The Country Village Christmas Show

by Cathy Lake

  She felt Kyle watching her.

  ‘We could have, Mum, but we had a life in Reading.’

  ‘I know, and I know we were busy. Then there was your dad . . .’

  ‘And let’s be honest, Dad wasn’t keen on coming here, was he? In fact, he was a bit of a stuck-in-the-mud, really. Born and raised in Reading, went to university there then stayed there as an adult, even though he lost both his parents before he graduated. Probably why he felt the need to spread his wings before he reached fifty.’

  Clare turned to meet Kyle’s gaze. ‘That could well be spot on about your dad. But thinking about not visiting Little Bramble often enough . . . I could have come and brought you.’

  ‘It would have been nice, but I had a great childhood, Mum. Don’t regret anything because you don’t need to. You know, I used to feel sorry for some of my friends because their parents worked long hours and they had to make their own tea, or they’d get a burger on the way home. You were always there to listen to me talk about my day and to make me a decent meal. You did your best and I know that, Mum.’

  ‘I can remember you getting a bit fed up when I wouldn’t give you money for burgers, except on weekends.’ Clare nudged him.

  ‘Of course, as a kid I wanted junk food, but I did understand that eating them every day wasn’t good for me. You saved my skin – and my waistline. I appreciate that now more than ever.’

  ‘I’m glad you see it now. I did feel quite mean sometimes.’ Clare swirled the dregs of coffee round in her cup. ‘Do you . . . do you wish we’d visited Nanna more? Especially with her being your only grandparent?’

  He shrugged. ‘I knew how it worked. Besides which, Nanna could also have visited us.’

  Clare finished her cookie and the last bite stuck in her throat, making her cough. Kyle patted her back firmly, dislodging it. She sipped her coffee to wash it down. Her son had been aware of far more than she’d known.

  ‘It’s getting colder. Shall we go inside?’ she asked.

  ‘Yeah, come on then. There’s that baking show on TV at nine that I’d like to watch.’

  ‘Fab.’

  Clare opened the kitchen door and they went inside. She placed her mug in the sink, then turned as she heard Kyle’s gasp.

  ‘The cookies – they’re all gone!’

  ‘What? How?’

  Clare stared at the cooling rack, then picked it up and looked underneath it as if the cookies might have fallen through.

  They hurried through to the lounge and there, on the rug in front of the hearth, was Goliath, surrounded by crumbs, licking his lips,

  ‘Did he eat them all, do you think?’ Kyle asked.

  ‘Looks like it. There wasn’t anything bad in them, was there? For dogs, I mean.’

  ‘No – no chocolate, so he should be all right.’

  ‘Thank goodness for that. We’ll just have to keep an eye on him.’

  Goliath suddenly belched loudly, filling the room with the aroma of peanuts.

  ‘That was naughty, Goliath.’ Clare wagged a finger at him. ‘You could have had one but not the whole damned lot.’

  ‘I can make more.’ Kyle was shrugging out of his coat.

  ‘It’s not that, it’s just that he doesn’t need the extra calories and his wind will be dreadful tonight.’

  Kyle snorted and covered his mouth with his hand. ‘Bloody dogs! I keep forgetting how big he is. He swiped my sandwich off the table yesterday just by walking past and grabbing it with his mouth. He did it so quickly that I only noticed when I looked up from my magazine and saw him chewing it by the back door!

  ‘Right, come on then, Mum, let’s get our pyjamas on and make some hot chocolate, then we can get comfy on the sofa. Nanna’s been in the bathroom for over an hour, but she did say she wanted to watch the programme too, so I’ll give her a shout when I go upstairs. She’ll probably resemble a prune by now.’

  Chapter 20

  ‘I’m not sure about this now.’ Clare’s mum walked around the largest room of the empty village hall, where there was a stage, a piano and adequate seating for a decent-sized audience. ‘It just doesn’t feel right.’

  Clare suppressed a sigh. Auditions week had arrived and she was feeling quite optimistic about it all, as was Kyle. Her mum, however, was a different matter.

