Chapter 43 Nativity
The small school hall is decorated with lanterns made by the children, covering Christmas, Hanukah, and Diwali, in addition to other light-loving winter festivals.
There is a single line of green tinsel across the front of the stage, and the teachers are wearing Christmas jumpers and reindeer-themed headwear.
Mrs Nnadi is wearing a Mrs Santa Claus hat, and a dress covered with a mistletoe pattern, which I feel is a little inappropriate.
The old public address system is playing a recording of the children sweetly massacring many Christmas favourites, and we are served ‘delicious non-alcoholic mulled wine’ – Ribena made using the hot tap.
By the time I arrive with Sophie and Aisha (Tor is otherwise engaged in saving her reputation, and Cait is in custody), the first five rows are packed with parents (mothers mostly) and grandparents.
They’re all sitting in their coats, lined up on low gym benches of the kind that I remember from my own school days.
I am not in a good mood as I’ve failed to raise the deposit and Esmae is showing four couples around my Hampstead house tomorrow.
There’s a ripple of chatter and side-glances as we walk down the central aisle to find a seat.
Many faces stare up at us with closed-lip sympathy or high-eyebrowed fright as we’re now known notoriously as Cait’s crew.
I smile back and give a few little waves.
Aisha is horrified, but with Nelly’s rather unusual habits, I’m used to these looks.
I know it’s a children’s performance but if you pay for a play you expect, at the least, for the actors to know their cues and lines, and that they don’t keep acknowledging the audience. My expectations are not high.
‘Do you think Cait might’ve done it?’ whispers Sophie.
‘Cait couldn’t kill anyone,’ I say.
‘People can surprise you. I wouldn’t blame her. I mean, Owen was a bastard,’ says Sophie.
‘He broke into her house. I’d kill someone if they threatened my kids,’ says Aisha.
‘What about Ranni, is he still thinking of moving?’ I ask.
‘Oh, I’ve stopped being amenable. I do what he’s done for fifteen years. I leave for work at five-thirty a.m. and return at eight p.m. I ask no questions, I offer no help, I throw my underwear on the floor, expect feeding the minute I get in, and always take the car.’
‘Good for you!’ says Sophie. ‘How’s he coping?’
‘He’s had to take time off, of course, and he’s exhausted and confused.’
‘He drew first blood,’ I say, and she stares back and nods fiercely.
A trumpet sounds and the whole school troops on stage. And regardless of breaking the fourth wall, at least three quarters wave at their parents.
A hundred phones rise to capture the performance, which the head has told us are not allowed due to safeguarding reasons.
The acoustics in the freezing hall are also noticeably shoddy, and although I know the outline of the Nativity story, I can’t follow this version at all.
There are several characters I don’t remember from the original, including SpongeBob SquarePants and what looks like a unicorn.
Nelly is not waving. She’s dressed in a white sheet with a cord around the middle, and two large cardboard wings painted white with the outline of feathers.
She is, as she told me at dinner, an angel.
I explained to her that angels don’t drown hamsters, but she can appear to be one if she wishes.
She stabbed a fork into my leg and said quite firmly, ‘I am an angel.’
‘Oh, isn’t it lovely,’ whispers Sophie, as the head gets up to bore us with her welcome. ‘I love Christmas. And we really need it this year. We’re back on, by the way.’
‘Back on? Paolo’s dead wife’s friend and former lover notwithstanding?’
Sophie laughs. ‘She’s actually nice, and happily married. I think I over-reacted. I’m giving up drinking in the new year.’
‘Well, suspension of disbelief is in order.’
‘I can do it if I put my mind to it,’ she says.
‘I don’t mean you,’ I say. ‘It’s the paper beards and the girl on her iPad in the back row.’
‘Oh, I hadn’t spotted her. I think she has problems with her lines,’ says Sophie.
‘And with acting, I might add.’
A mother in the row ahead shuffles and I receive a passively aggressive backward glance. I jam my knee in her lower back, lean forward, put my hand firmly on her shoulder, and say, ‘I’m so sorry, it’s quite a squeeze in here.’
‘Like mother like daughter,’ she hisses back.
‘Isn’t Nelly doing well?’ says Sophie.
‘You mean she hasn’t attacked anyone?’
‘She seems really in role. What an angelic expression.’
I look at Nelly, who is super concentrated. I feel a little twinge. Motherly pride? No, this is because I know from the look in her eye that the angel is about to turn devil.
‘Ajay!’ shouts Aisha, half standing and waving, as the head moves off stage and the lights dim.
‘Shhh,’ says a deliberately loud pedant from two rows behind us. I let it go, the soloist deserves our attention, and I listen to a surprisingly sweet rendition of ‘Away in a Manger’. Some of the words are wrong, but you have to forgive at Christmas.
The narrators appear and start to tell the story of the star. Nelly’s arms are behind her back now, and she’s wriggling. It looks like she’s stuffing both her hands down her pants. I raise my eyebrows. Not now, Nelly. Please.
I watch as Nelly retrieves something from her pants. It looks like a roll of paper. I’m slightly concerned but hope it’s got something to do with the play.
‘Oh, this is the big number. Ellie’s in it,’ says Sophie, jiggling to get a better view.
‘What’s Nelly up to?’ says Aisha.
I lean right to see what she’s doing. Adams will soon be requesting references for her, and we’re only just over the hamster incident, so I need her to be good.
‘Oh, that’s beautiful,’ says Sophie, as three girls (one of whom is Ellie) and a boy appear in full snowmen costumes and start to sing ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’.
‘Oh, there’s Hari,’ says Aisha with emotion in her voice. Hari is in a huge Santa costume with a cotton wool beard and bright red suit. Sophie squeezes Aisha’s arm.
Meanwhile, I’m staring at Nelly, standing centre-stage, angel wings in the spotlight, unfurling the banner that she’s grasping in her hand. She holds it above her head, and we all read:
SANTA’S DEAD
The audience goes silent. Everyone exchanges glances, several in my direction. And then she turns the banner over:
HARI KILLED HIM
‘Hari told Nelly that Santa doesn’t exist, and she’s taken it to heart,’ I say, as she glares at Hari. She looks sweet striding towards Santa in her angel costume. I have a vague hope this is in the script, but the confusion on the faces of the children suggests not.
Santa pulls open his sack and takes out a present as the song reaches its crescendo.
Nelly walks directly in front of Santa Claus and shoves him so hard that he tumbles across the stage and into the cardboard Nativity scene, toppling the crib.
The baby Jesus hurtles towards the edge of the stage and falls off.
There’s a huge gasp in the audience. Children start crying. Hari has so many cushions tied around him that he can’t get up and flays around like a dying insect. A teacher rushes to pick up baby Jesus, but his swaddling unravels and he disappears under the benches.
A major search for baby Jesus is underway as Nelly jumps on Hari and starts pulling his Santa outfit off in disgust at his duplicity.
Sophie grabs my arm, as the whole of the hall seems to draw its breath and wait for what’s next. Several parents look at me, their eyes screwed up in fury.
‘We can just hope that it’s all planned?’ Sophie whispers as Nelly holds Hari’s beard and hat in the air triumphantly. Several mums rise up, outraged.
Nelly puts on Santa’s hat and shouts, ‘Santa lives!’
‘This is a disaster,’ I say.
‘But her handwriting is impressively neat,’ says Sophie kindly.