One Week ’Til Christmas. Belinda Missen
half a Google Map and a set of eyes could tell you a cab wouldn’t cut it in the middle of London. Not today. Not ever.
As for award-winning photos? While travel allowed me to indulge in my mistress of photography, if ever I’d won a prize for it, nobody had told me.
‘All right, okay,’ I said, as if I had absolutely any choice in the matter. ‘You do realise that I’m supposed to be on leave, don’t you?’
‘Just know that I adore your commitment to the Melbourne Explorer,’ he said.
‘You owe me an extra day. Or, you know, actual money so I can pay my bills,’ I said.
‘I’ll even buy you a slice of your favourite cake when you get back.’
If that were true, he’d be buying me mango and macadamia cheesecake and not one of Coles Finest chocolate mud cakes every time he ‘nipped out’ to the shops near the office, but beggars can’t be choosers, and cake was cake.
I unplugged my phone, threw my backpack over my shoulder and raced down the stairs. ‘I’ll have it through in, say, twenty-four hours?’
‘There’s that Christmas spirit. Thanks Iz, you’re a keeper, you are!’
Yes, I bloody well was.
I hadn’t even left home and I was already running late. I didn’t check to see if I had everything I needed before I stole Estelle’s leather jacket and made my way to the Tube at Sloane Square. By the time I made it to the street corner, snow was falling, and the neighbours were arguing as they tried to pull a fir tree through their front door. Fronds and needles littered the footpath but, boy, did it smell great.
And that was about as Christmassy as I was likely to get today.
I hadn’t been to the theatre since a compulsory high school trip where we were told Macbeth would hold the answers to life, or at least our English essay due later that week. Immediately afterwards, we were spat out into local parkland to eat squashed sandwiches for lunch that were picked off by seagulls the size of chihuahuas. To add insult to injury, I failed my essay. Was it any wonder I’d sworn off theatre since?
As I hurried along the Southbank, I grew not so silently jealous of the winter market, which was bustling with all things yuletide. I could almost taste the freshly baked, sugar-dusted mince pies that still bore the bite of whiskey, not to mention the orange and berry scent of mulled wine. Hell, I’d give anything for something as simple as a hot chocolate with a few marshmallows right now.
It held much more promise than the National Theatre, which was an imposing grey beacon over the Thames. Even the sky was a brighter shade of mid-winter white, the sun hidden somewhere behind it all. I wrinkled my nose, curled my lip. Bloody Edwin.
It was just my luck that he hadn’t emailed me yet. I considered turning around and going home, bodging up a piece full of pull quotes from old articles and stock images, except I couldn’t remember the actor’s name in a fit. Also, the guilt would kill me quicker than two-day-old takeaway, so Edwin had that on his side.
So, here I was, going in blind.
Smile plastered on, press pass in hand, I made myself known to the burly security guard by the door. With his head gleaming under fluorescent lights and polo shirt pulled tight around his biceps, he looked like a charity store Dwayne Johnson.
‘You don’t look much like an Edwin,’ he commented, flipping papers on his clipboard. ‘Isobel.’
‘Yeah, see, I shaved my beard off this morning.’ I bounced nervously on the spot.
He narrowed his eyes at me and snatched up my pass. ‘What?’
‘Never mind,’ I mumbled. ‘Edwin should have rung to confirm. Or maybe he emailed? See—’ I tapped my pass ‘—I’m from the same newspaper. We’re really very good quality. Paper … of … the year.’
We really weren’t. In fact, I don’t think we’d ever been nominated.
Mr Security turned and walked away, mumbling into his walkie talkie and casting suspicious glances my way, brows tripping over themselves in confusion. Well, my fly wasn’t undone (I’d checked), I’d brushed my hair (with my fingers) and I’d stuffed half a packet of gum in my mouth on the Tube, but maybe there was still gutter mud on my backside. I did a very subtle feel about the seat of my pants as he walked away. No, all good.
A few, ‘Are you sure?’s later, he ambled his way back and handed me my press pass.
‘Right this way … Miss Bennett.’
I smiled tightly, and followed him through the foyer of the theatre, past posters for new shows that barely registered and a bookshop that pulled at me with the preternatural strength of an ACME magnet, and into the fittingly titled Olivier Theatre. Theatre might not have been my thing, but I knew who Sir Laurence Olivier was.
The rear door swept open to reveal stunning velvet seats set in steep tiers that fanned around and forced your attention in one direction: the stage. Today’s ensemble was simple. Two seats, a small table, and two glasses of water which were being eagerly replaced by someone balancing a clipboard in one hand and a pitcher in the other. Another journalist passed me on the stairs. She offered the dewy-eyed, flushed-cheek look of a teenage girl at a boyband concert, eyebrows up near her hairline as she continued nattering excitedly into her phone. If she were a cartoon, her heart-shaped eyes might pop from her head and she’d thump her foot on the floor.
‘… It seems like, right now, Tom Bracken has all the right moves.’ She winked at me. ‘Risky business, he is not.’
I clicked my fingers as realisation hit. Tom Bracken. That was his name.
My gaze followed her as she disappeared back up through the stalls and out of the theatre. If, in the next few moments, Tom Bracken happened to slide out of the wings in just his socks and a business shirt, I’d call Edwin to thank him for this assignment. Hell, I’d even buy him a drink or two. That would make my day, and then some.
The stage remained empty as I climbed the steps and arranged myself in one of the chairs on stage. I placed my recording device on the table, checked my email one last time and was relieved to find some notes from Edwin had finally come through. Then … I waited. When it looked like I was on my own for a while, I dug about my bag for my camera and the best lens and snapped a few random shots of the theatre.
Atmospheric. I scribbled on my notepad. Edwin would love that. He loved buzzwords like ants loved picnics.
I sneaked looks at the activity in the wings. A smartly dressed dark-haired man had his back to me as people gathered around him; one for reminders, another for a tease of the hair, and his own hands at his throat in that tell-tale move that said, ‘Be right there, just straightening my tie.’ It was momentarily fascinating and I noted what I saw, even if it did feel slightly voyeuristic.
Character. It would add some flavour to my story.
When the moment finally arrived, Tom Bracken crept slowly out onto the stage, backwards, still chatting to the attendant by the curtain. She smiled coquettishly at him. One final comment about it being almost the end of the day and, as he got closer, his footwork resembled a dance more than a stroll.
‘Good afternoon, Merry Christmas and all that. I’m Tom, lovely to meet—’ he turned slowly to face me as I stood to meet him ‘—you?’
‘You?’ I echoed, loudly enough that I heard my own voice call back to me from the rear of the theatre.
Life stopped; I was sure of it. Earth stopped spinning, gravity ceased to be, and the stage floated from beneath my feet like I’d thrown myself from the International Space Station. Behind me, I heard the footsteps of security get closer, and the attendant in the wings stepped forward apprehensively.
It