The Ghosts of Christmas Past Read online

  She looked both ways again. The gang closing in.

  “In here!” she called.

  The old lady yanked him forward and they ran to her.

  The men darted for them now.

  The old lady bundled into the doorway and Fred stumbled in after her.

  A hand grabbed at his collar, snatched and missed. The girl slammed the door. Someone yelped. She opened the door and slammed it again. A scream from the other side.

  “My bloody hand!”

  A rain of blows on the door.

  The girl slammed a bolt across it.

  They banged and kicked some more.

  The girl leaned back against the door, as if to keep them out all by herself.

  Fred looked into her eyes. “Oh. It’s you.”

  A ghost from the past. The ghost he’d seen last Christmas Eve at New Street Station, walking up the dark end of Platform 3. Through steam and shadow, a dark-eyed young woman emerged, a hood over her head, her porcelain white face staring at him, just as she did now. A Victorian ghost in 1933. She had gazed on him and opened her mouth to speak and he’d turned and ran.

  This was that same face.

  Fred slumped to his knees, his head swirling. He looked to the ceiling, saw stars and fainted.

  — 3 —

  “WHY IS THE STATION here and not there?” Dickens said, alighting from the train and stretching his legs.

  Birmingham Station was a small affair. A few lines of track terminating in a cube of a building — a Roman temple with columns and a flat roof. Passengers streamed along the platform and through the building, strange spectral figures in the clouds of steam. He tucked the image away. He would think later of the exact wording with which to paint it.

  “I’m not sure I follow you, Charles,” John Forster said.

  Forster was fumbling with his pockets, perhaps searching for the tickets, looking up and down the platform with the air of a man who has forgotten something and can’t quite remember why he is where he is, how he got there and what he should do now he was there. He checked the three pockets of his waistcoat, the five pockets of his jacket both inner and outer, and the five pockets of his greatcoat, also inner and outer, before delving into his trouser pockets. The only thing he hadn’t checked was his top hat.

  “I was merely wondering why they built the station so far from the centre of the town?”

  “I’m not sure I know the answer to that, Charles,” John said.

  “I suppose one could ask why they didn’t build the town around the station.”

  “The station is only three years old. The town significantly older.”

  “Yes, quite. But the mystery persists.”

  Forster pulled the tickets from his inside jacket pocket, holding them aloft in triumph. “Here! At last.”

  A thick wad of paper fell out of his pocket and slapped to the stone pavement. An envelope, unsealed, and inside the unmistakable edge of banknotes. Like a book made of money, Charles thought.

  Forster let out a pained moan and crouched to retrieve it but a boy darted in and scooped it up. For a moment, Charles thought the boy was going to dash off with the money, and he was going to watch it happen without doing anything, merely observing in stasis, noting the scene and finding the words to describe it. But the boy held the wad of money up.

  Dickens saw a ghost.

  Another wretched boy reaching out with dirty hands. Reaching out to Charles, his sunken eyes appealing, as if to say take me with you from this hell. Don’t leave me here. And also to wave him on to a better life. It was the moment young Charles Dickens had turned from Master Green and walked out of Warren’s Blacking Factory forever, never quite wiping the mud from his feet, the cold from his bones and the hunger from his stomach.

  Forster snatched the wad of money from the boy with a yelp of relief and shoved it inside his greatcoat, looking all around to see if anyone had seen. “Thank you, boy. How kind of you.”

  The boy smiled up at them. Dickens stepped back, recoiling. It wasn’t Young Master Green at all, a ghost come to haunt him, it was just a boy like any other. His suit was smart but his shoes had seen better days — the telltale sign of poverty — with an alarming tide mark of black mud. He wore an enormous baker boy cap nestling on his brown curls that he might grow into in a few more years. Charles couldn’t help but think of little Oliver, the child he’d created in his imagination and set loose on the world.

  “Good morning, sir,” the boy said, tugging at Forster’s coat. “Are you the gentleman from London, Mr Charles Dickens, sir?”

