The Last of the Spirits

by Chris Priestley

  ‘No!’ murmured Sam as he saw the shadow of himself shoved towards his fate – their fate.

  The hangman asked if he had anything to say but the other Sam could only howl and whine like an animal, tears streaming down his face, snot from his nose, his mouth twisting into a dozen shapes and his eyes alternating from tight shut to bulging despair.

  The horror of seeing himself so reduced was almost as terrible as seeing the dangling noose. Sam saw himself broken, wretched, crippled by fear and self-pity.

  The hangman put the ragged noose round the other Sam’s throat and tightened the huge knot against the back of his neck. A parson standing on the platform began to read from the Bible, his eyes and heart closed to Sam’s suffering. His voice sounded bored, trembling on the edge of a yawn. A filthy cloth hood was placed over the other Sam’s head.

  ‘No!’

  The hangman walked to the side of the stage and, while the crowd murmured, he grabbed hold of a lever with both hands. Sam could see the hood billowing rhythmically with the short breaths from his future self.

  After what seemed an age, the hangman received a nod from a tall, smartly dressed man below, and he pulled with all his might.

  ‘No!’

  A trapdoor opened: the other Sam dropped like a sack and was almost immediately yanked back by the noose. He cavorted horribly about for a while like a deranged puppet, and then settled to swinging gently.

  He swung there, half in, half out of the hole, like a theatre trick gone wrong. All was silent save for the nautical creak of hemp rope, and then Lizzie sank to the ground in a faint and a great cheer went up from the crowd.

  Sam moved to run towards her, but something seemed to hold him back. An invisible wall stood between them. He could not affect that world. Lizzie was helped to her feet and then the guards dispersed the crowd, leaving only a handful of men who stood beside the scaffold and lit up clay pipes as though they were leaning against a stall in the market.

  The body had ceased to swing and hung there, grim and unmoving – as dead a thing as anything could be. For nothing is deader than a body that once had life and has it no more.

  Sam stared at it, trying to take in the full sense of it, trying to restrain any attempt by his mind to imagine the face beneath that hood. Tears filled his eyes. It was some time before he could speak.

  ‘Why are you showing me this?’ he asked. ‘What am I supposed to have done?’

  The spirit did not reply.

  ‘I ain’t no killer,’ said Sam, suddenly aware of the weight of the lead piping in his pocket.

  The spirit pointed at the hanging corpse of Sam’s future self.

  ‘I ain’t no killer!’ repeated Sam. ‘I ain’t killed no one. Who am I supposed to have killed? Answer me that!’

  Then all at once they were no longer in that awful place, but were instead standing outside an iron gate – a gate Sam recognised, for it was the gate to the little churchyard he and Lizzie had slept in.

  But they seemed to have gone further into the future, because the churchyard was neglected and overgrown, with toppled headstones and monuments so cloaked in ivy their inscriptions could not be seen.

  The spirit entered and Sam followed behind. Standing among the graves like an eruption from hell, the spirit jabbed its bony finger towards a small and neglected corner and to a modest headstone there, weathered, moss-grown, chipped.

  Sam took a deep breath and leaned forward. Though he still could not read, the meaning of the letters sounded in his head as though spoken. EBENEZER SCROOGE. Sam knew it would be that name, but still it shook him to the marrow to see it.

  ‘What am I supposed to do?’ he said. ‘You show me these things and I just have to accept their truth without a word from you. What trial have I had?’

  The spirit seemed to sigh and his shoulders rose and fell and the darkness inside the hood darkened a little more.

  ‘Look,’ said Sam. ‘Why torture me like this? What point is there in showing me things that I can’t do anything about? What am I supposed to do? Tell me! Speak to me!’

  Sam walked round and peered into the shadow in the spirit’s hood where its face should have been, looking for some sign of response but seeing nothing but a deep and pitiless blackness.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Maybe I do kill the old man and maybe I do get hanged for it and maybe I deserve all that I get, but what about Liz? She ain’t done nothing. What happens to her? Speak to me, damn you!’

  Sam grabbed hold of the spirit’s sleeve and tugged on it.

