Chapter 24: Twenty-Four - A London Haunting: A Christmas Ghost Story

Christmas Eve.

With Rebecca so heavily pregnant, Reggie had assumed they’d spend it at home, in the flat – the baby due any day now. They hadn’t really discussed plans for the holiday. They hadn’t discussed much of anything lately. Rebecca had been calmer than usual, though. Calmer, or more morose? Reggie couldn’t tell.

Morning arrived. No work for Reggie, which was a relief. The job was hard, but it paid well, enough to keep alive his plans for a house they could grow into. Plans for their marriage, too – though she hadn’t mentioned that in a while.

It’ll be all right.

He continued to try to convince himself of that. Clung to the hope as tightly as ever. Grateful, too, not to be among the throng of London commuters today, having to sit in an office pretending he was one of them – normal.

Were things normal for everyone but him?

Sometimes he would look around the office and wonder. The others talked and laughed and worked diligently enough. Normal. Normal. Normal.

They knew about Rebecca’s pregnancy – he’d had to tell his boss – and word had spread. Everyone had been so delighted for them, full of congratulations, waiting eagerly for the big news: the baby’s arrival, a boy or a girl. There would already have been an office whip-round for a gift to present when the time came.

All completely normal.

But was it ever normal behind closed doors? When you were in private? Was that when people changed – when they stopped trying? When the mask slipped, revealing what was really there, the truth beneath the beauty, the ugly instead.

Christmas Eve, and he was already up, already in the kitchen, making a cup of tea for Rebecca. Just the way she liked it – exactly one and a half sugars, and milk, but not too much, just a dash. As he stirred, his hands trembled slightly.

The baby was due soon. Tiny. Defenceless. Being born into this.

What would become of them?

Before taking the tea to Rebecca, who was still in bed, lying on her side and staring at the wall – a habit of hers lately, her eyes glazed – Reggie took a breath.

He was the man of this household. He had to be strong – for all of them.

Now more than ever, Rebecca needed him. The baby did too.

The baby…

He turned around. He’d bought a gift for Rebecca and placed it beneath the Christmas tree – a photo frame, but no ordinary one. It was solid silver, delicately ornate, meant to hold the first picture of the three of them. Their very first.

Rebecca would like that. How thoughtful he’d been.

She was always saying he was thoughtless – that he didn’t understand.

But understand what? She never said.

Sometimes, Rebecca was sorry.

After an attack, she’d reach out to him, and though he might turn away, she’d persist, almost clawing at him, begging him to take her in his arms.

“Like…like we used to, you know?” she’d say. “When I felt so alive, instead of this… Instead of… Oh, Reggie, how did it all go so wrong?”

He was bewildered too.

“I love you, Reggie. You know that, don’t you?”

What could he say? That he didn’t know, not anymore? Rebecca was pregnant!

“Yes, yes, I know, Becca.”

“And you love me? Still?”

“Yes. But, Becca––”

“It’s just…sometimes you say the wrong thing, at the wrong time, and…and I can’t help it. I get so…angry. Yet you never seem to change – you do it again and again. But I am sorry for what I did. For what I do. Truly. Are you okay?” She never waited for an answer. “Things will settle when the baby arrives.” A small laugh followed – thin, brittle. “They’ll have to. We’re in this for the long haul. Always. Remember?”

He did – all too well, Rebecca then leaning back slightly, looking into his eyes – one of them bruised – before closing hers and pressing her lips to his mouth.

He’d make himself respond. Do whatever she wanted, just to please her. And while his body complied, his mind sifted through every word he’d ever said – a desperate hunter searching. What do I say that’s so bad? Where’s the tipping point?

In the bedroom, he placed her tea on the bedside table.

“There you go, love. A Christmas cuppa.”

He thought that might make her smile. She’d loved Christmas once – their first together, even their second. She’d taken charge of decorating the flat, insisted on it.

“Um…Reggie,” she’d say if he’d dared to hang something on the tree, “this is my gig, okay? Just leave it to me. Besides, that bauble doesn’t go there – it goes here. Yes, that’s it. That’s the perfect place for it. Silly Reggie.”

How cute he’d thought she was when she said that.

This year, he’d dug the decorations out of the cupboard where they were kept and almost waved the box at her as though it were candy and she a hungry kid. But she’d only shrugged, so he’d done it himself – and she’d proved herself right. He couldn’t do it as well as she had. What once shone so brightly at her touch now seemed subdued, pitiful, even – an attempt, no more.

But today, he told himself, would be a good day.

It was Christmas Eve. The baby wasn’t born yet, but they were still a family.

Perhaps…perhaps he should bend down and give her a hug. She seemed so despondent lying there – not even glancing at her tea – like a child herself. Lost.

What was it she was staring at so intently?

He drew closer and reached out.

“Becca––”

“We have to go.”

Her words were so sudden, so forceful, Reggie flinched.

“Go where? It’s––”

“Don’t say it! Don’t bloody say it! I know it’s Christmas. That’s why we have to go.”

He tried to placate her.

