by Len Maynard
She disengaged herself from his embrace.
“And I meant what I said when I called you a sexpot too.”
She glanced back at him with, what his mother would have called, an old fashioned look, and shook her head. “Jack Callum, you’re incorrigible.”
He smiled. “I know.”
By the time they got to St Mary’s church hall there was already quite a throng of people inside. Thirty or forty bodies, milling about the dusty, cavernous room, most of them jockeying for position to get near the stage, a small platform set at one end of the hall. Many of the faces were young, Eric’s school friends mostly, but there were a handful of adults, mostly standing at the back of the hall.
“You see,” Annie said. “We’re not the oldest ones here. Phillip Langton’s parents are here, and they’re older than us.”
They looked towards the stage as Reverend Williams, a short, rotund man with ruddy skin and thinning hair, climbed onto it and positioned himself at its centre, clapping his hands once for attention. “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls.” The chatter in the hall quietened and the vicar continued. “Thank you all for coming to this… this…concert, which will help us raise funds for St Mary’s Youth Club.”
A small smattering of applause rippled through the audience.
Reverend Williams bowed his head slightly in acknowledgement and then continued. “When Eric Callum came to me with the proposal that his skiffle group put on a show for you all I must admit that at first I was sceptical.”
A few of the adults in the hall smiled and nodded.
“But since then I have heard them play, and I’m sure you’re in for a treat this evening. So, if you’ll put your hands together and welcome to the stage, Eric and the Vikings.”
“Eric and the Vikings?” Joan’s eyes widened incredulously. “When did he dream that one up?”
Annie shushed her.
Jack just smiled.
The crowd parted and, from the back of the hall, Eric Callum, the strap of his guitar slung over one shoulder, led his group to the stage to the applause from the audience.
“This will go straight to his head.” Joan raised her eyes to the ceiling. “He’s going to be impossible. I suppose at least Rosie’s there to keep his feet on the ground.”
As the group started their first number, an up-tempo song Jack hadn’t heard before but had his foot tapping, Rosie came to the front of the stage and started to sing, slapping her thigh in time to the music, but Jack was not watching his daughter. Instead his gaze was fixed on the pianist who sat hunched over the keys of the piano at the side of the stage. The piano filled out the sound of the group and, in Jack’s opinion, was a one hundred per cent improvement from when he had last heard them.
Annie followed his gaze. “Isn’t that…?”
“Yes, it is.” Jack was smiling indulgently as the pianist turned from the keyboard and stared into the audience, finding his smile and returning it. “Well done,” he mouthed.
Gerry Turner winked at him broadly and turned her attention back to the keys.
“I thought, when I introduced her to Eric, her classical influences would rub off on him. Seems I was wrong,” Jack said quietly to his wife.
Annie gripped her husband’s hand and squeezed gently. “He’s his father’s son. Ploughing his own furrow. Would you have it any other way?”
Jack smiled broadly. “Not at all, Annie. Not at all.”
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