by Agatha Frost
“I am not old before my time.”
“I bet you’re wearing sensible trousers and a cardigan under that coat.”
“So?” Janet pulled her coat tighter, annoyed he’d guessed so correctly. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Nothing, my dear,” Eugene said with a hearty pat on her shoulder. “Just take it from someone a little older – it’s okay to loosen up sometimes. You’re never too old to have some fun. I don’t want to take the play from you; I simply want to help. And I did not take your megaphone. Sabotage is not in my nature.”
From the little she knew about the extravagant local MP, she had a feeling he was telling the truth. Despite his constant attempts to interfere with the play, Janet had never heard anyone say a bad word about him.
“Perhaps I have been holding the reins a little too tightly,” she said, her spine stiffening a little. “While I don’t appreciate your judgements about my clothing, I will hear out your ideas … on one condition.”
“Anything, Director.”
“Help me find my megaphone,” she said in a slightly smaller voice. “I apologise for making a fool of myself in front of you. I have far too much of my mother in me.”
“Are you kidding?” Eugene whispered as they walked back into the church. “That’s the most human I’ve seen you.”
Janet wasn’t sure if the comment was a compliment or an insult, but she had more pressing matters on her mind. She joined Alan at the pew where he was inspecting the torn paper with a large black torch and a magnifying glass.
“Crumbs on the paper,” he said, as though he could sense her hovering over his shoulder. “Flaky pastry by the looks of it. Don’t suppose you were eating a mince pie?”
“A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips,” she said, glaring over at the laughing women by the drinks table, “but I know who doesn’t mind gobbling them down.”
Leaving Alan with the evidence he’d discovered, Janet wriggled out of the pew and rushed down the aisle. She glanced at the stage; still not a script in sight, despite the extra-long break. She marched right up to the group of women. Linda glanced at her but continued to tell her story as though she wasn’t there.
“I’m telling you, ladies,” she said as she showed off her golden arms. “Get yourselves down to the travel agents and book yourselves a winter cruise! It’s done me the world of good.”
Janet cleared her throat, which caused the women to part around Linda, two settling on either side. Cups of tea in their gloved hands, they all looked Janet up and down like they had done every day of rehearsals when she dared confront them.
“What is it this time, Janet?” Linda asked after a sharp sip of her coffee. “Have you come over to insult my family again? What was it you called my daughter? A giant?”
“You have eyes, don’t you?” Janet glanced over at Raquelle who, even with a little hunch in her shoulders, still stood half a foot above the other kids. “And no, I haven’t. Where’s my megaphone?”
“How should I know?”
“Because someone has taken it.” Janet clenched her jaw as she pulled her bottom lip down a little. “I know you took it, Linda. You left your filthy fingerprints all over it.”
Linda cackled. “Have you heard this, ladies? Janet has finally lost the plot. Why would I want to take your megaphone?”
“Because I didn’t cast your daughter in the play.”
“Raquelle is the best for the role,” Linda said, suddenly jabbing a finger at Janet, “and you know it. You only cast your daughter because you wanted this whole production to be about you – just like everything else.”
To Janet’s surprise, Linda’s words stung, which only put her back up further. “My daughter is Mary, whether you like it or not.”
“Your daughter doesn’t even know her lines.” Linda sucked her teeth before giving a curling grin. “Lines you wrote for her. Nice script, by the way. Very neat handwriting.”
Janet’s hand twitched; the urge to warm Linda’s cold cheek with a sharp slap was far too tempting, but the statue of Jesus peered down at her from his cross on the wall. Not here, and not so close to Christmas. She stuffed her hands into her pockets.
“Did you take my megaphone or not?” she demanded in a tone the exact opposite of the calm one she’d been aiming for. “We need to get back to rehearsal.”
“I was here the whole time,” Linda said, looking around her group. “Wasn’t I, girls?”
“Yeah,” came the chorus of replies.
