Chapter Thirty
Thirty
It was two days before curtain up, and nervous energy crackled in the air like static. They had lost a whole day’s worth of rehearsals to the cleanup, and even with the eight industrial dehumidifiers roaring at full pelt the stage curtains were still wet. It didn’t help that the auditorium was only ever a few degrees above fridge temperature when all the heaters were on. Still, the stage had dried out remarkably well and the blue-whale-belly tarpaulin was holding fast.
By eleven o’clock the final backcloths had been rigged up and the stagehands knew exactly which one to drop for which scene. James was demonstrably absent, but thankfully Harriet didn’t have time to dwell on where he might be. Being “just” friends with James was proving to be infinitely harder than being lovers. Apparently, her heart hadn’t got the memo that they were now simply platonic because it still leaped every time he walked into a room. Her hands betrayed her too, twitching with a want to hold his whenever he was near. He had accepted her decision with good grace. He had been consummately respectful. And her irrational, traitorous heart yearned for him to fight for her like he’d promised he would.
Backstage was frenzied as people shimmied into costume and makeup. For the people playing more than one part there would be quick costume changes between scenes, and Harriet, Hesther, and Farahnoush oversaw making sure these were readily available when the time came.
Gideon’s words of rousing encouragement carried all the way to where Harriet and Farahnoush were trying to do up Carly’s corset, which wasn’t easy with cold fingers.
“Players all! Hear me now! This will be our only full dress rehearsal, so let us make it count. We go live in two days. This is the quickest production I have ever worked on, but it has also been my greatest pleasure. You are all stars of the stage! Let us glisten like the celestial beings that we are! Everybody, stand by and take your places, please!”
There was a beat of almost total silence, bar the nervous breathing and the rustling of crinoline dresses, and then Prescilla’s piano playing began, and the first wave of actors and narrators took to the stage.
Backstage became a place of hushed frenetic business. Harriet grabbed her script and hurried into the wing, ready to prompt anyone who might need it.
“Miss,” Billy whispered.
“Yes,” she whispered back, not taking her eyes off the stage. “Are you ready? Is Sid okay? Not too nervous?”
“Nah, it’s not about that. It’s James, he wants to see you.”
She ignored the way her heart skipped a beat. “Well, I’m a bit busy, tell him to come here if he needs me.”
“Right. He said you’d say that, and he told me to tell you that he needs to show you something and he can only do it outside.”
“What?”
“Shhhhhhh!” Destiny hissed from across the stage. She was in the other wing—wound round in several meters of silver paper chains—and was making furious “fingers on lips” actions at her.
Sorry! Harriet mouthed back.
“I can take this over until you get back. He’s waiting out front for you.”
She harrumphed as quietly as she could, acutely aware of Destiny eyeing her from across the stage.
“All right, I’ll be as quick as I can,” she said grudgingly and handed Billy her copy of the play.
As she came down the main staircase, she saw people waiting to buy tickets at the box office in a queue that snaked around the foyer and out the door, letting in the fearful icy wind from outside. At least they were guaranteed an audience for their efforts.
Harriet pulled cardigans one, two, and three together and headed out into the snow. It was falling heavily; the head of white on the wall had grown four inches since she’d arrived that morning.
The Christmas tree looked resplendent, and the Salvation Army band played “Good King Wenceslas” despite the mounds of white covering their shoulders. A small boy stood with his face to the gunmetal sky catching large snowflakes on his tongue while his mother fished in her purse for a coin to drop into the charity bucket.
Harriet looked around and saw James stood in the small garden area of the theater, next to a trough filled with hellebores peeking their heads above the snow. His back was to her; he was wearing his long black woolen coat and hugging his arms around himself. She wanted to run to him. She longed to tell him that she wanted to be more than just friends, that she’d been hasty, that life was too short not to try the rogan josh. But maybe she was too late; maybe taking a step back had made him realize he had feelings for Morgan after all. The thought of it made her want to cry with frustration at her own stupid cautiousness.
Her top cardigan was growing a snowy crust. She needed to do something before they both became snowmen.
