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  ‘Marc, A-minus,’ Deano said. ‘Just need to practise your singing so you can hold your own against Becky and Yo-yo.’

  ‘Pfft, what, A-minus? I’m your brother.’

  ‘When I’m directing, I have no brother.’ He moved a finger down his list. ‘Gerry. A on delivery, no problem there. But I’m sorry, it’s an F on the stage business.’

  ‘Blocking,’ Harper said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Moving around the stage is called blocking. Stage business is body language.’

  ‘Well whatever it’s called, Gerry’s shit at it.’

  ‘How is that fair?’ Gerry said, his pitch almost matching his opera-singer dame voice. ‘There wasn’t even a set! How am I supposed to move naturally without a set?’

  ‘All right, lad, wind your neck in,’ Sue said. ‘Remember last week when you didn’t want to do this?’

  ‘Well thanks to you I am bloody doing it, aren’t I? And since I am, I want to do it properly.’

  ‘And you will, Gerry,’ I said in a soothing tone. ‘We’ve all got things to improve. It’s only the first rehearsal, there’s loads of time.’

  ‘Says swotty Miss B-plus,’ Gerry muttered.

  ‘That’s the spirit, Becks,’ Deano said. ‘Next rehearsal’s in a week and I want all of you to have done your homework. Practice, practice, practice, so good they named it three times. 110%, folks! 150%!’

  ‘Oh God. The stress is affecting his maths.’ Lana went round to massage his shoulders. ‘Calm down, eh? We don’t want this to be another HMS Pinafore.’

  ‘No.’ He reached up to pat her hand. ‘Thanks, Lanasaurus. Was getting a bit carried away there.’

  ‘And what about me?’ Maisie asked brightly.

  Deano’s eye twitched. ‘What about you?’ He glanced up at Lana, who was about to sit back down. ‘Don’t go anywhere. You may be needed.’

  ‘Well, what’s my grade?’

  Deano subtly turned over his notepad. ‘Er… just keep practising, Mais. Two hours a day. Three. Even four.’

  ‘But I was good, wasn’t I?’ She turned to Harper. ‘I was, wasn’t I?’

  ‘You know what worries me?’ I said, jumping in before Harper had to answer.

  ‘Gerry’s moustache?’ Stewart said.

  ‘That’s always worried me. But I actually meant the script.’

  ‘What about the script?’ Marcus looked panicked. ‘Everyone liked the script, didn’t they? Because we worked bloody hard on that script.’

  ‘There weren’t many laughs though,’ I said. ‘I was sitting in the audience. The innuendos got a few guffaws, but not much else.’

  Stewart shrugged. ‘We’re not five, Becks. Pet rocks might make Pip wet herself, but we’re big boys and girls. Knob gags all the way for us, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Seems risky waiting till opening night to find out if we’re going to be dying on our arses out there though,’ Marcus said. ‘You know what I’m thinking?’

  I took a sip of my wine. ‘I do actually, you dirty git.’

  He laughed. ‘Apart from that. I’m thinking, test audience. Try some of the material out on actual kids, make sure we’ve pitched it right.’

  ‘Could we ask your Pippa?’ Yolanda said, looking from me to Lana.

  ‘One’s a pretty small sample,’ I said. ‘We could do with a few.’

  ‘What about Beavers?’ Lana said.

  Yolanda snorted.

  ‘Oh, I am sorry.’ She forced a straight face. ‘I think I’m still in pantomime mode.’

  ‘That’s right. Pip’s just started Beavers,’ I said, ignoring another titter from Yolanda. ‘They might let us perform a scene or two.’

  ‘Right.’ Deano swallowed back the last of his Boltmaker. ‘You get onto that then. And everyone: 180%, don’t forget. Class dismissed.’

  Chapter 18

  ‘Why’re you coming to Beavers, Aunty Becky?’ Pip asked, sulky at the grown-up intrusion into her new club. ‘You’re too big.’

  ‘I’m not coming to all of it.’ I gripped her hand tightly as we crossed the road and started making our way up the cobbles. ‘Me and some other people are going to act a bit of our pantomime.’

  ‘What people?’

  ‘Grandad Gerry, Aunty Yo-yo. And Marcus – remember him, from your birthday?’

  She brightened at once. ‘Will he do magic?’

  I laughed. ‘You’ll have to wait and see.’

