Brigid Coady - No One Wants to Be Miss Havisham

Sunlight streaked in the window and struck Edie in the eye. It had drawn its bow and unleashed it right on target.

She groaned. She felt like she’d drunk a crate of wine and then gone five rounds with Mike Tyson. What had happened?

The scent of jasmine, sweet pea and roses was still in the air.

The Ghost.

Edie sat bolt upright in bed.

A Ghost had visited her, just as Jessica had promised. This was actually happening. She started to shake. People like her didn’t get haunted. In much the same way people like her didn’t turn into vampires or go to séances. It just wasn’t done.

There was no logical reason she could come up with to explain it, though. Even if someone had managed to invent some sort of very high-end interactive experience it couldn’t explain what happened. There were things that were shown to her last night that no one else could have known.

She was going mad.

She stopped shaking.

Yes, she was going mad. That was much easier to deal with than hauntings. Obviously she was overworked and needed a good rest or something. Or some pills. Maybe an extended stay at a health farm. Odd that being mad made her feel better. As if she'd regained some control.

She swung her feet out of the bed.

They were grass stained and muddy.

She began to shake again. She looked closer; a pink heart-shaped piece of confetti was stuck to the little toe of her right foot.

Mad. Crazy. Certifiable. Chased by the little men in white coats loop de loo. If only that was the explanation.

“Oh my God!” she screamed catching sight of the alarm clock.

It couldn’t be ten o’clock?

She had to be at Mel’s in an hour and it was a good twenty minutes between here and there, even on a Saturday.

Confetti forgotten, the Ghost relegated to the back of her mind. Edie scrambled from her bed and ran into the bathroom.

An hour, later she pulled up outside Mel’s in Clapham South. She’d made it. She winced as she looked in the rear view mirror as she reversed into an available parking space. She had made it but her grooming hadn’t. Her dark hair, which had been damp and unstyled when she got in the car, was now windswept and curling into ringlets here and there. Her nose was shiny as she hadn’t had time to put on any make-up and she struggled to remember what she had stuffed, willy nilly, into the overnight bag for the weekend. She was sure she had forgotten something.

“Edie!” Mel screeched as she came to the door of the flat.

The terrace of houses, now mostly divided into two flats, was the same as pretty much everywhere in this part of South London. Built sometime in the late nineteenth century as family homes for commuters they now were family homes again, just cut up to a much smaller scale. Mel and Barry had the ground floor of a corner house, giving them a garden that came into its own in the summer.

“Edie! Come in! Come in!” Mel called, oblivious to her neighbours and their Saturday morning comfort.

Edie grimaced. Typically, Mel had demanded she was here on time and yet again she was running late herself.

Locking the Mini, Edie walked to the flat and wondered why she’d rushed. She could've at least taken the time to dry her hair.

“I’ll just be a few more minutes,” Mel promised as she ushered her in.

Edie followed her through the living room that the front door opened straight on to. The room was cluttered with fashion magazines and boy’s toys. Games consoles and mountain bikes.

Edie carried on down the narrow corridor and into the kitchen dining room at the back of the house. The summer sun streamed through the glass ceiling of the extension.

Mel disappeared into the bedroom while Edie settled herself on a stool at the breakfast counter and tried not to notice the sink full of dirty dishes. Edie itched to wash them and to stack the listing pile of magazines into a perfectly arranged tower. Instead she chewed on her thumbnail. The edge was ragged and she grimaced as she noticed the polish was almost completely gone.

“OK, Edie you have to promise that whatever happens I am NOT to snog anyone or do anything that I might regret tomorrow morning,” Mel called from the bedroom.

Regrets? Surely getting married would give Mel enough regrets. One more wouldn't break the bank.

“I’ll make sure!” Edie replied, because she knew that as a maid of honour she had certain responsibilities.

“Oh and I hope Mum will be OK. Aunty Celia has had to pull out so I’m not sure how she’ll feel being the only one of her generation at the weekend.”

“I’ll look after her,” Edie replied.

Thank God, she thought, another grown-up. Now there would be someone as uncomfortable with all the pink glitter and stupid games as she was. Maybe this way she wouldn’t miss Jessica’s acerbic asides so much.

Thirty minutes later Edie had persuaded, cajoled and threatened Mel into the car. As it was they would be cutting it fine to make it to Bath, or rather the house outside Bath that had been rented for the weekend, in time for lunch.

Edie roared out of Clapham and hoped that they would at least be in time for the manicurist and massage therapist some enterprising sort had booked to visit them that afternoon.

“OK, we have to be at the restaurant for seven thirty,” Jo, one of the other bridesmaids called over the high pitched and slightly hysterical voices of the hen party spread around the kitchen and living room of the Cotswold house.

“And as it said on the invite… LBDs, that is Little Black Dresses everyone! And I’ll be supplying the accessories.”

I’ll just bet you will, thought Edie.

She’d caught a glimpse of what looked like feather boas in a rainbow of colours in a bag that Jo had slipped upstairs. She had also overheard people talking about fairy wings and tiaras. Why didn’t they just tattoo ‘hen party’ on their foreheads and have done with it?

Edie went upstairs, her body more relaxed than it had been since the whole haunting thing had started. She might not enjoy the rest of the weekend but she had definitely enjoyed the wonderful massage. The therapist had set up his table and oils in the study cum library downstairs. The fact that the therapist was male and quite personable hadn’t passed any of the party by. And the manicure; she inspected her nails. Perfect. Now no one would know she was stressed.

The hen party included the other two bridesmaids, Jo, Mel’s best friend from uni and Sophie, Barry’s sister. Edie couldn’t work out why Mel thought she had to include her but maybe it was a love thing?

She shook her head; there was no point in worrying about it. They were stuck with Sophie. The rest consisted of Mel’s mum, Maggie, and a collection of uni and work friends.

In the master bedroom that she was sharing with Mel, Edie took her overnight bag and began to unpack. Her toiletries, nightdress and clothes for tomorrow were all there, but no little black dress.

“No,” she whispered.

She was sure she had packed it.

Edie thought back and suddenly she could see it in its dress bag still hanging on the back of her bedroom door. Put there so she wouldn’t forget it.

Yes, she was going mad.

“What’s up?” asked Mel as she came into the bedroom.

“I seem to have forgotten my dress,” Edie said quietly.

Mel’s mouth dropped open.

“You forgot something?” she came and sat on the bed, looking up at Edie concerned. “Are you OK, Edie? Is it work?” Edie noted that she didn’t ask if it were a man.

“No, I’m fine,” she said.

If you count seeing dead people as fine, she thought.

“Well, if you’re sure. You do seem a bit distracted…” Mel waited and looked at Edie expectantly. Edie wasn’t elaborating because if she did they would be on their way to the hospital rather than a nightclub.