by Morag Joss
My father is nominally in charge of refreshments and goes between the kitchen and music room with a tea towel tucked into his trousers between the buttons of his dreary braces. He brings in plates of sandwiches that he made himself but the butter was hard and the bread tore, for which he apologises as he hands them over to the Bergsma sisters and Mrs Mathieson who are on their feet now and helping with cups and saucers and plates, possibly because they are ill at ease watching a man do it.
Everyone in Burnhead knows the Bergsma sisters and knows their story, though probably they never tell it themselves. They don’t need to. In Burnhead, people’s histories are attached to them like invisible signs round their necks. What happened to the Bergsmas is like all other common knowledge, and in a place like this there’s a lot of common knowledge: for example, the path running up between the Bergsmas’ barber and hairdressing premises and the building next door is called Kyle’s Wynd, but there’s nothing there to tell you that. There’s no actual sign round the Bergsmas’ necks. It’s common knowledge.
Kyle’s Wynd? Luke says, puzzled. What are you talking about, Lila?
It’s still there but the Bergsmas’ place isn’t, I tell him. It’s all knocked down now.
In my mind the Bergsmas are typically Dutch. I picture the whole of Holland full of old-fashioned spinster sisters like Joanna and Willy (short for Wilhelmina), though of course nobody my age calls them anything except Miss Bergsma. Joanna’s hair is wound in plaits around her head and Willy has a bun that is glossier and darker than the surrounding cloud of her hair; it sits like a Bakelite light switch in a nest of jute. But this is not the most remarkable thing about Willy. One side of her face is a slip-sliding disaster of flesh that pulls her eye down so that it is constantly red-rimmed and teary. The skin on that side looks melted and is both pinker and bluer than the rest of her face, like a patch in a related but not identical material that has been stretched and crudely tacked over the torn original. It’s from when their house in Rotterdam was bombed in the war. Enid’s mum says Willy got burned rescuing her mother’s silver and tortoiseshell dressing-table set. This is part of their history and Burnhead’s common knowledge. How and why they got to Burnhead from Rotterdam isn’t.
Yes, war is a terrible thing, Lila, Luke says. He sighs and mutters something I don’t catch.
I don’t know if Willy Bergsma had a choice and went for the dressing-table set instead of the mother but like everybody else I know the mother died in the fire and I also know I’m frightened of that watering eye. It may have weighed up the silver and tortoiseshell against an evil-tempered old lady and if it did, well, we know what happened next; it’s common knowledge. Any minute the terrible things that eye has seen might start to ooze out of it and down Willy’s cheek.
Joanna does most of the shaving and trimming at their barber and hairdressing place while Willy keeps the appointments book and sells brushes and combs, compacts, travelling cases and shaving requisites. She seldom leaves the front shop, she calls through from the counter if she has something to say. Maybe she doesn’t like the mirrors in the back reflecting to her from every angle her ruined face.
Lila, you okay?
Luke brings in the tea and joins me on the floor. I don’t remember deciding to sit on the floor, but here I am. As Luke speaks, his breath forms a cloud and I notice that the room is cold.
There are others here, too: Jimmy Brock the coalman, scrubbed into ordinariness, Sandy and Lydia Scott, stalwarts of the Ayrshire Amateur Operatic Association, wearing badges that say ‘AAOA Committee Member’. In addition, because he is President, Sandy wears a medal on a chain. There’s a woman with two children dressed for Scottish Country Dancing in kilts of acid yellow tartan with velvet waistcoats, lace jabots and pumps, who are clutching their certificates for 1st Runner-up: Formation Sword, and Highly Commended: Flora MacDonald’s Fancy. To my embarrassment Mr Black, the principal music teacher at Burnhead Academy, is here with his wife and his stuck-up daughter who goes to a fee-paying school in Troon where Mrs Black teaches Domestic Science. Mrs Black has tight hair that’s bumpy on the surface and is neither fair nor grey. The colour looks boiled out of it and reminds me of porridge.
Uncle George stands behind the piano making over-hearty gestures of greeting. He is unnerved that the glorious idea has come to this: a crowd of ill-assorted people who in the very act of turning up may be marking themselves out as the oddest in Burnhead. The idea—my idea—ran away with him and now he is aghast. I think he has it in mind to make a speech.
