A Christmas Gift

by Sue Moorcroft

  That couldn’t possibly be right. Could it?

  Chapter Thirty

  Awake ridiculously early on Saturday, the day of the get-in, as if this were Christmas morning and she was ten years old, Georgine poked her nose into Blair’s room.

  ‘What?’ Blair grumbled from beneath the duvet.

  ‘You’ll remember to see Dad, won’t you?’

  ‘And cook him a nice lunch,’ Blair agreed in the voice of one who’d been coached in this already. ‘Sod off, sis. Enjoy working all weekend.’

  ‘Too much fun to feel like work.’ Georgine grinned as she withdrew. After eating breakfast as if it were a time trial, she jumped into her car and headed for Bettsbrough.

  She pulled her car up to the door of the Raised Curtain for ease of access to her share of the boxes they’d divided between members of the get-in team, which was made up of tutors and the tech crew. Joe had been attending to his latest crisis on Friday so it hadn’t been possible to allocate props or costumes to him, which at least meant she didn’t have to feel anxious about whether he’d turn up. That’s what she told the fluttery feeling in her stomach anyway.

  Ian waved through the glass on which snowflakes and Christmas trees had been stencilled with spray snow before unlocking the door. ‘Want a hand?’

  ‘That would be great.’ Georgine beamed. She chatted happily with Ian as they brought in her boxes, excitement bubbling inside her. It was happening! Two days to set up and then dress rehearsal on Monday.

  Then … showtime!

  Ian had agreed to let her into the theatre at eight, two hours earlier than she’d asked the others to convene. She liked time to tour every area Acting Instrumental would occupy, making last-minute decisions, checking the props and costume area wasn’t cluttered with someone else’s stuff, going over her lists of boxes and their contents. One of her boxes contained tea, coffee and milk, all the mugs out of her cupboard and ten packs of biscuits. She set them out in the utility area where Ian had put an urn that was hissing quietly as it heated.

  Everybody, including Joe, showed up promptly and she doled out hot drinks before walking everybody through the theatre, flagging up things like reminding the cast not to clutter up the cross over – the corridor that allowed people to cross behind the stage out of sight of the audience.

  Then she set them to bringing in their share of things as allocated or, in the case of the tech crew, having a play with the decks in the box to complete their familiarisation.

  ‘You’ve organised the hell out of this get-in, Georgine,’ Maddie congratulated her when they sat down to eat the lunchtime sandwiches they’d brought. Even Errol couldn’t think of anything to criticise. Teamwork was the order of the weekend.

  The backdrop went up, the Christmas tree was erected at the back of the stage, the band stage platform put together and amps, mics and foot pedals assembled. And the double drum kit, of course.

  All day Saturday and Sunday they worked, the tech rehearsal going on at the same time, voices suddenly booming out over the PA and lights rising and falling. Georgine slept like a baby both nights, content that they were as prepared as humanly possible for after lunch Monday and the dress rehearsal.

  And there was no reason that it shouldn’t go just as smoothly as the get-in had.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  The next morning, Joe’s phone rang when he was eating breakfast. ‘Hey, Pete,’ he said, through a mouthful of granola.

  ‘The stepfather’s revenge,’ Pete sighed sadly.

  ‘What?’ Joe glanced at his watch. He didn’t have to be at the theatre until nine so he’d awarded himself an extra hour in bed. If he’d known Pete was going to ring he would have made it half an hour.

  ‘The Daily Snoop. They’ve given your erstwhile stepfather a couple of pages to pour shit over you.’

  Joe almost choked. ‘That fuckface!’

  ‘Yeah. It’s bad news, JJ. I’ve sent the link. Ring me back when you’ve read it?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Joe dumped his phone on the breakfast bar and snatched up his laptop.

  STEPFATHER: THE TRUTH ABOUT BLACKER screamed the headline, though this time the story was a feature in the inside pages.

  ‘Yeah, black indeed,’ says the man who for 12 years gave a home to John Joseph Blackthorn, the boy who grew up to be JJ Blacker, drummer of one of the UK’s foremost rock bands, The Hungry Years. ‘He was Johnjoe Garrit in those days,’ continues Eric Garrit (58). ‘Yes, I even shared my name with him. All the thanks I got for bringing him up was to be left behind and ignored. He’s never bought me so much as a pint of beer out of his rock-star earnings.’