  Forster put a gloved finger the width of the boy’s arm to his lips. “Shhhhh, boy! You are not to mention that name! I gave instructions.”

  “They said I was to come and look for a fat man and a short, young man with long hair, and that would be Charles Dickens.”

  Dickens fought to hide a chuckle.

  “Boy, you are not to say that name again, to anyone. Do you understand?” Forster checked all around to see if anyone had overheard, but it seemed no one had caught the boy’s utterance over the hiss of steam, the shouts of porters and the chaotic rabble of passengers fighting their way to the exits.

  “I’m from Showell’s Printing House, sir.”

  Forster put his finger to the boy’s lips now. “And don’t mention printers, either.”

  The boy stared up at Forster as if he were mad, which was not far from the truth.

  Forster beamed a grin, and said, “What’s your name, young man?”

  “Tim, sir. I’m Tim Cratchit.”

  “What a delightful name. And what a delightful, intelligent boy you are. Now, I’m Mr Forster — the man you seek — but you are not to say the name of Charles Dickens aloud. It’s a deadly secret, isn’t it?”

  Forster looked to Charles for support, not more than a minute into his deception and already floundering with a child.

  “It’s a magic spell,” said Charles, “that will cause untold calamity should you say it three times. Do you understand?”

  The boy nodded and looked from Charles to Forster and back again as if they were the mad ones. Which, of course, was indubitably right.

  “I understand, sirs,” he said.

  “Such an intelligent boy,” said Forster. “Now, lead on, young master Cratchit and show us the way.”

  Charles was about to follow the boy through the crowd when a woman cried out.

  “Oh, it’s you, isn’t it?”

  A pretty young woman in a pretty blue bonnet, her pretty blue eyes bright with recognition and adoration. She held out her hand and gripped his sleeve.

  “It’s Mr Dickens, isn’t it? Charles Dickens!”

  Charles coughed and looked up and down the platform, as if someone might come to rescue him.

  “I’m afraid there’s been some mistake, madam,” Forster said, stepping between the lady and Charles, the bulk of his massive frame shielding the author, so he quite disappeared behind him.

  “It is,” the lady cried. “I know him! It’s Boz! Dear Mr Dickens!”

  “No, madam, I assure you it isn’t,” John wheedled in his Northumbrian tone.

  “Wait a while. I have a copy of Oliver Twist right here in my case. I must have him sign it!”

  Forster took Charles’s arm and dragged him away after the boy. “You are mistaken, madam. This isn’t Charles Hmm-hmm at all, no, not at all.”

  They were leaving their cases behind. “John, our cases.”

  “We’ll send for them,” Forster muttered through the side of his mouth.

  “It is. I’m sure of it!” The woman was delving into her case, pulling out her clothes.

  “You are mistaken!” Forster called. “Come now, Ch— er, come now, John.”

  Forster presented their tickets at the barrier and they rushed into the Roman temple, a grand atrium with a ticket office to one side and two marble staircases curving in an embrace. They dashed straight through and out the other side to a gloomy street, the boy leading the way.<
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  “So much for our incognito trip to Birmingham,” Dickens said.

  “I shouldn’t have brought you. Your fame is too wide.”

  “My star is fading fast, John,” Dickens grumbled. “I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

  “Well, we’re here to arrest that fall.”

  Forster waved his cane in the air to hail a cab, and saw there were none. The only cabs in sight were the convoy of carriages thundering off in the direction of the town.

  “I think we’ve missed all the cabs, sir,” the boy said.

  “That wretched woman,” said John.

  “She was rather comely,” said Charles. “Perhaps the only reader I have left, and you spoiled it for me.”

  “We don’t want a repeat of our Cornwall debacle, do we?”

  “John. What happened in Cornwall stays in Cornwall.”

  The boy looked up at Dickens, grinning inanely, understanding nothing. Charles rubbed the knot of tension between his eyes. This whole affair was ghastly.

  “Charles,” Forster hissed. “May I impress upon you the absolutely top secret nature of our mission here?”

