The Magic of Christmas

by Trisha Ashley

  The curtain was pulled back to reveal Lucifer and nine angels against a gilded cloudy backdrop and the Mysteries were well and truly up and running. (Or bicycling, as would be the case during Mary and Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem and subsequent flight into Egypt.)

  Various interesting noise effects accompanied God’s description of the Creation, which I could hear as I shrugged off my clothes in the changing room and concealed as much of myself as possible with the long, blond wig.

  Then we were on.

  If you’ve ever tried to remember your lines while inches away from a tall and attractive man dressed in little more than ballet tights, you’ll understand why I found it hard to keep my eyes on the apple. He was carrying a small sheaf of hay, which may have preserved his modesty from the audience, but was not much help to me. I expect ballerinas quickly get blasé about this kind of thing.

  Of course, it might have helped if he’d stuck to the text when I offered him the apple, like he’s done at all the recent rehearsals, instead of soulfully telling the audience in the most hammy way that I’d already had his heart and he didn’t think a piece of fruit was much of an exchange.

  They loved it, but I was tempted to elope with the snake.

  Then he took a bite, tossed it over his shoulder into the wings and led me offstage to cover my modesty with figleaves.

  ‘Nice costume,’ he said, casting away his sheaf of hay and adjusting his figleaves like a hula skirt. The effect was interesting. ‘Need any help with yours?’

  ‘No, thanks,’ I said primly. Whoever plays Eve next year will need new elastic: the twang had quite gone out of mine.

  We quickly took our places behind the painted bushes and the Voice of God demanded why we had eaten the forbidden fruit? I only wished I knew.

  ‘The woman tempted me,’ Nick said, passing the buck, just as men have done from time immemorial, and we were expelled from Eden.

  The curtain came down and the Mummers began to play something lilting while the scene was changed for Noah’s Ark.

  Nick dashed off for his changing room and I headed for my own warm outfit, shivering. I quickly dressed and then went out into the courtyard through the back doorway, avoiding the scurrying animal-headed infants and a harassed-looking Miss Pym.

  Nick was already in the courtyard, talking to Polly. I elected to watch Noah’s Flood from the other side, with Annie and Gareth.

  ‘What’s Polly doing here?’ Annie whispered to me worriedly, when Gareth had kindly gone to get me a hot drink (I was still freezing). ‘And why is Nick chatting to her like that, and laughing and … well, flirting?’

  ‘Search me! He said he’d invited her, so perhaps he’s fallen prey to her fatal beauty.’

  ‘No, I’m sure he hasn’t, because he was flirting with you in the Adam and Eve scene, Lizzy, and he couldn’t take his eyes off you! He must have an ulterior motive for making up to Polly.’

  ‘That’s what Jasper says,’ I agreed grudgingly, ‘but I think he seems to be enjoying himself too much.’

  The curtains closed on Noah’s Ark and the animals, and then reopened revealing a tetchy-looking Moses seated on a mountain.

  ‘Here are my commandments, writ on tablets of stone,’ said the Voice of God.

  ‘Could thee not find something lighter? I’m no spring chicken, that knows!’ grumbled Moses.

  ‘There are ten of them — see thee obey the rules,’ ordered God, while Moses hobbled about collecting them up in his teatowel headscarf.

  ‘I’ll give it me best shot, Lord, and I can’t say fairer than that.’

  Ignoring this sally, God ran briskly down the list then demanded finally, ‘Dost thou understand?’

  ‘Yea, Lord,’ Moses said obediently, though with an evil look in his rheumy blue eyes. ‘I’m not deaf, tha knows! I’m going back down t’mountain as fast as me legs can carry me, and I’ll be straight on t’case. Idol worshipping and other ungodly goings-on will be reet out t’window.’

  ‘Good, good — for I see everything, you know, I am omnipresent,’ God added conversationally.

  Then the mike squeaked and his voice suddenly boomed, ‘IN FACT, POLLY DARKE, I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER! I KNOW IT WAS YOU WHO LOOSENED THE WHEEL NUTS ON LIZZY PHARAMOND’S CAR, CAUSING THE DEATH OF HER HUSBAND.’

  Everyone, including me and a flummoxed Moses, turned to stare at Polly Darke. Nick let go of her arm and stepped away, but I could see from his face that this was no surprise to him: God’s accusation had been prearranged.

