Chapter 8 #2
‘Have I had another stroke? Is this hell?’ Gramps looked so affronted, even Beckett had to smile. ‘Because if not, somebody kill me now.’
‘Right, let’s get down to business,’ the first woman said, beaming. ‘Or Chris-ness, as we like to call it.’
‘Doesn’t even rhyme properly,’ Eli mumbled, slumping lower in his seat.
‘Let us start by introducing ourselves.’
‘Carolyn, we all know who you are,’ Bill said, sighing.
‘Well, this very lovely man doesn’t!’ Carolyn replied, beam unwavering, as she pointed her bells at Beckett and rattled them vigorously. ‘Seasonal greetings!’
Mary snorted in her attempt to contain her laughter. This can’t be hell, Beckett thought. Seeing her fizzing with mirth felt more like heaven.
‘My name is Carolyn Dennis. I’m forty-four years old, and, like my birthday twin bezzie, Chezza, was born on Chri-istmas Daaaay.’ She sang the last phrase to the tune of the Boney M cover, ‘Mary’s Boy Child’. ‘Over to you, Chezza.’
‘Hey!’ Cheris waved as though greeting a crowd at Wembley rather than a small group of people sitting around a table.
‘Thanks, Chezza.’ She blew a round of kisses at Carolyn, who enthusiastically caught each one.
‘Cheris Gray, at your service. I’m thirty-three years old, but, miraculously, I am also born on Chri-ist-mas Daaaaaay.
And, after several years of prayerful petitions, followed by a paper petition with a grand total of twenty-seven signatures, Pastor Moses has finally granted us full creative control of this year’s legendary masterpiece that is the New Life Community Church Christmas Carol Concert! ’
‘NLCCCCC for short!’ Carolyn added, with another flourish of her bells.
‘They aren’t related,’ Mary whispered to Beckett, her face glowing with delight. ‘How are they not sisters?’
He had to agree; the ‘bezzies’ looked remarkably similar.
They both had tufts of ginger hair sticking out from underneath their hats, round cheeks full of freckles and huge green eyes.
Chezza appeared to be no more than five feet in height, her friend a few inches taller, but both had the kind of stocky physique that made Beckett think about hobbits.
Their wacky energy brought a lightness to the room that he could imagine was generally well received – in limited doses, at least. He did wonder how things had gone for them at school, where tolerance of children who were a little different could be harder to come by.
‘Not quite full creative control, Cheris. We did discuss this,’ Moses said firmly. ‘Several times. You will run anything major or requiring a risk assessment past me.’
‘Yes, yes, we know. You get to decide the boring bits.’ Cheris dismissed this with a flap of her hand. ‘Shall we get on, Chezza? Ali needs to collect Kasey from a birthday party.’
‘Why, certainly, Chezza. Unleash the sheet!’
Cheris flipped over the top page of a flipchart, to reveal what Beckett thought, in less bonkers circumstances, might be classed as a mood board. The paper was covered in various images, scraps of paper and fabric. Mostly, it was covered in different pictures of Santa Claus.
Cheris gave three overexaggerated nods, as if counting them in, then the friends both shouted, ‘Everyone’s a Santa!’
‘Picture the scene…’ Carolyn said, leaning forwards and spreading her hands out dramatically. ‘It’s Christmas Eve. The year is 3024.’
‘No!’ Moses, Sofia and a few other people groaned.
‘Okay.’ Carolyn did a small huff, then resumed the theatrical pose, with accompanying suspenseful voice.
‘The year is unspecified. The place is Sherwood Forest. The people are you, me, whoever else we can rope in to help us, because a lot of New Life Church seem unable to commit to 22 December. The spotlights are low, fog machines set to maximum. Enter, from stage right…’
‘Are you planning on narrating the whole concert?’ Ali asked. ‘I thought we were here to discuss who’s doing what, and when we need to get it done by.’
‘Well, yes,’ Carolyn said, straightening up. ‘We thought it would be helpful to share our creative vision.’
‘Whatever’s living in your two brains is a vision I can do without,’ Bill said.
‘No offence, ladies. All I need to know is: what’s the budget, what cake do you want for refreshments and do you need to borrow my Shelby’s donkey again, because she gets a lot of requests this time of year, so it’s best to get in there quick. ’
‘Eight hundred pounds,’ Cheris chirruped. ‘Mince pies, mini chocolate logs and a bucketload of mulled wine. Absolute yes to the donkey and if she’s still got the sheep, we’ll have five or six, please.’
‘I am here, in the room,’ Moses said.
Cheris darted her eyes over to her pastor and back to Bill. ‘Five hundred. Non-alcoholic wine and no sheep. Unless she’s got a lamb. You promised to let us include a lamb if we found one, Moses!’
‘Shelby only breeds spring lambs,’ Bill said.
‘Oh, that’s a shame.’ Moses smiled, with enough hint of sarcasm to earn a hard stare from Sofia.
‘So what setting do you need, apart from a load of trees?’ Moses’ auntie asked. ‘If we’re going to need stairs or anything else above floor level I need to speak to Jimmy asap.’
While Cheris was answering that, Gramps stood up and announced that he needed the toilet, so Bill offered to take him, whispering indiscreetly that he was a nurse and happy to handle any ‘mishaps’.
When they came back, Bill helped Marvin into one of the armchairs in the seating area, where he promptly dozed off.
Beckett soon zoned out, as more people asked Cheris and Carolyn practical questions relating to the individual committee roles, which were mostly answered with cryptic references to yet more farm animals, hula hoops, and the main character being a baby Santa version of Baby Yoda.
