Chapter Twenty-Three
Twenty-three
It had been a week and a day since the Great Foss Players joined the production and despite the inevitable teething problems, they were beginning to feel like a cohesive team. The famous five had managed to switch shifts at their various weekend jobs so that the cast could have their first full run-through. Harriet and James sat at the end of a row near the middle of the stalls as the actors onstage ran their lines. Although everyone still hugged their scripts tightly, they were relying on them a little less each day. Gideon stood in the central aisle, a clipboard hugged to his chest, shouting helpful things: “More projection, Ahmed!” “Sid, imagine you are speaking to the person in the very back row.” “Eye contact, Isabel!”
Outside, the town was heaving as the first Saturday in December sparked a frenzied countdown to Christmas, but inside the theater the atmosphere was determinedly calm. On the stage, Ahmed as Ebenezer Scrooge was tearing a strip off Ricco, his nephew, and Gideon was in raptures.
Billy appeared beside Harriet. “Miss, have you seen Grace this morning?”
“Grace? Um, no, I don’t think so. Why?”
He bit his lip.
“I can’t find her.”
“Why do you need her?”
“I’ve got a book for her. It’s nothing, it doesn’t matter, the point is she’s not here.”
“Maybe she’s coming in later today?”
“She wouldn’t miss a rehearsal,” Billy pressed.
“Well, ask Gideon. She might have called in sick.”
Billy grimaced and went over to Gideon.
If she was honest, Harriet didn’t pay much attention to the older players’ whereabouts; her ducks consisted of the famous five and Sid, and she made sure she kept them in a row at all times. But his concern made her wonder. Last night, when Grace was struggling to get the top off her thermos, Billy had crossed the stage to loosen it for her. And when Billy had forgotten his lines in the kitchen scene with Isabel, Grace had discreetly acted as his prompter. Small acts which showed the other they were seen. If anyone were to notice Grace’s absence, it would be Billy.
Gideon clapped his hands loudly.
“Okay, everybody, good work. Let’s take five and then regroup for Act One, Scene Seven. Now has anybody heard from Grace today? Billy has alerted me to her absence.”
There were mumbles on the stage as people looked about them, only just now realizing that Grace wasn’t with them.
“Does anyone have her mobile number?” Billy called out. Mutters in the negative and shaking heads were his answer.
“I do!” Mallory piped up. “As secretary and treasurer, I have everyone’s details on file.”
Harriet and James walked over to where Billy and Gideon were standing. Mallory held her phone to her ear, frowning.
“Her mobile’s going straight to answer machine. I’ll try her landline.” She pursed her lips. “It’s just ringing and ringing.”
“We need her address,” said Billy. Sid had come to stand by his side, his eyes wide as he picked up on his big brother’s concern.
“Do you think that’s really necessary?” asked Gideon condescendingly. “She’s probably stopped off to do some Christmas shopping.”
“Not when she’s expected here, you know what she’s like about bad manners.”
He had a point. Mallory dug about in her carpetbag and pulled out a brown folder.
“It’ll be in here,” she said, flicking through the pages. “Ah, here it is.” She held out the page with Grace’s details and Billy—quick as a flash—snapped a photograph of it on his phone.
“I’m going over there to check,” he said.
James glanced over the file. “That’s the other end of town. If you’re really that concerned, I’ll drive you.”
“I’ll come too,” added Harriet.
“Can I come?” asked Sid.
Billy ruffled his brother’s hair. “Not this time, buddy, you need to stay here and practice with the others.” He looked over to the other members of the famous five and gave them a nod. They returned it and hurried over.
Sid, crestfallen at being left behind, was about to argue when Ricco said, “Do you know what would help you learn your lines, Sid? Maccy-D fries and a chocolate milkshake.”
“Yep, that’s what it is!” agreed Isabel.
“Mind if we join you, Sid?” asked Carly.
“Honest?” Sid asked, his grin returned. “Can we, really?”
“Really truly,” Leo confirmed. “Chocolate milkshake is famous for helping actors remember their lines.”
