The clock struck one once more. Three times in the last hour and still no sign of the Christmas ghosts, thank the Jesus. Christmas ghosts, how he’d enjoyed them as a boy. Haunted dolls houses, lost slaughtered hearts, apparitions in the cloisters of a misty midnight cathedral. Christmas ghosts on the television, on the radio, in the books that he’d read. Christmas ghosts, an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato. Yes, there’s more of gravy than of grave in Christmas ghosts - whoever they may be.
He smiled. If only it were really that simple. The clock struck one again.
He’d made the dolls house, unhaunted and with the fanaticism he seemed to do everything back then, night after night until perfection was reached. But still the apparitions had come and gone like shadows passing across the landscape, never quite sure, not quite able to say definitively that yes, this was not what it seemed. A slow haunting and how quickly passion can change, how quickly love can dull into routine. Lost hearts - so easy to lose heart - lost hearts, lost chances, lost time, the tick of the clock and then one once more. Hickory Dickory Dock, just a running mouse after all. Bong.
Of course, everything always started well. Well, if it didn’t why start it? But life and love is complicated, interesting at first but after a while, not all tinsel and mistletoe kisses and even Christmas Day becomes dull once the dinner is eaten and the turkey legs are bones. Christmas ghosts. He stared at the whisky whirling in the glass, ice cubes glinting in the Christmas tree lights, round and round and almost hypnotic, taking him back as the clock struck one as the Christmas ghosts appeared conjured by the deep heady spirit.
‘He’s been!’ The sound of laughter as they rushed down the stairs frantic for the ripping off of the paper, not bothering to read the tags. After all, who cared where these things came from? Who cared? They were all from Father Christmas, weren't they? Surely the elves had made the doll’s house, tall and slim, red-bricked over three floors with a shiny brass 10 on the deep red door and a dark slate roof. Laughing, ripping, a frenzy of paper and discarded ribbons, over in minutes with an excess of gold-foiled chocolate coins, perfume, and wine.
The past. All ghosts now, shadows flitting in and out of his selective memoried mind, dreams that awoke him sometimes in the night to a damp pillow and a sense of loss that he could never quite lose completely. Loss, the ghosts of Christmas past. The whisky whirled in the present, still catching the glow of the Christmas lights. He topped it up and toasted himself. ‘Merry Christmas to me’, he declared quietly and almost without any bitterness at all, almost but not quite.
Oh well, Christmas was not the time for bitterness, a bad time to wallow in the memories of the past. He’d bought the doll’s house in real red brick and grey slate, tall and thin with a shiny brass number 10 and a brass knocker on the door. He’d fitted it himself, screwing the brass screws into the wood. Knock-knock, who’s there? Who’s there? Dreams made reality with hard work and effort and time, full of noise and the stamping of feet on stairs and then suddenly, emptily, silent. How pointless it seemed in the glowing light of this present time, the past blown to the winds, so hard to catch hold of, even at Christmastime. Just one Christmas it had lasted and then, as he always knew it would, the dream was over and gone, and the house echoed in its own quiet emptiness so full of old ghosts.
‘Merry Christmas to me’, he declared quietly, lifting his glass and toasting without any bitterness at all, well almost.
The clock struck one. Yes, time had moved on and the present was fine. It didn’t do to look for the ghosts of Christmas past and court the memories that they always seemed to bring. In the words of the song ‘let it go’, he thought. But letting go was so hard, so very hard to admit the loss of the past even with the gain of the present. He was sure that if he examined the knocker screwed to the door outside - made brass-monkey by cold Christmas air - the angel would be gone and replaced with what? Marley? No, not Marley, Marley was fiction. With the angel gone it would be his own face that he saw staring back at him. His own ghost, the one he’d made for himself and would always haunt him. Angels weren’t made to last. ‘Merry Christmas to me’.
He raised his glass and toasted the future yet to come. His own face reflected in the swirling liquid glass and made amber and oriental by the deep peat of the whisky. A wise man maybe? He laughed at the thought. No wisdom here, no wise man, only the same old ghost.
The clock struck one.