  Joe paused. Garrit’s first name was Eric? He scanned down the piece, his eye drawn by:

  Eric adds bitterly, ‘He was a little thug, running round with the Shetland estate gang. I never knew what he was up to except he was mixed up in crime as a “runner”, delivering mysterious envelopes for the local hoodlums. His shady past’s the reason he took a stage name, I suppose. And to think that now he works with young, impressionable people.’

  The article went on in the same vein, assassinating Joe’s character, painting Garrit as a hero breadwinner for Debs and Joe as well as Chrissy. A recent picture of Garrit looking rueful took up a quarter page. It explained the uncharacteristic neatness of hair and beard on Friday, Joe thought savagely.

  He finished reading, sick to his stomach. At least there was no doubt about the source of the story this time.

  By the time they’d clashed on Friday afternoon Garrit had probably already talked to the journalist and been gloating that this shit storm was scheduled to break. The greedy bastard, realising he’d have to go to ground when his story was published, evidently hadn’t been able to resist trying to leech money from Debs or Joe first.

  Blood pounding, he rang Pete back. ‘I have no idea what to say. He’s just a shit.’

  Pete sighed. ‘Maybe it’s time for you to talk to the journo yourself.’

  ‘No!’ Joe, astounded by Pete’s words, clenched his fingers around the phone. ‘We treat the piece with the contempt it deserves. Talking to the press just provides fuel for their fires.’

  A pause. ‘If it wasn’t for the accusations of crime and the fact that the band’s fan-base includes a lot of teenagers …’ Pete said heavily.

  ‘But he was the one sending me round with the fucking envelopes!’ Joe stormed.

  Pete groaned. ‘Oh, shit. There’s that much truth in it, is there?’ Then his voice became clipped. ‘Can you get down to London, JJ? This affects the whole band so I don’t think we can do nothing. You can’t hide away from this and hope it’ll go away. Not this time. I’m afraid that the decision about whether to leave the band might be made for you.’

  After several seconds of tense silence while Joe raged around inside his head looking for a convincing counter-argument, he snapped reluctantly, ‘OK, I’ll come.’ He disconnected the call and, muttering a stream of obscenities, rang Oggie to relate the latest chapter in what was becoming a horror story.

  ‘So that’s the picture,’ he growled, when he’d laid it all out.

  It was Oggie’s turn to sigh. ‘This is all very unfortunate—’

  Joe didn’t wait for him to finish. ‘You don’t have to tell me that.’ And then he told Oggie what was going to happen next.

  Georgine clutched her phone in disbelief as she listened to Oggie relating Joe’s latest disaster.

  ‘The new article is scurrilous,’ he said sombrely. ‘Parents are beginning to contact me. I’m explaining that I’ve known Joe since he was fourteen and see no truth in Garrit’s story, but Joe doesn’t believe Acting Instrumental won’t be affected. He’s given permission for me to make it public that he’s no longer with us and he’s left for London.’

  ‘Poor Joe,’ she said numbly. Unable to process the consequences of what Oggie was telling her, except to feel outrage at Joe’s suffering at the hands of the press, she took refuge in pragmatism. ‘So, who’s to supervise the te
ch at the dress rehearsal?’

  ‘For the rehearsal, I suggest we take a leap of faith and let the students do it alone. I’ll supervise performances.’

  Georgine’s stomach plummeted at the finality in his voice and she didn’t even thank him for stepping into the breach. ‘So that’s it then? He’s gone?’

  ‘For the foreseeable,’ Oggie agreed gently.

  ‘Thanks for telling me,’ she said automatically. She’d begun to say goodbye when Oggie cut in again.

  ‘Don’t worry too much. He’s resilient.’

  ‘I know.’ But then words sprang to her lips. ‘If he ever did anything wrong, it was out of desperation, so he and his stepsister could survive.’

  Oggie’s voice suddenly rang with anger. ‘Do you think I don’t know? He’s one of my best and oldest friends!’