“No problem,” Janet said, taking a step back. “Nice tan, by the way. I knew it was you I saw coming out of that new sun-bed shop in the square this morning, Linda.”
Two women bit their lips to stop their laughter while the other two gasped. Leaving Linda red-faced under her orange tan and hiding behind her cup of coffee, Janet turned on her heel and stalked away, more than a little pleased with herself.
“This is impossible!” she hissed when she’d returned to Alan. “This rehearsal has been well and truly derailed, and now we have even less time to turn these kids into actors.”
“No luck from Linda?”
“She’s claiming she never left her cronies,” she said, her gaze darting to them as they helped themselves to more of the mince pies from Jane’s Tearoom. They were very clearly talking about her. “Even if she took it, they’re never going to tell me. They formed a gang around her within hours of the first rehearsal.”
“I went to school with Linda,” Alan said, biting into a mince pie of his own. “From what I remember, she spent most of her time alone in the library.”
“Then she got what she always wanted.”
“Sit down, love.” Alan patted the bench next to him. “Relax. It’s almost Christmas.”
“Exactly!” She stepped out of the pew entirely. “There’s no time to relax. Rehearsals must continue. The show must go on! We haven’t done a full run-through at all today, and they haven’t got the ending right once.”
“It’ll turn up.”
“Why would it?” Janet looked around the church, hating that someone knew where it was but wasn’t telling her. “This is hopeless.”
Eugene waved at her from the stage, his broad frame making the child-sized props seem even smaller somehow. Leaving Alan to his pie, Janet joined Eugene by the crib at centre stage.
“Can you hear that?” He stuck a finger in his right ear. “A buzzing.”
“I can’t hear anything.”
“Listen.”
Holding his other finger in the air, Eugene squinted as he followed something Janet couldn’t hear. Sighing, she concentrated, and caught a slight static crackle, but nothing she could name. She crossed to the bulky portable CD player they were using as a sound system for the hymns integrated into the play. Crouching, she put her ear to the speakers, but the plug was a foot from the extension trailing out of Reverend McNally’s vestry.
“Ah-ha!” Eugene exclaimed. “Found it!”
Janet spun around as Eugene ripped back the covers of the crib. The grey and cream megaphone lay where Jesus should have been, still turned on and lightly crackling to the surrounding noise. Eugene squatted and pulled the large plastic baby they’d been using as a Jesus prop from under the crib, along with several crunched mini-mince-pie tins.
“That child,” she said, nostrils flaring. “Where is she?”
“I haven’t seen her.”
“Raquelle?” Janet demanded as she walked up to the tall tree. “Have you seen Claire?”
“She went out there,” she said, barely making eye contact as she pointed a long tree branch at the church’s side door. “Ryan, too.”
Megaphone in hand, Janet marched towards the slightly ajar door and slipped out into the graveyard. The church lights bled through the stained glass, casting all the colours of the rainbow across the fluffy snow. In the distance, just beyond the catch of the light, two short shadows weaved between the headstones, flinging snowballs.
“Claire Harr
is!” Janet boomed through the megaphone.
Without needing another warning, Claire hurried over, still laughing and throwing snow in Ryan’s direction. On her way, she scooped up a handful, primed it into a tight ball, and tossed it at Janet’s coat.
“That’s enough of that!”
“Lighten up, Mother.” Claire threw more snow. “It’s nearly Christmas.”
“Claire!” Janet dodged another snowball as she shook the megaphone, which let out a loud screech of dismay. “Do you realise what you’ve done?”
Claire shrugged.
“You’ve made a fool out of me in front of everyone.”
“Why?”
“Because you took this.”
Claire’s brows scrunched up; she’d never looked more like her father.
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did.” Janet’s lips tightened into a thin line. “I found it in the crib, and poor Baby Jesus left out in the cold on the floor. Why are you like this?”
“I didn’t do anything!”
