A Twenty-twelve Christmas Carol: Episode 2 – The First of the Three Spirits

When Eddie awoke the darkness in his room was so complete his eyes might well have still been shut; the only proof he had at that moment that blindness had not crept upon him as he slept came from the muted glow of the numbers on the alarm clock by the bed. As the digital readout morphed from “12.00” to “12.01” Eddie merely stared at it blearily; as it changed from “12.01” to “12.02” a nagging concern gently nuzzled his slowly waking awareness. It was not until “12.02” became “12.03” that a sudden realisation struck him: it had been past two o’clock in the morning when he’d gone to bed!

Much like a famous ex-Prime Minister, Eddie never slept more than five hours at a time; it was preposterous to think therefore he might have slept through a whole day and far into another night.

‘There’s no friggin’ way,’ he protested inwardly, ‘that something’s buggered the sun and it’s only lunchtime.’

Beset by thoughts of Icelandic volcanoes spewing out giant clouds of light consuming ash he climbed from the mattress and crossed to the window; the world outside was tucked up in bed just as it should be. Although it was still damp the fog had now cleared and the moon, still four days short of full, gazed shyly down from a sky reassuringly clear of clouds, pumice laden or otherwise.

As Eddie crawled back into his sleeping bag he tried his best to figure things out. The more he thought, the more perplexed he became; yet the more he endeavoured not to think, the more he thought! Marlow’s Ghost really bothered him, had he dreamt its appearance or not? In contrast to the turmoil in his mind, the clock beside the bed remained unflustered, calmly cycling through the changes from one minute to the next. It was not until 12.45 came around that Eddie suddenly remembered Marlow’s warning of a visitation at one o’clock. He resolved to lie awake until the hour had passed, and as he could no more go to sleep than win “Britain’s Got Talent” that was possibly the best course of action.

So slowly did those fifteen minutes drag by that Eddie became convinced the clock had developed a glitch. His suspicion was given added weight when, despite not being set, and despite never once having been set for one in the morning, the radio on the alarm turned itself on the moment the bright electronic figures showed “one, zero, zero”. Doing his best to ignore the invasive strains of “I Wish it Could be Christmas Every Day” Eddie took solace in the relief of knowing at last that both Marlow and his pronouncements had all been a dream.

That relief lasted but an instant; even as the happy thought entered his mind a light flashed up in the room and an ethereal hand stretched forward to engage the “snooze” button on the radio. Starting up into a half-recumbent position on the bed Eddie found himself face to face with the unearthly visitor to whom the hand belonged, as close to it as I am now to you, and in spirit at least I am standing right by your shoulder.

It was a strange figure – and nothing like anything Eddie had been expecting. The man, for man it was, wore a beige jacket made of herringbone tweed over a v-neck sweater of similar hue. The shirt beneath the jumper was a faded white, slightly threadbare, while the olive green tie was a square cut, knitted polyester affair. Below its waist olive green was once more in evidence, a pair of heavy corduroy trousers sandwiched between a dark brown leather belt and a pair of Oxford brogues, the brown suede of the latter complimenting the elbow patches on the figure’s jacket. The face above the outfit was framed by thick brown hair and beard which, whilst not exactly “unkempt”, were a long way from “well groomed”. Both were liberally interspersed with streaks of grey, yet the face itself was entirely free of wrinkles and the tenderest bloom was on the skin.

It had been evident at first glance that Marlow’s Ghost was not of this world, the only nod to the supernatural about Eddie’s latest visitor was the large open book he held in his left hand, as if he were about to give a public reading, from which sprang a bright clear jet of light by which all this was visible.

‘Are you the spirit Marlow told me about?’ asked Eddie.

‘I am!’

The voice was soft and gentle but strangely low, as if the speaker were at a distance rather than close at hand.

‘You look like my old history teacher,’ Eddie quipped with his usual bravado. ‘Who, and what, are you?’ he demanded.

‘I come not to instruct, but to recollect, for I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.’

‘Long past?’ inquired Eddie.

‘No. Your past.’

It is unlikely Eddie could have explained his reasoning yet he had a sudden urge to close the tome the Spirit held before him.