  ‘Oi!’ he yelled. ‘I’m talking to you! Say something, you great coal sack!’

  Sam shook the spirit’s robes again and saw that they were no longer standing among the graves but were in a cobbled street in the lee of a mighty railway viaduct, which arched away into the smoke-filled distance.

  It was dark and the nearby factory gates were closed. There had been rain here too and the lamps lit up the wet cobbles so that they glowed like hot coals. It could have been later the same day, but Sam sensed somehow that they had moved on in time.

  ‘What’s this?’ he said. ‘I asked what happened to Liz. What are you showing me? Does she work at that factory?’

  Sam knew that factory work was poorly paid and tedious, but it would mean that she at least would be safe and might have the means to look after herself. It was something to cling to.

  ‘Does she get work? Is this her fate? Is this where she works?’

  The spirit nodded gravely and Sam smiled hopefully.

  ‘Lizzie seems like she’s weak,’ said Sam. ‘But she’s not. She’s clever. She’s cleverer than me. She can read and everything. She’ll be fine without me. She’ll make friends. I never let her do that. I told her there was no such thing as friends on the street. But I think I was just scared she’d leave me on my own . . .’

  Sam had never even thought these things before, never mind said them aloud. But as much as he tried to keep this positive feeling alive, there was something unremittingly grim about the spectre’s silence.

  ‘Please tell me she’s all right,’ said Sam. ‘I don’t mind if she works hard as long as she’s safe. I could bear the horror of what I’ve just seen if you show me that. Just give me some sign of what happens to her.’

  The spirit raised its arm and once again pointed its long finger, this time at a group of women who stood in the shadows of the railway viaduct, so cloaked in darkness Sam had not noticed them before.

  ‘What?’ said Sam. ‘What should I be looking at?’

  He peered at the group who, though they were not so very distant, could no more see Sam and the phantom than could the crowd at the execution.

  Sam knew their kind. No one could live on the streets and not. They were streetwalkers, women who sold themselves for money to men – good, God-fearing men who went to church with their wives the following Sunday without a care.

  These women dressed like actresses, their faces crusted in make-up, bold in its application to work in this low light – and to divert attention from the ravages of time and disease. And in a way, actresses were what they were, a painted smile to please the vanity of the men who used them so callously.

  The coloured silks of the group flickered occasionally as they caught the light. They were like a small flock of parrots sheltering against the grey and hostile London weather.

  Sam heard a noise in the distance and the group of women peered out expectantly. A hansom cab clattered down the street and pulled up alongside. A woman came out from the shadows, hands on hips, and talked to the passenger, who reached out a kid-gloved hand and, in mirror to the spirit’s own gesture, pointed a long finger into the group.

  The woman nodded and put out a hand, into which was placed some coins. The woman hissed and made frantic beckoning movements. Sam’s mind ran ahead of events and it felt as though the ground opened up beneath him and he was falling, falling, falling. And yet he remained at the spirit’s side and looked on.

  From out of
the group came a small figure, hesitant, reluctant. It was Lizzie, as Sam knew it would be. She was recognisable beneath her gaudy costume by the way she shuffled forward. A little older, but Sam would have recognised her anywhere.

  ‘Please,’ said Sam. ‘This is worse than the last. Worse by far. Take me back there rather than keep me here to see my sister brought so low. Please. Hang me again! Hang me a thousand times rather than show me this!’

  The spirit remained as inscrutable as ever. The cab door was opened and the passenger held out his gloved hand to help Lizzie inside. Once she was aboard, the door closed with a thud and the cab clattered away.

  ‘No!’ yelled Sam.

  He hung his head and sobbed bitterly. His legs would no longer hold him and he slumped against the wall, pushing his face into his knees and sliding sideways into a heap on the pavement.

  It took many minutes for Sam to collect himself enough to talk, wiping his face on his sleeve and looking up at the spirit who towered above him still.

  ‘So I go to the gallows knowing that this is to be Lizzie’s fate,’ he said bitterly. ‘Is this her death I’m looking at? Or her life? And which is worse?’

  As always, the spirit remained silent. Sam shook his head.

