The Little Theatre on the Seafront

by Katie Ginger

  Lottie shrugged. ‘Nan knew full well that if she asked me face to face I’d tell her to bog off.’

  ‘And stomp off out of the room,’ he said teasingly.

  She turned to him and widened her eyes in fake surprise. ‘I don’t do that.’

  ‘Yes, you do.’ He smiled. ‘But it’s fine, I don’t mind. I just don’t understand what you’re afraid of.’

  Lottie opened her Easter egg and broke off a piece of chocolate, waving it in the air as she spoke. ‘Oh, I don’t know, making a fool of myself in front of the entire town, letting Nan down, everyone laughing at me.’

  ‘No one would laugh at you, Lottie.’

  ‘Despite what Nan thinks—’ Lottie felt her heart twinge, the words catching in her throat. ‘What Nan thought, I quite like my life.’

  Sid looked at her sceptically. ‘You like being safe, Lottie, that’s not the same thing.’

  ‘But what if I take over the theatre and make things worse?’

  ‘How can you?’ Sid glanced at her quickly before turning his eyes back to the road. ‘What could you possibly do to make it worse? Burn the place down? Blow it up? You’re not planning on blowing it up, are you?’

  Lottie scowled.

  ‘Oh, I know,’ he continued in a mocking tone. ‘You’re going to run National Front rallies, or host puppy kicking competitions?’

  ‘No, but—’

  ‘It’s a small local theatre for a small quiet town. Not a top notch, swanky London showbiz place.’

  Lottie cocked her head and broke off another piece of chocolate. ‘But I don’t know how to do this.’ Her voice was rising and she pulled it back. It wasn’t Sid’s fault. ‘I’m not a project manager, I have no idea how to be a chairman and do chairman-type things. And, I know absolutely nothing about theatres.’

  ‘But you are ridiculously bossy.’

  ‘No I’m not, I’m just … organised.’

  Sid’s face broke into a wide grin and he grabbed her hand, giving it a squeeze. ‘You can do this, Lottie, I know you can. Just give it a chance.’

  Lottie ate another piece of chocolate.

  ‘The thing is, Lottie,’ he continued, ‘your nan was right. You do need to get out more. I mean, when was the last time you had a boyfriend?’

  ‘When was the last time you had a girlfriend?’ she countered.

  ‘It was 2003, but this isn’t about me.’

  Lottie repressed a smile. ‘You were twelve in 2003.’

  ‘Yep, but I’m perfectly happy with my life; you’re not and you haven’t been for ages.’

  Lottie folded her arms over her chest. It was true. She had been feeling restless for a long time now. But when her nan became ill, she’d retreated even further into her safe, quiet life. It wasn’t that she didn’t like people, she did. She’d just never quite got around to getting a social life, that was all. ‘What’s your point?’

  ‘I think if you stopped looking at everything so negatively you’d see this could be good fun.’ Sid was always trying to chivvy her up.

  Lottie toyed with her camera, opening and closing the lens, her mind racing. ‘I’ve got to do this, haven’t I?’

  ‘We have,’ said Sid, smiling at her. ‘I’ll be there for you.’ He stopped at a junction. ‘Shall we head to yours now? We can have lunch and start coming up with a plan to get you on the committee.’

  Lottie checked her watch. ‘It’s only half eleven.’

  ‘I know, but I’m starving. Please?’ He stuck his lower lip out just as her stomach rumbled.

  ‘Alright then. Just for you.’

  Chapter 2

  Lottie had lived in the same house all her life. As a diplomat, her father worked all over the world and in the beginning, when he was posted to the back of beyond, her mother had stayed at home with Lottie. But when Lottie’s father was posted to Vienna, a city her mother longed to visit, she declared herself allergic to parenthood and departed with him for health reasons. Lottie’s nan had stepped in and it had, for the most part, been a happy and harmonious relationship.

  The house sat on the brow of a hill with views of the sea and steep steps leading up to the front door. There was no front garden to speak of, just a tiny square of grass with soil too chalky to grow anything pretty. Blue paint peeled from the front door, stripped off by the salty sea air, leaving patches faded to grey and exposed bare wood. Lottie thought it was beautiful, like a piece of art.