“Stop lying,” Janet said, casting a glance over her shoulder at the church as she pulled her coat closed against the chill. “I’ve caught you red-handed, and I won’t tolerate lying. Why did you take my megaphone?”
Claire’s frown deepened, and her hands clenched by her sides at the ends of arms locked dead straight.
“I’m not lying,” she said, looking Janet straight in the eye. “I never even wanted to do your stupid play.”
“You’re grounded.”
“What?”
“The rest of the Christmas holidays.”
“But, Mum, I—”
Claire didn’t continue her train of thought. She stomped her foot and stormed off, slamming the church door behind her. Much like Janet had done when she left the women to continue talking about her, perhaps Claire had known pushing the matter would be fruitless. Frustrated, Janet glared up at the night sky, wondering how the evening had turned so sour.
“Mrs Harris?” Ryan murmured, scratching at the scruffy ginger hair poking out from all sides of his woolly hat, his eyes firmly on the snow. “Claire didn’t take the megaphone.”
“Then who did?”
“I did.” His eyes darted up to her before returning to the snow between his shuffling feet. “I can tell it makes Claire sad when you shout at her over the megaphone, so I took it in the break. I didn’t think you’d be this mad.”
“I – I’m not mad.” Janet sighed and rubbed Ryan’s hat. “Thank you for telling me, Ryan. Run back inside.”
Ryan nodded and ran to the door as though grateful he’d escaped more serious punishment. Janet exhaled and watched her hot breath puff into the darkness above. She looked down at the megaphone. Though she hadn’t had it for the first few rehearsals, she couldn’t resist when she’d seen it in the charity shop window. She dropped it into the snow and went back inside. The £2.50 it had cost her was no kind of bargain if the megaphone led to this kind of strife.
“I think I let the power get to my head,” she told Alan as he started on what looked like his fourth mince pie. “I’ve been rather silly.”
“Nothing big enough that an apology won’t fix,” he said with a smile, nodding his chin towards the stage. “She came right in and started reading her lines.”
Janet turned and watched as Claire, cross-legged on the floor next to the crib, traced the words with her finger. Claire and Ryan sat poring over the script. Neither particularly wanted to be here, Janet knew, but where one went, the other followed. They neither liked to see the other suffer alone when they could suffer together. As much as she hated to admit it, Eugene had been right … as had Linda.
“I’m sorry,” Janet said as she crouched next to her daughter, pulling the script away. “I’m sorry for accusing you of taking the megaphone, I’m sorry for not believing you and calling you a liar, and I’m sorry for making you be Mary. You don’t want to do this, do you?”
Claire shook her head as she pushed up her glasses.
“Then I guess I’m going to have to rewrite the script to explain why Mary is so…” Janet’s voice trailed off when she realised Raquelle was within earshot – she’d been hard on more than her daughter – “so statuesque. Tree, you’re Mary now. Claire, you’re the tree.”
“What am I?” Ryan asked as he put the baby doll back in the crib.
“You’re Joseph,” she said firmly, a twinkle in her eye to let him think he’d got off lightly. “And you will learn those lines, won’t you?”
After sending the girls to swap costumes, Janet stepped back and looked up at the snow falling softly behind the largest stained-glass window.
“You were right,” she said when Alan joined her, curling her hand around his and interlacing their fingers. “It should be fun for everyone. Lesson learned.”
“It’s a Christmas miracle.”
“Don’t push it.” She playfully nudged his arm. “It’s a good job I have you to keep me grounded.”
“Happy to be of service, my love.”
“You’ll get that promotion,” she insisted, squeezing his hand tightly. “You’ll see. Once George messes it all up, which he will, Detective Inspector Alan Harris will step in to put things right.”
“Thanks, love.” Alan pecked her on the cheek. “Oh, I think you’re wanted.”
Janet turned to see Eugene standing in the middle of the aisle with two large boards resting against his shins and an expectant look in his eyes.
