Christmas in St Ives

by Miranda Dickinson

  I just wish it wasn’t happening in plain sight of my ex.

  As the home-time bell sounds, I usher the children back to the classroom to collect their coats and bags. We’ve overrun a little, but nobody seems to mind. The usual rush to the door hasn’t happened on the days when the Christmas play rehearsal has been the last session of the day. I stand by the door and say goodbye to each one, my classroom assistant Jen leaving with them on her way to her second job working at a restaurant overlooking the harbour in Newlyn. I don’t know how she does it, but so many people who live here accept you have to do whatever work you can while it’s there. Winter can be especially tough, with most of the tourists gone and many businesses closing for a few months.

  I’m collecting my things together when I realise I’ve left my folder with the play script in the hall. Laughing at myself, I take my coat, bag and scarf and retrace my steps past the two other open-plan classrooms towards the hall. My colleagues have been busy in the run-up to Christmas – the display boards on the walls are filled with wintry scenes, snowflakes made out of folded and cut paper, or drinking straws forming asterisk-shape stars covered in white cotton wool and drenched in silver glitter. Jo’s classroom has taken the subject of ‘Christmas Around the World’, with brightly painted figures in national dress and a display of Christmas items from Scandinavia, Russia, Germany, France and Spain. An enormous Happy Christmas in ice-blue foiled paper on one display board is surrounded by the same phrase in ten other languages, each one written in bubble-letters and enthusiastically decorated by her class of nine-year-olds.

  The door to the school hall now bears an army of hat-and-scarf-clad polar bears and the hall itself looks like an explosion in a tinsel factory. Our caretaker Maureen, who has been here since some of the teachers were at St Piran’s as children, does it every year. She ropes her poor long-suffering husband Sidney into it, too, relying upon him to pin the lengths of sparkly tinsel to each side of the ceiling. The kids adore it and many an almost-Christmas lunch is eaten with their eyes fixed on the glittery spectacle above their heads.

  I love the traditions people uphold year after year. My next-door neighbour Val always brings me a handful of ‘festive pomanders’ – oranges studded with cloves tied with berry-red ribbon – to hang around my home. David used to hide them in the kitchen drawer, but this Christmas they hang proudly from the window in each room.

  I see my folder where I left it, on the edge of the piano. Smiling to myself, I pick it up and am halfway to the staffroom when I hear David’s voice. I’ve had such a good day today – I don’t want to spoil it just before I leave. I jump up onto the stage and duck behind the ancient curtains, their faded red backgrounds and proud grey knights on horseback swaying as I flatten myself against the wall. I’m struck by an almost overwhelming urge to giggle, but I manage to stop myself in time.

  ‘. . . and if we can put ourselves on the map, who knows what we can do.’ David’s in the hall now, the soles of his polished brown shoes click-clacking across the wooden floor. I hear a second set of footsteps too, lighter than David’s but a beat behind his.

  ‘Sounds like you have big plans, David.’

  Tom Keller couldn’t hide his accent even if he wanted to. I smile behind the charging knights. During this week, I’ve developed a respect for the sonorous voice with its characteristic lifts at the end of each sentence. When he talks, I can hear music in his tone, a shadow of the instrument present in every word.

  ‘I do, Tom. So, how’s our epic festive production coming on?’

  ‘Good. Great, actually.’

  Thank you, Tom.

  ‘And Cerrie’s been okay?’

  ‘She’s great, too.’

  ‘I just thought, what with her protectiveness over the whole thing you might have encountered some resistance.’

  Tom’s laugh echoes warmly around the hall and it’s a wordless dismissal of David’s question. Good. How dare David try to stir up ill feeling between us?

  ‘Have you heard the music Cerrie’s written? It’s awesome. No, I mean it: simple for the kids to learn but the musicality of it is as good as any commercial stuff.’

  ‘I expect you’ve had a lot to do with that.’

  I pull a face at my ex from the safety of my hiding place.

  ‘I changed some chords a little here and there, but it’s good stuff.’

