‘You’re welcome,’ he replied.
‘Has anyone heard from Leonora?’ she asked, and everyone shook their heads. ‘Okay, then let’s do the best job we can.’ She turned over the flip chart and went through the revised plan. Blythe explained that as it was so wet, they had to keep visitors off the grass area so they needed to move all they had to the edges so it could be viewed from the pavement or road. She allocated teams to fixing the Grinch, rebuilding the elf house and righting the Christmas tree and replacing lights; and, ambitiously, she decided she would try to get some music sorted. She pinned up the respective charts around the hall. ‘Now this is where you guys come in. I want you to spend the next fifteen minutes jotting on your flip chart what you need to make your thing happen and how you are going to do it. Okay?’
There were tentative nods. ‘So we get to write on the flip chart?’ asked Phyllis.
‘Exactly. I can’t do all this by myself. We all need to own it.’
‘Brilliant,’ said Phyllis, taking a marker pen and pulling off the top with a flourish.
They dismissed Vicky’s idea to plug in the festive lights currently wrapped around the stranded white van and make a feature of it, as if the Grinch had crashed while stealing all the presents. Blythe had taken on the role of contact point for the van recovery but there was still no news on that. The noise in the hall was an excited and slightly manic jumble as ideas and suggestions were shouted out and jotted down. When Blythe called them all back to the table, everyone looked eager to get going. A quick walk-through of each of their flip charts showed that they had come up with workable solutions for every problem.
‘Right, in conclusion,’ began Blythe, as someone near the door cleared their throat. Everyone turned to see Leonora. Blythe didn’t know how long she’d been standing there but she beckoned her over. ‘I’ll take you through the recovery plans in a mo, Leonora, but we’re confident we’ll have something to show the judges as well as the visitors tonight. It might not be exactly what you’d planned but it’ll be something worthy of Holly Cross. Did you want to say anything?’
Leonora joined her at the front of the hall. ‘I know I take this very seriously and perhaps a bit too seriously sometimes.’ There were half-hearted contradictions. ‘No, it’s true. I get caught up in things. I just see so much potential in what we can and have achieved as a team of volunteers. I might be the one with the flip chart but it’s each one of you that makes Christmas in Holly Cross special for so many people. Maybe I don’t say it enough but you’re all doing a brilliant job. From the bottom of my heart – thank you.’
‘It’s thanks to you that we’re all here,’ said Arthur, starting a round of applause.
‘Let’s make this another special Holly Cross Christmas,’ said Leonora. This seemed to rouse the troops and in a buzz of excitement people started making phone calls and grabbing up their things.
Leonora scanned Blythe’s flip charts now Blu-Tacked around the hall. ‘I know it’s not how you would have approached it but—’
Leonora held up a hand. ‘Thank you for doing this. For seeing past the disaster. I was ready to give up and I’m ashamed of myself for that.’
Blythe waved her words away. ‘No time for that. We’ve got a Christmas display to save. Are you okay to schmooze the judges when they arrive?’ Blythe pointed to a flip chart with Leonora’s name on it.
Leonora pulled back her shoulders. ‘Absolutely.’
‘Then it’s time to show them what Holly Cross is made of.’
38
24thDecember
Blythe was feeling empowered and invincible as she grabbed her soggy brolly ready to face the weather again. She looked up to see Sam Ashton standing in the village hall doorway. This was all she needed. Her treacherous heart gave a happy skip at the sight of him. She wondered how long it would be before she could break that habit.
‘Have you got five minutes?’ he asked.
She held her head high. ‘Sam, I think we’ve both said everything there is to say. Ours is the relationship that never was and I think it’s best not to dwell on it. If you don’t mind I need to join the rest of the village in trying to save the display.’ She went to walk past him but he didn’t budge.
‘It was the display I wanted to talk to you about.’
Crap. Embarrassment crept over her. ‘Right. Yes. Of course. The display. What about it?’
‘I’d like to help.’
Blythe was about to give him the ‘It’s a bit bloody late for that’ lecture when behind her Vicky cleared her throat. Blythe glanced in her direction.
‘Let him in,’ mouthed Vicky, whilst doing her elaborate door-opening gesture, which looked a lot like she was opening an imaginary coat and flashing at them. Blythe shook her head at Vicky good-naturedly.
Sam was giving them both an odd look. ‘Is she okay?’ he asked, nodding in Vicky’s direction.’
‘She’s learning a new TikTok routine,’ said Blythe, trying to explain away Vicky’s odd behaviour. ‘Anyway, we’re wasting time. Let’s get going and we can talk on the way.’
They left Vicky and Eden manning the village hall like a WW2 war room (but with better biscuits) and started walking towards the green. The weather was a little kinder than it had been earlier, but it was still drizzling, so Blythe put her brolly up. She noted that Sam kept a safe distance away.
Up ahead Blythe could see the green was a muddy mess with so many people traipsing across it. ‘Look at the state of that,’ she said more to herself than to Sam. Whatever they did they weren’t going to be able to hide that from the judges but at least it would be less obvious once it got dark.
‘If anyone can turn this around it’s you,’ said Sam.
