The Last of the Spirits (5 page)

‘The house was by a river,’ said Sam at length. ‘It had dark wood weatherboard walls and a thatched roof with a big old chimney stuck through it.’

Lizzie smiled in the candlelight without opening her eyes.

‘It was small but it was big enough for us,’ he continued. ‘It was dark inside on account of the little windows, but we was outside mostly. We was always outside. The air was clean and didn’t taste of metal or coal dust when you breathed it. It felt like you was the first person ever to breathe it.

‘It had a garden that went right down to the water,’ he continued. ‘There was ducks there and fish too. You could see pike sometimes hunting in the shadows. There was a vegetable patch where we grew our own food and you and me would hunt for caterpillars on the cabbages and we would take them in a bucket to a place well away and let them go, after making them promise not to come back.’

He paused there, summoning the courage to conjure up the next image, sun bright, blinding.

‘There was a sloping grass bank and Mother used to sing to us there,’ he said, his voice starting to falter. ‘You on her lap and me sat alongside on a blanket. Under a big old willow tree. She’d sing and the little birds would twitter in the trees and bushes and . . .’

He stopped and closed his eyes.

‘Sam?’ said Lizzie.

He did not reply.

‘I’m sorry, Sam,’ said Lizzie. ‘I shouldn’t have made you remember. I know you don’t like to.’

‘That’s just it, Liz,’ said Sam. ‘I love to. I love to. But I can’t . . . I ain’t strong enough . . .’

‘Sam, I –’

Lizzie stopped and stared over Sam’s shoulder with a look of utter astonishment on her grimy face. Sam frowned and turned.

The curtains were open and outside all was darkness. Out of this gloom was appearing, with horrible fluidity, the doom-laden features of Marley’s ghost, floating just outside the windowpane.

Sam reeled backwards and managed to put a hand over Lizzie’s mouth to stifle the scream. Marley’s ghost loosened the topknot of his scarf and let his jaw flop to his chest.

‘What are you doing there?’ he moaned quietly, reaching out a hand towards them. ‘You should not be there!’

Sam backed away some more, holding on to Lizzie until he collided with the table. But Marley’s ghost did not enter as Sam had assumed he would.

‘Wait a minute,’ whispered Sam. ‘You ain’t supposed to be here neither, are you? That’s why you can’t come in.’

‘What do you mean?’ said Lizzie. ‘Do you know who that is?’

‘He’s called Marley,’ said Sam. ‘He used to work with Scrooge. When he was alive.’

‘You . . . must . . . leave!’ hissed the ghost angrily.

‘I don’t think we will,’ said Sam. ‘It’s all right for you out there in the cold. You don’t feel nothing. You’re dead, ain’t you?’

Marley’s eyes narrowed and a curl twisted his upper lip.

‘I think you may be colder than I am, by some degrees,’ said Marley.

‘I ain’t sentimental, if that’s what you mean,’ said Sam. ‘It’s a luxury, ain’t it? It’s one we can’t afford. So I don’t care about you or your mates out there, all right?’

‘You . . . must . . . leave!’ he hissed again.

Lizzie whimpered.

‘I don’t think so,’ said Sam, stepping forward and shutting the curtains.

Lizzie ran to the other side of the room, staring back towards the window, her skinny legs shaking.

‘He can’t get in, Liz,’ said Sam.

‘How do you know?’ she said.

‘Because if he could, he’d be in by now. He was here to tell Scrooge about them spirits, that’s all. He’s no more meant to be here than we are.’

‘How do you know?’ asked Lizzie.

Sam took a deep breath.

‘I might have talked to him in the churchyard,’ he said.

‘What? Talked to him about what?’

‘He says he’s here to help save Scrooge’s soul,’ said Sam. ‘Three spirits are coming and they’re going to show the old prune the error of his ways.’

Lizzie stared at him.

‘And was you ever going to tell me about it?’

Sam shrugged. Lizzie scowled.

‘But he can go through walls. What’s stopping him?’

‘I think he’s scared,’ said Sam.

‘Scared? What of?’

Sam shrugged and ground his teeth nervously before replying.

‘I don’t know. Those other spirits, I suppose. The ones who are going to teach the old man.’

It worried Sam, though he did not show it. It worried him that a phantom such as that would be scared. It made him wonder what these spirits must be like.

‘Sam!’ she hissed.

‘Look,’ said Sam, ‘we’re here now. It’s warmer in here than out there, and old Scrooge can have his soul saved for all I care – I just want some of his loot and –’

Suddenly a bright flash burst into the room, under the door and round the door and beaming through the keyhole. It was a blue-white light and so intense that even this edited glimpse of it dazzled their eyes.

‘He’s back!’ hissed Sam. ‘Quick – under the table!’

Lizzie needed no further encouragement and the two of them dived under the huge table, turning to peep beneath the tablecloth, which hung almost, but not quite, to the floor.

The light shone in under the door, raking across the floorboards like a lighthouse beam rakes the waves, picking out every crumb and woodlouse carcass.

And then nothing.

The afterglow still hovered in the gloom like a ghost, but the light in Scrooge’s bedroom had gone out. Had he and the spirit left again?

No. Sam could hear the old miser moving about. Lizzie could hear him too and cuddled nervously into Sam, but Scrooge was climbing into bed, not coming towards them.

‘What’s he doing?’ whispered Lizzie.

‘He’s going back to bed.’

‘I’m so tired, Sam,’ she said tearfully.

‘Then go to sleep.’

‘But you said I shouldn’t. What if he comes in?’

