| Bernard awoke with a shiver running down his
spine. Lifting his
head from the desk he caught his breath as the images
from his
nightmare scattered like ashes from his mind. He had the distinct feeling that he wasn't alone, that someone was watching him, and he peered deeper into the shadows of the shop. It was a dark night, the moon hidden behind thick clouds that defused the light and cast unusual silhouettes into the shop's nooks. As he stared at nothing until something blurred in front of his eyes. He rubbed them, thinking it was just sleep, but instead of vanishing, the blurring started to take form. In the next second Bernard found himself looking into the frightening aspect of a spectre, a ghoul without substance but still looking as though the flesh was dripping from its bones. Bernard sat back in the hope that it was nothing but an Absinthe-induced hallucination and would go away quickly. But it didn't. It hung in front of his desk like a particularly determined customer. Finally it occurred to him that he should say something. "Go away! We're closed." The thing continued to hover. Slowly its ghastly face mutated until he could make out the standard features - two empty eye sockets, a flat nose and a drooping Basset hound-like mouth out of which issued forth a voice long dead and the immortal words, "I am the ghost of Christmas Past." Bernard immediately tapped the desk with his finger. "Oh, no you don't. I won't have apparitions from the supernatural realm getting all Dickensian in my shop! Scoot!" "You were told to expect three ghosts." Swivelling in his chair, Bernard shook his head. "No, I wasn't." "Yes, you were." "No, I wasn't." "Well, you should have been. That's an oversight," the voice got louder, "but it changes nothing. I am the first." With a frustrated sigh, Bernard asked, "Why me?" "Because you are a mean bastard." "I am not!" "Yes, you are." The thing - the ghost - waved one grey arm through the air and Bernard found himself watching a flashback episode of his life over the last couple of years. Him beating Manny with his own hat. Him stapling a betting slip to the back of Manny's hand. Him shooting Manny across the temple. Him cutting the string on Manny's yo-yo. Him slapping Manny across the face at the table. Him trapping Manny's fingers in the desk drawer. It went on in that vein for some time. There was no denying it when the images faded. He was a mean bastard. But only to Manny. Manny just brought it out in him! He wasn't usually so violent. The Ghost of Christmas Past floated from the desk toward the door. "Come." "Look, can't we do this another time?" "Come!" "It's cold. And dark." Without warning, one arm stretched out for him and long fingers like claws grabbed him by the hair in much the same way Fran sometimes did. "Ow!" He had no choice. He was pulled to his feet, around the desk and to the apparition's side. And then they weren't in the shop any longer. They were outside it, looking in through the filthy windows. Bernard could see himself sitting at the desk inside, drinking and smoking. The sight made him desperate for a smoke and he tapped his pockets, swearing when he realised he'd left the packet of Malboros on the desk. Breaking away from his guide, he started for the front door. Once again cruel fingers tangled in his hair. "Where are you going?" "To get a cigarette." "From where?" "Inside. From... me." Realisation began to sink in. "This is the past. You're already inside. You cannot see... you." "I can! I'm sitting at my desk!" "No - I mean.... The you inside cannot see the you out here." The painful grip loosened. "Just remain still." Thrusting his hands into his trouser pockets, Bernard took to sulking. "This is the past. Five years ago. Look at yourself, sitting alone, miserable." But Bernard had perked up again. "No! Look, here's Fran. I remember this Christmas!" Fran was indeed strolling toward the shop, two carrier bags in each hand. She didn't see them - didn't or couldn't - and pushed open the door the shop, holding up the bags and grinning as the door closed behind her. "She brought mulled wine and cheesy nibbles and we sat up all night eating and drinking and playing inane card games." Beside him the Ghost of Christmas Past was wearing a hangdog expression which really suited it. There was indeed merriment inside the shop. She'd brought a box of crackers too and they were pulling them, two at once, reading out the jokes and playing with the little useless toys that flew out. "But you must have been miserable," the ghoul complained. "You were alone." "I wasn't alone! I had Fran with me! In fact, I still have Fran with me. And Manny. Permanently. All day and all night. Besides, I like being miserable. It's my god-given