by Mandy Baggot
‘Emily!’
It was her mother’s voice and it was an agitated cat-hiss of the highest order. And then Emily actually looked at her mother properly. She was standing next to her dad and it became immediately apparent why this had been classed as a ‘situation’. Her mother was dressed elaborately as something akin to Cleopatra, a short white tunic, gold sandals despite the freezing temperatures outside, complete with black wig, headdress and thick winged eyeliner. William was a definite King Herod with what looked like a very realistic crown and a tabard that was a little too tight.
‘Emily! Why is no one dressed up?! You specifically told me it was fancy dress!’ Alegra exclaimed.
The text her mother had sent! The night Ray’s news had broken! The joke message she had returned! She had meant to follow it up with something sensible later. Emily hadn’t even thought about it again. There had been too much going on. Laughter was bubbling up inside her now, but she shouldn’t. She couldn’t. Could she?
‘Emily! What’s going on?’ Alegra continued to wail. ‘No one is dressed in costume! No one!’
‘That’s not actually true,’ Emily said quickly. ‘There are thirty-three children behind that red curtain on stage all dressed in costume.’ She took her mother’s arm and turned her slightly so she was facing the other end of the room. Was that one of Felix’s arms she could see poking out of the drapes? Ray shouldn’t have left Jayden in charge…
‘But I’m not part of the show!’ Alegra squealed. ‘I’m part of the audience.’
‘Would you like to be part of the show?’ Emily asked. ‘Because Nazareth had many, many villagers.’
William scoffed, his fingers going to the crown on his head. ‘I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Emily, but your father is in fact the king.’
‘You look great,’ Ray told him. ‘Where did you get that crown from? The queens have crowns from eBay, but yours looks really really authentic.’
‘Well,’ William said, removing the headwear and showing it to Ray. ‘I borrowed it from a friend. Prince Michael said it was just hanging around in a display cabinet.’ He smiled. ‘Rubies and sapphires.’
Her dad was literally wearing the Crown Jewels to her school’s Christmas show.
‘Emily!’ Alegra whined. ‘This is unacceptable. What are we supposed to do?’
‘Well, you could sit down and enjoy the show knowing that, dressed in costume, you will be having an almost fully immersive experience… or I could find you a tabard the children wear for painting… or an apron Penny wears for cooking the school dinners.’
Alegra looked like she might weep.
‘I quite like being a king,’ William announced, putting the crown back on his head. ‘Do you remember Tintagel, Alegra?’
Emily watched her mother’s features soften a little.
‘It was all high jinks that weekend, culminating in that drama we put on. You were my Guinevere that night.’ William slipped an arm around his wife’s shoulders. ‘And tonight, you’re my Cleopatra. I do believe she was the fifth wife of Herod.’
And apparently her dad had done his historical research for cos-play at her school… Could this evening get any more bizarre?
‘Well,’ Alegra said, leaning a little into William’s arms. ‘When you put it like that.’
‘Good,’ Emily said, clapping her hands together. ‘Find seats. I have a show to direct. Ray, come on, you should be checking the piano right now.’
Sixty-Six
‘OK, everybody, you’re doing so, so well!’ Emily said to her class as they took a second behind the curtain while scenery was moved. ‘You’re all singing beautifully and loudly, and no one’s forgotten any lines.’
‘I forgot to mention the battered sausage,’ Angelica said, tears springing into her eyes.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Emily reassured.
‘But it was supposed to be “and Mary loves a battered sausage with Ralph of an evening” at the end and I forgot,’ Angelica continued.
‘It was probably a good thing,’ Emily answered, tying a cloak around Cherry. She didn’t quite know what she had been thinking when she wrote that line. It was quite close to the mark. She hadn’t wanted to turn the children into Frankie Boyle.
There was that hair product smell again. Where was Jayden?
‘We have forty seconds!’ Matthew announced, the stopwatch Emily had put him in charge of in his hand. ‘Thirty-nine, thirty-eight…’
‘Jonah!’ Emily exclaimed. Her best friend was behind the scenes, putting hair clay into Jayden’s hair. ‘What are you doing here? You’re meant to be watching.’