“James. I’m here.”
He turned and smiled at her.
“Ah, good. Right, here goes!” He bent down and rolled up each of his trouser legs and then began to untie one of his shoes, pushing his foot out of it with the toes of his other shoe and hopping as he slipped off his sock and poked it into the empty shoe. He grinned at her and placed his naked foot down on to the ground, where it instantly sank into the snow.
“All the holy saints! That’s cold!” he yelled, before bending down and repeating the process with the other shoe and sock. “Christ on a bike!” he shouted, hopping from one naked foot to the other and getting some unusual looks from the trombone section of the band. He began to walk backward and forward in front of her, his hands flexing open and shut as he went.
“What are you doing?” she asked incredulously.
“I’m glad you asked.” His voice was halting from the cold. “You once told me that you’d never loved anyone enough to walk barefoot in the snow. So, this is me, walking barefoot in the snow for you, to prove how much I think I love you. I can’t promise that I won’t make mistakes, but I can promise that you are the only woman that I will ever walk barefoot in the snow for.”
“You silly ass!” she laughed. “You’re going to get frostbite!”
“It’ll be worth it if you admit that you think you love me too.” His teeth were chattering loudly.
In a moment of rebellion against every risk-averse instinct, she reached under her long needlecord tunic and wriggled her tights down as far as the tops of her boots, noticing the cymbal player miss his cue as he watched her with a frown on his face. Then she unzipped her boots and stepped out of both them and her tights. James burst out a shivery laugh.
“Mother Smucker Gloriana ballbags!” she screeched as her feet sank into the snow. The trumpet player played a bum note in surprise. She began to move about with James in a sort of exaggerated pony trot, hopping from foot to foot as she went, so that the two of them looked like they were performing the weirdest ever “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.” “You are the rogan josh I’ve always wanted but been too afraid to try!” she said breathlessly.
“That’s wonderful, I think?” James said, his voice shaking. “What does that actually mean?”
“It means I think I love you too!”
“Thank flock for that!” he said, pulling her into his arms and lifting her off the ground as he kissed her.
The Salvation Army band began an impromptu rendition of “All I Want for Christmas.”
“For the love of all things holy!” shouted Grace, standing in the doorway dressed in robes of gray flowing chiffon as the Ghost of Christmas Past. “Have you lost your senses? Get in here at once!”
Still hopping from foot to foot, they did as they were told, sheepishly picking up their discarded footwear and following Grace back into the theater, where she made them both sit in the wings with their feet in bowls of warm water and forced them to drink cups of hot sweet tea laced with brandy even though it wasn’t even lunchtime.
The theater was filling up fast. Harriet had managed a quick hello to Emma and Pete when they’d arrived but had no time to chat. Evaline—who was seated in her royal box, a picture of austere glamour in evening gown, pearls, and a tiara with Austin by her side—had informed her that the show was sold out, though she’d shown no pleasure in the news. Also in the box with her were two stiffly suited men that Evaline had introduced as the representatives of the theater groups interested in purchasing the Winter Theater. The tarp ceiling was undoubtedly an eyesore, but Harriet surmised it was unlikely to be a dealbreaker when the rest of the theater was so utterly majestic. She had quashed the theatrical urge to hiss and boo when she shook the representatives’ hands. All she could do now was hope that Evaline wouldn’t go back on her word.
Backstage, the frantic energy was palpable, pulsing down corridors and into dressing rooms like shock waves. Nerves were stretched thin, but the camaraderie was strong, and inevitable snaps prompted fits of giggles rather than scoldings. The bonhomie was infectious, and it infused every soul behind the scenes.
The corridors leading off each wing were lined with clothing rails ready for swift costume changes. Orchestral Christmas carols floated out through speakers fixed high up on the walls, piped down from a sound system that would complement Prescilla’s piano playing throughout the show. There were two states of motion backstage: running full pelt or standing stock-still. It was as though every person in the production had woken that morning having forgotten how to walk at a reasonable pace.