  When we arrived at the Temp, Pip skipped off to play, acting like she’d never seen me before in her life. I joined Marcus and Gerry, who were talking to Otter, aka Colin, the leader.

  ‘Thanks for doing this, guys,’ he was saying.

  ‘We should thank you for providing our test audience,’ Marcus said.

  I nodded. ‘Just hope they don’t hate it.’

  ‘Oh, they’ll love it, I’m sure,’ Colin said. ‘You’re Jack, I’m assuming?’

  Marcus and I exchanged a look. We’d decided it was best not to involve Maisie in a public performance until she’d had more time to work on her lines. Bringing a Page Three girl to a Beaver Scout meeting might’ve caused a few raised eyebrows too.

  ‘Er, no. I’m Jill, the principal girl. Jack… couldn’t make it.’ I nodded to Yolanda, who’d just joined us. ‘Hiya, Yo-yo.’

  ‘Hello everyone.’ She grinned at the leader. ‘Hello Colin. Fancy meeting you here.’

  He flushed. ‘Yo-yo. Long time no see.’

  ‘Well, I’m almost a married woman now, darling,’ she said, wiggling her ring finger.

  ‘I heard. Congratulations.’

  I shook my head. ‘Come on. Not him too.’

  She shrugged. ‘We were working on the joint Guide/Scout gang show together. It got a bit sexy.’

  ‘All right, well never mind your love life,’ I said hastily, before she started going into details. ‘Let’s go change.’

  Yolanda clapped her hands. ‘Oh goody! Have we got costumes?’

  ‘Not the proper ones. These’re from my stock.’

  The four of us headed backstage while Colin and the assistant leader got the kids together for their opening ceremony.

  ‘We’ll need a separate changing area for boys and –’ Marcus began. But Yolanda had stripped to her bra before he could finish the sentence.

  She shrugged when she saw us staring. ‘What? I’ve got nothing to hide.’

  ‘You never did,’ Gerry said. He beckoned to me. ‘Come on then, pet, give us whatever monstrosity you’ve got for me to wear.’

  I went to the clothing rail where the costumes I’d dropped off earlier were hanging.

  ‘Ok, Gerry, this is yours,’ I said, handing one to him. ‘Yo-yo, a ballerina costume and some fairy wings, and Marc, this is you. I didn’t have anything suitable so it’s a loan from Tom. His old work uniform from when Pie and a Pint was a medieval restaurant.’

  ‘Might be a bit tight,’ Marcus said. ‘I’m broader than he is.’

  ‘Well, just manage as best you can.’

  My costume was a ragged Cinderella dress. I sidled into a corner and turned my back to the others while I changed, hoping no one was looking. Not that there was anything particularly exciting to see, I thought, glancing down at my far from voluptuous curves. Not everyone was a Maisie Brady.

  On turning back round, I was struck by an eyeful of Marc struggling to fasten Tom’s leather jerkin over his bare torso.

  I tried not to, but I couldn’t help having a bit of a stare. His chest was smooth and sinuous, a faint dimpling defining the abdominal muscles above the waistband of his trousers. A small tattoo of a flaming sun sat just over his hipbone.

  ‘It’s not a bad view, is it?’ a whisper near my ear observed.

  I jumped. Yolanda, looking like a pink-haired Christmas tree fairy in her sparkly tutu and wings
, had crept up beside me.

  ‘I wasn’t –’

  ‘Oh, no need to deny it, darling. We’re both spoken for, aren’t we?’ She examined the diamond on her third finger complacently. ‘Perfectly natural to look. It’s only touching that’s not allowed.’

  I dragged my gaze from Marc to look at her.

  ‘Do you miss it? The touching? I’m sensing it used to be your favourite hobby.’

  She shrugged. ‘Sometimes. It was rather fun. But it could be lonely too, flitting from one man to another.’

  ‘You were lonely?’

  ‘Let’s say it wasn’t the way I wanted to spend my declining years. So when Billy asked again, the third time in ten years… I said yes.’

  I blinked. I’d never heard Yolanda open up like that before. Or come quite so close to admitting her age.

  ‘Do you love him?’

  She smiled, turning away. ‘I think you’d better give Marcus a hand, darling. He appears to be struggling.’

  ‘Er, right.’

  I headed over to Marc, who was making a last valiant effort to fasten Tom’s jerkin.

  ‘It’s no good, Becks,’ he panted, letting it drop. ‘I’m too wide.’