‘I have been watching,’ Jonah answered. ‘It’s brilliant, Em! Absolutely brilliant! I just noticed, under the lights, Jayden’s hair needed a bit more magic so…’
That’s why she knew the scent! Jonah’s hair products…
‘I smell of coconuts now,’ Jayden informed with a grin.
‘All the England footballers wear this in their hair, you know,’ Jonah informed.
‘I’ve got forty seconds before the next scene,’ Emily informed, pulling a stray piece of cotton from Jayden’s waistcoat.
‘Thirty-two!’ Matthew piped up. ‘Thirty-one, thirty…’
‘How is it being received by the bishop and his suffragans?’ Emily asked Jonah. ‘I can’t really see very much from the wings.’
‘One of them pulled out a bag of popcorn,’ Jonah informed. ‘Literally from under his robe. Even Allan was appalled.’
‘That has to be a good thing though, doesn’t it?’
‘Of course it is,’ Jonah said. He put a clay-covered hand on Emily’s shoulder. ‘How could they not enjoy this show? It’s like a cross between a hilarious version of Songs of Praise and Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway.’
‘And they haven’t even seen the llama yet,’ Emily said taking a deep breath.
‘There’s a llama?!’ Jonah exclaimed, his expression a picture of astonishment.
‘Currently leaving the contents of its bowel in a makeshift litter tray,’ Emily answered. ‘Thank Jesus for shredded paper and sand.’
‘Twenty seconds!’ Matthew yelled. ‘Nineteen, eighteen…’
‘OK, queens! Are you ready for your big song? Everyone get ready to find their places when the curtain goes back,’ Emily instructed.
‘Miss Parker,’ Jayden said suddenly.
‘Yes, Jayden.’
‘I like it that you don’t look sad anymore,’ he told her.
She swallowed away emotion as his words settled on her. She was happy. Amid the stress of this performance she was actually happier than she had ever been.
‘I like it that you don’t look sad anymore too, Jayden,’ she said, quickly regrouping.
‘It’s quieter now my dad’s gone,’ he admitted. ‘Mum says she’s gonna try and get a better place with a garden.’
‘That’s fantastic news,’ Emily told him.
‘Oh, Jayden,’ Jonah said ruffling his hair a little more. ‘Don’t make me emotional. I can’t style hair if I’m emotional.’
Emily smiled at her student, hoping and praying that this December was going to bring a new start for everyone. ‘Come on, Mr Innkeeper, it’s time for you to make room in that stable.’
We Three Queens – to the tune of ‘Last Christmas’ by Wham!
Last Christmas I gave you some myrrh
But on Boxing Day you gave it to her
This year to not break my heart
I’ll give it to Baby Jesus… x2
*Dance break*
You broke my heart, I don’t know why
I didn’t get that you were someone else’s guy
Tell me maybe, did you really like me?
Or was it just because I’m part of the monarchy?
Happy Christmas, I’ll give it to the baby
With some gold and nappies bought from Sainsbury’s
Now I know what love can mean, I finally realise how crazy stupid I’ve been
Choru
s x 2
*Dance break*
Sandy desert, no more mince pies
Hiding from you and your Insta lies
Good gosh I thought you were someone really super,
But hey, I guess you still weren’t Bradley Cooper
Faced with three camels who do nothing but fart
We’re queens on a mission, stop the world from falling apart
Ooo, now we’ve found our real calling we won’t need you again
Chorus x 2
Faced with three camels…
Emily stared out into the darkness as the audience burst into another round of applause and cheers. It was one of her favourite songs of the entire performance and Alice, Angelica and Cherry made fantastic queens, with all the dance moves completely nailed. She watched them curtseying and bowing and soaking up the clapping… and getting completely out of character.
‘Into the stable!’ Emily hissed from the wings. ‘Stop bowing!’
‘The baby is here!’ Jayden called out over the audience’s reaction, signalling that the time for moving the show on had arrived.
