‘Okay.’ Carolyn did a small huff, then resumed the theatrical pose, with accompanying suspenseful voice. ‘The year is unspecified. The place is Sherwood Forest. The people are you, me, whoever else we can rope in to help us, because a lot of New Life Church seem unable to commit to 22 December. The spotlights are low, fog machines set to maximum. Enter, from stage right…’
‘Are you planning on narrating the whole concert?’ Ali asked. ‘I thought we were here to discuss who’s doing what, and when we need to get it done by.’
‘Well, yes,’ Carolyn said, straightening up. ‘We thought it would be helpful to share our creative vision.’
‘Whatever’s living in your two brains is a vision I can do without,’ Bill said. ‘No offence, ladies. All I need to know is: what’s the budget, what cake do you want for refreshments and do you need to borrow my Shelby’s donkey again, because she gets a lot of requests this time of year, so it’s best to get in there quick.’
‘Eight hundred pounds,’ Cheris chirruped. ‘Mince pies, mini chocolate logs and a bucketload of mulled wine. Absolute yes to the donkey and if she’s still got the sheep, we’ll have five or six, please.’
‘I am here, in the room,’ Moses said.
Cheris darted her eyes over to her pastor and back to Bill. ‘Five hundred. Non-alcoholic wine and no sheep. Unless she’s got a lamb. You promised to let us include a lamb if we found one, Moses!’
‘Shelby only breeds spring lambs,’ Bill said.
‘Oh, that’s a shame.’ Moses smiled, with enough hint of sarcasm to earn a hard stare from Sofia.
‘So what setting do you need, apart from a load of trees?’ Moses’ auntie asked. ‘If we’re going to need stairs or anything else above floor level I need to speak to Jimmy asap.’
While Cheris was answering that, Gramps stood up and announced that he needed the toilet, so Bill offered to take him, whispering indiscreetly that he was a nurse and happy to handle any ‘mishaps’. When they came back, Bill helped Marvin into one of the armchairs in the seating area, where he promptly dozed off. Beckett soon zoned out, as more people asked Cheris and Carolyn practical questions relating to the individual committee roles, which were mostly answered with cryptic references to yet more farm animals, hula hoops, and the main character being a baby Santa version of Baby Yoda.
Beckett was on the brink of dropping off himself when he felt a nudge. The past few days had wiped him out even more than usual. Mary nodded her head in the direction of the Christmas carol concert organisers, eyes glinting.
‘What do you think, Beckett?’ she asked.
‘Um.’
‘Come on, why not give it a go?’
Beckett could have bowed to the expectant, hopeful faces and simply said yes, but when there were hula hoops and Baby Yodas involved, he wasn’t signing up to anything without checking the small print.
‘I know you’re really busy with work, and Gramps, and finding a new Tanya, but it might be fun, the two of us working on a project together. Plus, it’d be so much easier if I could team up with someone with a car.’
Working on a project with Mary? Forget the small print.
‘Okay.’
Mary’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Wow. Really? That’s… incredible.’
Beckett had to wait until the rest of the room were distracted by Cheris and Carolyn breaking out into what they called ‘Santa-day Night’, which seemed to simply be Whigfield’s nineties’ hit, ‘Saturday Night’, only a lot faster and with the lyrics changed from ‘party time’ to ‘Christmas time’, and various other cheesily obvious replacements.
‘What have I agreed to, and will it mean killing off our friendship a month after it started?’ he muttered out of the side of his mouth.
‘Don’t worry, it’s nothing humiliating. Once I saw you’d stopped listening, I was tempted to try hoodwinking you into playing Boyband Santa, but I wouldn’t ruin the NLCCCCC for my own amusement. I love the Christmas Day Twins far too much for that.’
‘I don’t think it’s too late for me to suddenly remember an important commitment on 22 December.’
‘Yeah, this isn’t a part in the actual concert, so it won’t be a disaster if you miss the big night.’
‘Ah, so what about that big holiday I’ve got booked?’
Beckett kept his eyes on ‘Santa-day Night’ the whole time they were talking, because once upon a time, he’d known how to flirt with a woman, and this felt dangerously close to it. Mary had a month-old baby. She had a past that led to her being stuck in the middle of nowhere, with no car, no friends or family who knew she’d been pregnant, let alone an outfit for her new son. Not even a mention of Bob’s father. The last thing Mary needed right now was a lonely loser developing feelings for her.
Wind it back, Beckett. Man up, here.
‘Honestly, Beckett. Have you taken any holidays in the past six years? Even a day out somewhere?’
Well, that would do it. This lunch was the most adventurous thing he’d done in months. Years, more like. He had nothing to offer Mary beyond friendship. Beckett checked his phone. It was almost three. Definitely time to head home. He’d been playing Gramps Rude-Comment Roulette for long enough.
