No One Wants to Be Miss Havisham

by Brigid Coady

  No. No. No. Edie chanted as she stared at the screen. Barry, please, she begged silently.

  “Yeah, really? Well if that’s the way you feel then this wedding is off!”

  Edie put her head in her hands.

  The only thing worse than an actual wedding was an eleventh hour cancellation. This couldn't be happening.

  I’m cursed, she thought. I’ve brought this on Mel. I’ve poisoned it.

  “The wedding is off!” Mel stormed back into the living room, kicking Barry’s mountain bike as she passed it. The spokes in the wheel bent.

  “Isn’t that a little hasty?” Edie ventured.

  “Ha! Hasty! I think not, over the last couple of weeks Barry’s shown his true nature and the DJ was just the icing on the cake. I’m not marrying a man like that. I want a marriage like my parents. A marriage of equals.”

  Like her parents? The same parents who had spent the last two weeks discussing their divorce. Bloody hell.

  “Marriage isn’t perfect,” Edie started.

  Was it really going to be left to her to be the advocate for marriage?

  “But what you and Barry have is special. This is just wedding craziness.” Edie quickly topped up Mel’s glass. “Have some wine, watch the movie and then call Barry back.”

  Mel sighed… “Maybe I’ll just let him stew for a while.” She took a massive swig of wine.

  “And another thing…” Mel slurred and gestured with her wine glass. It was half an hour since Mel had called off the wedding.

  Surely that was plenty of stewing? Also, Mel seemed to be getting sloshed.

  Edie quickly moved the wine bottle, which was in the trajectory of Mel’s glass.

  She needed reinforcements and she needed them fast.

  “Need the loo, will be right back,” with that she ran out of the room clutching her phone.

  “Come on. Answer goddammit!” Edie muttered as she waited for Mel’s mother to pick up.

  “Yes?”

  “Maggie? It’s Edie, you’ve got to get to Mel’s right away. Why? She’s called off the wedding, something about wanting what you and Doug have! Yes I’d swear too.”

  Edie clicked off the handset and prayed she had done the right thing.

  “Right! Where is she?” Maggie said as she arrived through the front door, a few minutes later. She’d obviously run from the hotel she and Doug were staying in round the corner. In separate rooms.

  “Mum?” Mel called through tears and wine from the living room.

  “Baby!” and Maggie ran in.

  Edie slumped against the wall; she was off the hook and someone else was in charge.

  She took herself off to the kitchen, poured herself a massive glass of wine and waited.

  “You WHAT!”

  Edie flinched. Mel had obviously been told about her parents less than stellar marriage.

  “EDIE!”

  Sighing, she walked back to the living room.

  “Yes?”

  Mel was huddled in the corner of the sofa. It was going to be a long night.

  “You knew they were splitting up and you didn’t tell me?” Mel sounded so hurt.

  “But…” Edie tried to say but she was losing what was left of her voice after this afternoon’s kerfuffle.

  She should’ve called HR before she left for the day but she’d been too tired after the emotional roller-coaster, she thought, as she coughed and started again.

  “But how could I tell you? I’ve been trying…”

  Mel’s phone rang, cutting off Edie’s explanation that she’d been trying to get them back together.

  “It’s Barry,” Mel said staring down at the screen where a photo of a wildly gurning Barry flashed up.

  “Talk to him,” Edie said.

  Mel rejected the call.

  What the hell?

  “I’m never talking to that bastard again! Men are all the same; you’ve always said it, Edie. We’re better off on our own. I mean, if Dad can’t keep it in his pants what hope do Barry and I have.”

  “Surely that’s a little drastic…” Edie started.

  Mel glared at her.

  “If you are going to stay here, Edie you’d better bloody well be on my side.” Mel said, glaring at Edie.

  Edie wondered whether she could get haunted right about now. It seemed to be a better option than the evening or what lay ahead of them tomorrow, in cancelling this wedding.

  “I’ve text him to tell him not to bother calling.” Mel said and threw her phone across the room.

