Gingerbread and Ghosts

by Agatha Frost

  “Cut!” he cried, jumping up flamboyantly, a clipboard in his hands. “This is supposed to be a closed rehearsal. No previews! Take a ten-minute break everyone and try and come back on form, please!”

  Marcus sat up, suddenly alive, and pulled off the fake black moustache over his top lip. He similarly peeled off the black wig, revealing his bald head, aging him instantly.

  “My back can’t take this stunt,” Marcus called out as he stood up with the younger blonde’s help. “How did it look?”

  “You fell like an old sack of spuds,” Ross called back as he cast another eye at Julia and Shilpa on the back row. “I said, no previews!”

  “That’s my granddaughter,” Dot said quickly as she hurried to the steps at the side of the stage. “She’s catering tomorrow’s opening evening.”

  Ross waved his clipboard as he sat back in his chair, letting Dot know he did not care about who the intruders were. Julia quickly replaced the lid on the metal tin and picked up the broken gingerbread man. She looked around for a bin, but Carlton appeared as though out of nowhere, a plastic bag open in his hands. Julia cautiously dropped it in, trying her best to smile at the frail and sullen man who she knew had probably not smiled a day in his life while cleaning the village hall.

  “Crumbs,” he muttered with a roll of his bulging eyes as he shuffled towards his brush and shovel at the side of the room. “Always crumbs!”

  Shilpa hurried off to the sound and lighting booth with the mince pies, leaving Julia to meet Dot halfway down the central aisle between the rows of seats. Dot pulled off the brown wig, her familiar roller-set grey curls springing into their usual position.

  “What did you think?” Dot asked with a beaming grin as she glanced back at the director. “Do you think I did okay?”

  “You were wonderful, Gran.”

  “You really mean that?”

  “I honestly do,” Julia said, the surprise clear in her voice. “You’ve joined a lot of clubs over the years, but I think you might have found one you have a natural talent for. I always knew you had a penchant for drama, but I never knew you were such a natural actress. I almost forgot it was you up there, especially when you were holding that gun.”

  “It feels quite satisfying to kill Marcus Miller over and over every night.”

  “Do you know him?”

  “Oh, it’s nothing,” Dot said with a wave of her hand. “Ancient history.”

  Dot collapsed into the nearest chair, a dreamy smile on her face, the brown wig clasped to her chest. For a moment, she seemed every inch the aspiring starlet, and not Julia’s eighty-three-year-old grandmother.

  “This was my dream when I was a girl,” Dot said as she stared at the empty stage as Jayesh hurried around to reset things with the help of a young red-headed woman, Shilpa right behind trying to feed him a mince pie. “The stage, the lights, the acting, it’s all I ever wanted. Did I ever tell you about the time I worked in the theatre?”

  “You didn’t,” Julia said as she took the seat next to her gran. “I don’t remember that.”

  “Oh, I was a young girl back then, dear,” Dot said as she pushed up her stiff curls at the back. “I was sixteen, and it was my first job. My mother never wanted me to work. She thought it was beneath me. She was a formidable woman who thought I should marry young, and marry rich to secure my future. That was never my dream. I grew up watching those glorious black and white movies of the 30s and 40s. That was my era. I wanted to be a silver screen siren, like Joan Crawford and Bette Davis. I left school and joined a theatre company. I was only working in the cloakroom, but I’d spend every second there. They’d let me sit in on the rehearsals. Oh, it was a wonderful time! I’d fill notebooks with reams and reams of my observations, dreaming that I would one day be on that stage auditioning for my part. I worked there for two years, and then I met your grandfather, Albert. The pipes in the bathroom froze over, and he was a plumber back then. Let’s just say it was love at first sight, like those black and white stories I adored on the big screen. I had your father when I was nineteen, and I left my dream behind. It became a silly little girlhood notion that I didn’t give much thought to, but on quiet nights I’d sometimes think ‘what if’. I never did get my audition.”

  “Gran, that’s so sad,” Julia commiserated, resting her hand on Dot’s. “You should have chased your dream.”

