‘I don’t see what’s so special about Cinderella,’ grumbled Saskia as she and Kate walked through Helensvale Community Centre’s doors the next evening. ‘The last time I lost a shoe at midnight I was accused of being drunk.’
Kate laughed. Saskia could mutter all she wanted, Kate didn’t care. The main thing was she had agreed to help out with the Christmas pantomime.
Various members of the cast were chatting, sat on the stage or at long tables usually reserved for tea-serving at art and craft sales.
‘Evening, Tessa. I’ve brought along a helper for you. This is Saskia, my sister.’
Tessa, the pantomime director, looked up from her seat on a table. She was using a chair as a footrest. ‘All right, Saskia? Glad to have you on board. I take it this isn’t our Ugly Sister?’ she said to Kate.
Kate shook her head. ‘Ben’s our Ugly Sister. He said he’d be here,’ she said, glancing around.
Saskia stared at her and Kate remembered she’d forgotten to include that particular detail when coercing her sister into taking part.
‘We’re about to get started, so he’d better hurry up,’ Tessa said. ‘You get those script changes I sent out?’
Kate nodded, attention zoned in on the director so that she didn’t have to look at Saskia. ‘Right here. I’ll just go sort myself out...’
Tessa hopped off the table and clapped her hands. ‘All right, people. Let’s get started. We’ve got plenty to get through and I want to get the ball properly choreographed this evening.’
Eoin Jones looked around. ‘Where’s my ugly sibling?’
Tessa frowned. ‘Shit.’ She flipped through her notes. ‘Okay, change of plan. Act One Scene Two: Prince Charming and Dandini are out riding in the forest and they bump into Cinders. Frankie, Kate, Rosie.’ She looked around to check all three cast members were present. ‘You’re up first.’
‘What do you want me to do?’ asked Saskia.
Tessa deliberated for a second. ‘Can you make coffee?’
Kate fled to the stage without daring to meet Saskia’s murderous gaze. Frankie, the production’s Prince Charming, was already on stage talking to Cinderella, aka Rosie, the pretty assistant from the local bookmakers shop.
Tessa called for quiet and Rosie scampered to the wings leaving Kate and Frankie to play out the first half of the scene using a couple of brooms for horses.
‘I say, Dandino, I just wish I could be a regular guy sometime,’ projected Frankie, trying to hold her broom between her legs while reading from her script at the same time. ‘Then—’
‘Frankie, for the hundredth time,’ interrupted Tessa. ‘It’s Dandini, not Dandino.’
‘Sorry, I do try,’ said Frankie, looking repentant. ‘It’s just Dandino’s a name my brain’s more accustomed to.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, he’s a racehorse, see—’
Tessa held up her script in surrender. ‘Just try to remember, okay? All right, carry on.’
Frankie readjusted her broom and cleared her throat. ‘I just wish I could be a regular guy. Then I wouldn’t have to deal with awful screaming women like the Baroness’s two daughters.’
‘Imagine how One Direction feels,’ replied Kate.
‘Oh, I don’t know. I don’t think they’re that great.’
‘Oh yes they are!’
‘Oh no they’re not!’
Kate turned to the ‘audience’ for back-up and the cast members sitting at the tables obliged with the combined ‘Oh yes they are!’
‘I’ve an idea,’ carried on Frankie. ‘Why don’t we swap identities, just for a while? You be a prince and I’ll be you!’
‘But Your Highness—’
‘No, Your Highness!’
‘All right then. I’ll race you back to the palace, but don’t forget royalty gets a head start!’ said Kate and thundered clumsily across the stage riding her makeshift steed and making way for Prince Charming to bump into Cinderella out collecting firewood.
Not needed until Act Two, Kate joined Saskia by the drinks table in the corner. ‘You okay?’ she said quietly.
Saskia pursed her lips. ‘Is this another of your attempts to get me and Ben together?’
‘Actually, no,’ she replied. ‘We genuinely needed a replacement Ugly Sister after Tom did a leg.’
Saskia rolled her eyes as she waited for the catering urn to heat up. ‘God, you’re so horsey, Kate. Real people don’t “do” legs, okay? Only your racing lot say that. Ordinary people say they’ve broken a leg.’
‘All right, fine. Tom broke his leg and we needed a replacement. Ben said he’d do it.’
‘So why am I here?’
Kate wavered. ‘Because he’d only do it if you were involved.’
Saskia groaned. ‘Why am I doing this?’
‘Because you owe me big time. We’re meant to be moving house in a fortnight and we still haven’t even looked at any places.’
Saskia looked around the hall with distaste. Cast members wandered about, chatting and not paying the slightest attention to the action on stage.
‘This is such a mess,’ she said.
Kate was in silent agreement. Ben wasn’t helping matters by not showing up. But hopefully, come the opening night they would have established some sort of order.
The door creaked open as the forest scene came to an end and Ben slipped in. He hurried over to Kate and Saskia, still wearing his work jeans and a T-shirt with sludge-coloured stains on it.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Jerry had colic.’
Kate’s heart jumped into her throat. ‘Is he okay?’