  Even being attacked by Rachel was looking favourable.

  Exhausted, Edie slumped into the bed in Mel’s spare room.

  Nothing she had said helped. Mel had divided her time between shouting at her mum and Edie. Apparently hiding the truth wasn’t what a friend should do.

  And how was Edie to know that Mel had been listening to all those things she’d said against getting married and what a bad idea it was?

  She was definitely reaping what she’d sown.

  The problem was that Mel was doing the reaping too.

  Honestly, Edie didn’t think she would wake up for any amount of Ghosts that decided to haunt her.

  Why did love have to be so painful?

  She rubbed her heart. Surely it was better to lock your heart away and barricade it from harm. As she drifted off to sleep, she thought she heard the clanking of chain across a wooden floor.

  She shivered and pulled the duvet higher over her shoulders.

  The alarm on her phone went off. Groggily, Edie groped for it in the dark. She knocked it to the floor but the alarm stopped so she flopped back onto the pillows.

  Had she even set the alarm last night? She couldn’t remember… and it was damn dark for seven o’clock on a summer morning.

  Now she had to pick her phone up and check.

  The last Ghost, the thought swam into her consciousness, as she tried to get the energy up to lean over the edge of the bed.

  She sat up quickly and looked around the room.

  Nothing.

  The phone started beeping again. She scrambled to edge of the mattress and grabbed it. She switched off the alarm and saw it was one am. She definitely hadn’t set that alarm.

  Someone or something else had.

  Damn Jessica and her bloody predictions; Edie thought. She looked up from her phone and saw her last incorporeal visitor.

  Chapter 22

  She shuddered.

  Gliding towards her wreathed in mist and cobwebs was a wizened old woman encased in tatty yellowing lace and chiffon. Her cheekbones were sunken and her face lined and creased. Her white hair, also yellowed, blended into the dress and cobwebs. Her eyes were dark and all pupils.

  Edie was reminded of Monet’s painting of his wife on her deathbed, grey unfinished charcoal lines fading away to nothing. There was also something familiar in her face, someone Edie knew. There was a whisper of recognition.

  The Ghost approached slowly, gravely with great sadness. Depression and gloom flowed before her and pooled behind her like a train.

  Edie’s heart gave a thump. She remembered her thoughts as she had fallen asleep. Was this what came from hardening your heart? The closer the Ghost came the more depressed and grey Edie felt, as if it was sucking the life from her. That she was being drained of all hope.

  They stood staring at each other. Unlike her other visitors this one seemed like the silent kind.

  “Are you the Ghost of Weddings Yet To Come?” There was something about her that made Edie’s language formal.

  From the darkness of the Ghost’s eyes came a spark with a disquieting glow, but instead of answering Edie's question it pointed forward with a gnarled and arthritic hand.

  “So you’re going to show me the future?” Edie found herself talking slowly and distinctly as if the Ghost might be deaf. The withering look it gave her before nodding its head made her feel about an inch big and very stupid. It was a familiar look, if only she could place it.

>   Along with the familiarity and the stupid feeling, came the symptoms of knees like jelly and she wasn’t sure she could move even if the ghost demanded it.

  Miss Havisham had figured in some very horrible teenage nightmares.

  Was this what Edie had to look forward to?

  She had to pull herself together. This was for her own good. Maybe if she got through this she could start making things right. She had to.

  “OK Miss Hav…” she stuttered to a stop when the Ghost gave her another look. “Erm… shall we get on with it? Happy to follow you, you know, anywhere?” She let her voice go up at the end, inviting an answer.

  The shrivelled, lace-cocooned old besom merely lifted her hand, twisted and swollen, and covered in crocheted fingerless gloves. She pointed out past Edie and towards what should’ve been the wall of the room. It had been there a moment ago, but now it was grey mist that billowed and retreated as if breathing.

  Edie’s whole body joined her knees in the jelly symptoms.

