I had a good mind for business, and I flourished under old Scrooge’s tutelage. He always said I was his best pupil. Yes, he doted on Tim as if he were his own son, and no one could blame him for it. My brother always had a quality that made others feel instantly benevolent toward him, and the grace to recompense such feeling in return. I, too, felt this sway and never blamed Scrooge for the favor he showed Tim. What I craved from the old man he gave me aplenty—his knowledge, his skill, the wisdom of his experience, the opportunity to learn. Through the books he gave me, I learned more about the world and those who dwell and have dwelt within it than I ever thought possible. Through the tutors he provided, I delved into subjects I had hardly considered before and used them as a whetstone on which to sharpen my wits. Through his connections, I found situations that further enriched my education in business and economics. Scrooge always said I was his true heir. I took that to mean it would fall to me to protect the family when he left us once and for all.
And I was well and truly on my way. But he left too soon; and I was not prepared for the axe that was to fall.
No, I don’t blame the old man for what has become of me, no more than I can blame the spirits that changed his miserly, dyspeptic ways. After all, had they never transformed the man, my father would not have been elevated, and I would not have left Camden Town. I would be a small clerk in a small company by now, like my father was before me, like his father was before him. I would be poor, occasionally desperate, forced to work hard just to survive. But I would be warm, and safe, and well-regarded. I would be respectable, and perhaps happy, and maybe even loved. I was none of those things now.
I felt fairly certain I never would be again.
No, I cannot blame the spirits, whether they truly existed or were simply fantasies dreamt in the night by a lonely old man. I have seen some of the world since I left my family behind, but all I had seen of it suggested it was full of barbarism and cruelty, not wonder and spectacle. I could much understand the very human desire to believe that such benevolent creatures as Scrooge’s spirits existed; I just doubted that a world as pitiless as this could craft such beings of light and hope and charity.
That is not to say that I do not believe in ghosts. I very much do, as I walk with one beside me every day. His shade is always with me, one, or sometimes two, steps behind. I see his glint in the corner of my eye at all times. I feel his presence, cold, despondent, unforgiving, and unyielding. I will be haunted by him until the day I die. He shall bring me to my end, as I did him to his.
It is no less than what I deserve.
Even now, as I make my rounds of Camden Town on a drizzly Christmas Eve, he is with me. Most men in my profession don’t work these streets; the lucky ones plied their wares on Cleveland Street, where the gentlemen and toffs know all manner of boys can be bought for a fair full sum. Some boys worked in molly houses, sheltered from the outside, but forever locked inside, at least until their youthful looks faded enough to be cast out, or until the pox turned them into damaged goods. Some worked the streets directly, where a single profitable encounter could mean warm lodgings and a hearty evening meal. The more wretched in my profession plied their wares on the East End, where wealthy men and poor men alike could purchase any vice they desired for a few mere ha’pennies. Still, despite the misery and squalor such conditions manufactured, their environs did carry some amount of protection for them. Their clientele knew where to find them, and, surrounded by their own, they supported the local taverns and hostelries, and thus were afforded some measure of shelter and community. I had none of those things, and thus my behavior would hold modest logic to my fellow brothers in the trade. There seemed little point in selling oneself to the common men of Camden Town, who could ill afford such a luxury as love, and to be the lone deviant amongst such people who struggled with their own sense of propriety and morality.
I was indeed a further fool to carve my niche here.
It wasn’t pride that brought me, or nostalgia, or even a fear that, in a more commonly traversed part of town, I might be spotted by someone who once knew me, or knew my father or Uncle Fred, some associate of long ago. Nor was it a sense of loyalty to this place that drew me here. Yes, I knew it well, which helped to keep me alive; I had seen its faults and flaws and savage claws a lifetime ago and, as such, was able to keep my wits about me when others would have lost theirs. To be truthful, I am unsure what kept me on these streets. Penance, perhaps, for the ill I had caused in my life, punishment for once expressing love myself. Perchance it was simply habit, a custom that, once started, I continued merely out of routine. I cannot say. I was drawn to this place and remained here, though there was no prudent reason to do so.
