A Fairy Tale for Christmas Read online

  The Christmas fayre kicked off at ten. Kirsty and Jon stopped by on their way to the theatre to watch Lauren do her bit. She arrived on the back of a sleigh pulled by a bored-looking horse. The sleigh was sponsored by Chillings, the local department store. Lauren wore a Santa red dress edged with white faux fur, and tinsel in her hair. A team of mortified local teenagers – Saturday boys and girls from Chillings, dressed as elves – helped Lauren from the sleigh to the podium loaded with local dignitaries from which she would make her speech.

  Jon was delighted when Lauren managed to get in a plug for the panto though Kirsty wasn’t sure she was so pleased when Lauren began by saying, ‘I know you’ll all be disappointed I’m not playing Cinderella herself but …’

  ‘She means she’s disappointed,’ Kirsty translated.

  ‘She’ll get over it,’ said Jon.

  Kirsty nodded. ‘I hope so.’ But it was hard not to feel offended by the disappointed groans from certain sections of the audience when Lauren announced she wouldn’t be playing the princess. Lauren’s fan club was out in force. Kirsty could barely see her rival through the forest of arms brandishing smartphones trying to get a snap of Lauren’s knickers as she bent to pick up a dropped microphone.

  ‘And the weather forecast for the opening day of the annual Newbay Christmas Fayre is … snow!’ Lauren concluded her speech and cut the red ribbon as a bubble machine spewed white foam.

  As the children in the audience shrieked with delight at the bubbles, Kirsty and Jon moved away through the stalls selling mulled wine, mince pies and Christmas baubles made by ‘artisans’ in factories on the other side of the world. A local school band played a medley of Christmas tunes including a version of Away in a Manger that sounded more like Strangled Cat in a Stable. Still, Kirsty enjoyed the festive atmosphere and the joy on the faces of the children she hoped would be in the NEWTS’ audience at the end of the year. She tucked her arm through Jon’s and looked forward to the festive fun ahead.

  The rest of the cast met Kirsty and Jon at the theatre at two. There was no doubt Trevor was taking his part seriously. He turned up with his script fully learned and annotated, and while the rest of the cast were busy swapping gossip, he practised his voice exercises. Lauren turned up at quarter past. ‘Photo call with Santa.’

  Eventually, when everyone was assembled in the rehearsal room for the first read-through, they would all be made to do voice exercises. Jon insisted on that. Kirsty understood their purpose. The muscles that controlled the voice, like any other muscles, could be strained. Particularly if you were an amateur and overdid it with the projection. In any case, Kirsty rather enjoyed doing her scales. She was slightly less keen on the physical warm-up, which always seemed to involve having to move around the room like a chimp. But Kirsty threw herself into that too. She knew that as a newcomer she had a lot to prove to the people she would be working alongside for the next couple of months. She needed to make them warm to her quickly. If that meant hooting with delight over an imaginary banana, so be it.

  When the warm-ups were over, the cast made a circle of chairs. The seats in the large rehearsal room were diverse in style but uniformly uncomfortable. For the most part, they were props left over from plays long since forgotten. Kirsty noticed with amusement that Jon, as director, chose the highest seat he could find. It looked like a throne but was actually a nineteenth-century commode, complete with porcelain chamber pot concealed beneath the lid. Kirsty settled herself into a vinyl-covered tub chair from the 1960s. It wasn’t long before she discovered why they’d gone out of fashion. It was pretty much impossible to find a way to sit in the chair that didn’t involve putting your back out.

  When everyone was seated, Jon gave them a pep talk. He explained that he intended to create a production of Cinderella that would go down in NEWTS history.

  ‘It’s going to be more than a pantomime.’

  He’d written the script himself and he had a clear vision for every single scene. The assembled NEWTS nodded along reverently as Jon referenced several plays and films they’d never heard of.

  ‘So,’ he concluded. ‘If you don’t think you’re ready to make this Cinderella the best thing in theatre since Euripides staged The Bacchae, you know where to find the door.’

  Jon eyeballed each of his players in turn. They all looked dutifully serious. They were all wondering who Euripides was. Did he work with Andrew Lloyd Webber?

