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“What is it?” asked the Spirit staring up at her seriously.
“No, it’s just that my mother phoned me the other night and because I was too busy and tired and didn’t want the stress I didn’t answer and never called her back. I wish I had. She’s all I have left.”
And then from behind her aunt came a man. Her father. She looked at his face, her memory of it had been blurred by so many years without seeing him. That was what he looked like.
He was young and handsome.
She had his eyes.
He wrapped an arm round her mother’s shoulders. She leaned into him and they shared a look. Edie’s tears flowed again.
“Is that your father?” the Ghost asked but Edie knew it was rhetorical. She nodded as she drank him in. She watched as her younger self skipped round the couple, laughing while her aunt looked on. She'd been totally secure in that world, a world she believed centred round her. How wrong she’d been.
The older Edie ached. When was the last time she'd seen her dad? It had been a long time ago. Not too many years after this wedding.
The Ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its basket saying, “Let’s see another wedding!”
The foliage grew and retreated, blossoms came and went, and little Edie went from six to thirteen in the matter of a minute. Her dress was now peach silk, and her body hovered on the threshold of adulthood. She was at that stage where she was neither fish nor fowl.
She picked at flaking paint of the gate, her face set in a sullen scowl.
“Hey Edie!” A bundle of blonde energy also in peach came running down the lane.
Teenage Edie’s scowl lightened and she smiled.
“Mel! Can you believe it, my mother won’t let me wear any make-up!” she grumped to her best friend. "She and Dad had the most massive row about it. God, sometimes I hate her. She never wants me to have any fun."
The older Edie felt the tears gathering. That had been the last big row she remembered them having, and then he'd left. Although she hadn't known that then.
And they’d rowed because of her.
“It’s alright,” the petite elfin face of Mel looked down, frowning as she rummaged through the funny bag that she clutched to her chest. It was a facsimile of a reticule and was done in the same shiny peach fabric.
“Here!”
Triumphantly she waved a set of cosmetics at teen Edie.
“Oh, I remember,” said the older Edie, her face alight with memories.
She watched her younger self inexpertly apply lipstick and mascara while her best friend held the small compact mirror in front of her.
“There! Tom will have to notice you now,” said Mel.
Little Edie’s face flushed hotly and clashed violently with the peach dress.
The watching Edie’s heart skipped a beat as she heard the name. The same way she knew her heart had skipped a beat all those years ago.
“Ah, so you remember Tom then?” the Spirit quizzed.
“How could I forget Tom,” Edie said. But she had. She’d buried all those memories deep, locked them away. Even when Mel had told her that he was the best man at the wedding she'd ignored it. Nodded and then carried on as if she didn't care.
Edie and the Ghost moved to follow the teenagers as they piled, giggling, into the flower decked horse and carriage that had pulled up in front of the gate.
“Do you know where they’re going now?” asked the flower girl Spirit.
“To the church,” she replied. “It was our teacher, Miss Stray, getting married. She was marrying Mel’s cousin, Charlie. Tom was, well, is his brother.
“He was fifteen that summer. And Charlie's best man and all I wanted was for him to notice me.”
The scene dissolved into soft focus and refocused with them back outside the church. Edie jumped.
“Saves time,” the Ghost apologised.
From the inside the church came the sound of the wedding march.
“Ready?” asked the Spirit.
Was she? Fizzing deep inside her was the teenager who wanted to see Tom again. She wanted to feel all the innocent pleasure of being in love for the first time all over again. That wrenching panic that they might never see you, might not love you back. But no matter what happened, you couldn’t stop the hope and yearning from filling you all the way to your fingertips.
“Yes,” she breathed.
Was this the last time her life had been uncomplicated? Mum and Dad had still been together and her world had been whole.
They walked up the path and went into the church; they went from the bright June sunlight to the cool darkness of the Norman church. They passed the font and began to follow the bridal party down the aisle.
“There’s Joanne Kitchner!” Edie squeaked. “My goodness last time I saw her she was screaming at her kids in the supermarket. Wow, she looks so young.
"Jessica!" she called as she passed a teenage girl. The young Jessica wore the same superior look as the ghost from the night before. The only difference was age and spots. "I'd forgotten she was at this wedding."
Edie tried to grab her attention by shouting.
"She can't hear you; this is just a reflection of your past. She isn't here," the Ghost said.
Edie sighed. It would've been useful to have an ally against the tiny tyrant. She moved on down the aisle.
“And there is Justin Douglas. My goodness, how all the girls used to swoon over him. Mel used to doodle Mrs Mel Douglas all over her books." Edie cocked her head on the side to look at the gangly adolescent whose hair was gelled to within an inch of its life and still wondered what Mel had seen.
“And you?” the Ghost asked as she skipped down the aisle in a parody of the flower girl she resembled.
“It was always Tom for me,” Edie sighed.
She remembered the love hearts she'd doodled with 'Tom + Edie 4 Ever' written in them.
