No One Wants to Be Miss Havisham

So there was no ghost coming.

Why she was allowing some bad dream to dictate her life? She'd never let anyone else dictate it before. And she wasn’t about to start tonight.

No, she was being silly. Now she'd thought it through logically, she would sleep. And setting her formidable mind and iron willpower to it, she drifted off to sleep.

When Edie woke up, it was so dark that, staring round she could scarcely distinguish the window from the walls of her bedroom. She was still squinting trying to see, when the chimes of Big Ben struck the four quarters, she listened for the hour. She reckoned it must be about three o'clock.

The heavy bell went past three and struck twelve; then stopped. Twelve. But it had been past twelve when eventually she'd closed her eyes and gone to sleep. The clock was wrong. A damn pigeon must have got into the works. Twelve. This was going to be all over the news and she'd have to listen to everyone witter on about it for weeks until something equally as trivial occupied them.

There was no way time moved backwards.

She reached to her bedside table and checked her mobile phone. Twelve. Frowning, she looked at her radio-controlled clock. It lit up and confirmed the time.

Twelve.

"This isn’t happening," she said, "there is no way I’ve slept the day away… no way. Someone would have called."

But maybe she had.

No, her, Edwina Charlotte Dickens sleeping in and missing a day? Never. It would never, could never happen. And on the few occasions she was sick she’d always phoned in and then worked from her bed. But this wasn’t work she was missing, but a hen night.

She could see herself subconsciously sleeping through it. But there was no way that Mel would allow her to miss it. And she wouldn't let Mel down. Edie had promised to do this for her. And she didn’t break promises.

Edie scrambled out of her bed, and groped towards the window. Which was frosted. In June.

She rubbed the frost off with the sleeve of her pyjamas; nothing unusual. It was just very foggy and extremely cold. Global warming? Freak weather? Time standing still? But the street was silent; no hysterical people running round like headless chickens so probably not a major global catastrophe.

Then she must have got the time she went to sleep wrong. Mustn’t she? She hated this feeling of being out of control, of doubting her own mind. Her mind was the one thing that had never let her down

Her stomach clenching in trepidation, Edie climbed back into bed again, her mind spinning. Thoughts racing; too many strange things were happening.

“There must be some logical explanation,” she said to herself.

Jessica's ghost bothered her the most. Although she had spent most of the day ignoring the memory, it still festered there in the back of her mind.

And another Spirit was due…if Jessica was to be believed. Had it really come to this? She was taking the word of a see-through former person?

Big Ben chimed again.

Edie checked her phone, it shone and showed 00:15. Forty-five minutes to go and logic said Edie would be left alone. It was the twenty-first century… people didn’t get haunted the way they used to. It just wasn’t done.

She lay on her side in bed, knees curled protectively towards her chest.

"Ding dong!"

"Half past," she muttered as she reached out and checked her phone yet again.

"Ding dong!"

"A quarter to," Edie whispered into her pillow, her hands clutching it tightly.

"Ding dong!"

"One o’clock," she said out loud, her body relaxing, “and not a strange visitor in sight!"

Edie didn’t bother looking at her phone; the quarter chimes of Big Ben were good enough for her. And once the hour bell had sounded, she would be getting some sleep.

How stupid had she been? Believing some dream she had last night.

“Terms and conditions. I mean, really.”

Edie bashed her pillow into shape and pulled the duvet up to her chin as the hour bell sounded a deep, dull, hollow, melancholy one.

As the sound ended, light erupted in the room, as if a thousand camera flashes were going off at once.

With a small scream, Edie catapulted upright in bed. Her eyes were blinded by the flash of light. Rubbing them she tried to rid herself of the black spots. Opening them again, she was confronted with a visitor.

She rubbed her eyes again.

Opening them still showed the same visitor.

What was a six-year-old flower girl doing in her bedroom?

The child was dressed in a pink dress; the bodice heavy with embroidered flowers and seed pearls, the skirt fell in folds like a fairy princess. On her blonde and curly hair sat a circlet of sweet peas and roses with bits of baby’s breath, gypsophila, peeking out here and there.

