Epilogue - A London Haunting: A Christmas Ghost Story

Reggie’s grip tightened on her arm.

“It’s okay,” Lottie said. “Just a few more feet and we should be there.”

This wasn’t the first time the supposedly housebound Reggie had left No.142 Long Mere Road. Since Christmas, whenever the weather was dry, he and Lottie – often with Cam in tow – had taken walks around the block, going a little further each time. They’d even started catching buses: once to Mabel’s home, so he and she could talk books together, which they’d both enjoyed immensely, and again today, to get here. Tony had, of course, offered to drive them, but Reggie said he preferred the bus – taking in all the different faces and characters, so the bus it was.

They’d come to a cemetery in Plaistow, the one where Rebecca and their child were buried together. His first visit to it on a grey, grey day.

Lottie carried roses: red for Rebecca, white for the baby. Soon she would hand them over to him, so he could lay them himself.

Once again, Janice had been instrumental in helping Lottie with research – not into Reggie this time, but Rebecca Milner. Compared to his, Rebecca’s birth certificate had been easy to trace, as had much else about her: records of visits to a psychiatric hospital in London, some reaching back to her childhood. Several had been residential – short spells under care.

She’d been described as morose from an early age, prone to it. Her parents were noted as loving and attentive, wanting only the best for her. As she grew, however, the terms used to describe her had changed. She was noted as being rebellious, angry, and – as Reggie knew all too well – violent.

How long her treatment had continued, they couldn’t be certain – but the last record appeared in her late teens. Then, in her early twenties, she’d met Reggie, and what had struck him most about her, he said, was her happiness.

“That’s what you need to remember,” he’d said. “What I’m going to remember. When we collided in that shop doorway, she radiated happiness. Whatever came after, she was capable of it – a deep, intense happiness that wrapped itself around my heart. She was capable of love. Because that’s what we had between us. Love.”

“I know, Reggie. I saw what you had, and it was special.”

“The highs and the lows,” Reggie mused. “People are capable of such extremes, aren’t they? I just wish she’d been honest with me about her past. It wouldn’t have changed how I felt about her. It couldn’t have. But it might’ve helped me be more patient. We could have faced the lows together, instead of me just being afraid.”

“Did you ever meet her parents?” Lottie had asked, curious about them.

Reggie had shaken his head. “She said she’d become estranged from them. After the accident, I found their address and wrote to them – apologising – but no, I never saw them face-to-face. And Rebecca wasn’t willing to meet mine either, even when she became pregnant. You said her parents were described in her patient notes as being loving, and perhaps they were, Lottie – perhaps they were. Perhaps they tried their hardest with Rebecca before giving up. The way she was…was simply the way she was. The way she was born. Again, if I’d known, perhaps I’d have forced the issue more. If only we could go back, eh? Change things.”

Lottie had thought of Matt when he’d said that. “We’ll see them again, Reggie. I believe that.”

He nodded. “What we’re doing – saying goodbye – it’s only for now.”

“Exactly. So perhaps…farewell might be better.”

“Farewell?” He considered it. “Yes, I prefer that. It’s less final somehow.”

There it was – the gravestone, in among so many others, some green with moss.

“Take a deep breath, Reggie,” Lottie advised as they came to stand before it.

He patted her hand. “I’m all right,” he said. “Honestly.”

Not concrete, but a slab of black granite, the inscription etched in gold:

Here lies Rebecca Milner and her child.

Beloved. Always.

Reggie stood in silence before it, his head bowed. Lottie handed him the roses then stepped back, giving him the space – and the time – he needed with his family.

He was murmuring, and though she tried not to listen, his voice drifted her way.

“Whatever our souls are made of, they are the same.”

She recognised it immediately. It was from another of Mabel’s recommendations: Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. Lottie was currently reading it to Reggie whenever she visited, and he would sit listening intently, absorbing every word.