‘It’s not here yet!’ Jennifer, Emily’s Mary called. ‘One… more… push!’ She let out a gut-wrenching grunt even better and more realistic than in any rehearsal and the baby doll flew out from under her gown faster that anyone had anticipated.
‘Baby Jesus! Baby Jesus!’ It was Felix the carrot who caught the doll before it catapulted off the stage and he kissed it on the face before dropping it head-first into the manger.
‘The baby was born, and the last visitor arrived to see the new King of Kings. A cute and cuddly llama came all the way from Lakeside Llama Petting Zoo. This llama won’t harm ya! Hours of family-friendly fluffy fun at Lakeside!’
Emily said a silent thank you that Charlie had remembered the new words he’d had literally minutes to learn. Now she simply had to hope the llama wasn’t going to make a drama out of its performance.
‘Llama! Llama!’
What was Felix doing with the llama? Leading the llama on was Frema’s job. Emily looked across the stage and saw that her carrot-costumed boy was sitting on the llama’s back and Frema was having trouble making the poor thing join the tableau. What did llamas like to eat best? What could she entice it with?
‘Come on, Mr Llama!’ Angelica called loudly. ‘If you’re a good boy you might get a battered sausage from Ralph’s Plaice. Mary loves a sausage at the weekend.’
Emily closed her eyes and willed the earth to part and for her to disappear down into the ground. Then, just as quickly, she opened her eyes and directed her gaze to Ray at the piano. Finally Frema was making some headway with getting the animal to comply, while, still aboard, Felix threw his orange arms around like he was a cowboy at a rodeo.
‘And lo! There is rejoicing! We are all in the stable now!’
The lights were dimmed, leaving only the strings of fairy lights around the stable to illuminate the actors. Ray began to play the introduction to ‘In the Stable’.
Emily’s heart soared as her children sang the song so beautifully and she was brought back to the night when she and Ray perfected the new lyrics in his studio. She had been giddy with her feelings for him then. She was still giddy now. Utterly and undeniably in love with him. She watched him playing the old school piano, nothing like the beautiful grand pianos he was used to. But as his fingers hit the ebony and ivory, he was watching the children too, mouthing the words, making sure they didn’t falter, like this was the most important performance of his life. And he was doing this all for her, the evening before he went in for surgery. It had to be OK for him. For them. It just had to be.
‘We’re all in the stable now,’ the children finished, holding on to the note like they had practised. Finally, Ray ended the tune and the audience erupted louder than ever.
Sixty-Seven
‘Year Six!’ Emily shouted above the excited hubbub backstage. She adopted her usual pose, Rio De Janeiro stretching out in front of her, waiting for calm.
The children stopped talked immediately and their wide, excited eyes were all directed at her.
She smiled then. ‘You were amazing! Honestly, so amazing. And I am so proud of all of you. Each and every one of you.’
‘But not the llama,’ Frema said, a cross expression on both the vicar side of her face and the rabbi side. ‘You can’t be proud of the llama because he pooped on my new shoes.’
A few of the children laughed, but quickly stopped when Frema’s look darkened further.
‘Listen,’ Emily told them. ‘The hard part is over. The last section of the show is all about you and having fun.’ Her eyes moved over each of her class in turn. They were all so different, so unique and that was a wonderful, wonderful thing. She hoped they stayed that way for ever and never let anyone tell them what to think, or how to feel, or who or what to be. Emotion was thickening now and she needed to hold it together. She needed to hold it together for tonight for her children and for tomorrow for Ray. Then, hopefully, they could all look forward to Christmas Day and whatever the new year was going to bring.
‘I want you to go out there and show your mums and dads, and dads and dads, and mums and mums, and step-parents, and brothers and sisters, and nans and grandads, and aunts and uncles, and godparents, and friends and…’
‘My hamster Gordon,’ Lucas interrupted.
Emily didn’t know what to say. Had Lucas’s parents really brought his hamster to the show? Were they taking it to the Harvester? She shook her head. ‘Show Mrs Clark and the bishop and the…’
‘Suffragettes,’ Alice added.
