by Syd Moore
She read the message again. Perhaps she’d do it even if it wasn’t kosher – she deserved a treat. It had been so busy lately. Kieron and Sharon would be none the wiser and if they did find out, then her reputation would hardly take a knock: Carole Christmas was known never to look a gift horse in the eye. Probably, though, it was just another one of Faz’s off-the-wall money-making schemes that he was well known for. Like the ‘free’ Bombay potatoes that incurred a £4 ‘chopping charge’. Though most of the villagers took all his shenanigans with a pinch of salt, succumbing to the effusive charm of the bumbling restaurateur whilst acknowledging that his cuisine was probably the best in the county and good value for the price anyway. But it irked Carole, who liked to get her money’s worth as much as the next man, as long as that next man proclaimed the thrifty ethos of a popular budget Irish airline.
Carole sighed and replaced her phone on the table. She’d get that dinner, one way or another. If she followed up the offer and was denied a free meal she might have a case with the Trading Standards. A phone call in their direction, or the threat of a phone call, might provide enough leverage to squeeze a free staff meal out of Faz. She’d think about it.
Extinguishing the lamp, comforted as always by the cheapness of darkness, she drew the bed-curtains close and pulled her duvet and blankets up to her chin.
No sooner had she shut her eyes, however, than her thoughts were interrupted by another ring of a bell. This was not electrical but distinctly metallic. A singular chime, she realised, must have resounded from the church across the road, travelling through the graveyard and into her room. Was it one o’clock? Perhaps it was. She nestled down into the bedclothes again and was almost about to slide into sleep when she heard something else: a movement on the landing outside her room. A dark sound. Heavy. Metallic again, but not like the bell. Oh no, this noise was more scattered and scratchy. Almost like chains, from the cellar below, were being dragged across the floorboards.
Carole bolted upright. Her imagination, which was not expansive nor taken to tricks, was playing up. Probably it was the effects of the undigested cheese she had snacked on before retiring. She poked her head out through the bed curtains.
The fog had poured through chinks in the windows so the room was full of dense mist. She must, she rued, get those panes seen to. But to what cost, she wondered? And who would pay. Not her, she hoped.
She was so taken with her lamentation over potential expense that it took a while for her mind to process what her eyes had settled on. But when it finally did, she jumped up and cried out, ‘Oh my good gawd. Graham! What are you doing here?’ For she could see the figure of her former colleague.
Graham Peacock had been an all right sort of bloke. Okay to work with. Easy, right up to the point where he’d had a massive heart attack and died.
Recollecting her colleague no longer walked the earth, Carole opened her mouth and began to wail.
‘Oh, give up. You’re making my head tingle,’ said the late Graham Peacock. ‘Do you remember me?’
Carole, shocked by the fact that the spectre could speak, complied and stopped howling, then squinted. Her eyes roamed over the silky patterned waistcoat and worn corduroys, which she realised were almost transparent. ‘Course I remember you. Course I do. ’Cept you’re deceased, mate.’
‘Say that again?’ Graham’s scant eyebrows rose into his wavering head.
Carole smiled, pleased to see she had outwitted the apparition. ‘I said, you’re dead. Brown bread, dearly departed, pushing up daisies: DEAD.’
‘No, before that,’ said Graham, undeterred. ‘You called me “mate”. Oh good well, at least this might have an impact then.’
‘We were friends of a sort,’ Carole conceded. ‘You were always kind. Before, you know, you carked it.’
Graham took a light step towards her. ‘And I still am. You know, I have sat beside you invisible on many a day.’
‘Ew,’ Carole shuddered. ‘What? Even in the shower?’
Graham shuddered back. ‘No, not then. I still have my standards. I have been biding my time, waiting to find a good moment to talk you into counting your blessings and warn you about your future.’
‘My future?’ Carole smirked. ‘Shouldn’t you be worrying about your own?’
Graham shook his large see-through head. ‘Ah, no. Mine’s fine, thanks very much. Infinite and expanding. I was pleased although a little surprised to discover that I was quite a good egg, overall. No, it’s yours we must pay attention to.’
