Chapter Twenty-Nine
Twenty-nine
Anyone even remotely involved with the Winter Theater had been invited, via the now gigantic WhatsApp group, to meet on Monday morning at nine a.m. to help with the cleanup.
When Harriet arrived, there were already dozens of mop-wielding volunteers in Wellington boots waiting in the foyer. A line of yellow tape strung between the two wooden newel posts at the bottom of the main staircase had a paper sign hanging from it that read DO NOT CROSS THIS LINE UNTIL YOU’VE SEEN KEN!
“Harriet!” Hesther waved her over.
“Good morning! It’s great to see so many people here already.”
As she said this the famous five and Sid arrived, suited and booted for the occasion since school had now officially broken up for the holidays. Grace came in behind them, carrying a bucket filled with bottles of disinfectant, rubber gloves, and dishcloths.
“I heard about James having to rush off,” said Hesther.
Bad news travels fast!
“Yes. Well, there are plenty of us here, I’m sure we can make up for his absence.”
“Not really what I meant. Are you okay?”
“Why wouldn’t I be? It isn’t like we were a thing.” She tried to brush it off.
“Weren’t you?” Hesther’s expression was skeptical.
Hesther was someone who paid close attention. Despite all Harriet’s sensible self-pep-talks, her disappointment with James dragged like one of Jacob Marley’s chains clanking along behind her.
“I thought we were becoming something. But I guess I was wrong. I don’t know.”
“Have you spoken to him?”
“He called, but I let it go to voice mail.”
“Mature.”
Harriet cracked a smile, but her gaze wandered idly toward her students. As she watched, they separated like cells dividing and drifted toward other people. Billy joined Josef and Ahmed in conversation, while Leo and Farahnoush had their noses thrust into a sketchbook. Carly chatted animatedly with Winston, while Isabel sat on one of the sofas helping Paksima with some of the English words in her book, and Ricco appeared to be being taught how to jive dance by Destiny. Three weeks ago, these kids clung to each other like a life raft, willfully shunning anyone who floated too near and regarding anyone who offered rescue with mistrust.
“It warms the heart, doesn’t it?” Hesther said, following her gaze. “So many souls finding a safe harbor here in this theater.”
“It does,” she agreed. This is a good thing, even without James. She looked up at the beautifully reconstructed stuccoed ceiling and the gleam of dark wood that paneled the walls. And then at the sea of people in the grand foyer, people who never would have come together in this way anywhere else. This building had done something to her, a bewitchment of sorts; she suspected it charmed everyone who entered. It beckoned you in and whispered its secrets and made you love it. She wished Evaline could let go of her animosity long enough to feel the magic singing in the walls.
Ken trudged down the staircase and stopped just shy of the yellow tape.
“Right, you ’orrible lot,” he began. “We’ve made the ceiling safe, but it took us all bloomin’ weekend to do and we haven’t had time to clean the place up yet, as you’ve clearly been informed.” He cast his eye around the mops and buckets ready for action. “But I am told we’ve got plenty of willing bodies to help us with the task.”
Rather surprisingly a cheer went up, possibly started by Mallory.
“Put us to work, old man!” shouted Carly.
Ken beamed. “Cheeky mare! Your wish is my command. Everybody—and I mean everybody—needs to wear a hard hat.” He pointed to two large waste bags at the top of the stairs, bulging with yellow helmets.
“Why do we have to wear hard hats if it’s safe?” asked Grace, pulling Sid protectively into her side.
“It’s purely precautionary while we make sure that nothing else is likely to spring a leak or drop out of the sky. But you have my assurances that we don’t anticipate anything of the like. You don’t wear a seat belt because you expect to crash every time you get in a car, do you?”
In response, Grace gave a satisfied nod and ruffled Sid’s hair. Sid gave a Cheshire cat grin, and Harriet spotted Billy watching him out the side of his eye, the smallest twitch of a smile on his lips.
“That’s going to ruin my hair,” said Odette, her hand raised in the air, and everybody laughed.
“No hard hat, no entry, I’m afraid,” Ken chuckled. “We’ll all have helmet hair together. I’ve lived with it for forty years; it’s done nowt to dampen my sex appeal.”
More chuckles rippled around the foyer. Harriet watched a few people worrying at their carefully crafted coiffures, mostly the men.