  “I put being a mother first,” she said with a satisfied nod, her chin poking up to the ceiling. “That became my job, and I never complained for a moment. Of course, your grandfather died in the early 70s, and I had to get a job. Women weren’t educated the same back then. I was at school during the war, and we didn’t think we’d live to see another year, never mind the 70s, so I did what any mother did. I worked every job I could in every place that would accept a widowed single mother. Cleaning, cooking, you name it, I did it. Not that I’m complaining about that now. Everything happened for a reason. Your father met your mother, and had you and Sue, and I wouldn’t change anything for the world.”

  “You’re getting your chance now,” Julia said as she rested her head on her gran’s shoulder. “You belong on that stage.”

  Dot rested her head against Julia’s. The two women sat in silence for a moment as they watched Shilpa force a mince pie into her son’s hand.

  “Dreams are for chasing, Julia,” Dot murmured as she rubbed her thumb along the back of Julia’s hand. “You’re still young. Don’t wait around to go after what you want. Life has a funny way of going by in the blink of an eye.” Dot slapped Julia’s hand before jumping up and cramming the wig back on top of her head. “I’d better go over my lines for the next scene.”

  “What about the gingerbread tasting?” Julia asked, cracking open the metal tin. “Don’t you all want to sample them before I bake?”

  “Oh, Julia!” Dot said with a shake of her brown wig. “You’re the best baker in Peridale. Everyone will love whatever you bake, and besides, they’re going to be too taken aback by my show-stopping performance, aren’t they?”

  Dot winked at Julia, flicked her fake hair over her shoulder, and strutted back to the stage with a bouncy spring in her elderly feet. Julia felt a little ashamed she had never known acting had been such a dream of her gran’s, even though she was sure she could talk to Dot all day every day for the next year and still not hear every fascinating story she had to tell.

  Julia watched as Ross, the director, relayed notes from the script to Dot in front of the stage. He was the youngest director of a Christmas play in Peridale history according to village gossip. Despite his boyish looks and a full head of hair, it seemed he had cracked the whip in a way Bertha Bloom had never been able to in her twenty years sitting in the director’s chair, before her forced retirement after ‘The Nutcracker’ barely sold out any of the shows.

  Leaving the rehearsal to continue, Julia headed for the door, once again followed by Carlton’s dry mop and grumbling about footprints. She reached for the handle, but was pushed out of the way and beaten to it by a flash of red hair.

  “Oh, dear!” Julia cried out as she jumped back, clutching her biscuit tin as the young woman she had seen helping Jayesh on stage burst into the snow, tears streaking her pale cheeks.

  “Poppy, wait!” Jayesh hurried out after her, slipping through the gap in the door before it closed. “We can fix this!”

  “You’re lucky you have a girl,” Shilpa said to Julia, huffing and puffing as she caught up, her hands clutching her knees over her blue sari. “Boys are more trouble than they’re worth.”

  “Problem?” Julia asked as she pulled on the door handle for a second time. “She seemed rather upset.”

  “She stormed out of one of the dressing rooms like that,” Shilpa said with a wave of her hand as she straightened up. “I think my Jayesh is quite taken by her. I’ll have to keep an eye on that.”

  Julia laughed as she looped arms with Shilpa. They headed through the softly falling snow and back across the village green. Shilpa headed
back into the post office, leaving Julia to head back into the café, which was now completely empty thanks to the snow. She shrugged off her pink pea coat, rolled up the sleeves of her baggy denim shirt, and pulled on her apron.

  “Grab a wooden spoon, Jessie,” Julia said as she enthusiastically clapped her hands together. “We have two hundred gingerbread men to bake!”

  3

  Julia passed another tray of plastic-wrapped gingerbread men from the boot of her vintage car to Jessie, and Barker passed one to Billy, Jessie’s boyfriend.

  “These look wicked, Miss S,” Billy said as he poked at the tight plastic. “Proper real looking.”