Beckett was on the brink of dropping off himself when he felt a nudge. The past few days had wiped him out even more than usual. Mary nodded her head in the direction of the Christmas carol concert organisers, eyes glinting.
‘What do you think, Beckett?’ she asked.
‘Um.’
‘Come on, why not give it a go?’
Beckett could have bowed to the expectant, hopeful faces and simply said yes, but when there were hula hoops and Baby Yodas involved, he wasn’t signing up to anything without checking the small print.
‘I know you’re really busy with work, and Gramps, and finding a new Tanya, but it might be fun, the two of us working on a project together. Plus, it’d be so much easier if I could team up with someone with a car.’
Working on a project with Mary? Forget the small print.
‘Okay.’
Mary’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Wow. Really? That’s… incredible.’
Beckett had to wait until the rest of the room were distracted by Cheris and Carolyn breaking out into what they called ‘Santa-day Night’, which seemed to simply be Whigfield’s nineties’ hit, ‘Saturday Night’, only a lot faster and with the lyrics changed from ‘party time’ to ‘Christmas time’, and various other cheesily obvious replacements.
‘What have I agreed to, and will it mean killing off our friendship a month after it started?’ he muttered out of the side of his mouth.
‘Don’t worry, it’s nothing humiliating. Once I saw you’d stopped listening, I was tempted to try hoodwinking you into playing Boyband Santa, but I wouldn’t ruin the NLCCCCC for my own amusement. I love the Christmas Day Twins far too much for that.’
‘I don’t think it’s too late for me to suddenly remember an important commitment on 22 December.’
‘Yeah, this isn’t a part in the actual concert, so it won’t be a disaster if you miss the big night.’
‘Ah, so what about that big holiday I’ve got booked?’
Beckett kept his eyes on ‘Santa-day Night’ the whole time they were talking, because once upon a time, he’d known how to flirt with a woman, and this felt dangerously close to it.
Mary had a month-old baby. She had a past that led to her being stuck in the middle of nowhere, with no car, no friends or family who knew she’d been pregnant, let alone an outfit for her new son.
Not even a mention of Bob’s father. The last thing Mary needed right now was a lonely loser developing feelings for her.
Wind it back, Beckett. Man up, here.
‘ Honestly, Beckett. Have you taken any holidays in the past six years? Even a day out somewhere?’
Well, that would do it. This lunch was the most adventurous thing he’d done in months. Years, more like. He had nothing to offer Mary beyond friendship. Beckett checked his phone. It was almost three. Definitely time to head home. He’d been playing Gramps Rude-Comment Roulette for long enough.
‘I’ve offered to oversee all the costume design for the concert,’ Mary said softly, as if realising how hard the holiday comment had hit him.
‘I don’t expect you to do any dressmaking, but a second opinion is always helpful, as is someone to pass me pins, stand in as dressmaker’s dummy and help me transport all the materials.
Sofia said I can borrow her sewing machine, but there’ll be some back and forth getting people to try them on, see what tweaks are needed at the dress rehearsal.
If our dramatic bonding experience last month means I can qualify for mates’ rates on the taxi every now and then, it’d help. ’
‘By mates’ rates, do you mean for free?’
‘I don’t have any other mates right now, let alone ones who drive taxis. You tell me.’
‘Yes, I will drive you where you need to go. I can hold a crying baby while you create Santa costumes, and pass you pins. I can also do the basics like buttons and hems.’
‘You can sew?’ Beckett sensed Mary’s head twist towards him.
‘What, apart from human flesh? Are you surprised because I’m male? There was no room for traditional gender roles growing up with Gramps.’
‘I’ve worked with plenty of men who can sew. I just… I don’t know. You seemed… Okay. I made a sweeping judgement based on you clearly being a man of logic, rather than creativity. I apologise.’
‘Apology accepted, if you tell me what qualifies you to head up the costume department of an illustrious production like the NLCCCCC?’
Mary shrugged, looking uncomfortable for the first time since she’d sat down for lunch. ‘I used to work in a fashion company.’ She stopped, blinked for a long second, then steeled her shoulders, opened her mouth and closed it again.
‘You don’t have to tell me, if it’s private.’
She shook her head, lips pressed together. ‘Not private. Just a bit sensitive these days. I co-founded, and used to be a director of, an ethical fashion accessory company.’
‘Will I have heard of it?’
Before she could answer, the room broke out in muted applause as the Santa-day Night dance came to its jazz-handed conclusion, and Gramps slowly stood up.
‘Well, it could have been worse. I once spent an afternoon having a boil lanced. If the show’s over, I want to go home now, Tanya.’ He looked around the room, panic flashing across his face when he couldn’t find his carer. ‘Tanya?’
Beckett jumped up, striding over to put an arm on his grandfather’s shoulder, which only made him flinch away. ‘Don’t touch me!’
‘Gramps, it’s me,’ Beckett said, voice tender, heart aching. ‘Let’s go home now, shall we?’
Gramps searched Beckett’s face, nodding anxiously as his tired, old eyes watered. ‘Yes, please. I want to go home.’
‘Here.’ Sofia followed them out to the main entrance, pressing a flyer in Beckett’s hand.
He briefly caught the words ‘Lunch Club’, before stuffing it into his pocket.
He might look at it later. He might not.
Today had been mostly okay, but his head was frazzled with the effort of meeting a load of strangers, in an unfamiliar place.
Santa-day Night. These people were A Lot.
A lot of kindness, fun, generosity, genuine interest. But, still, it was a lot compared to a ham sandwich on a tray, watching the same old quiz show.
All Beckett wanted to do was get Gramps home, without incident, and try to figure out what to do next.