right to be miserable!" Grabbing him by the hair once more, the Ghost of Christmas Past took them back to the present, leaving behind the sound of laughter peeling from the shop five years ago. It dumped Bernard back behind his desk. "You know Emma lied to you about being dead," it tried one last cheap shot. "We've already covered that," Bernard told it triumphantly. "Now fuck off." Rising in the air, reaching out its arms (making Bernard cover his head with his arms), the apparition proclaimed, "Prepare for the Ghost Of Christmas Present." "How can you have a ghost of a Christmas present?" "Not a Christmas present! Christmas Present. This Christmas. Now. The present." "There's a ghost of now? And what's he going to show me? Me sitting here now trying to get some sleep?" But he ended by shouting at air. The apparition had vanished. Bernard shook his head and grabbed his cigarettes, sliding one out of the packet, the end already between his lips, dropping the rest into his pocket. If this was going to go on all night, he didn't want to be caught without his fags again. Lighting it, he dropped the lighter into his pocket too, taking a long drag as the air before him shimmered with a silver-lined cloud of glitter. He watched the second apparition form, smiling to himself in appreciation when it became clear that the materialisation was definitely in the shape of a lithe woman. "I am the Ghost of Christmas Present," she cooed, leaning down to blow him a kiss of stars just a moment before caning him across the back of the hand with what appeared to be a wand. "And no Christmas present jokes, understand?!" "Ow!" The line across his knuckles smarted from the unprovoked attack and he rubbed it with his other hand, protesting around the end of the cigarette - "I didn't say anything!" "But you were going to, weren't you? They always do." He imagined her high-pitched voice could get very irritating very quickly. "Urgh, smelly stick!" With another flick of her wand she dislodged the cigarette from between his lips and sent it end-over-end across the shop to land close by her. For a moment she had one long leg ending in a black, high-heeled shoe under which she crushed the Malboro. "That's a filthy habit." "Yeah, well, it's my filthy habit and I didn't ask your opinion." He reached into his pocket only to have his hand caned again. "Ow! Stop that!" "I will when you learn to behave. Now come with me." She floated in the middle of the shop, hands on her hips, staring at him. At least she had eyes. And she looked as if she'd once been alive which was more than he could have said for the last visitation. "Where are we going?" "To the present!" "We're already in the present." "But to a different place in the present. Come with me." She sounded like Fran did when she was in a hurry for him to open a bottle or accompany her to the pub. "All right, all right." With a heartfelt sigh he pushed back his chair and walked around the desk. The next thing he knew he was floating in mid-air outside the shop. The moment his brain registered that the ground was a whole storey below his feet he panicked and made a grab for her. Laughing with glee she grabbed him right back, wrapping unfeasibly long arms around him and clinging to him so tight he could hardly breathe. And her laugh! It grated along every nerve. He tried to untangle himself and eventually she released him, grasping just the back of his head and turning his gaze into the grubby window of what he realised was Manny's bedroom. "We could have taken the stairs," he complained. Her fingernails bit into the back of his scalp. "Shut up!" she hissed. "Look. Look at Manny, dear Manny." Rolling his eyes, Bernard did as he was told, squinting to see through the dirt on the glass to the detail of the room inside. Manny was sitting cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by shiny Christmas wrapping paper. "What's he doing?" Bernard enquired despite himself. "Wrapping presents," the ghost told him, voice full of an awe Bernard felt was misplaced. "Who for? He doesn't have any friends." Suddenly those fingernails were back, scraping across his head, digging in deep enough to draw blood. He cried out in pain but she didn't release him and when she turned his head to face her she was no longer the sweet - if malicious - apparition she had been. Hundreds of impossibly sharp teeth in a mouth somehow wider than her face. Eyes like a snake. Nose petering to a point. Her hair was alive, writhing from its prison. "He has friends," she hissed. "Even though you do your best to keep them away they keep coming back because he's a nice person to be with and they - unlike some people - care about him." Bernard found he couldn't speak, let alone scream which was