Page 6 of Kiss Me at Christmas
“Maybe the falls?”
“Okay, I’d better get going. Call me if there’s an emergency.”
“I’ll try and field Cornell’s calls if I can, keep him off the scent.”
“Thanks, Ali. I owe you one.” Harriet refastened her scarf around her neck.
“But if they pull out a lie detector, I’m giving you upimmediately!” he called after her, and her replying laugh echoed down the corridor.
She was almost home free when she heard her name snapped out like a pinged elastic band. She turned to find Sebastian Cornell marching toward her. The swish of his corduroy trousers sounded like laundry being rubbed hard against a washboard.
“Sebastian.” She smiled tightly.
“Billy Matlin is absent…again! That takes his unauthorized absences to eleven this term.”
“It’s not unauthorized,” Harriet lied. “He called in earlier, I forgot to put it in the register. He has a dentist appointment.”
Cornell gave her an appraising look.Lying to a senior member of staff, excellent move.She smiled sweetly. Cornell narrowed his eyes.
“The fact remains, he is a disruptive student who has the rare ability to be just as disruptive when he’s not here.”
“The world needs disruptors.”
Cornell’s thread-veined nose flushed a deeper shade of purple. “People like Billy are the reason this country is swirling itself down the toilet!” he spat, before turning and striding away, the sound of his corduroy thighs chafing loud in the quiet entrance hall.
The receptionist gave Harriet a knowing look and stifled a snigger.
“One day his trousers will burst into flames from all that friction,” said Harriet.
“I really hope I’m here to see that,” said the receptionist, smiling.
Three
The moment Harriet stepped outthe door, the wind started in on her hair again. Luckily, hers was the kind of style that didn’t mind a bit of rough handling. Falling just below her shoulders in choppy layers, it had always had a mind of its own; most recently it had decided to start streaking her formerly teak-colored locks in ash gray. She was undecided whether to soften it with some highlights or go full Lily Munster…Her phone buzzed: Cornell. She tried to ignore the nervous tightening in her stomach as she pressed decline.
As she made her way to the main gate, she spotted Leo—fifth member of the famous five and Ricco’s on-off boyfriend—slip through an arch cut into the perimeter brick wall and in a snap decision decided to follow him.
She kept a discreet distance as she followed Leo up the high street. He crossed the road, hurrying past the café on the corner and several fast-food joints, and then the Salvation Army band who appeared to have great stamina and a limitless repertoire. Suddenly he ducked behind the giant Christmas tree.
Where are you off to?
She tailed him as he walked briskly past the front of the Winter Theater and down the side of the building. She turned the corner just in time to see him squeezebehind a large piece of corrugated iron and disappear through what must have been the old backstage door.
Her phone buzzed again and she checked it. Cornell. Not answering a work call went against her every instinct, but she couldn’t risk answering it and have him realize she was off campus. She let it go to voice mail and consoled herself with the knowledge that if it was urgent, Ali would call.
While she waited in the alley beside the theater to see if Leo reemerged, her phone rang with a call from Jules, her liaison with the teen counseling service; there were too few therapists in the area and there was a woefully long waiting list to see them. She kept her voice low as she spoke with Jules, phone pinned to her ear by her shoulder as she scribbled notes. The call ended. Still no sign of Leo. There was only one thing for it.
Checking that the coast was clear, she lifted the corrugated iron and pushed open the peeling red door behind it. It was dark, and she had to use her phone torch as she carefully navigated the narrow concrete stairs littered with old leaves and rubbish. This would have been the entrance for the theater workers, away from the glamour of the front doors. Posters torn and brown with damp lined the walls, and the air was cold and sour with the tang of forgotten dreams. From somewhere farther inside the building she heard muffled snatches of voices and followed the sound.
At the top of the stairs was a corridor which split into three and was signpostedDressing Rooms,Stage, andFront of House. The corridors leading to the former were in darkness but there was a dim light at the end of the one leading to the front of house, and it was this that Harriet decided to follow. Here there was carpet, albeit carpet that had seen better days, and the farther along shewalked the more decorative the corridor became. Soon paper posters were replaced by prints in Baroque-style frames, their details obscured by decades of dust. The walls became paneled below and ornately corniced above, and the ceiling height grew and arched. Now she was faced with two more choices,LobbyorHouse. She chose lobby and, in a few moments, found herself stepping down a short flight of stairs and out into a wide space.
A cobweb-strewn chandelier hung down from a ceiling that was decorated with swirling roses and twisting thorns. The plasterwork was cracked and chipped, and in places damp patches bloomed in brown frills across the once-white stucco. The light that had drawn her came from dimly glowing Art Nouveau wall sconces; these too dripped with cobwebs. To allow such grandeur to rot felt almost obscene. This was the Miss Haversham of buildings, bitter and disbelieving of its fate.
There was an old-fashioned box office to one side, a cloakroom area, and a dusty concessions stall. To her left were the glass front doors, darkened by the large security panels boarded across them on the street side. On the wall farthest from where she stood was another set of doors, oversized and arched and patterned all over with black lead leaves and flowers, and chained shut with heavy padlocks. Harriet knew that these led into the building next door, which had once housed cocktail lounges and the Winter Restaurant, where patrons could enjoy a three-course meal and drinks before the show. She’d seen old photographs of the place in its heyday: black-and-white images of celebrities dressed in their finery.
In the center of the lobby, a sweeping staircase of old-world glory rose up from the faded red carpet, the kind the Nicholas Brothers might have tap-danced down. Atthe top it curled away left and right into a balcony, which circled above. Harriet could feel the wanting in the walls, the ghosts of the theater haunting the place. Long-dead faces stared out at her from the picture frames, begging remembrance. Even in its decrepitude, it was breathtaking. A tiny spark flickered deep inside and stole through her bones; she couldn’t give the sensation a precise name, but it felt like possibility.
Little Beck Foss had once been the aristocracy’s playground. The thundering waterfalls and tranquil lakes offered London ladies a taste of the wild, while dukes and lords enjoyed the hunting and shooting, and the Winter Theater was the place to go for nightlife. Later, when the Bright Young Things found themselves holed up in their country piles with their parents for the holidays, the theater quenched their thirst for culture while its cocktail lounges provided a place for carousing. The partying came to an abrupt halt with World War II, and the glory days never returned.
