Chaos At Christmas – Episode 26
Chaos At Christmas by Ewan Smith
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- 1. Chaos At Christmas – Episode 26
DJ Klaws? Who’s DJ Klaws?
Geraint asked in confusion.
Ferelith shook her head in amusement. “He’s only the lead singer of Hi Heaven. You’ve surely heard of them?”
Geraint’s forehead wrinkled. “Are they some sort of band?”
“Some sort of band? They swept the board at the Grammys this year.”
“Oh right.” He thought to himself for a moment. “I remember my mum really liking Val Doonican.”
Ferelith gazed at him in disbelief. “You need taking in hand.”
He grinned. “Are you applying the job?”
There was a silence. He had been joking, of course, not really been thinking about what he was saying. But now the words hung in the air between them. Ferelith felt herself flushing. She couldn’t imagine anything she would like more.
The silence stretched. Neither of them seemed to know how to move the conversation on. It was a difficult moment. Geraint cleared his throat uncertainly. “Anyway, so this DJ Klaws and his band are putting on a free concert at the Manor this afternoon?”
Ferelith nodded. “They’re in the middle of a European tour but Lyle is flying them in from Amsterdam specially.”
Geraint looked at her in befuddlement. “You never know where you are with him, do you?”
Lionel had been horrified when Lyle had come up with the idea. Chief Inspector Ibbertson hadn’t been best pleased either. But their objections had been carried off on a whirlwind of enthusiasm from Lyle.
“Think of it as a surprise present for all those good people who have gathered at the hotel in the hope of seeing some celebrities. Nobody should be disappointed at Christmas. There may not be any celebrities staying here but we’ll have a celebrity concert instead.”
Ferelith had noticed Franklyn discussing the matter urgently with Lyle in a low voice. He wasn’t the sort of person to be troubled in the slightest by the crowd’s disappointment. However, he did care a great deal about the GroupChat business.
She suspected that his interest was in the welcome publicity that a surprise concert would generate for the company just before it unveiled the biggest product launch in its history.
However, she had little time to think about any of that. The Manor’s staff were suddenly faced with having to cope with a concert being arranged in the hotel’s grounds that afternoon starting from scratch. A tidal wave of confusion didn’t even begin to describe the situation.
The trouble was that the days at Forbury Manor normally progressed in an atmosphere of unerring efficiency. The hotel’s facilities were of the very highest quality, the staff knew their jobs perfectly and everything was designed to ensure that each guest had a stay of unrivalled quality and enjoyment.
But ever since Lyle and his party had arrived, the hotel’s routines had been tossed chaotically into the air. And the decision to hold a concert in the grounds on the spur of the moment swept away any last vestiges of organisation.
Lyle had brought in a management company, Fluorescent Momentz, to arrange the concert. The first that Ferelith knew of it was the arrival of a gaudily-painted travel trailer full of people shouting into phones. That was followed by a stream of trucks, out of which an army of workers appeared.
They set up the stage on the lawn so quickly that it seemed grow before their eyes. More trucks arrived laden with portable toilets causing Erik to give a shriek of outrage when he spotted them. Then there were all kinds of concession stands; burger bars, ice cream vans, face-painting stalls. Someone even set up a temporary hot-tub, though Ferelith shuddered to think how that might be used.
Meanwhile, Lyle had ordered a continuous stream of the kitchen’s Christmas dainties to be distributed amongst the people on the street around the Manor. The police, having given up the unequal struggle, had closed the road to traffic and it was now filled with a festive party atmosphere. And as the news spread that a free concert was going to take place at the Manor, the crowd grew and grew.
Ferelith only saw all this in glimpses. She found herself rushing from one place to another, helping to deal with the inevitable problems that were cropping up. She had begun to hate the sound of her phone making its chirpy ringing tone.
At one point she caught up with Geraint and his team who were hurriedly putting up barriers to stop the most precious parts of the grounds from being overwhelmed later.
I hate to think what sort of state the place is going to be in tomorrow,
she said miserably.
Geraint forced a weak smile onto his face. “If it’s making Lyle happy then that’s the important thing. This is Fosbury Manor. What the guests want…” But he couldn’t finish the sentence. Ferelith could sense how upset he was at what was happening to his beloved grounds. Without really thinking about it, she stepped forward and wrapped him in a hug. “It’ll be alright.”
His arms went round her. “Of course it will.”
It was only meant to be a quick hug. But as they stood there together, Ferelith found that she couldn’t let him go. It was just too lovely to be holding him and to be held. There was a sort of shuddering rumble which Ferelith had never experienced in her life before.
The ground beneath them seemed to vibrate. Her eyes widened. She had heard about the earth moving but this was extraordinary. “Good grief,” Geraint muttered. He pulled back from her and Ferelith looked up. A huge helicopter was slowly descending onto the lawn. DJ Klaws and his band had arrived.
It was a brilliant concert, Ferelith thought. There had been no chance for a rehearsal beforehand and the lighting, being organised at the last minute, was a bit haphazard at times. But DJ Klaws knew how to put on a show and, from the first notes of “Rock! Rock!” to the last sweet chorus of “My Alabamalama”, he and the rest of the crew had the crowd in a state of joyous delirium.
She got to it all a bit late. The band had decided to stay the night, which was a problem for the Manor as the hotel was full. But Lyle had managed to persuade some of his guests to move to a hastily-created dormitory in a conference suite so that some rooms could be given over to DJ Klaws and his colleagues. Naturally, that took quite a bit of organising.
By the time Ferelith was finally free, the concert was well under way and the crowd was dancing and singing along happily with the music. Before she joined them, she scoured the grounds for Geraint. She found him doing some last-minute fencing round the sensory garden.
He was reluctant to leave the work unfinished but she gave him no choice.
You have to come, Geraint. You’ll never get a chance like this again.
And taking his hand, she dragged him round to the front of the hotel to where the concert was taking place.