  She found herself the centre of a staring, whispering circle of shocked faces: even her friends were wide-eyed.

  ‘Polly did?’ I exclaimed. ‘But—’

  ‘No, no, I didn’t!’ Polly yelped, looking from face to face for some sympathy. ‘Why on earth would I do that? I loved him!’

  ‘Because you expected Lizzy to drive the car, not Tom,’ Nick said clearly and coldly. ‘It was just one of a series of little spiteful accidents you arranged for her, because you were eaten up with jealousy.’

  ‘No! No, I didn’t! I haven’t—’

  ‘Good heavens! Surely she wouldn’t do something so evil?’ gasped Annie, shocked to her soft-centred core, and Gareth put his arm around her consolingly. I wished someone would put their arm around me: I was shaking even more now, and not from the cold.

  I didn’t notice PC Perkins and her youthful associate until she was actually putting handcuffs on Polly, just like in a film, and saying clear enough for everyone to hear, ‘Polly Darke, you are under arrest …’ and proceeding to give her the official caution.

  Polly stared around like a hunted animal, but there was no escape: I could see the flashing lights of police cars beyond the archway, and other officers. Then her eyes fixed on me.

  ‘It was her — her!’ she cried. ‘I’ve said so all along … you’ve no proof!’

  ‘It was not!’ boomed God into his microphone. ‘And there was a witness to your wrongdoing.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Caz agreed loudly from the shadows. ‘I seen her doing it.’

  ‘EVIL WOMAN, BEGONE!’ God added, with finality. I think the excitement of the moment had quite rushed to his head.

  There was a buzz of excitement as she was escorted out and we all listened until the scrunch of gravel under tyres vanished into the distance.

  I was struggling to take it all in, but when I saw Nick talking to Caz, I suddenly realised who must have hidden the wheel brace with Polly’s fingerprints on it among my gardening tools, and then tipped off the police!

  Would Polly have had the strength, once Jasper had tightened the nuts, I wondered — then remembered what Ritch and Dora Tombs had said about her working out. And really, anyone can change a wheel with one of those cross-brace things, it’s not that difficult.

  But it had been my car, me she wanted to hurt, not Tom. Not kill me — none of her little tricks had been intended to go quite that far; though I expect she would have looked on my death as a bonus.

  And in the end Caz must have told Nick everything he knew, and so they had set this very public accounting up — as revenge? I didn’t suppose Polly could be charged with anything terribly serious.

  The courtyard was still buzzing, but then Moses suddenly awoke as if from a trance, and banged his shepherd’s crook on the floor a couple of times to regain the audience’s attention.

  Slowly they quietened and turned back to the stage.

  ‘If that’s all, Lord, I’ll be getting off, then,’ Moses said, back to the script.

  ‘Aye, go with my blessing upon you,’ God said, sounding exhausted, and invisible hands began to draw the canvas curtains across the front of the arched doorway.

  ‘A hot rum toddy, that’s what I need,’ Roly added, forgetting to switch off the microphone. ‘Delphine, my dear, you’ll join me, won’t you? There’s a short break before the next acts for refreshments, and I’m sure we all need them.’

  Jojo and Mick picked up their instruments and began to play, and Ophe
lia, looking harassed and frightened, ran out of the house, fiddle in hand.

  Nick forged his way through the crowd and handed me a plastic tumbler of hot toddy, which I took automatically and drained in one: I needed it.

  ‘Well,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘I don’t know how we’ll be able to follow that next year.’

  I turned on him accusingly. ‘You knew that was going to happen — you, Caz and Uncle Roly set that up. How long have you known it was Polly who sabotaged the car?’

  ‘Not long at all. I thought that, at least, was an accident, until Caz told me what he’d seen. He’d been watching from the woods that day and saw Polly come out of Tom’s workshop and look at the car, then pick up the wheel brace (which Jasper must have left leaning against the wall, by the way) and start unscrewing the nuts — by sheer coincidence on the same wheel you’d changed earlier. Then she put the wheel brace back where she found it and left. Caz was going to go down and see what she’d been up to when the coast was clear, but Tom drove off in your car before he had the chance. So Caz wrapped the wheel brace in sacking and put it behind the freezer you let him use.’