  Jessie and Billy hurried off through the falling snow in the direction of the warm glow coming from the open door of the village hall. Julia caught Barker’s eye and they shared an awkward smile as they waited for Jessie and Billy to return. Thanks to Julia’s night of gingerbread making and Barker working on his debut crime novel at his typewriter in the dining room, neither of them had spoken about Jessie’s social worker visit. Barker opened his mouth, as though the topic was on the tip of his tongue, but Jessie and Billy quickly returned for their next trays.

  “I thought we’d be the only ones here this early,” Julia said casually as she looked around at the warmly wrapped up residents of Peridale as they made their way from all directions towards the church grounds. “There’s quite a buzz in the air.”

  “There is,” Barker said flatly with a nod as he passed Billy another tray.

  Julia passed Jessie a tray with a sigh, her breath turning to steam in the icy air. Jessie squinted at Julia as though trying to figure out if there was something wrong, so Julia pushed forward a smile, much like she had with Sue; just like Sue, Jessie did not seem to believe it either.

  When they were alone again, Julia turned to Barker and smiled sympathetically at him, hoping it would ease things. He smiled back, but it seemed like more of an automatic reaction than anything else.

  “I should explain,” Julia started, her eyes darting down to the snow-covered road. “I should have told you.”

  “I get it,” Barker said, sounding less angry than Julia would have expected. “This is important to you, to both of you, and it’s important to me too, but you were right. I haven’t plucked up the courage to ask Jessie. It’s scary because you two have such a good thing going on, and I thought she didn’t like me as much, but –”

  “That’s just Jessie’s way,” Julia said with a small laugh.

  “Exactly,” Barker replied, with a grin so natural it warmed Julia’s chest despite how cold she was feeling under her scarf and gloves. “I’m going to ask her tonight.”

  “You are?”

  “Life’s too short,” he said firmly before grabbing Julia’s hands in his. “I want us all to be a family. A real family. After what happened with my brothers at my birthday party last month, and losing my nephew, it made me realise what’s important and real. This is important.”

  Jessie and Billy returned, prompting them to let go of each other’s hands. The two teenagers both smirked as they accepted the final trays before hurrying into the village hall. Julia shut the boot and locked the car.

  “Don’t wait around to go after what you want,” Julia said suddenly, the words coming to her out of nowhere. “That’s what Gran said to me yesterday.”

  “That’s almost wise,” Barker said with a wink. “Are you sure it came from your gran?”

  Julia and Barker joined the steady flow of people walking towards the village hall. As the fresh snow crunched under her feet, she felt a calming sense of relief flooding through her body. For the first time in a while, she was looking forward to Christmas Day, especially since it would be the first she would be spending with her new family.

  To Julia’s surprise, most of the seats in the village hall had either been filled or claimed with jackets and scarves. Thanks to Dot, the four of them were sitting in the front row on seats with ‘RESERVED’ signs on them. Julia took off her coat, unravelled her scarf, and tossed her gloves onto her seat. Leaving Barker to look after them, she slipped backstage.

  People with headsets and clipboards darted around like flies, panic and chaos thick in the air. In the midst of it all, Julia spotted Dot sitting in front of a vanity mirror, staring at her wigged self in the warm glow of the lights, a strange sense of calm surrounding her. She immediately snapped out of that calm when the flash of Johnny Watson’s camera bulb sparked in her face.

  “No photographs!” Dot cried, holding up her hand. “Do you think Julie Andrews had to deal with this?”

  “It’s for The Peridale Post,” Julia’s old school friend said with a fiddle of his glasses. “We could get a front page shot here.”

  “Oh, well, that’s a different story,” Dot said, suddenly straightening up and tipping her head up to the camera. “Make sure you find my best light, and can you do that smoothing thing on my skin? Darcy Monroe is, after all, twenty years younger than myself, but I think I get away with it.”

  “Consider it done,” Johnny said with a smirk as he looked through the camera lens before snapping multiple pictures of Dot. “Perfect. I think I got one.”

  He checked the pictures on the small display of his camera before heading off, smiling at Julia as he went. Julia stepped forward and appeared in Dot’s mirror. She immediately turned around and grabbed Julia’s hand, her fingers shaking to the touch.