  ‘What’s wrong with it?’ Clare looked around, assessing the double doors that led out to a hallway and the front doors, the large windows with their heavy blackout curtains that were closed against the wintery afternoon darkness and the fire exit at the end of the room that led straight out onto the car park. The best bit, in her opinion, was the large stage to the right of the doors from the hallway, with its velvet damask curtains fringed with gold tassels, the sweeping pelmet draped along the top of the stage and the stage itself, as yet unused, the fresh wooden boards smooth and unmarked, ready for performers. In front of the stage was a large piano, its polished mahogany surface shining in the electric light.

  ‘There’s just no atmosphere. It’s all too new, too . . . unused.’

  ‘Then use it, Mum, and create some atmosphere. Breathe life into the boards, the walls and the curtains. Bring music and song and dance and words to its core. Make this village hall the thing that Little Bramble is missing. Get up on that stage and perform!’

  Elaine did a circuit of the hall again, then stood in the centre of the room and closed her eyes. She started moving slowly, her arms outstretched, raising her legs, then lowering them in turn – the Tai Chi routine Clare had seen her perform in the garden in her underwear.

  ‘Right now?’ Kyle whispered.

  ‘By the look of it.’ Clare met her son’s curious gaze.

  ‘Why?’ His brows met.

  ‘Who knows? Clearly she thinks it will help.’

  ‘Well, while she’s altering the Zen of the room or shifting the aura or whatever it is, give me a hand getting things set up, will you?’

  Clare nodded, but she was tempted to join in. She enjoyed their morning Tai Chi sessions and could understand why her mum was doing it now. It was relaxing, energising and cleansing all at once. But there were things to be done, so she helped Kyle carry two tables from under the stage and set them in front of it, along with three chairs. She hung her bag over the back of one chair, then got out her list of the afternoon’s performers, three notebooks and some pens. She added three bottles of water and a tube of mints.

  ‘It’s like one of those reality TV shows, Mum.’ Kyle pulled out a chair and sat down. ‘Can I be the baddy?’

  ‘The baddy?’ Clare asked, as she sat next to him.

  ‘Yes, you know, the judge who says all the acts are rubbish and gets booed by the audience.’

  Clare giggled. ‘I can’t imagine you ever being a baddy, Kyle.’

  ‘I could, you know.’ He curled his lip and pointed at the stage. ‘That, young man, was appalling! How can you call yourself an act? You should go home with your head down and never, ever perform in public again.’ He turned to Clare. ‘Well?’

  ‘Scary.’

  ‘Excellent.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘That’s my role sorted then.’

  ‘The problem, though, is that we have lots of local people coming to audition and if you treat them like that . . .’

  ‘It could make me a pariah?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Better tone it down then, hadn’t I?’

  ‘I think so. Especially if you’re planning on staying around for a while.’ She crossed her fingers under the table. Having Kyle around was lovely and she didn’t want him to leave the village just yet.

  ‘That’s better.’ Elaine pulled out the chair the other side of Kyle and sat down. ‘I needed to realign my energy.’

  ‘Fabulous, Nanna! I knew it was something like that.’ Kyle nodded. ‘Now that your energy is realigned, do you think that the hall will do for the show?’

  ‘We’ll see.’ Elaine cocked a grey eyebrow, but a smile played across her lips and Clare
suspected that her mum was warming to the idea.

  ‘And are you going to be on stage yourself?’ Clare asked.

  ‘I have an idea, but I’ll need Kyle to accompany me.’

  ‘We’ll see.’ Kyle winked, echoing Elaine’s words. ‘Right, who’s first?’

  ‘The firefighters.’

  ‘What?’ Her mum peered around Kyle. ‘And what are they doing?’

  ‘There’s five of them, two women and three men, and they’re doing –’

  ‘Free running!’ There was a shout from the hallway, then five people raced in through the door and up the steps to the stage. In blue trousers and T-shirts with trainers and red sweatbands on their wrists, the team began their performance. The curtains swished open to reveal a range of props that the team had set up in the hall earlier that day. They moved quickly, running up and down what looked like a seesaw, jumping on and off a table and a freestanding ladder and bouncing into forward rolls and cartwheels, as well as lifting one another and somersaulting off shoulders and backs and landing in elegant poses.

