by Brigid Coady
She rushed towards the door.
The Ghost grabbed her arm. The elderly hands were as cold as ice and as strong as steel. Edie couldn't move. The Spectre shook its head as Edie tried to break free.
"Please let me go. I need to tell Mel. I’ve got to…" she shouted into the face of the Spectre.
They flashed to another scene. Another house; a kitchen that could’ve been straight out of an interior design magazine.
"He says he has a business meeting but I know he's gone to see her." The voice was harsh and cut through Edie’s shouting.
Edie looked round from Miss Havisham to find the voice. It wasn't one she recognised.
But then she saw a face she knew. Admittedly she had only seen it once before, in another haunting.
The face was older, harder and sadder but perfectly made up. The hair was the requisite gold of a yummy mummy. The yoga pants clung to a perfectly sculpted body.
Kitty, Tom's fiancée.
Edie glanced at Kitty’s left hand.
She corrected herself. Wife. Edie hadn’t buggered that up as yet.
"Well, I don't care that he has his 'little friends,' he'll never leave me and the children. And if he did I'll just make sure I take him for everything he has." Kitty was talking on the phone while her manicured nails tapping on the kitchen work surface in a fast and angry tattoo.
"It's a pity about his ex, Edie. You heard about her? Dead. Just think I could've hired her to take him to the cleaners. Now that would've been perfect. His first love carving him up for his soon to be ex-wife." Kitty's laugh was brittle and hard.
"But how did I do this?" Edie was confused about how this related to her. They were married weren’t they?
She hadn't actually seen Tom in real life in years and she'd never met Kitty.
The Ghost laid its hand on Edie's chest, just by her heart. It echoed the actions of that first wedding ghost. Edie’s heart stuttered and knowledge unfolded in her head.
"He never truly let himself love again, did he?" she said in wonder and pain. "He settled for what was easy, a life that ticked the boxes."
She looked around the perfect London house. Everything was in its place, designed to cover up the cracks in their life. And he’d caught himself a wife that had turned into the clone of a yoga yummy mummy.
Edie could feel the guilt crushing down on her, drowning her.
"Please, no more. I didn't know. Please." She begged.
The Spectre ignored her, turned and with a twist and flick of its wrist, the veil started to wind round her ankles, and Edie was somewhere else.
The Ghost was beside her, a silent witness.
They were at a place that Edie knew well; the same church that she had visited with that very first ghost two weeks and a life time ago. But this time it was cloaked in gloom; no summer flowers, no bunting, no wedding.
It was empty, she thought, but then she noticed people. Mel stood, looking pale in the awful black dress by the front door. She stood between her parents who were refusing to look at each other.
And standing beside them like a praying mantis wearing a small black veiled pillbox hat, was Hilary Satis.
Edie recoiled when she saw her.
The shoulders of her power suit stretched widely and emphasised her emaciated frame. And her face. It was grotesque. Taut yet puffed and glossy in the dull light. The fillers and plastic surgery made a mockery of her original features. Hilary had tried to stop the clock and keep her youth. She had ended up looking like a monster. The pendent of hammered rings swung from her neck, they looked like links of a chain.
“Is this all there are?”
It was the vicar. A different vicar from the one who’d preformed the ceremony for her teacher and Tom’s brother all those years ago. He was young and bookish and was looking at his watch impatiently.
“We need to get going, I have a christening at one.”
“Her mum passed away last year and I don’t know how to get hold of her father,” Maggie offered.
“I think this is it.” Mel said, and they went into the church.
This was her funeral? She felt her heart spasm. Her mum had died… Edie was glad she’d spoken to her. No matter what happened after this, she knew they’d had a brief moment of closure.
Edie followed behind the small group of mourners.
But where was her grandmother? Surely she would come. Edie thought.
And someone would say something good about her? Mel would say something nice about her; she had to. And Hilary, well she had been her employee, surely she would.
Eddie began to tremble.