With Sid’s bribery in place, Harriet, James, and Billy exited the theater. The town was busy, but soon they had left the main roads behind and were driving up and down quiet residential streets.
“Can I ask why you’re so worried?” asked James.
“It’s just a feeling,” Billy said, chewing on his thumbnail. “Last night she said, ‘See you tomorrow’—why would she have said that if she wasn’t going to be there?”
“Isn’t that just a figure of speech? Like ‘see you later’?” James suggested.
“Not for her. She’s…”
“Exacting?” Harriet offered.
“Yeah. That.”
“Of course, she could simply be running late?” Harriet added.
“Nah. You’ve heard her moaning on about ‘tardiness.’ If she was gonna be late, she’d have sent an official telegram or something.”
After another five minutes, which seemed to have shredded Billy’s very last nerve, they pulled up outside a three-up-two-down terraced house, with a neat front garden and a holly wreath on the front door. The street was lined both sides with cars parked bumper to bumper.
“You two jump out, and I’ll try and find a place to park,” said James.
Billy was out of the car before James had finished speaking. Harriet followed him down the path to Grace’s house as he began ringing the doorbell and calling through the letterbox.
“Maybe she simply forgot there was a rehearsal today,” Harriet offered hopefully. Billy’s nerves were rubbing off on her.
He shook his head. “No. I’m going round the back.”
Before Harriet could stop him, he tore off down a narrow alleyway. All she could do was follow. Another alleyway, overgrown with weeds, ran behind the gardens. Billy looked along the rows of back gates.
“Which one is Grace’s?” he asked in frustration.
Puffing to catch her breath, Harriet counted along from the end.
“This one,” she said, walking over to a rickety wooden gate and opening the latch.
Like the front garden, the back garden was small and neat, with a square of lawn surrounded by flowerbeds and a brick path leading to the back door. Billy ran ahead down the path and pressed his face to the kitchen window.
“She’s here!” he shouted back. “She’s on the floor! Grace!” he yelled, banging on the window.
Harriet rushed to the window while Billy began trying the handle of the door, but it was locked. Grace lay crumpled in a heap on the kitchen floor, her eyes fluttering. A glass bottle was smashed nearby one of her slippered feet, and a puddle of milk pooled around her. A bag of flour on the table had been upset and some had spilled like a layer of snow.
“We’re here now, Grace,” she shouted through the glass as she dialed 999. “I’m going to call for help.”
James arrived on the scene just as Harriet was finishing up the call. At his expression, she turned from the window to see that Billy had begun to scale the drainpipe. Harriet’s heart gave a lurch of alarm.
“Billy! What are you…? Come down! I don’t want to have to order two ambulances!” Under her breath, she whispered, “For flock’s sake!”
“She’s all alone!” Billy shouted back.
They stood at the base of the drainpipe looking up. Billy was too high up even for James to grab him.
“That looks dangerous, mate,” James reasoned. “The ambulance will be here soon, why don’t you leave it to them?”
“I’m not leaving her!” Billy panted. His foot slipped on the pipe, sending rusted paint flecks fluttering down.
“Son of a biscuit!” she swore. “Please be careful!” To James, she added, “Oh my god, this kid’s going to give me a heart attack. I think I’m going to puke.”
But Billy had already reached his destination. He swung his feet onto a ledge, grabbed hold of the wooden window frame, and posted himself through the open window of the upstairs bathroom. A loud bump, then some after-clatters and the sound of things rolling around on a linoleum floor, and then Billy’s voice shouted, “I’m okay!”
“Oh, sweet baby cheeses.” Harriet let out a breath and bent her head to her knees to try and get some blood back into her brain.
James moved back to the window, and Harriet stood up in time to see Billy enter the kitchen and kneel at Grace’s head. They couldn’t hear what he was saying, but the wan smile on Grace’s face made them both puff out sighs of relief. Billy stroked the hair away from her face and gave her hand a squeeze before jumping up to unlock the back door.
A bowl sat on the kitchen table half-filled with flour and sugar. Next to it was a pot of ground ginger.