  They mounted the steps and Lottie found her keys to let them in. Sid, who was as familiar with the house as she was, marched through the dark hallway into the living room, slung his jacket onto the back of the sofa, then sat down and put his feet up on the coffee table.

  ‘Oi! Get your hooves off,’ ordered Lottie, following him in. ‘Nan never let you do that, so don’t start now.’

  He huffed and removed his long gangly legs. ‘So, what’s the plan, Stan? How are you going to get on the committee?’

  Lottie dumped her bag on the sofa and flopped down too. ‘I guess I’ll have to tell the committee the truth. Maybe show them the letter?’

  Sid nodded.

  ‘But that isn’t going to guarantee anything, is it?’ Lottie thought out loud. ‘I think the mayor is acting chairman at the moment. He stepped up when Nan got sick and he didn’t like her anyway so he could easily say no. I think her constant campaigning over one thing or another got under his skin.’

  Sid shook his head. ‘Nah, it would look too bad. How could he say no to a lovely old lady’s final request? But you still need to show you’re up to the job. I think you should give them an action plan or something. At the very least give them some ideas for what you could do to make it popular again, or get more funding.’

  ‘A presentation?’ asked Lottie, her voice shrinking. She hated speaking in front of people. Public speaking was as scary to her as wearing a bikini.

  ‘What else are you going to do?’

  Lottie thought for a moment but couldn’t come up with a better idea. ‘Okay then. But I’ve got no qualifications, or experience that’ll help in any way.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter,’ said Sid, cheerfully. ‘Just talk about how you’re going to make it successful. Be positive.’

  ‘And how am I going to do that?’

  Sid scratched the back of his head. ‘I don’t know. What plans did your nan have for the theatre?’

  ‘I don’t know actually. I guess I could read through Nan’s stuff and see if there’s anything in there?’

  Sid stretched out his long arms then rested them behind his head. ‘When’s the next committee meeting?’

  Lottie went to the dresser, pausing as her eyes scanned the photos of her and her nan together, and searched through the pile of letters. She found the boring black and white newsletter and read the dates. Her face froze. ‘Oh, shit, it’s next Thursday.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ replied Sid. ‘We’d better get cracking if we’ve only got a week.’

  Lottie groaned and trudged over to a stack of boxes at the back of the living room. The house remained untouched since Elsie’s death and her possessions were everywhere. Though Lottie had tried several times to get rid of things, each time her sorrow had taken over and she’d stopped.

  ‘Aren’t we eating first?’ asked Sid, concerned. ‘I’m starving.’

  ‘Can we get started with this lot and then eat, please?’ Lottie’s new diet only allowed twelve hundred calories a day and if she ate lunch too early she’d be an angry maniac by dinner time, raiding the fridge, or eating cornflakes straight from the box. And she’d already eaten half an Easter egg in the car.

  ‘Okay,’ he conceded, pretending to be huffy. ‘Got any biscuits to tide me over?’

  ‘In the tin.’ Lottie grabbed a large cardboard box with ‘Save Greenley Theatre’ written on the side. Sid moved the coffee table so Lottie could drag it between them, then she sat on the floor, cross-legged, and removed the lid. A mass of papers slid out and Lottie groaned in response.

  ‘I’ll m
ake tea, shall I?’ said Sid and headed off to the kitchen. When he returned a few minutes later with two steaming mugs, Lottie was surrounded by mounting piles of paper, the box not even half empty.

  ‘Look at this,’ said Lottie, handing a theatre programme to Sid. ‘It’s really professional. I thought it would all be black and white photocopies or printouts that someone did at home with crappy clip art.’

  ‘And look at the list of names for the am dram group,’ he replied, nodding in agreement. ‘They had quite a big cast. Sometimes you get people playing loads of parts, but it must have been quite popular.’

  Lottie picked up a dozen more and waved them at Sid. ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hamlet, King Lear …’

  ‘Who knew Greenley loved Shakespeare?’

  ‘Here are the Christmas ones. Oh look, this one is so pretty.’ She shoved a programme for Aladdin into Sid’s face. Lottie gazed at the window seat, her favourite spot in the house, and the light pouring in chased a memory in her mind. ‘Do you know, I think I remember Nan taking me to a panto when I was little.’

