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Charlotte
‘I’m not sure,’ Charlotte said, staring at Kelly’s obviously hungover face on her smartphone screen. ‘I mean, I’ve got the funeral tomorrow to deal with, and I have so much left to do here. And with Christmas coming, I’ll be so busy once I get back to work. I haven’t done anything around the house. There are Grandma’s Christmas puddings to take down from the loft—’
‘Charlotte. Take a deep breath.’ From the look of Kelly’s eyes, visibly bloodshot even through the screen, she needed to take a few of her own. ‘Look. Someone at work got these special tickets. It’s like front row. And it’s a special performance, like a warm up for the main shows.’ She lowered her voice and leaned so close to the phone that Charlotte could see right up her nose. Her voice became a conspiratorial whisper: ‘We might be able to see how he does it.’
Charlotte grasped for excuses. She had another pet-sitter interview this afternoon. She really wanted to get the Christmas tree set up and the festive decorations out on the front lawn. She wanted to start going through the kitchen too, to find where Grandma put all the utensils and appliances Charlotte could never find. Then there was the utility room to tidy—
‘What time is it?’ she asked.
‘Six o’clock. It’s only an hour. It’s a special performance.’
‘All right. But we’ll get something to eat after, right? I won’t have time to cook.’
‘We can get fish ’n’ chips from that new place up near Evans’ Carpets, then eat them on a freezing cold bench in Sycamore Park like we used to do when we were teenagers and I’d be trying to tell you about some new band while you prattled on about some boy you liked in the year above.’
‘Or we could just sit in the car and not freeze to death?’
‘Oh, Charlotte. You’re so boring.’
‘All right, a freezing cold bench it is. Only if it’s not raining.’
‘What if it’s snowing?’
‘It won’t be. But if it is, that counts as being Christmassy, so we have to sit on the bench.’
‘And sing Jingle Bells?’
‘Seriously?’
‘Come on, it’s my favourite song.’
Kelly sighed. ‘I know. But … if it’s raining, we have to sing the new single by Blended Frog Death Kiss.’
‘Who?’
Kelly grinned. ‘Let’s hope it’s raining and you’ll get to find out.’
Charlotte glanced up at the television, playing on low volume in the corner of the living room, conveniently on the weather forecast.
‘The forecast says clear.’
‘Then it looks like we’ll both be disappointed. I’ll pick you up at five, all right? That way we have time to do some preparation.’
‘What kind of preparation?’
‘We need to assign who’s going to look where. Like, up his sleeves, left hand, right hand, that kind of thing.’
‘I’ll see you at five o’clock.’
A few spots of rain defied the weather forecast, but the wind was rattling through Sycamore Park in full force as Kelly and Charlotte walked across the south plaza and round the pond towards the theatre. Charlotte kept pausing, wanting to reach out for the falling raindrops in the hope that some of them were turning into snow, but Kelly, clutching her arm, kept dragging her onwards.
‘We’re going to miss the start.’
‘We have plenty of time.’
‘Yeah, but you can’t just go straight in, can you?’