“I see some of you have brought your own mops, and more power to you,” Ken continued. “We’ve got tools of the trade you can use as well, and Ms. Winter has paid for some industrial dehumidifiers, which will be delivered later.” He found Harriet in the crowd and gave her a conspiratorial wink.
Ken cut the tape like he was opening a shopping center, and the various groups and clubs climbed the stairs, stopping to take a hard hat before swarming into the auditorium.
A thick layer of turquoise tarpaulin covered the ceiling, sucking in and out like the belly of some mythical monster. It didn’t look pretty, but when Harriet compared it to the overall desolation of the place a few weeks previous, it wasn’t so bad. This building had become an echo of the good people who frequented its halls, humans sculpted by trials and tribulations, cracks and scars chiseled onto their hearts making each one a unique and beautiful survivor. Somehow this disparate assembly had become a family, and this old theater had become its home, and Harriet would fight with everything she had to hold on to it.
Later, Evaline paid a surprise visit, and Harriet had to stifle a snigger when she entered the elderly woman’s favored royal box and found her looking resplendent in a fur coat, pearls, and a hard hat.
“Evaline, how lovely to see you,” she said.
Evaline looked Harriet up and down and presumably found her wanting, judging by the way in which she screwed her nose up ever so slightly. “You seem to have everything in hand. The play will go ahead as planned, I presume?”
“Yes,” Harriet replied.
“Good. All the activity in the theater has stirred up media interest; I wouldn’t like to be embarrassed.”
“I thought you’d enjoy watching us fail.”
“Why ever would you think that? Foolish girl. Your success is my success. I want the whole of Cumbria to see the theater thriving. It will drive the price up.”
“Why not simply open the place back up yourself? You don’t need to sell, it’s not like you’re strapped for cash. You were featured in Forbes magazine twice last year.”
“Someone’s been doing her homework.” Evaline looked impressed.
“Just returning the compliment.” Harriet held the old woman’s gaze.
Evaline gave a wry smile in appreciation. “This theater was God to my father; he was devoted to it, it was everything to him. I was expected to show it the same level of devotion.”
“So, leaving it to rot was your revenge?”
Evaline flashed a wicked smile.
“You are finding your teeth, Ms. Smith. Yes, I believe it was. And now selling it is keeping a promise I made to myself to have all association with this theater severed before I die.”
“And yet you’ve kept it all this time.” Harriet hesitated before sharing her next thought. “I think, despite your neglect of it, a part of you doesn’t want to let this place go. Maybe because the Winter Theater is the only piece of your father that you have left?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Evaline bit back in response.
“More ridiculous than taking revenge on an inanimate object like, say, a theater?”
Evaline pointedly ignored her, taking a sip from her cup and then leaning forward in her seat, looking down her nose at the people below.
“Are they doing all this for free?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Harriet thought for a moment. She hadn’t really considered the why ; she had only been certain that they would.
“Well, I suppose because they’re invested in this theater and the people in it. They, like me, are hoping that you’ll keep your promise and insert a caveat into the deeds so that the future owners have to provide space for the community.”
“I agreed to consider that concession before I realized how much community there was!”
Harriet tried to quash the nagging feeling that Evaline was looking for ways to renege on their agreement.
There was a shuffling from outside the curtained royal box, and then “Knock, knock,” said a small voice.
Harriet pulled back the curtain to find Ava and Josef, one holding a plate of little pastry parcels giving off a deliciously spicy aroma, and the other with a stack of napkins.
“Hello.” Ava smiled. “We wondered if Ms. Winter would like to try a samosa?”
“Come on through, you can ask her yourself.” Harriet beckoned them in, hoping Evaline would be civil.
“Ms. Winter, it’s lovely to meet you,” said Josef. He gestured to Ava, who held out the plate of samosas. “A few of us like to get baking in the kitchen, especially when it’s so busy.”
“It feels good to have people to cook for,” Ava added in halting English.
Evaline eyed the morsels and then chose the fattest triangle on the plate. Ava beamed, and Josef handed Evaline a napkin.
“Our elves are just waiting for the knafeh to finish baking.” Josef grinned.
“And Grace and Sid are making ‘melting moments’ if Sid can stop eating the biscuit dough.” Ava chuckled.
“Good luck with that,” said Harriet.