Clutched in her hands was a flower basket but instead of flowers the basket held the light that had blinded Edie earlier. It lit the whole room, a blue white light shooting up from the basket to hit the ceiling like a thousand spotlights. Nothing could hide from that light, it illuminated all shadows.

Solemn blue eyes stared at Edie. Eyes too old for a six year old and like the light, they scorched bright. They tore through Edie’s outer layers and the mask she showed the world to see what was hidden beneath. Edie’s soul shrank and tried to hide but found its darkest corners exposed.

“Erm…” Edie’s voice faltered and faded under the child’s stare. Why did it have to be a child? Edie never knew what to say to them.

“So little girl, are you the Ghost that Ms Marley told me about?” Edie tried to smile encouragingly at the youngster, but it felt more like a grimace.

The child raised an eyebrow, shook her head and sighed.

“I might look like a six-year-old but you don’t have to talk to me like I’m stupid,” the child Wraith replied.

Just my luck, thought Edie, I’m being haunted by a precocious poltergeist.

“But yes, I am the Ghost that Jessica Marley told you about.”

The Ghost had a soft voice and low but it echoed as if it were at a distance.

“And who and what are you exactly?” Edie asked her body tense for the next shock heading her way.

"I am the Ghost of Weddings Past."

"Like history past?" inquired Edie. It was bad enough going to weddings but to have to go through some sort of history lesson as well.

"No. Your past and the pasts of those close to you."

Oh.

“Well, while you do that could you turn down the light?” Edie said.

“Turn it down?” the child swung the basket as she put both hands on her small hips. “Turn it down? This light doesn’t have a dimmer switch you know. It isn’t to be commanded and leashed like you do everything else.”

Edie’s eyes watered as the light shone in them and her skin stung where it hit her as if caught out in the sun too long.

“I’m sorry, Edie you’ll just have to get used to it.” And with that the Spirit folded her arms, knocking the basket even more. The beam careened around the room.

“OK, so the light is staying,” Edie conceded reluctantly. A good lawyer knew when to give ground in an argument and when to strike to win.

“But what exactly is the reason you’re here?”

Information was key, and Edie needed it. There was one thing she hated and that was to be flying blind.

“Your welfare, of course,” the flower girl rolled her eyes again. “You did listen to what Jessica had to say didn’t you?”

“Well yes,” Edie replied but she thought how much better her welfare would be for having a full night’s sleep.

“Sleep? You’d rather sleep than be reclaimed? Saved?”

Edie jumped. Not only was she invaded by ectoplasmic presences, they had ESP.

Chapter 5

The little girl unfolded her arms and held out a hand. Edie looked at it as if it would bite her. She remembered all the other little flower girls she had held the hands of. She remembered the sticky residue, the snotty slickness.

“Come on! Get up! We have to get going,” the hand was shaken closer towards her. Edie wanted to say she wasn’t dressed, that it was cold outside and didn’t the little girl have parents who would be worried about her? Instead, Edie reluctantly took the hand. It was soft and warm, dry and without stickiness and it was very strong.

With a raised eyebrow the Ghost said,

“Stop letting outside appearances blind you to reality.”

And then it pulled Edie from the bed and took her towards the window.

Edie didn’t have time to grab her robe, her bare feet squeaked on the floor and she shivered in her t-shirt and cotton pyjama bottoms.

“I’m not going out of the window,” she said.

The Ghost reached out and up and laid its small hand on Edie’s t-shirt, right over her heart.

“Have faith.” The eyes were kind even though they still burned bright, “just put up with having my hand here and you’ll be supported in all this and more.”

And with those words they passed through the wall.

“What the…”

There was no plummeting to the ground, as Edie had tensed herself to expect. In fact they were already on the ground but they were definitely not in London any more. Instead of her street of mansion blocks, they were outside on the verge of a lane beside a country churchyard.

Instead of darkness and that weird fog, it was a bright summer’s day. The sort of June weather that happened when June behaved properly and it was the way Edie remembered her childhood when she thought about it, which wasn’t often. Butterflies flitted from cowslip to buttercup.

“Oh my God…” breathed Edie.

