Read The Last of the Spirits Online
Authors: Chris Priestley
The Last of the Spirits
For Philippa
Contents
Chris Priestley on A Christmas Carol
Adaptations of A Christmas Carol
The boy had never spoken to the old man before, nor scarcely noticed him. The old man, had he been asked, would have sworn under oath, hand on the Bible, that he had likewise never seen the boy.
But the truth was, over the last few years, they had passed within inches of each other a hundred times. The old man had even brushed the boy aside more than once as he beetled his way to his office.
To the old man, the boy was just another tiresome obstacle to be avoided. To the boy, the old man, along with all the other hard-faced strangers like him, was yet another reason to hate the world.
But this day, this chill and fog-choked Christmas Eve – this day was to be different.
‘Mister,’ cried the boy, wiping his nose on the back of his hand.
The old man flinched but did not turn, his black-coated back bent over as though heading into a strong wind, the silver tip of his cane tick-tick-ticking on the paving slabs as he hurried along.
Tick-tick-tick
. Time is money. The boy sped up and pulled his sister along in his wake.
‘Mister!’
This time the boy emphasised his cry with a tug on the old man’s coat-tail. This had an immediate effect. The old man skidded in his tracks and turned round with a ferocious look on his face, a look that might have made another faint. The children were well used to such expressions. They stopped, but kept their distance.
‘What do you want?’ hissed the old man, his muffler pulled up to his bottom lip, his hat jammed down on to his furrowed brow so that his white eyebrows curled round the black brim. His eyes were ice blue.
‘Please, sir,’ said the boy. ‘We wondered, as it’s Christmas Eve and all, if you might see your way to giving us a few coins, sir. Only we –’
‘Oh, you did, did you?’ said the man, narrowing his eyes still further, their reddened rims the only warm colour in his deathly face. ‘You thought as it was Christmas Eve and the season of goodwill, you’d rob me, did you?’
‘We ain’t robbing no one,’ said the boy. ‘We’re asking is all. A few coins. That ain’t a crime, is it?’
The old man raised his cane and bared his crooked yellow teeth.
‘Get away from me or I’ll call a constable!’ he cried. ‘Maybe I’ll give you a thrashing before he arrives.’
The boy and girl ran, clattering round a corner into an alleyway, where the boy grabbed his sister and turned to peer at the old man, a vague smudge now in the fog as he climbed the three stone stairs to his office, opened the black door and slammed it behind him.
The violence of that slam seemed to shake the street and it dislodged a great icicle from the roof, which dropped like an arrow to shatter on the pavement below. The snow of the week before had thawed from most of the roofs on the street, but clearly the old man’s office was a few degrees colder than the houses on either side. In any event, what had thawed was now speedily refreezing.
The slamming door seemed likewise to dislodge something in the boy’s mind. It was not the old man’s refusal to give them money, nor his threat to call a constable – both were common enough occurrences; no, it was the look in the old man’s eye, that look of cold contempt. It had pierced the boy to the bone. He walked back and stood in a patch of waste ground opposite the old man’s office, staring malevolently.
‘Sam,’ said his sister, walking up behind him, ‘let’s go. I’m cold.’
‘Go where?’ he hissed, without taking his eyes from the shining black door. ‘What does it matter where we go, Lizzie? We’ll be as cold there as here.’
She tugged at his arm, and he shrugged her away.
‘No one’s making you stay,’ he said. ‘Go if you want to.’
Lizzie turned and began to walk, slipping and sliding on the ice and slush. Her boots were so ragged and oversized it would have been a comic sight were her arms not so very thin, her face so pale and gaunt, and her eyes so sunken and terribly lacking in any of life’s sparkle.
‘Wait!’ said Sam with an angry sigh and ran to catch up with her.
At thirteen, he was older by three years but not much taller and not much heavier either. His face was just as gaunt as his sister’s, but there was a hardness in his features that was absent in hers. His brow was furrowed by a constant frown and his jaw thrust out, daring the world to hit him. His hands were locked in fists, even when he slept.
They worked the streets, stretching out their filthy hands to anyone who passed, dipping them lightly into pockets and purses if they got the chance.
Christmas Eve was a time when most folk had some extra warmth in their hearts, but this warmth was directed towards their loved ones in the main. So very little was left over for those who needed it most.
