A Christmas Gift

by Sue Moorcroft

  ‘Wow, you’ve known him for ages,’ she said encouragingly. She did the maths in her head, knowing Oggie to be in his mid-forties. ‘The Surrey school must have been one of his first jobs.’

  He shrugged.

  Nobody could accuse him of drawing things out with his chat, chat, chat, she thought. ‘This is the studio theatre. We’re incredibly lucky to have it. Some rehearsals take place here but we put performances on at the Raised Curtain, a theatre attached to a local academy.’ She cast her satisfied gaze over a drum kit standing near mic stands, amplifiers and equalisers. The front rows of the retractable seating were out but the rest were tidily away like a giant set of drawers ready for rehearsals.

  She speeded up as she led the way back up the corridor. ‘The main building used to be a house called Lie Low, the bolthole of a Carry On star and then a shady businessman.’ They passed dance studios, Joe glancing in on students and giving the brief nods he seemed to consider sufficient interaction as Georgine continued to provide background information. ‘Acting Instrumental’s a small independent further education college. Our current roll is eighty-four students across two year-groups. The cafeteria’s through here. Oggie got funding to subsidise lunches so the take-up is high.’ She turned right. ‘This is my room.’ She laughed to see a garland of turquoise tinsel hanging from the handle. ‘I’m collecting Christmas props so people are bringing me their cast offs.’ She whisked past, heading straight for dance rehearsal.

  She paused at the door. ‘This is the big rehearsal room. Maddie’s working with dance students on our Christmas show, A Very Kerry Christmas, Uncle Jones. The students are Level 3, which is the same as A Level.’ She stepped inside. At one end of the room a stage space was denoted by yellow gaffer tape on the floor where a small dance troupe was learning a routine.

  Maddie glanced round without pausing in her dance. Tall and willowy, her fair hair pulled back in a plait, she flashed a smile before returning her attention to the teenagers who were mirroring her movements. The shuffles and thumps marking the rhythm of their feet made Georgine’s heart lift.

  ‘Forward, back,’ Maddie called, ‘step-two-three, change, step-two-three, back, leg lift, and chassé … and then we’re ready for the last part of act one, scene two. Let’s try it to music.’ She clicked a small remote in her hand and a lively jive tune burst onto the air.

  ‘Here we go … two, three and forward, back …’ The troupe moved as one, girls in leggings and boys in jogging pants, all eyes on Maddie unless a head turn was required with a step.

  ‘Wonderful! Concentrate but don’t frown, chassé, back, leg lift,’ Maddie sang gently. Frowns vanished, limbs moved in time.

  Georgine’s toes were already tapping. She whispered to Joe, ‘Each student will keep a progress log: how their creative journey’s developed, decisions made and the effect on the audience. We make rehearsal and show-night videos too.’

  ‘Great.’ His nod definitely looked approving.

  Encouraged by this slight sign of engagement, she went on. ‘We’re extraordinarily proud that we’re open to students’ choices, nurturing them, cheering them on, proactively helping them make whatever they can out of music, dance or drama. A kid can come here without a single GCSE and try vocational qualifications from entry level up to Level 3. The “can do” attitude here is awesome.’ She laughed at her own enthusiasm. ‘I love how amazing, how fantastic Acting Instrumental is.’

  Joe actually smiled. ‘I’m sure you’re proud of helping it happen.’ It probably counted as gushing from Mr Chat and Personality.

  Georgine turned back to the dancers, jigging on the spot to the catchy number. ‘I need to watch the rest of this rehearsal and get involved. You OK to look on?’

  ‘Yep.’ But Joe, to Georgine’s surprise, moved further into the room with her to continue the conversation. ‘Will they dance to recordings on the night?’ His hands were stuffed in the pockets of his jeans.

  ‘No, this is a rehearsal track. The show’s composed by Jasmine, an alumna who went on to university and won a scholarship that paid her final year’s tuition fees. She’s provided rehearsal recordings that her music student mates have played on. We have two bands of our own, but they’re still rehearsing separately at this stage.’

  She half expected Joe to look bamboozled by so much detail, but his deep brown eyes were aglow with what looked like satisfaction. ‘Ace.’