“Come, come, good people, places, please!” Gideon implored. “The lights go down in one short minute, and then it is curtain up! This company is ready to give the town of Little Beck Foss the greatest show in its history! So without further ado I say to you all, break a leg! Break all your legs! And give this town something to remember!”
The cheers may have been muted by nerves, but wide smiles said that his words had done their job.
“Okay, places, everyone!” said Harriet. Her heart was beating wildly. She hadn’t felt this jittery since two pink lines had indicated she was pregnant with Maisy. With every fiber of her being she wanted this production to go well for the famous five and all the people who had given their time and positive energy to the cause.
Ahmed and the narrators and townspeople who would be opening with him lined up in the wing beside Harriet. The curtains obscured the audience, but the low rumble of voices vibrated the boards beneath their feet. They knew the lights had gone down when an excited ripple of sound spiked in the auditorium and then grew quiet.
“Okay,” said Harriet, offering them one final thumbs-up and a maniacal smile. “On you go, you’ll be amazing, you’ve got this!” She ushered them onto the stage and watched Ahmed’s chest fill with a deep breath before the curtains were drawn up.
“Marley was dead: to begin with…”
The next two and a half hours were a blur of frantic costume changes, makeup touch-ups, and hissed encouragements and congratulations. Harriet was stationed in the left wing and James the right, their eyes meeting fleetingly and often before their focus was redirected to their duties.
Carly and Ricco—as Belle and young Scrooge—sang “What If” to a rapt audience while behind the curtain the stage was readied with swift precision for the next scene. When they’d finished, bowing their heads and moving back away from one another as though pulled asunder by the hands of time, the sudden quiet left by their voices was filled with sniffs and hiccups before applause rolled through the theater like thunder.
Harriet grabbed them as they left the stage and hugged them tight.
“Amazing! You were even better than in the dress rehearsal.”
“Do you think so, miss?” asked Carly, still trying to catch her breath.
James bounded across the still-curtained stage to them.
“That was incredible, you two!” he said, shaking each of them enthusiastically by the hand. “I’m so proud of you. You’ve got half the audience sobbing into their finery out there.”
Harriet watched the easy way they were around each other, so at odds with when they had first met.
The curtains opened again, and Scrooge was back in his bed while the narrators stood around his sleeping form, chronicling the tale until Odette, in green robes, took to the stage as the Ghost of Christmas Present to wake him for further lessons.
“I can’t do it, miss.” Billy was standing before her, dressed as a Victorian house husband, shaking his head and chewing the skin on the side of his thumb.
“Yes, you can. Billy, you’ve got this.”
“I can’t. It’s such a big scene. All those people…”
“Listen, all your scenes are with either Sid or Isabel, so just focus on them, don’t look at the audience. Pretend it’s simply another rehearsal, you’re with your brother and your mates just messing about.”
Sid came to join them. “I can hold your hand the whole time, Billy, if you like,” he said. “Gideon won’t mind, will he?”
“No, he won’t mind at all. And the audience won’t be any the wiser,” said Harriet.
Isabel came up beside them, smiling once at Billy before taking Sid’s hand.
“Ready, Sid?” she said, bending to his height.
“Ready!” He grinned back.
“Then let’s go!”
Isabel and Sid took to the stage. Somewhere along the last few weeks Isabel had developed a newfound confidence that Harriet was happy to see. Billy watched his little brother skip onto the stage and then remember his hobble. The audience tittered delightedly.
“What if I mess it up? Or forget my lines?” Billy’s eyes were wide with panic when he turned back to Harriet.
Harriet waved her printout of the play.
“That’s what I’m here for. How about this, while you’re on the stage I won’t do anything else except stand in the wing where you can see me, following your lines, so that if you stumble, I can whisper them straight to you. We can do the whole scene with me feeding you your lines if need be. Okay?”
Billy took a second to think about it and then nodded.
“Yeah, okay.” His voice was hesitant. “And you’ll stand where I can see you?” He could have been six instead of sixteen in that moment, his shell of self-contained capability temporarily shucked. “The whole time?”
“Yes. I will always be in your line of sight. I promise.”