By mid-afternoon Sam and Lizzie had made only enough to buy a very small pie between them. And by that time most people were already heading home, let out early on account of the coming festivities. Tired and still hungry, the two children found themselves back on that same piece of inhospitable waste ground opposite the old man’s office.
A handsome young man walked down the street, whistling. He skipped up the steps to the door and rapped on the knocker, blowing into his hands. The door opened and he walked in. As the door was closing, Sam set off across the road.
‘Sam?’ said Lizzie.
‘Come on,’ he said, without turning round.
‘What are we doing?’
Sam didn’t answer. He didn’t know the answer. He just felt drawn in somehow. He walked up to the railings in front of the window. Through the dusty glass he could see the old man’s bony back as he worked at a desk. Sam strained his ears to hear.
‘A merry Christmas, Uncle,’ came a cry from inside as the young man walked through from the hall.
‘Bah!’ muttered the old man. ‘Humbug!’
Sam ducked behind the railings as the young man came into view. It was clearly no warmer inside the office than outside, for Sam could see his breath.
There followed some muffled conversation. Sam was unable to make out many of the words until the old man shouted, making Lizzie jump.
‘Nephew!’ he yelled. ‘Keep Christmas in your own way and let me keep it in mine.’
So the old man was this fellow’s uncle. Sam had not imagined him to have any family. He clearly did not want any, even so. Every attempt at goodwill from the nephew was met with the same sourness the old man had shown to them.
A clerk was standing nearby and at one point forgot himself and applauded the nephew’s words. His expression made it all too clear that he realised his mistake as he became suddenly interested in attending to the fire.
‘Let me hear another sound from
you
,’ cried his employer harshly, ‘and you’ll keep your Christmas by losing your situation.’
‘Poor man,’ whispered Lizzie, seeing the clerk’s pale face.
‘Don’t be angry, Uncle,’ said the nephew, stepping between the old man and his clerk. ‘Come! Dine with us tomorrow.’
But the old man would have none of it. The more the nephew persisted, the ruder he became. The nephew’s jolly parting cry of ‘Merry Christmas’ was greeted with an emphatically snarled ‘Good afternoon!’ as was the ‘Happy New Year!’ that followed it. Eventually even this good-natured young man was forced to admit defeat and headed towards the outer door.
As it opened, Sam and Lizzie could hear the nephew wishing the clerk a merry Christmas and getting a far warmer response. Through the window glass, they caught the old man muttering. It was as though goodwill caused him pain.
At that very moment two men arrived at the door, well turned out – heavy coats, top hats on their heads. The nephew stepped to one side with a hearty ‘Good day, gentlemen!’
He was as cheerful as the old man was dour and, after wishing them too a merry Christmas, he strode away up the street as though, for him, Christmas could not start a minute too soon. The two men were duly let in and the door closed behind them.
‘Come on, Liz,’ said Sam.
He had seen enough, and they walked away. The visitors had not been inside the office for more than a few minutes, however, when they emerged, looking as though they had been hauled before a hanging judge and had only just escaped the gallows. They crossed the street towards Sam and Lizzie, their faces pale and shocked.
‘Well!’ said one to the other as they stood nearby. ‘Have you ever heard the like?’
‘Never put so forcibly,’ said his companion, opening a box of snuff and taking a pinch. ‘Many do not want to give to charity, but few are so
proud
of it.’
He sniffed loudly, sucking the snuff up inside his flared nostrils.
‘
Are there no prisons?
’ said the first, mimicking the old man’s voice.
‘
And the Union Poorhouses
,’ said the other, doing the same, hunching his shoulders and twisting his face into a sour expression, a few rogue strands of snuff still visible. ‘
Are they still in operation?
’
‘And when you said that many would not go there and would rather die –’
‘
Then they had better do it
,’ said the other in the old man’s voice, ‘
and decrease the surplus population
.’
The two men stood and looked back at the office in wonder.
‘It is a shame that Mr Marley is deceased,’ said the first. ‘For he must surely have been a kinder soul than Mr Scrooge.’
Scrooge. It was a name that prodded like a bony finger.
Scrooge
. Sam’s eyes narrowed as he stared resentfully at the black door and the black heart it guarded. The two charity men had walked away before he realised he should have asked them for money. Soft heads or soft hearts, those types were always good for a tap.