  ‘It’s not fair,’ he said. ‘If I’d known this would happen, I never would have done it. Listen to me – I’m talking about something I haven’t even done yet!’

  But in truth Sam knew that he was Lizzie’s only protector and yet he had still planned the old man’s death. He was only being shown things he might have known had he but chosen to think it through.

  ‘Look, I’m not the same as I was before,’ said Sam. ‘I don’t want to kill him now. I swear. I couldn’t do it. If I ever could, I couldn’t now.’

  The spirit looked unmoved. What was it old Scrooge had said? Shadows of things that will happen . . . But were they inevitable?

  ‘Wait,’ said Sam. ‘Are these things set in stone? Are they what will be or what may be?’

  The spirit turned its hollow hood to face him. Was there some hint of humanity in its shadows?

  ‘Is it too late?’ said Sam, grabbing the spirit’s robes in both hands. ‘Is it too late to change what’s supposed to happen? Can I save Lizzie?’

  The spirit said nothing.

  ‘You don’t have to save me,’ said Sam. ‘I’ll go to the gallows if I have to, but just say there’s some way that Lizzie can be all right. Please!’

  The spirit pointed down the street to where the cab had disappeared. But the hand seemed less rigid than before, less judgemental.

  ‘Give me another chance,’ said Sam. ‘Give Liz another chance. Give old Scrooge another chance for all I care. He probably deserves it too. I won’t kill him and I won’t hang for it and Liz won’t suffer for it. Maybe he can be a better man from now on. I don’t know. Look, please, I’m begging you.’

  Sam sobbed and took hold of the phantom’s bony hand and held it against his face, and all at once the spirit disappeared and Sam found himself back under the table with Lizzie asleep beside him.

  Sam looked out from under the tablecloth, half expecting it to be the robes of the giant once again. But no, it was a tablecloth and nothing more. The room was dull and ordinary, as it had been when they first entered. It was as it must have been every day – dusty and neglected. There was not the least sign that it had ever been home to magic. Or so he thought at first.

  ‘Sam?’ said Lizzie, waking up. ‘What’s happening? I had a nightmare.’

  ‘Shhh, Liz,’ said Sam gently, putting his arm round her. ‘It’s all right. You’re with me now. Sweet Lizzie.’

  Sam kissed her on the forehead and held her tightly, tears springing to his eyes as he did so. Lizzie returned his embrace and when they parted she searched his face, looking for some explanation for this change in him.

  ‘Sam? What’s happened?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Liz,’ he said. ‘Sorry I . . . I . . .’

  Lizzie hugged him again, even tighter.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘We’ll always be together, won’t we?’

  Sam sobbed into her shoulder.

  Lizzie gasped. ‘There’s someone there!’

  She was right. Sam’s eyes had not yet adjusted to the gloom, and so he did not at first appreciate that what he took to be some large piece of furniture at the other end of the room was in fact the spirit they had encountered earlier with Scrooge on that barren wasteland.

  ‘It’s the giant,’ he whispered.

  ‘I am the Ghost of Christmas Present,’ said the giant. ‘You have travelled with the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.’

  Sam nodded solemnly.

  ‘What does he mean, Sam?’ said Lizzie, then dropping to a whisper she added, ‘And why doesn’t he look so old now?’

  Sam saw that she was correct. The giant’s hair and beard were no longer grey but a lusty chestnut brown, and his muscular body was evident beneath his robes, which were open a little to reveal a broad and hairy chest. His face was ruddy and he seemed to glow like a fire. Where he had once looked like a King of Winter, he now seemed to be a guardian of life in winter’s death.

  ‘You have been educated by your journey with the spirit?’ asked the Ghost of Christmas Present.

  ‘Yes,’ said Sam. ‘I have.’

  The giant smiled weakly.

  ‘But where are we now?’ said Sam. ‘You are younger than you were. How come you’re still here, then? Shouldn’t your turn have been done?’

  The giant smiled.

  ‘We are in the workings of Time here, Sam,’ said the spirit. ‘We are behind the clock face, lad. We are among the cogs. We are in the was, is and will be all at once.