  Georgine could only agree.

  Before them, Maddie was still mirroring the troupe’s routine, occasionally calling out the steps, gaze moving back and forth to monitor each student. Unable to contain her impatient feet, Georgine thrust her shiny Christmas show file at Joe and moved up behind Maddie, picking up the steps to dance along.

  A couple of the students grinned her way and Maddie, seeing Georgine in the mirror, implemented an impressively smooth about face to dance opposite Georgine. Forgetting all her pressures and worries, Georgine laughed aloud as the troupe moved forwards and she had to reverse. It was a bit like being Ginger Rogers to a bunch of Fred Astaires … apart from wearing jeans and trainers instead of a swirly dress and heels.

  At the close of the segment Maddie called, ‘Three, two, one, cha-cha-cha, and sliiiiiide, jazz hands. Fantastic everybody! Quick break. Grab a drink if you want one.’

  Back down to earth now the dancing was done, Georgine caught her breath and approached her colleague. ‘Maddie, I’d better introduce you to the new guy, Joe. Oggie was one of his teachers, apparently, and he has technical experience.’

  Maddie sipped from a bottle of water and winked. ‘The cutie rocking the designer specs? What’s he like?’

  ‘Nice to look at,’ Georgine admitted, ‘but flippin’ hard work. Hardly speaks.’

  Yet when she took Maddie over to Joe and made the introductions, Joe flashed a smile, showing no signs of shyness. ‘I’ve really enjoyed watching,’ he told Maddie, and went on for a whole minute about how great the dancers had looked and what a shame it was that there weren’t more male dance students.

  Then he turned back to Georgine and returned to using only necessary words. ‘Oggie’s texted. I need to go to Fern’s office and apply for my DBS online.’

  ‘OK, I’ll show you there.’ Georgine turned back to the dancers. ‘You’re doing brilliantly! I’ll be back shortly.’ Then Georgine delivered Joe to the capable hands of Fern, with her bouffant silver hair and air of unflappable calm.

  She skipped back to dance rehearsal trying not to mind that Joe had turned to Fern’s computer with such an obvious expression of relief.

  Chapter Two

  After filling in all the necessary boxes on-screen and watching Fern check his application before it went off, Joe thanked her and made for Oggie’s room. Pretending not to see the look of reproach in Fern’s eyes because he hadn’t cleared his destination with her, he shut the door.

  He flopped into the same brown chair he’d occupied earlier, threw off his glasses and covered his eyes.

  Oggie laughed at his theatrics. ‘What?’

  Joe didn’t move. Mortification was easier to deal with from behind eyelids. ‘Georgine France. I was at school with her. Here, not in Surrey. I’m behaving like a teenage doofus around her.’

  Oggie stopped laughing. ‘Oh! Will it be a problem?’

  Joe pressed his palms harder against his face, the short, freshly cut ends of his hair and his close-shaved cheeks feeling weird to his touch. Since he’d gone clean-cut he felt a stranger to himself. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Did she recognise you?’

  ‘No sign of it. Everyone changes a lot between fourteen and thirty-four. When I knew her I was blond and scrawny and looked as if I lived in a skip.’

  Oggie’s voice dropped sympathetically. ‘You’re not that person now. Did you know her well?’

  Slowly, Joe slid his hands down from his eyes, blinking at the raw winter light streaming through the window. ‘Reasonably.’ Then, because he’d never wanted to bullshit Oggie, corrected himself
. ‘We were friends from age eleven to fourteen.’ He sucked in a huge calming breath. ‘I had the most gigantic, painful crush on her. She was one of the popular girls. Her dad had money and she went on holidays abroad and had dancing and singing lessons after school. The princess to my pauper.’

  ‘A monied princess?’ Oggie looked slightly surprised.

  ‘Compared to me. She came to Bettsbrough Comp on the bus from Middledip or in a posh car. I lived on the crappiest estate in Bettsbrough with a couple of alcoholics masquerading as parents. The Shetland estate was known as “Shitland” back then and I was part of the infamous Shitland gang, but she was always nice to me.’ He swallowed. ‘I recognised her instantly. Not even Georgine’s sister had the same unusual colouring.’ Her hair was what she’d used to tell him was ‘cool strawberry blonde’, her skin golden and spangled with faint freckles like a blonde photographed through the palest sepia filter. Except for her eyes. Not green, nor grey or blue, but a mix of the three, like a winter sea.

