by Gill Hornby
‘Don’t waste your breath.’ Tracey propped her head up on her hands and looked at him. The marks of a deep tiredness were etched around her eyes; Bennett longed to reach across and rub them away. ‘He won’t do it, whatever you suggest.’
‘Oh dear, is he very difficult?’
She thought about it. ‘No. I don’t think that’s exactly fair.’
‘Then I’m sure if you told him that the system was unsoun—’
‘No, I can’t really do that, Bennett.’
‘Well, perhaps I could get in touch and explain—’ He wasn’t sure what he would explain, but Tracey cut him off anyway.
‘All right, all right. Look. Bennett. I can’t get in touch because’–she gulped and stopped and thought and then went on again–‘because I don’t actually know who he is. OK? There. I’ve said it. And I’ll say some more. Here goes: he doesn’t know that Billy exists. And I don’t want Billy to know that I don’t know who his dad is. So whenever I get a few royalties from “The Crappy Island Was a Sodding Dream”–you’d be surprised at the standards of advertisers in certain corners of the world–I put it in his bank account and say it’s from his dad, who, for various differing reasons that I make up on the spot, loves him very much but can’t actually see him. And then the bulk of that money goes back into my account for child support.’ She gave an ashamed sort of giggle. ‘See? All perfectly straightforward. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is my final disgraceful secret–unless you want to know about the last digestive I nicked thirty years ago. You have wormed it all out of me. Congrats.’
‘Aha,’ he said thoughtfully, as if he had understood any of that at all. ‘I see,’ he added, although he really didn’t. Then a light dawned: ‘So it was a sperm-donor sort of situation then?’
Tracey gave a bitter laugh. ‘Nothing so romantic.’ She sat up straight and looked Bennett in the eye. ‘Just a normal, run-of-the-mill, routine tour fuck. You know how it is.’
Bennett was curiously flattered.
‘Just after the Eurovision débâcle, I was on my final terrible tour put together by this arse of a manager to “build on that success”. Ha. The Who Gives a Shit Tour, the sound guys called it. Anyway, we were staying in this dump in Leckford–you know Leckford?’
‘There’s quite a nice hotel there, The, um—’
‘Yeah, there might very well be, but we weren’t staying in it. We were in this God-awful pub, there was a bloke, there were drinks, there was sex and then there was Billy.’
‘Of course.’ He sounded dismissive, waved her story away, as if Bennett and the tour fuck had known each other for years, actually their parents were old friends. ‘But still, you must know who he is. Surely you got his name?’
‘Yes, I got his name. Don’t worry, even in my wildest days I only ever shagged the ones to whom I’d been formally introduced.’
‘Well, there we are, then. You do know who he is. So what was his name?’
‘His name,’ she sighed again, ‘was Florence.’
‘Have you looked him up in the phone book?’ This was rather exciting. They could join up together and hunt him down. ‘There can’t be many Florences…’
‘No. Of course I haven’t. Because he wasn’t called Florence, was he? Not really. He was called Florence like Curly is called Curly and Squat is called Squat.’
‘Oh.’ Bennett was rather crestfallen. ‘So Florence because he wasn’t?’ He thought again. ‘Or Florence because he did?’
‘Christ knows. Florence so daft girls couldn’t turn up on the doorstep with his bun in their oven, probably. It certainly did the trick, anyway.’ She seemed to calm down again, smiled across the table with what Bennett thought–hopefully–might be some form of affection. ‘You see, if he’d been called Bennett St John Parker I would have been able to find him like a shot.’
‘Ah,’ said Bennett St John Parker, walking into what was indubitably the bravest two seconds of his life. ‘If he’d been called Bennett St John Parker he would never have let you go.’
Bennett emerged, blinking, from his long meeting with his new friend at the bank in the High Street and stood outside the newsagent, waiting for his next appointment. With the early summer sun brightening the High Street, Bridgeford looked rather beautiful to him now. The origins of a lively market town were all still there, after all–the Victorian Corn Exchange, with its pillars and clock tower, was an impressive sight if only you stopped and looked at it; the war memorial with its steps and roofing, if you could gloss over the kids and their crisp packets and their tins, was a grandiose tribute from a town united in grief. The Copper Kettle, he now knew, was once a coaching inn that had, until the building of the railway, put Bridgeford on the map.