‘He’s not coming in,’ said Sam.

Lizzie turned her back on her brother and curled up prickly as a hedgehog. Sam knew to leave well alone. Lizzie would come round. She always did. Best to get some sleep.

One of the tiny fireflies of light came drifting in under the door and Sam reached out and took hold of it.

The scene could not be more changed. Night was replaced by day, winter by spring. Instead of the soot and grime of the city, here was the greenery of the Kentish countryside. Here was a scene that might make a painter pause and take up his brushes.

Sam and Lizzie were standing in the garden of the house by the river, inhabiting the memory Sam had earlier described. Under the shade of a willow tree sat their mother and their younger selves.

‘Are we dreaming?’ said Lizzie.

‘I don’t know,’ said Sam. ‘Can we both be dreaming the same dream?’

‘Mother!’ shouted Lizzie. ‘Mother!’

But their mother ignored them and carried on playing with the children they had been. A kingfisher flew by, a flash of turquoise blue.

‘She can’t hear us,’ said Sam.

Lizzie shouted again.

‘She don’t know we’re here.’

‘Mother?’ said Lizzie again, quieter this time.

Sam reached out and pulled Lizzie close to him.

‘
Shhh
, Liz,’ he said. ‘She can’t hear us.’

‘But are we here?’ said Lizzie. ‘I mean, are we looking at the real world or some trick of them spirits?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Sam. ‘The real thing, I think.’

‘But how?’ said Lizzie. ‘Why?’

Sam shrugged.

‘I think maybe we’ve got mixed up with the magic intended for old Scrooge.’

They walked forward hesitantly. A light breeze played in the willow branches and rippled the surface of the river. Birds twittered in the bushes nearby. White clouds floated lazily in a pale blue sky.

They listened in awe to their mother talking, neither of them wishing to interrupt the magic of hearing that voice again, a voice whose notes now filled their eyes with tears. Lizzie turned to put her arms round Sam, but he pushed her away.

‘This is your fault,’ he said, sniffing back tears.

‘What?’ said Lizzie. ‘What do you mean?’

‘This!’ he snapped, pointing to their mother and the children who hung on her every word. ‘It was you, asking and asking me to tell you about her. It’s you that’s brought us here! The spirits must have got wind of it somehow.’

‘Well, I’m glad!’ said Lizzie. ‘I’m glad we’re here! Why aren’t you?’

‘Because we
ain’t here
, Liz!’ he yelled. ‘Or we may as well not be. We can’t touch her. We can’t talk to her. I can’t tell how I . . . I can’t . . .’

His voice gave way to sobbing and he slumped to his knees. Lizzie was unmoved.

‘Well, I don’t care,’ she said coldly. ‘I’d rather stay here like this than go back. I’d rather be a ghost here than be what we was back there.’

‘We don’t get to choose,’ said Sam quietly, without looking up. ‘Don’t you understand? People like us never –’

‘Sam!’ hissed Lizzie.

He made no reply.

‘Sam!’ she repeated. ‘She can see me. I mean I can see me. I can see us!’

‘What are you on about?’ said Sam, looking up.

But as soon as he did, he saw what she meant. Lizzie’s younger self was staring at them, wide-eyed and giggling, alternately clapping her hands and pointing.

‘See?’ said Lizzie. ‘I can see us.’

Their mother and Sam’s younger self both followed little Lizzie’s gaze, wondering what it was that so enthralled her, but they could clearly see nothing.

‘What is it, Lizzie, dear?’ said their mother with a chuckle.

‘I think I can remember this . . .’ said Lizzie.

‘Remember what?’ said Sam.

‘Remember us standing here,’ she said. ‘Like we are now. I think I can remember this. I can remember now.’

‘No, you can’t,’ said Sam. ‘How could you? You were too little. Look at you.’

But Sam said these words without his usual certainty. He had lost all sense of what was real and what was fanciful, and Lizzie remembering was no stranger than them standing there like ghosts, looking at themselves through time. So little had seemed possible only a day or so ago. Now nothing seemed
im
possible.

Sam remembered this day too, though not for that reason. Whenever he tried to picture their early life, his mind was irresistibly drawn back to this day, this summer’s afternoon. It was why he was so reluctant to talk about it with Lizzie. He knew where this memory led.

A visitor appeared beside them, as oblivious to their presence as their mother and younger selves. It was their neighbour, a busybody. Sam tried to remember her name but could not. She had some news she was clearly and obscenely eager to impart. Sam and Lizzie’s father had been arrested and taken to the debtors’ prison at the Marshalsea.

This was it: this was the very moment they fell into the pit.

There was a shout from the house behind them and Sam and Lizzie both turned to the sound. Confusingly, Sam was sure that the shout came from their mother, but how could it? When they turned back to her, the family was gone.

Not only that, the day was different. The white clouds overhead were replaced by grey, and the garden was wearing its dull winter colours. The river looked darkly mysterious, a joyful thing turned grim and fearsome.

They moved away through the vegetable patch towards the house and entered through the kitchen door. They heard their mother sobbing and they saw a man standing with his back to them, their mother seated beyond, the two children at her side. The man’s hair was tied in a pigtail that hung between his shoulders.

They were no longer in the cottage by the river, but in the hateful lodgings their mother had rented near the prison, rent that had taken all the money gained from pawning everything of value remaining to her.

Sam’s younger self looked older than before and some of the hardness that was now such a feature of his face had taken root. Lizzie too looked less of the joyful tot she had been moments before. How much time had flown? Not more than a few months.