  He’d had to paint her portrait once in art class and the teacher had said, ‘Good effort!’ Some of his moron mates from the Shitland gang had jeered and so he’d painted the ends of her hair like worms, because clowning around was a good way to distract them from how he’d felt about Georgine. He was the fool, the kid who never had the right shoes or uniform or PE kit. The one whose stepdad was known throughout the town by just his surname, Garrit, and ridiculed, along with Joe’s mum, for being drunk on cheap lager almost every day.

  Garrit hadn’t been funny to live with.

  In fact, not much about Joe’s life had been funny. If he hadn’t developed strategies to make people laugh with him instead of at him he would have punched their stupid heads in for not using their stupid eyes to see how stupidly unfunny it was to be him.

  He rose on what felt like hollow legs to get a drink from the small cooler in the corner. ‘She doesn’t know me as Joe Blackthorn, or by my full first names, John Joseph.’ He kept his back to his friend as he sipped from the flimsy disposable cup. ‘You probably remember me telling you I had my stepdad’s surname from the age of two or three. Then all the Shitland gang got nicknames and mine was “Rich” because I wasn’t. Everybody called me Rich Garrit.’

  He dropped back into his chair and sent Oggie a rueful smile. ‘Sorry to be a diva. It was a shock to see Georgine and after the crap that’s happened with the band lately …’

  Oggie nodded, not rushing in with platitudes or questions, but letting Joe work through things in his own time, just as he had all those years ago. His Uncle Shaun had rescued Joe from Cambridgeshire and put him in the school in Surrey with, for the first time, all the right uniform and all the right PE kit. Even the right haircut. If he hadn’t had the right accent to begin with, well, he’d soon changed that. He’d claimed the name on his birth certificate, but chosen to be Joe instead of Johnjoe, which his mother had called him, another way of disassociating himself from what he’d used to be.

  He still remembered the pleasure and relief of blending in.

  Freed of the expectation of clowning, he’d worked at the subjects he liked, such as music and art. Oggie had noticed him spending break times alone and got him painting scenery for school plays. He’d made friends.

  It was to Oggie that he’d admitted his uncle was teaching him piano and drums. Oggie who talked to Shaun about weekend sessions at a local stage school; Oggie who’d arranged extra music lessons so Joe got the GCSE he needed for a place at music college. There he’d got together with Billy, Liam, Nathan and Raf and his life had changed again …

  ‘If you’re going to stay here, you’re going to encounter Georgine a lot,’ Oggie said, jerking Joe back to the present. ‘She’s at the heart of Acting Instrumental. We did talk about the possibility, even probability, of you meeting your past head-on if you came.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Joe drummed his fingertips on his leg. ‘I could have coped with anyone better than her.’

  Oggie grunted. ‘Perhaps you should consider how you’ll feel if she remembers you. It might be easier if you remind her first. Get it over with.’

  ‘Yeah.’ He tried to envisage it. Those green eyes had gazed at him with zero recognition, as if Rich Garrit had never existed, which made him both glad and sorry. ‘It could be a tactical lack of memory on her part. We parted on bad terms.’

  Because he’d acted like a moron on the last day of term before Christmas. Made her the object of ridicule because he knew that baring his young heart in front of the Shitland gang would have set her up for cruel teasing. But the hurt in her eyes had sent him home hating himself, vowing to apologise at the school Christmas party that evening.

  But Georgine hadn’t shown up. He’d waited outside because he didn’t have the entrance money – or anything to wear or a gift for the Secret Santa.

  Eventually, he’d trailed home to find waiting for him an uncle he hadn’t known he had, ready to transform his life.

  Joe’s Christmas miracle, fairy godfather and Secret Santa rolled into one. He’d gone to live with Shaun in Surrey and rarely looked back.

  When he did, it was to think about Georgine France.

