Page 75 of The Christmas Invitation
Den had arrived along with the coffee and, since we were all full, was eating the chocolate mints that had come with it.
‘I think Sybil was hoping I’d suggest Piers come and join us at the Red House for Christmas, but I’d much rather not, so I didn’t,’ Clara said.
‘Quite right too,’ said Tottie. ‘The man’s a pain. Tried to get off with me after I inherited the Red House, till he found there wasn’t any money to go with it. Then he cleared off.’
‘Really?’ exclaimed Clara. ‘I had no idea!’
‘Must ’ave known yer couldn’t cook,’ suggested Den.
‘I can cook! Orsomethings, anyway.’
‘A man can’t live by jam and pickles alone, even if there’s a bit of ’oney on the side.’
Tottie seemed about to take exception to this, but Henry hastily suggested it was time we made a move if we were to get to Gobelins in time for the Nativity play.
At the school we followed a stream of parents into what had once been a sizeable ballroom. The long curtains at the windows were drawn and rows of chairs had been placed in front of a raised stage, with steps up to it on either side.
Miss Aurora, an imposingly tall and deep-voiced woman, briefly welcomed us and then drew back the curtains to reveal Miss Dawn in the act of lowering a backdrop that had been painted by someone with little artistic skill, but a lot of enthusiasm.
It depicted a room with a window. A small and truculent Mary sat in a chair in front of it and proceeded to deal with the Angel of Annunciation, who was not seen, but merely a gruffvoice heard offstage. First she told him to get lost, before finally being persuaded that what he proposed was a good idea.
After this she picked up her chair and trudged off, and in the next scene she was shown on her way to Bethlehem, well padded and saying she didn’t much fancy riding a donkey in her condition.
I suspected she would grow up to be either a leading actor, or a leading feminist … or possibly both.
Another backdrop of a splashily painted open-fronted stable was lowered and Mary bossily ordered Joseph to sweep out the muck, but leave the donkey, the cow and the sheep, to keep it warm. The stage was quite crowded by this time.
Mary popped behind a group of donkeys and then came back and laid a baby in a manger that looked suspiciously like a wicker magazine basket.
‘There we are, then,’ she said. ‘Come on, you lot, and have a look.’
The shepherds, several angels and the Three Wise Men all crowded on to the stage at once, so I was afraid the sheep would fall over the edge.
‘I’m glad you didn’t arrive early, because you don’t want a load of strangers about when you’re having a baby,’ Mary told the Three Wise Men, raising her voice to compete with the cacophony of moos, baas and braying from the animals. By now, most of the children were hot inside their costumes, red-faced and very over-excited.
One angel had a drooping wing and another – Teddy – was throwing his halo like a discus across the room at a small papier mâché palm tree.
‘Hush up,’ Mary ordered everyone severely, then pushed her way to the front of the stage and announced brusquely, ‘We’re going to sing, and then that’s it.’
They formed themselves into ragged rows and gave a stirring rendition of ‘Jesus Christ, Superstar’, before trooping off to loud applause.
‘Oh, that was brilliant!’ I enthused, as we rose gratefully from the bottom-numbing plastic chairs and headed for the refreshments at the back of the room.
Lex looked down at me with his arrowhead smile. ‘Mary certainly stole the show, didn’t she?’
‘Well, naturally,’ said Clara, overhearing.
The refreshments were exactly as Tottie had described them to me on the way there. There was non-alcoholic punch, sandwiches of all kinds and a large chocolate fudge cake, plus plates of small fondant fancies, meringues and vol-au-vents filled, according to Den, who was eating them with relish, with condensed mushroom or chicken soup.
‘Do it meself fer the nibbles on Boxing Day, don’t I?’ he said. ‘Just the mushroom, though.’
The children came back, now dressed in their own clothes, though one donkey still had his ears on and Mary had a halo rammed down firmly over the blue cloth that covered her head.
After we had admired Teddy’s performance to his satisfaction, he told us about Santa’s visit to the school earlier that day.
‘I’ll see him again tomorrow, at the cracker factory,’ he added. ‘Henry and Clara are taking me, but you and Uncle Lex are coming too, aren’t you, Meg? The cracker factory is magic.’
‘I’m sure you’ll enjoy seeing it, Meg,’ said Henry, and I said it did sound fun.