  ‘So do I, actually. And we went in Mrs Thompson’s class in primary school, do you remember?’

  Lottie tried to picture the day Sid was talking about. ‘Just about.’

  ‘You must do,’ said Sid, smiling at the memory. ‘Ben Humphreys wet himself because we wouldn’t stop for the toilet and that horrible Reece called him Potty Poo Pants for the rest of the trip.’

  ‘Oh yes, now I do.’ Lottie laughed and then, picking up another bundle of papers, groaned again.

  Sid scowled. ‘Can you stop making that noise, please? It’s like a cross between a stroppy teenager and a dying cat.’

  ‘Sorry.’ She cupped the mug of tea in her hands hoping the warmth would make her feel better. ‘It’s just that I always assumed the theatre was just another one of Nan’s causes. She was always on one crusade or another.’

  ‘She did love this town. What’s that lot?’ asked Sid, pointing to a different bundle of papers before taking another sip of tea.

  Lottie rifled through. ‘It’s the minutes from the committee meetings.’ She skimmed a couple. ‘There’s loads of good ideas in here from Nan and they’re all vetoed.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like starting a youth theatre, or asking local businesses to fund some of the renovations in exchange for their names on the brochures.’

  ‘Not bad,’ replied Sid, leaning forwards. ‘Who vetoed them?’

  ‘The rest of the committee.’

  ‘And who’s that?’

  ‘Umm …’ Lottie flicked through the pages. ‘There’s Mayor Cunningham, but it just has him down as a committee member. It doesn’t look like he’s there in his official capacity, just a normal person.’

  ‘A normal person in Greenley?’ asked Sid.

  ‘Well, relatively normal.’ It was true that Greenley had more than its fair share of eccentrics. ‘The secretary’s Sarah Powell, and the treasurer’s Trevor Ryman. There’s some spare seats too.’

  ‘Well,’ said Sid, sitting back. ‘Mayor Cunningham probably wants to be chairman to sell the land to a developer. He did that with the hospital, didn’t he?’

  ‘Oh yes. Everyone was campaigning to save it and he and his council cronies pushed through the sale before anyone could do anything about it.’ Lottie tutted. The whole town had felt hoodwinked and her nan had been apoplectic with rage.

  ‘And Sarah Powell works in my doctor’s surgery,’ Sid carried on. ‘She’s fancied Cunningham for years so she’s always going to vote the same way he does.’

  Lottie’s eyebrows knitted together. ‘In this day and age? What a wimp. Who’s Trevor Ryman? Does he own the solicitor’s in town?’

  ‘Ryman, Wayman and Galbraith? Yeah, his dad set it up and he took it over when the old man retired. I remember covering it. They gave him a carriage clock.’

  Lottie laughed. ‘A carriage clock?’

  ‘I know, shocking, isn’t it? The poor man built the business up from scratch, worked there for fifty years and his idiot son gives him a carriage clock as a retirement gift.’ He shook his head. ‘Terrible.’

  Lottie took a swig of her tea and held up the papers. ‘Listen to this: “Proposal by Elsie Webster to bring back amateur dramatics group to get the community involved and raise much needed funds, vetoed by committee due to lack of funds for marketing.”’

  Sid sat quietly squinting which normally meant he was thinking. ‘Now, there’s an idea.’

  ‘What?’ asked Lottie. Sid’s ideas could be either fantastically clever or completely bonkers. You were never quite sure what you were going to get.

  ‘Marketing. We could run an ad in the paper.’

  ‘For the am dram group?’

  ‘Yeah. Why not?’ Sid was full of excitement, talking quickly. ‘That takes care of the marketing costs so they won’t be able to say no. And it’d be a huge step to bring back the Greenley Players. We’ll do an article and include a picture of you.’

  ‘Me?’ Lottie asked, her eyes wide with worry.

  ‘Yes, you. You’re going to be the new chairman. We need a picture of you and one of Elsie, giving her a really lovely tribute. That’ll get everyone going.’

  ‘No way,’ Lottie said, re-fastening her long blonde hair into a ponytail, even though it was already perfect.