“Okay, love. That’s okay, but…go where? A lot of things won’t be open, they’d have shut early for the holidays. And the weather forecast doesn’t look great either. I mean…it is great if you’re a kid, I suppose. They say there’s a chance of snow.”

Snow on Christmas Eve. Last year it had stayed dry, and Rebecca had been so disappointed, scrunching up that perfect nose of hers because of it. She’d wanted snow. And this year she might actually get it.

That’s what he latched onto.

“Just imagine if it does! And we’re here in our cosy flat, drinking hot chocolate, watching it cover everything.”

“WE HAVE TO GO!”

Her scream was ear-piercing. What must the neighbours think?

She’d been quiet for days, and as much as that worried him, it was preferable to this…to the storm she could become in an instant, with the snap of her fingers.

With her tea cooling beside the bed, she tore back the covers and – as heavy as she was – rushed to the wardrobe, flinging clothes onto the floor.

“Becca, if there’s snow, it could be dang––”

“I can’t stay here. I…just. I can’t.”

Rebecca was speaking, but not to him – her words seemed directed elsewhere, her back still turned as she yanked a holdall from the wardrobe too, and began stuffing clothes into it. Summer clothes, of all things.

“The walls close in on me,” she said. “Closer and closer. Suffocate me.”

Reggie’s mind was as feverish as hers now. They couldn’t go to her family’s – he’d mentioned them once, and it hadn’t ended well. As for his own, he’d hardly seen them since meeting Rebecca. So where could they go? Who’d welcome them today of all days? A man and his pregnant wife.

Rebecca was dragging the bag out of the bedroom now, too heavy for her to lift, so he had to help her. Acquiesce. What choice did he have? And perhaps…she was right. The flat – perfect when they first moved in – didn’t seem that way anymore. Had he really never noticed the long crack across the ceiling? The wallpaper peeling at the edges? How hot it was in summer, how cold in winter? The stained carpet?

Rebecca was untidy, too. If she ate a chocolate bar in front of the TV, she’d toss the wrapper on the floor, then walk over it on her way to the kitchen for another snack. As for the bedroom, the only reason any of her clothes ever made it into the wardrobe was because he’d put them there – forever picking up after her.

Like a child, he thought again. She’s just like a child.

Something else he’d never seen at the start. How blind was it possible to be?

Rebecca was in the bathroom now, getting ready. He supposed he’d better throw some warm things into the holdall, some things for the baby as well…just in case.

It was cold outside when they left. Bitterly so. The clouds hung low and ominous.

And still she wanted to go.

It was freezing in the car too, Rebecca visibly shivering, as was he.

“Where to?” he asked.

“Just drive,” she said.

“Lottie, Lottie, this house…Reggie… I don’t think we should––”

“Cam, I know. I know. But…I don’t think we can stop it. Not anymore.”

She was still gripping Reggie, and Cam was still gripping her, and around them a maelstrom swirled. The very air itself – the atmosphere, the space between objects that always seemed empty – was anything but. It was alive, charged with energy held in check for years – pent up, restrained – now breaking fully free.

The bottle had been uncorked. The story almost told. Reggie’s face and body were rigid, but his heart – his poor, beleaguered heart – was not.

Rebecca had told him they had to leave the flat that day, to get in the car and drive. Just drive. She hadn’t wanted him to stop, even as the weather worsened the further north they travelled. The snow had come – not soft, beautiful flakes that floated down, but raging snow, a white fury so blinding Reggie had been forced to focus with everything he had just to keep them on the road.

Hours passed. Daylight faded. There was barely anyone else out there.

To be out in this was madness.

Madness.

Was that what afflicted Rebecca?

He’d thought it before – faintly – though always quashing the thought before it could take root. He knew she needed to see a doctor, yes – but for madness? And if so, what kind? What had caused it in the first place?

He’d been so close to her – her lover, the father of her child – and yet he’d never truly known her. Not her childhood, nor even much of her recent past. When the cracks began to show, he’d ignored them, just as he’d ignored so much else, believing they could rewrite history. Erase anything that didn’t fit their narrative.

A fairy tale.

That’s what he’d wanted to create. And for a while, he had. And not just him, she had too. Something to lose themselves in. Sublime.

Lottie was as worried as Cam about Reggie, about how he was going to withstand what was coming next, the unlocking of more and more doors.

But he had to, if he was to go on living.

The only one who had that day.

“Oh, Reggie,” she whispered. “I’m sorry. So sorry.”

Rebecca had told him to drive, and he had. In truth, he’d been too frightened not to, even though the storm outside had been terrifying. A force of nature, yes, but nothing compared to Rebecca and how she could be.

He’d driven and driven, the snow a tunnel of white. The more he focused, the heavier his eyes grew. He couldn’t keep them open, no matter how hard he’d tried.

Half shut, then wide again.

Half shut. Then wide.

Half shut…

Shut.

Lottie threw her arms around Reggie as the screech of tyres tore through the room – the violent crunch of metal, the shattering of glass – loud, too loud, as though it wasn’t just a memory but something immediate, happening right here, right now.

The crash. Inevitable.

Cam, too, had thrown his arms wide, encircling them both, not just her.

And then – silence.

Utter silence.

The snow still falling, but softly now.