A Christmas Carole

Clanking chains and wise old ghosts aren’t quite what our long-suffering heroine expected for Christmas!

Christmas seemed to come around quicker every year, thought Carole. Once upon a time she’d loved Christmas but she’d come to dread it. Everything seemed heightened and pressured, everywhere seemed busy and noisy.

She hated standing in queues with armfuls of gifts she wasn’t sure Mark’s family would even like. They were so awkward to buy for – and as snobs of the highest order, looked down on her from a great height.

Carole loved Mark, or at least she thought she did, but she had no idea why any more. He’d hurt her so many times with his lies and deceit and inability to commit fully to the relationship.

She had been so looking forward to their first Christmas together three years ago, then at the end of November he had walked out on her for another woman. She’d spent that Christmas Day alone.

He’d returned to her on New Year’s Eve and she’d been so grateful that she’d welcomed him back with open arms.

They’d spent last Christmas with his family. She’d refused even a single glass of wine because she was so terrified of putting a foot wrong but instead she’d delivered a shoe-shopsworth of wrong feet. Mark’s sister had laughed when she’d taken a bread roll from the side plate on the right instead of the left one and she’d spilt soup all down her top in her nervousness. She’d thrown up after eating the rare lamb fillets for “supper” and kept calling his brother’s new girlfriend by the previous one’s name.

Now it was Christmas once again – and tomorrow she and Mark and his family were all going out for lunch to a very exclusive country house. Carole was dreading it. Not only that, she suspected Mark was seeing someone else again.

He’d angrily denied it, but she couldn’t shake off the feeling that she was right. Maybe it was something in her genetic make-up that attracted unfaithfulness.

Her dad had left her mum for another woman and her grandad had left her nan for the local barmaid. Even her beloved late aunt Mary had had her heart broken over and over again by her husband.

There was a knock on the door at eight o’clock. Carole opened it to find her neighbour, Tim.

“Carole, help me out please,” he implored. “Tell me you have a spare bag of plain flour that you could lend me. I’m cooking the lunch for the whole family tomorrow and if I don’t serve my famous Yorkshire puddings, I may be written out of the will.”

Carole laughed. Tim was a peach. Clark Kent glasses, tall and gangly, shy and awkward, but always smiling. He had the air of someone who was fun to be around.

“Mark not in?” Tim asked casually.

“He’s at his office Christmas party,” replied Carole, handing the bag of flour to him. Or at least that’s where he said he was. “Partners aren’t invited.”

“Oh,” was all Tim said to that. “Well, thank you and merry Christmas.” He smiled at the door. “I hope you have a lovely day tomorrow.” “And you,” said Carole. “Oh, we will,” said Tim. “The family are bigger fruitcakes than the Christmas pudding, though.”

Carole was awoken by the bedroom door creaking open and a figure walking in. Sleepily she presumed it was Mark. When she saw who it actually was, she sat up with a start. “Auntie Mary?” she gasped. The figure rattled her chains sorrowfully. She looked worn out and tired, stressed and upset, as she had always looked in life.

“Yes, it’s me,” the ghost replied. “And I’ve come to help you before you are weighted down with chains of your own making, shackled to an unhappy life. Carole, over the next three nights I am going to send you three spirits to guide you. Don’t be like me, my dear girl. Be happy and loved. Don’t waste yourself on a man who doesn’t value you.

“Three spirits,” she said again. “Listen to them and listen good, my girl.”

The chains clanked on the oak

“If I don’t serve YORKSHIRE puddings I may be WRITTEN OUT of the WILL”

floorboards as Auntie Mary walked through the wall and disappeared.

Carole didn’t like the sound of more ghosts visiting her. Even Mark’s relatives would be preferable to ghosts! She decided the thought of tomorrow’s lunch must have triggered off a rogue anomaly in her brain and settled down to sleep.

But just as she was nodding off she saw lights so bright, they shone through her duvet. Gingerly peeping out, she saw a shimmering figure in the spot her Aunt Mary had not long vacated.

“Hello, Carole,” it said. “I am the Spirit of Christmases Past. Would you like to come with me?”

As it held out its hand Carole watched her own hand come out to take it, as if the action were totally out of her control.

Carole felt herself spinning, as if she’d gone to bed after too many Mojitos. Then she felt solid ground beneath her feet.

She was in a disco – and there were her old schoolfriends from years ago. She saw herself there, a younger Carole with long, long hair and a cheeky twinkle in her large brown eyes that wasn’t there any more. The young Carole was comforting one of the group who was crying.

“He’s just not worth it, Diane,” she was saying. “Don’t you ever let anyone treat you like that.”

“Yeah,” agreed the girl at her side with short, blonde, spiky hair. “We don’t need boys who don’t recognise us for the goddesses we are.” All three threw back their heads and laughed.

“You’re right,” said Diane. “I’m finishing with him. Right now.” And off she marched across the dance floor to a chorus of applause.

“Oh! My old friends,” said present-day Carole with a shriek of delight. “We had so much confidence back then.”