‘Mine?’ It didn’t make sense. Nothing did. And she realised she was obviously asleep. She must have dozed off before the bell and was dreaming now. Still, she might as well go along with it. If it got too bad she could try and wake herself up. ‘Why do we need to think about my future then?’ she asked Graham, going with the flow.
‘Well might you ask,’ replied her late colleague. ‘I have been alerted to some news that, er, well, in simple terms there is, in fact, a special place in Hell reserved for you. Which is what made me pop down this evening and don the chains. Old fashioned, I know,’ he said and rattled them. ‘They still have a terribly dated idea of what ghosts are meant to look like. Anyway – we’re allowed one manifestation a year, if we’ve been good boys and girls. Though it’s hard not to be really. Not many distractions upstairs to lead you astray, if you know what I mean?’
Despite her self-assurance Graham’s words were having an effect on Carole. Alarm was creeping into her fingertips and making them prickle. ‘Did you say Hell? A place for me?’
‘Y-es,’ Graham nodded with deliberate slowness. ‘You and several Conservative politicians, as it turns out. And I wouldn’t wish Jacob Rees-Mogg on anyone. Not even the curmudgeonly Carole Christmas. And that’s saying something. Thus the intervention.’
Carole blinked. She wasn’t sure how to respond to that. I mean, you wouldn’t really, would you?
‘So,’ Graham picked up again. ‘It’s pretty simple,’ he said. ‘You have to stop being such a cantankerous, mean-spirited, money-grabbing . . .’ he paused. ‘No, actually, I’m not meant to say that.’ He coughed and cleared his transparent throat, a habit lingering from his earthbound incarnation. ‘You’re going to get a visit.’
Carole shook her head. ‘I’m dreaming, aren’t I? It’s a dream sequence . . . I remember this . . .’
‘No! Of course you’re not dreaming. Why would you dream about me?’
‘It’s been a while,’ she admitted. ‘But I did think about you. For a bit. After you carked it. Thought you might have left me something in your will.’
‘How very touching,’ Graham muttered. Then he started, as if he had heard something, and cupped his hand to his ear. ‘Ah, that’s them calling me in now,’ he said and made his hand into a trumpet over his mouth, so that his voice echoed. ‘Come in Number Ninety-Nine, your time is up.’ Then he laughed. It was a loose, rattling laugh that complemented, in a dark, menacing manner, the scratch of his chains on the floor as he walked clunkily backwards. With every step he took Carole noted the window raised itself a little, so that when the ghost reached it, it was wide open.
‘Take heed, Carole,’ he said thinly. ‘Take heed for sure.’
And then he was nowhere.
A sharp gust of wind blew in the room and jolted the landlady to her senses. Carole realised she was shivering, and, feeling the claws of cold about her neck, she flew over and pulled the pane down with a crack. Peering into the darkness outside she saw the fog was thickening. In it she could see streams of mist were curling and uncurling, forming shapes. She blinked. For a moment they resembled long, extended restless phantasms with twisted faces, shaped to convey different expressions. Though all were hideous – warped with horror, misery and fear. She shrank back and closed her eyes but became aware of their noises: incoherent wails that conjured emotions of grief, guilt, sorrow and regret.
This was stupid.
Carole turned her back on the sight and galloped over to her bed, whic
h she jumped into and quickly pulled the curtains shut.
For a moment she sat there, listening to her own short, shallow breaths, and became aware that, outside at least, the wails were no more.
Then a curtain fluttered.
Carole’s heart filled with dread and, even though she could not really believe it was happening, part of her knew something was on its way.
First a skeletal finger, then a thin, bony hand crept into the tiny gap between the curtains.
‘Nooo,’ whispered Carole, and her heart started up again.
The hand continued to inch its way into her bed and up the drapes, which it suddenly tugged back. She wanted to close her eyes against the sight, but found herself paralysed, eyes wide, and saw there, as the curtains swept back, an unearthly creature standing by her bed. She was somewhat relieved that it was small and bore the semblance of a child. Though this was not any ordinary-looking infant. This creature’s face was mean and grizzled and though it had the wrinkled appearance of an old man with long hair, it sat atop the undeveloped body of a five-year old. A skinny five-year-old at that.
