They’d all just walked out of Cobblers Yard when Bridie heard his voice. She turned around, along with everyone else behind her, and saw Oliver locking his car, which was parked further along the high street. He came running down the street with a rucksack slung over his shoulders. Bridie guessed he’d just returned from work at the secondary school in Leiston, a ten-minute drive away. They waited for him to catch up. Bridie spent a moment introducing him, although he already knew everyone in the yard.
Oliver said, ‘Right, everyone ready? I’ve brought some cleaning stuff.’
Mabel and Marjorie held up a broom, bucket and mop between them.
Bridie said to Oliver, ‘You knew everyone was coming.’
‘Yeah – problem?’
‘The more the merrier!’ said Hannah again, grinning.
Bridie rolled her eyes. She wasn’t feeling very merry over the responsibility of being the new owner of the theatre. She’d felt differently when she’d thought she’d inherited the property. She’d known she could sell it and make a tidy sum to set herself up. She hadn’t believed her luck; the money would mean a completely fresh start. Now, she felt the responsibility of getting the theatre up and running to stage a show weighing heavily on her shoulders, and worse still, she hadn’t inherited the property as she first thought. She’d beengifted it.
She remembered the saying:if it’s too good to be true, it probably is.She had a secret benefactor who was very much alive and probably watching with interest to see whether she was going to carry out their wishes, and how she would fare.
Bridie looked over her shoulder at her little entourage, suddenly feeling absurdly paranoid – was it one of them?
That was a ridiculous thought. They were far too busy in their ordinary lives to go about gifting her a theatre. And besides,everyone knew everyone else’s business in the yard – nobody admitted to knowing who had owned the theatre, and if it were one of them, they wouldn’t get away with a secret like that. Not with Mabel and Marjorie around.
Unless it was one of them. Bridie shot them a look. Of course it wasn’t one the gossip girls. None of them, including the two sisters, were exactly flush with money. They wouldn’t have a spare property they could give away. Except maybe Joss.
She glanced at him in his paint-splattered overalls. He might have the money, but he ploughed a lot of time and energy into his free legal service, which she imagined cost money to run. He received no income, so he must be living off savings and investments. And she’d learned that he had a fiancée who ran her veterinary practice and pet hotel in her parents’ former guest house down the road in Shingle Cove. She’d heard from Hannah that his partner, Emily, never turned away a pet in need, and so she suspected that Joss heavily subsidised her vet practice and pet hotel too. If he owned a theatre, she was sure he wouldn’t give it away to one person but would sell it and help out as many people as he could – including Emily and her business. And besides, nobody following her down the road carrying mops, buckets, disinfectant and furniture polish knew her well enough to just gift her the theatre.
Bridie frowned. It must be someone who knew her. But she had no idea who it could be.Back to square one, she thought. The only way she might find out their identity was to stage the play and then hope they turned up and made themselves known.
Oliver had fallen in step with Reggie behind her, chatting about the theatre and the possibility they might stage their latest school production there.
Unfortunately, Bridie overheard him. He hadn’t mentioned that thought to her. Perhaps it had just occurred to him. But overhearing his thoughts wasn’t helping. She didn’t want to lether mystery benefactor down if she couldn’t get it together to stage a play. But worse still, what if word got out that the theatre was reopening, and youngsters in the drama club –
Layla suddenly came to mind – got wind that were staging their school play in a real theatre, and then it didn’t materialise? Bridie remembered how excited Layla had been when she’d mentioned her dream of starring in a production on stage in a real theatre.
Hannah fell in step with Bridie, linking her arm in Bridie’s. ‘This issoexciting. I’ve never been inside The Little Theatre by the Sea.’
‘I’m feeling apprehensive,’ Bridie admitted as they walked along the sea front.
Hannah said, ‘You’re bound to. This the first property you’ve owned – isn’t it?’
Bridie turned to Hannah. ‘Yes, it is. At first, I was elated. But now …’
‘You feel the weight of the responsibility.’
‘Yes. What if it needs a lot of work, and I just can’t afford it?’
‘Look, whoever gifted you the property must believe in you, to ask that you stage a play before you … well, before you decide what you want to do with the place.’
‘They believe in me.’ Bridie hadn’t considered that.
‘Can you guess who it might be – who gave you the theatre? It must be somebody who knows you.’
‘That’s what I thought. But I’ve been wracking my brain, and honestly, I have no clue.’
‘What about someone in your family?’
Bridie shook her head. ‘If you knew them, you would not ask that question.’
‘They don’t believe in you?’
‘In what I do. They hate the theatre. Oh, all except Layla, my fifteen-year-old niece, who obviously hasn’t owned a theatre.And my grandad. He’s the only member of my family who’s supported me in my career choice, but he lives in a council flat in London.’