‘What?’ exclaimed the Ghost when Eddie gave voice to that urge. ‘Would you so soon put out, with mortal hands, the light I give? Is it not enough that you are one of those whose passions have sought consistently to blur the words upon these pages, forcing me through whole trains of years to rewrite them time and time again?’

Eddie quickly disavowed himself of any intention to offend and swore he had never knowingly defaced the Spirit’s book. ‘I love books,’ he’d finished lamely, and somewhat less than truthfully, in recent times at least.

‘What business brings you here,’ Eddie asked.

‘Your welfare!’ the Ghost replied.

‘Thanks for thinking of me,’ said Eddie, thinking to himself that a night of unbroken rest would have been more conducive to that end. The Spirit must have read his mind, for it immediately
exclaimed:

‘Your reclamation then. Take heed!’

So saying it put out its right hand and clasped Eddie gently by the arm.

‘Rise! And walk with me!’

Any number of objections sprang to Eddie’s mind yet the Spirit’s grasp, though gentle as a woman’s hand, was not to be resisted. He stood, but finding that the Ghost was heading directly to the window he fearfully cried out:

‘What the hell are you doing? I’ll fall! I’ll be killed!’

‘Bear but a touch of my hand upon your heart,’ replied the Spirit, touching Eddie’s chest, ‘and you shall be upheld in more ways than one!’

Man and apparition passed through the wall and into an open country road with fields upon either side. The city, the damp and the darkness had vanished; instead it was a clear, cold, winter day, with an icing sugar dusting of snow on the ground.

‘Christ!’ Eddie exclaimed, looking eagerly around him. ‘I know this place; I went to school just up there.’

‘Let’s take a closer look,’ said the Spirit. ‘Do you remember the way?’

‘I should bloody well think so,’ Eddie fervently replied. ‘I could get there with my eyes closed.’

‘Strange to have forgotten it for so many years!’ observed the Ghost. ‘Let us go on.’

They walked along the road, Eddie recognising every gate, and post, and hedgerow. At length they came to a red telephone box opposite the entrance to a long, tree lined driveway. As they stood and watched a line of cars, an Audi, two Beemers, a Merc, a Range Rover, a Roller and a Porsche, made their way sedately down the drive. As the car at the head of this procession reached the junction with the main road one young occupant stuck his head up through the sunroof and waved energetically at the next car in line.

‘Merry Christmas!’ the boy yelled.

‘And you,’ came an equally youthful and exuberant voice, the owner of said voice leaning dangerously far through the passenger window of the following vehicle.

‘That’s Benjamin Chamberlain and Alexander Spencer,’ Eddie trumpeted excitedly. ‘Hey Ben, Alex, you great morons!’

‘These are but shadows of the things that have been,’ said the Ghost. ‘They have no consciousness of us.’

They followed the drive for nearly half a mile, coming at last to a gravel car park in front of a grandiose stately home, no longer the residence of one of the landed gentry but converted instead to an exclusive school for the male progeny of the well-to-do. Here waited more cars of similar vintage and status to those that had passed them on the road, doors and boots open, ready to receive the stream of excited youngsters pouring from the front entrance of the splendid pile beyond. As each vehicle swallowed up its allotted cargo Eddie gladly regaled his companion with their names. Why was he so pleased to see them? Why did his eyes become moist and his heart leap as they ran past? Why was he so glad to hear them wishing each other Merry Christmas? What was Merry Christmas to Eddie? Christmas, after all, was just a day like any other, a day for making money. As for the rest of that crap? What-e-ver!

At last the cars shut their doors, as did the house itself. The former drove out of the car park and headed for home and the delights of the holiday while the latter, unsurprisingly, stayed firmly where it was.

‘The school is not quite deserted,’ said the Ghost. ‘A solitary child, neglected by his friends, abandoned by his family, is left there still.’

‘They didn’t abandon me,’ replied Eddie defensively. ‘My father, stepmother and Fran went to Cloisters every year for Christmas. They were worried it might interfere with my studies. Besides, I hated skiing.’

The Ghost led Eddie into the house, through the great entrance hall, past the ornate staircase and down a narrow corridor to the rear. Here they entered the common room, deserted save for one lonely child, quietly reading a book.