  ‘Why? And why didn’t he say anything?’

  He shrugged. ‘Well, you know Caz. He said he thought at first it was something to do with ARG and he didn’t want to get Ophelia into trouble. It was before he knew that Polly wasn’t a member of the group, just forcing Ophelia to target you.’

  ‘He’s not keen on the police anyway. But he confided in you.’

  ‘Yes, he finally told me the whole thing, because he was so angry that Polly was prepared to harm Ophelia, even when she was pregnant. I negotiated with the police and they’re going to forget that Ophelia was ever a member of ARG in return for Caz’s statement.’

  He seemed to feel this was worthy of praise, for he paused expectantly.

  ‘Oh, well done, Nick!’ Annie, who had been listening admiringly, exclaimed. ‘You are clever!’

  I gave her a withering look. ‘I think you might have let me in on what was happening, Nick!’

  ‘Why? You didn’t tell me anything! I found it all out for myself.’

  ‘Yes, but Lizzy was upset when you were flirting with Polly, Nick,’ Annie said traitorously.

  ‘No I wasn’t!’ I exclaimed indignantly. ‘I—’

  ‘Ssh … afterwards,’ Nick said, a gleam in his slaty dark eyes, ‘they’re starting again.’

  I gave him a glare and moved away, avoiding him for the rest of the entertainment, which isn’t easy when you’re enclosed in a small courtyard. I can’t say my mind was completely on the play either — or even on the refreshments, which just goes to show how churned-up and confused I felt.

  But eventually I began to be caught up in the Mysteries again, just as I was every year.

  Kylie was a subdued and modest Mary, with only one or two wisps of violently pink hair escaping from her hooded robe, and her fingernails unpainted. The huge rock that sparkled in the muted light on her engagement finger was not quite in role, though: Kylie had clearly got her man.

  There were the usual moments of light relief during the Miracles: it didn’t matter that the audience had heard the lines before.

  ‘Get up, thou great lazy lummock,’ Jesus told the Lame Man forthrightly. ‘Pick up thy pallet and walk.’

  ‘I’ll be reet glad to, lad, ’tis no life for a man, this. What did tha say thy name wor?’ asked the Lame Man, getting up.

  ‘Jesus of Nazareth.’

  ‘Is that ower near Burnley?’

  ‘Nay,’ said Jesus, moving on to the next supplicant. ‘What’s t’matter wi’ him?’ he asked one of the disciples.

  ‘He can’t see owt, master.’

  ‘That’s reet,’ agreed the Blind Man. ‘But I believe thee can cure me and so my friends hath brought me here.’

  ‘I’ll touch thy eyes, and if thee believe, then thee will see. How many fingers am I holding up?’

  ‘All of ’em, Lord.’

  The audience cheered, then sobered for the final darker scenes before the second interval. But once the curtain was drawn across the crucifixion scene (excellently performed by Gary Naylor) the holiday spirit returned and everyone headed for the refreshments to fortify themselves for the resurrection and the grand finale.

  Chapter 33: Well Stirred

  ‘We’re happy, Lord, to see thee again,’ Faye said stolidly, in her role as Mary Magdalen. ‘Thee said that thee would come back and thou were right. Wilt thou stay awhile?’

  ‘Nay, I must get home to my Heavenly Father.’

  ‘Well, I reckon he’ll be reet glad t’see thee, and thou art done thy bit for mankind.’

  ‘My father hath many mansions, Mary, and all who believe in him will be welcome in t’Kingdom of Heaven.’

  ‘That’ll be proper champion, that will,’ Mary said gratefully.

  ‘I’ll be off then,’ Jesus said, suiting the action to the words, and Mary followed him behind the drawn curtain.

  An angel appeared, the new white goose-feather patches on his wings glistening, and stood with one hand cupped to his ear, as if listening intently.

  ‘Here is my judgement, and the pure of heart need fear nowt,’ said Roly as Voice of God, refreshed and speeding up considerably now the finishing post was in sight.

  ‘What is thy wish, Lord?’ asked the angel.

  ‘That retribution shall visit the wrongdoers.’

  ‘Lord, it shall be done.’

