by Gill Hornby
At least, he thought as he marched down the High Street through the dark evening, he had his clothes on; that was something. He may have been stripped bare emotionally–6 p.m. was always something of a low point; self-pity seemed to get the upper hand–but, thank God for small mercies, he wasn’t trying to find his way around Bridgeford in his boxers. Indeed, it had been a policy decision made by him at the beginning of this career break that from Monday to Friday he would wear a suit and tie at all times. He felt for his jacket button and closed it. He knew how he was looking and that was really rather smart.
But, while he did have his wallet–very nice, brown leather, present from Sue the Christmas before last–he did not actually have any money. Well, he did–there were his savings, of course, loathe though he was to dip into them–but he didn’t have a salary. That was the thing. And as he had, at the moment, no idea of where any future salary might be coming from, he was forced to be very careful about all further expenditure.
And although he had lived in Bridgeford for over twenty years, it really might as well be a foreign city. Since they’d moved in to Sue’s–their–dream house, he had spent all his time in an office miles away, working to pay for it. For half the the year, he left in the dark and returned in the dark. While she and the kids lived and learned and worked and made friends right there in the community, he only did so by proxy. The ‘friends’ he himself had made were husbands of friends of Sue, fathers of their children’s chums at school, and in the past few weeks he hadn’t heard from any of them. He could only put it down to the injured-party confusion.
He turned into Priory Lane, the solitary tin in his plastic carrier bag banging against the side of his knee. His trouble was that, while he didn’t really live in Bridgeford in any real sense of the word, he couldn’t obviously be said to live anywhere else either. He walked down the drive, round to the back door and into the kitchen. Lined up on the work surface were the other components of that night’s meal, which he had purchased, each independently, throughout the day: the solitary onion (from his 9 a.m. sortie), the pasta (12 noon) and the garlic bulb (3.15). He put the tin of tomatoes in its place, arranged everything in order of usage, and gazed upon his work. It was a shame he’d had the olive oil and the Parmesan already. He wouldn’t have minded another outing.
The message light on the phone in the corner was winking at him–not unusual at this time of night. There was always someone out there who wanted to chat through his double glazing. He pressed Play, and the voice of his wife filled their kitchen.
‘And, by the way, Annie is begging that you join her hopeless little choir. Just because that Constance who you’ve never even heard of is practically half dead–I mean, what’s that got to do with you? I said to her, “You have got to be joking. Do you actually have any idea how high-brow he is?” I said, “Excuse me, but you do know that a cathedral choir and a community choir are two rather different animals?” And I said, “Do you not realise how busy Bennett is these days?” She certainly ought to. She’s spotted you striding about Bridgeford in your suit. I mean, we all have. Not used to having such highly qualified, distinguished menfolk in our humble midst on a weekday. It’s all anybody talks about. “What’s Bennett up to, nearly knocking me over, in such a hurry?” Talk of the town, you are. So she should realise, really, you don’t have time for all this, before dragging me into the middle of it all as if I haven’t got enough on my plate. And I said, “How can he say he’ll be in the Coronation Hall every Tuesday at eight p.m. when he’s bound to be out having dinner with old clients and for all I know young new girlfriends, it’s none of my business what he’s up to and certainly not my place to—”’
The machine beeped, its space exhausted. Bennett knew how it felt. He sank down the side of the kitchen cupboard on to the floor and hugged his knees. It took him about ten minutes of very deep–almost painful–thought, but eventually, he reckoned, he got there. It was hard work, his head was throbbing, but by the end of it he was pretty sure he was having one of his glimpses into possible motive or plausible explanation and it was this: however unlikely it might seem on the surface, he was reasonably confident that what Sue actually wanted was for Bennett to join Annie’s choir.
He sprang up. Pasta and tomato sauce could wait. What he needed right now was the greatest piece of choral music known to mankind. He started singing to himself as he ran down the spines of his record collection until he got to V.
Gloria…
There you are, Nicolo.
… in excelsis Deo
He slipped the vinyl out of the sleeve, held it between the flats of his hands and blew on it.