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen!
Who are you talking to, Lila?
Now Joe comes in last, making George wait. He picks his way over to where I am leaning against the wall. My heart jumps because he is singling me out to stand next to. From here we can see nearly everybody but more important perhaps, to Joe, is that nearly everybody can see him. George watches me watching him watch the room.
Thank you for coming. We are all here, as you know, for a purpose.
You’re welcome. And indeed we are, Lila. We Evangelical Lutherans believe that firmly. We believe that we are here because Jesus Christ…
Uncle George stands there, unsure what to say next. We wait. My heart is thudding. It is terrifying to watch the slippage of a dream. Is anyone safe, ever, once they have laid eyes on what they want? How long before it becomes what they need, and if they have to go without, what then? All George’s London confidence is blurring. He is shrinking, losing buoyancy. Beside me, Joe shifts against the wall, pinches the end of his nose between finger and thumb and looks at the ceiling.
So do we, I mean, is anyone—anyone at all, familiar with Turandot? At all? Uncle George asks, but he has no idea what to do about the thick cluster of hands that goes up, among them my mother’s, the Scotts’, the Bergsmas’, the Blacks’. Even Billy’s is half-raised.
Right, he says. Very good. Well.
He clears his throat and looks at his notes. He picks up some papers and waves them vaguely. We wait again.
Mr Mathieson stands up.
I’m John Mathieson for anyone here doesn’t know me. See—George, is it?—I’m thinking, George, maybe we could do with a wee committee. Get ourselves going. Get organised kind of thing, eh?
Lila? Lila, are these papers important? Is there something you want to show me? Luke says. What is all this? It’s all just scrap paper, isn’t it?
Uncle George’s notes of the meeting are still bunched in my fists and lying in my lap and on the floor around me.
Of course it’s not scrap paper. Here, I say to Luke, and I shake the papers at him. This is what happened. Here are the notes, this is a true record of events.
He pulls my fingers open and takes them from me. He places a mug of tea in my now empty hands and the warmth of it makes me sigh.
I watch Luke gather the papers up. The writing is worn away in places and it’s hard to read, I admit that, but I think he makes particularly heavy weather of it. He looks only at the first couple of pages. The first five lines are in pen, George’s attempt at an agenda some time before the meeting. Everything that follows is in pencil and written fast.
Mtg 9 July
Introduce—self. Intro others. Intro opera. Does anybody know Turandot???
THE TASK AHEAD.
What we need to achieve: make list.
Ask people. Split into groups?
COMMITTEE?
Orchestra sub-cttee: JIMMY Brock (coal) t b in charge of band. JB plays coronet & trombone. NB now rtd from mine but still in colliery brass band—can get other band members, min. 12 players, all exp’d, most vg. JB can transpose parts!!! Will work with GORDON BLACK—will get school orchestra members to join, maybe another 12. Can borrow stands and lights. AYRSHIRE AMATEUR PHILHARMONIC Orchestra—he will contact, bring on board.
—Strings—cd. be prob.—J Bergsma played viola as girl. Willy Bergsma USED TO TEACH VIOLIN! NEED MORE PLAYERS PERCUSSION WOODWIND
Chorus sub-cttee:
REHEARSAL
PIANIST V IMPORTANT—GORDON BLACK available hooray!!! WILL COACH CHORUS
CHORUS—Sandy SCOTT—President of Ayrshire Amat. Opera. Assoc. says WHOLE CHORUS OF AAOA MAY BE WILLING. On summer break, no commitments—individ members always keen to sing. Mrs Scott says ditto her ladies choir—65 members—she will persuade (consider definite)
ALSO—S Scott offers loan props/costumes of AAOA!!!!!
Costumes & props sub-cttee:
Stella Foley (M of Enid)—gets material wholesale, + trimmings, beads etc. Can make anything, needs designs, sketches will do. YES will tackle headdresses. Needs team helpers…tb arranged. ?Chorus make own??
Joe—prod: concept modern & simple, muslin drapes etc. lighting min. NEEDS CLOTH—QUANTITIES??
Chorus = peasants: pyjama style, black pumps. Principals = Silks, colours, more elaborate. S Scott—AAOA has FULL MIKADO costumes.
