Nativity Play

An extract from Chapter 3:

‘Vicky,’ she said, speaking slowly and making signs with her hands. ‘Please show Mr Johns and his grandchildren to the front of the hall.’

‘Yes, Mrs Beddoes,’ the girl nodded, putting down the papers on the shelf over a radiator and making some hand gestures of her own. Then she picked up one of the leaflets and held it out towards Peter. ‘Have a programme please,’ she said carefully. Then, after Peter had accepted it, she added, ‘This way!’ and turned round to lead them through swing doors into a wide room with chairs ranged in curved rows around a central space.

‘Why did they wave their hands around like that?’ asked Ricky as the girl marched to the front of the room and stood waiting for them to join her.

‘She can’t hear or speak very well,’ Gavin explained. ‘She uses her hands to talk to people.’

He placed himself in front of Vicky and looked down into her face. ‘Thank you,’ he said, raising his hand to his chin and then moving it away from his face in a short outward gesture.

‘You’re welcome!’ Victoria replied slowly with slightly exaggerated movements of her lips suggesting that she was concentrating hard. She lifted her own hand to her chin and brought it down and out in a similar movement.

Then she gave Peter a nervous smile and hurried back towards the foyer.

Peter positioned Abigail’s pushchair out of the way at the side of the room, between the wall and a piano. He lifted her out and peeled off her pink fur-lined jacket. He placed her on one of the child-sized chairs that stood in a row at the front of the room and then turned to Ricky. ‘Let’s take your coat off too. It’s hot in here.’

Ricky allowed Peter to remove his gloves and duffle coat but insisted on keeping on the red woolly hat decorated with a pattern of green holly leaves, which a friend of his mother’s had recently knitted for him.

‘It’s my Christmas hat!’ he insisted loudly.

Peter folded the coats and pushed them into the storage space at the back of the buggy.

‘Now sit down, Ricky,’ he urged, pointing towards the seat next to Abigail. ‘The show will be starting soon.’ He turned to Gavin. ‘We’d better sit behind the kids. We won’t fit on those chairs and nobody will be able to see if we do.’

They took off their own coats and hung them over the backs of two of the adult chairs on the second row before sitting down immediately behind Ricky and Abigail.

‘Don’t worry, Abbie,’ Peter reassured his granddaughter, seeing her looking round anxiously. ‘I’m right behind you.’

The hall was starting to fill up now. Most members of the audience were women – mothers of the children who were performing, Peter assumed – some with young children accompanying them. The few men all seemed to be with their wives. It appeared that Peter and Gavin were the only unattached males. Peter smiled to himself as the thought occurred to him that people might suspect them of being a couple – except that Gavin seemed to know some of the parents who were coming in and hurrying to their seats. Several of them smiled and waved towards him and one or two came across to express sympathy at Kenny’s death. It seemed that his ex-colleague must be a regularly visitor to the school.

There was a sound of children’s voices outside a pair of doors at the side of the room. Then they opened and a woman dressed in a long black dress came in and walked across the space in front of the rows of chairs to take up her position at the piano. She was followed by Christine Hughes, wearing a red cable-knit sweater and a green skirt over black boots.

‘She hasn’t taken her hat off!’ Ricky remarked loudly, pointing at her red hat topped with a white pom-pom.

She was followed by a line of children. They filled the front row of seats. Some sat on the floor in front. Several children in wheelchairs took up positions on either side of the rows of chairs. Two more members of staff came in and helped the children to settle in their places. Then Mrs Hughes stood up at the front of the room facing the audience. She looked round, first at the front row and then at those further back. Everyone fell silent as each felt her eyes resting on them. When she was sure that she had their full attention, she spoke in a clear commanding voice.

‘Ladies and Gentlemen! Welcome to our Nativity Play! The children have all been practising very hard and I’m sure you will enjoy it. Before we start, I just have to run through the usual housekeeping notices. The toilets are in the foyer, where you came in. The fire exits are the doors which you came through and the doors at the front.’ She indicated the doors through which the children had entered. ‘In the unlikely event that the fire alarm goes off, please make your way to the assembly point, which is in the visitors’ car park. We will be serving refreshments after the play, so please stay for a cup of tea or coffee. After that, if you have children in the school you may take them home, but please make sure that their teacher knows that you’ve done so. We don’t want to think we’ve lost anyone!’

She scanned the room again, checking that her message had been received. Then she signalled to someone at the back before sitting down in a chair near the piano. The lights dimmed. For a few moments there was silence. Then came the familiar sound of coconut shells being tapped together to simulate a donkey’s hooves. The doors from the foyer opened and heads turned to see a little procession entering.

