyway, Edie did no work and then phoned up her friend Mel, her only friend I reckon, to see if she wants to go out for a drink. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of Edie going out on a Friday. She obviously got blown out, because then she turns round and asks me.”
She sipped her wine and carried on.
“I swear, Rob, I almost fell off my chair in shock. Could you imagine spending a night out with her?” Rachel shuddered. “I think I’d rather have poked myself in the eyes with these chopsticks.”
She brandished the set left over from their Chinese meal.
“Chopsticks in the eyes rather than a night out with you?” The Spirit looked at Edie with a mix of horror, pity and humour. “Boy, you must be a real treat to be around if these are the sort of reactions you are getting.”
Edie’s body was in knots. Her shoulders were meeting her ears; her stomach was wrapped round itself and then somehow round her knees. She was never leaving her flat again.
“This is what they think of me?” she said.
“Looks like it,” the Spirit said.
“No need to sound so happy about it.” Edie said.
“Da! Ray!”
A high-pitched voice slurred and called from upstairs.
“Yes, little man?” Rachel called back, full of love.
An incomprehensible babble came down the stairs.
Rachel and Rob listened intently.
“OK sweetie, we’re just coming,” she called.
Rob and Rachel passed Edie and the Ghost and carried on upstairs, holding hands.
“What the hell was that about?” Edie frowned.
She was sure Rachel had said that Rob’s kid was at least five. Not that she paid much attention to The Domestic Goddess. That babble didn’t sound like a five-year-old, it had sounded like a baby.
The Ghost turned to follow.
“Are you coming?” she asked.
As if Edie wanted to go and look at a c
hild.
“Not especially…”
The Ghost thinned her lips and looked at Edie as if she were disappointed in her then grasped Edie’s hand.
In an instance, they were in a darkened room. Projected images and lights danced across the ceiling and walls in a rainbow of colours. In one corner stretched a long vertical tube of liquid and bubbles that changed colour every few seconds. Rob and Rachel knelt by the side of the bed. The bed had sides to it, not quite a crib but not quite a hospital bed.
More babble came from the child that lay in it.
Edie peered closer and then she saw him.
This child might be five or so chronologically, but in other parts of his development he couldn’t be more than a baby. He could obviously move of his own accord but his head flopped from side to side.
“Hey Timmy, you ready to be tucked in?” Rachel asked. She reached up with a cloth and wiped his mouth.
Edie was shocked.
“But how can she?” Edie whispered.
Timmy wasn’t even Rachel’s own child and yet here she was acting like he was hers.
“As I said, some people don’t need to be haunted to understand the meaning of love and sacrifice.” The Ghost stared at the scene, positively beaming. “Of course they will all be in for a whole lot of heartache later but they will always have their memories to warm them.”
“What do you mean heartache?”
Edie looked at the child in the bed.
He was staring right at her; a small smile seemed to pull one side of his mouth up. His eyes were alight with laughter, humour and intelligence.
He could see her.
And he was laughing at her.
“Little Timmy over there was deprived of oxygen when he was born and it affects his movements. He also has cystic fibrosis. But inside he is a very bright and mischievous boy. However when Rachel loses her job in a few months and then when Rob loses his it will become a lot harder. No more extra private physio to help his breathing and mobility. And then…” the Spirit trailed off.
“But why would Rachel lose her job?” Edie said.
“Isn’t that what you have been aiming for? All the emails to HR you’ve been sending, asking to put her on report? Surely you knew where it would end. Didn’t you, Edie?”
The hairline cracks that had been appearing deep in Edie’s soul, the fine lines in the wall that surrounded her suddenly gave way. She stood there, unmoving, while inside her, the pieces of the wall she lived behind lay shattered on the ground. Large fissures that were like crazy paving all across her heart. And coming through the gaps was the hurt she had been keeping back.
“Please, no,” she whispered.
The hurt burnt like acid. Her cheeks were wet with tears.
“We still have a few more stops,” the Spirit said kindly as if sensing Edie’s inner turmoil. She grasped Edie’s hand again in her warm grip and the eyes of a small boy that saw too much were no longer upon her.
Chapter 12
Light and laughter assaulted her eyes and ears. Edie scrubbed at her cheeks to get rid of the tears. She rubbed hard and wished she could remove the pain in her chest as easily.
“Now this is my sort of place.” The Spirit threw back her head and laughed. Her body, if that’s what it was, shook with it.
Edie peered round her to see where they were.
It was rugby player central.
They were in the kind of terrace house you find in posh areas like Fulham or Chelsea or Twickenham. Thin and long, it was packed with large men and little women. Rugby WAGs. Music blared out over the hubbub of voices. Edie felt like she was transported back to university days. Any minute she was expecting someone to break into the drinking chant of Down you Zulu warrior. Down you Zulu Chief! and then someone would start downing a keg of beer whilst the crowd chanted ‘Chief! Chief! Chief!”
“Alright Waggy?” A man bellowed from behind her and right into her ear. “Down you Zulu Warrior!”
“Why?” she asked herself as the crowd went mental.