what he really wanted to do just then. She straightened and her features changed back. Her hold on him loosened and he rode out of the wave of pain following the extraction of her nails from his head. "But these presents aren't for his friends," she continued in what he supposed was her usual voice. "These are for a man who's cruel to him every day, a man who cheats him out of his wages and abuses him at every available opportunity." Bernard frowned. "Who?" She shook him twice, his feet connecting with the bricks in the outside wall of the building. "You! It's you! These presents are for you!" Frowning, he questioned, "Me?" But she wasn't listening to him. "You're the last person in the world to deserve someone like Manny. But that doesn't matter to him because his heart is so pure and his love for you knows no bounds." He glanced at her carefully, making a face at her soppy expression. He considered chastising her, telling her to pull herself together, but decided, wisely, against it. What he did say was, "It's Manny we're talking about! He's an annoyance. He doesn't love me he hates me! Or else why does he make my life such a misery?" Her furious cry seemed to rise from the pits of hell and she dropped him. Bernard did scream then, in the moment between falling and hitting the ground. He lay on the pavement, legs twisted beneath him. And for a moment he believed he would pass out from the pain of the broken bones. He hoped he would. Then he was standing on his own feet, back inside the shop. His legs were fine but they refused to hold him. Shaking, he dropped into the leather sofa and put his head in his hands. He knew she was still there, watching him and he looked up between spread fingers. "Who are you?" "I am the Ghost -" "- of Christmas Present, yes, I know that bit." She crouched down next to his knees and her eyes sparkled. "But you can also call me Manny's Fairy Godmother." Then she bounced to her feet and waved her wand in the air. She started to evaporate from the bottom up. "Wait. Will there be another one of you?" With a sweet smile she nodded. "Oh yes." And then she was gone. Rubbing his eyes with his fingers, Bernard fished his cigarettes and his lighter from his jacket pocket and lit a Malboro, pulling the smoke into his lungs. Almost immediately he felt the nicotine's calming effects and the pain ebbed slowly away. It was a couple of minutes before he realised he was once again not alone. The thing floating several feet from him was all in white. White jacket over white trousers. White hair which moved with a life all its own. Its eyes, set deep in its skull, were white. White lips parted to reveal polished white teeth. When it spoke, its mouth didn't move. "I am the Ghost of Christmas Future." It was a second or two before Bernard managed to speak. "Shouldn't that be 'Christmas Yet To Come'?" It didn't reply. Instead, it raised a wicked scythe blade attached to what looked oddly like a lightsaber. "Come." He wasn't sure he wanted to go anywhere with this thing, but he was sure he had very little choice. Taking the cigarette from his mouth he was about to pitch it to the wooden floor when more words came. "You may smoke." It was a nice surprise. "Thanks." As he stepped close to the ghost, he felt a sudden chill, as if all the heat had been suddenly sucked from the air around them. And then they weren't inside the shop any longer they were back outside, hovering several feet above the road. It was snowing, had been snowing for some time by the looks of the white covering everything, twinkling under the streetlights. Bernard looked down at the shop and quickly released two things. The sign above it no longer read 'Black Books'. Instead it was dark and blank. And there were no books in the window. "How far into the future are we?" he asked quietly. But the white thing floating at his side didn't answer and Bernard wasn't listening anyway. He was watching the lone figure crunching through the snow, approaching the shop, a bouquet of red roses clutched in one gloved hand. Manny. He stopped in front of the black door that had always been open but was now locked shut. With the barest of hesitations, he bent down and laid the flowers on the white carpeted doorstep. Then he stepped back and wiped the back of his glove across his eyes. Bernard reached out, brushed the tips of his fingers through Manny's fine hair but although he could feel the touch of the silky strands, he knew Manny couldn't feel him. Still the thing hovered at his side, its silence as disturbing as the violence of the last ghost. A second figure approached in a long winter coat, thick mittens covering her hands, a pink bobble hat keeping her head warm. Fran stopped at Manny's side and linked one