Trying to master her shivers, Carole stuck her chin out defiantly. ‘What do you want with me?’ she cried, hearing her voice grate on her vocal chords. Fear had strung them tight.
But the creature didn’t answer. It was dressed in a white tunic with a sprig of holly in its free hand. With the other it released the curtain and then stretched its fingers out to Carole, indicating that she should take them.
Although she feared touching the creature, she was more afraid of what would happen if she did not comply, so did its bidding. As soon as her flesh met the little spectre’s, it cooled to a Siberian chill.
The small unearthly creature led Carole over to the window and gestured for her to climb out. Carole shook her head.
‘Come Carole,’ said the creature in hushed tones. And as it spoke a lightness descended over her and she felt herself rise into the air. The two of them passed through the wall of the pub, into an inky blackness and then touched down into what appeared to be a playground. It was full of children and noise and sunshine.
‘Do you remember it?’ asked the spirit.
‘Oh yes,’ said Carole. ‘I’d remember Greenriver Juniors anywhere. Look! The brook at the end of the field,’ and a real and genuine smile relaxed her face. ‘We used to play there in the summer. Wouldn’t be allowed now – all that ’ealth and safety. But see, they’ve still got the geese there.’ Where the concrete of the playground gave way to a grassy bank, a group of Brent geese were building nests. ‘They used to come up all the time and sit there laying. Never thought nothing of it back then, but it was something wasn’t it? The six of them there: Dancer, Prancer, Blixen . . . no . . . Were they the names or am I muddling it up with something else? I always mix them up. Them and the days of Christmas. What is it – five golden geese or something? Seven ladies dancing? I don’t know . . . who does? Do anyone really care . . .?’ The spectre raised its bony hand and touched a finger to Carole’s lips, interrupting her flow.
‘What?’ she said, looking into its strange, wizened face. Its eyes grew large and the finger came off her mouth and pointed over to the playground. Carole followed its direction and found a group of children playing ball in the corner. Beyond them she could see one little girl with blonde hair in a yellow dress. Sitting alone on a bench, she was watching the game.
‘I remember her,’ said Carole. ‘Hannah Jenkinson. She had something wrong with her.’
‘Regard the scene,’ instructed the phantom.
They watched the girl on the bench break into a coughing fit. A few of the other children playing looked over, then shuffled off a few paces, further away.
‘She died ten years ago,’ said the phantom and put a cold hand on Carole’s arm as they watched another little girl detach herself from the group. This one was scrawny and topped with scraggy dark hair. Visibly healthy, she ran over to the girl on the bench where she took out a yoyo from her pinafore and handed it to Hannah. Then very quickly the two little girls began to play.
‘That’s you,’ said the spirit and Carole bent closer and squinted her eyes and saw that it was indeed her younger self. ‘You still had generosity in your heart, despite your father.’
‘He was a drunk,’ Carole said. Her words were loaded with a familiar bitterness. ‘Always thieving. Couldn’t help himself. Stole from Mum. Even took from my money box. Nothing was sacred.’
The two girls in the corner broke into a giggle as their yo-yos collided.
‘Hannah never forgot your kindness,’ the spectre went on. ‘Called it a blessing – you spending time with her when others wouldn’t. In fact, her first daughter was named after you, Carole.’
The landlady gasped in, surprised. ‘A blessing? I don’t bless no one.’
‘And you don’t count them either,’ the phantom said. ‘Only your coins.’
But Carole wasn’t listening. She was holding out her hand to the little girl, meaning to draw closer. ‘I don’t remember. I . . .’ As she moved, the playground shifted under her feet. Instead of growing colder and gravelled as she expected, she found it furry and tacky and looked down to see she was standing on a dirty carpet. In a pub. But this was not the one downstairs. This was somewhere far less salubrious. The ceilings were stained yellow with nicotine, the seats sticky and unwashed. A jukebox played in the background – country and western – mournful and long.
‘There,’ said the spectre and pointed to a man sitting in the corner on his own. He was staring at the table, nursing a pint. ‘Look. It’s Stephen. The one you mourned for so long.’