  “Right you are then, after you.” Edie decided to brazen it out, but she was beginning to feel she was speaking as if she were in an Ealing Comedy; albeit a depressing and not very successful one. She felt the urge to giggle hysterically.

  The Ghost of the Disappointed Bride, or Miss Havisham, as Edie secretly thought of it, shuffled passed her. As Edie went to follow, her feet tangled in the train from the yellow and dusty gown.

  She threw her hands out to stop herself from falling, but instead of tripping, it had wrapped itself around her legs, starting at her ankles and then up and round her body, pulled tighter, swaddling her. It seemed to grow and then it carried Edie up and out in the ghost’s wake.

  At first all Edie could see were the grey clouds billowing round her, almost as if the wedding dress had multiplied and swollen so that it covered the world, until it was wrapped in sadness.

  And then through the mist came the City. A building here and a building there, sprouting up until she was surrounded by skyscrapers that reached through the lacy clouds until they melted away.

  They alighted at the bottom of the Bailey Lang Satis' office building. The veil that had carried her gently dissolved until it was normal length again and Edie stood uncovered. Edie found herself brushing her pyjama bottoms, trying to rid herself of the feeling of sadness that still clung to her.

  The Ghost nudged her and she looked to see a clutch of the firm's trainees coming through the revolving door from the office. Both men and women looked like their suits had been sprayed on as they creased and pulled badly. Edie wished she could pull down a jacket or a skirt to sit better.

  And she cringed at one of the boy’s over styled hair.

  Edie caught Miss Havisham watching her in disgust.

  OK, she was being shallow, but it hurt that they didn’t make the best of what they could be.

  No one should stop them from being the best they could be. Not even themselves.

  Edie felt her shoulders slump. That is what she’d been doing.

  The trainees all started off down the road and the Spectre slipped alongside them with Edie following in its wake. They turned in at a local wine bar. The place was dark and dim but there was enough space for the Spirit and Edie to slip in next to them.

  If Edie could bottle the space making abilities she had during the hauntings she could’ve made a fortune.

  She had to concentrate. She needed to know what she had to do.

  “No, I don’t know much more than the office email that came round earlier, but she definitely is dead,” said one of the male trainees whose hair sculpted into spikes.

  “Are you sure? She’s the sort that would come back and haunt you.” Edie looked at the girl, remembering her. The trainee was earnest and usually frowned in concentration. And never said boo to a goose. Now she still looked nervous but also secretly delighted.

  “How did she die?” Another girl, who Edie grudgingly had to admit was a good lawyer, looked both horrified and gleeful.

  “I heard that she walked in front of a bus. She was too busy shouting on her phone, obviously taking someone for everything they had and she didn’t see it. Squish.”

  Edie could’ve done without the hand gesture. The spikes in the guy's hair bobbed excitedly as his hand slammed into the table. Drinks sloshed over the sides and they all giggled and nudged him as they tried to clear it up.

  “Are you sure she wasn’t pushed by some angry husband?” one of them said.

  There was a brief pause before they all fell about laughing. Once they'd calmed down, they raised their glasses.

  “Ding, dong the witch is dead.” The spiky haired boy said and they all chorused it as they touched glasses.

  “They’ll probably have to give rent-a-crowd a call to make up the numbers at the funeral,” the earnest girl said.

  “Hey, if they put on free booze then I’ll go. I want to make sure that she is definitely dead and buried. You know she reported me once for going to the loo too many times in one day? I swear she was keeping a tally.” The second girl smirked.

  Edie was confused. Who were they talking about? And what did it have to do with her? She looked over at the Ghost who was wearing a mocking smile.

  "Who…?" she started to ask but the Spectre glided off out of the bar and into the street. It head back to the door of Edie’s office building.

  Through the doors came two of the partners. They wore their pinstripe suits over paunches hard won through client lunches. Edie watched them, partially envious from having achieved the pinnacle but also in confusion.

  What could they tell her?