He nodded again and took a deep breath. On the stage, the Ghost of Christmas Present was directing Scrooge to peek in at the Cratchits’ Christmas.
“It’s time,” said Harriet, taking Billy by the shoulders. “You can do this. I know you can.”
Hesitantly and somewhat stiffly, Billy took to the stage. Harriet positioned herself where he could easily see her. He glanced at her once before beginning.
“What has ever got your precious mother, then? And Tiny Tim! And Martha warn’t as late last Christmas Day by half an hour!”
Harriet followed his lines, shifting her position as he moved about the stage to stay in his eyeline.
“He’s doing really well,” said Hesther, watching Billy bustle about the stage kitchen. “I wasn’t sure he’d go on at all.”
“Sometimes you just need to know that there’s a safety net before you jump,” said Harriet, her eyes flicking between Billy and his lines on her printout.
“Never was a truer word spoken, my friend.” Hesther squeezed her shoulder and melted back into the melee backstage.
Sid of course managed to woo the entire theater, and Ricco was all affable charm as Scrooge’s nephew. Hiroshi terrified his audience as he danced malevolently around the stage as the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. And when it came time for Scrooge to look upon the people selling his still-warm belongings after his death, Harriet couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. She craned her neck to steal a glance up at Evaline in her box but jumped back and hid in the shadows when it seemed as though Evaline had at that moment trained her opera glasses directly upon her. Surely not? But later again, when Scrooge witnessed his own name upon the tombstone in the churchyard, she dared another peek, and this time Evaline not only had her in her sights but nodded once to acknowledge that she had indeed seen her. Harriet suppressed a squeak just as Scrooge cried out: “No, Spirit! Oh no, no! Spirit! Hear me! I am not the man I was.”
The final scenes were the busiest of them all as they required almost all the cast and bit players to be on the stage in some capacity or another. Two of the Relic Hunters stood behind the set of Scrooge’s house and held the frame firm as Ahmed climbed the box stairs and pushed open the window to speak to Sid on the stage below.
“What’s today, my fine fellow?”
“ Today! ” called up Sid, disguised in a cap and thick scarf. “ Why, CHRISTMAS DAY. ”
The audience roared their approval.
The end of the play was near, and the collective tension was relaxing into the euphoria of knowing that something terrifying was almost over. The cast were enjoying themselves; even Billy had a genuine spring in his step when he took to the stage for his final scene. At the very last moment Ahmed scooped Sid up off the floor—which hadn’t been part of the plan because of his hip replacement last year—and Sid laughed joyfully and shouted, “ God bless us, every one! ”
There was a standing ovation as everyone involved in the production, even Ken and the maintenance crew, took to the stage in a messy, joyous muddle. Harriet could see Emma jumping up and down in the stalls, waving her arms above her head and whooping. Gideon was in raptures, bouncing from one end of the stage to the other, his cape flying out behind him. For a few moments, the audience was forgotten, despite their riotous applause and foot stamping, as new and old friends slammed together in hugs, swung each other round by the hands, landed kisses on cheeks, heads, lips. James found Harriet in the bustle and swept her into his arms so that her feet left the floor as he kissed her. The sound of Prescilla’s piano playing finally broke through their rhapsodies, and as one they turned to the audience, taking the hand of the person beside them as they joined in singing “Put a Little Love in Your Heart.” The audience went wild.
Gideon made his way to the front of the stage, bringing with him a microphone and stand, tapping it loudly so that the boom shocked stage and audience alike into quiet.
“Greetings and salutations to the town of Little Beck Foss!” he bellowed. “If I might invite Harriet and James to stand beside me?”
Harriet gulped and went to his side. James, looking equally uneasy, went to his other side.
“When these good people called upon my expertise for their small production of a Dickens classic…”
Here we go , Harriet thought keeping the rictus grin plastered to her face.
“My expectations were far from great!” He stopped and waited for people to get his joke. There was a smattering of polite laughter. “I thought, how shall I ever be able to mold this ragtag group into a cohesive production crew, with no budget and little experience between them?”