  ‘So, would you be up for taking over next year?’

  There’s a definite pause. I don’t want there to be any space between David’s question and Tom’s answer. I hear the creak of the piano lid being lifted and a chair scraping along the floor.

  That’s too long, Tom. Tell David where to go!

  ‘I mean I wouldn’t want to step on any toes, you know. Cerrie –’

  ‘– would be more than happy not to have this responsibility forever. Trust me, Tom. I know her better than you do. Fact is, St Piran’s is going places. Cerrie’s part of that, too, and she’s a brilliant teacher. But with your professional experience we could establish the school as the best for drama productions in the area. Maybe the whole of south-west Cornwall. This is the best Cerrie can manage. I’m sure you can see things she could improve on.’

  I can hardly believe what I’m hearing. Notes on the piano begin to play – an unfamiliar melody that is beautiful and ugly at the same time. Is Tom actually considering taking this from me after all?

  ‘I mean, sure, there are other things we could do.’

  ‘Make some changes if you like. I’m sure Cerrie won’t mind.’

  ‘Maybe I’ll run some ideas past her tomorrow.’

  ‘Good idea. In the meantime, thanks for everything you’re doing, Tom . . .’

  The music ends. I wait, my heart thudding so loudly I’m sure it will cause an echo, until I hear the piano lid close and Tom and David’s voices fade from earshot. Only when I’m certain they aren’t returning do I dare to step out from the curtain folds and climb down from the stage. As I pass the upright piano I run my hand across the closed pale beech lid. It feels like a barrier.

  I hold it together until I’m inside my car, tears falling like the flurry of snowflakes hitting my windscreen as I start the engine and screech out of the empty car park. I let myself trust Tom, let myself like him, and I allowed myself to believe he was as in love with the production as I am.

  How wrong was I?

  One thing I know for certain: I won’t make that mistake again. If Tom Keller thinks he can take my Christmas production from me he can think again. I’ve worked too hard and for too long to lose it now.

  I don’t hide from the hurt that evening as I sob in the sparkling brightness of my home. Tonight, I’ll allow myself to feel it all. But starting tomorrow morning, I’m coming back fighting . . .

  Chapter Eleven

  Seren

  Our online call for volunteers seems to have gone better than we’d hoped. What began with a couple of people responding on Twitter and Instagram at the beginning of the week has now blossomed into something far more significant. When I park my car in the farmyard by Fred’s barn tonight there are five more vehicles I haven’t seen before.

  The buzz in the barn is loud and welcome. At least ten people are helping my friends make lanterns, and everywhere I look the giant figures destined to parade through St Ives are rising from the piles of willow withy sticks and shiny material. Aggie waves at me across the space, beaming. For the first time I think we might be able to pull this off. Kieran gives me a hug.

  ‘The power of social media, huh?’ He’s playing it down, but his Instagram photo account is most likely to have brought so many volunteers. ‘Lots of new faces and they’ve all promised to keep coming back until the lanterns are done. Lovely folks, all of them. Mind you, we need to stop Lou hugging them quite so much or he’ll scare them off.’

  ‘I’ll keep an eye on him.’

  ‘Rather you than me.’

  ‘Tell her about her admirer!’ Aggie yells. Cerrie and Lou look up and grin. />
  ‘Oh yeah, there’s a bloke over there who says he knows you.’

  I follow the direction of Kieran’s pointed finger – and can’t believe who I see.

  ‘Alastair?’

  A familiar sandy-haired head looks up from over the edge of a half-made, huge snowflake lantern. It is him! The last time I saw Alastair Currie was on the day we walked out of our suddenly former workplace, pathetic cardboard boxes in hand. Like all my colleagues we’d promised to keep in touch, but without our work in common we quickly drifted apart.

  I hurry over and hug him, his presence here suddenly feeling important.

  Working with Dad has been okay, living at home has been fine, but I’ve started to miss the life I’d begun to carve for myself. Alastair was part of that world, one half of our creative team. We worked on countless campaigns together, firing ideas off each other, working late into the night sometimes, chasing deadlines with company-provided pizza and rocket-fuel coffee. The rush was fun when it involved working with someone with whom I was so matched creatively. I miss that. I’ve missed it more than I realised until now . . .