“I was making gingerbread men for Sid,” Grace mumbled. “And then I came over dizzy. I must have fallen. I need to get up.”
Billy, who was kneeling back beside her, rested his hand on her shoulder. “Just stay there for the moment, yeah? Let the paramedics check you over first.”
“Fuss and nonsense,” she argued, but her heart wasn’t in it, and she stayed where she was. “How did you get in?”
“I climbed up the drainpipe and in through the bathroom window.”
She gave a snort and patted his hand with her own, which still trembled from the shock of her fall.
“Stupid boy. I suppose you think you’re Spider-Man now.”
“Little bit,” Billy smirked.
Several hours later they were all back at Grace’s house again to settle her in. The doctor at the hospital had diagnosed an inner ear infection, which had caused her to lose her balance. It was plain bad luck that her head had met with the corner of the dining table as she’d gone down. Aside from a few bumps and bruises, she had been declared fit as a fiddle.
“The biggest bruises are to my ego,” Grace complained as James and Harriet fussed around her small sitting room, plumping cushions and keeping up a steady stream of tea. “D’oh, just stop it, I’m not an invalid. I’m sixty-five, not a hundred!” she snapped, flapping her hands at James as he pushed a footstool toward her, though she did grudgingly plop her slippered feet up on it.
“You gave us all a scare,” Harriet called from the kitchen as she unpacked the foodie gifts that had been arriving at the house for the last hour.
Word of Grace’s fall had quickly spread around the theater. Anousheh and Sana—from the women’s group—had dropped in stuffed flatbreads and enough biryani to last a week, while Mallory had brought fondant fancies, mini Scotch eggs, and other such picnic foods from the Great Foss Players. Even the maintenance teams had sent over flowers and chocolates.
Tess and Arthur had dropped round with Sid so that he could give Grace a tin of Christmas biscuits and then taken him home for some dinner. Arthur had lost weight, Harriet thought, since she’d last seen him, but she tucked that niggle away for this evening. Somewhat surprisingly, given he’d already spent the whole day with Grace, Billy didn’t go home with them; Harriet wondered if it had anything to do with the giant pan of biryani in the kitchen.
“I had no idea I was so popular.” Grace’s tone was cynical. She made a big show of being suspicious of the plentiful kindnesses and pooh-poohed the notion that today’s events had left her shaken. But in a moment that she was now blaming on the effects of painkillers, she had confessed to Billy that she’d thought she was going to die alone on the kitchen floor and that no one would find her body until it began to smell.
“Well, it turns out that despite your best efforts at cantankerousness, people still like you, so deal with it,” Harriet retorted, drying her hands on a tea towel printed with a faded recipe for Cornish pasties as she came back into the sitting room. “Now, the doctor has said that you need someone to stay with you tonight just in case you have a concussion. It’s simply a precaution…”
“Bunkum!” Grace blustered. “I don’t need a babysitter.”
“You do tonight,” said James smoothly.
“I don’t mind staying over, you’ve got a bed made up in the spare room,” said Harriet. “I can sleep in there.”
“Been snooping, have you?”
“I had to go upstairs to find the things you needed for the hospital, remember?”
Grace made a grumbling noise not unlike the dissenting sounds made by MPs during Prime Minister’s Question Time.
“I’ll stay,” said Billy.
“Certainly not!” Grace protested.
“Afraid I might steal all your worldly belongings?” he asked, smiling sardonically.
“I’m more concerned you’ll scoff my biryani,” she snapped.
“Now that is a possibility,” he replied.
I knew it! Harriet smiled to herself.
“I don’t need looking after,” Grace insisted.
“Which is why I’m perfect for the job,” argued Billy. “?’Cause I have no intention of looking after you. I’m only offering to stay because you’ve got Sky Movies.”
“Well.” Grace gave the impression of mulling it over. “All right, then. But I choose the movie and I want all the pink fondant fancies.”
“Fair enough,” said Billy, shrugging. “I’ll go and dish myself up some grub, I’m starving.”
He turned abruptly and walked into the kitchen.
