Jules Wake - Covent Garden in the Snow - The most gorgeous and heartwarming Christmas romance of the year!

‘Merda’, he spat, throwing the phone with such force onto the table that it flew across to the back wall and bounced onto the floor.

The sudden action stirred me. ‘Pietro, I’m sorry but we have to go down. Now.’ I was quite impressed with how calm I managed to sound. Inside, it felt as if there was a bat trying to beat its way out of my chest. I had to get him backstage.

‘ Now . You expect me to go on stage now ?’ His hand touched his throat and he stood there with his head thrown back.

‘Yes,’ I said, feeling as if I’d stepped off a cliff and desperately hoping I sounded firm. Oh crap, he couldn’t not. Jeanie would kill me. She trusted me to get him there.

‘My vocal chords are far too tense. I’m too upset.’ He started towards one of the chairs, every inch the prima donna.

I tentatively touched his arm. ‘Not as upset as the audience, Pietro. Some of them may have waited years to see you. You can’t disappoint them.’

He straightened. Narrowing his eyes, he nodded.

‘Do it for them. Don’t let,’ I nodded to the phone discarded on the floor, ‘them win.’ I held open the door, standing back to let him through before following in his wake. He strode down the corridor, leaving me almost running to keep up. When he stopped suddenly, I cannoned into him. Whirling round, he grabbed my forearms in a tight grip and stared intently.

What now? With my arm clamped in his, I risked an agonised glance at my watch. Four minutes to curtain up.

‘You love your job,’ he fired at me. ‘It’s all you ever wanted to do?’

I nodded, thinking it could all be over if I didn’t take charge of him. He knew how much I loved my job.

Pietro’s hands gentled suddenly, his eyes filled with regret and something else.

‘Like you, this is all I ever wanted to do. My father, a poor man, worked the fields. A farmer. His voice. Bellissimo. He would have been greater than me but he never had the lessons. I needed lessons. The money to pay for the best lessons.’

I nodded, trying to be patient and not let my agitation show – he’d told me this many times before.

His usually flawless English deserted him. ‘Now… in…when a youth, I …’ he stopped and then whispered the rest.

I couldn’t help the gasp of surprise that whistled out next. Bloody hell!

The curtain went up two minutes late. The audience probably didn’t notice but the production crew knew. Backstage there was a noticeably tense atmosphere. Jeanie nodded and mouthed. ‘You OK?’

I held up crossed fingers and shook my head. Vince sidled over and gave me a quick hug.

‘God that was awful,’ I muttered into his ear. ‘Really thought he was going to refuse to go on. He’s really shaken up.’

Vince pulled a sympathetic face.

Thanks to the quick scales practice in the lift that I’d manage to coerce Pietro into doing, his voice settled quickly and soared in the theatre within the second bar. Hopefully the audience would forgive his quavery first few notes.

‘What the fuck do you think you are playing at?’ hissed a furious voice, pressing right up to me in the wings. Alison Kreufeld, Artistic Director and head honcho virtually had steam coming out of her ears.

‘I … I …’

‘That is fucking unforgivable. See me tomorrow. My office.’ With that she turned her back and disappeared through the stage door. When I looked around all the crew were absorbed in looking down at the floor.

Nursing a large G and T, I sat at the kitchen table resting my forehead on the wooden top. What a day. I wanted to cry. Why did scary, super superior Artistic Director, Alison Kreufeld, always manage to catch me doing something stupid or getting something stratospherically wrong? Like the time, in a fit of enthusiasm, I thought I’d impress her by doing a series of hair designs for the corps de ballet in Swan Lake. Only I hadn’t read her briefing notes properly. It was the Matthew Bourne all male production. She dined out on my stupidity for weeks.

And after a day like that I should have known better than to answer the phone. We still had a landline. Only three people used it. Felix’s mum, my mum and my sister.

‘Hello Tilly. It’s Christelle.’ I winced guiltily as I heard the carefully enunciated words, spoken as usual in her precise fussy way.

‘Hi, Christelle,’ I did my best to inject some enthusiasm into my tone. ‘How are you? Has your cold gone?’

‘Yes, thank you. It was several weeks ago, you know.’ Had it been that long?

‘Well, sometimes they linger,’ I said, determined to keep the conversation afloat. ‘How’s work? Are you very busy?’

‘Exceptionally. My caseload keeps growing. But I’m getting more and more of the high-profile stuff, which is a good sign.’

Idly, I straightened the photos on the mantelpiece. All of them were of me and Felix in various silly poses, accompanied by assorted friends. It struck me that in all of them, there was always someone else in tow. A day at the beach – Felix and five mates buried up to their necks in sand. Me and Felix and friends at Alton Towers. Felix and I, with three of his mates and their girlfriends, on the day he proposed.

‘It’s been an excellent week in chambers. We won an important case. Got a new clerk. Not terribly bright but I think he’ll get there. You know how it is with these people.’ She spoke, as always, in little staccato sentences.

‘Sure.’ I lied, feeling guilty. I had no more idea about what went on in my sister’s world than she did about mine. She was a legal eagle, a high flyer with straight A’s, a fabulous degree and apparently in the right chambers.

The second hand on my watch ticked its way around the face. Thirty seconds and we’d nearly exhausted our lines. Regret pinched at me. We had so little in common.

‘Maman hasn’t heard from you. It might be a good idea to call her. She won a bridge tournament. And Dad’s put his back out again.’

Resentment replaced regret. I didn’t need her reminding me. Mum was just as capable of calling me. Deliberately being flippant I said, ‘Poor Dad, back to the chiropractor. Must be love, I swear he spends more time with her than with Mum. Not that I…’

‘Tilly!’ Christelle’s voice was sharp with reproof.

‘Only joking,’ I said. My poor sister was a chip off the old block. A sliver of ice.

‘You’d better phone her.’ Christelle’s words were clipped with disapproval. ‘Now, lunch? Can you do Wednesday? One-thirty?’

What would she say if I turned around and said, ‘No, I can’t’? Maybe she’d be secretly relieved. Our lunches were hardly fun, Chardonnay-fuelled, gossip fests.

‘I think so…’ She was so well-organised she probably knew her schedule off by heart, even had appointments entered in her smart phone, whereas I wasn’t even sure where my antiquated brick was now.

‘Let me check. If it isn’t, I’ll let you know.’

‘The usual Café Paul. One-thirty. See you then. Try Tilly, not to be late.’

Familiar Tiggerish thumps made me lift my head as Felix bounded up the stairs to our first-floor flat and then the front door crashed shut as he yelled, ‘Missus, I’m home.’

‘I could murder a beer,’ he said as he burst into the kitchen. Pulling a bottle out of the fridge, he flicked off the top and took a long swallow without breaking a stride. He glanced at my glass. ‘More gin vicar?’ he asked.

‘No, this was a large already,’ I mumbled, toasting him with my half-full tumbler.

He dropped a brief kiss on my head and wriggled out of his favourite RAF style overcoat, tossing it over a chair, heedless when it slipped to the floor. Perching himself on the top of the kitchen counter, his legs swinging and bashing the cupboards, he studied my unhappy face.