‘I don’t care what you said! I’m an old man and I need to sit down and have my lunch.’
‘Hey.’ Mary slipped her arm through Gramps’ and leant in close to him. ‘I would really love to hear the end of this song first, if that’s okay? Who doesn’t love a bit of music before dinner? Let’s find a comfy seat, so the lunch staff can get everything ready without us getting in the way and you can introduce Bob to the joy of live music.’
Mary carried on chattering in a soothing voice that Beckett suspected she used to get Bob to stop crying, and as she patted his hand and rested a shoulder against his arm, Gramps gradually began to soften, his jaw unclenching, posture easing back.
All Beckett could do was mutely follow with the pram as Mary cajoled Gramps down the corridor and through double doors into a large meeting room.
The hall was about three quarters full of chairs, most of which were occupied. A band played on a large stage at the front, and everyone was clapping as the guitar, drums and trumpet came to a final, triumphant crescendo.
The man who’d been in the foyer showed them to empty seats in the second-to-last row, which Gramps promptly declared to be about as comfortable as a haemorrhoid, and everyone sat down.
‘Them!’ Gramps growled as two familiar figures in dresses shaped like Christmas trees bounced onto the stage. ‘Please tell me they aren’t going to sing again. The other one was bad enough.’
All Beckett could think of to do was hand him the baby.
‘Does anybody know what day it is?’ Cheris called into a microphone, in the style of a pantomime dame.
A few people called out that it was 1 December.
‘She said,’ Carolyn bellowed, ‘does anybody know what day it is? Come on, all together! Make sure Santa Claus can hear you!’
There must have been a couple of hundred people in the room, at least a third of them children, and the response rattled the windowpanes.
‘Twenty-one sleeps to go!’ the Christmas Day Twins cried.
‘Um, no,’ Moses said, hovering near the edge of the stage. ‘Twenty-four.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Carolyn asked, as if perplexed. ‘What is he talking about? I think Pastor Moses has forgotten how to count!’
‘No, Chezza!’ Cheris said, waving her arms about vigorously. ‘What Pastor Moses is talking about is piddling old Christmas Day.’
‘The day billions of people mark the birth of our Lord and saviour, Jesus, with family gatherings, gifts and food, while basically the whole country comes to a stop?’ Moses asked. ‘That piddling old day?’
‘Meh.’ Carolyn pulled a face. ‘It’s something, I suppose, but anyone would agree it’s not a patch on the New Life Community Church Christmas Carol Concert! Am I right?’
The room erupted in a mix of whoops, whistles and laughter.
‘Is she right?’ Cheris shouted over the noise.
‘No, she isn’t right!’ Moses said, and it was difficult to tell if his exasperation was real or for show. ‘But it is a fabulous occasion, and we hope you’ll invite your friends, family and neighbours along. All the details are on the website, or there’s a pile of flyers in the foyer. Now, ladies, what were you supposed to be talking about in these closing minutes?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Carolyn pretended to look sheepish. ‘This is 1 December, which is the first Sunday in advent, and this week the theme is hope.’
‘What does hope mean to you?’ Cheris asked, looking more serious. ‘What are you hoping for this season? Apart from getting to see the best carol concert since the angels sang over that stable. Take a few seconds to think about it.’
Beckett couldn’t help asking himself this question as the hall fell silent. Last year the answer might have been that he’d hope taxiing would bring in enough money to stop him lying awake at night panicking. That he and Gramps would find the strength, the courage, the patience, to keep on going even knowing things were only getting tougher.
That hope would have felt more like folly. Genuine hope had been a stranger to the Bywater house for a long time.
Now – now hope was springing up faster than the hairs in Gramps’ ears.
For the first time, Beckett was hopeful that he might have found a friend or two to help him bear this burden. He dared hope for good things up ahead, not simply misery and struggle and emptiness. He hoped that for Gramps, as well as himself.
If he dug deep, and was really, brutally honest, for the first time in maybe a year, he hoped his grandfather, the man who’d basically been his father, wouldn’t slip away in his sleep sooner rather than later.
Even more marvellous, for the first time in forever he had hopes for someone else beyond him and Gramps. His hopes for Mary and Bob were so strong and wide and deep that he wondered how they didn’t consume him, sitting here in this moderately uncomfortable hall surrounded by strangers.
He decided that, for now, he simply hoped to make Mary smile again.
