Love...Among The Stars: Book 4 in the Love...Series (Love Series) (20 page)

'Don't worry! I'll give it a wash,' I assure her, intending to do no such thing. If I introduce the costume to a wash cycle, there's every chance that at the end I'll have a few tattered pieces of yellow bathmat and half an orange sock. This would suit Poppy down to the ground, but wouldn't go down well with Mrs Carmoody one little bit.

'Why don't you go take it off again and I'll make sure it gets a nice clean?' I shamefacedly lie.

Once Poppy is back out of the costume, her mood lightens... a little.

'I have to stand on stage with Jake Potter,' she tells us. 'He's the other chicken.'

'Well that doesn't sound so bad,' I say.

Poppy shakes her head slowly back and forth, regarding me with a look of black doom. 'Jake Potter picks his nose and smells of wee.'

I have to confess that I'm starting to have some sympathy for Poppy's plight. I wouldn't want to spend forty five minutes stood on a stage in a moth eaten chicken costume, while a smelly boy stands next to me picking his nose.

There's every chance that Mrs Carmoody might actually be a poo head.

Still, a seven year
old's
ego and temperament are very fragile, so we must do our best to put on a brave face, and show Poppy how proud we are of her.

This starts with letting her eat all the turkey dinosaurs and potato waffles she can manage for tea. I don't even complain too much when she only eats half her broccoli. Frozen goes on the TV for the seventy
millionth
time, and I spend an unconstructive half an hour on EBay looking for chicken costumes.

The day of the Middle Park Infant School Summer Play rolls around quickly. Poppy's mood has grown more waspish as the days have gone by, so by the morning of the show, she is so bad tempered and thoroughly pissed off with the universe that it's rather like having a miniature, fair haired Basil
Fawlty
in the house.

'Eat your porridge Pops,' I tell her.

She jams a spoonful of the beige gunk into her mouth and mumbles something just on the edge of my hearing. The only words I can make out around her mouthful of porridge oats are 'chicken' and 'wee'.

She remains in this black temper for the rest of breakfast, despite all our efforts to pull her out of it.

'Come on Pops!' Jamie cries cheerfully up the stairs from the front doorway. 'You don't want to be late for school!' This is greeted with more heavy and loud footsteps from Poppy's bedroom, indicating that nothing would suit her more than being late for school today.

Eventually, I manage to pack the two of them off. Jamie is visiting his mother this morning before coming back at lunchtime to pick me up, so I have a couple of hours of blissful peace to get a bit of writing done.

I'm just hitting a purple patch of prose when Jamie walks in through the front door.

'How's it going?' he asks from the doorway to the spare bedroom we've converted into a study.

'Oh, fine. Got a good two thousand more words done. This chapter is finished.'

'Brilliant! I'll get on with the next one tomorrow.'

This is generally how we like to work - taking turns to write from the two different perspectives. I do the woman's side, Jamie does the man's. So far, it's proved to be very productive, and we can motor through an entire book in two months if we've got the bit between our teeth.

'How was Poppy when you dropped her off?' I ask him.

'A little ray of bright summer sunshine.'

'Really?'

'Hell no.
I had to resist the urge to sketch the sign of the cross as I opened the car door to let her out.'

'Did she take the costume?'

'Reluctantly. I had to make her swear she wouldn't 'lose it' in the nearest dustbin.'

I stand up and go over to give Jamie a hug and kiss.

'Well that's very nice,' he says with a smile.

'Yes it is. I just thought we could both do with a bit of happy time, before we have to enter the lion's den.' I think for a second. 'Or should that be chicken's den?'

Jamie laughs. 'I'm sure it won't be that bad, baby.'

For a moment we both fall into silence as we consider how factually accurate that statement is likely to be.

Jamie then breaks the rather contemplative mood with an idea I find myself one hundred percent in agreement with. 'We don't have to leave for a couple of hours. How about we have some
proper
happy time?' he says, waggling his eyebrows.

My eyes light up. I hadn't even thought about that when I decided to give my
hubbie
a kiss and cuddle a moment ago, but now he's put the notion in my head...

An hour later we're in the car and on our way to Middle Park School. My left leg is still slightly trembling, so I'm glad Jamie offered to drive.

The play is due to begin at 4pm, so by the time we reach the school's car park at twenty to, it's packed with cars. There will be plenty of doting parents at today's play, it seems. Jamie manages to find us a space next to a massive 4x4.

We park up and walk over to the school's entrance, which has something of a queue outside it, as the parents pay for tickets and shuffle their way in. Half the reason for putting this play on is to raise funds for the new gym roof, and I'm sure they'll have no problem reaching their target, given that each ticket costs £10.

'Ten bloody quid?' Jamie remarks. 'For a forty minute play involving a load of seven year olds?'

'Yep. Just grin and bear it,' I whisper, so as not to be overheard by anyone else in the queue. Being in the financial position we are these days, we are no longer allowed to complain when something seems too expensive. It's not British, and would be unseemly.