  ‘You’ll just have to leave it open then,’ I said, trying not to let my eyes linger on the contours of his chest.

  Marc snorted. ‘I can see that going down well. “So what did you do at Beavers tonight, sweetheart?” “Oh, Otter booked a male stripper and he twerked for us.”’

  I winced. ‘Forgot about the twerking bit.’ I nodded at his pile of discarded clothes. ‘In that case, put your t-shirt back on. You can wear the jerkin open over the top.’

  A throat cleared behind me. I turned, and choked on a giggle at Gerry in his dress and ringleted wig.

  ‘Oi. Rebecca. Do you want to explain why there’re glacé cherries on my nipples?’

  ‘Because you’re a lovely little cupcake, cupcake,’ I said. ‘That’s our Cherry Bomb dress. We get a lot of demand for that.’

  ‘From burly blokes in their late fifties?’

  ‘Almost exclusively.’

  ‘Well well. Aren’t you a pretty little thing?’ Marcus said, winking at Gerry. ‘What are you doing tonight, darling?’

  ‘You want a slap, son?’

  ‘Dunno. Does it cost extra?’

  ‘Um, Gerald,’ Yolanda said. ‘I don’t mean to be personal, but aren’t you a little flat?’

  ‘Oh! That’s right.’ I went to my rucksack to fetch the other part of Gerry’s costume – a bra that’d been stuffed with socks and sewn up. ‘Here’s your tits, Gerry.’

  Everyone tried to keep a straight face while Gerry fed them up through his dress and fastened them on.

  ‘They’re halfway round your chest, darling,’ Yolanda said with a giggle.

  Marcus grinned. ‘Here, let me.’

  He went over to Gerry, who lifted his arms while Marcus adjusted the new boobs. Once they were in place, Marc gave them a squeeze and nodded appreciatively.

  ‘Firm yet supple. You’ll have all the lads after you, Gerry.’

  Gerry was examining the additions to his body with interest. He jiggled about a bit to try them out.

  ‘Big, aren’t they?’

  ‘All right, darling, no need to brag,’ Yolanda said. ‘Hadn’t we better join the children now?’

  ‘Just a sec.’ I reached into my rucksack again and handed some paper plates to Marcus. ‘For the cooking scene. And –’ I fished out a can of shaving foam.

  Marcus shook his head. ‘You never said we had to do it properly.’

  ‘They’re kids, Marc. Miming won’t cut it.’

  ‘Hmm.’ He looked at Gerry. ‘What do you think? Can the moustache stand it?’

  Gerry glanced down at the enormous fake breasts behind his cherries. ‘In for a penny, in for a pound.’

  Colin poked his head round the door. ‘We’re ready for you out here.’

  ‘Right.’ I beckoned to the others. ‘Break a leg, you lot.’

  I followed Colin out into the hall, where a group of bewoggled six-to-eights were waiting, their fixed stares saying this had better be good. Suddenly Marcus’s fear they might eat us didn’t seem so ridiculous. I tried to focus on Pip, but her glare was even more terrifying than the others. She had family honour to maintain.

  When we were up on stage, facing the sea of hungry infant eyes, I realised we were missing someone.

  ‘Where’s Gerry?’ I muttered to Marcus.

  ‘Dame Trott!’ he yelled over his shoulder. ‘Come on out!’

  ‘I can’t! I feel daft!’ a Gerry voice called back.

  ‘Come on, gorgeous. You’re beautiful.’ Marcus turned to the Beavers. ‘Isn’t she, boys and girls?’

  Pip giggled. ‘It’s my grandad,’ she whispered proudly to the boy next to her. ‘He has to dress as a lady.’

  Gerry finally emerged, shuffling bashfully. The kids were laughing their heads off. Even I didn’t know if he was playing it for laughs or genuinely embarrassed. The fact you couldn’t tell his deadpan from his grump was one of the things that made him such a perfect dame.

  Marcus launched the two of them straight into the pie-making scene.

  ‘Heyup, Mum,’ he said. ‘You ready to cook some sausage pies?’

  Gerry picked up on his cue at once, crooking one arm against his hip. ‘Right you are, young Stephen. To work!’

  Marcus immediately turned and started wiggling his bum at the kids, who laughed fit to burst.

  ‘What’re you doing, you daft beggar?’ Gerry said.

  Marcus carried on with his dance. ‘You said twerk.’

  ‘Nice, isn’t it?’ Yolanda muttered, her eyes fixed on Marcus’s gyrating posterior.