  ‘Right,’ said Jon. ‘We’re ready. Let’s begin.’

  Bernie, as the fairy godmother, opened the show. She admitted she had not had a chance to learn her lines since she got Jon’s phone call confirming her part – she’d been on a VAT course – but even reading from the book, she delivered a performance that immediately put everyone at ease.

  She began.

  ‘Welcome to our humble play. Set long ago and far away. Where the goodies were good and the baddies were bad. And the meanies were mean and nice people were sad. Look, here’s Cinderella. A lov-er-ly girl. But the way she’s been treated will make your hair curl.’

  That was Kirsty’s cue. She got to her feet and moved to the middle of the circle, sweeping the floor ahead of her with an imaginary broom.

  ‘Oh me,’ she sighed. ‘Oh my …’

  She swept an extravagant figure of eight, twirled and went straight into her first song, called ‘Beyond the Dusty Hearth’. It was loosely based on ‘Beyond The Sea’. The words had been changed to protect the NEWTS from a lawsuit.

  ‘Beyond the dusty hearth,’ she sang. ‘Is a world of true delight, but if I can’t take a bath, it will never reach my sight …’

  Kirsty was gratified and relieved when her fellow cast members clapped her first attempt at the song. It was always tough to sing without musical accompaniment. Glynis, the company pianist, was absent from the rehearsal that day. Something about ‘community service’. Everyone assumed she meant charity work.

  ‘Brava!’ said Trevor Fernlea.

  ‘That was great,’ Jon winked. Kirsty felt a little shiver of delight whenever she saw that wink. ‘Ugly Sisters. You’re up next.’

  The Giggle Twins got up and bustled into the centre of the room, bickering and ad-libbing as they went. They had the body language of two dames off-pat. Andrew hoiked an enormous imaginary bosom. George patted an invisible curl of hair.

  ‘So, I said to Buttons,’ George began. ‘Is that a Christmas tree in your pocket or are you pleased to see me?’

  ‘Cut,’ Jon shouted. ‘This is a family show. Please stick to the script.’

  ‘Whatever you say, Euripides …’ said George.

  Once ticked off, the Giggle Twins were thankfully very professional. Kirsty was surprised that without their yellow wigs, they were two reasonably good-looking men. Indeed, Andrew Giggle later revealed that the brothers had been child models. They’d made enough from campaigns for John Lewis and Marks & Spencer to buy the first two flats in what was now a sizeable buy-to-let empire.

  Meanwhile Jon and Annette soon showed themselves to be on the same wavelength. Annette was all about proper direction even if she was playing a wicked stepmother rather than Blanche Dubois. At one point, she even asked Jon – to his delight – ‘But what is my motivation?’

  Bernie was peerless. She read her part beautifully and was tactful and helpful with suggestions to her scene-mates when they were needed. Vince took a lot of fag breaks but when he was in the room, he gave it his all. He delivered his jokes like an old school comic from a working men’s club. His gravelly laugh reminded Kirsty of Sid James in the old Carry On films that had been her gran’s delight.

  Even Lauren had learned her lines, though she spoke them all with the same tone and rhythm as she delivered the weather report.

  ‘Think Tilda Swinton,’ Jon reminded her.

  ‘She talks exactly like this in Lord of the Rings,’ Lauren replied.

  The rest of the cast stifled a giggle.

  The only painful moment of the first day came when Kirsty had her first
scene with Trevor Fernlea as Buttons. It took place after the scene in which the Hardup household received invitations to the Prince’s ball. The invite was addressed to ‘all’ of Baron Hardup’s daughters, which meant that Cinders was included.

  ‘Oh no no no,’ said Andrew Giggle, wagging his finger in Kirsty’s face. ‘Not you, my dear. You’re not invited. You’re just a servant.’

  ‘Who will make sure our supper’s on the table when we get back if not you?’ George Giggle asked.

  Then they swept out – or rather sat back down on their matching 1970s armchairs – leaving Kirsty in the middle of the circle with the ripped halves of her invite. That was Trevor’s cue.

