Peter Cratchit's Christmas Carol

by Drew Marvin Frayne

  Someone was inside.

  Cautiously, I made my way to the front of the tavern. I knew better than to ever announce my presence anywhere, even in this place, whose reputation could not be wrought lower by my darkening its door. And the tavern keeper might become cross at such a brazen move; it was above my station to pass through the front doors of establishments, even those as low as this. But hunger compelled me forward, and the light indicated that someone was inside. If it was not the tavern keeper, it may be someone who would take pity on a poor wretch, if not for my sake, then perhaps for the sake of the day it was.

  At first glance, the tavern was closed. The windows were shuttered, and no patrons milled in and out, as was custom. Yet the front door was slightly ajar, and light poured from every crack and crevice that allowed it to escape. Had the tavern just closed? Did it ever truly close? And why leave the door ajar, especially on a cold night like this? At this moment, I felt myself drawn forward more by fatal curiosity than even by hunger. Reaching out a trembling hand, I slowly pushed the door all the way open.

  Immediately, I felt blinded by the illumination in the room. My eyes were used to the din and the dank of London streets, but the light in the tavern was radiant, almost preternaturally so. As my vision slowly adjusted, I saw—no one. Just the empty tavern, luminous with light. No, there, by the fireside, the figure of a small man, standing in front of the hearth, his back to me. I assumed he must be warming himself, but I realized that the fireplace was not lit at all. Then, where did the light in the room originate? I opened my mouth to ask, but found myself too dumbstruck to even speak. I turned to the small man, but as my vision grew clearer I could see that he was no man at all, but a boy, a boy who seemed, strangely and wonderfully, to be familiar to me…

  “Charlie? Charlie Baskits?” Charlie Baskits was the best friend of my youth; at age thirteen we were declared ice-slide champions of all of Camden Town, and many is the hour we would while away bedeviling the curate at St. Gildas’s Church, playing hide and seek between the sepulchers or exploring the dankly forbidden basements of the building. Truth be told, these were not the catacombs of great cathedrals, but merely the under rooms of a small, provincial structure, and held little more than fat gray mice, broken castoffs of wooden furniture, and crumbly old hymnals from days gone by. But such stuff were the legends of boyhood summer days, and Charlie and I could wile away the hours imagining all sorts of horrors that, I am quite certain, never occurred there.

  There was one moment in particular, in the passages underneath the church, with Charlie I shall never forget. We were brazen boys but ultimately shy, full of mischief and bravado, but nothing truly harmful in the way of actual substance. But there was one late afternoon, or early evening—actually in fact it was a Christmas Eve, many Christmas Eves ago. There, Charlie and I, short of breath from sliding on the ice and from nervous apprehension, took a moment to intertwine our fingers, and then, our hearts threatening to burst forth from our chests, we—

  I shook my head, attempting to disrupt the reverie that threatened to overtake my senses. This apparition before me could not be Charlie Baskits, not as I knew him then, and not just for the reason that so much time had passed. No, Charlie could not be in the tavern because he was back there, in the church, in the churchyard, having died of the cholera in the winter after that one memorable Christmas Eve.

  All this time, the apparition before me remained still, as if studying me as much as I was studying it. Then it made a move toward me, and I shook with fear. I took a step back, but the tavern door slammed shut with a sudden, swift, silent motion, and I was trapped inside with it.

  “You’re not Charlie Baskits,” I stammered. “Who—what are you?”

  The being before me paused a moment, as if trying to remember itself what it was. And then it spoke. “I am the Ghost of Christmas Past,” it intoned.

  As sudden as it came, the fear abandoned me, replaced by giddy, unexpected waves of incredulity and scorn. “Let me guess,” I said with an impulsive snicker, “the ghost of my Christmas past.”

  “None other.”

  This is how it was to be. My end. For what else could this be, but the hallucinations of a dying man, brought on by cold and hunger, and the deprivation of humanity itself?

  “You don’t believe in me,” the being said.

