Trisha Ashley - The Magic of Christmas

‘No I wasn’t!’ I exclaimed indignantly. ‘I—’

‘Ssh … afterwards,’ Nick said, a gleam in his slaty dark eyes, ‘they’re starting again.’

I gave him a glare and moved away, avoiding him for the rest of the entertainment, which isn’t easy when you’re enclosed in a small courtyard. I can’t say my mind was completely on the play either — or even on the refreshments, which just goes to show how churned-up and confused I felt.

But eventually I began to be caught up in the Mysteries again, just as I was every year.

Kylie was a subdued and modest Mary, with only one or two wisps of violently pink hair escaping from her hooded robe, and her fingernails unpainted. The huge rock that sparkled in the muted light on her engagement finger was not quite in role, though: Kylie had clearly got her man.

There were the usual moments of light relief during the Miracles: it didn’t matter that the audience had heard the lines before.

‘Get up, thou great lazy lummock,’ Jesus told the Lame Man forthrightly. ‘Pick up thy pallet and walk.’

‘I’ll be reet glad to, lad, ’tis no life for a man, this. What did tha say thy name wor?’ asked the Lame Man, getting up.

‘Jesus of Nazareth.’

‘Is that ower near Burnley?’

‘Nay,’ said Jesus, moving on to the next supplicant. ‘What’s t’matter wi’ him?’ he asked one of the disciples.

‘He can’t see owt, master.’

‘That’s reet,’ agreed the Blind Man. ‘But I believe thee can cure me and so my friends hath brought me here.’

‘I’ll touch thy eyes, and if thee believe, then thee will see. How many fingers am I holding up?’

‘All of ’em, Lord.’

The audience cheered, then sobered for the final darker scenes before the second interval. But once the curtain was drawn across the crucifixion scene (excellently performed by Gary Naylor) the holiday spirit returned and everyone headed for the refreshments to fortify themselves for the resurrection and the grand finale.

‘We’re happy, Lord, to see thee again,’ Faye said stolidly, in her role as Mary Magdalen. ‘Thee said that thee would come back and thou were right. Wilt thou stay awhile?’

‘Nay, I must get home to my Heavenly Father.’

‘Well, I reckon he’ll be reet glad t’see thee, and thou art done thy bit for mankind.’

‘My father hath many mansions, Mary, and all who believe in him will be welcome in t’Kingdom of Heaven.’

‘That’ll be proper champion, that will,’ Mary said gratefully.

‘I’ll be off then,’ Jesus said, suiting the action to the words, and Mary followed him behind the drawn curtain.

An angel appeared, the new white goose-feather patches on his wings glistening, and stood with one hand cupped to his ear, as if listening intently.

‘Here is my judgement, and the pure of heart need fear nowt,’ said Roly as Voice of God, refreshed and speeding up considerably now the finishing post was in sight.

‘What is thy wish, Lord?’ asked the angel.

‘That retribution shall visit the wrongdoers.’

‘Lord, it shall be done.’

‘Let it be so, for as the old year dies, another, Lazarus-like, rises anew. Our play is played out, our Mysteries unfolded,’ said God.

The angel, who’d been gazing vaguely up into the rafters, now turned to look directly at the audience and said weightily, ‘Look into t’mirror of thy heart and, if thou like not what thou see, then freshly start again, fer Christ died fer thee.’

God, as always, got the last word. ‘Heed my commandments. Keep thy conscience clear. Remember, I’ll see thee agin, this time next year!’

Going by the wild applause it was certainly another Middlemoss Mystery success, but more than one mystery had been enacted, revealed and resolved today. It had been a cathartic and exhausting experience, and the audience was subdued as they slowly began to leave, while I felt like a well-wrung-out dishrag.

‘Everyone involved in organising the play has been invited to the house for a hot toddy before we go home,’ Annie said, taking my arm and giving it a squeeze. ‘You’re coming too, aren’t you, Lizzy? Look, there’s Jasper going in. And I want to know all the details about Polly, too — did you really not know any of that was going to happen?’

‘No, of course I didn’t!’ I snapped, finding myself being swept through the kitchen and along the passage to the Great Hall, where the steaming silver punch bowl and a tray of sandwiches were laid out before a blazing log fire. ‘I’d have told you.’

Roly beckoned me across to where he was sitting with Delphine. ‘Well, my dear,’ he said, ‘that seems to have worked out for the best, doesn’t it? Justice for poor Tom has been served, and everything is sorted out satisfactorily.’

‘Is it?’ I said, slightly sourly.

‘You were very good as Eve,’ Delphine said kindly. ‘Quite beautiful in that costume.’

‘Yes, you’re much better with Nick as Adam,’ agreed Roly. ‘But if he isn’t playing it next year, he can take over as Voice of God.’

‘That was Lizzy’s last turn in the role, wasn’t it?’ Nick said, having come up behind me unobserved. ‘I’m not playing Adam to anyone else’s Eve.’

Roly looked from one to the other of us and, beaming, took our hands and clasped them together in his. (Theatricality also runs in the Pharamond bloodline.) ‘Let it be a New Year, a new beginning for both of you!’ he said sentimentally.

‘I don’t know what you mean, Unks,’ I said, trying and failing to loosen my hand from Nick’s strong grip. ‘And I’m afraid I’ll have to be going home now. Jasper?’

‘I’m going out again, to help clear up,’ Jasper said quickly. ‘I’ll see you later.’

‘I’ll walk you home, Lizzy,’ Nick said, ‘but first there’s something I want to show you.’

I couldn’t imagine what he’d got that I hadn’t already seen. But I let him lead me upstairs to the long gallery, switching on the wall lights as we went. He came to a stop in front of the portrait of an eighteenth-century Pharamond bride, who posed with one slender hand resting on a book — and on her finger, my ring. I just knew it was an old family piece.

‘There — you see?’ he said.

‘Nick, I can’t possibly keep a family heirloom, whatever Unks says. Please take it back!’ I protested, tugging it off my finger and handing it to him. He accepted it, then calmly took hold of my other hand and shoved it over the knuckle of my ring finger instead.

‘What on earth are you doing?’ I said, trying to pull away.

‘It’s the betrothal ring of the Pharamonds.’

‘I dare say it is, but we’re not betrothed—’

‘I think we are, and Unks thinks we are — so you’re outnumbered. Just as well he would never let Leila have the ring, because I’d never have got it back.’

I glared at him. ‘This isn’t the Middle Ages, so I do have a say in all this, Nick Pharamond — and I’m not engaged to you! You are an underhand, devious—’

‘Yes, I know,’ he said soothingly, pulling me close, ‘but I do love you. I think, deep down, I always did.’

‘You have a damned strange way of showing it!’

‘There wasn’t much point, when we were both married to other people … but the postcards showed I was always thinking of you. I never wanted quite to let go of you. And you kept them all.’

‘Only for the recipes,’ I said quickly, fighting a rear-guard action, for close proximity was scrambling my brain cells and weakening my knees, just as it so disastrously had on Bonfire Night. ‘Besides, we argue all the time and you despise my cooking!’