arm through his, squeezing gently. "Thought I might find you here," Bernard heard her say quietly. "Where else would I be?" Manny sounded defeated, as if all the gloom that rested on Bernard's shoulders now also rested on his. "It's Christmas Eve. Come back to my flat. I'll make some mulled wine." But they didn't budge. "I miss him too, Manny." "It was my fault." And his voice almost broke under the weight of the guilt and misery Bernard could hear there. "It wasn't." "I was waiting for a stupid apology while he was lying there, all alone. Dying. I could have saved him if I hadn't been so stubborn." He was crying, tears falling into the snow. "It's my fault he isn't here now." "Oh, Manny...." Fran rested her head against his shoulder, hugging his arm tight while Bernard looked on in disbelief. "It's not your fault. It's his fault. He swallowed a mug of hot rat poison and washed it down with a bottle of Merlot." There was a note of hysteria in Manny's voice when he responded. "Because I wasn't there to look after him!" "He was a grown man. He should have been able to take care of himself, not rely on you." Bernard heard her sniff and realised she was crying too. "Please don't blame yourself. He's caused enough misery." Manny turned his head and rested his forehead against Fran's hair. "I loved him." "I know." "I just wish... he'd known." The sad scene started to blur and instinctively Bernard reached out, "Wait!" But it was too late. They were back in the shop - he and the Ghost of Christmas Future. He turned on his heel, facing the apparition. "When? When do I die? They didn't look any older!" A flash of anger crossed the white features for just a moment, gone so quickly Bernard thought maybe he'd imagined it. "You will die." "Everyone dies! It's just that I hadn't expected it to be so soon...." He looked up when he heard footsteps on the wooden stairs. "Bernard?" Manny's voice calling to him, "Who are you talking to?" Turning back to the ghastly apparition, Bernard asked desperately, "Can I change the future?" With a chilling smile, the ghost told him, "You can try." And then it was gone and he was alone in the shop. The curtains were cautiously drawn open and Manny peered through. "Bernard? Are you all right?" Already the visitations were fading into memory, like the details of a dream upon waking. "Yes." "I thought I heard...." But he shrugged, "Do you need anything?" "No. Actually... I need some more cigarettes. I'll pop out, see if I can find anywhere open. I won't be long." "All right." Bernard was half-way to the door when he stopped. "Manny... do you believe in ghosts?" "Ghosts? No. Why? Have you seen one?" The answer seemed just slightly contradictory to Bernard but he let it go. "No. Never mind." "Okay." Manny smiled at him then vanished again, back upstairs. Back to where he was wrapping gifts, Bernard remembered. Grabbing his coat, he stepped out of the front door into the bitter cold of Christmas Eve. ~ Manny woke surrounded by wrapping paper and twisted pieces of cellotape. He'd waited up for Bernard for as long as he could keep his eyes open for but eventually he'd gone to bed. Sometimes Bernard found a lock-in and didn't come home until the early hours of the morning. Sometimes he didn't find his way home at all. On those occasions Manny and Fran had to go out looking for him. He lay in bed and listened for any sign of his housemate. There was nothing. Then there was an almighty crash from the kitchen - like a tray hitting the floor - and a single swear word before it all went quiet again. At least he didn't have to spend Christmas Day wondering around Russell Square checking the homeless people for someone who actually had a bed but couldn't always remember where it was. Taking a quick shower and dressing in what he thought was his most Christmasy shirt, he balanced the small pile of gifts into his arms and carefully made his way downstairs. "Merry -" his cheerful greeting was neatly cut off at the sight of the kitchen. A small, plastic Christmas tree stood in the centre of the table, red and gold baubles hanging from its short branches, its base surrounded by presents. He wouldn't have gone as far as to call them 'beautifully wrapped', but wrapped they were in layers of thin, cheap paper. There were two pans on the hob - one filled to the brim with potatoes, the other stacked with sprouts. Suspiciously, putting his armful of gifts down onto the table laid out with cutlery and crackers, Manny leaned down and opened the oven door. Inside there was a turkey slowly starting to cook. "Don't do that!" Bernard appeared from nowhere and slapped his hand away. "You'll let all the heat out. It's going to take long enough as it is." Manny looked up into the mad eyes of