  “It is you who don’t believe in me,” I returned, a childish echo. But I was feeling petulant and ill-used. Oh, to die now, to die on Christmas Eve!

  “Why do you not believe in me?” the being persisted.

  “Because you are a creature in a childhood fantasy I heard long ago,” I replied. I was talking to it now. That could not be a good sign.

  “Are not the creatures of childhood fancy real?” the being asked. “Indeed, what could be more real than those things made of imagination and light and air and the hopes and dreams of children everywhere?”

  Oh, now it wanted to speak philosophically. Very well. This sort of volley I could return in spades. “What of pain?” I replied. “Is it not real? What of treachery, and cruelty, and the horrors of existence? You speak of the naïve happinesses of childhood. But what childhood lasts—and how many childhoods are snuffed out before their time? Why, the boy whose guise you take—he—” But here my language failed me, as I found myself too overcome by the moment to say anything more.

  But the being before me paid no heed to my hesitation, if it even noticed my hesitation at all.

  Instead, the being nodded. “It is true. These things are real,” it said. “And yet does their reality not come from the attention we pay them mind? Is it not the choice of every man to dwell in darkness or in light?”

  I was suddenly exhausted and sank to my knees. I was hungry, and alone, and cold, and dying, and it was Christmas Eve. I no longer had any interest in debating this creature, whatever it may be. “Why have you come?” I asked instead.

  It took a step toward me. “If you know what I am, then you know why I have come.” It held out its arm. “Take my robe. There is much to see tonight.”

  “I don’t wish to see my past,” I whispered. “Please, spirit, if you be gentle and merciful, please depart from here, and leave me to die in peace.”

  The spirit walked toward me. Though I was always inclined to smallness, the apparition before me was of such diminutive stature he was able to easily touch my shoulder without crouching as I knelt on the tavern floor. “Come, Peter Cratchit,” it said. “There is much to see.” And without another word, the spirit took my hand gently in its own and placed my palm upon its heart, and the room before me dissolved, and I was whisked away from this world, and into another.

  It was perhaps beneficial to me to have heard Uncle Scrooge’s story of his ghostly visitations time and time again; I knew what to expect. Or so I imagined. Yet to suddenly find myself gone from my own world, only to reappear in another, one I knew so well…how old Scrooge, who knew naught what to expect, handled it as he did, I could not say.

  And yet I felt a lightening of my heart as the scene unfolding before me came into view. “I know this place!” I said to the spirit, my voice perhaps more excited than I had thought possible. “The ice slide, the old Camden Town ice slide!” The tableau was exactly as I had remembered it, and more so. Every detail was as crisp and sharp as the filed steel of a certain mind. This was no mere parlor trick—I was where I had once been, nearly ten years previous. “And yes—there—that’s Dick, and Tom, and there! That’s me and Charlie!” I turned to the spirit. “Why is it you have taken his guise, spirit? Why him?”

  “I searched your memory for a face that might open your heart,” the spirit benignly replied. I understood. Yes, even now, even at the end of all things, the sight of Charlie Baskits was enough to gladden my soul. “Come,” the spirit said, following our two forms as Charlie and I continued to slide on the ice, long after the others had given in to their sore feet, the chill in the air, and the tempting possibilities of Christmas Eve.

  “
I think it time I went home,” I was saying, or the shade of my childhood self was saying, to Charlie.

  “One more slide, Peter,” Charlie pleaded.

  It was more than passing strange to see myself, my younger self, before me, to hear me speak as I spoke then, to see me laugh, and smile, or even to watch as I breathed in the frost of the early evening air. And yet this is what the spirit clearly intended—that I act as spectator to the performance that was my past life. And so I comported myself as it desired, watching my former life and self unwind before me, a theatrical both miraculous and grotesque at the same time.

  “I have slid so much, Charlie,” I was saying, “that the soles of my shoes are in danger of being replaced by ice. And they are worn enough as is!” I laughed, and Charlie did as well, after a fashion. We both knew what it meant to be poor, but had not the knowledge or care to yet know that the world despised us for it. “Besides, I am chilled to the bone!”

