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Sid pulled it to his nose and sniffed ‘What’s wrong with it?’
‘I don’t mean it’s skanky. It’s the picture.’
‘What’s wrong with the picture? Dragon Slaying Vampires are a great band.’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘I’m not sure a half-naked woman with enormous breasticles, standing on top of a dragon’s severed head in a giant pool of blood, is really appropriate for an octogenarian. Do you?’
‘Oh,’ said Sid. ‘I suppose not.’ He shrugged. ‘I’ll keep my jacket on.’
‘Yeah, good luck with that.’
Sid was the reporter on the Greenley Gazette and Lottie was his photographer. Over the years they had covered every sort of local issue from the first day at school to hardcore crime and had learnt that old ladies over the age of seventy love to have the heating on. And it was already turning into a surprisingly sunny February day.
Lottie peered up at the clear blue sky and soft white clouds overhead. She loved living in Greenley-On-Sea, especially on days like this. The sun shone brightly, and the air was crisp and clean carrying a hint of salt from the sea. The streets were full of children on their way to school, laughing and giggling at what the day might hold in store.
‘You were late again,’ she said, teasingly.
Sid pointed to two takeaway cups in the cup holders. ‘I stopped to get coffee.’
‘Aww, thanks.’ She sipped the skinny mocha savouring the tang of coffee and sweet hit of chocolate, then removed the lid to swipe up some of the whipped cream.
‘I have no idea why you have it made with skimmed milk and then put cream on top.’
‘Because,’ said Lottie, popping the lid back on, ‘I can convince my brain that whipped cream is mostly air and therefore has no calories and skinny milk is mostly water, so really, it’s not that bad for me. In fact, on a day like this it’s actually good for me. I’m hydrating.’
Sid’s deep set hazel eyes under slightly too bushy eyebrows looked at her sceptically. She’d known him all her life and he knew her better than anyone else in the entire world, especially since Elsie, her nan, had passed away just after Christmas. She felt a familiar stab of grief tighten her throat but pushed it down. ‘Do you want to have lunch at mine today?’
‘Have you got any decent grub?’
‘Sidney Evans, you only ever think about your stomach.’ Lottie smiled and considered the sparse remains in the fridge. ‘Beans on toast?’
‘Yeah, alright.’
They were now in the posh part of town where old white Georgian houses with large sash windows lined the roads, but before long they would be out the other side back to the normal houses. ‘So who’s this old dear we’re seeing this morning?’
He bobbed up and down in excitement. ‘Mrs Harker and her opera-singing parrot.’
Lottie stared. ‘Opera?’
‘Yep.’
She blinked. ‘Oh.’
‘I know. I love my job,’ Sid replied, beaming as if it was Christmas.
Sid parked the car in front of an ordinary mid-terrace house. A neat front garden with a small path led them to a plain white front door. Lottie climbed out first. ‘I think I’ll get a photo of Mrs Harker outside holding the parrot. It’ll be a nice juxtaposition of the ordinary and the extraordinary.’
Sid tutted. ‘You take this all far too seriously sometimes.’
They walked to the door and Sid gave a cheerful knock. A petite woman in her eighties wearing a floral dress and long beige cardigan opened the door. ‘Good morning.’
‘Good morning, Mrs Harker. I’m Sid Evans, from the Greenley Gazette, and this is my photographer, Lottie Webster.’
‘Come in, won’t you?’ asked Mrs Harker, leading the way.
Lottie followed Sid into the porch and was immediately struck by the heat. It was like having a boiling hot flannel shoved on her face. She looked at Sid and grinned as a redness crept over his cheeks. It was going to be fun watching him cook, a little bit of payback for last week when they’d done the weekly shop together and he’d kept secretly adding things to other people’s baskets. She’d giggled at the time but it was quite embarrassing when he got caught. Of course, he’d come clean and charmed his way out of it while Lottie hid at the end of the aisle, peering round from the pick ’n’ mix.
As they entered the living room, Lottie slipped her coat from her shoulders and spotted a cage with a bright red parrot perched inside. The bird didn’t move and for a moment, Lottie worried it was stuffed. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d interviewed a crazy person.
