school. If she wants to stop me she'll have to speak, unless she grabs me. She does neither, and I dash after two sets of parents or at any rate two couples to the assembly hall.
The ranks of folding seats are almost full. A man has planted a small boy on his shoulders so that the toddler can see the stage, which is divided by a partition containing a door. The left half of the stage is bare, while the right has a backdrop of a night sky with a single enormous star. As I search for Natalie I seem to glimpse on the edge of my vision the toddler performing a handstand on the man's shoulders and then a somersault. I haven't time to look, to prove that I could have seen nothing of the kind. I've located Natalie on the third row, where she has reserved just two seats. 'There you are,' she says too neutrally for my liking.
As I sit next to her, daring anyone to challenge me for the position, children peep around the night sky. She raises a hand, and I'm afraid she means to push me away until she waves. More of Mark in a striped headdress and robe appears beside the sky as he waves back. He catches my eye and gives me a grin that looks like a promise of fun. Is he scratching his wrist? He disappears behind the scenes before I can be sure, and his grandparents arrive at the end of the row. I've just concluded that the best course is to give up my seat for Bebe when a father lifts his small daughter onto his lap, and the Hallorans take the seats beside me. 'We thought we'd been disowned there for a moment,' Bebe says.
'It's Mark's show,' Natalie whispers. 'Let's be nice.'
I fear this may imply she won't be afterwards. Any further dialogue is cut off by the arrival of Joseph and an emphatically pregnant Mary onstage, a sight that's greeted by muffled laughter. They pace around the starry section of the stage and keep returning to the door into the other half, which does duty as a series of accommodations represented by placards that other children hold in front of it. Eventually Joseph and Mary find a stable for the night but have to wait outside while children strew it with hay and populate it with cloth animals. These include an elephant and a brace of Teddy bears, favourites sacrificed to the production and eliciting more affectionate mirth from the audience. Four of the tallest children hide the stable with a sheet as Joseph ushers Mary in. A spotlight lends the star brilliance as a number of robed children guarding toy sheep sing 'While Shepherds Watch Their Flocks by Night', before the end of which the sheet has grown wobbly enough to suggest that it's concealing action more vigorous than seems appropriate. Is that another reason I'm uneasy? There are signs of mute conflict among the bearers, quelled only by gestures from a teacher in the wings. He keeps rubbing his scalp as if to complete its baldness, and I wish his agitation weren't visible. Perhaps it's why I'm nervous of seeing Mark.
Do the wielders of the sheet believe they're portraying Roman soldiers? They march off more or less in step, revealing that Mary has dispensed with her padding. She's supine in the hay and cradling a swaddled baby doll. Joseph stands beside her with a bemused expression that seems both psychologically accurate and dangerously comical. My smothered nervous giggle earns a sharp glance from Bebe, and I'm glad when the shepherds strike up 'Once in Royal David's City'. It soothes my nerves almost to the end of the first line.
It isn't just that the three Magi have entered in time with the carol, nor that the third of them is Mark. I have the notion that someone sang not 'city' but a similar and entirely unbecoming word. Even if they did, why should I blame Mark? I watch his lips but can't tell whether somebody sings 'pile' for 'child' and, if so, whether he does. Suppose all this is happening, is it any worse than childishness? The teacher in the wings is rubbing his magic cranium no harder than before. Perhaps my impressions are just symptoms of jet lag, but I'm almost relieved when the carol ends and the three robed boys knock at the stable door.
The one carrying a small chest is the first to deliver his tribute – gold pieces or more likely chocolate coins wrapped in foil. The second boy bows lower as he presents Mary with a blue perfume bottle representing frankincense. She shows it to the doll and hands it to Joseph as Mark steps forward. He's bearing a pottery jar in which Natalie stores pasta. So loudly that I'm not the only person to jump he says 'The third Magus brings you myrrh.'