  Charlie grabbed my hand. “Then let us warm up in the church,” he said, dragging me up the stairs.

  The early service had let out some time ago, and midnight mass was yet hours away. Still, the church was bedecked in candlelight and festooned with holly and evergreen branches. It was simple, and it was beautiful.

  Charlie and I sat together in a pew in the middle of the scene, taking it all in. There was no one else present; the parish rector was no doubt having his evening meal. I would not mind my own evening meal, but I sensed that Charlie had no similar desire to go home.

  “Charlie,” I said, “would you like to come home with me for Christmas Eve? Mother says there is always room for one more, and you eat so little that it is like feeding a baby bird.”

  Charlie said nothing, but stared at his feet. There was a fading bruise across his eye. He told everyone he got it on the ice slide. All of us boys wore telltale badges of purple and brown from the slide, and wore them proudly. But I knew better. I knew that Charlie’s bruise had not been gained while sliding.

  “Peter,” Charlie suddenly said, “tell me a story.”

  My story-telling prowess was known amongst my friends as well as my siblings.

  “Once upon a time…”

  “Not that kind of story, Peter. Not a story for children. Tell me a different kind of tale.”

  “What sort of tale would you like to hear, Charlie?”

  “What do you think it will be like when we are older?”

  I shrugged. “Very much like this, I imagine. This old church has always looked the same at Christmastime.”

  “No,” Charlie said. “I mean with—everything. With us. What will become of us when we grow older?”

  “I hope that we shall always be friends, Charlie. The very best of friends.”

  “Perhaps we can get a situation together somewhere. Perhaps share a room.”

  “Say, that would be aces!” I replied, playfully clapping him on the shoulder and endeavoring to lighten his mood. “I imagine you would make a better bedmate than Georgie and Tim. Georgie always sniffles all night long, or when he doesn’t, snores monstrously fierce.”

  “That is the story I want you to tell, Peter.”

  “Very well. Once upon a time—”

  “Peter!” Charlie said, cuffing me about the shoulder. But his punch was playful, and there was laughter in his voice. “I said no more childhood stories!”

  “This isn’t a childhood story, Charlie. But all stories must start with ‘once upon a time,’ if they wish to be true to their legacy.”

  “Very well. You may proceed.”

  “Thank you. Once upon a time, there were two bright young lads—”

  “One a far-sight handsomer than the other, I wager,” Charlie interrupted.

  I pretended to act petulant. “If you wish to tell the story, Charlie, please do so.”

  “My apologies.”

  “Once upon a time, there were two bright young lads, of equal handsomeness. They were good lads; though quite poor, they were humble and true. One night, on a cold and blowing Christmas Eve, the devil came to them—”

  “The devil!”

  “Well, it is always the devil in these types of stories. Or something of that ilk. May I continue?”

  “By all means.”

  I cleared my throat. “The devil came to them and offered the boys a bargain. He told the boys that for seven years they would not be allowed to bathe, or clip their hair, or pray, and they must wear cloaks and caps the devil provided. And yet, in these guises, the boys must go forth in the world and not only survive, but do good service unto others. If at the end of seven years, both boys have survived, the devil will allow them to keep the cloaks, and in the pockets of these garments they would always find money, for whatever endeavor they set their mind to. If they did not survive, the devil would take their souls. The two boys talked amongst themselves and decided the devil’s bargain gave them the best chance for a happy life. Hence, they agreed to—”

  “Peter Cratchit!” Charlie interrupted. “That is just the fairy tale ‘Bearskin,’ but with two boys instead of one. I wanted to hear a story of our future, not some old fairy tale.”

  “I’m sorry, Charlie,” I replied. “I suppose I have not given much thought to our futures. I suspect they will be very much like our present. Excepting we will be older, of course.”

  “I sometimes wonder if I won’t live long enough to be older,” Charlie said contemplatively.