Bit rude.
“But I was wrong. As it turned out, they molded me.”
Didn’t see that coming!
“I have borne witness to a group of disparate humans coming together to form friendships and bonds that will stretch far beyond this production. It has been my honor to work with them all. And I am a better person for having met all of you.”
With that, he bent into a deep bow, forcing James and Harriet to bow with him since he had a tight grip on their hands. The cheering took up again both in the stalls and on the stage.
A sharp rap-rap-rapping noise reverberated through the theater, and one by one people stopped clapping and fell quiet to watch as Evaline Winter hobbled onto the stage, her stick tapping with every step, Austin walking respectfully beside her. The theater became so hushed that even the scratch across the boards of the beads at the hem of her gown was audible.
She made a slow beeline for the microphone stand, and James quickly altered the height for her. A gold-tasseled evening bag with a beaded chain hung from her arm. When she reached the stand, her labored breaths sounded loud through the microphone. She didn’t rush. Harriet wasn’t sure she could have if she’d wanted to. Every person in the theater held their breath, and then she began to speak.
“This theater has been in my family for generations. For almost half of my life, it has lain forgotten, harboring all the ghosts of my father’s disappointment and my ill will. I wanted shot of it, but that was mere emotion speaking, and I am a businesswoman first and foremost. I was not about to part with this place until the price was right. Tonight, thanks to the refurbishment of this old place and in no small part to this production, I am finally being offered what this building is worth.”
Harriet had to keep reminding herself to breathe. Her fists were curled into balls as she waited to see if Evaline would screw her over, when they had gone to all this effort to do her bidding just for a small corner of her empire that they could use for the community. It seemed cruel that during this journey her modest hopes had grown so much bigger, and the disappointment would be so much greater for the number of people who would be let down if Evaline went back on her word.
“My father was a snob. You may be saying to yourselves, ‘Like father, like daughter.’ I cannot defend myself on that score. The Winter Theater failed because instead of allowing the real people of Little Beck Foss to enjoy it, my father put his pride and his pretensions and his profits above all else. Now I see that by ignoring this community, by denying the good people of this town the simple resource of a space in which to form connections, I was indeed built in his image. But as we have seen here tonight, even the hardest heart can be softened. Perhaps there is time for my soul to be saved after all. And so, I hereby politely decline the generous offers from all interested parties, and instead pledge the Winter Theater to the community, under the careful and watchful regard of Ms. Harriet Smith and Mr. James Knight. I wish you all a merry Christmas.”
Harriet’s mouth dropped open. The theater remained quietly stunned. She looked up at the royal box in time to see the theater group representatives stand to leave, each with a phone to his ear. Evaline turned, leaning more heavily on her stick now, Austin close in beside her and James placing himself on her other side. She made her way painfully slowly toward the stage wing. She locked eyes with Harriet and nodded once.
“I don’t know what to say.” Harriet scrambled for anything that would convey her gratitude and shock.
Sid ran to the front of the stage and grabbed the microphone. “And God bless us, every one!” he shouted into it.
Evaline cracked the smallest of smiles as the audience found their voices.
“Then let him say it for us,” she croaked. “I shall leave quietly through the back door. Don’t follow me. I’m tired and I don’t want to talk to anyone, least of all the unwashed masses. My solicitor can sort out the mess I’ve made, that’s what I pay him for,” she cackled, glancing at James, and Harriet was almost glad to see that the old woman hadn’t undergone a complete personality transformation.
Gideon, sensing an opening for an encore, nodded to Prescilla, who played the opening bars of their final number, and the audience got to their feet in readiness. Sid was out front and center, showing off his breakdancing skills, and Gideon joined him. Harriet allowed herself to be pushed back as the rest of the cast surged forward. Her eyes roved over the stage counting her ducks as was her habit—Ricco, Carly, Leo—and she gave a little hiccup when she spotted Billy and Isabel locking lips in the wings.
“Looks like it’s not only us who got a dream come true tonight,” James said into her ear, his arm snaking around her waist and pulling her close into his side as they swayed together to the music.