They reached the bridal party; the teenage Edie was gripping her posy so hard her knuckles were white. Her face was flame red as her eyes kept darting to look to her right.
“There!” her older counterpart pointed.
It was Tom.
The Tom of all her adolescent dreams, the Tom who had turned into her dream man until she put those dreams away from her.
Standing solemnly next to the groom, watching the vicar and not glancing to the left at teen Edie or anywhere else, was a tall, slight man boy. His curly blond hair was ruthlessly held down by hair product so that only a slight wave was discernible. Edie’s fingers itched with the memory of those curls unfettered between her fingers, the soft springiness. The way he smelt.
Her heart turned over as her eyes traced his profile. A smooth forehead unblemished by the frown lines she had carved there. Mouth full and slightly smiling. When had she last seen him smile? There hadn’t been much smiling in that last year.
“How on earth are you doing all this?” she fought against the tearing feeling inside her. “Is this some complicated and sophisticated hologram? And who the hell told you about Tom?”
Yes this was better. Stop the maudlin memories. Edie rubbed her chest near her heart, she needed this to stop.
The Spirit raised an eyebrow, a very adult look on a six-year-old face.
“Edie,” she said with a hint of exasperation.
“Well I suppose anyone could have told you about me and Tom! I mean all these people were at the wedding…” Edie’s voice petered out. “I don’t know how you made it all so life like, it must have cost a fortune but I’ve seen what they can do in films these days.”
“You want more proof?” the little flower girl asked.
Proof? Hell yeah she wanted proof.
“Yes,” she said it and jutted her chin out.
The pain in her chest retreated as she wrapped herself in her familiar blanket of stubbornness.
The Ghost sighed dramatically.
The scene vanished in a blink of an eye.
It felt as if part of Edie was wrenched out and left behind.
A scene emerged around them; they were inside a marquee which had fairy lights strung on the ceiling mimicking a star-studded night. The flashing lights of the mobile DJ twirled to the beat of the music blaring from the speakers.
“Oh no,” Edie groaned.
“Well you wanted proof,” the Ghost said sanctimoniously.
“No really, I believe you,” she was desperate. “Can we just stop it now? Go back to my room? I’ve learnt whatever lesson you want me to learn.”
She couldn’t relive this again.
“So who is that over there?” piped the Ghost.
Surely it wasn’t against the law to hit a Ghost who looked like a six-year-old girl?
“Me,” she muttered.
“And what are you doing?”
No, she couldn’t hit her; knowing her luck this was really some precocious stage school brat whose parents would sue her for lost earnings.
“I’m…” the words stuck in her throat.
“Yes?”
“I’m dancing,” she said.
“Dancing? Really?” the Ghost was definitely trying not to laugh.
Edie’s face burned for her younger self. She wriggled in embarrassment for what was to come.
“I think we need to get just a little closer,” the Spirit said and for a six-year-old she had a freakishly strong grip and pull.
Edie got closer to the writhing flushed figure in peach silk. Oh God, had she really thought that she was dancing in a sexy way? Her puppy fat was spilling over the top of the dress and she was squinting up under her eyelashes. And to think she had spent hours perfecting her sexy gaze in the mirror thinking it would have a devastating effect on men. I suppose it did, she thought, devastating in a ‘run screaming from this girl’ sort of way.
She watched as the dance continued, her breathing increasing in time with young Edie’s. The anticipation that she knew she’d felt as she danced closer to her quarry; the unsuspecting Tom, who was leaning against one of the marquee poles. He was surveying the dancers whilst surreptitiously drinking a stolen glass of champagne.
“Hi…” young Edie croaked out as she wriggled in front of him. It really did look like she was trying to shed a too tight skin.
He hadn’t heard her.
“Hi!” she shouted.
It reached every corner of the marquee. Trust the damn DJ to cut the song for one of those shout back moments. Heads whipped round to look at her.
“Er… hi,” he replied uncomfortably. He took another swig of champagne. His eyes were desperately looking round for escape; or was it to check he hadn’t been seen with alcohol?
“Can I have some?” the teenage girl asked and the watching woman’s stomach knotted in synch.
“Well, you’re a bit young to be drinking,” he said, worried.
“I’m old enough! I’ve drunk champagne loads of times!” Twice at least and then only a sip from her Dad’s glass at New Year but this was Tom. She was going to lie, wasn’t she?
He looked at her, unconvinced.
“Walk away. Walk away,” whispered older Edie.
Oh God, it was like watching a car crash about to happen and having no way of stopping it.
“Come on, outside,” he said as he looked round and snagged the whole champagne bottle and sauntered out.
The teenage Edie glowed.
It made the older Edie shiver; she had never seen that look on her face before.
It was the look that Mel had when she looked at Barry. What her parents had once had. Even drippy Rachel had looked like that. Lit from inside with the wonder that was love. But what she saw on her teenage face was even purer.
This was first love.
It was an effing disaster.
