Mid-Week Musings 4

Christmas thoughts and Christmas ghosts

My residency is done!

It should have been done at the end of November, but here we are, on the first day of December - and it’s time for a last look at ghosts (at least with me. I am sure you have ghosts of your own).

Charles Dickens wrote the most famous Christmas ghost story : A Christmas Carol.

There are plenty of movies and plenty of stage shows of that novella, but, if you can, settle down and read it for yourself. It isn’t long. I read it every Christmas-time. Usually over 3 days, to follow the movement of the 3 visitations by the ghosts.

A strong text can handle endless variations, but it is such fun to go back to the source. Especially when it is a story everyone feels sure they know. When you think you know something, that’s where the surprises are…

The ghost story was the great gift to world literature, from Britain, in the 19th century. Foggy streets, mist-bound rivers, dark alleys, mossy churchyards, mephitic vapours, gaslights, too much gin, collective guilt, personal terrors, and a deep belief in an afterlife, with consequences. Ghosts were human once. One day we will be ghosts.

Scrooge is visited by 4 ghosts; that of his 7-years dead partner, Jacob Marley, and then, the spirits of past, present, and future. These guides take Scrooge on a tour, just as the spirit of Virgil takes Dante around the Inferno. Other-worlds need a guide. That is guaranteed. The outcome is not.

I like to set a place at my Christmas table for the Uninvited Guest. We have lost our loved ones over time. Recently, perhaps, we have lost more than we should. Why not remember them when the road between worlds is passable? OK, so you may need a 4-wheel drive, but it’s do-able.

We greet those who are gone because we need to - or because they need us to - and no-one knows how this works. For myself, I like the sacredness of memory. Come in. Come home. This is likely just a ritual and not a spell. I don’t care. The ones who mean most to us are always welcome.

I used to spend some part of every Christmas with my great friend Ruth Rendell. Ruth was a terrific crime writer. She helped me when I was a young woman, and I wrote two of my early books on her country estate. Her only son lives in America, so mostly, Ruth and I, in England would arrange to be in the same town over Christmas. If you have a look at my short story collection, CHRISTMAS DAYS , there’s a great red cabbage recipe in there from Ruth.

(And some spooky ghost stories).

After Ruth died, I wasn’t sure what to do, that first Christmas. I had my own world going on, of course, but time with Ruth had been part of my life. I met her when I was 26 and she was 58. She died in 2015, when she was 85. It was a long friendship.

A strange thing happened to me on Christmas Eve 2015. The first Christmas without Ruth.

My house was lit with candles. The fires were bright. I had brought in green branches and berries from the wood. The smell was ginger and cloves. I was expecting friends.

I went to find some classical music - Ruth loved Handel. I thought I would play The Messiah. I turned on my computer, and for a single split second, Ruth’s face flashed up on the screen. Not serious Ruth but laughing Ruth. This was a good joke and she was behind it.

It happened. I don’t know what to say. I can’t explain it. It has never happened again.

It doesn’t need to. Not everything in this life can be understood. But it can be felt.

I will write some more of these musings throughout December. I might even post a Christmas story. For now - enjoy the best month of the year, when hearts are wider, minds are reflective, and the distance between this world and others is less than usual. Let yourself be part of the Spirit of Christmas.