Pepper's Ghost
Pepper’s Ghost
by Louise Andrews
It was Christmas Eve at the Liverpool Empire. Dad and me had come to see a production of The Nutcracker. I forget the precise year. It was perhaps nineteen ninety one, or maybe ninety two. I know it was the early nineties, for sure, because the video that is projecting from my memory is rich in Christmas colours. I can see bold, saturated reds. Greens and golds. And a lot of baubles, all in these colours. Because that’s what Christmases looked like then. Not so much of the frosty whites and elegant blues that dominate festive décor nowadays.
Dad and me were sitting in the bar area, outside of the main auditorium. Both of us in a cute armchair each. We were only missing a crackling fire between us. Dad was keen to get into the Christmas spirit, so he collected a brandy for himself, and bought me a red wine. We had been chatting away for five or so minutes when a young woman – about my age, which is to say twenty-five at the time – approached us. She was a very pretty girl, I don’t doubt. A Barbie doll she was; slender figure with a gorgeous smile. I knew her very well, but, for the life of me, I could not remember where from. She obviously knew Dad, because she was quietly giggling as she crept up behind his chair, and she shushed me by holding her index finger up to her lips. She didn’t want me to spill the beans because she was going to surprise Dad with a hug when he turned round. But Dad was too engaged in his brandy to notice anything. I thought she might have tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention, but she changed her mind.
‘One minute,’ she mouthed at me silently, and scurried away. She would be back presently, so it seemed. Dad and me returned to chatting about this-and-that, and about a minute later she was back – still chuckling away. I thought it might have been a Christmas cracker she was concealing behind her back, but I was wrong. She whipped out a thin metal wire, looped it over Dad’s head and pulled it round his neck, garrotting him from behind. The epidermis of his throat penetrated almost immediately and, not surprisingly, he dropped his brandy glass. He jostled back and forth violently in his chair and, as he did so, the girl strengthened her pull on the wire; swivelling it left and right in a flossing motion. Eventually he lost momentum and came to a complete stop. Blood foamed slowly from his mouth and I knew from his eyes that he was dead. The job was done, and the girl walked away with nonchalance.
It was only then that I remembered who she was. Her name was Hollie, and she was my favourite dolly from when I was a little girl. She was my Nutcracker, if you will. And just like the Nutcracker loved Clara, Hollie loved me enough to spring to life and kill the Rat King.
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