  Throughout their performance, they emitted a series of whoops and whistles, all completely in tune with one another, all at ease, as graceful and light-footed as professional gymnasts. A few times Clare gasped and covered her mouth, convinced that one of them would mistime their leap or bounce and fall off the stage, but nothing went wrong and by the end of their performance, she was breathless.

  When the five firefighters held hands at the front of the stage and bowed, Clare stood up and clapped, as did Kyle and Elaine.

  ‘Wow! Just wow!’ Clare shook her head. ‘That was amazing!’

  ‘It really was.’ Kyle nodded. ‘We’ll be in touch soon.’

  The firefighters bowed again, then quickly set about moving their equipment to the back of the stage to make room for the other acts.

  When they’d left the hall, Clare turned to her son and her mum.

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ Elaine shook her head. ‘That was not exactly what I’d call . . . appropriate.’

  ‘I disagree,’ Kyle said. ‘That’s exactly what we need to inject some life into this place.’

  ‘It’s hardly festive, is it?’ Elaine wrinkled her nose.

  ‘We’ll ask them to wear Christmas jumpers, reindeer antlers and perform to a Christmas tune,’ Clare said firmly. ‘It’s a yes from me. Kyle?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, that’s two to one, so it’s a yes.’

  Clare drew a large tick next to the act on her list. She could feel her mum’s indignation brewing like strong coffee, and part of her felt really bad, but another part felt quite good. Standing up to her mum was something she’d rarely – if ever – done, and she wouldn’t have done it over nothing, but the firefighters had been brilliant, and Clare believed that they would make a good addition to the show.

  ‘What’s next?’ Elaine asked, thawing faster than Clare could have hoped.

  ‘The vicar.’

  ‘Isn’t he performing a contortionist act?’ Kyle waggled his eyebrows.

  ‘He is indeed.’ Clare smiled, wondering exactly what Iolo Ifans was going to do.

  She didn’t have to wonder for long because he entered the hall wearing a long taupe raincoat and wellington boots with a trilby pressed low on his head.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ he said from the stage.

  Kyle sniggered. ‘He looks like a flasher.’

  ‘Shhh!’ Clare nudged her son.

  ‘Hello, Father Ifans.’ Clare waved. ‘We’re looking forward to your performance.’

  ‘Thank you!’ He took off his hat, then placed it on the floor next to him before removing his coat and wellingtons.

  Clare swallowed a giggle when she saw what he was wearing underneath.

  ‘Really?’ Kyle muttered, shuffling the notepad in front of him and shifting in his chair. ‘That Lycra is practically indecent. You can see every lump and bump and saggy bit!’

  ‘Hush, Kyle.’ Elaine tapped his arm. ‘It’s fine.’

  Kyle grimaced at Clare and laughter bubbled in her chest. The sixty-something vicar was wearing a lime-green Lycra bodysuit which clung to his frame, leaving very little to the imagination, exposing his pot belly, bony shoulders and more. She wished they had a red button that they could press to end the act before it began, but this was real life and not a TV show.

  Five minutes later, Clare was standing up and clapping again. The vicar did not look like he’d be able to bend over backwards and wrap his legs over his shoulders, but he had done, and he had also folded himself into a variety of shapes that made her wince. But it had been highly entertaining and funny.

  She looked at her son and her mum and they all nodded.

  ‘It’s a yes!’ she announced and Iolo grinned broadly, a hand resting on his concave chest.

  He picked up his coat and hat and slid his feet into his wellies. ‘The Lord moves in mysterious ways.’

  ‘And so does the vicar,’ Kyle said behind his notepad, making Clare snigger again.

  Most of the rest of the acts were good, including the school choir, made up of children aged from six to eleven. They were accompanied by their head teacher on the piano, and Clare found herself swallowing hard as emotion rose in her throat while they performed a medley of Christmas songs, their smiling faces and angelic voices just beautiful. There was also a large male bulldog called Mr Spike who sang (or rather howled) along to opera music while his owner, Amanda King, watched proudly from the wings, an elderly man, Greg Patrick, who crooned ‘White Christmas’ just like Frank Sinatra and a reading of Clement Clarke Moore’s ‘A Visit from St. Nicholas’, performed by Miranda Fitzalan.