So this is how it happens. Mr Mathieson’s frail and mournful surface dissipates. He’s a fiend of an organiser. He comes to the front of the meeting and takes charge and soon has the whole room confessing to skills and contacts and signing up to do special favours. There is nobody he does not commandeer. It’s all written down; he gets promises that he intends to see kept. In no time he is Production Manager and Mrs Mathieson is Production Secretary. Uncle George is happy just to scribble notes.
People grow trusting and optimistic and talk as if they have been waiting all their lives to be useful. They form committees and subcommittees for this, that and the other. Mr Mathieson scolds us to be brief and keep to the point. Just as I think there can’t be anything left to talk about, Uncle George whispers a few words in Mr Mathieson’s ear. He nods.
He says, And now George here reminds me of another crucial matter and that is fund raising. We need to raise money…
More hands go up. We hear more ideas and make more lists. The Burnhead & District Advertiser might publicise any fund-raising events for free. Some of the ladies will organise a raffle. The shops will have collecting tins on their counters. Mrs Mather will suggest to Mr Mather a donation from the Round Table.
Aye, fine, Mr Mathieson says, but we need something bigger, a big event that’ll raise a good sum. It’s dear, opera.
And soon there’s talk of a ceilidh. It’s to be in the shed at the farm, once it’s painted. A date is set, ticket prices decided. Folk will flock to support such a good cause, tickets will go on sale throughout Burnhead. Trestle tables can be arranged, plus a few chairs. Mr McArthur can find straw bales for extra seating but insists it’ll have to be soft soles only; boot nails could spark on the concrete. Jimmy Brock’s brother-in-law in Annbank lives next door to a man who gets up an accordion band every Hogmanay and Burns Night; he’ll do it no bother for beer and expenses and maybe a wee fee. The ladies will do a tea. Tea will be extra so we’ll make a bit more that way.
Sounds like a real old-fashioned barn dance, Luke says. I’ve been to plenty of those! Lila, is the gas connected here? Does this work?
No mention in the notes, of course, of my heart boiling with jealousy as Joe’s attention wanders. I can see him out of the corner of my eye but I sense it anyway, his focus lengthening across the room and alighting on Senga and Linda and Deirdre. He doesn’t need to wink though I can see he may want to. They’re drawing themselves up straighter and turning about to show themselves at better angles, as if he jerks wires tied to their ankles and wrists. They whisper together, mouths behind hands, eyes on him. He tips his head back against the wall and inspects them down his hawkish nose. He shifts without taking his eyes away, pulls his arms apart and clasps his hands behind his head, glances once at George and then looks back to them. The room has grown stale. I cannot move away from the tang that now comes raw from his armpits—in fact I draw closer. The smell is rank and urgent and, this late in the day and in a hot room, not quite clean. I want to roll in it. I will stand inside the circle of his odour if it chokes me, in the space around him that nobody enters without invitation, the territory of the air he fills with sweating and breathing and base male habits I suddenly want to know all about. Blood is rushing in my ears so I barely hear what is being said but I will occupy this space because it belongs to me. Across the room Senga and Linda and Deirdre squirm and preen, the sniggering tarts. He’s only doing this with them because they don’t matter. It’s a compliment to me.
Hey! It works after all, Luke says, and there is a burst of orange in the room as the gas fire whups and sighs. I blink and my eyes smart in the sudden brightness. I have not noticed how, without the lights on, the air in here has descended and enshrouds us in charcoal gauze.
Luke says, So hey, no need to sit here in the cold. Let me get you some more tea. Lila, wanna let me get rid of some of these papers?
The meeting goes on, words swill around me. It’s been a clear day and the music room curtains have not been drawn. The sky is darkening from turquoise towards the amethyst dusk and the Pow Farm fields at the horizon are the colour of a deepening bruise. This window faces east so I can’t see the sun going down behind the sea, but in the sky over Mr McArthur’s land the moon and the first few stars appear. It’s getting late when people finally leave. Joe does not join in the goodbyes, but disappears upstairs. People spill down the path and onto the road and linger. They stand and talk, voices rising softly in the air; any excuse to breathe in the smell of the cooling land in the gloaming and the freshwater scent of the night to come. Senga and Linda and Deirdre and Enid circle round Billy and one or two other straggling boys who can’t be older than thirteen. Their muttered and breathy words mingle with the grown-up talk. I watch from the doorway. My mind is elsewhere; part of me is with Joe upstairs, of course. But I am thinking too of the sharp marram grass at the shore’s edge and imagining a campfire burning in a hollow dip in the dunes and I picture Joe there, free from the tugging eyes of those girls. He is with me and there is nothing to fear. Wrapped together in the firelight, we are alone and separate from the others, swaying in obedience to some tide, some warm, gathering wave of optimism, a pride that pulses through us—it is nothing less than youth and love and the promise of more tides of love to come, swamping us and washing us away—and of all these he is talking to me softly under the moon, with a sweet curling of his mouth.
