Chapter 1

“No,” I said. “No way.”

I’d had a crappy day on the phone receiving nothing but ‘sorry Mr Cooper, you haven’t been successful this time, you’re the wrong man for this part’, then the additional information I was too young/tall/fat/thin/cute/not-remotely-cute/desperate/delete where applicable, and call us again in the new year. I badly needed consolation hot chocolate, it was bitterly cold in the village church hall, and I’d discovered my left boot wasn’t fully waterproof when I crunched through the sudden fall of snow in the car park.

How long before sodden toes rotted and fell off, I wondered? I played a medieval beggar in a college production once, and that level of dirt and disease didn’t appeal in any era. I was too young at twenty-four to hobble, surely?

“Francis,” was all Mum said, in that wheedling way she had.

I wanted to add, forget it. Please. Let me crawl back into my cave of Eternal Self-pitying Gloom. I didn’t need this: I wasn’t suited for it. I wouldn’t do this if it were the last job on earth and the only other option was scrubbing out a septic tank in my pyjamas with a bald toothbrush…

But I wouldn’t, couldn’t, say that to my mother.

Not that she’d take any notice anyway. The village Christmas show was Rose Cooper’s grand project every year, and she had a way of making it work. Of making us all work.

“We’ll just see how it goes,” she said. She nudged me none too gently out of the wings of the stage. “Just step out there and get the sense of the theatre.”

“Mum, it’s not the London Palladium.” And I already knew theatre, didn’t I? I’d trained for years. Drama was my love, my dream, but nowadays, my nemesis. A year ago, and one modestly successful season in a popular TV soap, and I’d thought I was on my way to the top of my chosen profession. And then dad had fallen sick, I’d returned home to help mum nurse him in his last few months, and I’d had to refuse any job offers beyond the occasional voiceover or store opening.

Then the offers dried up of their own accord.

I didn’t blame dad’s illness, of course I didn’t. It was what it was, and Mum and I were both pleased—sadly—that we could be there for him. It had been good to spend time with her, too. I’d been in too many touring productions to be at home as much as I would have liked.

But all that didn’t stop me struggling to fight both grief and career disappointment.

“A Meadhurst Christmas production is just what you need. It will stop you brooding,” Mum said, her tone brisker. “This year you can give the production team the benefit of your professional experience.”

“Which bit do you think is relevant?” I sighed. “Enthusiastic voiceover for athlete’s foot cream? Cutting the ribbon at the new hairdresser’s in a Teletubby costume?”

“Sulking is unattractive at any age, Francis,” she said. “You need to be busy. And I need your help.”

I had to smile. Mum had never needed any help at all. And with such a limited population in our small Devon village, the main actors could probably have done the pantomime in their sleep by now.

“No.”

But then she got out the big guns.

“Please, Francis,” she said and squeezed my arm. “I need you.”

I paused, swamped full of love for her and the horrible time she’d been through this year.

“Excellent,” she crowed in triumph. “Take a seat in the stalls and we can start the casting auditions.”

Stalls? It was six folding chairs facing the rickety raised blocks that made up the stage. Still, the show would keep me occupied in the evenings, I supposed—

“And it’s not like you have an amour to distract you this year,” she said, a little too smugly.

“I’m enjoying my single status,” I said. Sounded unconvincing even to my own ears. Definitely grumpy. But that may have been to do with my potentially-rotting toes.

“Sorry, dear heart,” she said, this time with the gentle, lilting tone she’d retained even after her own stage career was over. “I didn’t mean to distress you. Maybe Santa will bring your true match this year.”

I snorted and decided to let the comment go. Santa hadn’t been part of my life since I was six and Dad tripped over the tree stand when he was secretly delivering the presents, and I learned a whole new vocabulary of Anglo-Saxon curse words.

And, basically, romance was the last thing on my mind. Not since my last boyfriend had barely slammed the door behind him in his haste to tour in the chorus for Technicolour Dreamcoat.

It was the very last thing, actually.

Definitely.