The majority of the front room along with the Ghost were chanting and roaring encouragement at the aforementioned thirty or so year old Waggy as he downed a small keg of beer.
“Men.” She said. They never grew up, she thought.
She squirmed her way easily from the centre of the crowd. Yet again she was anonymous, but still possessing a crowd-parting ability which would come in handy at rush hour in the real world. She found herself at the far end of the house, by a pair of French windows that led out to the garden.
“So what’s it like being back in Civvy Street?” a male voice was talking to another man standing in the shadow of the doors.
“It has its plus points and it has its pitfalls,” the man in the shadows answered.
Jack.
That probably explained the rugby types then. But it didn’t explain what he had to do with this introspection on her life. She had only known him a week. What insights could he provide that she didn’t already know?
“Pitfalls? Oh come on. Are all the women throwing themselves at you and you can’t cope? If that is a pitfall then I’ll take it,” his friend said.
“Why do you think it has anything to do with women? There are other things in life, you know” Jack replied.
Edie peered around the door to look at him. He was leaning against the wall of the house and held a bottle of beer.
She realised this was the first time she could have a good look at him without him knowing. Without him catching her drinking him in and raising an eyebrow or looking back with those eyes that saw too much.
He was tall, taller than most of the men in the house, probably six foot five she thought. She already knew about his wide shoulders, the stubborn chin that squared onto the world. But she wanted to see his eyes, to see the way they were when they weren’t looking at her with pity, exasperation or just plain annoyance. She tried to squint further but the shadows from the door and darkness of the night outside defeated her.
“It’s always got to do with women,” his friend answered. “We all know you’re a bloody good lawyer. What was it, top of the class at law school?”
Edie gasped. Top of his class? Her image of Jack getting his job through the old boy network shifted.
“You’ve got all that money from sponsorship deals, so it isn’t that. So if it isn’t work or money and you don’t have the rugby to worry about any more then it has got to be women. Those legal birds throwing themselves at you, barristers in wigs wanting to see your briefs?”
“You’re deluded and need to get off the gin.” Jack laughed.
“Come on, you can tell your Uncle Jim,” his friend said.
Jack rolled the bottle between his hands and then raised it to his mouth and took a drink. Edie watched fascinated as his throat bobbed as he swallowed. She licked her suddenly dry lips.
“OK so there is this one woman…” Jack said.
“I knew it! What’s wrong then? She’s married? Got a boyfriend?”
“Oh she’s single.”
Then she’s a complete dog and won’t leave you alone? You’ve got a stalker? She’s panting all over you?”
“I wouldn’t call her a stalker…” Jack said. Edie could hear the laughter in his voice.
Edie didn’t think she could hurt any more that evening. But Jack’s mocking words were sharp and like a razor.
“So I’m a dog am I?” she said.
“Then she’s a dog,” Uncle Jim stated.
“No and not a dog either.” Jack said.
Edie’s hurt lightened just a little.
“So the problem is…” prompted Jim the friend.
“The problem is that she’s a prize bitch,” Jack said and swallowed some more beer.
The razor hacked off some more of Edie’s heart.
“Oh stay clear mate!” his friend said as he recoiled holding his hands up.
“But the thing is there is something about her that makes me think that I’ve got her wrong
. Just a flash here and there, you know? That there might be something worth knowing underneath it all.” Jack said.
She yearned for him at that moment. The burned places and the pink new places inside her that peeked through the crumbling wall tried to expand, to send out tendrils towards him. But the solid part of her, the main part of her that still hid behind her cracked defences held back. Half in and half out, she was stuck.
“You don’t want to go down that road again, mate. Remember Tanya? Yeah there was something underneath all that cold bitchiness and that was frigid bitchiness. Sometimes they really are just bitches,” his friend said solidly.
Jack shook himself and pushed himself away from the wall.
“You’re probably right,” he said.
And he stepped out of the shadows. Edie looked closely, now she could see his eyes and hoped the light gradually fading in them wasn’t him giving up on her.
The tendrils retreated behind the crumbled stonework again.
“So that’s the kisser then,” the Spirit had appeared next to her without her realising. “Boy, between him and that Tom bloke you don’t pick badly.”
No, she didn’t pick badly.
They did.
“It’s a pity he thinks you’re a bitch,” the Spirit carried on.
“I can see you completely flunked the ‘small talk’ part of whatever training you had for this,” Edie said.
“Oh we don’t sit exams for this sort of thing, you’re either born to it or you’re not.” The Spirit had a lascivious grin on her face as she drank in Jack. “And then there are days when I’d give anything to snog someone like that.” She smiled wider.
“Can we go now?” Edie asked, clenching her fists.
She wanted to step between the Ghost and Jack and tell her to back off from her man. Her man. Yeah right, the man thought she was a cold bitch. She shivered.
“Just one more quick stop,” the Ghost said and sighing, she took one last look at Jack. The rugby boys winked out.
Edie was in another familiar house. A place she had seen the outside of only last week. With another Ghost.
“I am not listening to my mother slag me off.”
That was it. She was officially on strike.