So I made my daily rounds. Some days, I might pick up extra work for a few pennies, a beast of burden for scraps of copper coin for those who did not find my existence so intolerable that I could not be of use. Other times, a friendless man, recognizing something in the aspect of my walk, or having heard whispers about the boy whore in the ward, might request my favors in exchange for a coin, or a meal, or if I am lucky, both.
I was never one for standing still. I could not sell my goods in an alley or on some dingy street corner; restless, I needed to search out my clients, even if my constant motion made it more difficult for men to find me. Still, they did find me, enough of them, at least, to allow me to eke out an existence. I rarely haggled over my wares, taking whatever coin was offered me. Sometimes, all it took was a kind word to win my favors, a kind word and a warm bed for the night. Mostly, though, I just walked, made my rounds, and rarely ever saw or spoke to anyone, returning after some hours to my recess to recover.
This Christmas Eve was even more lonesome, as the streets of Camden Town were bustling with people, each in a hurry to accomplish their own unique commission, their errands made ever the more hasty by the cold, steady downpour from above. They had little time for a wastrel youth with a dirty face and a defeated air. I had grown used to the way men and women hastily looked away from me whenever I crossed their paths. I would think they would appreciate seeing someone worse off than themselves; it might give them a moment in their lives to feel superior to another living soul. Then again, I suppose I must truly be living, or truly have a soul, to qualify on such grounds.
I felt a sudden stirring inside me, a need for companionship, for exchange. I longed to spy a familiar face. I was unsure why. I spent most days alone and seemed none the worse for it. Perhaps it was because of the weather—misery loves company. Perhaps it was the kindness of the baker, who created in me a dangerous desire for more kindness. Or perhaps it was because of Christmas Eve. Regardless, I crossed out of Camden Town and into the next ward. This was Regent’s Park, though the district proper was still several city blocks to the west. If I was fortunate, I knew who I could find on Underhill Street at this time of the morning.
Luck was with me this wet Christmas Eve. I saw him in his usual place, loitering underneath a small foot bridge. Tetch. “Hallo, chuckaboo,” he said to me. He sounded neither happy nor unhappy to see me, but I could tell he had had a worse night than I did. He was wet from the rain and shivering in the cold. A bobby must have rousted him from his usual sleeping place beneath the bridge and forced him into the open. His face was drawn. His skin was pallid. His eyes appeared exhausted. And there were fresh bruises upon his cheek; some of the local boys must have found him and used him for sport again.
“Hello, Tetch,” I replied. We greeted each other as fellow workers, and not as competitors. We toiled in different wards, for different clientele and for different rewards. Tetch ever hoped to attract a few of the wealthier men from Regent’s Park. He was once a Cleveland Street boy, and knew how to best ply his wares with the gentlemen who made their way to such places as his former residence. Tetch often told me that such men frequently required prompting. So mired were they in their own sense of morality that they would hesitate before fully embracing their more carnal desires. Tetch had learned a dozen
little tricks, ways of cooing in their ears and writhing on their laps, to loosen both their trousers and their coin purses. I knew no similar art. For that matter, it was unnecessary with the men in Camden Town. For them, what we did was merely an exchange of service for coin. All that mattered was cost. But Tetch had grown accustomed to the game. This was the client he knew best, even if they rarely desired his services anymore.
“Up to dick today, Peter? And a Merry Christmas to you.”
“Merry Christmas, Tetch.”
Tetch is roughly my age; a bit younger, I would wager, or perhaps quite a bit. It is unwise to proffer any unnecessary information in our situations, and courtesy to a fellow working boy has taught me not to ask. I do know some of Tetch’s story. He was cast out of his molly house after an accident with a carriage turned his leg, and it healed wrong. He had an obvious twist in his limb that left him limping, an unsightly feature that did little to whet the fleshly desires of uptight, upright men. With his hobbled leg, he was of little use for manual labor, and no boy on the street qualifies for service. Driven out of Cleveland Street, and too vulnerable for the East End, he settled here, trying to carve out his own place in the world, much the same as I fancied I was doing, a few blocks away.