  Dickens laughed and rolled his eyes. They were no more than two dozen steps into Birmingham and already the secret mission had descended into a Christmas pantomime. “Young Master Cratchit, how far is it to our hotel?”

  “It’s a short walk, sir. Less than a mile. We might saunter it in a quarter hour.”

  “Then we shall saunter it.”

  “I’ll get a porter to send the baggage on,” said Forster. He rushed back into the Roman temple, pushing against the tide of human traffic all emerging and complaining at the lack of cabs.

  Dickens knelt down to the boy. “And which direction do we go, Master Cratchit? Point it out to me.”

  The boy pointed up the hill beyond the immediate cluster of soot-black dwellings and workshops, from which came the glow of furnaces. “That spire there is St Martin in the Bull Ring, and that spire in the distance; that’s Christ Church.”

  “I suppose I’ll want the one that is farthest?”

  “Christ Church is at the top of New Street next to the Town Hall. The New Royal Hotel is up that way.”

  “But a mere quarter hour you say.”

  “For young gentlemen like us,” said Tim. “It might take longer with your friend.”

  Dickens smiled despite himself. He had been nursing a surly countenance since they had set out on the six o’clock train from London, and it had soured the closer he’d got to Birmingham. He’d been rather enjoying being surly and mean and fully intended to luxuriate in it. But the boy, despite his ragged appearance, was intelligent and a wit to boot. Charles reached behind the boy’s ear and pulled out a shiny new half farthing. The boy’s eyes lit up and he shoved the coin in his trouser pocket, as if someone might take it from him, or the magic might take it back.

  The lady in the pretty blue bonnet came running out, a porter lugging her case, from which a scrap of bright green material peeped out and flapped like a flag. She had a book in her hand. “Where is he? Where is the great author?”

  Dickens sighed, rose to his feet and stepped toward her.

  She halted and her face brightened with joy. “Oh, there you are!”

  She thrust the book at him with a metal pen.

  Charles turned the pen over in his hand. “Exquisite craftsmanship.”

  “Yes, Mr Dickens, and made right here in this town.”

  She had the Birmingham twang to her voice. These Brummagem folk talked differently to your Sam Weller cockney types. It was quite rounded and melodious, as if they were all eating some sort of gooey, chewy item of confectionary. It was quite fetching.

  “Ah yes,” Charles said. “We’re in the home of the pen.” He signed the frontispiece and gave the book back to her.

  She read his signature and held it to her breast, squealing with delight.

  He tipped his top hat and said, “Delighted to make your acquaintance.”

  “Charles Dickens, here in Birmingham! I can’t believe it.”

  She ran off and joined the crowd of stranded passengers waiting for cabs.

  Forster came running out. “I’ve arranged for the cases to be sent on. Is there no sign of a cab?”

  “Why did you choose John?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “When you were looking to call me a false name, you called me John.”

  “It was the first thing that came to mind.”

  “But you’re John, John.”

  “I’m not as quick with my imagination as you, Charles.”

  “It is my second name, I suppose. Perhaps you should utilize both of my middle names and call me John Huffam.”

  “Two Johns might be confusing.”

  Dickens tapped his lips with his finger. “I wonder if I might have made a better way in the world for myself with the name John Huffam?”

  Forster patted him on the shoulder, to wake him from his reverie. “Anyway, thank goodness we avoided you being recognized. It would not do if anyone knew you were here. If word got out, our venture would be compromised.”

  “No one will know,” Charles said. “Come on, let’s walk.”

  “We might still get a cab. I’ll demand the first one that comes.”

  “By using my good name, John?”

  The boy skipped down the three stone steps and Dickens followed.

  A beggar woman sat on the steps. He had mistaken it for a pile of rags and only now realized it was an old woman, holding out a withered hand. Her eyes flared with entreaty — or was it recognition? — did she too recognize the author of Oliver Twist? Or the stain of blacking on this gentleman? The stain that betrayed him as one of her kind: a stain he could never wash off.