Her hands shook as she reached to touch a flower. She slowly turned on the spot, drinking in the scene. “This can’t be, this is the place where I grew up. This is Little Hanningfield.”

Her hand went to feel the rough stone wall that separated the grass verge they were on from the tiny cemetery and the small squat stone church.

The Spirit looked up at her, a strange smile hovering round her little girl lips, but it was a grown-up, wise smile.

Edie rubbed her chest; she could still feel the imprint of the little hand on her. She could feel each finger and along with it she could smell her childhood. Freshly cut grass, the smell of warm tarmac and horses. And with the smells came rushing in all her childish thoughts, hopes and dreams. The dam she had barricaded them behind had been breached by the touch of a tiny hand and she was flooded.

“You OK?” the Ghost asked. “Your lip is trembling and… are you crying?”

“No, no… just a touch of hay fever,” muttered Edie with a husky catch to her voice. “So where are we going?” she changed the subject.

“Where do you think?” the Spirit asked.

“Home,” breathed Edie.

“Do you remember the way?” The flower girl asked, staring hard at Edie.

“Remember it! Of course I remember it!” she scoffed.

“Odd, it isn’t like you visit here often,” the Ghost replied.

Edie rushed off the grass verge and headed down the small country lane, away from the church and towards the village green.

“Look that’s old Mrs Scaman’s cottage, it looks exactly the same. I used to come here because she made the most amazing lemon drizzle cake. And see, all the cats are out sunning themselves. There’s Gerry and Dylan and Merlin.”

She paused.

“But they died when I was a teenager.”

She looked from the cats towards the Ghost who was standing in front of her.

“This is the Past, Edie. Shadows of what has been. They don’t know we’re here,” she replied.

Tell that to Merlin, thought Edie, as the smoky grey cat twined itself between her legs, purring.

“Bloody cats,” said the Ghost. “They never can stick to the rules.”

Five minutes later they stood by a worn wooden gate, a garland of flowers and ribbons covered it. Red balloons bobbed from the gate post.

“But this was Philly’s wedding,” Edie gasped, remembering. “But that was…” she did some frantic calculation in her head and came up with a number which shocked her.

“I told you, I’m the Ghost of Weddings Past,” said the Spirit. “And this was your first wedding. Come watch.”

Edie allowed the small strong hand to pull her to one side of the gate.

Suddenly, out of the front door of the house flew a little red whirlwind about the same age as the Ghost standing beside her. Fine dark hair in a bob was held ruthlessly back with a flower headband that allowed a mischievous freckled face with two front teeth missing to show.

“Look Mummy! Look! Daddy, come and see!” the girl cried as she started twirling in circles, looking down at the way her dress flew round her. “I’m a princess!”

“I felt like a princess that day,” whispered Edie. Her eyes blurred as she stared down at herself. “I used to dream that I could have that day again. That I would have a wedding day and feel like a princess again.”

Behind the young Edie came a woman who was about Edie’s age now.

“Mum!” both Edies cried.

“She is so young,” wondered the older Edie.

“She’s younger than you are now,” pointed out the Ghost.

She was, thought Edie. And she had a family and a home then. It had all gone wrong; everything did, but her mother had known it however briefly. What did Edie have?

A job, a voice in her head said. It sounded like Ms Satis. Edie had a life where she didn’t have to answer to anyone but herself. And that was just fine, wasn’t it?

“Oh this is where my Aunt Philly comes out!” Edie remembered. “She looked like a queen. I wanted to be just like her. We had so much fun planning the flowers and putting together the orders of service. Did you know that flowers have a language? That if you use different blooms they mean something?” Edie was smiling; tension that had been in her jaw for years was easing.

And then from out of the house came a glowing young woman, the dated gown doing nothing to dispel her beauty. Little Edie and her mother instantly surrounded her. When was the last time Edie had been with just her mother and aunt? Last Christmas? The Christmas before?

Oh no, not then. That was the year she had gone away on her own because she was too stressed from work to be able to deal with her mother and the empty space which they all tried to ignore. And well, who had time at weekends to visit? At least she would see her at Mel’s wedding. Edie’s mood dipped.

“I wish,” she whispered, blotting her leaking eyes with the back of her hand, “but it’s too late.”