“Some of them still do,” said the shimmering spirit, stretching out a finger towards Diane. “She married a man who treated her like a queen, didn’t she?”

“Yep. An Australian farmer. Worships the ground she walks on.”

“And Susan never took any nonsense either, did she?” said the spirit, pointing to the girl with the short blonde hair.

“Nope. She was brave enough to walk out on the groom at the altar when she found out what he’d been doing with her chief bridesmaid. She packed a bag, got straight on a flight to Hong Kong and now runs a major company out there.” “And married the MD,” said the spirit. “Did she?” asked Carole in surprise. “Good on her.”

Oh, she did miss that group of friends. They’d all gone their separate ways after college but she thought about them often and how sparky and brave they all were back then. Including herself. Where on earth had that feisty Carole gone?

The spirit took her arm. They whirled away from the school disco, landing in a different scene – a corporate drinks evening. It was where she’d met Mark.

Carole could barely recognise herself, even though it was only three years ago. She looked so much younger and fresher.

Her eyes drifted left and she saw Mark talking to a man she vaguely recognised from work. “Who is that?” Mark was inquiring. “Carole Robbins. Isn’t she hot and yet so cool at the same time?” came the answer. “But she’s just come out of a long term relationship so you’ve no chance.”

“I bet you fifty quid I can get her to go out with me,” said Mark. “Impossible. She’s impenetrable.” “Rubbish. I can smell the vulnerability underneath the ice. Her ego will be damaged and I can say all the right things to mend it. Put your money where your mouth is,” Mark said and they shook on it.

“I was a bet?” Carole shrieked at the spirit. She felt rocked down to her foundations.

The spirit took her hand and she felt its sympathetic warmth. She prepared for the spinning sensation again, closing her eyes. When she opened them again she was back in her bed with no idea how long she had been away for. She presumed, from what her Aunt Mary had said, a full day.

She had just reached over to check the time when the room glowed and yet another stranger landed in her room. The second spirit, she presumed. A tall, jolly man with a beard – not unlike Howard Keel in a thick fur coat.

He bowed to her and introduced himself as the Spirit of Christmas Present and reached out his hand towards her.

The room blurred and when the focus resumed, she found herself in a very opulent restaurant looking at a table full of Mark’s relatives with two empty spaces at the end. She hoped they couldn’t see her in her nightie.

“What time are Mark and the oik arriving?” asked Mark’s father irritably, looking at his watch.

“Along with her rubbish presents,” sniggered Mark’s sister.

“She’s a looker though, you have to admit,” said Mark’s oily brother, raising a glass of wine to his rubbery lips. “I wouldn’t mind getting her under the mistletoe. Mark always did like something good on his arm.”

“Somethings – plural,” corrected his sister. “He’s never actually been the faithful type, has he, though she’s too stupid to see that.”

“No education or breeding,” their mother concurred sniffily. Carole’s eyes flooded with tears. They really were a horrible bunch.

The spirit touched her arm and the scene changed. Carole looked around and saw that she was standing outside a hotel. Coming out of the revolving door was Mark with a very pretty blonde. He leaned over and kissed her cheek.

“I’ll call you,” he said to her. “Got to go. Family lunch. Happy Christmas.” Carole’s mouth dropped into a long O. “So there was no office party?” The spectre moved his head slowly from side to side. Then, once again, she and the Howard Keel lookalike moved seamlessly into a dining room of a house she didn’t recognise.

A family was crowded around a dinner table, wearing paper hats and laughing. There was real joy in the air. Then into the room, to a swell of cheers, walked Tim carrying a roast turkey on a plate.

“Tim, you’d make someone the perfect wife,” one of the men said.

“Trouble is, there’s only one woman he’s interested in,” said one of the ladies, winking at the others.

“Yeah, well, I’m obviously not her type,” said Tim. “I wish I were. She looks so unhappy with him. I’d treat her like a princess. She’s just so lovely.”

Carole looked around the room as Tim carved the turkey. There were pictures of him on the wall in a karate outfit with a black belt and lots of trophies for martial arts on shelves. He obviously wasn’t as meek and mild as she’d thought. She examined the rack of CDs and DVDs next to the TV and found they shared similar tastes.

Then she studied Tim, looked at him properly, and saw how kind his eyes were, how wide his smile. She wondered who the lucky woman was.

“Time to move on, Tim,” said the woman to his left. “You can’t keep shining a light for Carole for ever.”

And she thumbed towards the wall which separated their two houses. Carole squealed. “He fancies me?” The spirit nodded slowly and the room faded. Once again, Carole found herself back in the dark of her bedroom.

It seemed she’d barely closed her eyes when a new figure reached out and touched her arm with long spidery fingers. Carole felt herself lifted into the air and into a lounge, as if she had risen up through the floorboards.

She gasped to see an older version of herself with deep, unhappy grooves in her face and dull, sad eyes.

The room was full of expensive furniture but it felt so very cold. There was a single photograph on the wall of herself and Mark standing outside a church as a bride and groom, his family standing stiffly behind them. There were no photographs of children, she noted.