  ‘Surprise!’ he laughs, every detail of his face a lovely returning memory. ‘Bet you weren’t expecting me?’

  ‘Not at all! How did you know about this?’

  ‘Saw your tweet asking for volunteers and fancied helping.’

  ‘You follow my tweets?’

  Alastair chuckles. ‘I like to check up on my old work buddies. I thought it’d be good to create something physical for a change. Working only on screen is soul-destroying sometimes. And Georgie here thinks I’m doing okay.’

  ‘He’s not bad.’ Georgie grins from the other side of the star lantern. ‘Talks a lot, though.’

  ‘He always did.’ I turn back to Alastair, my head still spinning from seeing him again. ‘It’s so good to see you. How are you doing? What are you up to now?’

  ‘Help me stretch this corner over the frame, MacArthur, and I’ll tell you everything.’

  For the next hour we work and chat, the months since our last day at Grafyx melting away. He’s still living in Falmouth, a fifty-minute car drive away, which makes his being here all the more surprising and special.

  ‘Thanks so much for this,’ I say, when the star lantern is finished and Georgie and I are laying out pieces for a huge Harry Potter lantern to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of J. K. Rowling’s books. ‘I really appreciate you coming over.’

  ‘My pleasure. It’s been fun.’ He helps us fetch the half-made frame from the stack in the corner of the barn. ‘Hey, are you free for a drink on Friday night? My shout. I’m heading over this way anyway. It would be good to meet up.’

  Considering the effort he’s gone to in order to be here tonight, a drink is the least I can do. ‘I’d love to. How about I shout you dinner and you cover the drinks?’

  ‘Ah, the old Seren MacArthur, alive and well! You’re on, lady.’

  It’s only when I’m back at home working on Aggie’s bracelet that the significance of Alastair’s words hit me. The old Seren. I stare at the line of seaglass pieces awaiting their silver wire mounts. It’s been so long that I’m not sure I even recognise the old me any more. I thought she’d been lost in the jumble of losing my job and home and life in Falmouth. Could she ever make a return? I love living in St Ives – it’s a part of me I’ve enjoyed rediscovering – and being back with my parents has its benefits. But I miss who I was before. I miss the freedom. I miss me.

  Chapter Twelve

  Cerrie

  It begins during the first song. My kids are diligently enunciating their words and using their best ‘big voices’, when Tom stops playing and holds up his hand.

  ‘Great, kids. Just take a break for a minute, okay?’

  Firstly, it’s my job to direct this production. Secondly, why stop a perfectly good run-through of the song like that?

  I keep my smile steady and bright because every eye is watching and I already know which children will be convincing themselves they were responsible for the mistake that stopped the song. ‘It sounds so good. Take some deep breaths because there’s a long note coming up in this chorus, remember?’ Reaching the piano, smile intact, I glance at Tom. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Okay, don’t hate me, but I was going over this song last night and I just think it would be good to change the key after chorus two. Really lift that final verse and chorus repeat.’

  ‘No.’

  I hope the cheery expression I wear for the benefit of the kids is sufficiently annoying. Tom stares back. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘No key change. The song is fine. The kids naturally gain volume on the last verse and chorus, which works really well.’

  ‘Okay, but if we lift it to C we’d get an extra boost. Make it anthemic.’

  ‘We’re in a school hall, not Wembley Stadium.’

  He drops his voice. ‘Cerrie . . . ?’

  I’m already walking back to the centre of the hall. ‘Okay, kids, let’s go for the last verse and chorus. Huge voices this time.’ I don’t even look at Tom, but hear the slightest hesitation before the music starts.

