A Christmas Gift Read online

  Warmth washed through Georgine. She’d known Melanie for over five years and was well aware how much she loved her cake. ‘That’s so nice of you—’

  ‘Just grab it before she changes her mind,’ Blair joked, twitching the ticket from Melanie’s fingers. ‘Thanks, Mel. You’re a sweetie. C’mon, sis.’

  Heart soothed by this gesture from such an unexpected quarter, Georgine followed Blair back to the Angel, pushing open the door to find blonde Carola who ran the café busy mopping the floor.

  ‘Sorry, ladies, I’m shutting up.’ Carola dipped the mop in the bucket and worked a noisy lever with her foot to squeeze the excess water out.

  Blair brandished the raffle ticket and, with a keen glance at Georgine, who, despite her experiences at Booze & News, had been too cold to wait outside, Carola went off to the fridge to fetch a boxed cake.

  ‘Chocolate and pear gateau,’ she announced. ‘I’ll sell you tickets for the Christmas hamper raffle another time. Have a happy evening.’

  They stepped back into the dark evening again, Blair carefully bearing the cake box. ‘I must look pathetic,’ Georgine sighed. ‘Melanie gave up cake for me and Carola let me get away without buying a raffle ticket.’

  Blair shifted the box so she could give Georgine a one-armed hug as they stepped back into the playing fields. ‘It’s the village. They take care of their own.’

  Once home, they dined on Chianti and large slices of gateau. Blair became quieter and quieter. A frown lodged itself on her brow and stayed there.

  After a while, Georgine ventured: ‘Is something wrong?’

  Blair’s forehead smoothed straight away. ‘Should there be?’ But then, while Georgine was clearing up, she announced abruptly, ‘Just popping to the bathroom,’ and quit the little kitchen.

  The sound of Blair’s footsteps diminished as she walked up the stairs. Georgine, wiping surfaces, kept one ear on the sounds from overhead. Blair seemed to be meandering about. Maybe she was peering out of each window, worried about lurking debt collection agents.

  Georgine sighed. She hoped she hadn’t put the wind up Blair so much that now her sister was feeling anxious.

  Blair reappeared eventually, frowning heavily and looking pale, though she managed to smile at the storyboards Georgine had just pulled out of her backpack. ‘I can imagine all those funky students plastered in sequins and glitter for a Christmas show.’

  Attuned to Blair’s moods and reading the signs of misery in her dark eyes, Georgine put down the board she’d been considering. ‘What’s the matter?’

  Blair made an attempt at a carefree smile. ‘What do you mean?’ Then abruptly clamped a hand over her eyes. ‘Oh, shit,’ she breathed, her voice squeaking in her throat.

  Alarmed, Georgine guided her sister to one of the dining chairs. ‘So something is wrong,’ she exclaimed.

  Blair allowed her head to drop onto Georgine’s shoulder. ‘I wish I didn’t have to tell you this right now. I’ve been racking my brains for alternatives but I’ve come up empty.’ She heaved a sigh that stirred the ends of Georgine’s hair, and Georgine’s heart fluttered unpleasantly, all kinds of unwelcome scenarios of illness flashing through her imagination.

  ‘Please tell me,’ she breathed.

  Blair groaned. Then she sat up straight with the air of one who was pulling herself together, though her eyes still brimmed. ‘It’s over between Warren and me. We’ve had a humongous row and he told me to leave.’

  Georgine stared, searching her sister’s tear-streaked face. ‘No! He adores you. His eyes follow you round like a spaniel—’

  Blair scrubbed her cheeks with her palms. ‘Not any more. He’s tired of what he calls my “money-pit ways”. We’ve been having problems. You’ve had enough to worry about so I haven’t let on, but it’s all been building and –’ her voice began to wobble ‘– last night he told me he was throwing me out of the last chance saloon. I took today off work to pack my things.’

  ‘But surely …’ Georgine broke off, unable to categorically deny that Blair was bad with money. She threw it at anything that took her fancy. Automatically stroking her sister’s hand, Georgine thought of the mini-break she and Blair had shared in October half-term – Warren hadn’t been able to take the time off work so Blair had invited Georgine to the smart barn conversion in the country in his stead. They’d each had a king-sized bedroom and sumptuous en-suite, and it had still left a bedroom empty. Georgine had thought at the time that it was pretty extravagant for two people.