“What is it?” asked the Spirit staring up at her seriously.

“No, it’s just that my mother phoned me the other night and because I was too busy and tired and didn’t want the stress I didn’t answer and never called her back. I wish I had. She’s all I have left.”

And then from behind her aunt came a man. Her father. She looked at his face, her memory of it had been blurred by so many years without seeing him. That was what he looked like.

He was young and handsome.

She had his eyes.

He wrapped an arm round her mother’s shoulders. She leaned into him and they shared a look. Edie’s tears flowed again.

“Is that your father?” the Ghost asked but Edie knew it was rhetorical. She nodded as she drank him in. She watched as her younger self skipped round the couple, laughing while her aunt looked on. She'd been totally secure in that world, a world she believed centred round her. How wrong she’d been.

The older Edie ached. When was the last time she'd seen her dad? It had been a long time ago. Not too many years after this wedding.

The Ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its basket saying, “Let’s see another wedding!”

The foliage grew and retreated, blossoms came and went, and little Edie went from six to thirteen in the matter of a minute. Her dress was now peach silk, and her body hovered on the threshold of adulthood. She was at that stage where she was neither fish nor fowl.

She picked at flaking paint of the gate, her face set in a sullen scowl.

“Hey Edie!” A bundle of blonde energy also in peach came running down the lane.

Teenage Edie’s scowl lightened and she smiled.

“Mel! Can you believe it, my mother won’t let me wear any make-up!” she grumped to her best friend. "She and Dad had the most massive row about it. God, sometimes I hate her. She never wants me to have any fun."

The older Edie felt the tears gathering. That had been the last big row she remembered them having, and then he'd left. Although she hadn't known that then.

And they’d rowed because of her.

“It’s alright,” the petite elfin face of Mel looked down, frowning as she rummaged through the funny bag that she clutched to her chest. It was a facsimile of a reticule and was done in the same shiny peach fabric.

“Here!”

Triumphantly she waved a set of cosmetics at teen Edie.

“Oh, I remember,” said the older Edie, her face alight with memories.

She watched her younger self inexpertly apply lipstick and mascara while her best friend held the small compact mirror in front of her.

“There! Tom will have to notice you now,” said Mel.

Little Edie’s face flushed hotly and clashed violently with the peach dress.

The watching Edie’s heart skipped a beat as she heard the name. The same way she knew her heart had skipped a beat all those years ago.

“Ah, so you remember Tom then?” the Spirit quizzed.

“How could I forget Tom,” Edie said. But she had. She’d buried all those memories deep, locked them away. Even when Mel had told her that he was the best man at the wedding she'd ignored it. Nodded and then carried on as if she didn't care.

Edie and the Ghost moved to follow the teenagers as they piled, giggling, into the flower decked horse and carriage that had pulled up in front of the gate.

“Do you know where they’re going now?” asked the flower girl Spirit.

“To the church,” she replied. “It was our teacher, Miss Stray, getting married. She was marrying Mel’s cousin, Charlie. Tom was, well, is his brother.

“He was fifteen that summer. And Charlie's best man and all I wanted was for him to notice me.”

The scene dissolved into soft focus and refocused with them back outside the church. Edie jumped.

“Saves time,” the Ghost apologised.

From the inside the church came the sound of the wedding march.

“Ready?” asked the Spirit.

Was she? Fizzing deep inside her was the teenager who wanted to see Tom again. She wanted to feel all the innocent pleasure of being in love for the first time all over again. That wrenching panic that they might never see you, might not love you back. But no matter what happened, you couldn’t stop the hope and yearning from filling you all the way to your fingertips.

“Yes,” she breathed.

Was this the last time her life had been uncomplicated? Mum and Dad had still been together and her world had been whole.

They walked up the path and went into the church; they went from the bright June sunlight to the cool darkness of the Norman church. They passed the font and began to follow the bridal party down the aisle.

“There’s Joanne Kitchner!” Edie squeaked. “My goodness last time I saw her she was screaming at her kids in the supermarket. Wow, she looks so young.