‘Can I get you anything, love?’ the woman from the newsagent called out, as Bennett had known she would. He was prepared.
‘No thanks, Carol. I did enjoy those wine gums, by the way.’ He couldn’t quite build in a reference to babysitting but still: O blessed daughter, that notebook was quite invaluable.
So when people talked about the town being a miserable dump, they were not being strictly accurate. The unusually wide high street, with a trim of hills and fields in the view beyond, was a lovely sight, which Bennett could see now, for some reason, in a way he had never been able to before. And the shopfronts were all charming–many Georgian, mostly Victorian, and all of them listed. No, there was nothing wrong with the town at all–it was the people that were its problem. The people who didn’t shop here, causing more than half of the shops to be empty or to strap brash SALE signs across their leaded windows; the people who did shop here, and threw their litter all over the pavement; the people who treated the place like a transit lounge–as Bennett had done himself. And the people who didn’t realise how lucky they were to live here. Bennett had been one of those, too, once upon a time.
‘Hey, Dad,’ boomed Casper, in his habitual state of advanced good cheer. ‘What a COINCIDENCE!’ Several people turned round–it was a sound of such piercing volume that a passenger might pick it up on a passing train. ‘I’m supposed to be meeting my eleven o’clock here.’ The boy was wearing a pinstriped suit, carrying a folder under his arm and jangling a set of keys. ‘Some idiot’s interested in the Copper Kettle as a going concern. HA!’ Carol poked her head out of the door again, to see what the commotion was. ‘That’s one thing to do with your money, eh? EH? Or he could just dig a bloody hole and BURY THE BLOODY LOT.’ A baby in a buggy jumped and burst into tears.
‘Um, I hope you don’t mind the cloak-and-dagger stuff but I am your eleven o’clock.’ Bennett felt rather guilty now, but he just hadn’t wanted Sue to hear about it too early on. ‘And yes, I am very interested in buying it. I’ve been thinking about it long and hard, and I’m sure there’s a good little business in there somewhere.’
For his first fifty years, Bennett had failed to surprise anyone, at any time, about anything. His was a life of such plodding predictability that the only surprise, looking back on it, was that he had managed to stick it for as long as he had.
‘DAD.’ Bennett looked round to see if any windows had blown in. ‘Have you totally LOST the PLOT?’
Recently, though, he seemed to be surprising quite a lot of people, rather often and in a multitude of different ways. And the surprise to him was quite how much he was enjoying it.
‘No. On the contrary: I feel like I have never had a plot—’
‘He came in the end, look.’ A tired-looking woman stopped and showed Bennett the contents of her pram.
‘I thought he probably would. Splendid little chap. Well done you.’
Casper watched this innocuous interchange with his mouth agape; Bennett turned back to him.
‘—and now I feel like I might be getting a plot for the very first time.’
‘But, DAD. I really shouldn’t say this, entirely off the record…’ He adopted the covert body language of international espionage, and then bellowed, ‘The SUPERSTORE—’
‘I don
’t think that’s going to happen,’ Bennett replied mildly. ‘According to my contacts—’
‘Your CONTACTS?’
‘Yes, Lewis in Planning on the council tipped me—’
Casper nearly fell on the floor. ‘DAD! YOU know Lewis in PLANNING? WOW. You kept that quiet. Could you introduce me?’
‘Sure. You should have come to my party. The entire committee was there.’
‘Bloody HELL.’ Casper was impressed with him, Bennett could see that. ‘When’s the next one?’ Indeed, Casper was impressed with him for the very first time.
La-la-la-la, lo lo lo
Annie hummed to herself as she set up the tea urn. There was talk of a lot more people tonight, some of them very young. She had bought some hot chocolate and animal biscuits in case they weren’t quite grown-up enough for caffeine.
Ta-ta-ta-ta, toe toe toe
Katie came in, wheeled by Lewis, with a huge tray of chocolate-chip cookies in her lap.
‘Katie. You’re back baking! Hallelujah!’