  Since then, she’d been sucked into the whirl of putting on the Christmas show, more concerned with how to evoke Christmas with a black curtain and a twist of tinsel than how things were going in her sister’s life. ‘Oh, Blair,’ she breathed remorsefully. ‘I didn’t realise.’ She blinked hard.

  Blair’s attempt to laugh caught and broke. ‘All we’ve done tonight is say “oh, Blair” or “oh, Georgine”. What a pair.’ She found a tissue in her pocket and blew her nose, then tossed back her hair. ‘You won’t believe this but I came here to ask you to put me up until I sorted myself out. What timing, eh? Just what you don’t need.’ She propped her elbow on the table dispiritedly.

  Georgine gazed at her sister, having an idea of what was coming next and knowing she’d be incapable of refusing.

  ‘Unless …’ Blair went on tentatively. ‘Unless it’s actually exactly what you do need? What if I did move in here? A rent-paying lodger would help you out too. You’d be able to have the heating on and catch up the arrears on the utilities much sooner.’

  Georgine tried to compose her features into an expression of neutrality, but it was hard to fall on the suggestion with a cry of joy. ‘Are you sure you’d really like it, Blair? My second bedroom is tiny. Teeny-tiny.’ The sound of Blair’s footsteps tracking restlessly from room to room upstairs made sense now. She must have been assessing the space, trying to envisage herself moving from Warren’s spacious four-bedroomed house in Peterborough to a small share of Georgine’s bijou abode. That she even saw it as an option spoke volumes for her situation.

  Blair must be desperate.

  ‘Of course, it goes without saying that you can stay,’ Georgine said quickly. ‘It’s just that you’d have to be tidy because the house is so small that you can’t move if you just dump stuff all over the place. It’s a far cry from Warren’s big, bay-fronted detached.’

  Blair made a face. ‘You make it sound like a palace.’

  ‘It might be, compared to this,’ Georgine pointed out. ‘Big rooms, high ceilings, an attic conversion.’ Mostly full of the detritus of either Warren’s life or Blair’s.

  Blair inspected her nail varnish, lower lip jutting. ‘That attic conversion was tiny really.’

  ‘But bigger than I could offer you here.’ Georgine tried a joke. ‘The box you keep your Christmas decorations in is probably bigger than my spare room.’ Then, gently, Georgine reached out and stroked Blair’s shining hair. ‘You’re welcome to come. It’s just that you’ll have to be really, really realistic about two things.’

  Tipping her head back, Blair closed her eyes with a mock groan. ‘Don’t come all big sister on me!’

  Georgine pressed on remorselessly. ‘You do have to pay rent, I can’t afford to feed you or face an increase in household bills. And you’d have to respect my space.’

  ‘Because you freak if there’s a thing out of place.’ Blair sighed.

  It seemed an unnecessarily harsh description, but Georgine accepted that her sister was emotional and anxious. ‘I don’t like to live in chaos, that’s true.’ Whereas Blair, smiling and sunny, expansive and generous, lived as if she truly didn’t notice when she put something down and never touched it again. Magazines, make-up, shoes, clothes seemed to whirl into new and unexpected resting places in her wake. Doors and drawers opened themselves and never shut. A mountain of unwashed dishes had usually ornamented the worktop in the vague vicinity of Warren’s dishwasher – and there was no such thing as a dishwasher at Georgine’
s.

  Blair blew out her cheeks and gazed at the ceiling as if looking for inspiration there. ‘I can’t move in with Dad.’

  ‘No. You’d affect his benefits,’ Georgine agreed, which happened to be true. More importantly, she’d give her own room up to Blair rather than let her burst in and disrupt their dad’s already difficult existence.

  ‘It’s not fair on him since he had his stroke,’ Blair insisted, as if Georgine had disagreed with her. ‘He needs his space and his routine.’ She paused and sighed, her eyes once again bright with tears. ‘I hate to see him living on sickness benefits but he’s never going to be able to work himself into a better income bracket now, is he?’

  Guilt and regret lurched into Georgine’s gut. ‘No.’

