Cathy Kelly - Just Between Us

‘Promise?’

‘Cross my heart,’ Stella said gravely.

‘Quiet children!’ boomed a voice and the noise miraculously ceased. Mrs Sanders, the headmistress, had a commanding presence and when she spoke, people hopped to do her bidding. Suddenly, the angels were whisked away into a classroom for a final wing inspection, the shepherds were sent to the cloakrooms for one last pre-show visit, and the parents were told that everything was under control and would they please take their seats.

The hall was almost as noisy as the lobby had been, full of chattering parents and screaming little brothers and sisters who wanted to rush around and fight with other children. Hazel and Stella squeezed into seats halfway down and waited.

‘I wonder does Gwyneth Paltrow’s mother feel as nervous as this before a show?’ Stella said, twisting her handbag strap between shaky fingers.

‘Probably not. Don’t worry, they’re going to be fine,’ Hazel said. ‘They’re all word perfect. My only worry is that Becky will have a row with someone and hit them over the head with her tambourine. She’s so headstrong.’

‘It’s just a phase she’s going through,’ Stella tried to sound comforting.

‘She’s been going through that phase since she was a toddler,’ Hazel sighed. ‘If she’s like this at seven, imagine what she’ll be like when she’s a teenager. You do not know how lucky you are with Amelia; that child is so good. She puts Becky to shame.’

‘Shove up and make room, girls.’ It was Ivan, shivering from the cold.

Stella moved up a seat and tried to take her mind off her nerves by looking around.

She wasn’t the only single parent there, which was a relief, although there seemed to be more couples than normal. There were quite a few lone parents with children in Amelia’s class but, as it was Christmas, huge efforts had been made and people who usually only screamed at each other over the phone now sat side by side in icy silence for the sake of their children. Stella didn’t miss Glenn for her own sake but on occasions like this, she wondered how much Amelia’s heart ached for her dad.

‘OK?’ asked Hazel, giving her arm a squeeze. ‘You’re not getting the divorced Mummy guilts again, I hope?’

Dear Hazel. She was so perceptive, Stella thought fondly. She shook her head. ‘I’m fine, honestly.’

With a fanfare of trumpets from the school’s CD player, the performance began. It started with the babies of the school who trailed on nervously and all started to sing ‘Jingle Bells’ loudly and in different keys. With the school piano banging out tunes, and the various teachers in the wings urging their pupils on, the performers sang, giggled, sobbed and in one case, screamed their little hearts out. There was one dangerous moment when it looked as if the stable might collapse on top of the Baby Jesus, played by Tiny Tears in an elderly christening robe, but Mrs Sanders leapt onstage in time and pulled the stable backwards, averting the crisis. From halfway down the hall, it was hard to see. Parents kept hopping up and down in their seats to take photos and video footage and Stella was afraid she’d miss seeing Amelia. But when the angels crowded onto the stage, she immediately saw her daughter standing nervously between the beaming twins, and stood up and waved wildly at her. Please see me, she prayed silently as she waved.

‘Sit down,’ hissed someone behind her but Stella ignored the voice and kept waving.

Under her angel halo, Amelia’s expression was tense as she stared out at the unfamiliar sea of faces, the lights shining so brightly on the stage that she couldn’t see anything properly…and then suddenly she saw her mother’s frantic waving and everything was all right. Mummy was watching, Mummy was there. A huge smile lit up her little face. She looked at Miss Dennis who was at the front of the stage, ready to encourage her class to sing.

‘Ready children?’ said Miss Dennis.

Class 5 nodded earnestly and waited, eyes wide with anticipation, for their music to begin before launching into ‘Silent Night’ as they’d never sung it before.

All around the hall, parents went ‘aah’ and clutched each other’s hands with pride.

Stella felt the tears clouding her eyes as she watched Amelia singing her little heart out. With her big eyes shining like candles, Amelia was the picture of a Botticelli angel. Stella knew she wasn’t being biased – Amelia was the prettiest child there, for sure. And the most wonderful.

‘Aren’t they fantastic, Hazel,’ she said tearfully to her friend.

‘And the dog hasn’t peed on the stage yet,’ Hazel remarked.

Stella giggled but never took her eyes off Amelia. She was so very lucky. This mother-love, this was real love. The other sort of love, for a man, just couldn’t compete.

Four days later, Stella’s sister, Tara Miller, deeply in love with her husband of six months and deeply nervous about the awards ceremony she was attending, stood in the ladies’ room of the ultra posh Manon Hotel and hoisted up her dress for about the tenth time that evening. The problem with wearing a strapless evening gown and boob-enhancing plastic falsies – ‘chicken fillets’ to the initiated – meant that only industrial adhesive could keep everything in place. Toupee tape didn’t have a hope. The ladies’ cloakroom at the National Television & Radio Awards was full of famous TV stars, and was not the ideal place for major body repairs; however, Tara had no option but to reach down the front of her silver dress and manhandle each fillet up. ‘Built-in bra, my backside,’ she muttered at her reflection as she wriggled, hoping everything would fall into place in a vaguely booblike shape.

‘Ooh, Tara,’ cooed Sherry DaVinci, floating into view from one of the cubicles, ‘that dress is lovely.’

‘Thanks,’ said Tara faintly, as Sherry squeezed in beside her and unpacked half the Mac range from her Louis Vuitton evening purse. Tara could see why the casting director had been so keen to get Sherry DaVinci to play a sexpot hospital receptionist in the hit television soap opera, National Hospital. And it was nothing to do with Sherry’s acting ability.

Shoehorned into a clinging, gold, sequinned mini dress, Sherry was a porn-fan’s dream, her ample breasts sitting perkily under her chin like two tanned melon halves that threatened to escape at any moment. She didn’t need chicken fillets, Tara thought ruefully, comparing Sherry’s buxomness with her own flat chest.

‘Hi, Sherry,’ said a fellow soap beauty, smiling at Sherry in passing and ignoring Tara.

Feeling invisible, Tara wondered why the beautiful people weren’t given their own loos at glitzy events, so that ordinary, non-beautiful people didn’t have to face the perfection of the ‘talent’ when they were fixing their tights, rearranging falsies and painting gloss on thin lips. Not, Tara reflected, that Sherry was what you’d call talented. But she pulled in the viewers and she was a sweet girl. Her limitations only became obvious when you were a script writer trying to write lines she wouldn’t screw up. As a storyline editor and one of the team of contributing writers on National Hospital, Tara spent a lot of time writing lines which Sherry then delivered with all the élan of the postman delivering a credit card bill. Which all went to prove that looks weren’t everything, as Isadora, Tara’s colleague, muttered bitchily every time Sherry fluffed her lines.

Feeling as if she’d better make an effort, Tara investigated the contents of her handbag (black satin, borrowed, no visible logo). Underneath her mobile phone and a notebook and pen in case she had any brilliant ideas for the love triangle storyline she was working on, was a red lipstick, a very elderly concealer and her glasses case.