Against one wall of the room he’d pushed a table tennis table, one half of which remained in an upright position thereby making it possible to play ping-pong on his own. On a large table was a chess set, several pieces already in play, a “Mousetrap” game half completed and a “Monopoly board” with houses on many of the properties and hotels on Mayfair and Park Lane. The knowledge the boy had been playing alone filled Eddie with sadness and he wept to see his poor, forgotten self as he used to be.

The Spirit touched him on the arm and pointed to the younger Eddie, intent upon his reading; in an instant it felt as if that some portal had opened between his two incarnations. Into his mind, as clear and fresh as if he were once more reading the lines on the page, came images of Bilbo and the dwarves following Gandalf upon the road from Bag End to the Last Lonely Mountain; of Hazel, Fiver, Bigwig and the others escaping the horror that befell the warren at Sandleford before making the long and difficult journey to Watership Down; of Sparrowhawk, the future dragonlord and Archmage, and his struggles against the evil shadow-beast which he himself, through folly and pride, had let loose on the land; and of the orphan Oliver Twist, banished from the workhouse for daring to ask for more and plunged into a world of violence, vagabonds and villains.

As all these pictures flashed behind his eyes Eddie felt a feeling of ecstasy and he laughed out loud at the joy of their recollection. A happy tear formed in the corner of his right eye but before it could fall it was outpaced by a tear of sorrow from his left, in pity for his former self.

‘Poor boy!’ he said, and wept once more.

‘I wish,’ muttered Eddie, wiping his nose on his sleeve: ‘but it’s too late now.’

‘What’s wrong?’ inquired the Spirit.

‘Nothing,’ Eddie replied. ‘Nothing. Oh sod it! Some kid was carolling at the flats the other night; I wish now I’d given him a quid or two.’

The Ghost smiled thoughtfully and waved its hand, saying as it did so:

‘Let us see another Christmas!’

It was an older remembrance of himself that Eddie now witnessed. No longer content to sit and read the youth, alone at Christmas once more, instead paced up and down despairingly. As well as the books the games too were no longer in evidence for he had, as the scriptures say, “put away childish things”, though in reality he was far from adulthood. Propelled by circumstance he had grown up too soon, the irreplaceable years of adolescence irrevocably taken from him. Eddie looked at the Ghost, mournfully shaking his head, then glanced anxiously towards the door.

At that instant it was flung open and in skipped a girl, much younger than the boy but bearing more than a passing resemblance. She flung herself into her brother’s arm, hugging him fit to crack a rib or two and kissing him exuberantly.

‘Eddsie Weddsie!’ she cried. ‘I’ve come to help you escape from here!’

‘Escape?’ laughed Eddie, immediately falling prey to his step-sister’s infectious happiness. ‘Do you have a hacksaw hidden in your knickers Fran?’

‘Don’t be disgusting,’ she chided. For a second her face was a picture of seriousness before immediately returning to her customary smile. ‘No, no, no Eddsie Weddsie. We’ve really come to take you out of here. Mom and dad are outside, Daddy says it’s time for you to come back home; he’s so much kinder than he used to be. We’re to be together all Christmas long!’

As Eddie and the Spirit watched on Fran eagerly secured her brother and his belongings in the back of one of their father’s cars. Seeing the smile on Eddie’s face the Ghost refrained from reminding him of the true reason for his father calling him home; the senior Mr Scudamore-Smythe was set to be declared bankrupt having gambled all the family’s money on a failed investment scheme. Talking instead of Fran, the Spirit said:

‘Always a delicate creature, a breath of wind could have blown her sideways, but she had a large heart.’

‘You’ll get no argument from me on that score,’ Eddie replied.

‘She died in her early twenties,’ continued the Ghost, ‘and had children I believe.’

‘One child,’ Eddie corrected.

‘True,’ said the Ghost. ‘Your nephew!’

‘Yes,’ Eddie replied, chagrin writ large on his face.

As the car carrying his schoolboy self drove away the scene around Eddie and his companion suddenly changed. The converted stately home and its rural surrounds were gone, instead they stood on the deck of a Thames riverboat sliding sedately through the heart of London. Once again it was Christmas and the boat was crammed with company employees enjoying the “works do”, food and booze included! The doors from the open deck led into a surprisingly large space where ladies in their best party frocks and men in their glad rags stood in line for the sumptuous buffet or the well stocked bar, while others, already burdened with fodder and a beverage, were either sat at the many tables or were instead engaged in the perennial party struggle of eating with a plate in one hand and a glass in the other, all while standing up and talking to one’s fellow diners.