And then she saw it. It stood right in front of the altar.
It was a white monstrosity.
“Who the hell chose this? What kind of fool has a white coffin?” Edie asked, distracting herself from the ache in her heart.
Edie hadn’t thought it was possible for Miss Havisham to look any sourer until now.
“OK, OK. Maybe a little off the plot.” Edie conceded. “But white…” she whispered.
On top of the white coffin was a small round of flowers, white roses and baby’s breath. It was a parody of the circlet of flowers that the jolly bridesmaid ghost, The Ghost of Weddings Present, had worn.
Edie peered closely and saw that it was from the office. They were the only flowers. No one else had bothered.
Edie’s four mourners settled themselves, with the Remingtons in a huddle on the front pew and Ms Satis sitting behind them in solitary splendour. Edie wished there was such a thing as a rent-a-crowd; then this wouldn’t happen.
The vicar coughed and rustled his papers, preparing to start.
The main door creaked and caused him to glance up.
Edie turned saying, “See there will be more people. They’re just late that’s all.”
Thank goodness.
And coming through the door was Jack Twist. Her heart skipped a beat. He’d come.
He held the door for the slight figure of Mrs Pirrip. Edie looked for another figure to arrive behind her but the door closed on her grandmother's heels.
Where was her dad?
They made their way down the aisle slowly. Jack was helping her grandmother who seemed to have shrunk and bowed since Edie saw her last.
Was it really only earlier this week?
As Jack brushed past Miss Havisham, the ghost rustled its gowns in an almost flirtatious way. No one was safe from him, thought Edie.
They took seats next to Mel. Ms Satis looked at him hungrily from the pew behind.
“You came.” Mel said.
Mrs Pirrip looked crumpled and grey. Edie wanted to take her hand again and feel the strength she'd felt the other night.
"Yes," her Mimi whispered.
"But where's her dad?" Mel asked the question Edie most wanted answering.
"Why isn't he here? I'm dead for heaven's sake." Edie said.
Mrs Pirrip's face dissolved into tears.
"Jack?" Mel peered passed Mrs Pirrip to ask him instead.
Jack’s face was stony as he put an arm round his landlady.
"He didn't think she'd want him here. She made it very clear that she wanted nothing to do with him. He said he could only take so much heartbreak."
Mrs Pirrip sobbed.
"But…" Edie wanted to say that Jack was wrong, that she wouldn't do that.
She stopped herself.
She could do that. Had done that. Had been doing it for years. She always drew back; refuse to forgive; would cut someone out of her life to save herself from hurt. She was an expert at wielding that power.
“I can't believe she's gone for good.” Jack sighed and rubbed his face. “Such a bloody loss.”
Edie glowed.
"See, he did care."
Her heart lifted, all those pink parts of her heart, newly exposed and now bloody and bruised.
Maybe she had made a difference.
“What do you mean?” Mel asked.
“If just once she could’v
e let someone in, instead of hiding behind a wall while she shrivelled until there was nothing left behind it. She could have been… ah hell.” He grabbed the prayer book and waited for the vicar to begin.
“I could’ve been what?” Edie tried to grab his lapels. “I could’ve been what?”
Her hands went straight through him; she was as insubstantial as air. She could feel tears trickling down her face.
"I thought she was once of the best trainees I ever had." Ms Satis said, or rather declared.
"That isn't any recommendation," Jack fired back.
Ms Satis looked at him as if he were a moron. Something about her face rang a bell. Edie looked to the Ghost. Miss Havisham was Hilary Satis without the plastic surgery.
Edie shivered.
She looked back at Ms Satis. Is this what she could become?
Turning to the Phantom she shouted.
“Stop it! Stop it! I don’t want to hear more.” She thought her heart would break. She couldn’t sit through listening to the emptiness that her life would become. How empty her life was now. How empty it had been.
What had she achieved? Six mourners at her funeral who were only there out of pity?
Five mourners who all had reasons to hate her.
