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She lunged at herself. Her hands went straight through her own arms.
“We’ve got to stop her! I mean me!" she said.
“This is your past. You can’t change the past,” the Spirit said as she twirled gently to the music on the dance floor, making her skirt rustle.
“But she is going to be devastated. Mortified. For years she is not going to be able to look at champagne, never mind drink it. Or rather I won't." Edie was desperate and confused.
She had to stop herself from making this mistake. Again.
“You can’t change the past,” repeated the Ghost.
“Well I’m going to try!” she said.
She hurried across the dance floor, the dancers somehow avoiding her as if a force field surrounded her.
Her stomach felt as if it were round her ankles. Her skin flushed and then paled as she remembered; it crawled in repulsion at her stupidity. She’d relived it time and time again, woken up sweating on many nights. She couldn’t go through it again.
She burst out of the marquee into the deep dark night. The stars scattered across the sky, twinkling down, winking at her. Was the whole world laughing at her?
“Ow!” she heard a muffled shout.
It was beginning… her teenage self had just tripped over the guy rope to the marquee. If she turned around she would see herself. Her dress would’ve flown up and she’d be sprawled across the ground.
She turned.
Yes, there she was.
And she really had shown her knickers to the world.
“I’m fine. I’m fine,” young Edie said, voice high and squeaky.
“Give me your hand,” Tom said putting down the stolen bottle.
He held out a hand and hauled her up.
Old Edie had to stop this.
“Edie!” she shouted, “Edie, go back inside!”
No one answered.
She jogged over to the teenage couple and tried to grab young Edie’s arm. It passed straight through as if she were a ghost.
“You’re only a visitor here,” the small muffled voice came from the vicinity of her elbow.
“Really?” She was getting annoyed. “Well if that is the case where did you get the sausage roll?”
The Spirit gave a fake smile as she carried on eating the stolen sausage roll, then turned back to the couple in front of them.
“Oh dear”
Edie looked up.
Young Edie was attempting to pout sexily whilst leaning against a tree. It was less a pout and more a scowl.
And it was just about to get much worse.
“So can I have a drink then?” Edie junior croaked.
She really hadn’t purred in the sexy way she had thought.
“Have you got a cold or something? Because I’m not having your germs!” Tom asked.
“No,” she coughed. “No, I’m fine. No germs, honest.”
No germs. Nothing contagious. Because it isn’t like you can catch stupidity, the older Edie thought.
Tom passed over the bottle of champagne and young Edie took a large swig from it.
The watching woman’s nose itched in sympathy as the bubbles hit the teenager and started her sneezing.
“You have got a cold! Sheesh, Edie! I’ve got my exams coming up I can’t be ill!”
“No! It was the bubbles. I’m really OK.” She spluttered.
For a few minutes they stood sharing the bottle, passing it back and forth. The memory of that night came back to Edie and she remembered her mind had been racing like a hamster in a wheel trying to think of something witty to say. And how the champagne was acidic on her stressed stomach, making it roil queasily.
“Hey Tom!”
And suddenly there was Justin, and Edie was now the third wheel.
The relief on Tom’s face was just as hard to see a second time.
“Champagne! Good one! Hand it over, Dick!” Justin swaggered up.
Both Edie’s top lips curled at the offensive contraction of her surname. But the younger one silently gave up the bottle.
“Ciggie?” Justin expertly tapped out a cigarette from a pack he conjured up from his pocket.
Tom took one like a proper smoker and then the pack was in front of Edie.
“Don’t do it,” she whispered. Please let this young Edie make a different choice. “Don’t do it.” Her hand was at her mouth.
The teen reached out and inexpertly took a cigarette. It looked awkward in her straight fingers, the tube of tobacco too near the palm.
A flame erupted from the Justin's lighter and the two boys leant forward and lit their cigarettes.
Teen Edie leant forward, the cigarette trembling in her hand.
The sudden smell of burnt hair and hairspray fought with the jasmine.
“Silly mare, you’ll go up in flames!” Tom pulled her back and peered through the gloom at her fringe.
“You’ve taken off at least an inch. Here, take mine.”
Tom passed over his cigarette and took Edie’s unlit one; which he soon had lit.
The larger Edie groaned.