Can't he bear the silence? He's the only member of the trio who spoke. The teacher leans out of the wings, massaging his scalp madly. I'm loath to glance at Natalie, never mind her parents, because Mark seemed to relish the last word so much that it resembled a bray. As its echo lingers and lengthens inside my head he takes a last step. Perhaps he only means to bow lowest of all, or does he trip over his robe or slip on the hay? In any event, the jar flies out of his hands.
Mary and Joseph leap to catch it. Neither wins, and Mary drops her burden. The jar and baby Jesus hit the boards with an impact that sounds somehow dubbed until I realise it's augmented by the slap the teacher deals his cranium. At least the jar doesn't break. Mary scrambles to rescue her baby, but her mouth begins to struggle for a shape as she picks up the doll. The top of the wrappings droops emptily, and as she opens her mouth I know what she's going to ask. 'Where's his head?'
A woman on the front row jumps up as though she has seen a rodent. She gropes beneath her seat and holds up the errant item. The teacher lurches out of the wings, but Mark is closer and faster. Darting to the edge of the stage, he holds out his cupped hands. Perhaps his confident stance persuades the woman, or perhaps she's won over by his wide grin. Whatever makes her thoughtless, she throws him the baby's head.
Shocked gasps greet this, but so does uneasy laughter. More of both accompany Mark's spirited attempts to mend the baby, at last uniting the portions with a snap that fills the hall and sounds more like bone than plastic. Mary's reaction doesn't help. In a stage whisper she complains 'It's back to front.'
'Twist it round, then,' Joseph advises and immediately loses the rest of his patience. Grabbing their first-born, he scrags baby Jesus and thrusts the infant at his mother.
By now the teacher is reduced to retreating as many paces as he takes from the wings while he clutches his scalp with both hands. 'Can't anybody stop this?' Bebe demands in a voice loud enough for an actress.
To some extent Miss Moss does. She begins to sing 'O Come All Ye Faithful' as she marches to the front of the hall, gesturing the audience to rise to its feet and join in. None of this is quite enough of a distraction from Mary's struggles to reassemble baby Jesus, whose neck keeps popping out of the socket as if the head is eager to regain its freedom. Throughout this Mark retains rather too blameless an expression, and I can't help recalling the grin he sent me earlier – a version of his Tubby face? His gaze keeps flickering sideways to observe the antics of the mother of God, who abandons her attempts to repair her offspring and wraps up the head along with the decapitated remains, rocking them in her arms as the carol ends. The headmistress has her back to Mary's performance. 'Thank you all for coming,' Miss Moss says. 'Thank you to Mr Steel and all his cast for such a memorable production.'
She leads the applause as the teacher takes a quick nervous bow and then flaps his hands to hurry the cast offstage. The adults in the hall chat while they wait for their children to reappear, but Natalie and her parents are silent, and I don't know what it might be safe to say. Some protracted minutes pass before Mark steps forth, cradling Natalie's jar. 'It's okay,' he assures her.
'Unlike that performance,' Bebe says.
'Nothing like we came to see,' says Warren.
Natalie takes the jar. 'Thanks for saving it,' she says.
Before Mark speaks I know he's going to appeal to me. 'Didn't you like it, Simon? You like laughing.'
I feel surrounded by unspoken warnings. 'It was an experience for certain.'
I'm afraid he may find this insufficiently supportive, but he rewards me with a grin that looks reminiscent. 'Wait till you see what I've got you at home,' he says.
THIRTY-FIVE - TORMENTORS
As the Shogun halts outside the apartments, Bebe breaks the heavy silence. 'Would you like us to come up with you, Natalie?' 'You head off home. You've done enough.'
Mark wriggles to face me across his mother. 'Can I show you now?'
'Maybe you should catch up on your sleep,' says Warren. 'Your mom and Mr Lester have some issues to discuss.'
'Remember we're as close as your phone,' Bebe assures her daughter. 'Chances are you won't be waking us.'
As the car swerves away up the alley, icy flakes like seeds of Bebe's gaze settle on my forehead. It occurs to