“Little shit,” Grace muttered under her breath, but the smile in her eyes was undeniable.
With Grace and Billy settled in front of the TV and a smorgasbord of delights laid out on the coffee table, Harriet and James made their exit.
“Do you think she’ll be all right?” James asked as he parked outside Harriet’s building.
“Grace? Yeah. She’s made of tough stuff. She might murder Billy, though.”
“They’re a funny pair, aren’t they? A week ago, they couldn’t stand each other.”
“I think maybe they see themselves reflected in each other.”
“You always see the good in people, don’t you?” said James.
“It’s not about the good or bad, sometimes it’s just about the seeing.”
He looked out of the window, which was beginning to steam up, nodding slowly.
“I think I’m starting to get that. What are you up to tomorrow?” he asked.
She stretched contentedly like a cat as she thought about her Sunday plans. “Lazy morning, lunch at Emma and Pete’s, FaceTime with Maisy, lazy evening. You?”
“Brunch with Lyra, catch up on some paperwork, watch the footie.”
“You’re into football?”
He laughed at her surprise. “Is that so unusual?”
She shrugged. “I guess I had you down for following something like fencing, or televised chess championships.”
He shook his head, smiling.
They were quiet for a moment, each of them not quite ready to burst the little bubble of harmony they’d found inside the car. Harriet considered inviting him in but after the commotion of today, she was looking forward to getting into her pj’s and watching a movie.
“Who knew there’d be so much drama outside of the play?” she said, yawning.
“I had an inkling the moment Gideon showed up,” James replied dryly, and Harriet laughed. “So much for the first official run-through. I hope it’s not an omen.”
“Oh, there’s plenty of time yet.” Harriet laid her head back against the headrest.
“You’ve changed your tune.” James smiled. “A couple of weeks ago, you were panicking that we’d never pull it together and now you’re Little Miss Chillaxed.”
She turned her head to face him. “I wouldn’t go that far. But maybe I’m starting to realize that I can’t control everything and that’s okay. Schnitzel’s going to happen whether I worry myself stupid or not, so I may as well go with the flow.”
“Have you been at Grace’s sherry?”
She pressed her forefinger and thumb together in the universal sign for a little bit and giggled. “She kept offering me ‘snifters.’?”
“Tess and Arthur seem nice,” James said.
“They’re lovely. They’ve been so good for Billy. And Sid.” She smiled, thinking about the many changes she’d seen in Billy over the years. “You should have seen him when he first started at Foss Independent. Lordy, I thought for sure he’d be expelled before the end of year seven. It was like he’d been raised by wolves. I am so proud of that kid.”
“You really care about them, don’t you?”
“I really do. They’ve got so much potential; they could change the world. You’ve got to know them a bit by now—you must see it too?”
“I do. I’ve been thinking…”
“Uh-oh!” She smirked in his direction.
“I could start a legal surgery at the theater, a couple of evenings a week. You know, pro bono, offer advice to people who couldn’t otherwise afford it. I think there’s a need for it. Well, I know there is, even just in our own little expanding community. And I could help people like Farahnoush and Ava with their documents, that sort of thing. What do you think?”
Harriet unclipped her seat belt and with little to no grace at all climbed over the gear stick and hand brake to straddle James’s lap. The steering wheel bit into the base of her back, and the cup holder was definitely going to leave a ring on her right knee, but she didn’t care.
“This is what I think,” she whispered as she pressed her lips to his, her hands cupping his face. She felt his arms snake around her back, pulling her down onto him.
“Now I wish I’d mentioned it sooner,” he growled into her mouth. His hands fumbled with her layers. “How many cardigans are you wearing this time?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know!”
Her phone rang and they both froze. This was when she would usually be compelled to answer no matter what she was in the middle of, but a quick glance at the screen showed her it wasn’t a number that she recognized and she breathed out her worry and let it ring, and James’s kisses became even more fervent as a reward.
The snow had picked up again, and the street was quiet. The windows of James’s car were opaque with condensation, and anyone who was brave enough to be outside didn’t bother knocking.