‘That job wasn’t right for me, I’m afraid, Annie. So it’s back to college and another course. We’re going to have a go at book-keeping this time. Anyway,’ she spread the biscuits out on the table, ‘Tuesday afternoons to myself again.’
At that moment, a line of hooded youths shambled in, arms buried in pockets, feet dragging in unlaced trainers–a study in surly reluctance. Lewis moved towards them, shielding Katie from their view. ‘Excuse me. We have this hall booked. Can we help you?’
The hoods all waggled about a bit on top of the lanky bodies–extraterrestrials emerging from a space-ship, communicating in some manner peculiar to themselves. The the hood lowest to the ground, came forward as spokesman. ‘Come for the singing.’
Jazzy breezed in and then stopped dead. ‘Ur. Yuk.’ She had the almost supernatural ability to discern between them. ‘Who let you in, Squat Thompson?’
‘Squat!’ Annie came out of the kitchen beaming, hand extended.
‘What?’ said Squat, peering out with suspicion through a very narrow gap.
‘Hello! I’ve heard so much about you. I’m Annie.’ She put her hand to her chest. ‘From the library? I believe we were neighbours for a bit last year. Welcome, welcome. Has Curly joined us too?’
‘OK.’ At some point in the past week Tracey had clearly decided to prepare for battle. Now armed with a baton, she tapped it on her music stand. ‘Lots of lovely new faces tonight. First of all, a big round of applause for our brilliant new pianist, Miiiiss Araminta Parker… Thank you, thank you… We are so lucky to have her. Now perhaps the new voices could introduce themselves. And proper nouns please, rather than adjectives, verbs or gerunds. Starting with you.’ She pointed her baton at Curly.
‘You what, miss?’ Curly looked puzzled. ‘I don’t understand, miss.’
‘I am not Miss. I am Tracey. And you, in this hall, with these people, are Ashley. So you say: “Hello, I’m Ashley.” God, it’s like teaching English to foreigners.’
‘Hello,’ said Curly, mumbling into his hoodie. ‘I’m Ashley.’
‘Ashley? Ashley?’ cackled Squat. ‘Ha. Forgot you was Ashley. Classic.’
‘Thank you, Felix,’ cut in Tracey. ‘Would you like to do the same?’
‘FELIX? Fucking Felix?’ In an instant half the hall was on the edge of riot.
‘Excuse me?’ called Bennett from the men’s section. ‘Does everybody have to give their birth name?’
‘OK.’ Tracey glared at him, hit the stand and raised her voice. ‘Forget it. That was obviously over-ambitious. But you lot, just do as you’re told from now on or else. Wouldn’t you agree, Squat? Hm?’
‘Yeah, shut up, you lot. Or else.’
‘Yes, Felix.’
‘Certainly, Felix.’
‘So we’re going to start off with the song we were working on last week, “Lean on Me”. The lyrics are just coming round.’
‘Here!’ said a hood, reading the words. ‘I like this!’
‘Jolly good. So some of you lot are in the basses—’
‘But I thought you’d be doing like really dead people, like…’ he paused, clearly trying to come up with the most extreme idea of a musical dead person, ‘I dunno… Beethoven.’
His mates had never heard a funnier thing. They all roared.
‘Oh yes,’ Bennett joined in, shouting over the top of them. ‘The jolly songs of Beethoven!’ He smiled, paused for effect, and then: ‘What do you fancy? “Nur hurtig fort, nur frisch gegraben”?’ Chuckling away, he smiled about him.
The hall fell silent. Some new members turned, lips curled, and studied him more closely. A whiff of danger span around the hall.
Tracey rushed on: ‘We can if you’re disappointed—’
‘Nah. We’ll have this please, miss.’ The boy turned round to the others. ‘We’ll do this. We like this.’
‘We are grateful,’ said Tracey. ‘Right. Let’s take it from the top.’
By the time Lynn got to the head of the tea queue, there were no cakes or biscuits left. Annie’s happy face was quite pink, not only from the rush of customers but also from the total satisfaction of her irrepressible primal urge to feed the hungry, growing, grateful young.
‘You’d think they’ve never been fed,’ she laughed. ‘We’ll all have to make twice as much for next week.’
‘What’s that peculiar smell?’ Lynn turned around the room with her nose wrinkled. She sniffed once. ‘Sort of farmyard.’ She sniffed again. ‘But sort of not.’