  With a bitter taste in his mouth, Dickens patted his pockets and passed on, following the boy up Curzon Street.

  — 4 —

  FRED OPENED HIS EYES to find the ghost looking down on him.

  “He’s awakening,” she said, turning back to someone else.

  “A faint, nothing more,” came a voice. An old lady’s voice.

  Fred tried to see her, craning his neck to glance over the way. A sharp pain flared through his temples.

  “Shhhh. Stay still,” the ghost said.

  An old lady had bumped into him on the street corner, yes, and this ghost was the dark-eyed young woman in Victorian costume who’d opened the door to them. She appeared quite real. His eyes rolled up to the ceiling. Gold stars with a crescent moon painted on a sheet of indigo cloth.

  The Theatre Royal had been playing A Christmas Carol and the actors had spilled out as if they’d taken the entire production onto New Street. That was the last thing he remembered. He closed his eyes.

  “He took a knock to the head,” the old lady said. “He’ll be all right soon.”

  “You’re lucky I came out when I did. The street behind us is the edge of the Froggery. It can be a dangerous place in the quiet hours. What is this gentleman’s name?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Oh, I thought you were...”

  “We just bumped into each other. I’ve never seen him before in my life. At least, I don’t think I have. My memory’s been a little... impaired of late.”

  “Oh, I see.” The angel left him. Fred sensed her shift away from him and felt bereft. Her footsteps across the room. “My name is Miss Isabelle Ruth. People call me Belle. I’m pleased to meet you.”

  “Mrs Hudson,” said the old lady. “Susannah Hudson.”

  They whispered together and Fred couldn’t catch their words. He strained to hear and moved to get up but a wave of nausea swept through him and he slumped back into the plush cushion of the sofa on which he lay.

  A familiar sense of dread gripped him. It was happening again. The thing that had happened so many times before. The thing he was scared to let anyone know, it was so weird.

  Mrs Hudson’s warm voice whispered on. Was she the same? Was she from another time as well? Perhap
s she was also...

  He choked on the words. Even in his mind he hesitated to say them. The phrase he’d conjured for his impairment, his disability, this malady that he knew he had but had never told anyone about, including, for most of his life, himself.

  This old lady suffered it too, he could tell. She was, just like him...

  Chronologically-impaired.

  A blush of shame fluttered through him. His dark, dirty secret. The cancer inside he was afraid to mention. Because saying it aloud, even acknowledging it to himself in his thoughts, would make it real. He had always put on a cheerful disposition and pretended there was nothing different about him, that he didn’t see ghosts from the past, that these insane visions were just the memories of dreams.

  Delusions. This was all a delusion. He would snap out of it soon. He always had done. It had just never happened for so long before.

  No. He’d been knocked out in the fighting. This was an hallucination. Vivid, yes, but all hallucinations were vivid. Hallucinations were absolutely real to the people experiencing them. That’s why they were hallucinations. They felt no different to reality. He was Fred Smith from 1934 and had gone along to the anti-fascist demonstration at Bingley Hall to protest against Oswald Mosley.

  That’s right. He’d been hit in the fighting. He’d surged forward with a crowd of anti-fascists and it had been a flurry of windmilling fists. He’d been punched and had felt nothing, only knowing he’d landed a few himself. He’d socked a man in a black polo-neck right on the nose and watched him crumple and fall back, a red rose blooming from his face.

  And then Fred had fallen too. Without even seeing himself fall, he was suddenly on the floor, trying to get up and he couldn’t get up, as if something was blocking him. A kick. Yes, He remembered that. There had definitely been a kick in the head.

  No wonder he was seeing things.

  Belle came back, sitting on the sofa beside him and resumed wiping his brow.

  He was seeing a beautiful young Victorian woman dabbing his brow with a cloth. The dark-eyed young woman whose ghost he’d seen on the station platform last Christmas. She dipped the cloth into a pan of warm water from the stove. The soothing heat on his head. Her face close to his and the pleasing scent of her, of lavender or something: a feminine fragrance, something floral and pleasant.