  ‘You’re the connoisseur,’ I whispered back.

  Still. I was starting to feel the heat a bit. I was glad when Marcus and his shapely arse gave over and they moved on.

  I didn’t know what was wrong with my hormones lately, they seemed to be all over the place. I put it down to getting older, and the fact my sex life had gone a bit quiet. I was so often tired after long days at work and long nights working on the panto, it was hard to summon the energy for much more than a bedtime cuddle.

  The performance was a riotous success. The kids screamed when Marc got a plateful of shaving foam in the face, yelled when Gerry knocked merry Sunday out of him with an inflatable sausage, and practically keeled over at the pet rock gag that’d got such a lukewarm reception from our grown-up audience. Marcus’s magic tricks held them rapt. And even with an act like that to follow, the song number Yolanda and me did as a duet still kept their attention. A few jokes fell flat, but overall we were definitely onto a winner.

  ‘Thanks, guys,’ I said after Colin had led them in a round of applause. ‘You promise you really like it?’

  Pip turned to the other kids with her bossy face on. ‘I did. Did everyone else? That’s my aunty so you gotta say yes.’

  ‘Yes,’ the other Beavers chorused dutifully. ‘It was brilliant!’ one little lad piped up, and I treated him to a warm smile.

  A hand shot up. ‘Miss! Miss!’

  ‘Hiya,’ I said to the bright-eyed little girl with a shock of wild ginger hair demanding my attention. ‘What do they call you then?’

  ‘Tinuviel, Miss.’

  ‘Tinuviel, that’s unusual. Is it French?’

  ‘Nah. S’Elvish.’

  ‘Oh. Right. Sorry, my Elvish is a bit rusty,’ I said, smiling. ‘What’s up, Tinuviel?’

  ‘Why’s that lady got a moustache?’ she demanded, pointing at Gerry.

  Gerry rubbed his lip. ‘I, er, lost my razor.’

  Colin frowned. ‘That’s bad manners, Tinuviel.’

  ‘It’s ok. She didn’t mean to be rude,’ Marc said. He hopped off stage a
nd dropped to his haunches to bring him level with the kids. ‘All right, tiny person. What did you like?’

  Tinuviel tilted her head with the air of a true critic. ‘Well… I liked when you did magic.’ She giggled. ‘And when the moustache lady kicked you inna bum.’

  Marc nodded gravely. ‘Good, because it hurt. Anything else you think we should do when we act it at Christmas?’

  Tinuviel pondered.

  ‘Pokémon,’ she said.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘You should of had Pokémon in it. Oh, and Octonauts!’

  ‘We’ll see what we can do.’ Marc looked round the group. ‘What about the rest of you? Any suggestions?’

  ‘Good with them, isn’t he?’ Yolanda whispered to me.

  ‘He listens to them,’ I said. ‘Kids want to feel they’re being taken seriously.’

  ‘T-Rex,’ Pip’s friend Harry said.

  ‘What, T-Rex the dinosaur?’ Marc asked.

  ‘Yeah. That’s the best dinosaur. T-Rex means king of the dinosaurs so you know it’s the best one. Everyone’d be like, arghhh!’ Harry clawed his fingers and bared his teeth. ‘Like, arghhhhhhh!’

  ‘You getting this, Becks?’ Marcus said. I nodded, jotting down ‘T-Rex, like arghhh!’ on my notepad.

  ‘Any more?’ Marcus said to the kids.

  ‘Baby Jesus,’ one little lass said. ‘You gotta have him if it’s Christmas.’

  ‘That’s for nativities, sweetie,’ Yolanda said.

  ‘You gotta have Baby Jesus at Christmas,’ the child repeated stubbornly. She puffed herself up. ‘Last year I was Mary and I had him. Hid him in my dress so’s he could pop out when Miss said and I put him in his manager.’

  ‘Manager?’ Marcus said.

  ‘’S’like a cot what cows eat their tea off.’

  ‘Oh, right. That sort of manager.’

  ‘And there was a donkey that done a poo,’ the child said gravely. ‘And it chewed our Jackson’s tea towel. He was a shepherd.’

  Marcus shot a questioning glance at Colin, who nodded. ‘The primary got a real donkey for last year’s nativity. It, er, didn’t go so well.’

  ‘Will there be a donkey what poos in the pantomime?’ Tinuviel asked hopefully.