Annie reached for her bag. ‘I know what you mean. Tracey’s house has it too.’ She leaned in and stage-whispered, ‘I think it’s modern marijuana. Not quite so grassy as our day.’
‘Eugh. It certainly isn’t. More like a blocked sewer. Hell in a handcart. If you can spare a cup of tea, I would be grateful.’ Lynn looked huffy. ‘Oh well, they probably won’t stick it here for two minutes.’
‘They’re with us for the contest, definitely. Do you mind pouring your own, love? I just said I’d look up a job vacancy I noticed last week that might suit one of the lads.’
The Coronation Hall was alive with laughter and chat. Min, Katie and Jazzy were all sitting around the piano, surrounded by half a dozen show-offs, all of them new recruits. That was a noisy corner. Annie seemed to be conducting interviews with a few bored-looking boys in the middle–‘And Squat, have you noticed that the old nursery is currently standing empty? Room for lots of you there, although the loos are very low’–and all around them other members socialised. The stacking chairs with their dirty cloth seats had been rearranged, some into circles, others into smaller groups. Judith and Kerry sat alone, apart from the rest, one red head close to the other dirty blond, locked in intense conversation.
Bennett, tonight wearing suit trousers but no jacket, pale blue shirt but no tie, approached Tracey at the music stand. The two had not spoken for exactly a week and Bennett seemed unsure of what sort of a reception he might get.
‘Well,’ he began.
‘Hmm?’ Tracey, pencil between teeth, vigorously erased a pencil note on the music and flicked away the trace.
‘They all turned up then.’
‘Indeed.’ She turned a page.
‘Full house.’
‘It is.’ She looked at her watch. ‘And we need to crack on. There’s a lot of work to do.’ She tapped her baton. ‘Everybody back in your places now. We’re going to do the next song.’
Bennett, with the rest of the Choir, slunk back into his seat.
‘You all know this, so there is nothing to learn but your parts. I will also tell you now that we will be needing soloists for this one. If anyone fancies having a go, come and see me. Otherwise, I might just pluck you for stardom. Here goes. It’s by Pharrell Williams.’
They all gasped.
‘It’s called “Happy”.’
There was a loud cheer and whoops.
‘And the lyrics sheets are coming round now. To kick off, I will do the solo, while you d
o your bit.’
Because I’m happeeeee…
By the third attempt, they were all up on their feet. Bennett and Lewis were dancing between Curly and his cousin Frank; Jazzy stood in front clicking her fingers and stepping her toes; behind, a line of sopranos copied her. Squat and a couple of basses were bopping round the outside of the circle.
… I’m happeeeeee…
They all sang up to Tracey, underneath her throaty solo. They clapped when she clapped, sang when she signalled, followed her every move. Right then, Tracey knew, as they all knew, that they were completely under her spell. She had the power to make them do absolutely anything.
They finished the song amid exuberant self-congratulation. Tracey raised her voice again.
‘This is going to be seriously great. Now for take four, and we’re going to do it just a little bit differently.’
Tracey started them off, and then pulled back into being conductor. For every solo line over the ‘happy’ chorus, she pointed to a different singer without warning and made them take it. To the surprise of each of them, as well as the whole room, they all did as they were told. And that night a few lives were–just ever so slightly, but for ever–changed.
A singer is one singer; singers are many singers; a group of singers is just what it sounds like. A choir, though–a living, breathing, working choir–is something else entirely. It is the singular product of a physical reaction that can only come into being under certain laboratory conditions. And no scientist alive can really tell you exactly what they all are. A good choir generally has a good leader–and Tracey Leckford, up at the front there, lost in her music, was obviously one of those.
It can benefit from a few great voices–and in the Coronation Hall right then there were certainly a few of those. Bennett St John Parker was not the only star for once. Curly’s cousin Frank–a skinny figure with wide, lazy pupils and a rash of angry spots–created a sound of such unlikely untrained purity that it made the other members stare. With another chance, in another life, he too might have worn a long cassock and sung in cathedrals; as it was, he stood awkwardly in a black T-shirt, looking genuinely bewildered by what came out of his mouth.