Et in terra pax…
It had been years, but at last the needle was back in the groove.
… hominibus bonae voluntatis
And Bennett was going to start tuning up.
Tracey couldn’t quite tell what was going on with Billy tonight. All last week he had left for the bar at 7, but now it was getting on for half-past and he didn’t seem to be showing any signs of moving off the sofa. She started taking items out of the fridge with a view to cooking herself something. Was he going to be in? Should she offer him some? If she did offer him some, would he take it the wrong way? Was he just concentrating hard on a rerun of Bargain Hunt, listening hard to The Bloodshitters, or was he genuinely a bit subdued tonight? And if so, was that because he had got the boot from this job already, a mere eight days in? It would be sad, but not the shortest chapter in his professional history.
‘I was just going to knock up some—’
The doorbell rang. They both froze and stared at one another.
‘Wha’s that?’ asked Billy. She remembered now, he’d been out last week, missed the Big Moment.
‘It’s the doorbell!’ mouthed Tracey, in case someone could hear her.
‘No way,’ said Billy, at normal volume. ‘How do you know that?’ He was properly impressed.
‘Rang last Monday too,’ she whispered, tiptoeing towards the window.
‘Last Monday? Too?’ Billy turned down his mouth in a struggle to comprehend. ‘So, like, twice?’ He shook his head. ‘Man, that’s mental.’
They stood at the sill together and peered down into the street. Tracey clocked the situation at once–slightly flyaway, if-it-wasn’t-blond-it-would-be-white hair, a navy raincoat, brown suede boots. ‘Oh, hell,’ said Tracey. ‘It’s that madwoman from that singing thing I went to last week.’ The bell rang again, Annie stepped back to look upwards and they both, as one, ducked down. Tracey was curled, foetal, against the wall. ‘She’s the mother of someone you were in church choir with all those years ago. I mean, so sodding what, but she seems to think it makes us blood brothers.’
Billy took another look over.
‘Can you believe it,’ Tracey hissed up from the floor, ‘that she and I have got kids of them same age?’
Billy looked at Annie, then back at his mother. ‘Yeah.’ He shrug ged. ‘S’pose.’
‘But don’t you think it’s amazing,’ she tried again, her voice a little higher, ‘that that’s even possible?’
‘Not really.’ He was standing at the window now, dangerously visible to all of Bridgeford. He screwed up his face. ‘What you on about?’ There came a noise from the street, and Tracey watched, helpless, as Billy gave the thumbs-up and called out: ‘I’ll be right down.’
‘Ouch… Ufff… Hang on, I can do it, just get my foot down here…’ Annie’s voice bounced up the stairs ahead of her.
Tracey looked around at the state of the room.
‘Oops… Don’t be silly, just the corner of a pedal, all my fault…’
She was at the bikes, so about halfway up.
Tracey stepped over a cereal bowl, put the volume up on the music, took Bargain Hunt off mute.
There was a twang of strings as the guitar toppled over, and then a just about audible ‘Ah, so you’re a rower…’
It took a decent amount of time for Annie to navigate the passage and m
ake it up the stairs. There was plenty of time for Tracey to make it look something closer to presentable, but she didn’t. Instead, she took up position on a little island of space in her living-room floor and patiently waited. Eventually the unwelcome guest appeared, a little puffed out, and picked her way across to another little island in front of her. They stood, face to face. To Tracy’s great satisfaction, she noticed that just to the left of her feet was a neat little stash, next to Billy’s rather elaborate bong.
‘Ah, there you are. You’re on my way, so I just thought I’d stop and give you a lift to choir tonight.’ Annie had to shout to make herself heard over the noise. ‘I can do it every week, if you like. Save you getting the car out.’
Tracey was, for a moment, stunned. Choir… every week… save her getting the car out… What was she, like, 102? It was hard to know quite where to begin.
‘Nice of you, but I’m not going to be able to make it tonight, I’m afraid,’ she bellowed back, stretching one foot around the bong while stroking it gently into a place where Annie couldn’t help but see.