  “You will, Charlie. You will! You’ll see. It’ll be—it’ll be great.” There was a silence between us then, but not an awkward one. It was the silence of understanding, of two boys taking one small step to becoming men. “Charlie, why don’t you come home with me for Christmas Eve?” I said again, feeling somehow shy all of a sudden. “I’d like that very much.”

  In reply, Charlie took my hand in his. We often held hands running from one bit of mischief to the next, but never like this. I looked down at our two hands, clasped together, their small forms making what almost looked like the shape of a heart. And then I turned my gaze to Charlie himself; and he to me. And then, overcome with the moment, and the beauty of the church, and the warm feeling of Christmas Eve, Charlie Baskits and I kissed…

  It was but the first kiss of youth, innocent and incorruptible, and little more. But it spoke out loud, without the use of words, feelings I had kept buried deep inside. Our grins and our bond only deepened in that moment. And we knew we would be fast friends forever more.

  Only we weren’t. Charlie was dead by the end of the winter, and not at the hands of his brutish father, but from an epidemic that killed thousands of people throughout the city.

  “Why do you show me this?” I asked the spirit. “What is the purpose of reliving such moments as these?”

  “These are just echoes of the past,” it said. “I cannot be helped for what they contain.”

  “Pain. Pain is what they contain. And nothing more.” Ahh, but that was a lie, and we both knew it. There was pain here, and sadness, but also a certain sweetness in this history, one I had not thought of in some time; a sweetness, and a tenderness, as well.

  The scene dissolved before me, replaced with a tableau I knew in my heart better than any.

  “Is this?—It is! Our old Camden Town house!” The small house had four rooms, each stuffed with poorly repaired furniture and Cratchits of all shapes and sizes. And there I was! Plunging a fork into a saucepan of potatoes while navigating the oversized shirt collars I had inherited from my father that very morning. Oh, how puffed I was that day, how proud as a peacock in my new finery! I saw my younger siblings Amelia and Georgie dancing about me, and then Bettina and Martha, and Mother, and yes!—Father and Tiny Tim. Tiny Tim. When last I saw him, he was nearly a head taller than me. For a moment, thinking of them like this, in the past, I wondered how they were now, where they were now, if they were happy, and healthy, and if, perchance, they missed me terribly…

  “What was that?” the spirit said beside me, as if reading my mind. “I thought
I saw something in your countenance just now.”

  “Nothing,” I lied, wiping at my face as a lone tear threatened to escape my eye. “Nothing—just soot from the fire.”

  But the fire was only an echo of a memory, and nothing more. “I thought perhaps—” the spirit began, but then wisely ceased to talk.

  This was the Christmas of the great turkey, and even though I had lived it all before, I marveled with each and every Cratchit again at the enormity of the bird. It was perhaps a simple thing to most people—nothing more than a dead animal, truth be told—but to us, it was a miracle, a sign of God’s will on this day. “And now my dears!” Bob Cratchit was saying, the Christmas feast having been devoured (though heaps and mounds of turkey remained leftover, and happily so). “I will share with you some more excellent news. I have my eye on a situation for a certain someone in this room—yes, yes, you, Master Peter—which, if obtained, will bring in a full five-and-six pence weekly!” There was a gasp about the room, though my youngest siblings laughed mercilessly, as if their older brother could be worth such fare. I found the whole scene somewhat ironic now. If I worked today in a Cleveland Street house, I might expect to make more than that on the slowest of days. Still, then, in a simpler time, to a simpler youth, it seemed like a fortune.

  “Look at your expression,” the spirit said, pointing at the young me. “You look so thoughtful as you peer into the fire. What is it you are thinking?”

  “Nothing,” I lied, and then, somehow feeling it was fruitless to lie to a spirit, I confessed, “I was thinking about how my situation might benefit my family, my brothers and sisters, my parents, and Tiny Tim.”

  The spirit shook its head, almost sadly. “Such a burden for a young soul to bear,” it said.

  “It was no burden!” I hotly replied. “I was glad of it. There is nothing more important than fam—”