“Rotten weather, eh?” Tetch has an accent, though what it is—Dublin Irish, or perhaps Belfast, or some place in between, if it even is Irish at all—I cannot say. Normally, he likes to talk, which is why I have sought him out. But he was quiet today. I reached into my pocket, pulled out the bundled napkin the baker gave me, and quietly passed it over to him.
It was evident that it had been some time since he last ate—a day, probably more. He devoured the cookie, roll, and half of the nut pastry, proffering me the other half for myself. We ate in silence, but these morsels of food brightened his spirits, if not his features.
“Thankee,” he said. “I ain’t had naught but a donkey’s breakfast of late.” Tetch always talks like this; I feel lucky if I comprehend half of what he says to me. “Any luck today, Peter?” he asked.
I shook my head. “You?”
“Naah. Too wet for the toffs to come this far east. Maybe tonight, after they get some rum punch in ’em.”
There will be no custom tonight, for either Tetch or me, and we both knew it. “Do you have somewhere warm to sleep tonight, Tetch?” I asked.
“Oh, sure,” he replied. “If not, I can always fake a poke, or two. You?”
I nodded. We are both lying. I am unsure why we felt the need to deceive the other, but we do.
But Tetch was enjoying this game. “I have this toff. A real guv’nor. Bushy black beard, cane and hat, the works, though he parts his hair with a towel, if you know what I mean. Real righteous sort, deacon in the church, all that rot. You know the type—butter on bacon, a real knocker on the front door. But, boy oh boyo, is he knackered for me. Likes to see me in me gas pipes, don’t you know. Brings me chocolates and grapes and sovereign notes every Tuesday and Friday. And boy oh boyo, he loves it when I lick his arse, like this—” At this Tetch crumpled his bruised face as if it were a Neapolitan accordion, puffing up his cheeks and flicking his tongue in and out of his mouth. He resembled some grotesquery from an Italian opera, and in spite of the ill weather and my own self, I laughed. “I get him hootin’ and hollerin’ and then it’s off to the races. And I mean it; it’s like Ascot with him. When I climb atop his glister pipe, boy oh boyo—it’s a sight, I tell ya. I think he wants to make me his left-handed wife, I do.” Tetch is good at concocting tales like this. I smiled. I’m reminded of how I used to weave stories for my younger siblings, for Tim and Amelia and Georgie, stretching all of the old fairy tales past their limit, as far as I could take them. I lacked Tetch’s colorful language, but none of his imagination; and it was pleasant, at least in the moment, to remember such things and smile.
Indeed, Christmas Eve was a particular time for such fantasies in the Cratchit family home; it was not unusual to wile away an hour or even two on tall tales, especially those of ghosts and visitations from other worlds. Odd to remember that now, but the memory was not unpleasant to me, so I was grateful to Tetch for stirring it up.
Tetch had finished spinning his yarn. I recognized it as payment in return for the baked goods I have given him and received it as such.
For a moment, I wondered if I should simply spend my Christmas Eve like this, sitting under the small wooden bridge and whiling away my time with Tetch, telling stories and laughing. There were worse ways to spend a Christmas Eve. I wondered, too, if Tetch felt the same, if he preferred not to be alone. Yet we only stared at the other in awkward silence. And I took this as my cue to shove off. Time to return to my own territory, and my own ghosts, and leave Tetch to his. With a nod, I departed, returning back to Camden Town through Greenland Street.
I had only completed approximately two-thirds of my customary route, but I decided to cut my usual itinerary short. There was no work, no clientele, and the rain ever did its best to affront my bones. Finally returning to my little nest, I sat down heavily, wearily, bracing my shoulder against the brick of the door. Though Tetch had given me half the nut pastry, my stomach hungered for more. But it was all gone. It would be hours and hours before I would be able to go to the tavern and earn my evening meal. “Merry Christmas, Peter,” I murmured to myself, suddenly wishing, quite selfishly, that I had not visited Tetch, nor given him my little napkin of baked goods.