"Jessica!" she called as she passed a teenage girl. The young Jessica wore the same superior look as the ghost from the night before. The only difference was age and spots. "I'd forgotten she was at this wedding."

Edie tried to grab her attention by shouting.

"She can't hear you; this is just a reflection of your past. She isn't here," the Ghost said.

Edie sighed. It would've been useful to have an ally against the tiny tyrant. She moved on down the aisle.

“And there is Justin Douglas. My goodness, how all the girls used to swoon over him. Mel used to doodle Mrs Mel Douglas all over her books." Edie cocked her head on the side to look at the gangly adolescent whose hair was gelled to within an inch of its life and still wondered what Mel had seen.

“And you?” the Ghost asked as she skipped down the aisle in a parody of the flower girl she resembled.

“It was always Tom for me,” Edie sighed.

She remembered the love hearts she'd doodled with 'Tom + Edie 4 Ever' written in them.

They reached the bridal party; the teenage Edie was gripping her posy so hard her knuckles were white. Her face was flame red as her eyes kept darting to look to her right.

“There!” her older counterpart pointed.

It was Tom.

The Tom of all her adolescent dreams, the Tom who had turned into her dream man until she put those dreams away from her.

Standing solemnly next to the groom, watching the vicar and not glancing to the left at teen Edie or anywhere else, was a tall, slight man boy. His curly blond hair was ruthlessly held down by hair product so that only a slight wave was discernible. Edie’s fingers itched with the memory of those curls unfettered between her fingers, the soft springiness. The way he smelt.

Her heart turned over as her eyes traced his profile. A smooth forehead unblemished by the frown lines she had carved there. Mouth full and slightly smiling. When had she last seen him smile? There hadn’t been much smiling in that last year.

“How on earth are you doing all this?” she fought against the tearing feeling inside her. “Is this some complicated and sophisticated hologram? And who the hell told you about Tom?”

Yes this was better. Stop the maudlin memories. Edie rubbed her chest near her heart, she needed this to stop.

The Spirit raised an eyebrow, a very adult look on a six-year-old face.

“Edie,” she said with a hint of exasperation.

“Well I suppose anyone could have told you about me and Tom! I mean all these people were at the wedding…” Edie’s voice petered out. “I don’t know how you made it all so life like, it must have cost a fortune but I’ve seen what they can do in films these days.”

“You want more proof?” the little flower girl asked.

Proof? Hell yeah she wanted proof.

“Yes,” she said it and jutted her chin out.

The pain in her chest retreated as she wrapped herself in her familiar blanket of stubbornness.

The Ghost sighed dramatically.

The scene vanished in a blink of an eye.

It felt as if part of Edie was wrenched out and left behind.

A scene emerged around them; they were inside a marquee which had fairy lights strung on the ceiling mimicking a star-studded night. The flashing lights of the mobile DJ twirled to the beat of the music blaring from the speakers.

“Oh no,” Edie groaned.

“Well you wanted proof,” the Ghost said sanctimoniously.

“No really, I believe you,” she was desperate. “Can we just stop it now? Go back to my room? I’ve learnt whatever lesson you want me to learn.”

She couldn’t relive this again.

“So who is that over there?” piped the Ghost.

Surely it wasn’t against the law to hit a Ghost who looked like a six-year-old girl?

“Me,” she muttered.

“And what are you doing?”

No, she couldn’t hit her; knowing her luck this was really some precocious stage school brat whose parents would sue her for lost earnings.

“I’m…” the words stuck in her throat.

“Yes?”

“I’m dancing,” she said.

“Dancing? Really?” the Ghost was definitely trying not to laugh.

Edie’s face burned for her younger self. She wriggled in embarrassment for what was to come.

“I think we need to get just a little closer,” the Spirit said and for a six-year-old she had a freakishly strong grip and pull.

Edie got closer to the writhing flushed figure in peach silk. Oh God, had she really thought that she was dancing in a sexy way? Her puppy fat was spilling over the top of the dress and she was squinting up under her eyelashes. And to think she had spent hours perfecting her sexy gaze in the mirror thinking it would have a devastating effect on men. I suppose it did, she thought, devastating in a ‘run screaming from this girl’ sort of way.