  Blair’s gaze flew to Georgine’s face. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound … It’s just that he used to be so different. We all were.’

  ‘It’s OK.’ Georgine didn’t need to be told everything her sister wasn’t saying about the spacious home Randall France once provided for his family via Randall France Construction. She also had vivid memories of fab holidays in Malta and Italy, the indulgent Christmases that had seemed to begin weeks in advance of December the 25th, sometimes involving extended trips to America to visit their grandparents, Earl and Patty, when relatives both close and distant had crowded in to join the fun.

  Randall France had been so vital then, pushing his business to new heights through hard work, vision and ambition – though a little caution and consolidation wouldn’t have gone amiss, it later turned out when Georgine had been nineteen and Blair nearly seventeen.

  ‘Maybe I should give Mum a call and ask to move in with them,’ Blair mused caustically. ‘Good old Terrence might give me money to go away.’

  Glad of this small break in the tension, Georgine rolled her eyes. ‘And you think I’m a neat freak? Compared to Terrence I’m a slattern.’ She suppressed a sigh as she got up, knowing herself to be the best option for her sister, at least for a month or two. Though Blair was too nice to actually say ‘you owe me’, Georgine did, in fact, owe her, so she’d shove aside her misgivings and welcome the additional income.

  ‘You can move in whatever you need to.’

  Instantly, Blair’s dazzling smile flashed out as she leapt to her feet. ‘I’ll be a model lodger, I promise.’

  ‘I know. You might be right that this could work for both of us.’ Georgine accepted her sister’s effusive hug. Crossing her fingers behind Blair’s back, she wondered whether Blair was doing the same behind hers.

  Chapter Five

  The next morning sped by for Georgine. Joe had been co-opted into something by Oggie and she was glad to be able to focus on her job.

  After lunch, she made contact with Joe and took him to her room to give him a flavour of the show and what he’d need to know to take on the lighting. ‘Come in,’ she said, opening the door. ‘It looks more chaotic than it is. And sorry about the huge Christmas tree in the corner. It’s a prop. I’ll move it – oh, damn, hang on.’ Her phone had begun to ring.

  While she talked, Joe wandered about the room, running his eyes over rehearsal schedules stuck to the wall and sequins and glitter gracing the table.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said when the call finally ended. ‘But that was exciting! A local small theatre company, the Bettsbrough Players, is folding and they’re offering us their costumes and props. How brilliant is that? For us, not them, obviously,’ she added with a wince.

  ‘Brilliant,’ he agreed.

  She glanced at her watch. The afternoon was running away and she still had to go through things with Joe. He must be bored to tears. ‘Just need to email Oggie to get his OK to collect the stuff.’ She opened her laptop and rushed through the email.

  Then she grinned. ‘Right. Event orientation. This’ – she tapped her shiny folder lying on the table – ‘is the production file – my bible.’ She opened the ring binder and flicked through a few pages, halting at a table. ‘This might look like a cross between word search and twister, but to me it represents who’ll be on stage in act one, scene one.’

  Joe took the chair beside hers as she explained the initials and arrows. She soon became over-aware of his proximity; even a nod seemed to disturb the air that surrounded them both. It was distracting.

  She turned a page. ‘I’ll try and give you a feel for the show. Two acts: three scenes in the first and four in the second. Eleven songs. Rehearsals going well but work still to do on transitions, which is the way people move on and off between scenes or songs.’ She paused to glance at his profile. Perhaps he felt the air move between them, too, because he turned slightly and made eye contact. He’d evidently got over his shyness. She went on, ‘The first and last scenes are full-company musical. We have forty-two students to give stage space to. The show’s the backbone of this module and crucial to their courses.’

  She flipped to the cast list. ‘Kerry Christmas is the female lead and Uncle Jones, the male. Other major characters are Kerry’s parents, Mr and Mrs Christmas, brother, Casper Christmas, Auntie Jones and Jones kids, plus a TV presenter. Then there are the minor roles – gang members, police officers and neighbourhood kids.’

  She turned to look at him again. His eyes were dark but lit by tiny glints of gold. His gaze flickered to her mouth for an instant, making her concentration waver. ‘The storyline,’ she went on, ‘is that rich Uncle Jones always invites the Christmases to join the Joneses for the festive season. Then Kerry sees one of those Crimewatch-type TV programmes and recognises Uncle Jones as the leader of a gang of crooks. She realises where all his money comes from and has to decide whether to dob him in.’

