The Last of the Spirits

by Chris Priestley

  ‘Never mind!’ said Mrs Cratchit, kissing her daughter. ‘So long as you are come!’

  Her mother told her to get warmed by the fire but the children saw their father coming and told her to hide, which she, good sport that she was, dutifully did.

  Bob Cratchit entered, Tiny Tim on his shoulder, the little boy holding a wooden crutch, his leg girded with an iron frame. Bob noted the absence immediately.

  ‘Why, where’s our Martha?’

  ‘Not coming,’ said Mrs Cratchit.

  Bob’s face fell.

  ‘Not coming?’ he said. ‘On Christmas Day?’

  The sudden decline in Bob’s spirits was too much for Martha to bear and she jumped out from her hiding place, throwing her arms round her father’s neck. Lizzie chuckled at the sight, but Sam shook his head.

  ‘Look at them,’ he said. ‘What is the point of all this? They are no better off today than they were yesterday, and yet they go on like they’ve come into a fortune.’

  The festivities began full force. The feast was prepared. The goose was fetched and hailed with such respect it might have been the Queen herself. Sam smiled at the excitement that such a modest bird produced in the Cratchit household.

  Peter mashed the potatoes without mercy whilst Mrs Cratchit made the gravy, and Belinda, the second eldest of the daughters, made the apple sauce. The youngest children noisily set the table and dragged chairs into place, and Bob and Tim occupied the corner of the table together.

  Sam listened to Lizzie laughing and wondered why the spirit’s incense had not worked its magic on him. Was he so dead to joy? Had he so totally forgotten what happiness was? He felt a kinship with the invalid Tim. That is what I must be like inside, thought Sam. And yet still he tries to match the others for happiness.

  Sam had barely taken his eyes off Bob’s frail son, as he hopped unsteadily about the room, his crutch clunking against the floor as the others either steered clear of him or guided him to safety.

  Bob rarely left the boy’s side and Sam noticed that they were almost always in physical contact, as they were then at the table, Bob’s own skinny hand seeming to be full of health and vigour beside the pale and limp, fragile hand of his son.

  Everyone saw this favouritism and all knew the sad truth it concealed and none would ever have been jealous of it nor ever remarked upon it.

  When Mrs Cratchit began to carve the goose and the full aroma of it was released, the younger Cratchits beat the handles of their knives on the table (which bore the bruises of earlier such beatings) and even Tiny Tim joined in with a barely audible ‘Hurrah!’

  The goose was consumed with a joyful enthusiasm, the eating punctuated by sighs and exhalations. With a great deal of assistance from the generous portions of potatoes, stuffing and apple sauce, it proved to be big enough to feed the whole family.

  The pudding was fetched and, though not as large as it might be, was treated with all the ceremony a pudding ten times the size – and with a great deal more fruit – might have been expected to receive.

  The dishes were cleared away and the fire built up so that chestnuts might be roasted, and there never could have been a rosier scene as apples and oranges were brought out to excited cries.

  But Sam saw only Tiny Tim, whose eyelids were drooping now, exhausted by the activity, nestling into his father’s chest, ear to his father’s heart.

  ‘Mr Scrooge!’ said Bob Cratchit, standing and raising his glass for a toast, making Tim jump. ‘I give you Mr Scrooge, the Founder of the Feast.’

  His enthusiasm was not reciprocated.

  ‘Founder of the Feast indeed!’ said Mrs Cratchit. ‘I wish I had him here. I’d give him a piece of my mind to feast upon –’

  ‘My dear,’ said Bob, ‘the children. It’s Christmas Day.’

  Mrs Cratchit made it very clear what she thought of the notion of toasting such ‘an odious, stingy, hard, unfeeling man’ as Scrooge, and Sam looked up at the spirit.

  ‘Seems like your magic is wearing off,’ he said. ‘Why Bob wants to toast the miser, I’ll never know, but his family see him for what he is, that’s for sure.’

  ‘And yet they toast him still,’ said the spirit.

  It was true. The family did – for Bob’s sake – toast Scrooge, however reluctantly. Sam shook his head as even Tiny Tim proffered a weak toast to his father’s employer.

  ‘Look at him,’ said Sam. ‘Poor little so-and-so. What’s he got to toast anyone about?’