‘I understand,’ said Sid, ‘that you have a very unusual parrot, Mrs Harker?’
‘Oh, yes, Mr Neville is very talented.’
‘Mr Neville?’ repeated Sid. Lottie recognised from the twitch in his cheek a grin was pulling at his mouth.
‘Yes, Mr Neville’s my parrot. He sings Tosca.’
Sid nodded. ‘And can we see this talent in action?’
Lottie readied her camera as Mrs Harker approached the CD player and switched it on. The music started and Mr Neville, as if by magic, came to life. He opened his wings and rocked on his feet as he screeched in unison with the music. Lottie lifted her camera and took some shots. Calling it singing was going a bit far, but it was certainly entertaining. A moment later, Mrs Harker switched off the music and Sid conducted the interview.
‘Well, thank you very much, Mrs Harker,’ he said when he’d finished. ‘That’s quite a parrot you’ve got there.’
‘He’s great, isn’t he?’ she replied, opening his cage to take him out. ‘Did you want to take your coat off, young man? You look a little bit hot.’
‘No, thanks. I’m fine,’ said Sid, wiping his top lip.
Lottie repressed a laugh.
‘I was so sorry to hear about your grandmother passing, Miss Webster,’ said Mrs Harker.
Lottie paused as a shiver ran down her spine. ‘You knew my nan?’
‘Yes, dear, I went to school with her and we played bingo together for years. She was a lovely woman.’
‘Yes, she was.’
‘It was wonderful what she was trying to do for the town, she was always working hard to make a difference. Such a shame she never quite got the theatre going again.’
Lottie opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Grabbing the bottle of water Sid offered, she took a big drink.
‘Did Mrs Webster talk much about the theatre?’ Sid asked. He must have seen her impression of a goldfish and stepped in.
‘Oh yes, she had grand plans. Elsie was going to make it like it was when we were young. Get the community involved again. I think that was where she met your granddad, Miss Webster.’
Lottie’s eyes darted to Mrs Harker’s face. She had no idea that was why the theatre meant so much to her nan. From the depths of her mind she remembered Elsie telling her the story. How she spotted him from across the aisle and that was that. Love at first sight. Lottie had responded by saying how lovely and picking up her book, burying herself in another time, another place. She bit her lip feeling ashamed.
‘All the bingo club were behind her, you know. Johnnie, the caller – the guy who calls out legs eleven and two fat ladies, and all that – he said that we could move back there when Elsie finished renovating it.’
Lottie tightened her grip on the water bottle and swallowed. She needed to get outside into the fresh air. ‘I think, Mrs Harker, it would be a lovely idea to get a picture of you and Mr Neville in front of your house, if you don’t mind?’
‘Not at all, dear,’ she replied, admiring Mr Neville and stroking his feathers. ‘Are you sure you’re alright? You look quite pale.’
‘Yes, I’m fine, thank you.’ Lottie’s voice was high and squeaky. Her hand shook as she clicked the camera, but finally, after a few attempts, she had the shot.
Sid escorted Mrs Harker back to her door and said goodbye as Lottie climbed into the car and pulled another bottle of water from her camera bag. She watched Sid remove his jacket and move round to the driver’s side to get in.
‘Okay, you were right,’ he said, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. ‘I was absolutely roasting in there. Why do old dears always have the heating on? I mean, I know it’s still chilly, but come on.’ He looked at Lottie, his furrowed brow accentuating his crooked nose. ‘Are you alright?’
‘I am now I’m out of there.’
‘Was it the bit about your nan?’
Lottie stared at him in disbelief. ‘Of course it was! I wasn’t so impressed by an opera-singing parrot I nearly fainted.’
‘Alright,’ he said sarcastically. ‘I was just checking.’
Lottie pushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear. If Sid wasn’t so genuinely clueless when it came to women she would have been cross with him. ‘Sorry. I know I’m being unbearable at the moment.’
His cheeky grin returned. ‘That’s okay.’
‘It’s just that, I knew the theatre meant a lot to Nan, but I …’
‘What?’ asked Sid, softly.