‘Suffragans,’ Emily corrected.
‘Are they different things?’ Alice asked.
She didn’t have time to go into this now. ‘Year Six, go out there and show the audience how much fun we have in our class. Show them what the winter holidays mean to you.’ She caught the gaze of two boys who had had the most challenging of weeks. ‘Rashid, Jayden, are you ready for your moment in the spotlight?’
‘I feel a bit sick,’ Rashid told her.
He did look a little wan. She stepped forward, ready to put a hand to his forehead and check for a temperature but Jayden beat her to it. He clapped a hand onto Rashid’s shoulder.
‘You’re alright, mate. Come on. Our mums are gonna love our song.’
Rashid visibly brightened at Jayden’s show of companionship and he gave a small smile.
‘Right,’ Emily said. ‘Let’s go!’
I Saw Mummy Playing Candy Crush – to the tune of ‘I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus’ by Jackson 5
Rashid (spoken): Oooo! Mummy’s playing Candy Crush
Jayden (sung): I saw Mummy playing Candy Crush
Sitting on the sofa late one night
Her fingers moved so quick, like lightning they did slick
Across the screen as she matched up the sweets to win her game
Rashid (sung): When I saw Mummy playing Candy Crush
Her face was filled with pure and utter glee
And when she didn’t win the round, her smile turned upside down
But she still loves playing Candy Crush
Both (sung): I saw Mummy playing, playing, playing Candy Crush
Both (spoken): It’s all true! It is! I did see Mummy playing Candy Crush!
And I think she’s really cool!
Instrumental (recorders and glockenspiels)
Both (sung): Next I saw Mummy put down Candy Crush
And turn the TV on to Game of Thrones
Rashid (sung): Oh, how mad my Dad would be
To know she’s on Season Three
When he hasn’t got past Season One
Both (sung): Oh how very glad we’ll be
To see Mummy so happy
When she’s playing Candy Crush tonight!
Both (spoken): It’s all true! I did see Mummy playing Candy Crush. I swear!
As the lights came up on the audience, Emily leaned out of the wings and looked to Mrs Jackso
n and Mrs Dar, seated on the same row, but a few seats away from each other. They were both clapping madly, tears in their eyes, as Jayden and Rashid took bows after their outstanding performance. She had done everything she could for these two boys. She just hoped their parents and the boys themselves would continue to be kinder to one another and see what was really important at ten years old.
‘Right, everyone in their places for “Can’t We Have A Carvery”!’ Emily called.
Can’t We Have A Carvery – to the tune of ‘Stop the Cavalry’ by Jona Lewie
Mum is peeling sprouts, sister selfie pouts
The cat is climbing up the Christmas tree
Auntie’s on the wine, will dinner be on time?
Santa’s late again, misery
Where’s the Roses tin? Put that in the bin!
Can’t we have a carvery?
Instrumental
Stress is through the roof, shouting is the proof
Can you find the batteries?
Oh no I feel sick, get a bucket quick
We should have had a carvery!
The gifts have all been opened now, the turkey’s smelling really foul
Wish I’d got a drone not socks, or endless packets of Barbie frocks
Not another James Bond, not another James Bond,
Another James Bond, not another one x 2
Wish we were at Toby for Christmas
Instrumental (glockenspiels)
Bored of things to play, shopping Boxing Day
Going to see what’s gone half price
Kindles in the sale, a really big discount rail
If you buy one you get one free
Scoffing After Eights, before their use by dates
Can’t we have a carvery?
Not another Strictly, not another Strictly, another Strictly, not another one x 2
Wish we were at Toby for Christmas
Wish I could be remembering, all the dates for recycling
Will the bin men ever come? How many dustbins? Forty-one.
Wish we were at Toby for Christmas
‘Can’t we do it again?’ Cherry moaned, a suspicious brown mark on her cheek as they convened backstage before the final song. Either she had been tucking into the tub of Celebrations Emily had said they could only have access to at the end of the show, or it was something from the llama. She wasn’t sure at this stage if she wanted to find out.