14
George tried to instil some discipline. He began sentences with ‘Speaking as the producer and musical director’. At odd moments he pulled out the folding baton he now carried at all times and practised his conducting technique in front of an invisible orchestra. He addressed Lila, Joe and Fleur by the parts they were singing instead of their names and gave them written schedules: the mornings on private practice and coaching with him, and part of the afternoon on other tasks, rest or quiet study. He gave each of them a tuning fork and taught them how to practise alone without the piano. Evenings were taken up with proper rehearsals with combinations of principals, chorus and band. In between times he was overseer of the set, lighting, costumes and publicity. He never stopped.
Lila felt sullenly that if she obeyed his rules it would be because they coincided with her wishes. She was still obliquely grateful towards him but Uncle George was no longer in command of his glamour; it seemed not so much his own as a reflected gilt that belonged, really, to the London world he seemed less and less a part of. But she had to remember that she needed him as a springboard from which to launch herself on her London life with Joe. Late one night when the house was quiet she pulled out the largest of the suitcases from the cupboard under the stairs, took it up to her room and hid it under her bed. No need for declarations. By stealth and in tiny stages she would pack and be ready to leave with him. She would share Uncle George’s flat until she and Joe could get married. Lots of students got married. They wouldn’t wait until everybody thought they could afford it, they would just do it and be happy even if poor (she knew she would be marvellous at managing on very little). She tried not to let her spent love for Uncle George—more often now just plain George—show in her eyes.
Even as a toppled idol he was, for the time being, essential.
If she had had to, she would have invented ways of throwing herself into Joe’s path. But it wasn’t necessary; they were tumbled in together to ‘the production’ and its demands—no life outside it was much thought of. Sometimes Lila minded the lack of a decent courting distance between them. If only she could have retired to a cool room sometimes, miles from where he undressed, washed, shaved and slept and where she could not see him, or hear him sing or talk or laugh—if she could have kept a small space for recovery from so much of him so soon—she thought she might, though she had already lost her heart, be able to lose it a little less abjectly. For there was no escaping the risk, run a thousand times every day, that he could by some jokey or ambiguous remark or unconscious omission—a cue for a small compliment not taken, an elusive reference to the rest of his life that seemed not to include her in it—plunge her into hours of private misery, hours spent shaving an interpretation out of his words strip by strip until she exposed the buried place where she decided that he had said more or less what she needed him to have said.
There were days when she woke up feeling over-exposed and fearful, thrown out of sleep with unbearable abruptness; the light reaching through her window cast much too bright a beam over her love for him and threatened to reveal it as hopeless. Then she would hide under the pillow and wish for a few more hours’ relief from the effort of getting him to love her. But soon she would hear from the room above his cough, a grunt, the squeak of the mattress, and then her heart would start pounding and the day would quicken with meaning. By now she knew how to time her own comings and goings so that at the foot of the attic stairs she would happen upon him tousled, stripped to the waist and smelling of bed and skin. She fancied that in his extravagant Ah, and a very good morning to you, la bella Liù! and his accompanying, rippling scale to lo, lo, lo, lo! he puffed out his chest just for her. And then she felt that some unnamed, benevolent force at work between them made it inevitable that one day she would wake up with his adoration glittering like a star over her. She would be glad, watching his thick bare back as he strolled away down the landing, that nothing could stop her imagining both of them naked in the same bathroom, even if she stopped just short of imagining them there at the same time; while she was learning to accommodate the notion of Bliss of Union as opposed to One Thing Only, location was important. Neither the sand dunes nor the bathroom, which seemed a kind of opposite, was fitting.