“I understand you do this often?” Evaline asked, taking a bite of samosa. Her eyes glinted and she sighed with pleasure.
“When we can,” Ava replied.
“Last week, Ricco made us his grandma’s famous cannoli and Odette taught us how to make vegetable curry patties,” said Josef.
“Oh my god, they were so good!” said Harriet.
“We’ve started a recipe board,” said Josef. “People write the things they’d like to make, and the ingredients needed, and everyone chips in with cash or donates ingredients. Spread between us, it costs less than a takeaway coffee each per week.”
“We are very grateful to you.” Ava smiled at Harriet and Evaline.
“Indeed, we are,” said Josef. “Right, we’d best be off, we need to feed the workers before they begin to revolt.”
Ava and Josef excused themselves, and Austin swiped two more samosas off the plate as he held the curtain aside for them to leave.
“You seem to have incited quite a cooperative, Ms. Smith,” Evaline said, dabbing at the corners of her mouth with the napkin. She had evidently enjoyed her samosa.
“Not really. I simply offered them a space in which to meet. They’ve done the rest.”
“Hmmm. Austin!” She snapped her fingers and her chauffeur jumped to attention, swallowing the last mouthful of samosa he’d been savoring and crossing immediately to Evaline, where he stood motionless, arm out so that she could pull herself up using him as a human handrail. “No Mr. Knight today, I see.”
“He had some personal business to attend to.”
“Did he?” Gripping tightly onto Austin, she took shuffling steps out of the royal box, with Harriet following behind. It was hard to tell while she was holding court—her snippy remarks and supercilious air made her a formidable force—but watching her now, Harriet could see how her fur coat hung from her thin shoulders, her spine bent and crooked as a windblown tree, and her legs were spindly twigs with her tights wrinkled at her ankles. Evaline Winter was not a well woman.
The stage was cleared of debris, and the water had been pumped out of the orchestra pit. It was unfortunate that the nice new varnish on the fresh floorboards of the stage had turned a ghostly gray, but the carpenters had assured them that as it dried out properly the patina would fade. The main thing was that they had a working stage again, almost. The new curtains had soaked up a good deal of the floodwater and now Harriet joined her fellow cleaner-uppers in twisting the huge drapes as tightly as they would go to squeeze out the excess water. As Ken had quite rightly said, “The dehumidifiers will do their job, but they’re not miracle workers.” And so here they were, essentially milking three massive sets of stage curtains into rows and rows of buckets. Her hands were cold to the point of pain, every fingertip pale and pruned; she wished she’d taken Mateo’s offer of rubber gloves.
Gideon—in yellow mackintosh and galoshes—had taken on the role of cheerleader and morale booster, which also meant he didn’t have to get his hands dirty.
“That’s it, you’ve got this, guys! I think that one can stand another twist. Harry, that’s the way. Isabel, darling, don’t pat at it, get your arms around it and squeeze!”
“I’m gonna twist and squeeze him if he keeps this up,” Billy growled.
“I’ll hold him still,” said Grace; her expression suggested she was only half joking.
Sid and some of the other children were running back and forth from the toilet block emptying the buckets and delivering them back to catch more water. Harriet twirled one of the cross-stage curtains with Mallory, twisting the fabric round and round and trying to ignore the freezing dribbles that ran up her forearms to her elbows, soaking into the pulled-up sleeves of both her cardigans. Her back was to the auditorium when she heard Carly call out, “Oi, James! Nice of you to show, finally!”
Harriet froze momentarily, then continued to twist the curtain, refusing to turn around. Mallory glanced at her but she pretended not to notice. Anger and embarrassment were doing the tango in her stomach, and now inexplicably she felt tears pricking at her eyes. Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry.
“You’ve missed all the fun!” Gideon called, which earned him some groans.
“So it would seem.” James’s voice was smooth and calm. Harriet seethed. How dare he be calm!
More people called out to him in greeting. Well, isn’t he just Mr. Popular! Mallory caught her eye and nodded slightly, but she didn’t need that to make her aware that James was right behind her. She could feel his presence. She had known that he would make a beeline for her, and she hadn’t yet decided what she should do about it. Left to her own devices she would like to walk away without acknowledging him; actually, she would probably run. But her students were here and they believed her to be a grown-up, even though she felt like a girl who’d been stood up at the school disco. The insinuation that one day all the chaos and confusion of the teen years would melt away to be replaced by a sage state of adulthood was possibly the biggest mutual lie of adult humans the world over, but it wasn’t her place to shatter the illusions of the young, not today.