“Is now a good time to go over my ideas for the show?”
As much as they needed to get on with rehearsals, the children seemed quite content talking amongst themselves, and all of them finally had their scripts out. Claire was tripping over the far-too-long tree costume and Raquelle displaying her knobbly knees in the far-too-short Mary costume. Happy in their new roles, Claire and Raquelle both grinned – possibly for the first time in the whole rehearsal. Linda smirked, and Janet was happy to let her think she’d won.
“Now’s the perfect time,” Janet said, directing Eugene to her director’s bench.
“Marvellous!” He grinned from ear to ear, flipping around the cardboard. “Because I’ve made moodboards. Picture this! The staging of the 1963 Judy Garland Christmas Show with the music from Meet me In St. Louis meets the ghosts from A Christmas Carol but all somehow at the birth of Jesus. And I was thinking we could…”
While Eugene enthused about his vision, Janet looked around the church at the merry faces. In a strange way, she was grateful young Ryan had taken the megaphone. When she inevitably saw his mother in their cul-de-sac tomorrow, Janet would tell her all about it – but only to show how caring he’d been. Even if ripping up the script was perhaps a step too far. She had probably deserved it, what with her attempts to control every little detail of the production.
Smiling, she reached for her untouched mince pie and peeled off the foil before taking a bite. Even if the play was a complete disaster, they should have fun along the way – especially at Christmas.
Christmas Crystal Heist
A standalone story featuring yoga instructor Em from my Claire’s Candles series, and B&B owner Evelyn from my Peridale Cafe series.
Though Em loved everything Christmas stood for, she didn’t much care for the reality of what it usually became. Far too often, a day meant to be spent with family turned into overeating and arguments, all tinged with a sense of dread about how one was going to get through January now that all the money had been spent on buying loved ones things they didn’t really need. As a frugal minimalist, seeing what the overindulgent and excessive holiday did to those around her made Em’s feet itch.
Of course, plenty of good fun could be had at the holidays, too.
And Em loved nothing more than good fun.
Now in her fifties, Em only had her father left, and with no children, her friends filled out her family. She loved her many friends dearly, but she’d been content to turn down each invitation to their respective Christmas dinners.
Just as she’d done during the five previous festive seasons, she sailed her narrowboat far away from Northash and the realities of Christmas, and she moored her beloved floating home at the canal nearest her favourite yoga retreat, deep in the English countryside.
Not just any yoga retreat.
Crescent Moon Yoga Retreat.
For the twelfth year in a row, Hattie, an outspoken original hippie from the 1960s (now in her eighties) had once again decided to spend Christmas meditating and reflecting at Moon’s. Iqra, a wellness social media influencer, joined them for the second year running. According to their reintroduction three days ago, Iqra’s followers had quadrupled since the previous year, and she had barely spent a moment without her phone in her hand. Moon, the owner of the secluded retreat and the freest spirit Em had ever met, was there of course, along with her cat, Crescent.
Not unlike previous years, they were joined by two newcomers. Nova, a lovely young woman from Sweden, had come to dip her toe in the world of yoga after an unfortunate recent breakup with her fiancé. The final guest was a mystic called Evelyn, a bed and breakfast owner and keen traveller from the Cotswolds, there in search of like-minded people.
In the three days since everyone had arrived, they had meditated by the frosty windows and laughed and shared stories around the central fireplace (where Crescent usually curled up). Em had even put her skills to good use and led a few of the yoga sessions.
The peace Crescent Moon Yoga Retreat provided was all Em could ask for in life.
A pained sound broke that peace.
Pulling herself from her transportive meditation, Em listened carefully and blinked at the snow-covered fields stretching out to the icy horizon. The hairs on her tattooed arms stood to attention, and not because it was cold. The solar panels on the roof of the large, circular, self-sustaining stone building did a superb job powering the generator that kept the cold out.
No, Em could hear something.
Soft and distant, but unmistakable.