  ‘Let it be so, for as the old year dies, another, Lazarus-like, rises anew. Our play is played out, our Mysteries unfolded,’ said God.

  The angel, who’d been gazing vaguely up into the rafters, now turned to look directly at the audience and said weightily, ‘Look into t’mirror of thy heart and, if thou like not what thou see, then freshly start again, fer Christ died fer thee.’

  God, as always, got the last word. ‘Heed my commandments. Keep thy conscience clear. Remember, I’ll see thee agin, this time next year!’

  Going by the wild applause it was certainly another Middlemoss Mystery success, but more than one mystery had been enacted, revealed and resolved today. It had been a cathartic and exhausting experience, and the audience was subdued as they slowly began to leave, while I felt like a well-wrung-out dishrag.

  ‘Everyone involved in organising the play has been invited to the house for a hot toddy before we go home,’ Annie said, taking my arm and giving it a squeeze. ‘You’re coming too, aren’t you, Lizzy? Look, there’s Jasper going in. And I want to know all the details about Polly, too — did you really not know any of that was going to happen?’

  ‘No, of course I didn’t!’ I snapped, finding myself being swept through the kitchen and along the passage to the Great Hall, where the steaming silver punch bowl and a tray of sandwiches were laid out before a blazing log fire. ‘I’d have told you.’

  Roly beckoned me across to where he was sitting with Delphine. ‘Well, my dear,’ he said, ‘that seems to have worked out for the best, doesn’t it? Justice for poor Tom has been served, and everything is sorted out satisfactorily.’

  ‘Is it?’ I said, slightly sourly.

  ‘You were very good as Eve,’ Delphine said kindly. ‘Quite beautiful in that costume.’

  ‘Yes, you’re much better with Nick as Adam,’ agreed Roly. ‘But if he isn’t playing it next year, he can take over as Voice of God.’

  ‘That was Lizzy’s last turn in the role, wasn’t it?’ Nick said, having come up behind me unobserved. ‘I’m not playing Adam to anyone else’s Eve.’

  Roly looked from one to the other of us and, beaming, took our hands and clasped them together in his. (Theatricality also runs in the Pharamond bloodline.) ‘Let it be a New Year, a new beginning for both of you!’ he said sentimentally.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean, Unks,’ I said, trying and failing to loosen my hand from Nick’s strong grip. ‘And I’m afraid I’ll have to be going home now. Jasper?’

  ‘I’m going out again, to help clear up,’ Ja
sper said quickly. ‘I’ll see you later.’

  ‘I’ll walk you home, Lizzy,’ Nick said, ‘but first there’s something I want to show you.’

  I couldn’t imagine what he’d got that I hadn’t already seen. But I let him lead me upstairs to the long gallery, switching on the wall lights as we went. He came to a stop in front of the portrait of an eighteenth-century Pharamond bride, who posed with one slender hand resting on a book — and on her finger, my ring. I just knew it was an old family piece.

  ‘There — you see?’ he said.

  ‘Nick, I can’t possibly keep a family heirloom, whatever Unks says. Please take it back!’ I protested, tugging it off my finger and handing it to him. He accepted it, then calmly took hold of my other hand and shoved it over the knuckle of my ring finger instead.

  ‘What on earth are you doing?’ I said, trying to pull away.

  ‘It’s the betrothal ring of the Pharamonds.’

  ‘I dare say it is, but we’re not betrothed—’

  ‘I think we are, and Unks thinks we are — so you’re outnumbered. Just as well he would never let Leila have the ring, because I’d never have got it back.’

  I glared at him. ‘This isn’t the Middle Ages, so I do have a say in all this, Nick Pharamond — and I’m not engaged to you! You are an underhand, devious—’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ he said soothingly, pulling me close, ‘but I do love you. I think, deep down, I always did.’

  ‘You have a damned strange way of showing it!’

  ‘There wasn’t much point, when we were both married to other people … but the postcards showed I was always thinking of you. I never wanted quite to let go of you. And you kept them all.’

  ‘Only for the recipes,’ I said quickly, fighting a rear-guard action, for close proximity was scrambling my brain cells and weakening my knees, just as it so disastrously had on Bonfire Night. ‘Besides, we argue all the time and you despise my cooking!’

  ‘No I don’t, I just like to wind you up. You should know that by now.’