  ‘He does it for love of his father,’ said the spirit.

  ‘Then his father’s a fool to make him,’ said Sam. ‘And he’s a fool to do it.’

  The Ghost of Christmas Present made no reply. And in his heart Sam knew he did not believe Bob Cratchit to be a fool at all, but a good man who deserved better. He wished they could do more than sprinkle fairy dust on their lives. What good was that to Tiny Tim?

  ‘Spirit,’ said Sam after a pause, trying to sound nonchalant, ‘will that boy live?’

  ‘Sam,’ said Lizzie, ‘don’t . . .’

  ‘Why do you care?’ said the spirit.

  ‘I just do, all right,’ said Sam.

  ‘If all remains the same,’ said the spirit, ‘then no – the boy will die . . . and soon.’

  Lizzie began to sob.

  ‘Why do you have to spoil everything, Sam?’ she said.

  ‘And will they stay the same?’ said Sam, ignoring her.

  ‘I cannot say,’ said the spirit. ‘But you see that if a man like Scrooge cannot be changed, then there are consequences.’

  Sam looked at the family and back to the Ghost of Christmas Present.

  ‘So all this, all this business with you and the other spirits – it’s about that boy as well?’ said Sam.

  The giant smiled.

  ‘It is about everyone Scrooge can affect,’ said the spirit. ‘If his future is changed, then so is theirs. We do not visit him because he is deserving, but because he is not. A bad man turned to good is benefit to all.’

  Sam stared at the Cratchits.

  ‘Did you show him this?’ said Sam, tears in his eyes. ‘Old Scrooge? Did you show him this?’

  The spirit nodded.

  ‘These very scenes,’ he said.

  ‘How?’ said Sam, looking round. ‘Why ain’t he here, then?’

  ‘Look harder, Sam,’ said the spirit.

  Sam did look harder, and realised that beside them, almost overlapping and intertwining with them, was a faint and ghostly image of the spirit, and beside him stood a faint and ghostly image of Scrooge.

  ‘There are many presents, Sam,’ said the spirit, answering Sam’s confused expression. ‘They line up next to each other into infinity. They are only the same for a moment. They are each of them changed by the actions we take. You and Scrooge have been shown the consequences of your life as you live it now.

  ‘You mortals are all interlinked,’ he continued with a sigh, ‘though you seldom see it as anything but a burden or an opportunity for profit.’

  And with that, they found themselves in Scrooge’s house once more.

  ‘We need to go,’ said Sam. ‘Good night to you, Spirit.’

  ‘And to you,’ said the spirit.

  The giant’s eyelids were heavy now and he seemed older. In the short time they had been with him he seemed to have aged twenty years or more. Sam pushed Lizzie towards the door but stopped and turned to look back.

  ‘You called us Ignorance and Want,’ said Sam. ‘Well, I suppose that’s who we are. I know you meant it clever, like. That Ignorance is something to be feared, especially by the likes of Scrooge. That the people they ignore will be the ones who’ll rob them and worse. And you knew that he ought to fear me, didn’t you?’

  The spirit made no reply. Sam took the lead pipe out of his pocket and laid it down on the floorboards. Lizzie saw it and shook her head.

  ‘Oh, Sam . . .’ she said.

  Sam hung his head and fought back the tears.

  ‘That was a
different Sam,’ he said eventually. ‘I’m not him any more. I swear, Liz.’

  After a moment’s hesitation she put her arms round him.

  ‘We need to go,’ she said.

  He nodded. They opened the door, ran through Scrooge’s bedroom, down the stairs and out into the street without a backward glance, where they stood panting.

  They laughed with relief and embraced again. The cold seeped back into their bones and they set off walking, in no particular direction, but just to keep warm and to put some distance between themselves and that house. But they had barely walked ten steps when they came face to face with Marley’s ghost. Lizzie squealed and hid behind Sam.

  ‘Wait!’ said the ghost.

  ‘No!’ said Sam. ‘Leave us alone. We’ve had enough of ghosts and spirits to last a lifetime and I’ve seen things that would frighten even you, so out of my way!’

  Marley’s ghost stared at Sam and shook his head.

  ‘Where will you go?’ he said.