  Georgine came off the phone with a lot of lead in her belly, but warmth in her heart that Oggie was on Joe’s side. Once more burying her emotions in practical tasks, she went off to break the news to the tech crew.

  By the time the dress rehearsal was over, Georgine felt like she’d been wrung out in hot water. Nerves had set in and the students had become snappy. Samantha, who played Kerry Christmas, pronounced gloomily that she thought she had a sore throat coming. A dancer twisted an ankle. People forgot their words – prompted calmly by Fern each time – and missed cues. In fact, the tech crew were the only ones to really get everything right, as they pointed out. Smugly.

  Georgine pinned on a smile and kept on coaching and encouraging. At least it gave her plenty to think about other than how Joe must have felt when he read Garitt’s mischief-making hatchet job.

  It wasn’t until that evening, crashed out in front of the TV with a ready meal, spilling her woes to Blair, that she voiced the thought that had been hovering like a spectre all day. ‘I don’t know if I’ll see Joe again.’ The words ended on a squeak and any further words stuck in her throat.

  Blair shifted both half-eaten dinners onto the floor and pulled Georgine into a hug. ‘Oh, Georgine, I am so sorry! Shit on the Daily Snoop!’ And then, when Georgine just cried harder she heaved a huge, dramatic sigh. ‘No men for either of us this Christmas, it looks like. But we’ll be fine. We will.’

  As promised, Oggie assumed Joe’s role in the box on opening night, although the nervous but professional students, as he reported to Georgine, left him little to do but take video evidence of them working the decks. After the show had finished its run, Georgine would upload a folder of video clips to the college intranet for students to download and make part of their assignments.

  In line with the adage that a bad dress rehearsal meant a good show, the first night went beautifully.

  Georgine went front of stage and gave the most inspiring introduction she could conjure up, then, despite a hundred and eighty pairs of eyes gazing down into the stage area, the students flung themselves into the show as if they’d never get the chance to do it again.

  And the audience lost their hearts. They clapped every dance, every song and even the scene-shifters with single-minded fervour that was not totally accounted for by the first night audience including a lot of parents.

  In the wings, in the cross over, in the props room and in the changing rooms where Errol, Keeley and Maddie made certain everyone hit their cues, Georgine had nothing to do but look on and burst with pride.

  It really was a fantastic show. She wasn’t needed until the encores. Then she found that the students, gobsmacked by the applause, whistles and calls for more, truly needed someone to lead them back on to line up for their bows.

  She held them there for her wrap-up speech, gazing up at the rows of attentive faces. ‘Wasn’t that amazing? Aren’t these students something else? I know many of you in the audience tonight are family and friends and you must be very, very proud. They have worked so hard!’ She led a fresh burst of clapping. ‘Now you know what a fabulous show this is I hope you’ll spread the word as we still have a few tickets available for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Both performances on Saturday, like this one, are sell-outs. Ladies and gentlemen – the Level 3 students of Acting Instrumental! Let’s give them another round of applause!’

  Backstage, when they’d finally filed off the stage and the audience could be heard shuffling out, the students were as high as kites, laughing, wiping tears, chatter-chatter-chattering, hugging. Before long they were shouting goodnight and going out into a sleety darkness to catch their lifts.

  After making sure everyone was out, including the volunteers who’d run the bar, torn tickets and sold programmes, Georgine thanked the site supervisor, who’d turned out to lock up, and went home with the applause still ringing in her ears.

  But when she reached home and saw Blair’s expectant face and heard her eager, ‘So? How did the first night go?’ Georgine burst into tears again.

  ‘It was so brilliant,’ she wailed. ‘These must be happy tears.’

  For nothing would she admit she was crying because Joe truly had stayed away.

  Show week was passing speedily. Wednesday, the second night, although not a sell out, had pulled in a good crowd, and now it was Thursday and the audience was gathering in the foyer again, chattering about the dusting of snow they’d had this afternoon and hoping no more would fall to make getting home difficult.

  No amount of snow was going to stop Georgine. Dressed in stage black in case she had to sort something out during a scene change, she hurried around producing a needle and thread or a replacement shoelace from her backpack as needed.