‘Oh no, that’s a shame. Lewis and Katie will be disappointed. You know, I’m not sure that poor little girl has any other social life. We all kind of owe it to them, I think, to keep it going. Why can’t you come?’
Billy, of all people, turned down the music and flicked off the telly. ‘Yeah, Mum.’ He strode over between them, knelt down and carefully scraped up every precious little particle of dope. ‘Why not? You’re not doing anything.’
‘And what about you, Billy?’ Annie carried on looking at Tracey. There was a rustle of cigarette paper from somewhere near their feet. ‘Are you working at the Square tonight?’
‘Nah,’, He licked something as he spoke. ‘That’s over now. Didn’t work out.’
‘Sorry to hear that.’ Annie sounded genuinely disappointed. ‘How about Curly and Squat? Don’t tell me they’re out too?’
‘’Fraid so… Hey, you know them–the lads?’
‘Oh, well, know of them…’ Annie winked at Tracey, valiantly ignoring the elaborate rolling that was going on beneath them.
Billy was pleased with that answer. ‘Yeah, ha, legends.’ He seemed inexplicably pleased with Annie in general. ‘You probably have met Squat, y’know–lived in the wheelie bin by the library for a bit last summer…’
This situation was in danger of spinning somewhere out of Tracey’s control. In the space of two minutes, they all seemed to have gone from perfect strangers to old family friends. And that was weird, because Tracey and Billy didn’t go in for old family friends.
‘Anyway, is that the time?’ she said forcefully, moving her guest back towards the door. ‘You don’t want to be late.’
‘Sure I can’t tempt you?’
‘Go on, Mum.’ Billy sank into the sofa, examining each end of a large spliff. ‘You won’t miss much here.’
‘Billy…’
‘There you are! Come along. That’s lovely. We will have fun. She was brilliant last week, your mum. And while you’re between jobs, Billy, you might want to look through these.’ Annie rustled in the bag on her shoulder and produced a sheaf of leaflets. ‘I dug out some stuff for you on charity missions to Africa. There’s one in Malawi, here, in an orphanage. And then this, in Rwanda, is an amazing school that needs young men just like you to—’
Tracey strode over and grabbed Annie’s arm. ‘Look. I’ll come to your choir; I’m coming to your choir. See? I’m getting my coat on. But I’m sorry, I don’t think Billy is at all interested in going to Africa. Are you, Bills? He’ll have another job round here in no time. Won’t you, Bills? He doesn’t need Africa. He doesn’t need anywhere. He’s doing perfectly well where he is, thanks very much. So let’s just go, shall we, and cut the poor bloody kid some well-earned slack.’
Billy blew a perfect smoke ring, smiled contentedly, made a peace sign of his fingers and put both feet up on a chair.
Tracey leaned against the wall, hugging her bag close to her chest, while Annie sped around the hall with a dustpan and brush. The rain drummed its rhythm against the skylight as Annie started to sing.
A B C D, E F G
There had been a children’s party in there that afternoon. Half the piñata was still all over the floor.
H I J K, L-M-N-O-P
And there was junk food everywhere. Annie’s knees clicked as she bobbed down to flick out a Monster Munch from under the skirting. There was a hall rule that if you rented the space you were responsible for clearing up your own mess, but that had lately been forgotten. By some sort of unwritten agreement, the system seemed to have boiled down to this: Annie was now responsible for clearing up the lot.
Q R S T U and V
A drip fell through the roof to the floor with the tick of a metronome and Annie’s tune slowed in keeping. Tracey was not joining in with the warm-up or the clearing up and it wasn’t until Judith walked in that Annie had support with either.
W X Y—Hello, Jude
She sang.
How are yooooou…
As the other members arrived, shook out their wet umbrellas, draped their jackets over the radiators, exchanged meteorological facts of limited significance, Annie and Judith busied away at the floor, the kitchen, the chairs. It was only once everything was ready and they had both taken their own seats that they realised quite how many new recruits had turned up.
‘Look at you all!’ cried Annie.
‘It’s amazing.’ Judith clapped her hands. ‘Just wait till I go to the hospital tomorrow and tell Constance about this. She’ll be thrilled.’