  Trevor knew his part. He stood up and jumped into the circle, where he gave Kirsty/Cinderella a low bow. It was a very low bow and it slightly unsteadied him. Kirsty grabbed his elbow as he straightened up to make sure he didn’t topple over. He rearranged his bifocals and began.

  ‘Why so sad, Cinderella?’

  Kirsty showed him the two halves of the invitation – which was actually a flyer for a curry house.

  ‘Two for one on biryani?’ said Trevor.

  An excellent ad-lib, Kirsty thought.

  ‘It’s an invitation to the prince’s Christmas ball,’ said Kirsty. ‘Everybody’s going except for me.’

  ‘Or me,’ said Trevor, suddenly googly-eyed.

  The script then had Buttons and Cinderella duet to the tune of ‘Sixteen going on Seventeen’, the classic song from The Sound of Music, in which teenage sweethearts Rolf and Liesl declare their love. Though once again the lyrics had been slightly altered to fit the panto (and avoid those pesky copyright issues), the moment the music started up and Trevor let out his first wavering note, the Giggle Twins gave a simultaneous derisory snort and Vince slapped his thighs with amusement.

  ‘Sixty going on seventy, more like,’ said George Giggle.

  ‘And the rest,’ said Andrew.

  When Trevor accidently slipped into the original words of the song and warbled, ‘I-I’m in love with you,’ Annette spluttered. After that, no one held back. It was unintentionally hilarious.

  Jon turned off the tape.

  ‘Yep. Fine. Maybe we should consider using another song at that point.’

  Trevor looked crestfallen. ‘But I’ve practised this one,’ he said.

  ‘And because you’re such an old pro, I’ve no doubt you’ll pick up something new just as quickly.’

  Kirsty smiled sympathetically. ‘It’s not one of my favourite songs,’ she said. ‘I’m sure something else would do more justice to your voice.’

  She was just glad they hadn’t had time to get to the bit where Cinders and Buttons dance around the kitchen table. That horror was for another time.

  Chapter Six

  The first read-through took almost three hours. It was dark by the time the players emerged from the theatre and headed in their separate directions. Early Bonfire Night fireworks dotted the sky.

  ‘I thought that went OK,’ said Kirsty as she and Jon drove back to their flat.

  Jon was less optimistic. ‘This is going to be a shambles. Why on earth did I come back to Newbay?’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ said Kirsty. ‘We’re going to have a laugh.’

  Kirsty needed Jon to be happy. They had both come back to Newbay because at moments like that one, stepping out of the theatre into the cold damp embrace of a November night, when she could have been in the Caribbean, the question ‘why on earth am I here?’ was definitely on her lips as well.

  ‘It’s going to be great fun,’ she said firmly.

  Jon snorted.

  ‘And I’m really glad to be in the UK for Christmas. I feel a bit Christmassy already, what with the Christmas fayre this morning and this afternoon spent singing carols.’

  Many of the songs in Jon’s script were based on well-known Christmas tunes.

  ‘Shall we get a Chinese?’ Kirsty suggested in an attempt to cheer him up. ‘I really fancy one after all that acting and singing.’

  ‘I thought we were doing a fast day today,’ was Jon’s response.

  It was not exactly a fairytale moment.

  ‘Salad it is then,’ said Kirsty.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Jon. ‘It’s just this play is so important to me.’

  ‘I know,’ Kirsty reached across the gear stick and squeezed Jon’s thigh.

  Kirsty had come to find work on a cruise ship in a perfectly fairytale fashion.

  She’d been holidaying in the Med with Jane, accompanying her best friend on the cruise that would have been her honeymoon had Jane’s fiancé Greg not died in a car accident the previous December. It was an odd sort of holiday. It was Kirsty’s idea that Jane should still take the cruise but a couple of days in she began to wonder if she had made a mistake. Jane was so very unhappy. Understandably, she could not do anything on board ship without imagining how it might have been with Greg by her side. Jane barely left their state room. Not even to eat. When she wasn’t sitting on the balcony eating room service sandwiches with Jane, Kirsty roamed the enormous ship alone.