  Sid shook his head in disapproval. ‘Come on, Lots. I don’t know why you think you’re some ugly troll that should live under a bridge somewhere.’

  ‘Fat, ugly troll to be precise,’ she said, tidying the papers on the floor.

  ‘You’re impossible, you really are. You’re not bad looking at all, you’re …’

  Lottie started at the compliment and looked up to see Sid had turned a violent shade of red.

  ‘I’ll make some more tea,’ he said and, grabbing up the mugs, hurried from the room.

  Lottie heard the kettle boiling in the kitchen and considered what Sid had said. Not the compliment, that was just too odd to think about, but the idea of free marketing was a good one.

  The pictures on the dresser caught her eye again as if Elsie was watching her. If she was going to try and do this, she wasn’t going to fail at the first step. Lottie went to the hall and pulled her laptop from her bag, came back to the sofa and sat with it on her knees. When Sid returned, his face fell. ‘What? We need to get started on my presentation straight away.’

  ‘But can’t we have lunch first?’

  Chapter 3

  Sid walked through the town heading for his favourite record shop. LPs, it seemed, were making a comeback. There’d been a time when his nerdy hobbies had been laughed at, but now it was cool. The collection he’d inherited from his parents – a weird mix of Motown and prog rock – must be worth a fortune now. Not that he’d ever sell.

  A smile spread across his face as he thought of Lottie. He’d asked her to come into town as it was the weekend and they weren’t working, but she’d refused saying she was busy practising her presentation for the board. At last there had been a breakthrough. If only he’d been able to break through to her heart, but he knew deep down he’d missed his chance.

  After two previous attempts in their early twenties – one at a New Year’s Eve party when he’d tried to kiss her and ended up kissing the top of her ear, and another when they’d had a few too many watching a movie and after an odd surge of adrenalin, Sid had decided he’d declare his feelings, then bottled it – he’d realised he was well and truly in the friendship zone.

  Neither episode had ended well. He’d been left red-faced and embarrassed, making jokes and laughing it off and Lottie had gone into hiding for days. Then when they’d finally seen each other again both pretended nothing had happened and the awkwardness had eventually faded, leaving them back where they’d started.

  If he was honest with himself, which up until lately he’d avoided as much as possible, he’d always thought that somehow, at some point, he and Lottie would end up together. One day somet
hing would happen to force them both into realising they loved each other. Because he did love Lottie. For him it had always been more than friendship but she just never seemed interested in anything else.

  Sid blamed his love of movies for all his years of being single. He’d always hoped that one day UFOs might land in Greenley or the Zombie-Apocalypse would descend and after he’d beat off a horde of flesh-eating zombies with nothing but a severed leg, Lottie would fall into his arms, kiss him and cry, ‘Oh, Sid, you saved me!’ If that had happened everything would have been alright, but strangely it hadn’t, and he’d missed his chance.

  Sid shoved his hands in his pockets. No, the window of opportunity had closed and now he was destined to be Lottie’s friend for the rest of their lives. He lifted his head; had someone just called his name?

  ‘Sid?’

  Looking over his shoulder, he saw a woman of startling gorgeousness running towards him. Her long brown hair bounced behind her and her smile was warm and friendly. He vaguely recognised her but couldn’t place her. Surely he wouldn’t have forgotten a girl who looked like that?

  ‘It is Sid Evans, isn’t it?’ she asked, a broad smile on her face.

  He knew he was staring and made an effort to close his mouth. ‘Yeah, it is. Umm, hi.’

  ‘It’s Selena. Selena Fleming. We went to uni together. Do you remember? We were in the same halls in first year and then I was constantly at your house because you guys had a garden?’

  Sid reached back into the depths of his mind. He could remember a sullen goth emo girl with large boobs and chubby cheeks called Selena. He’d seen her a lot as she was dating one of his friends, but this couldn’t be her. Could it? She looked like a personal trainer or something. ‘Did you date Hayden Lukas?’

  ‘Yeah! I’m surprised you recognised me. I’ve changed a bit since then.’ She flicked her hair back behind her shoulder.

  You’re telling me, thought Sid. The Selena who stood in front of him now was tall and slim. Or at least she appeared taller. She wasn’t hunched over with long hair falling into her face, being angsty and deep.