  Chapter Three

  At lunchtime, Georgine knew she had to let life outside Acting Instrumental intrude, so held back from the rush to the cafeteria. Zipping herself into her jacket, which was an inadequate defence against the sharp wind unless you were running, she slipped outside. She rounded the jut of the big rehearsal room to huddle behind the main building. The garden there was frequented mostly in summer sunshine when the grassy area held more attraction.

  She hunched her shoulders against the wind blowing from Siberia, took a deep breath and rang Aidan, knowing that the man who answered would be a lot different to the one she’d met a couple of years ago on a rare visit to a nightclub with Blair. She’d been attracted to his happy-go-lucky nature, maybe because she felt she always had to be so sensible and together. Unfortunately, the happy-go-luckyness later proved to be hugely dependent on the ‘happy’ part. When the going got tough Aidan had retreated into bad moods and deception. He’d even begun taking money from her purse with the excuse that ‘couples share’. When she discovered he’d been unable to pay his share of the household bills and had continually lied that he had savings to cover them, it was the last straw. It was months since she’d called time on their relationship and asked him to move out of her house, yet still she was suffering the repercussions of being involved with him.

  He answered, ‘’Lo, Georgine.’ His voice was just as smooth and deep as it had been when it used to curl her toes, but he also sounded down and defeated.

  He wasn’t the only one having a hard time. She dived in. ‘Please sort your debts out. I had collection agents knocking at the door while I was eating my porridge this morning.’

  ‘No money,’ he replied listlessly.

  ‘Well, tell them that! You’ve been gone for three months. Stop them coming to my house or give me an address I can pass on.’ She waited. ‘Aidan?’ She checked her phone screen and glared at it. Call ended.

  She counted slowly to ten, annoyed with herself for venting. Since being made redundant from his job as a commercial executive for a huge car manufacturer Aidan didn’t really handle anger.

  After three minutes of pacing and huddling into her jacket, Georgine rang back. ‘Look, Ade,’ she said, pouring syrup on her voice. ‘I understand you got in a muddle with money and didn’t feel you could tell me.’

  ‘Because you’re funny with money. I was protecting you,’ he put in morosely.

  Georgine closed her eyes and tilted her face to the sky. ‘OK, because I’m scared of financial pressure.’

  ‘Yet you give Blair money. And your dad.’

  Her nails dug into her palms. ‘You know I feel an obligation.’

  ‘Yeah, I know the whole sad story, even if I don’t understand it.’

  Georgine refused to let herself be sidetracked into explaining yet again why she helped her dad and s
ister, but didn’t have a pot of gold handy for Aidan. ‘I understand that, in law, I’m as liable as you are for the unpaid utility bills, even if those were your agreed responsibility. I sold the jewellery you gave me to offset some, and the rest I’m paying off as I can manage it. But I can’t cover whatever other liabilities you took on unbeknownst to me while you lived at my place, even if I wanted to. So please contact the organisations concerned and tell them not to come knocking at the door of 27 Top Farm Road. Explain you no longer live there.’

  Aidan sighed. ‘But you can tell them.’

  Revulsion shivered through her. ‘I don’t want to speak to debt collectors! It’s your responsibility …’ She recognised the futility of talking to Aidan about responsibility and changed tack. ‘I’m only asking you to stop them turning up at my door.’

  ‘There are websites that tell you what to do when that happens,’ he said with irritating calm. ‘They say don’t panic. Don’t let them in; complain to their company if they intimidate you.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk to them to find out which company they’re from! And I can’t help panicking.’ If she clenched her eyes shut any harder she’d bring on a migraine. Her voice rose, despite her best efforts. ‘If I lose my house because of you—’

  He sighed. ‘Did I ever ask to use the house as security? No. Then how can you lose it because of me?’

  Sleepless nights worrying through all the worst possible outcomes had provided the answer to this one. ‘If I can’t meet my mortgage because I’m catching up on all the bills you left unpaid! Or I miss a catch-up payment and the utility company takes me to court.’

  It was Georgine who ended the call this time. How could Aidan have changed so much? Until last year he’d held down a good job, worn an expensive suit and driven a late-model car. But when the job went as the company restructured, everything good about him had followed.