  ‘What do you care?’ said Sam. ‘You . . . you were there. It was you who ruined our lives.’

  ‘What?’ said Marley’s ghost. ‘How did –’

  ‘You sent my father to prison,’ said Sam. ‘You killed him and our mother.’

  The ghost shook his head, confused.

  ‘We’re Sam and Lizzie Hunter!’ said Sam. ‘Ring any bells?’

  Marley’s ghost stared, wide-eyed.

  ‘That’s right!’ said Sam. ‘You killed our parents as sure as if you’d shot them.’

  ‘I was the bullet, not the trigger,’ said Marley’s ghost. ‘Your father –’

  ‘Don’t even talk about him!’ yelled Sam. ‘You haven’t got the right!’

  ‘Listen –’

  ‘Come on, Liz. Don’t be scared. He can’t hurt us. He can’t do nothing. Can you?’

  Marley’s ghost furrowed his brow and looked as forlorn as a tragic mask from the theatre, his great mouth gaping.

  ‘Come on,’ said Sam, and he pulled Lizzie forward, and they both stepped through the body of the ghost. It felt like stepping through a cold damp corridor filled with ice-coated cobwebs.

  They emerged on the other side shivering, not just in their bodies but in their very souls. Neither Sam nor Lizzie felt inclined to look back, even when the ghost called after them, shaking his chains.

  ‘You’ve seen the last of Sam and Lizzie Hunter!’ shouted Sam over his shoulder, without looking round.

  Sam laughed, so happy to be free of it all, and Lizzie laughed along with him. They hugged each other as they walked away, ready to take on the familiar demons of the London night.

  ‘Sam,’ said Lizzie as they passed beneath the shelter of an arcade, ‘do you think that boy will live? That Tiny Tim?’

  Normally such a question would have prompted a long lecture from Sam about the perils of caring for others when no one cared for them, but perhaps the magic of the Ghost of Christmas Present still lingered, because on this occasion Sam merely replied, ‘I hope so, Liz. I really do.’

  With each step they took away from Scrooge’s house, the more the night became simply just another cold and foggy Christmas Eve. Though it was a night that had set out to choke them with its icy fingers, it seemed to hold only ordinary fears.

  Sam was cold but still his step was light. He felt as though the noose had been taken from his neck and that he had leapt from the scaffold into a new life. He had seen his fate and changed it. He had seen his own death and walked away.

  London seemed like an old friend to Sam now, instead of a bitter enemy, and those who had known the fierce boy of the day before would have been startled by the smile he wore on his grimy face.

  The children found shelter in the porch of the very church whose bells had signalled the spirits of the night, and were roused in the morning by the deacon, who wished them a merry Christmas by way of a kick and a curse. The good people of the parish didn’t want to see homeless urchins on feast days. It was bad for the digestion.

  Sam and Lizzie walked, blinking, into a bright Christmas morning of dazzling clarity. Sam felt hunger begin to claw at his stomach.

  ‘What are we going to do now?’ said Lizzie.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Sam. ‘We’ll think of something.’

  Lizzie raised her eyebrows at that ‘we’ll’. This change in her brother was going to take some getting used to.

  A baker whistled to them and gave them a loaf of bread, wishing them a merry Christmas. Lizzie laughed as Sam shook the man’s hand and thanked him, and the man laughed along with her. Sam didn’t seem to mind.

  ‘Merry Christmas, Liz,’ said Sam as they walked away, eating the bread.

  Lizzie stopped and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

  ‘Merry Christmas, Sam.’

  They looked at each other, and all that they had lived and known seemed to pass between them in a fleeting moment. Lizzie was the first to break the silence.

  ‘I can’t stop thinking about what we saw,’ she said.

  ‘I know,’ he replied.

  ‘But I’m still glad we saw her, Sam. I’m glad we saw her talk and saw the old house and the river. I know you don’t –’

  ‘No, Liz,’ he said, clasping both her shoulders and looking into her eyes. ‘I’m glad too. Honest I am.’

  Behind them, a butcher had opened his door to an excited, red-faced boy, who was talking so fast that the man was having trouble understanding what he was saying. The torrent of words washed over Sam and Lizzie – until the name Scrooge was mentioned and they both turned to watch.