  One evening, making another tour of the ship’s entertainments by herself, Kirsty happened upon some karaoke. Karaoke had always been her thing. It was Jane’s thing too, before Greg died. They used to spend every Wednesday evening singing at their local pub, The Welsh Harp. It was the best night of the week for Kirsty. She loved seeing all the familiar faces, going through their familiar routines. It was the same singers and the same songs every week, but it was never dull. Most of all, Kirsty loved to belt out her own old favourites and revel in the applause of her friends.

  At first, she just snuck into the back of the room where the ship’s karaoke was held and watched as other people took the floor. But it didn’t take long for the performing bug to bite again and Kirsty soon found herself requesting ‘It’s Raining Men’. The moment she opened her mouth, she had the audience on their feet and the compère insisted she take part in the karaoke competition that would begin the following night.

  The contest took place over several evenings. Jane made it out of their room to see the final and watched and cheered as Kirsty won the competition by a landslide. Afterwards, while Kirsty and Jane were celebrating her success, they were approached by a woman who worked for the cruise line – one of the people responsible for on-board entertainment. She gave Kirsty her card and suggested she get in touch.

  In that moment, Kirsty was thrilled by the idea of working as a singer on board a cruise ship but by the time she and Jane got back home, it started to seem utterly daft. Kirsty worked as an office manager. She was nearly thirty-two. It was way too late for her to start a career on the stage. She was practically retirement age in musical theatre terms. Wasn’t she?

  ‘No!’ said Jane. ‘This is your chance to change your life. You can live your dream.’

  ‘Or find out it’s a nightmare.’

  ‘Maybe, but isn’t it better to find that out than go to your grave with a head full of shouldas?’

  Jane knew what she was talking about on that score. She’d had so many plans for life with Greg. After the cruise, which seemed to mark the rock-bottom point of Jane’s grief, she was a making serious effort to get back up and out there. The least Kirsty could do was email the cruise director and ask exactly how one went about applying for a job at sea.

  The cruise director responded so quickly and so warmly that it would have been rude not to go to the cruise line’s auditions in London. And when Kirsty aced her audition and was invited to a presentation regarding careers with Countess Cruises, it seemed a shame not to find out more. And by that point, even Kirsty’s boss at the accountancy firm was telling her she should give it a try. He revealed he too once harboured the dream of a life on stage but marriage and children had forced him into accountancy. A steady job. A steady life.

  ‘There are so many people out there not living their dreams. Just sleepwalking through their days,’ he said.

  ‘And which o
f us knows how many days we’ve got?’ Jane reminded her. ‘Do it for me and for Greg. You know he would have told you to go for it.’

  So Kirsty went for it. A month after the audition, she was in Los Angeles, at the cruise line’s state-of-the-art rehearsal facility. It was the first time she had been in the United States (another tick on her bucket list). And a very long way from Essex.

  Chapter Seven

  Strictly speaking, it was in Los Angeles, not on board The European Countess, that Kirsty met Jon for the first time. It was in the canteen. He was sitting at a table of young dancers – male and female. They were hanging on his every word, marvelling at his charming accent. He didn’t have to say anything particularly witty. To them, by sheer virtue of his voice, he was as gorgeous as a cross between Hugh Grant in his prime and James Bond.

  ‘Thank goodness,’ he said, when Kirsty joined the table at the behest of the dancer with whom she was sharing a room. ‘Another Brit. We can have a conversation without you going into meltdown over my Hugh Grant accent.’

  ‘You don’t sound anything like Hugh Grant.’

  ‘Exactly. But try telling this lot.’

  Kirsty smiled. Jon didn’t look like Hugh Grant either. He was more like Daniel Craig. Which suited Kirsty fine.

  ‘I’m Kirsty …’

  ‘I know,’ said Jon.

  Kirsty felt a frisson of pleasure. He had noticed her.

  ‘I’ve seen you rehearsing. Your voice is something really special,’ he added. She could tell he was sincere.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Is this your first season?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Me too. Where were you working before?’

  ‘In an accountancy office,’ she told him.

  ‘No way,’ said Jon. ‘What a waste. Thank goodness you made your escape.’

  ‘How about you?’

  ‘Drama school. MFA in directing. Then various jobs in the West End. Thought I would give this a whirl. Good experience. Good money. Get to see the world in style.’