  “Well I can’t say that it won’t be nice to have her off our backs. Office meetings were so unpleasant,” the more senior one said, shifting his belt up on his trousers.

  “I know what you mean. HR will be having a party, now they no longer have to deal with constant emails from her. With both her and Hilary gone, I’ll bet they feel like they are rolling in clover."

  "But you know we’ll lose some clients. She was a shark; she learnt from the best. She could've been like Hilary. And no one could take a chunk out of people like she could,” the younger man replied and then they paused for a moment.

  “It’s a pity that she got her last trainee fired, I think that was something like the third one she’d canned," the first man continued. "That trainee, at least, would know some of the cases. But as she’s trying to sue us for constructive dismissal and work place bullying, I don’t see her coming back to help."

  They looked at each other and grimaced.

  "We’re just going to have to bite the bullet and get someone to look through Edie’s files,” the senior one said.

  The Miss Havisham Spirit with her yellow lace billowing in an invisible spiritual wind stood quietly beside Edie.

  Waiting.

  “But… surely.” Edie scrunched her face up in confusion. She didn’t know what to think. What were they talking about? She was dead?

  "But I'm going to get Rachel her job back." It was the only thing she could think to say. But then a voice in her head asked why she hadn't done it before she left work on Friday.

  The scene dissolved like the most perfect movie cut, Spielberg would've wept but Edie hardly noticed. She was trying to work out whether they were saying she was dead or not…

  "Our daughter is in there, crying her heart out over Edie and all you care about is that the funeral will make you miss your golf game." Maggie Remington's voice brought Edie out of her reverie.

  Looking round, she recognised it as the Remingtons’ house. One that she had spent many years in as a child and teenager.

  But that house had been warm. It had felt like a home. A place that had reached out and held her as a girl. But there was none of that in this version of it.

  It felt spiky and angry. Edie could feel it prickling on her skin. Or that could've been the waves of antagonism coming off Maggie and Doug.

  "Oh, they stayed together," Edie smiled realising the significan
ce of them being in the house together.

  She’d got something right.

  But then her smile fell.

  "Oh shut up, Maggie. Stop guilt tripping me. I'm here now aren't I?" Doug snapped back.

  This wasn't a happy marriage.

  Maggie sighed.

  "Look we agreed that we would stick together for Mel. She never recovered from breaking up with Barry. Thank God they never actually married." Maggie's mouth screwed up in distaste. "And now this with Edie. We all know that Edie is a big reason that Mel and Barry broke up. She always had too much influence over Mel. But Mel still stood by her. So we stand by our daughter. Yes?"

  Doug nodded, even though he was shooting Maggie a look that said he'd shut up on this but they weren't done.

  Edie wanted to collapse into one of the chairs that were scattered round the room. Her legs were jelly but the chairs looked as uncomfortable and spiky as the atmosphere.

  "Oh God, they really hate each other." Edie said. "Am I the reason they are this unhappy? Are they actually supposed to split up?" She almost wailed.

  She was confused. So Maggie and Doug would become a bitter and unhappy couple if they stayed together. She rubbed her head to try and rid herself of the headache that was stabbing behind her eyes.

  The door to the living room opened and Mel walked in.

  "Oh Mel," she whispered.

  Her best friend appeared to have aged twenty years. Where was the blonde bubbly petite pixie? She looked short and stick thin, like a scraped matchstick. Her hair was more grey than gold. Edie wanted to cry when she saw her now, to see her wearing a shapeless black dress that looked like it had been made for someone twice her age and size.

  "Can we go?" Mel's voice was monotone. Her eyes were hard.

  And as she turned to leave the room without waiting for an answer from her parents, Edie was sure she heard the faint clang of a chain scraping across the floor as Mel walked out of the room.

  Edie looked closely. She saw a pink glitter trail following Mel like an obscene wedding train.

  She'd doomed Mel.

  "What can I do?" she said.

  Edie wanted to pull Mel back. Claw off the chain and send her back to Barry. Save her from the fate that Edie faced.