his friend. "Bernard, are you okay?" "Never better!" He leapt around the table and opened the fridge, taking a bottle of Bucks Fizz from inside. "Drink?" Manny peered at the presents under the little tree. A lot of them had his name scrawled onto the paper in Bernard's semi-eligible hand. The others had Fran's name written there. All of it was beyond Manny. He nodded dumbly in answer to the drink question and took the proffered glass when it was handed to him. "Merry Christmas, Manny." Bernard chinked their glasses together. "How...? Why...? When...?" Self-consciously, Bernard shrugged. "It's Christmas." "Yes." It didn't seem like a satisfactory explanation somehow, but he suspected it was the best he was going to get. "Manny, can't I treat my friends at Christmas?" "Yes... of course... it's just that... well, you don't. Usually. You're not a big fan of Christmas." "Me? I love Christmas!" Manny caught the almost-forced smile. "Bernard, what happened?" The cheer evaporated instantly and he looked away. Putting his glass down onto the table, Manny reached out, touching Bernard's arm. "I had a dream," he said quietly. "I saw you. I was dead and you were crying outside the shop." He glanced at Manny obviously expecting some sort of ridicule, but Manny just frowned, looking at him with concern. He'd never seen Bernard like this before. It wasn't right. "It was just a dream," Manny said gently, watching as Bernard raked his fingers through his hair. "I don't... don't think it was." He met the sympathetic gaze. "Manny...." Afterwards he wouldn't be able to explain what had made him take that single step forward. He wouldn't be able to say what had possessed him to slide his hand up Bernard's arm to his shoulder, to caress the back of his neck with careful fingertips, or to lick his lips once before touching them to Bernard's mouth. But he did do it. And with a soft moan, Bernard responded, melted into Manny's touch like snow. Staying close, Bernard murmured, "I'm sorry." "For what?" "For whatever I do... in the future that makes you leave." Stepping closer, Manny stroked his fingers over the bowed head. "I won't leave. Not now." He felt Bernard pull at his shirt like a chastised child might. "I can't promise to be...." "Don't promise anything." The head lifted and curious brown eyes met Manny's. "We'll be all right." A small smile touched Bernard's lips as he cautiously stepped back, sipping his drink. Manny watched him watching back, both waiting for another kiss to happen and when it didn't, Manny thought he should steal one, just for good measure. Bernard's mouth lingered on his for a long time before he moved away to check the progress of his cooking. "Fran's coming round," Bernard explained by way of an apology. "We can kick her out after lunch maybe...." It was tempting but it seemed like a terrible thing to do to someone on Christmas Day. "We'll kick her out later and tell her we have other plans for Boxing Day." Bernard nodded with a smile just as the front door of the shop was thrown open and Fran cooed, "Merry Christmas everyone!" ~ Bernard and Manny were tucked up together in bed when Freddy Granger materialised in the shop. He'd been practising, he had his 'Ye will be haunted by three spirits' speech worked out word for word. Now he hung in mid-air, hovering. Lost. "There's no one here," he said uselessly to himself. He didn't expect an answer but an answer he got. "You're late!" "What?" "It's Christmas Day! The letter clearly said Christmas Eve! You missed it!" "Oh, no. Really? Damn." He looked at the willowy figure as she floated in front of him, her hands on her hips. "Did it work out?" "Yes." "Oh good. I am pleased. Well, you won't be needing me then. I'll shoot off now. I'm hoping for an audience with the Pope later on." The Ghost of Christmas Present watched the ghost of Freddy Granger vanish from sight. Then she floated up through the floor to peek into Manny's bedroom where she watched the two men for a couple of minutes, grinning to herself. This was so naughty, she knew she shouldn't be watching and she should definitely be blushing, if ghosts could blush. But they were so good together, naked and sweaty, moving against one another, trying to find the best position, the greatest sensation, she couldn't take her eyes off them. Until, that was, Bernard raised his head to look directly at her over Manny's shoulder. He shivered, closing his eyes and turning his head into Manny's neck. In response, Manny petted his hair, murmuring something softly that she didn't choose to hear. Whatever it was, it brought a wicked smile back to Bernard's face and he dropped his head to the pillow and arched up into Manny's long thrust. She left then, her work done for one Christmas. |