Christmas lights and decorations hung in gay profusion all around the room, overseen from the far corner by a gaudily dressed artificial tree. Many of the celebrants wore something or other in honour of the season, be it a Rudolph nose or antlers, a cardboard crown, a pair of novelty earrings or socks, a garish tie complete with flashing lights, or even, in some cases, underwear. For the most part this latter fact was revealed in raucous yet fairly harmless conversation but Fiona from Accounts was all too quick to flash the proof of her salute to the season – a festive pair of red silk panties with the motto “Santa please stop here” embroidered in white on the front (the chances someone would indeed be stopping by before the night was over were increasing incrementally with each brandy and “Babycham” she consumed).

‘Does this seem familiar to you?’ the Ghost enquired of Eddie.

‘Too frigging right,’ Eddie replied. ‘This is Fessborough and Wigthorpe’s Christmas party; I’d have thought that was obvious.’

From a stairwell in the corner came the throbbing beat of the disco in full swing on the deck below. In the dark recesses surrounding the dance floor partygoers again had their hands full, this time with each other. Accompanying the miscellaneous petting, fumbling, kisses and hugs, and the occasional slap of a too inquisitive hand, was a quiet symphony of giggles, sighs and saliva laden squelches. As Eddie and the Ghost watched all this going on the DJ at the far end of the room put on a track Eddie immediately recognised – “We are Sailing” by Rod Stewart. A sizeable number of guests rushed to the centre of the floor where, after some jocular pushing and shoving, they formed a vaguely straight line facing forwards before promptly sitting down, legs spread apart either side of the person in front of them. To the delight of certain onlookers many a thigh was revealed by the inevitable riding up of skirts this manoeuvre engendered; it will not surprise you to learn that it was Fiona from Accounts whose hem was hoisted the highest.

As Rod’s gravely tones poured out of the speakers the seated revellers rocked back and forth as if rowing a boat, bringing more than stocking tops into view for some, while during the chorus, with arms stretched out at right angles, they swayed exuberantly from side to side. Midway down the line, laughing and singing as loud as any, was Eddie’s former self, his arms clasped firmly around the waist of the rower ahead of him; the way she lent back into him and the smile on her face were testament to her willing endorsement of the situation.

Back in the relative quiet of the stern Eddie and the Ghost could once again take up their conversation

“I used to love these “Fess and Wigs” shindigs, not just at Christmas either. There was the summer barbecue, the year-end bash, all kinds of things; they were the most generous company I ever worked for.’

‘Generous?’ queried the Spirit. ‘Why so? It is a small matter to make these silly people so full of gratitude.’

‘Small!’ echoed Eddie.

‘They have only spent a meagre portion of their annual profits. Is that truly so special?’

‘It isn’t just that,’ said Eddie, eager to defend his former employers. ‘They had the power to make us happy or miserable, to make our work enjoyable or a real drag, to build us up or knock us on our backsides, to say well done and thank you or merely point out our mistakes. Their power was in the stuff that don’t show up in your pay packet and that is as great as if it cost a fortune.’

Feeling the Spirit’s glance upon him Eddie stopped speaking.

‘What is the matter?’ asked the Ghost.

‘Nothing.’

‘Something I think,’ the Spirit insisted.

‘I just wish I could say something to Bob at the moment.’

‘Bob? You mean Bogdan Kravchuck, your…..assistant?’

‘Indeed,’ said Eddie.

As he spoke the scene around them shifted once more. They stood now in front of a park bench, seated upon which were an even older Eddie, now a man in the prime of his life, and an attractive young woman, the same woman he’d been sat behind on the dance floor earlier. Unshed tears, sparkling in the light that shone from the book the Ghost still carried, hovered in the corners of her eyes.

‘I cannot be with you,’ she said softly, ‘if you won’t stop doing what you’re doing?’

‘Doing what?’ Eddie replied.

‘You know what. Dealing drugs.’

‘I’m not a dealer. I just get a few things for a few mates is all.’

‘You’re a dealer Eddie,’ the woman insisted. ‘I can’t live with that.’

‘You taken you’re share in your time,’ Eddie retorted. ‘Why so high and mighty now?’