  ‘Presumably she’s got to,’ Joe observed. ‘Or else the message is that crime pays. That gangs are OK.’

  Georgine was pleased at his understanding of the world of fiction. ‘Absolutely! But apart from turning against this man she’s always thought is a generous uncle, Kerry has the problem of how to tell her mum, who loves her brother. The trigger is when Kerry discovers her own brother, Casper, is to work with Uncle Jones.’

  Joe frowned. ‘Poor Casper’s being sucked into a gang?’

  Georgine nodded, charmed at how quickly he’d become caught up in the story. ‘Jasmine’s done a great job with offering the audience food for thought. It’s a colourful storyline, but we have to remember it was written for Level 3 students to perform. It makes imaginative use of a dual stage. We hope for a lot of bums on seats.’

  Joe propped his chin on his fist. ‘Dual stage?’

  ‘We split the stage and have different things going on. Like, take act one, scene two, Kerry’s bedroom in the Jones household.’ Quickly, she explained how one side of the stage would carry the TV-programme action while Kerry ‘watched it on TV’ from the other side.

  She reached out for a pile of large cards. ‘I’ve storyboarded the show, in a scribbly sort of way. There’s a board for every scene or segment and when I get them done there will be one for every transition.’

  Joe drew a couple of the large white cards towards him and examined them. ‘Who’s responsible for set design?’

  Georgine rubbed her nose. ‘Ultimately, I am. We don’t have a big budget for it but minimal’s fine, a backdrop and a few sparkly props, because we need a lot of stage space for song-and-dance numbers. Scene changes take place under dimmed lights, props whisked away or repositioned by scene shifters dressed in black.’

  He smiled reminiscently. ‘I used to be responsible for props for school productions sometimes.’

  She grabbed his arm. ‘If you can look after props I’m going to eat you up.’

  Catching his eyebrows shooting up, she blushed, hurriedly removing her hand from his arm. ‘Eat you up’ was not the right phrase to use when you’d only just met a man. Colleague. She made her voice more businesslike. ‘Sorry. I wanted to give you an overview so you could begin thinking about lighting and suddenly I’m twisting your arm about props! We’ve six weeks to the first night, so ple
nty of time to pull things together.’

  ‘If I can borrow the storyboards I can start thinking about the tech.’ Joe stood up, reaching out.

  Instinctively, Georgine put her hand on the boards. Then felt stupid as she saw his astounded expression, and laughed. ‘Sorry, I’m like a tiger with my storyboards and production file.’

  Joe’s eyes danced with amusement behind his glasses. ‘How about I take photos of each with my phone? If you’re certain I can’t borrow them even for so long as it takes to pass them through a photocopier.’

  Reluctantly, Georgine grinned back, pushing the boards towards him. ‘I’m being an idiot. The students should have all left, so take the boards to Fern’s office and get them copied. But I do need them back for the four o’clock meeting,’ she added.

  He took the stack, backing towards her door. ‘You’ll have them.’ He smiled and she found herself smiling back. Even if he’d spent the first morning with her tongue-tied, it somehow felt as if she’d known Joe Blackthorn for more than a day.

  Outside the door, Joe smacked his forehead, hissing, ‘Get a grip, you sad sack of shit!’ to himself as he strode down the corridor. A couple of female cafeteria staff coming the other way grinned, obviously having overheard. He nodded to them gravely and stood aside to let them pass.

  As they rounded the corner he heard them dissolve into gales of laughter. Fantastic. He managed the fifty yards to admin without making a further prat of himself and asked Fern if he could use the photocopier.

  Instantly, she jumped up, pushing up her glasses. ‘I can do that for you.’

  ‘That’s really kind.’ He gave her a smile, making her smile back and blush. ‘But don’t disturb yourself. As I’m so new I’m sure I have nowhere near as much to occupy me as you do.’

  ‘Well, if you’re sure …’ She fluttered back to her seat at the computer.

  ‘And Georgine will have a nervous breakdown if I let anybody touch these without her permission.’