  ‘Scrooge is with my fellow spirit, glimpsing scenes from the years yet to come, as you have done. Like you, he will see things that will reach into his very soul.’

  Sam’s throat dried at the thought of what he had seen and he felt the hemp against his neck once more and shuddered.

  ‘What does he mean?’ said Lizzie. ‘You’ve been here all the time, haven’t you? Sam, wait . . . my nightmare. There was a tall man in a black robe that came and . . . Oh, Sam, what’s happening?’

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Sam. ‘We have to go.’

  ‘Can we?’ She grabbed his arm. ‘All these ghosts are giving me the creeps. No offence,’ she added, looking at the giant.

  He laughed a great booming laugh that shook the windows in their frames.

  ‘None taken.’

  ‘Come on,’ said Sam. ‘Scrooge’ll be back before we know it.’

  ‘And you leave empty-handed?’ cried the spirit. ‘There is none shall stop you. Scrooge is not here and I shall not stand in your way. Does the old man’s wealth not make you angry?’

  ‘No,’ said Sam. He smiled to find that it was true.

  ‘But why should this old miser have all that money and you go without?’ said the giant. ‘Is it fair?’

  Sam felt he was being mocked and some of his resentment returned.

  ‘It’s still not fair!’ he said angrily. ‘You ain’t going to say it is! But I’ll not be the one to take it from him, whether he deserves it or not.’

  The giant nodded slowly. Sam calmed himself once more and spoke quietly now.

  ‘I ain’t never going to think well of that man,’ said Sam. ‘No one cares about him. No one likes him. No one would miss him if he was gone.’

  ‘You know this for a fact?’ said the giant. ‘What about the man he employs?’

  ‘Ha! The man he pays a pittance to, no doubt,’ said Sam, ‘and threatened to fire on Christmas Eve? The man he keeps like a dog? You’re telling me that he gives a toss about that old weasel?’

  ‘Come,’ said the giant, holding out his hand. ‘Let us see. Let’s visit Cratchit the clerk. Or dare you not be proved wrong?’

  ‘Sam?’ said Lizzie nervously.

  ‘All right,’ said Sam, rising to the challenge. ‘Let’s have a look.’

/>   Sam and Lizzie reached out together and touched the giant’s robe. The next instant they were standing in a poorer part of town outside the Cratchits’ four-roomed house, the giant Ghost of Christmas Present illuminating the scene with a curious flaming torch he held in his hand.

  The giant shook the torch and shining droplets rained down on to the humble dwelling. The building seemed to grow a little at this blessing and the street to brighten.

  ‘What is that, sir?’ said Lizzie. ‘That stuff what comes from the torch?’

  ‘It is the essence of joy and good fellowship,’ said the giant. ‘Only a very small amount is needed.’

  ‘You can make people happy and friendly, then?’

  The giant shook his head.

  ‘I remind them of the happiness and friendship they had forgotten,’ he said. ‘That is all.’

  ‘Pah!’ said Sam. ‘What good is there in feeling happy one day if you go back to how you were the next?’

  ‘What harm is there?’ said the giant.

  Sam scowled but did not reply.

  The giant walked towards the house and the children held on to his robes and were, like him, magically carried inside, the giant bent double and filling half the room, unseen by all but Sam and Lizzie.

  The Cratchits did not see the spirit’s torch but they felt its glow and the whole house was infused with a joy that belied its meagreness. Even Sam could feel the warmth.

  They beheld a scene of cheerful chaos as the family tended to the coming meal. The eldest son, Peter, was in charge of a pan of potatoes as the two youngest Cratchits ran in yelling that they had stood outside the baker’s and smelled the goose in the oven and were as sure as sure could be that it was definitely the Cratchit goose they smelled.

  Bob Cratchit and his invalid son, Tim – Tiny Tim they called him – were not present and Mrs Cratchit wondered aloud what might be keeping them as the lid on the potatoes rattled and hissed.

  And at that moment Martha, the eldest daughter, arrived to much excitement. She was a maid and had spent the morning cleaning and washing up after her mistress’s Christmas Eve feast, whilst her mistress had urged them all wearily to clean ‘a little more quietly, for heaven’s sake’.