Chapter 9: Nine - A London Haunting: A Christmas Ghost Story

Her commute to work was very different now. More often than not, she was hunched against the rain instead of squinting through blinding sunshine, the wind biting at her heels, with leaves from the trees – this pocket of London surprisingly green – drifting alongside her in shades of gold and brown as she hurried on foot after the bus ride.

Still, there was something about autumn Lottie loved – the cosiness of it. The days might be shorter, but the early evening glow spilling from houses and shopfronts created a comfort of its own. Then, at night, after the return journey home, it was bliss to curl up with a mug of hot tea and something on the TV, her mum and Tony beside her – their house a haven after spending the day at Reggie’s.

Because his house – bleak in summer, just as it was now in autumn – would likely stay that way in winter too. She’d find out soon enough, now that she was fully installed there, the pair of them having carved out something of a routine.

She’d finished Great Expectations and not once during it had Reggie Lord fallen asleep, even when she read for two or three hours straight. He hadn’t commented either as the story unfolded, no matter how many times she’d tried to draw him in.

Miss Havisham especially had fired Lottie’s imagination, Pip’s mysterious benefactor and Estella’s cold adoptive mother, a once-radiant heiress who’d been abandoned on her wedding day.

“Imagine that, Reggie,” she’d said. “To be left like that, on your wedding day. I mean, it’s little wonder she was so traumatised, don’t you think?”

But he’d given her nothing. Awake, yes. Listening, maybe. Reacting, not at all.

Wantonly deaf.

Still, he never stopped her from reading. If anything, just after she’d had her lunch, he seemed to settle in his chair expectantly.

So she carried on, increasingly enthralled by the mystery of the convict in the marshes, by all the secrets unfolding, the twists and turns.

But Miss Havisham – she couldn’t help coming back to her.

“She never takes off her wedding dress, Reggie – did you get that? The wedding feast left to rot on the table. She’s frozen in time, isn’t she? But she’s cruel too, what she does to Estella, raising her to break men’s hearts instead of letting hers be broken. It’s vengeance, that’s what it is. Drawn out over years. One man betrayed her, so all men must suffer. Poor, poor Pip, dragged into her web the way he was.”

No. Damned. Response. Not even a shrug.

Lottie loved and loathed Miss Havisham in equal measure, but at the end…ah, at the end, she could only love her, spilling tears over the last paragraphs.

“Now that was a good read, wasn’t it, Reggie? I think Miss Havisham might even be my new hero, you know? God, if only my English teacher could see me now.”

And Matt. If only he could too.

After finishing the book, she went back to Mabel’s, and Mabel, at least, was delighted by her excitement.

“And the man you read to – sorry, love, what did you say his name was again?”

“Reggie Lord.”

“Ah, yes, that’s it. Did he enjoy it?”

“Immensely,” Lottie said – a lie, or at least she thought it was – but a harmless one. “So, what’s next?”

“Still want to stick with Dickens?”

Lottie shrugged. “Why not?”

“David Copperfield, then. Another coming-of-age story – one of Dickens’s personal favourites, much of it drawn from his own life. Yes, yes, I’m sure you’ll both love it,” Mabel declared. “Oh, I’m just so pleased you’re enjoying the books, as dear Jonathan would be, God rest his soul. You’re giving our collection a new lease of life, that’s what you’re doing. Now come on, sit down, and let’s talk Miss Havisham, shall we? Do you really think her ending makes up for all she did to Pip and Estella?”

They chewed the cud, the pair of them – another phrase Lottie had picked up from her work with older people – discussing the merits of each and every character well into the evening. Then she went home with David Copperfield, eager to start before bed, but forcing herself to scroll TikTok instead – waiting to share the moment with Reggie, because reading together…it had become their thing.

Even if he showed no interest.

Even if he stayed resolutely awake.

But that might change. With the days darkening – sometimes gloomy even before four – he’d finally start napping. In all her time there, Lottie had never seen him sleep. No more stumbling into his room and waking him. He was always conscious. Always waiting. Stoic, unyielding – while she herself often yawned by mid-afternoon.

At least his room was cleaner now. The takeaway cartons disposed of daily – most of them from Chicken Cottage lately, she’d noticed.