“That bad, huh?” the little Ghost whispered mesmerised by the scene, the half-eaten sausage roll was hovering by her mouth.
Bad? The worst was just a few drags away.
The glowing end of the cigarette wavered as she brought it up to her mouth. The teenage Edie sucked on it quickly and coughed out the smoke immediately.
“Have you never done this before?” Justin asked.
“Of course I have,” she spluttered.
“Yeah right! Well you’re supposed to inhale,” he said and proceeded to demonstrate.
Edie lifted the cigarette again. This time she inhaled.
The memory of the acrid smoke filling her mouth and then her lungs came burning back to her as she watched. Older Edie knew the moment when her teen body rebelled against all the abuse. Her older body tried to relive the memories as she watched herself experience them.
The terror from the lack of oxygen and her dizzy head added to the roiling stomach from tension and champagne. The eyes became wide with the dawning horror that the old saying ‘better out than in’ was about to play out. The sheer panic as her body convulsed, sides aching.
And then came the eruption.
All over Tom’s shoes.
Mortification flooded both of Edie’s bodies.
“Ahh man! That is gross!” cried Justin.
Bent over, all the young Edie could do was throw up again and again, tears dripping from her nose until they were the only liquid left for her to expel.
She had wanted the earth to swallow her up then and there. Even all these years later she would happily wish for it again. She watched as Justin backed away in disgust. Hadn’t Tom gone as well?
But he hadn’t. She didn’t remember him staying. She watched open mouthed as she saw Tom hesitantly raise his hand and slowly rub her young back in sympathy.
He’d rubbed her back?
Dumbfounded, the older Edie watched. How come she had never known that he’d stood there rubbing her back? She would’ve known surely.
“Go away!” rasped the teen.
And he went.
Edie looked at herself. The bedraggled vomit sprayed hair, the green white face with black streaks from too much mascara, which had now been cried off.
“Take me home,” she turned to the ghost. “I’ve learnt whatever you wanted me to. I’ll agree to anything just let me go home.”
The flower girl looked up at her pityingly.
Pity. Edie cringed. She wasn’t pitiful, goddammit.
“There are a few more things you have to see,” the Spirit said solemnly.
“No!”
“No?” the Spirit raised an eyebrow.
“No. N.O. I’ve had enough of this circus, I want to go home to my own bed.”
“Oh you’ll be lying in your own bed soon enough, wrapped in a chain,” the Spirit retorted.
A small sprinkle of pink glitter fell from its fingers.
Edie shuddered.
Not the pink glitter.
She caved.
“OK, your way then,” she sighed.
Chapter 6 (#u8bd58e47-96b6-5dac-b5db-dc2174be9bbf)
Another fade out. And then fade in.
Another wedding reception, she recognised the Little Hanningfield village hall again. Green and white bunting and streamers covered the walls and the ceilings. Lights flashed as the disco played on the small stage at one end, the stage that had held the annual nativity play but now played host to a middle aged man who was dad dancing behind the decks.
Tables at the other end were groaning with a buffet of pork pies, sausage rolls, cheese and pineapple hedgehogs and sandwiches, punctuated by bowls of crisps.
The hall was full of people either hanging round the food or in the middle of the floor, dancing. They were dressed in the style people had worn when she was at university.
The she caught sight of herself, happily dancing with Mel. Her hair was much longer, her face smiling. Glowing with hope and ideals.
“This was Justin Douglas’ wedding,” she said, remembering, “It was my final year at uni. Mel and I were invited for the evening do. She said it was the wake of our childhood dreams. She had still been hoping Justin would marry her."
She smiled as she watched herself twirling Mel around wildly by the hand, neither of them caring about the boys who were circling them on the dance floor.
“We were so happy that summer. We’d got jobs at the local pub.” Her foot tapped along to the beat of the song. “We thought we could rule the world.”
She missed the certainty that everything would somehow come out right. She didn't know why, she already knew by then that life wasn't fair.
And then she saw him. He was just coming through the door. Tom. He was taller than he'd been at his brother's wedding and his shoulders had filled out from the rowing she knew he’d taken up at Oxford. His hair was longer and not suppressed by hair gel. The curls and ringlets were spiralling onto his forehead.
