Page 43 of Kiss Me at Christmas
“Holy shit!” Carly breathed.
“Sick!” Ricco was grinning ear to ear.
Though the ceiling was low—held up by wooden pillars reinforced with steel—the space itself was wide. By Harriet’s calculations it ran beneath the stage and stretched all the way to the back of the building. It had obviously been used for storage over the years. Dust-covered packing crates and stage props were stacked up against the walls. A few feet away from the door, almost hidden by an old bedstead, was a chair she recognized as belonging to the cocktail lounge, a stack of books and toppled beer cans on the floor beside it—Billy’s, she presumed. She glanced around. It looked safe enough, structurally at least, but she couldn’t be sure it wasn’t haunted.
“Leo, are you okay with this or would you rather we found somewhere upstairs?” she asked.
He looked about him, keeping a tight hold of Ricco’s hand, and took a deep breath as though testing himself within the space.
“I’m all good, miss.” He nodded. “Can we keep the door open?”
“Of course. And we can leave at any time if you change your mind.”
Billy dragged a sandbag across the floor and used it to prop the door open, then moved to a nearby packing crate, flipped up the lid, and began handing out rolled rugs and scratchy wool blankets.
“To sit on,” he said when faced by quizzical expressions.
So they did. Harriet checked her phone. No signal. She breathed through the electric zip of anxiety that having no signal induced.
“It does have a touch of torture chamber about it,” Ricco commented, sitting cross-legged on a tartan throw.
“God, Ricco!” Isabel admonished, shuddering. “Don’t say things like that!”
“I’ve got beer,” said Billy, producing a four-pack from behind the chair.
“Yes!” shouted Carly.
“No!” said Harriet.
“School’s over, this is our free time,” Ricco grumbled.
“You are still in my care and underage,” Harriet replied firmly.
Billy put the beers down on a crate. “We can drink them when we go out for a smoke,” he said, like this was a reasonable compromise.
Harriet let it drop for the moment. To be honest, she wouldn’t say no to a glass of wine right now. It had been a hell of a day. Two of the pastoral team were off sick with a stomach bug, and a truant student had been caught snorting speed in the bus station toilets. She’d be writing reports in bed again tonight.
Despite the cavelike atmosphere, the basement was comparatively quiet, and they quickly fell into discussing the bare essential—due to Harriet’s constant reminders of “shoestring budgets”—sets and props they would need. She had spent her lunch break googling production necessities and had made lists accordingly.
“It would be cheaper and easier if we could paint old sheets to use as backcloths rather than trying to find wooden boards large enough and then having to shift them between scenes,” said Harriet. “The rigging will be all new, if we can work out how to use it.”
“I think you’d need to sew a few sheets together to make it large enough,” Carly said ponderingly.
“Yes, you’re probably right.”I’ll just add it to my list of things to do, shall I? I can sew them with my toes while I use one hand to write up my reports, the other to emailparents, and if I stick a feather duster up my bottom, I can dust the shelves at the same time!
She could feel herself sinking into the depths of despondency when Leo asked quietly, “Can I design them? The stage backdrops?” And just like that, her head broke the surface, and she was buoyant again. It was what she had been hoping for, but she had known better than to ask. Leo was skittish and terrified of failure. If she’d asked him outright to oversee their scenery design, his knee-jerk reaction would have been to refuse. She’d needed to wait for it to be his idea, his choice.
“I know every scene.” He proceeded to pitch his ideas—as though it were necessary. “I can picture what each one looks like in my head. The dingy fireplaces, the leaded windows behind Scrooge’s desk looking out onto the snowy street scene. The Cratchits’ kitchen. The roofs over the city when he’s flying with the ghost. Look.” He pulled his sketchbook out of his bag. “I’ve been working on them. See. I’ve only done six so far, but I already know what the others will be, you know, if I’m allowed to do it. And I could easily copy them bigger onto sheets or whatever.” He opened the sketchbook and handed it to Harriet, and she took it, smiling warmly at him.
She looked at the pages.Whoa!She knew Leo had a talent; his work was plastered all over the art studio walls in the school. He was the art teacher’s most prized student, and his most frustrating. It was one of the reasons Harriet tried so hard to keep his attendance up; he had the potential to study in one of the best institutions in the country—Goldsmiths or the Royal College of Art, even—but he’d need good grades and references and a clean record to get an interview.
She turned the pages with reverence. Leo’s world ofgraphite lines and careful finger-smudged shadows was alive with movement.
“Leo, these are incredible,” she said, noticing the blush blooming in uneven patches on his pale cheeks. “I can’t think of a better artist to design our backcloths. You are now our art director.”
“Really, miss?” His whole face was now a mass of magenta splotches; beneath his blue hair, his natural coloring was pumpkin orange, and like most redheads he didn’t blush by halves.
“Absolutely. Think how this will elevate your EPQ! You can examine your own experiences alongside your study of Edvard Munch’s set designs. I could speak to Mr. Norton too, see if you can use your backdrops as part of your A-level submission…”Calm down! You don’t want to spook him.She took a breath. “Do you mind if I show the others?”