‘Stephen Pope?’ Carole squinted but could find no resemblance in the crumpled grey-haired old man whose face was red and livid like a lobster and whose hands clasped themselves over a protruding pot-belly.
‘Well, I never. He was a smooth-talking ladies’ man. Attractive, lean,’ she told the apparition. ‘Popular, I thought.’
‘You were looking through the eyes of love. And no, he’s not like that any more. He ran off with your heart, didn’t he?’
Carole scoffed. ‘Humph. Yeah, and Michelle from downstairs and the hard-earned savings I’d been putting away for a cot.’
‘But Ben didn’t mind sleeping in your bed, did he?’ the apparition whispered. ‘And in the end you two were happy.’
‘No, he didn’t mind the bed. He liked it,’ Carole said, as the spectre waved her hand, wiping away the sad old man, revealing a small, unfolded sofa-bed where a baby and a woman lay.
They watched for a moment as a young Carole tickled her newborn son, who responded by kicking his chubby legs and chortling loudly.
‘But where is Ben now?’ the spectre asked.
Wind screamed round Carole’s feet and the temperature instantly dropped.
They were peering through a window into a small bedsit. Three young men were standing to go. Carole could see one was her son. Despite herself, she smiled.
‘’Night then,’ Ben said to his friends and opened the door. ‘See you tomorrow?’
But the smaller lad shrugged. ‘Got family stuff I’m afraid, mate.’
‘What about you Stevie?’ Ben asked, trying hard to disguise a plaintive note in his words. ‘You free?’
The boy called Stevie shook his head. ‘Sorry Ben. Not tomorrow. Same as Lee, I got family.’
‘No, that’s fine,’ said Ben, and grinned brightly as he waved them goodbye. He took a breath and closed the door after them. When it had clicked shut he leant against it and sank to the floor with his head in his hands.
‘What’s the matter with him?’ asked Carole and pressed her nose to the window, trying to catch the expression on the young man’s face. ‘Why is he sitting down there?’
‘My time grows short,’ she heard the apparition murmur.
‘Oh God,’ said Carole as the scene darkened. ‘I know the score. I’ve seen The Muppet Christmas Carol.’ She pushed her nose harder against the black pane but f
ound she could not see within. In fact she could not see anything. ‘I’m going to get another visitor like you. They’re going to show me my future. And it’s going to be grim and it’s going to be bleak and I don’t know if I’ll be able to take it.’
‘Ah, those were the good old days,’ said the childish apparition. ‘I’m afraid it don’t work like that no more,’ it said. ‘Efficiency savings. We’ve been streamlined.’
‘So it’s just you? It’s just this? My future – it hasn’t started …?’
But just then, she heard something that made her start. A tinny bell-like sound was coming from her bedside. Her phone again. She stopped speaking and grabbed it and stared hard at the screen. A message.
With trembling fingers she pressed the folder open.
It read. ‘Alone, alone, alone.’
Underneath was visible a photograph of a neglected grave.
Carole moved her shaking fingers across the image and made it bigger so she could read the engraving on the tomb stone: ‘Carole Christmas lies buried here. Un-mourned, unloved and alone.’
The shock of it made her react with such force she threw the phone across the room.
‘It’s not real,’ she shrieked. ‘I will not have it like that.’ And she gave up a long, sustained scream, for she knew that truly it would be so.
‘Mum!’ another voice pierced her.
A head was protruding through the bed curtains.
What fresh horrors did the night have now to unfold? she thought and hid her eyes.
‘Mum! What’s the matter?’
The voice was familiar, she thought. And she opened her right eye just a fraction. It was enough to recognise the features on the head.
‘Ben!’ she cried. ‘Ben! My son. Are you real? Are you really here?’
‘Oh blimey Mum,’ said the face, which she realised was now connected to a neck and a body and several other regular parts of the human composition. ‘Were you on the spirits last night?’
Carole blinked at him, not so long since a baby, and touched his cheek as she used to, noting it was, thank God, warm and full of life. ‘You could say that. What time is it? I haven’t missed it have I? Is it still Christmas?’
