Breaking the Ice

Mandy lives in leafy Wiltshire and has Sting as a neighbour. She lives with her husband, two daughters and two cats (Kravitz and Springsteen). When she isn’t writing she loves to sing and do Lady Gaga impressions (check out You Tube). She will soon be working on her fifth novel – if she can stay off Twitter for long enough.

Praise for Mandy Baggot

I've just read your book and thought it was excellent!  It had a real ‘feel good’ factor about it. (Excess All Areas)

I was entertained by the book from beginning to end and when I finished reading it, I felt the same satisfied feeling I have after watching a good film. (Breaking the Ice)

The book takes a thorough look at relationships, love, commitment and honesty and all the complicated baggage that comes with the territory. It is chick-lit to its fingertips! (Knowing Me Knowing You)

Breaking the Ice

Mandy Baggot

Published in 2011 by Hit Lit Limited (Kindle version)

Copyright © Mandy Baggot

Second Edition

The author asserts the moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work. All Rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the

prior written consent of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

British Library C.I.P.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

For Joff – who I love very much and who tirelessly printed the manuscript out! x

One

‘
Oh my goodness!’ Samantha shrieked.

Two boxes, one from either side, toppled down onto her and in seconds she was knee-deep in tubs. The coldness spread up her legs and she began to dive her hands into the pile, shovelling them upwards and back into boxes as rapidly as she could.

Four thousand tubs of ice cream, all Berry Fruits. How could this have happened? She had been staring at the boxes, piled high in the walk-in freezer, for more than five minutes wondering what to do and then they’d attacked, jumped on her and made a break for freedom.

She wanted to scream. Dave the manager had done this. She had been on her lunch break when the ice cream company called last week, randomly, out of the blue and not on their usual day. Dave had placed the order. Her systems interfered with, stock control blown.

Now she was squeezed into the ever decreasing space desperately hoping that the audiences to come would have an uncontrollable desire for iced Berry Fruits and that her colleagues Jane and Felicity would be able to navigate their way past all the boxes to access the vanilla and chocolate.

She picked up the ice creams in a frenzy, slinging them back into boxes to restore order and trying to make an access pathway as she went along.

‘
Miaow!’

The sound of a cat screeching loudly and then hissing had Samantha reeling back into the boxes. She scuffed her foot against a tub and banged her head against the shelf. She clutched at her chest recovering from the fright and then, seeing what had made the noise, she bent down to the tabby cat as it started to scratch at anything accessible.

‘
Gobby, what are you doing in here? I’ve told you before about going places you shouldn’t. Going places you shouldn’t only leads to trouble,’ Samantha spoke, picking up the scruffy animal and stroking it under the chin.

Glad of the attention, Gobby looked up at Samantha, his wide blue eyes staring at her affectionately as he began to purr. She put the cat down and began to straighten up the boxes. They had to fit. They had to be straight or the door wouldn’t shut and then they would defrost and it would be hundreds of pounds of wastage.

Her fingers were numb by the time she had finished and she was sure her hair had got frost bite. She surveyed the ends and then pushed it back behind both ears. Catching sight of her reflection, she let out another irritated sigh and began to pick at her jumper. It was covered in bits of ice. She started to try and pick them off and then gave up and just poked them until they melted. So much for West End glamour!

Although it wasn’t really West End, that was just what Dave told the paying public and mentioned on the telephone as often as any conversation would allow. ‘In the heart of the West End’ he would tell customers, ‘in the West End’s historic centre’.

Three tube stops from the glitz and sparkle of any of the illustrious theatres was not, as far as Samantha or anyone else on the planet was concerned, ‘within a whisker of Theatreland’.

Her uniform covered in flakes of frost and her fingers tingling with cold, she scooped up Gobby and headed towards the front doors.

‘
Now I don’t know where you hang out during the day but you can’t stay here. Dave wouldn’t like it and Jane sneezes when you’re around.’

The stray mewed and looked up at Samantha sadly, its shoulders hunched. She had given Gobby his name. When she was a child she had loved the story ‘Gobolino the Witch’s Cat’ and the name somehow suited him. He didn’t look much like the main character in the book, but he was so scruffy he could easily have belonged to a witch at some time. A witch with a grooming adversion. Gobby walked with a limp, had a damaged eye (that confused you as to which way it was looking) and he was the scrawniest animal she had ever seen. He had just appeared one day at the back door of the hall scrounging for food in the bins and she had taken pity on him. He had rubbed up against her, mewed sweetly and then ravenously devoured the ham she gave him. Ever since that first day when he had gone on to polish off a piece of chocolate cheesecake, he had kept coming back. Mostly at lunchtime, especially if fish was on the menu.

‘
Looking like that is blackmail, now shoo,’ Samantha ordered, waving an arm towards the street in front of them.

Gobby didn’t move but continued to fix Samantha with a timid, downtrodden expression.