  When the final act had left the hall, Clare looked at the list in front of her and all the ticks. There had been only two rejections, a twenty-something couple who’d done a ventriloquist act that had been abysmal and a young man who had claimed to be able to breakdance but who had simply rolled around on the stage and kicked his legs in the air.

  ‘Will there be room for any more acts?’ Kyle asked, voicing Clare’s thoughts. ‘I mean, we have more to see at the next auditions.’

  ‘Lose the free runners next and you’ll be fine,’ Elaine muttered.

  ‘No, Mum. Absolutely not. Anyway, this just means that the show will be a bit longer than we’d anticipated. To be honest, I hadn’t expected to see such high-quality performances. It’s as though the community’s been waiting for something like this to showcase their talents.’

  ‘Hmmm.’ Elaine pushed her glasses back on her head, pursed her lips and folded her arms across her chest. ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘There’s no perhaps about it, Nanna.’ Kyle took a drink from his water bottle. ‘Local people clearly want to get involved. This show could really bring the community back together.’

  ‘I hope so.’ Clare smiled, excitement trickling through her like warm spiced wine. ‘It will be a wonderful way to start the festivities.’

  As they put on their coats and tidied the tables and chairs away, Clare realised that she was looking forward to Christmas. Not just because she would be with her son and her mum, but because she would, for the first time in years, be part of a community, and she intended on doing everything in her power to make it a very special Christmas indeed.

  ‘Are you sure you didn’t mind coming?’ Jenny asked Clare for the fiftieth time as they sat in the waiting room of the clinic.

  ‘Of course not.’ Clare squeezed Jenny’s hand. ‘I’m happy to be here.’

  ‘We’re both grateful,’ Martin said, smiling at Clare.

  His face was pale and he kept chewing at his nails. He was clearly very nervous. Jenny had been to the GP the week before and had her pregnancy confirmed, then she’d been booked in for a scan so they could determine how far along she was and if there were any medical issues to contend with.

  ‘I really need to pee.’ Jenny wriggled on her seat
, pulling her stretchy black top down over her belly. In the week and a half since Clare had seen her friend, Jenny had grown bigger and now had a lovely beach-ball sized bump under her clothing. ‘I’d forgotten how uncomfortable having to have a full bladder for the scan is.’

  ‘Jenny Rolands?’ A woman in pale-blue scrubs stuck her head in the waiting room. ‘We’re ready for you now.’

  ‘I guess this is it.’ Jenny sighed.

  ‘I’ll wait here for you,’ Clare said.

  Jenny and Martin stood up and walked slowly towards the doorway of the sonographer’s room.

  ‘I can’t do it.’ Martin turned from the doorway. His face crumpled and he covered it with his hands.

  ‘It’s OK, Martin.’ Jenny rubbed his back. ‘It will be fine.’

  ‘I can’t.’ He shook his head and when he lowered his hands, his cheeks were wet. ‘I’m so worried that something will be . . .’

  Jenny had told Clare on the phone that Martin had been shocked when she’d broken the news about the pregnancy, then elated, then terrified, and that he kept swinging between joy and fear. Clare could understand why.

  ‘Do you want to sit out here, Martin?’ Clare got up and asked. He was such a big man with the build of a rugby player, but when it came to his wife’s health and well-being he was as soft and vulnerable as they came. ‘I’ll go in with Jenny, if you like.’

  He met her eyes and she saw relief in his gaze.

  ‘Do you mind?’

  ‘Not at all. I’ll hold her hand, I promise.’

  ‘Thank you. Jenny . . . do you mind?’

  ‘Of course not. I understand.’

  Jenny hugged him and told him she’d be fine. It was one of those moments when Clare was struck by female strength and resilience. Martin loved Jenny, he was a good husband and a kind and caring man, but in this instance, he couldn’t be by his wife’s side because of his fears for her. Jenny, however, had no choice; she had to go in for the scan and while doing so, she was being strong for her husband, but also for herself and her baby. Clare was filled with admiration and love for her.