  ‘I love you and your magic backpack,’ leading lady Samantha sniffed when Georgine had sewn a vital, right-on-the-boobline button back on for her. Samantha was feeling the strain of carrying so much of the show and Georgine had been watching her swing from highs to lows. Luckily, her lows tended to come before shows, but then she was fine. After shows she boinged about like a powerball, high on success, then couldn’t sleep.

  Maybe this show had too much reliance on two characters, Kerry Christmas and Uncle Jones, Georgine mused, checking one of the tech kids was setting up a video camera. She liked to take video on the first and last shows and one in the middle.

  Randall and Blair were in the front row tonight. They’d arrived early as Randall moved slowly, and Georgine had arranged for them to be let in so he wasn’t kept standing. Peeping from the wings, Georgine could see him watching everything intently as the scenery for the first scene was checked and rechecked and lights rose and fell. She was glad to see his bruises had faded already and his left eye had opened again. She slipped out to hug him. ‘Hi, Dad!’

  ‘Hi, honey.’ Randall smiled his lop-sided smile. His hair was neatly combed and his air of being a child out for a treat made Georgine’s heart ache.

  Blair waved her programme. ‘Great pic of you, sis.’ She turned the booklet around to exhibit the page.

  Georgine grinned, although her eyes were drawn to the picture of Joe as Assistant Events Director rather than her own. ‘Fame at last!’

  Then she hurried backstage. Keeley was on duty in the girl’s changing room this evening and Georgine slipped through the door and mouthed, ‘OK?’ at her.

  Keeley gave her a thumbs-up.

  Just as Georgine was turning to leave, she heard one of the students say, ‘Shame Joe’s not here. He did loads towards the show.’

  Georgine kept walking, knowing that she’d be combing the audience later just in case Joe had sneaked in.

  She did, twice, but he hadn’t.

  It was totally unfair that the Daily Snoop had outed and then vilified Joe, and now other tabloids had picked up the story too. He should be here to enjoy the success of getting such fab attendance across the whole run. Georgine had texted him this morning.

  Georgine: You’d be fine in the box if you want to turn up. Nobody would know you were there. Oggie had a few emails about you on the last day of term, but it died out quickly. Come back if you want to.

  There had been no reply. Ei
ther he was busy being a rock star or he thought it would be easiest to make a clean break. Or both.

  Oggie supervised the tech as he had on Tuesday and Wednesday and, it seemed, would on Friday and Saturday. Georgine left the backstage area and ran up the stairs to the box.

  ‘OK?’ she asked, finding Oggie and three students looking out through glass at the backs of still-mostly-empty seats and an empty stage.

  ‘All I have to do is watch these guys work,’ Oggie reported.

  The students grinned, looking pleased.

  ‘Great!’ Georgine left, but halted when she realised Oggie had followed her.

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ve heard from Joe?’ he asked.

  Georgine shook her head. ‘I texted him. No reply.’

  ‘Same here.’ Oggie shook his head, lips tightening. ‘That journalist! Joe’s not only our landlord but our benefactor, personally funding all kinds of extras to give our students a fantastic grounding in the performing arts. He funds the scholarship that Jasmine won this year to write and compose our Christmas show and he’s looking at funding transport from Bettsbrough to get kids here for holiday activities. He could spend all his money on travel and fast cars, but he chooses to try and help young people! And here’s some awful bloody journalist from some awful bloody rag trying to bury all that in a lot of muck-raking. I doubt we’d even be in this theatre if not for Joe’s philanthropy, and I don’t know of any other further education college locally that has its own events director.’

  The floor rocked beneath Georgine’s feet. ‘Wow. Do you mean he funds my role?’

  Oggie looked as if he wished he hadn’t shared quite so much. ‘Well … if not for his funding, I’m not sure how …’ Leaving the thought hanging, he rejoined the students in the box.

  Georgine trod back downstairs. She hadn’t known who funded the scholarship or the extras. And Joe had effectively been paying her wages for the past few years in this fantastic job she loved? It was like finding out that Santa was real. And that if Santa withdrew his support, she could lose her job.