My fingers shook. I was hungry, cold, and wet. I lay my head against the brick. Perhaps I could sleep. I closed my eyes and heard footfalls. This was a familiar sound. It was him. It was always him. Angus MacMorley, my own private ghoul. He had come to torment me on this wet Christmas Eve, as he always came to torment me.
“Hello, Augie,” I said wearily.
“Hello, Augie.”
He could never speak first, but only parroted back what I said to him. And when he spoke, he sounded quite like me, speaking in my voice and my tone and my timbre, seeming nothing like the loud, laughing, garrulous Scotsman I once knew.
“Why are you here?”
“Why are you here?”
He looked nothing like the man I knew in life. His green eyes were grossly enlarged and death-cold. His clothing leaked full through with salt water, and he left wet footprints in his wake. His red hair was tangled with seaweed. His skin was gray and mottled. And his mouth was shaped into a perfect O, forever formed into the final scream he would never be able to express.
“Why must you haunt me?”
“Why must you haunt me?”
There he stood, transparent as air, but with such shape as to ever be real. My personal jailor. And well-deserved at that.
He sat in the recess next to me. He always did this, always sat next to me when I was done with my morning circuit. When I walked, he was ever behind me; when I stood still, he was ever by my side. I could feel his presence, even though he had no substance. I could not touch him, not even if I wished to, and oh, how I wished to do so. But I could feel him. I could feel the cold draught of his company, colder even than the December rain. I could feel the hurt emanating from his specter. I could feel the sharp shards of glass that pierced my heart whenever I thought of him. There was no comfort in seeing him, not this way, not any way.
There was only pain.
If I did not speak, he could not reply. If I did not glance at him, he could not stare back at me. And if I slept, he might go away. At least for a while.
“Will you not leave me in peace?”
“Will you not leave me in peace?”
This is why I believe in ghosts, and why I do not believe in benevolent spirits. The dead do not look on and help; the dead do not provide succor or care. And if the dead wish us to atone for our sins, it is not through changing our ways, but through sacrificing our souls.
My only respite was oblivion. Sleep provided temporary peace. I wondered how long before a more permanent solution presented itself.
I closed my eyes and waited fo
r whatever was to come.
Two
The First Ghost
HUNGER WOKE ME again.
Time held little importance in my life now. What cared I for a specific hour of the day, when my days had little substance and no time that needed marking? My stomach was my best timepiece. It woke me for breakfast when my appetite gnawed too loudly to be contained, and in this moment, it did the same for supper.
I roused myself. I had slept through the remainder of the day, and the evening had dawned clear. The rain had stopped, and only the hazy murk of London now polluted the sky. It had grown colder too. I was grateful the rain had abated, but it would still prove a long night to pass in such conditions. Christmas Eve. But that was a difficulty to think on later; now, I must eat.
I made my way to the tavern where I might earn my broth and bread, and a little warmth as well. I wondered what temper I might find the tavern keeper in. This being Christmas Eve, a boom in custom may have filled his coffers and placed him in good spirits. Or he might feel overwrought and overworked, and more irritable than usual. It was no matter. My stomach required sustenance; that was the only matter before me for the moment.
The tavern was quiet as I made my way toward the back door. Indeed, the streets of London were all eerily quiet. I must have slept later than I intended. I hoped the tavern keeper would still be up, sweeping the floor and wiping down the tables. Perhaps he would be tired from a long evening’s work and would be pleased to discover a willing pair of hands at his alley door. I would gladly complete all of these tasks in exchange for my nightly repast. That would truly be a Christmas miracle. I knocked on the alley door, loudly, and waited.
There was no reply.
This was unusual. I was not the only person in London to use this tavern’s back door. The place had acquired a somewhat colorful reputation for various manner of ill solicitations. As such, there was always an individual nearby to answer. I knocked again, but I heard only silence inside. Yet I could see light, a fairly robust glow of light, creeping out from underneath the door.
Peter Cratchit's Christmas Carol Page 2