  “I’m so glad to see a familiar face,” Dot said, her cold fingers clutching Julia’s tightly. “Is everyone out there?”

  “Sue and Neil couldn’t make it,” Julia said as she glanced over the script, which had handwritten notes all down the margins. “She’s not feeling too well with the pregnancy at the moment.”

  “I’m not surprised. She’s about to drop with twins! I’m surprised she hasn’t gone already. Twins are always early. If I wasn’t so past it, I’d think the nerves in my stomach were a small child squirming around.”

  “You’ll be amazing,” Julia said, giving her hand an encouraging squeeze. “It looks like everyone has come out to support you.”

  “Or throw tomatoes.” Dot turned in her chair and picked up the script. “Ross keeps changing the lines. He’s brilliant, but like most writers, he’s neurotic. He’s so particular about everything that leaves our mouths. I wouldn’t be surprised if he tweaks the script after every performance.”

  Dot dropped the script onto the dressing table before pulling a small silver hip flask from her handbag. She unscrewed the cap, took a deep glug, and replaced it as she let out a small burp.

  “Dutch courage,” she winced through the burn of whatever she had just drunk. “I’m shaking like a leaf. I don’t think it would be so bad if I had my own dressing room. I’m the star of the show, and yet it’s Marcus and Catherine Miller who get the two dressing rooms. Talk about favouritism!”

  “Catherine?” Julia asked, the name not ringing a bell.

  “Marcus’ wife,” Dot replied with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Far too young for him, and in it for the money I suspect. She’s playing Mandy Smith, the woman having the affair with Jimmy in the play. I daresay it’s not much of a stretch for her to pretend to be in love with him. She’s been playing that role for the past six months since their wedding.”

  Before Julia could ask further questions, a young man with a headset appeared and announced that curtain up was in ten minutes. All of the cast and crew started running around even faster, causing Dot to take another swig from her hip flask. Deciding it would be best to leave her gran to go over her lines in peace, Julia turned on her heels with the intention of heading back to her seat. On her way there, she passed the two aforementioned dressing rooms, one with a star saying ‘Marcus’ and another saying ‘Catherine’. Catherine’s dressing room door was closed, but Marcus’ was open. Julia would not have stopped to look through the gap if she had not seen a flash of red hair, which she instantly recognised as belonging to the young woman who had burst out of the vi
llage hall the day before.

  Julia crept forward and peered through the gap. Marcus, who looked to be in his sixties without the aid of his character’s wig and moustache, leaned into the redhead’s ear and whispered something. Julia did not need to hear what the old man was saying to the young woman to feel her shudder. He brushed her hair away from her neck, but it was too much for her. She spun around and ran for the door, crying just as she had when she had pushed Julia out of the way the previous day.

  “Poppy!” he cried after her, anger clear in his reddened face. “Women.”

  He locked eyes with Julia and frowned before closing the door. Julia stared at his handmade star for a moment, sickened by what she had just witnessed. Marcus, with his bald head and pot belly, seemed to be the same age as her father. Julia turned and looked for the young redhead, but she had already vanished.

  “Julia!” Shilpa cried as she ran towards her. “Have you seen Jayesh? I wanted to give him some samosas to keep him going through the show.”

  “I haven’t,” Julia said, distracted by her search for a flash of red hair amongst the crew running around them. “Sorry.”

  “I think I’m more nervous than he is,” she said with a stilted laugh, resting her hand on her stomach. “I might help myself to one of these samosas.”

  Leaving Shilpa backstage, Julia slipped back into the front of the hall. With everyone now in their seats, there was an excited chatter rumbling through the crowd of faces. Julia was surprised that even though she recognised a lot of them, there were many she did not, leading her to wonder how far news of the play had spread.

  “How is the old battle axe?” Barker whispered to Julia when she took her seat in between him and Jessie. “Ready for her debut?”

  “Unusually nervous,” Julia whispered back, her eyes desperately searching for the redheaded woman in the crowd. “I think I just saw something really terrible.”