And one mourner who had a hand in her downfall.
“Take me home!” she sobbed.
The Spirit frowned at Edie; its lips pursed as if sucking lemons and shook its head.
The dusty wedding dress wrapped itself around Edie again; greyness enveloped her. She felt suffocated in grief. She could hardly catch her breath.
The dress fell away and Edie found herself in front of a familiar Lego identi-kit house.
Compared to its neighbours, it was unkempt, the grass grew high and weeds tangled up through the broken stones in the path. The wooden soffits were grey and flaking. The windowsills looked as if an animal had chewed them.
The Ghost and Edie melted through the front wall of the house as if it were a hologram.
"This is Rachel's house" said Edie redundantly but it was different from before.
She frowned as she looked around.
The cosy, toy strewn room was gone.
There were no toys anywhere. Dust and cobwebs covered surfaces and corners. It smelt mouldy and fusty.
It was as if the heart of the house had gone.
Edie's stomach churned. The hairs on her arms rose.
"What happened? Where's Timmy?" Her breath started coming fast; she could feel her heart pounding.
The Ghost pointed a gnarled arthritic hand towards the kitchen. Edie hurried to it with her heart in her throat. She knew these weren't dreams any more. This wasn't her imagination. This was what was to become. What would come true. And it didn't look good at all.
Sitting at the table was a man with straggling greyish hair. Edie barely recognised him as Rachael's fiancé, Rob Cratchit. His face was drawn, lines etched and carved into his cheeks and forehead. His eyes were blank.
Edie saw Rachel.
She was by the stove, stooped and bloated. Like an automaton, she was stirring a saucepan of soup. Edie might have always thought she was wet and annoying, but now there was no life in her.
No spark.
And still no Timmy.
"Where is he?" Edie turned to the ghost. "What happened?"
The Miss Havisham Spirit stared at her with those dark fathomless eyes.
Edie could feel the tears welling up behind her eyes, a sob forcing its way up past a blockage in her throat. She ran past the ghost and thundered up the stairs and fell into the bedroom she'd visited before. The bed was empty and stripped of sheets. The colourful bubble tube was silent and still.
"His mother got custody? That's it isn’t it? He's at his mum's. Take me to him." Miss Havisham who had appeared beside her looked at her with sad, knowing eyes. Edie went to grab her dress. She needed to shake the truth from it. Or get it to tell her a lie so she could pretend it had ended well.
But before she could grab the lace, the veil reached up and snagged her wrist. Mist swirled round them, blanking out the bed.
She prayed she'd find Timmy in another bed, laughing at her and lit by a different bubble tube.
The mist cleared and Edie found herself in a cemetery. She stood in front of a small white marble headstone.
"No," she whispered and fell to her knees. With a finger she traced the letters T I M that were carved coldly in the stone.
"No," she said with tears falling from her top lip into her mouth where the salt stung and filled her mouth with bitterness. "I never meant to get her fired.”
The Ghost raised an eyebrow.
"OK, I’ll admit at the beginning I did. But I'd stopped that; I was trying to help. I was raising money for Timmy. Would he still be here if she had a job?”
Miss Havisham looked at her pityingly, as if she'd left it too late to ask the question.
Too late.
This is what she had done.
Too late.
“Take me home,” she sobbed
And with a hot blast of wind and a whisper of lace around her ankles, she was back in Mel’s spare bedroom. She collapsed on the bed; Miss Havisham gave her one long last look. It bored deep down into Edie's soul, as if checking what it saw there. The Ghost nodded once, as if satisfied and then faded away like an old Polaroid until nothing was left.
Edie burrowed her head into her pillow. She felt eviscerated, turned inside out. Her whole mind was in turmoil. All the barriers that she had set up to protect herself from the world lay in dusty piles around her. She’d never felt so exposed.
Could she do this?
She took a deep breath. The vision of the white coffin flashed in her mind. The hard look on Jack’s face. The cold marble of Timmy’s gravestone tingled on her fingers.