She shook her head, unable to steer her brain into forming a sentence. A familiar wave of grief and sadness washed over her, tinged with panic and fear at what she was being asked to do.
‘Listen, Lots. I know you don’t want to deal with your nan’s letter but I think we have to. You can’t keep ignoring it.’
Elsie’s final gift to her hadn’t been at all what Lottie had expected and she had no idea how to deal with it. ‘There’s nothing to talk about, Sid. I’m not doing it and that’s final.’
‘But, Lottie, your nan must have thought this was what you needed. You can’t keep shoving your head in the sand and pretending it never happened.’
She crossed her arms over her chest. ‘Yes, I can.’
‘No, you can’t.’ Sid ran his hand through dark curls that maintained a stubborn unruliness no matter how short they were cut. If Sid was her type – which he wasn’t – she might have thought him handsome in a geeky way. ‘I’m not trying to annoy you.’
‘I know you’re not. You don’t need to try.’ She gave a weak smile.
Sid started the engine and began to drive off. ‘But why leave you a letter? Why not just ask?’
Lottie shrugged. ‘Nan knew full well that if she asked me face to face I’d tell her to bog off.’
‘And stomp off out of the room,’ he said teasingly.
She turned to him and widened her eyes in fake surprise. ‘I don’t do that.’
‘Yes, you do.’ He smiled. ‘But it’s fine, I don’t mind. I just don’t understand what you’re afraid of.’
Lottie opened her Easter egg and broke off a piece of chocolate, waving it in the air as she spoke. ‘Oh, I don’t know, making a fool of myself in front of the entire town, letting Nan down, everyone laughing at me.’
‘No one would laugh at you, Lottie.’
‘Despite what Nan thinks—’ Lottie felt her heart twinge, the words catching in her throat. ‘What Nan thought, I quite like my life.’
Sid looked at her sceptically. ‘You like being safe, Lottie, that’s not the same thing.’
‘But what if I take over the theatre and make things worse?’
‘How can you?’ Sid glanced at her quickly before turning his eyes back to the road. ‘What could you possibly do to make it worse? Burn the place down? Blow it up? You’re not planning on blowing it up, are you?’
Lottie scowled.
‘Oh, I know,’ he continued in a mocking tone. ‘You’re going to run National Front rallies, or host puppy kicking competitions?’
‘No, but—’
‘It’s a small local theatre for a small quiet town. Not a top notch, swanky London showbiz place.’
Lottie cocked her head and broke off another piece of chocolate. ‘But I don’t know how to do this.’ Her voice was rising and she pulled it back. It wasn’t Sid’s fault. ‘I’m not a project manager, I have no idea how to be a chairman and do chairman-type things. And, I know absolutely nothing about theatres.’
‘But you are ridiculously bossy.’
‘No I’m not, I’m just … organised.’
Sid’s face broke into a wide grin and he grabbed her hand, giving it a squeeze. ‘You can do this, Lottie, I know you can. Just give it a chance.’
Lottie ate another piece of chocolate.
‘The thing is, Lottie,’ he continued, ‘your nan was right. You do need to get out more. I mean, when was the last time you had a boyfriend?’
‘When was the last time you had a girlfriend?’ she countered.
‘It was 2003, but this isn’t about me.’
Lottie repressed a smile. ‘You were twelve in 2003.’
‘Yep, but I’m perfectly happy with my life; you’re not and you haven’t been for ages.’
Lottie folded her arms over her chest. It was true. She had been feeling restless for a long time now. But when her nan became ill, she’d retreated even further into her safe, quiet life. It wasn’t that she didn’t like people, she did. She’d just never quite got around to getting a social life, that was all. ‘What’s your point?’
‘I think if you stopped looking at everything so negatively you’d see this could be good fun.’ Sid was always trying to chivvy her up.
Lottie toyed with her camera, opening and closing the lens, her mind racing. ‘I’ve got to do this, haven’t I?’
‘We have,’ said Sid, smiling at her. ‘I’ll be there for you.’ He stopped at a junction. ‘Shall we head to yours now? We can have lunch and start coming up with a plan to get you on the committee.’
Lottie checked her watch. ‘It’s only half eleven.’