She’d tried to talk to him about it, offering to bring some home-cooked food. When her mother found out he lived on takeaways, she was apoplectic.

“That stuff’s covered in grease and fat,” she bellowed. “It’ll kill him!”

Tony tried to calm her. “It hasn’t so far, though, has it, love?”

Jenny rounded on him. “Don’t you care he lives on nothing but takeaways?”

“Aye, I do,” Tony said, “but a man has a right to live how he likes. He’s with it enough, isn’t he?” he’d asked Lottie.

“Yes,” Lottie replied. “His notes mention early-onset dementia, but I’ve not seen any real sign of it so far. As for his medication, he manages it himself – won’t let me near it. Despite all that, though, he seems okay, you know…relatively speaking.”

“He might have earned a bit of indulgence,” Tony suggested but Jenny was fuming still.

“Indulgence, my foot!” she countered. “I’ll cook for him myself – good, nourishing stews. Something hearty. Food that won’t cause a heart attack.”

Lottie had told her she always took extra sandwiches or a salad in for him, her flask of tea filled to the brim, but he always refused to join her.

“All he wants is company. If that’s the job description, Mum, what can I do?”

Jenny huffed. “If he eats like that, it’s a death wish he’s got, I’m telling you.”

“Mum––”

“Strange way to be. Bloody strange.”

Something Lottie couldn’t disagree with. A strangeness she returned to day after day, still with no real idea who the man she spent so many hours with truly was.

The fan was gone, and the heating was on. It had creaked into life and worked well enough – too well. The one room Reggie lived in still felt tropical.

“Is it on in other rooms?” Lottie asked. Locked rooms, she nearly added.

“Some,” he said with a shrug. And that was that. Subject closed.

It was the last day of September, and she’d tidied while he went through his usual morning ablutions in the bathroom, keeping an ear out for his well-being. She’d noticed it lately, how, when he left the room, he didn’t walk as tall as he once had. His back was more stooped, his steps slower. He leaned more on furniture or the wall to propel himself along. He was eighty-four. A good eighty-four. But perhaps her mum was right – maybe he had a death wish. Killing himself slowly, slowly, and of all things, with takeaway food.

She held a Chicken Cottage bag in her hands, the smell of the bones he’d gnawed clean and the few chips left inside turning her stomach. She could have a word with Sarah at the agency, flag it up. It had gone on for too long. Tony’s argument – and Sarah’s – that a client had the right to live as they wished, especially as they neared their end, was fair. But Jenny had a point too.

If Sarah didn’t act, maybe she’d phone Chicken Cottage herself and demand they stop serving him. He simply couldn’t keep bingeing on fried chicken. Not if he wanted to see Christmas. Which he did, didn’t he?

The tree downstairs – since she’d started there, she and Reggie hadn’t spoken of it. It wasn’t so much a decoration as the proverbial elephant in the room, ignored, yet impossible to miss. Christmas was coming, though. That, at least, would give her an excuse to bring it up – to ask why it stayed, when he’d put it there, and what else he kept hidden behind those closed doors, to which she had no idea where the keys were.

After stuffing a few bits and bobs into a bin bag – used tissues, yesterday’s newspaper, and a handful of leaflets he’d clearly been handling – she carried it all to the outside bin. The room wasn’t bad now, not with her keeping on top of it, but oh, how she still longed for some fresh air to circulate!

Returning to the room, her eyes snagged once again on the empty photo frame. She still hated how blank it was. Something meant to hold a memory, hollow instead.

David Copperfield… She’d get on with it soon, after pottering about a bit more while he did the crossword. She’d asked a few times to help with the clues, but he’d only shaken his head and carried on alone. After that would come her lunch break, where, as usual, she’d try to tempt him with one of the extra sandwiches she always brought along – some crisps too, even a Kit Kat or a Snickers bar.

Every day she made a plan. And every day she hoped he’d take the bait – to chat a little before or after reading, to open up, show some spark.

Ah, there he was now – finished in the bathroom and shuffling back.

Shuffling. Growing older before her eyes.

How – how – to break through to him? Every effort fell flat.

She met him at the door, reaching out to steady him, to touch him, to connect, but he recoiled, brushing her off, muttering something she only just caught.

“I can manage myself, thanks.”