  ‘And you’re sure Mr Scrooge told you this?’ said the butcher suspiciously.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said the boy. ‘He called me a fine fellow.’

  The butcher arched an eyebrow. He had years of experience with Scrooge and none of them had resulted in anyone being called a ‘fine fellow’.

  ‘But what would he want with a turkey that big? There’s only the one of him, and there’s nothing but skin and bones on that. Maybe he meant the small one.’

  ‘No,’ said the boy. ‘He was very sure about that. “Not the little prize turkey,” he said. “The big one!”’

  The butcher shook his head as though still not convinced he was not being lured into a practical joke.

  ‘I’m to bring you back with me, with the turkey, and he’ll give me a shilling,’ said the boy.

  ‘A shilling? Scrooge?’

  ‘Aye. If we can get there in five minutes, he said he’d give me half a crown!’

  The butcher stared wide-eyed. Sam smiled. He could see the man’s thoughts as though his head were made of glass: If Scrooge is going to give this boy a half-crown for fetching me, what will he give me for bringing the bird?

  ‘Well, come on then,’ said the butcher, taking the turkey down from its hook and laying it in a barrow.

  The boy, butcher and turkey set off for Scrooge’s house, the barrow wheels squeaking away down the cobbled street. Sam and Lizzie set off after them, overtaking them easily.

  They came at length to the entrance of the yard in which stood Scrooge’s house, and Sam and Lizzie ducked back round the corner when they saw that Scrooge was standing on the doorstep, rubbing his hands expectantly.

  If Lizzie had thought the change in Sam remarkable, then this alteration was a thing of mythology and folklore. For there stood the crotchety old miser of the night before, sporting a giddy smile that would have marked him out as the kindest old grandfather that ever lived.

  Sam and Lizzie stared at each other for a moment and then turned back to Scrooge, who patted the door knocker as though it were a faithful old horse and chattered away to it so merrily they thought perhaps he had lost his mind.

  ‘Here’s the turkey!’ he cried, clapping his hands like an infant. ‘Hallo!’ he called, waving excitedly as the butcher and boy arrived with the cart and bird. ‘Whoop! How are you? Merry Christmas!’

  Scrooge danced round the cart, shaking his head at the size of the turkey and maki
ng the butcher gasp in good-humoured amazement.

  ‘Why, it’s impossible to carry that to Camden Town,’ said Scrooge, paying man and boy with a chuckle. ‘You must have a cab!’

  A cab was found and off went the butcher and the turkey alongside him – an odd couple indeed. The sight of them made old Scrooge laugh and hold his chest with the exertion of it, chuckling at the thought of what Bob Cratchit – and all the Cratchits – would make of it.

  Sam and Liz were fascinated to see what the old man would do next and they waited for him as he went inside and appeared half an hour later, clean-shaven and in his Sunday best.

  Scrooge set off and Sam and Liz fell in behind him on the other side of the street. Where days before his vicious appearance had caused all who saw him to step aside, now his smile was mirrored in everyone he passed.

  Several people wished him ‘Good morning’ and ‘Merry Christmas’, and on each occasion he seemed to be deeply moved by the words and stopped to tip his hat and shake their hands, much to the amusement of all around.

  Then Scrooge bumped into one of the charity men who had visited his office the day before and whom he had sent away so harshly. The man would clearly rather have avoided any contact, but Scrooge marched straight up to him and, after shaking his hand with a vigour that made the poor man’s chins wobble like jelly, whilst apologising for his earlier disgraceful behaviour, he whispered into the man’s ear. Sam could tell by the charity man’s reaction that Scrooge was offering him an exceptionally generous donation.

  ‘Lord bless me!’ exclaimed the man, amazed. ‘Are you serious?’

  Scrooge assured him he was and would take no thanks, just an assurance from the man that he would come and see him at the office so that he could settle with him. When the man agreed, it was Scrooge who thanked him.

  Sam and Lizzie looked on in astonishment at this behaviour. Had they not seen it with their own eyes, they would neither of them have ever believed each such a change possible.

  They followed him to church, where he greeted those outside warmly despite their clear trepidation when he first approached. But so charming was this new Scrooge that no one could resist for more than a moment.