‘Have we ever had this many men?’ said Lewis, with some pride. ‘The Town Hall darts team and then some.’ The basses gave a happy roar. There was no reflective cool from this lot like there was with Tracey, but Lewis still looked pretty pleased with himself anyway. Then Annie shrieked: even Jazzy was there, pinned to her seat by Maria’s forceful grip. And as if that wasn’t enough excitement for one evening, a damp gust whooshed through them as the door opened yet again.
‘Here’s another one!’ cried Judith. ‘Come in, come in,’ she beckoned, ‘into our circle of—’
‘IT’S THE CIR-CLE OF TRUST,’ sang Maria. She let Jazzy go and got up, gyrating–a short, stout cartoon lion.
They all stared as the new man walked towards them. The darts players stopped cheering; indeed, all the basses suddenly shut up. The men of the Bridgeford Community Choir tended to be much of a muchness; the latest addition, however, seemed to be of a different order. Where they brought sweaters, this one brought tailoring; where they brought Hush Puppies, he brought black Oxfords. He strode across the hall with a long, lean ranginess; they sat clutching at their paunches as they might clutch their ageing animals in the waiting room at the vet. His features were neat and regular and hard to object to, but of the sort that preferred to work individually rather than pulling together as a team. Swinging from his right hand was a battered old leather music case.
‘Don’t panic,’ said Lynn as he took the seat next to her. ‘The rest of us just call it a circle. We’re not all potty.’
‘Thanks for coming, Bennett.’ Annie waved across at him. Bennett nodded a firm sort of nod and sat, holding his case on his knee.
Lewis beamed around the room. ‘I think we should save the introductions till the break. For now, let’s just put our voices together’–he adopted the smooth tones of a Radio 2 DJ–‘and make us some beautiful noise here tonight. Why don’t we start with what we all know to be Connie’s favourite?’
‘Oh, bless her,’ said a soprano.
‘Mrs Coles, if you will do the honours…’
Mrs Coles started thumping away; Lewis tapped his foot and they began. It was their Sound of Music medley.
It went off very well, on the whole. All the new people enjoyed themselves, with just a few exceptions. Bennett didn’t seem to feel comfortable with the clapping–although he did pat his case a bit here and there–nor, despite clearly being white, British, mid
dle-aged and middle-class, did he seem to be completely au fait with the words. Tracey sang, but quietly and politely and with a distant sort of look about her–quite a different performance from her astonishing ABBA of the previous week. And Jazzy refused to open her mouth, just sat there beneath a cloud of dark curls bigger than her skinny body, riveted to the screen of her phone. But still, when the time came for the break, the applause was healthy and there was a definite buzz in the room.
Annie should, at that moment, have approached Bennett–welcomed him formally, had a chat, caught up. Instead, she grabbed Tracey’s hand and pulled her over to the tea table.
‘Well, Billy’s a lovely boy, I must say.’ Annie poured tea into a row of white china cups. ‘What a charmer.’ She gave Tracey the milk jug. ‘Perhaps you could…’
‘Thanks. Yes. He is. Which is just one of the many reasons I don’t want him to go off to the arse end of bloody Africa and catch AIDS and Ebola and get kidnapped and DIE.’ Tracey kept missing the cups and sloshing milk all over the table.
‘Oh, but it’s marvellous, Africa, for sorting some of our young out, especially the boys. There you go, love.’ She wiped up the puddles with one hand and with the other gave a cup to Maria. ‘A lot of our lost young local lads have gone off there and come back transformed.’
‘That’s the great thing about the Third World.’ Tracey chucked what possibly might be flapjacks on to a plate, any old how. ‘It’s one big character-enrichment programme for the youth of Bridgeford.’
‘Well, I’m not saying the Africans don’t get something out of it, too.’
‘And what about me, eh?’ Tracey picked the plate up with an absent air. ‘What am I supposed to get out of it? Death by loneliness?’
Annie stopped and stared at her.
‘Oh.’ Tracey came to. ‘Did I say that out loud?’ She picked up a cup. ‘Forget it.’ And she swished off to sit with Lewis.