The piano struck up the introduction to “Little Donkey”. Ricky wriggled in his seat with delight and he joined in as the children sitting at the front began to sing his favourite carol. Then his mouth dropped open and he fell silent, as Mary and Joseph reached the front of the room and crossed the “stage” in front of him.

‘Mary’s got a chair like Jonah’s!’ he called out in tones of awe, turning round to speak to Peter and then turning back to stare as a boy dressed in a long tunic and the traditional tea towel headdress walked slowly from left to right across the room leaning on a sturdy wooden staff, one foot dragging slightly. In his other hand he held a rope, which was attached to the neck of a surprisingly realistic stuffed fabric donkey’s head strapped ingeniously to the front of an electric wheelchair.

Its occupant was a small girl with brown skin, wearing a long blue dress and a white headscarf. Behind thick glasses, her face had an expression of deep concentration as she steered the chair round in a wide circle and brought it to a stop outside a gaily-painted plywood Wendy house, which for the purposes of the play had a cardboard sign “INN” attached over the door. The music stopped and a small boy emerged.

‘No room!’ he announced in a loud voice.

‘It’s got a tail too!’ exclaimed Ricky, suddenly noticing the length of grey plaited wool ending in a black tuft, which was attached to the back of the girl’s wheelchair.

Peter felt the colour rising to his cheeks as all eyes turned towards his grandson. He leaned forward and whispered in Ricky’s ear, ‘Yes, but don’t talk. You’ll put the kids off.’

‘No room!’ the boy repeated, a little impatiently now.

‘But we have travelled all the way from Nazareth,’ protested Joseph, picking up his cue after the interruption, ‘and my wife is going to have a baby.’

‘The inn is full,’ insisted the innkeeper, ‘but there is a stable round the back. You can sleep there.’

‘Thank you!’ responded Joseph thankfully (whether with gratitude for the accommodation or relief that his speaking part was over, Peter could not be sure).

He moved off again, the wheelchair donkey following behind. The lights dimmed and, under cover of darkness, two teachers stepped forward to rearrange the walls of the Wendy house and bring on a wooden box containing straw. The piano struck up “Once in Royal David’s City” and the children began singing again.

When the carol was over, the lights came up to reveal the interior of the Stable. Mary (her chair now without its donkey head and tail) and Joseph were sitting on either side of the manger gazing self-consciously down at a doll lying in the straw, wrapped in a white shawl. They were surrounded by children dressed in animal costumes: a donkey, two bovine creatures with fearsome looking horns, and a camel. The pianist played the introduction to “Away in a Manger” and the singing began again, with Ricky joining in enthusiastically.

The play continued predictably, if not quite conventionally. Tea-towel adorned shepherds gasped in astonishment at the appearance of angels wrapped in white sheets with tinsel wings and halos, before hurrying off, round the back of the audience and down the other aisle to reach the stable to present the infant Jesus with a knitted lamb (one of Chrissie Hughes’ creations, perhaps?), all to the accompaniment of “While Shepherds Watched”. The wise men all made their appearance riding wheelchair camels, and one of them used an electronic voice machine to announce that he brought frankincense to give to the baby. Finally, the children who were sitting on the front row and the floor got up and joined the cast at the front of the room to sing “We wish you a Merry Christmas!” at the tops of their voices.

Everybody applauded and several parents stood up to take photographs. Ricky also slipped off his seat and stood clapping enthusiastically until Mrs Beddoes stepped forward and held up her hand for silence.

‘Thank you. Thank you!’ she said, smiling round at them all. ‘And I know you’ll all join me in thanking the children for putting on such a splendid show. And thank you Mrs Perkins for playing the piano. And a very special thank you to Mrs Hughes who wrote and directed and organised everything.’

Mrs Hughes joined her in the centre of the stage and Mrs Beddoes led the audience in another round of applause, while nodding urgently towards a point at the side of the room hidden from view by the piano. As the clapping began to die away, she walked briskly across and shepherded out a small girl carrying a large bouquet of flowers, guiding her across the stage to present them to the producer of the play, accompanied by a resurgence of applause.

Mrs Hughes smiled down as she received the flowers. ‘Thank you, Rosie. These are lovely.’ She looked up to address the audience. ‘And thank you all for coming. The children really do appreciate it. They’ve worked so hard these last few weeks.’

‘Now, I’m afraid we can’t offer you figgy pudding,’ Mrs Beddoes intervened. (A titter of laughter went round the room at this reference to the final carol.) ‘But we do have tea and coffee and nibbles coming, which I hope you’ll all stay to help us eat. I’d specially like to recommend the cheese straws, which Mrs Hughes made with her class this morning – as if she didn’t have enough to do rehearsing the play and getting everyone into their costumes! So if you can all stay in your seats for a few more minutes while we bring them in …’