“Harriet, could I possibly have a word?”
I can think of at least seventeen—let’s start with “armpit fungus” and work our way through the alphabet!
She turned to him, forcing a smile and trying to ignore the hammering of her heart and the way his eyes looked like they held sentiments that she didn’t know if she was ready to hear.
“Of course.” She turned back to Mallory. “Excuse me, Mallory, I’ll be back in a moment.”
Without looking at him, she began walking toward the backstage, stepping gingerly around the buckets and wet towels dotted all over the place and making sure not to slip. She knew he was following her. Once they’d left the noise of the auditorium behind, she carried on past the makeshift coffee area and let herself into another dressing room, farther along the corridor where she was sure they wouldn’t be disturbed.
Once inside, she closed the door. Instinctively she folded her arms across her chest and then unfolded them, forcing herself to keep an open posture; she didn’t want him to think that she was protecting herself, even if that was exactly what she wanted to do. She wanted to armor up and save the soft parts of herself from being pierced, but she’d be damned if she’d let him know it.
She lifted her chin and pulled her shoulders back.
“How is Morgan?”
James, usually so buttoned up and ready to argue his case, seemed at sixes and sevens. “She’s fine. A touch of whiplash, perhaps.”
“And Lyra?”
“Also fine. Relieved that her mum’s okay.”
“Excellent. Well then, I’d better get back, lots to do to make the place shipshape again. Though as I’m sure you can see, we’ve made inroads since you left. Turns out we were just fine without you.” So much for taking the high ground! “I’m sorry, that was mean of me, can we strike that from the record?”
“Sustained,” he said.
“Thanks.”
She shook her head at her idiot self and made to leave.
“I made a mistake,” he said, stopping her in her tracks. “All my priorities were suddenly standing in line and glaring me in the face, and I panicked and went with the one that was shouting the loudest.”
Oh, for cluck’s sake! How could she argue with that?
“No,” she sighed, and looked to the ceiling. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Your priority should always be your daughter.”
“My presence was very much surplus to requirements, a fact which was obvious when I turned up at the door on my white steed and found them eating popcorn and watching movies.”
“You didn’t know that when you left. For all you knew she might have been putting on a brave face. You did the right thing for Lyra. But Lyra isn’t the issue.”
“I know what you’re going to say.” He looked down at his shoes.
“But I’m going to say it anyway. I understand that you have all kinds of guilt around Lyra and Morgan. And I fully expect and accept that Lyra comes first for you, that’s a given, I wouldn’t want it any other way. But I was angry and hurt at the way you cut and ran when the sky in the theater was literally falling and tried to make me feel bad about it. I’m happy to play second fiddle to Lyra, but not to Morgan.”
He rubbed his hand over his unshaven face; it suited him but was a testament to his distraction.
“I was an arsehole and I tried to turn my guilt around onto you and I’m sorry, really I am, that was inexcusable behavior and you deserved better.”
She sighed. He was making this very hard for her. “It doesn’t change our situation.”
“I don’t want to be with Morgan,” he said.
That didn’t exactly answer her question.
“But I owe her so much. She brought up my child,” he said.
“ Her child,” Harriet corrected. “She didn’t bring her up as a favor to you. She raised Lyra for Lyra’s sake alone because she’s a parent and that’s what we do.”
“Of course, you’re right. You are absolutely right. I worded that badly. It’s just that I have so much to make up for, I feel like I’m in her debt and I’ve got no way of repaying her.”
“And therein lies the problem, because I don’t know to what lengths you might go to assuage your guilt. And I get it, I honestly do. But I’m not going to put myself in a situation where I might be cast aside at any moment. That’s not going to be good for my mental health.”
He nodded, his expression grave, his eyes so sad that she wanted to swallow back all her words.
“What does that mean for us?” he asked.
She fought against the hopeful romantic in her head and the ache in her heart. Instead, she chose safety.
“It means I want to be your friend and I want to be a part of your life, but I can’t commit to more than that while Morgan is your priority. I have to choose to put me first.”