Jamie forks over a £20 note. 'What? No programme?' he says, when the girl behind the temporary kiosk hands him two badly cut paper tickets. She gives him a blank look.

'Just go in, Jamie,' I say with a slight tone of exasperation.

He does as he's told, mumbling 'rip off' under his breath as he does so.

We walk through the school, following the signs leading to the assembly hall, where the epic tale of Noah's fight against the elements will take place. The red curtains are drawn, hiding the stage beyond, and rows of plastic school seats are laid out in a rather haphazard fashion all the way along the hall itself.

We sit down a few rows from the front and settle ourselves in. I can't help but try to listen for the sound of Poppy's raised voice over the hubbub of parental chatter. You wouldn't think that a seven year
old's
voice could carry through thick curtains, and over the combined speech of a hundred adults, but when Poppy loses her temper, she'd give the lead singer of Iron Maiden a run for his money.

At precisely 4pm, old Mrs Carmoody the poo head emerges from one wing of the stage and shuffles her way over to where a microphone stand has been placed in the centre.

'Good afternoon parents,' she says in clipped, enunciated tones. If this woman wasn't teaching young gels how to walk with deportment and grace with a book on their head thirty years ago, I'd be flabbergasted. 'Welcome to our annual school play, involving the children of years one and two. I do hope you will all sit back and enjoy our retelling of the classic, wonderful Biblical story of Noah And His Ark.' Mrs Carmoody supplies us all with an indulgent smile. You can tell this is a pet project of hers. Not least due to the large crucifix hanging on a chain around her neck. 'So without further ado, let the curtains open and the entertainment begin!'

Carmoody flourishes one hand in the general direction of the wing she emerged from, before shuffling her way back towards it. As she does, the heavy red curtains starts to open with a protesting squeal from the runners hidden in the architrave.

Revealed is what looks to be a rather idyllic scene. Evidently some money has been spent on this production. There is a large, hand drawn backdrop of beige mountains and hills, set below a bright blue sky and blazing yellow sun. In front of this are four small huts arranged in a semi circle, all on rollers so they can be removed from the stage when required. Standing on the stage, and ready to go, are several small, scared children dressed in distinctly Middle Eastern clothing. One boy, taller than the rest, actually
is
Middle Eastern, and the poor sod looks more uncomfortable in the heavy rolled headdress he's been forced into than any of the others. The big bushy white beard stuck on his face isn't helping I'm sure. This, I presume, is our titular main character.

Standing next to him is the girl who got the part of Noah's wife over Poppy. At least I assume it is from the way she's awkwardly holding Noah's hand. For an irrational moment I want to leap out of my seat and go kick her in the arse, but I suppress my natural instinct to defend my child's honour, and pull a small bag of mints out of my handbag.

As I'm offering one to Jamie, more children appear on stage, all dressed as animals of one type or another. The costume quality of each is roughly on a par with that of the one my daughter has to endure for this production.

My jaw clenches around my mint imperial. This probably means we're about to see Poppy for the first time in all her bathmat glory.

Sure enough, a small person dressed as a chicken emerges from stage left, all flapping arms and bobbing head. It's not Poppy however. This must be the legendary nose picker Jake Potter. Behind him, not attempting to flap arms or head bob in the slightest is Poppy Helen Newman.

Can chickens scowl?

Can they stare at the world around them with barely concealed loathing?

Can they convey, through their stiff and unyielding body language, that the universe is a harsh and unforgiving place?

If the answer to these questions is yes, then my daughter is providing the most accurate interpretation of natural chicken behaviour in history.

'Oh good grief,' Jamie says in a quiet voice.

We both sink slowly in our seats.

From the right side of the stage a tiny boy appears in a white sheet with a gold halo parked on his head. He's carrying a scroll, which he holds up and reads out loud.
Very
out loud.

'Noah and his wife lived in a village!' the boy screams, as if he's the town crier letting everyone know the windmill's on fire. 'One day he was visited by God!' The boy pauses and looks across the stage expectantly. 'One day he was visited by God!' he repeats, even louder.

Another small boy is shoved onstage from the wings. He's wearing a big blue sheet, another badly stuck on white beard, and is carrying a silver lightning bolt made out of cardboard. It looks like Mrs Carmoody is a big fan of the old fashioned fire and brimstone type of creator, as favoured in the
old testament
.

'Noah, you will build an ark,' God mumbles into his beard. I very much doubt anyone past the fourth row can hear him. The atheist in me pipes up to remark that it's still more people than can hear the actual God, but I ignore it, as this really isn't the time or place for that kind of thing. 'There will be a flood, and everything will die,'
mumbly
God carries on, 'except the animals you take onto the ark with you, along with your family.'

As a storyteller myself I wholeheartedly approve of Mrs Carmoody's decision to get to the meat of the story as quickly as possible. Who needs
all that
tedious preamble?

Noah steps forward. 'Yes God. I will build an ark and take the animals and my family on it so we don't all die.'

This really is the most astute rendering of the story I think I've ever seen. I might hire Carmoody as our new editor.