He hadn’t quoted it exactly – his and mine are the same was how it went – but what did a touch of poetic licence matter? It was the sentiment that counted.

The promise of it, no matter what had happened.

By the time he turned around, it had started to rain – a soft, cleansing rain, but Lottie didn’t want him to get wet and catch a cold because of it.

“The rain…” she said.

Reggie only shrugged. “I like the rain. It was because of the rain I met Becca.”

He looked around him, as if taking in all the others laid to rest there – those who’d come and gone, who’d perhaps loved as fiercely as Reggie and Rebecca had while they still had breath in their bodies. Some would have had happy endings, others not. There were no guarantees. Even so, he seemed to have decided something.

“It’s peaceful here,” he said. “You can feel it in the air, the calm. Whatever’s happened to whomever, it’s a comfort to know this awaits: peace.”

The rain grew heavier.

“Reggie––”

“All right, I’m coming, I’m coming.”

“We may need to find shelter,” Lottie said, sure she’d heard thunder rumble too.

Reggie only laughed. “Ha! Now wouldn’t that be something? Let’s do it. But Lottie, can we come again to see my family?”

“Of course!” Lottie said. “Anytime.”

“And do you see that grave over there?”

Lottie looked to where he was pointing – a grave just along from Rebecca’s, rather scruffy, belonging to a young man, only his name and the date of his birth and death etched there, no loving sentiment.

“Uh-huh,” she said.

“Perhaps we could bring some flowers for him too. I know he’s at peace, but…it’s a nice gesture still, don’t you think? Always good to know someone cares.”

Lottie linked arms with him. “It’s a lovely gesture. Definitely up for that.”

As they walked, Reggie drifted into thought.

“What is it, Reggie?” Lottie said, guiding him under a tree as thunder rolled again.

Dripping wet, the pair of them, but Reggie didn’t seem to mind, a drop falling off the end of his nose and making her laugh.

“You’re a carer,” he said.

Though not a question, Lottie nodded all the same, glad she’d secured more work recently with a new agency.

“Never stop caring, will you?” Reggie reached out to touch her face – the tenderest of gestures.

Lottie stared at him for a moment before whispering her reply. “I won’t.”

Then, “Rebecca loved Christmas. I know she did. But it was also a trigger for her, as our last Christmas together proved. I wonder why.”

Lottie shrugged. “I guess we’ll never know, but it’s the same for a lot of people – they love it and yet they don’t. It’s like Cam said, sometimes there’s just too much expectation around it. Maybe…maybe it was herself she expected more of, not you.”

“Maybe,” he said, before brightening. “Come on, let’s go home. I’ve something there I want to show you. It’s a bit of a surprise, actually.”

“A surprise? What kind of surprise?”

“If I told you, that would spoil it.”

“Oh, Reggie! I’ve had enough suspense for one year. Tell me.”

He relented. “It’s the photo frame – remember?”

“The photo frame? Yeah, of course.”

“Your mother took a picture of us when we had dinner that day.”

Christmas Day, he meant.

“Yeah?”

“I don’t know how she did it, but she got us all in, and she had it developed. Brought it over with the beef stew she dropped off just yesterday. It won’t…” He swallowed, a tear glinting in his eye, which he quickly wiped away. “It won’t replace my family, but it’s a photo I’d like to cherish anyway. One I want to keep on the mantelpiece, so I can look at it. Often. My…adopted family.”

“So you had the glass repaired, did you?”

“I did.”

“I can’t wait to see it, Reggie,” Lottie said with a grin as wide as any Cam could muster. “Now let’s get out of the rain and back on the bus, so we can do just that.”

“Oh,” he said as they left the shelter of the tree, “another thing.”

“Another thing?”

“I’ve bought more photo frames – several, in fact. Gone a bit mad, actually. It’s as you said, I want to try and cherish all the memories I make from now on. Just until…”

Lottie nodded. “Just until…” she echoed as they left the cemetery behind.