She had to.
A shaft of sunlight smacked her awake by shinning straight in her face. Her eyes burned and her eyelids were stuck together from crying herself to sleep. Waking up, she didn't even try to pretend last night was a terrible dream. She had to make things right. It was her last chance.
It was everybody’s last chance.
Chapter 23
Edie grabbed her phone from the side table; six thirty. She did some quick calculations. If she got herself together she had time to get to Rachel's and be back in time for the wedding.
This wedding was going to happen; it had to. She wasn't taking no for an answer. Those two were saying 'I do' if she had to be a ventriloquist and throw her voice to say their vows.
She threw on yesterday’s clothes and rushed out into the sitting room where Maggie was sitting on the sofa clasping a cup of tea and staring into it as if looking for answers.
"Maggie, you are in charge. Make sure Mel starts getting ready to go to the church.” Edie said as she ran past her and headed for the front door.
“What?” Maggie said.
“I’m not marrying him if he’s the last man on earth.” Mel said.
Edie stopped with her hand on the door and turned to find Mel standing in the doorway from the kitchen, looking pale and shaky. There were dark rings under her eyes.
"Mel, trust me. You want to marry Barry." Edie thought about what she'd witnessed last night and shivered. "You really, really do. Now let me worry about the groom. I'll be back in time for hair and make-up. I promise."
And now she had to keep that promise, no matter what. She was glad that Mel had gone for a three o’clock wedding. She had time. She hoped.
She didn't wait for an answer, but ran from the house in a desperate rush. Edie hadn't fixed anything yet, but she felt lighter than she had in years. As if she'd shed a massive weight.
She shimmied her shoulders as she unlocked the car. They definitely felt lighter.
But she didn't have time for this, she told herself. She had a mission and she was going to do it or die trying.
She had to be the best version of herself she could be, because she had been failing at it for far too lo
ng. Today was the day she shed all the masks she'd created, so the real Edie could emerge.
In the car she turned on the engine and, slamming it into gear, she screeched out and up the road whilst simultaneously dialling a number on her phone.
"Barry?" She shouted at her hands free as the call was answered.
"Edie? He's not talking to you and he's not talking to Mel. I don’t know how you managed to infect her with your sickness but you did."
Damn, Tom was screening Barry's calls. Edie had forgotten he was the best man.
"Tom, you're going to have to do this for me then." Her stomach knotted. She was going to have to convince a man whose heart she’d broken and knew what she felt about marriage to believe in what she was saying. So he could convince Barry. Another Edie, even yesterday's Edie would have slumped in defeat. She would've walked away shrugging it off as a bad deal. Cut her losses.
But that was yesterday.
Today's Edie stiffened her shoulders and with every ounce of her will started her sell.
"Listen, I know what I've said before, I know what I’ve done. I admit to being the cynical Ice Queen bitch that everyone calls me and talks about but I've changed. I can't explain it to you but I have."
She took a hard right then slammed on the brakes to avoid a pigeon in the road.
"Mel and Barry are meant to be. All Mel has ever wanted since she was a little girl was to get married." She got going again, only to be stopped by a red light.
There was silence on the other end of the phone. She bit her lip as she sat at the traffic lights, tapping the wheel with ragged nails.
"Hold on I'm putting you on speaker." Tom said.
Edie waited. She was to have an audience. She couldn't blame Tom. If he tried to tell anyone what she’d just said to him, they'd die laughing, but not before slapping him on the back and telling him what a good joke it was.
"OK, go."
"I know I'm the last person you want to hear this from, Barry, but I believe this. I really do." Edie took a big breath. This was it. She had to make it good.
Edie launched into her speech, as the lights turned green and the streets of London whooshed past.
"Mel was brought up to believe in true love. She believes in the happily ever after. For her whole life, she has had her parents as examples. You marry your soul mate and live happily ever after. Mel, when she loves she loves unconditionally, I mean she's stuck by me for years."