‘Yeah, he’s fine now. Wasn’t a bad case, but you know what his constitution’s like. Hello, Saskia.’ He reached forward to kiss her on the cheek. Saskia froze away from his grubbiness, but only succeeded in burning herself on the urn. She leapt forward, making Ben beam at her forthcoming response.
‘Right, well, you’re about to go on,’ said Kate, appalled at the jealousy that sprung up inside her. ‘Let me introduce you to Tessa. She’s our director. You’re Ugly 1, okay? Eoin, over there, is Ugly 2.’
*
Ben and Eoin had everyone in stitches as they clamoured for the prince’s affections. Poor Frankie was yanked from one side to the other as they fought over her. Ben pulled a stroppy face when Ugly 2 barged him out of the way to get the first dance. With a swift movement, he’d smacked Eoin over the back of his head with a handbag.
‘Oi, steady on,’ said Eoin, breaking character and rubbing his head.
Kate and the cast snorted as Ben turned from sulky dame to apologetic gentleman.
‘Carry on, carry on,’ yelled Tessa.
Ben whisked Frankie off her feet and out of Eoin’s reach. ‘His Highness should know how well his bride-to-be can waltz.’
‘I’ll remember this,’ growled Ugly 2, shaking a fist.
‘Well, they say elephants never forget.’
Frankie was in hysterics as Ben pranced her around the stage. His greater strength was obvious for all to see.
‘Okay, everyone, get set for “Waltzing da Builder”,’ Tessa boomed.
Sat at the piano, Mrs Greenley, the local primary school teacher, pounded down on the keys, and Kate, dancing with a chorus girl, tried to contain her laughter enough to sing.
Ben broke into a moonwalk and the choreographed dance fell apart. The Wicked Stepmother, aka Dilys Jones, and her partner cannoned into Kate. Kate teetered on the edge of the stage and had to abandon ship, almost landing in Mrs Greenley’s lap.
Tessa yelled for a stop and for the next ten minutes, the cast attempted to organise a routine in which no one fell into the audience – not an easy feat given the community hall’s meagre stage.
Tessa at last called time and Kate sank into a seat, sweating. She took a glug from her water bottle and was glad to see Saskia smiling as Frankie and Rosie acted out a palace gardens scene.
‘I told you it would be fun,’ she said.
Saskia’s smile disappeared. ‘Pantomimes are just silly.’
‘But you like panto.’
‘Since when?’
‘You watch The X Factor, don’t you?’
*
Half an hour later, Kate was called upon once more to assist the prince in finding the foot that fitted the glass shoe.
‘Oh, sweet prince – you handsome devil – look no further,’ Ben said, strutting forward to the edge of the stage and pushing out his chest. You have found your bride for that shoe is mine.’
‘No, it’s not!’ cried Eoin, muscling in.
‘Oh yes it is!’
‘Oh no it’s not!’ yelled the audience.
‘Well, we shall see,’ said Frankie. ‘Dandino-dini, I promised that every maiden should have a try. Assist this lady with her footwear.’
Kate knelt before Ben and went to unlace his mud-crusted boot.
‘Probably best just to pretend,’ whispered Ben. ‘I’ve been wearing these all day. Tessa won’t want you falling off the stage a second time.’
Kate snorted and carried out the pretence. ‘It doesn’t fit, Your Highness,’ she said.
Ben lay back on his chair, laying a hand across his forehead in a dramatic pose. ‘It’s the heat! The heat I tell you! It makes my feet swell so.’
‘But it’s Christmas outside,’ argued Ugly 2. ‘Here, let me try—’
‘No, no! Then it must be from our flight from Ibiza. Those Ryanair cabins are never pressurised properly.’
A scuffle broke out as Eoin wrestled Ben from the chair. Ben’s script went flying. At last, the balding landlord plonked himself down, looking worringly purple in the face.
‘You okay?’ whispered Kate, still on her knees.
Eoin nodded, gasping to get his breath back. ‘Not – quite as fit – as I used to be.’
They acted out the rest of the scene, and the cast whistled and clapped when Cinderella was finally reunited with her prince.
*
With the rehearsal at an end, Kate walked out into the car park with Saskia and Ben. A chilly breeze swept the rain into their faces. Kate pulled the hood of her jacket up.
‘Can I treat you both to a drink?’ she asked, feeling guilty and indebted in equal measure.
Ben shook his head. ‘Thanks, I must head home. See how Jerry’s doing.’
‘Sorry, yes, of course you must. I hope he’s okay.’
Under the glow of the car park’s security lighting, Ben sent her a reassuring wink. ‘I’m sure he is. He was starting to look his old self by the time I left earlier and Fiona said she’d check in on him.’ His gaze remained on her for a long moment. ‘He’ll be okay,’ he said gently.
The look in his eyes filled Kate with warmth and she nodded. She didn’t want to be the person that worried about everything and everyone, even if she often felt that way.
Ben smiled at them both. ‘I’ll see you two next week. I’m coming round to ride a few lots for Jack.’
He jogged away to his muddy pick-up, side-stepping a slushy pothole with the nimbleness of a boxer. He’d make a great dancer.
‘Well, he might not want a drink, but I do,’ Saskia broke into Kate’s reverie. ‘Some mulled wine to warm us up would do.’
Kate followed her to the car, suddenly feeling much less inclined to go to the pub now for some reason.