‘That was meant to be fun, what you’re doing is totally different. You’re hurting people, you’re ruining lives.’

‘So the engagement’s off, is that what you’re saying?’ he asked.

‘The engagement’s off and we’re off, period. You gotta choose Eddie: marry me or sell drugs, you don’t get to do both.’

The threat hung in the air between them, the silence growing more pointed with each passing second. At last Eddie gave her his reply:

‘What-e-ver! It’s been fun Izzy. Ta-ta.’

With that the woman stood up and walked away, the tears coursing freely down her face.

‘Spirit,’ said Eddie, ‘I’ve had enough of this; take me home. Why do you take such pleasure in torturing me?’

‘One shadow more!’ exclaimed the Ghost.

‘Stuff that!’ cried Eddie. ‘No more. I don’t wish to see it. Show me no more.’

But the relentless Spectre held him firm, forcing him to observe what happened next.

They were in another scene and place, the illuminated interior of a black windowed limousine. On the back seat sat another semblance of Eddie, pinioned on either side by two brutish thugs in designer suits. On the rear facing seat opposite was a man dressed in Saville Row’s finest. Thick, heavy, diamond encrusted gold adorned his neck, wrists and fingers, an expensive Cohiba “Siglo VI” was in his mouth and a glass of Hine “Triomphe” rested easily in his hand.

Taking the cigar from his lips he took a delicate sip of the cognac.

‘So,’ he said simply, ‘you going to tell me the truth Eddie?’

‘About what Mr Johnson?’ Eddie replied nervously.

‘About Izzy, your former fiancé, my niece.’

‘I don’t know what you mean, Mr Johnson,’ lied Eddie.

‘Let me enlighten you,’ replied Mr. Johnson. ‘Last night she took too much coke, this morning she died. She’s only my niece by marriage, I don’t particularly like her or her parents, but family’s family; I gotta take steps. You know anything about this Eddie? The word on the street says she got it from you.’

The word on the street was right; Izzy had indeed got the stuff from him. For her the “fun” that had started when the two of them were together had spiralled into something else, fuelled in part, and with terrible irony, by her devastation at Eddie’s refusal to choose life with her over his drug dealing. In debt to her usual suppliers Izzy had come crawling back to Eddie, eager for a fix. Having just bought a new consignment at a knock down price Eddie was feeling generous; he’d given her the dope and sent her on her way. He’d thought that was the last of it, at least until Johnson’s buffoons had dragged him into his car.

‘I can’t lie, Mr Johnson,’ Eddie lied again, ‘she did come to me but I sent her packing, honest I did.’

‘Why should I believe you Eddie?’ his interrogator asked threateningly.

‘Because I can tell you who did it, that’s why.’

‘Go on,’ said Mr Johnson quietly.

‘It was Jake, Jake Marlow.’

‘Was it now? You’d shop your own partner Mr Scuds?’

‘Too right,’ said Eddie eagerly. ‘He should never have done what he did.’

‘On that we concur. Arrange for Mr Marlow to be at this address tonight,’ he said, handing Eddie a folded piece of paper.

‘But it’s Christmas Eve Mr Johnson,’ Eddie protested.

‘Christmas, Mr Scuds, is just a day like any other, a day for making money. Now get out of my car.’

‘Spirit!’ said Eddie in a broken voice, ‘remove me from this place.’

‘I told you they were shadows of the things that have been,’ said the Ghost. ‘That they are what they are, do not blame me!’

Eddie turned upon the Spirit, and seeing that it looked upon him with a face in which there were flashes of all those he had shown him, sought to fight him.

‘Leave me! Take me back! Haunt me no longer!’

As Eddie railed against the Ghost he noticed the light that shone from his book burning higher and brighter. Making a sudden connection between this and the Spirit’s power over him he wrested it from his grasp and forced it shut. And force it he must, for the light resisted as if it were a jet of water fired from a riot squad’s canon. The light continued to stream out, unhidden and undimmed, until the book was finally fully closed, upon which instant both it and the Spirit of Christmas Past disappeared.

Finding himself immediately returned to his room and conscious of being exhausted Eddie, overcome by irresistible drowsiness, barely had time to reel to the mattress on the floor before sinking into a heavy, dreamless sleep.
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copyright D M Pamment 2012