‘
Alright, come back later and I’ll see what’s left over.’

Happy with the response, as if he understood, Gobby turned his back on Samantha and sprinted off down the street in the direction of Andre’s kebab shop. Samantha hoped he found some scraps and didn’t end up skewered and on the menu.

Pulling at her cold, ice-ridden hair she went back behind the brick façade to sit down at the front desk.

Woolston Civic Hall wasn’t exactly The Prince of Wales theatre. It was an old, rather dilapidated building just far enough away from the bright lights and buzz of the West End to be completely missed by anyone who didn’t know it was there. Samantha’s parents had been regular visitors to the hall, attending shows ranging from slapstick comedy to opera and everything in between. It had been popular then, a centre for variety - it was a lot less popular now. Variety had taken a nose dive and now people either wanted celebrity, lovey-darling musical theatre, or Shakespeare. The Civic Hall didn’t attract that type of performance and if it ever tried to, it would be putting itself in direct competition with the West End theatres, with little hope of winning.

Samantha hadn’t ever envisaged working in a box office. She had dropped into the hall during her lunch break, when she worked for Simpkin’s Shoes, on a mission to buy tickets for the ABBA tribute band. ABBA wasn’t really her thing but her elder sister Cleo loved anything that embraced the Seventies. She loved all the big hair, shiny flares and glitter balls.

When Samantha arrived at the hall the whole place was deserted. She’d waited for a while, just to see if anyone appeared, passing the time by looking at a poster of Dual Eclipse, an illusionist act scheduled for the following week. And then the telephones had started ringing. No one appeared to take ownership of the situation and when the incessant ringing got too much Samantha decided to act.

She had answered the first call and given someone directions and on the second call, managing to navigate the computer system, she had sold six tickets to Puppetry of the Penis. After her timely intervention, Dave hadn’t been able to get a name badge on her fast enough.

She had started work at the hall two weeks later and that was five years ago. Five years of booking tickets for almost forgotten Eighties pop stars and five years of selling programmes and ice creams. Nothing had changed, well apart from a lick of paint in the foyer. It was called Wheat Dream. Cleo thought that had sounded well dodgy.

In the five years Samantha had been at the hall, Cleo had had seven jobs and twice as many boyfriends. At first Samantha tried her best to remember their names as she caught fleeting glances of them when their paths crossed, usually on their way from Cleo’s bedroom to the bathroom. Then, after she mistook a Simon for a Steve, she decided enough was enough and all any of them got now was a mumbled ‘hello’. Besides, she was quite sure none of them knew her name - or even Cleo’s.

Living with Cleo was an experience in itself. Her sister was as outgoing as Samantha was introvert. Everything about her shouted. Her clothes were bright and up to the minute and she changed her appearance as often as she changed her men. Their mother called Cleo ‘flighty’. Samantha had always thought that was a bit of a put down but Cleo treated it almost as a compliment. ‘Flighty’ to Cleo meant exciting and mysterious, someone who experienced all things with passion and pizzazz. In contrast, Samantha didn’t know the first thing about being flighty and she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to. Cleo lived her life at a hundred miles an hour whereas Samantha was content chugging along in first gear. That way you always knew where you were. It was comforting to know where you were in life.

‘
Good afternoon Woolston Civic Hall, Samantha speaking.’

Her headset was itching today. She didn’t know why but it was definitely more uncomfortable than usual and it was making her want to scratch. Or perhaps it was Gobby’s fault, maybe he had fleas again and was sharing. That wouldn’t be good, that would probably mean a rash. Itching wasn’t good either when you needed both hands for navigating your way around the booking system.

The woman on the other end of the telephone wanted tickets to
Skating on Broadway
the following evening. Eight tickets. There was nothing like leaving booking to the last minute.

Skating on Broadway
was a first for the Woolston Civic Hall and a bit of a coup. The Apollo Arena (the biggest entertainment venue in the capital) had a month long run of Mickey Mouse - Magical Party that meant the Civic Hall was the London venue of the skating show’s nationwide tour. For the next few weeks the main auditorium would be transformed into an ice rink where former skating champions would whizz around the ice to the sounds of
Phantom of the Opera
and other musicals, performing hair-raising jumps and lifts in brightly coloured Lycra. She had got Cleo six tickets for a couple of performances (using her discount) as she knew her sister was trying to impress some colleagues at her new job at the estate agents.

‘
I’m afraid we don’t have any tickets left in the first ten rows Madam. The closest to the ice I can get you are rows K and L, four seats in each row, directly behind each other,’ Samantha bargained, looking at the plan of the seating chart on her screen.

She had devised the seating plan herself as Dave was more into management in a PR capacity. He was good with the customers and the acts, but rather lacking when it came to actually managing. It had been a difficult job, it was the first time they had had the performance taking place in the centre of the auditorium instead of on the stage.