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Hopping over the cordon into the light trail, Frances prayed that Mara had checked that everything was lit correctly and in its proper position for the drone footage. Within a few hours, the video would be hitting social media feeds on mobile phones within a hundred-mile radius to entice people in.
The drone was descending as she reached Mara and the videographer, Michael.
Mara’s shoulders dropped as she caught sight of her. “Ah, there you are.”
“Sorry, I got waylaid,” Frances panted.
“Is everything okay?”
“Perfectly, thank you. Mum was fine,” Frances replied casually. Turning to Michael, she said, “All done?”
“Yes. Give me an hour to add this to the footage from this morning, and I’ll email over a final version for your approval.”
“Great, thanks.”
Michael busied himself packing the drone away.
“We’d better get ourselves up to the trail entrance for the opening,” Mara said, checking her watch.
“You take the VIPs, and I’ll bring the press behind you,” Frances said.
“I hope I can recognise them all and get their names right,” Mara joked. “I’ve been flicking through photos online of the most important dignitaries.”
“I have every faith in you,” Frances said reassuringly.
Her own confidence had slipped, the adrenaline from earlier disrupting her focus. She recited soundbites while they walked to get some of it back. She recalled phrases about being bigger and better than last year, about the importance of the Christmas event and the funds it would raise for the roof restoration, till she was ready to deploy them as needed.
Greeting the crowds waiting by the car park entrance, Frances led members of the press into the woodland behind Mara and her group of VIPs. Coloured lights sat between the trees, washing their trunks in soft hues as ambient Christmas music played. Smoke machines pumped a fine mist that curled around their feet as the scent of pine and wood smoke filled her nostrils.
Illuminated arches led them deeper into the woods to a grotto, the wooden structure glowing beside a large sleigh. Father Christmas waved at them as parents lifted their small children next to him for a family photograph taken by an elf. Frances’s eye cast around the members of staff, checking to see if they looked familiar, but the elf she was looking for wasn’t amongst them.
Her throat was sore from so much talking by the time the trail led her little group onto the main path. She directed them across it and onto another one flanked by giant red-and-white candy canes. There were more elves working here, posing for photographs with visitors and chatting to them.
Her eye caught one elf as she passed. The jump in her chest immediately signalled it was the elf she was looking for. She watched as Lucie put her arm around a young man and posed for a selfie. Even in the silly hat, the woman was breathtaking, and her wide, genuine smile was infectious. She really looked like she was enjoying herself.
“Be sure to catch a light show. They are every twenty minutes and best viewed from a globe on the lawn for the full theatrical experience,” Frances heard Lucie say.
She was good.
The young man thanked her and walked away. Lucie looked over as Frances passed by with her group. Their eyes met, and something softened in Lucie’s expression. Frances went to return the smile, only to realise she already was.
A toddler waddled up to Lucie and attached itself to her legs, much to the apologies of its parents. The moment was gone, and Frances carried on, her heart thumping in her chest as if she’d run the length of Candy Cane Lane. Allowing herself to look back briefly, she saw Lucie crouched down beside the small child, posing for a photograph.
As they reached the end of the path, Frances encouraged her group into the snow globes to watch the light show on the Elizabethan hall’s façade. She’d approved the simulation three months ago, but nothing compared to seeing it at full scale with cinematic orchestral music filling the globe.
Pulsing coloured laser lights from the ledges and roof moved in time with the music, making the hall feel alive. Snow appeared to fall in front of the windows as shooting star shapes lit up the lawn. There was such a variety of things to look at that it left her group stunned into silence.
As the last light faded, she led them over to the hall, where Clare was greeting Mara and her group of VIPs by the main doors. Clare’s eyes were heavy, her shoulders rounded. She looked like she might drop on the spot.
“This is Clare May,” Frances declared above the low chattering of the excited group, “our senior designer, who has worked tirelessly over the last year to pull together the decoration of our staterooms. I will leave you in her capable hands.”
“Thanks, Frances,” Clare said loudly. “If everyone would like to come this way. Follow the signs, and they will guide you through our Winter Wonderland.”
The VIPs went ahead of the press, heads arching back as they took in the enormity of the great hall. Members of the press swarmed around Clare, asking questions and pointing at various details. Frances was proud of the work her team had put in to get everything ready for Christmas, but a slight moistness welled in her eyes that her mum wasn’t here to see it again.
The Christmas opening was something they used to do together, when her mum was CEO and she was managing director. This was the second Christmas her mum had been absent. With her increasing confusion since then and having managed to manoeuvre her out of her role, there was no particular reason she would need to be there for it. Frances had decided it would be too overwhelming and confusing for her, and she had told everyone the usual line that her mum was busy with her endless charity work. She had found it to be a convincing cover, at least for now.
The day would come when she could no longer keep it a secret, that much she knew, but keeping everything as it was for as long as she could was the aim. Once the board of trustees got wind of her mum’s illness, it would be out of her hands. Earlier in the year, she’d moved her from their large apartment in the hall to a smaller, more secluded place, hoping it would become familiar by the time her Alzheimer’s worsened.