Older Carole was unfolding a scrunched up piece of paper. Carole moved to look over her shoulder and saw it was a hotel receipt for a double room.

A man walked in. It was Mark – older and fatter, with a too-smooth forehead and fake-dark hair. He was well-groomed and smug and his lips had acquired a default setting of a sneer. Older Carole shook the paper at him. “You’re seeing someone else? Again?” “Can you really blame me, Carole? Look at yourself. You really are a mess, aren’t you?”

More words followed, ones intended to wound but older Carole wasn’t even crying. She had obviously got too used to the lies and the deceit over the years.

“Take me home,” said Carole in her nightie. She couldn’t bear to see any more of what lay in store for herself.

But at the touch of the spectre’s hand, they moved up again into another room, as if they were in a lift.

She recognised Tim immediately from

“What TIME are Mark and THE OIK arriving?” asked his FATHER irritably

his smiling eyes. He had an apron on and a chef’s hat and a toddler a step behind him was wearing the same. The child was proudly carrying a bowl full of puffy Yorkshire puddings.

“Oh my – look at you two master chefs,” said a laughing voice from behind Carole. She turned and saw an alternative older self. A happy Carole with shiny eyes and shiny hair, a shiny, happy smile – and a large pregnant tummy.

Tim leaned over and gave pregnant Carole a very tender kiss.

Carole was fascinated at how beautiful the woman looked. It was amazing what a bit of love and care could do for someone. And it worked both ways because Tim was gorgeously handsome and looked taller and stronger for being with the woman of his dreams.

This spectre had certainly given her food for thought. They all had.

The room began to grow dark and once again Carole found herself back in her bed – and with plenty to think about. Was what the spirits had shown her true? Could she change her destiny? Be strong again? Could she banish sad Carole?

As the room lightened, Carole heard the front door open and close, then footsteps pad up the stairs and Mark appeared in the doorway. There was a smudge of lipstick on his collar and the faint scent of a woman’s perfume hung around him.

“Aren’t you ready yet?” he barked. “We’re supposed to be at the restaurant in less than half an hour.”

“What restaurant?” asked Carole, suddenly confused.

“Don’t be stupid, Carole. Christmas lunch. Durrr!” “It’s Christmas Day?” she exclaimed. “Have you gone mad? Of course it is!” snapped Mark.

So, the ghosts had visited her all in one night, not three, Carole concluded. She hadn’t missed Christmas Day at all.

On the bad side, she hadn’t missed a horrible Christmas lunch with Mark’s family where they laughed at her behind her back and scoffed at the presents she had so thoughtfully sourced for them.

On the good side, she’d carefully kept all the receipts. “I’m not going,” she announced. “What?” said Mark, crossly. “I’m not meeting up with your family. Ever again, actually. And I want your lying, cheating backside out of my house. Today.”

The shocked look on his face made her want to giggle. Clearly he hadn’t seen that coming. “Are you drunk?” he snapped. Funnily enough, that was exactly how she did feel. Drunk on the joy of never having to see Mark’s relatives again, drunk on the sensation of taking back some power, drunk on the prospect of sitting watching Home Alone, home alone, opening up a bottle of red wine and toasting a new Mark-less life.

No doubt she’d feel lonely in the beginning, but every time she felt a little weak or scared, she would remember sad Future Carole’s careworn features and slumped shoulders.

Mark departed, muttering darkly that they’d talk about this when he got back, but Carole didn’t care.

She felt extraordinarily light as she packed Mark’s things into a suitcase, as if weighted shackles were falling from her. Shackles of control and heartache. Now she felt light enough to fly around the room – almost like a ghost.

As Carole was about to put the case out on the doorstep for Mark to find later, there was a knock on her door.

“Hi, Carole.” Tim grinned. “I don’t suppose you have a spare colander, do you? Mine’s got holes in it.”

“Aren’t they supposed to have holes in?” replied Carole, bemused.

“Not big holes where I melted the plastic on the hob, they aren’t.”

“Come in,” chuckled Carole and Tim followed her inside, almost falling over the suitcase in the hallway. “Going on holiday?” he asked.

“Nope. I’m throwing Mark out,” she said brightly. There was a spring in her step as she walked into the kitchen. She hadn’t had a spring in her step for almost three years, she thought.

“Well, if you feel like joining us for Christmas dinner, there’s plenty to go round. And lots of Yorkshire puddings. I make a mean Yorkshire pudding.”

“Yes, I remember,” said Carole, quickly altering that to, “Er… I remember you saying so.”

“No one should be alone at Christmas. My family are all a bit bonkers but they’re great fun. We would all make you very welcome.

“Of course, I understand you might want to be by yourself but if you fancied it, we have everything you could possibly want or need to make Christmas jolly – sprouts, crackers, cheese with cranberries in it, beer, wines, spirits…”

She had to agree – spirits could make Christmas a very jolly affair.

“I’d like that very much, Tim,” she said with a smile that matched his both in sincerity and delight.

She felt DRUNK on the PROSPECT of watching Home ALONE, home alone