  It doesn’t end there. In the second song, he plays a different piano line in the bridge section, which throws out the harmony my best singers have learned. I ask him to put it back and he does – but only after a glowering stare. Then he tries to ask Ruby to sing the first verse in the third song with Nessie Dixon, even though Nessie’s voice is strong enough to carry it alone. Again, I have to step in – ever the happy, calm teacher as far as my class is concerned – and firmly restate that it is Nessie’s solo to sing.

  By the time the final song has been performed I’m daring him to challenge me again. I take my kids back to class immediately, leaving Tom to clear away chairs. I don’t even go back to check if it’s been done when the bell rings and the children run out to meet their parents. Righteous anger has fuelled me all afternoon. And, for a change, it feels good to assert my authority. I spend my life trying to help other people, often tying myself in knots in the process. But not this time. I don’t care what David told Tom, or what Tom thinks he has licence to do: this is my production. Nobody is going to take it away from me.

  In the after-school gloom outside the rain has turned icy. Tiny bullets of cold pepper my face and body as I hurry to my car. There’s no lantern-making at the farm tonight, but there is a large bottle of red wine at home with my name on it. I’m in the mood to celebrate finally having the guts to say no.

  Reaching for my car keys, I find they’ve lodged themselves in the lining of my coat pocket and it takes several pulls to yank them free. When I look up, someone is standing by my car.

  ‘You want to tell me what that was about today?’

  ‘Hello, Tom.’

  ‘Did I offend you? Was it because I tried to change your score?’

  ‘I’m running late. Would you mind moving?’

  ‘Answer the question. What did I do?’

  I don’t like his tone. Or the way he refuses to budge from my driver’s door. ‘Please move. It’s filthy weather and I really don’t want to get pneumonia.’

  He doesn’t, so I hit the key remote button, causing a flash of angry amber indicator light and a loud click that temporarily sends him jumping away from my door. Taking the advantage, I skirt round his body, open the door and jump in, slamming it shut as quickly as I can behind me.

  But as I’m turning on the engine, the passenger door flies open and Tom claims the seat. The slam of the door seals us inside, the only sounds around us the flurries of iced rain against the windscreen, the low hum of the cold engine and the sharp bursts of his breath.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing? Get out!’

  ‘I’m not leaving.’ His toned arms fold across his body. The rain has soaked through his shirt, the wet material clinging to every curve of muscle. If Jo were in my seat now she’d be jumping him.

  ‘Then I’ll drive to the nearest police station and report you for hara
ssment.’

  ‘Are you crazy? And the nearest manned police station is Camborne. You going to drive me all the way there?’

  I don’t flinch. ‘Get out of my car, please.’

  ‘Not until you tell me why you went all Bond villain on me today.’

  Why should I tell him what I overheard? Let him work it out. ‘I appreciate your help, but the score and the script remain as they have been written. We are less than a week away from the performance and I want the children to have fun with it, not be scared because you’re changing things.’

  ‘Oh, I get it.’ His hollow laugh fills the car. ‘You’re ragged I changed your music.’

  ‘Don’t make this about me. I am concerned with the kids having the best time with this production. And I don’t just apportion songs and lines to children on a whim.’

  ‘Far be it from me to suggest you did . . .’

  Okay, that’s it. He’s crossed a line and needs to be told. ‘Do you know Nessie Dixon’s history? She lost her mum, a few months ago. Had to move to this school with her father because they lost their house. The last thing that lovely girl needs is something else being taken from her when she’s lost so much already.’

  ‘I–I didn’t know . . .’ Some of the fire fades from his expression.

  ‘And Ruby is great, but if you give her extra lines her mother will crow to other parents like there’s no tomorrow, which will cause hurt and upset – and put Ruby right in the middle of it with her classmates . . .’

  ‘I didn’t know that, either.’

  ‘. . . And don’t you ever, even as a joke, suggest that Reuben Giles can’t learn his lines. When he started in Class 4 in September he was so shy he could barely whisper his name during the register. Saying anything out loud, in front of the whole school and all their parents, will be a huge achievement.’

  ‘Cerrie, I’m sorry.’ His hand reaches for the door handle and I let up a silent prayer of thanks. The sooner I can be free of him, the better.