by Gill Hornby
James wouldn’t be home for at least another hour, but that did not of course mean that there was nobody else in there. She knocked on the door, to be fair–to give whoever-she-was a sporting chance to pick the thong up, slip it over her slim hips. Would their lives have been different if Annie’s underwear had been different? If they got through this crisis, would she have to wear that kind of stuff? Annie believed passionately in marriage, in family, in the spirituality of home, but possibly not quite passionately enough to walk around with a skimpy bit of string slicing up her bottom. Anyway, she had lived with this affair of his for so long that this point of crisis, this coming up here and facing him down, this bloody third act of their long-running romantic comedy, now seemed to her almost banal–like she had already seen it before. She had pretty much already reached closure, so she flung open the door and calmly faced the worst.
Her vision wasn’t completely prophetic. This was a bedsit–a perfectly all right sort of bedsit–with a beige carpet and an ancient chintzy sofa that looked even more battered, miserable and sunken than she did. The small double bed pressed into the corner was–she recognised it immediately–made up with the worn and faded linen of their early marriage. When Annie had given it to him years back–even darned it for him, like a mug–she could never have imagined what he might use it for. They had conceived babies under that duvet, real babies–that wasn’t just sex and thongs and slurpy licking, it was an act of creation. She shook her head, blinked away the tears–honestly, the disrespect–and so it was that out of the corner of her eye she first noticed the kitchen.
Slowly turning, she took in what was before her. Where once there had been a Baby Belling, a plate rack and a sink with a curtain around it, there was now, ranged against the wall, the sort of set-up that Nigella would be happy to purr over on the telly. At the sight of it all–the aluminium work-shelf, the butcher’s block trolley, the French stove–her courage failed her; her closure tore open like a wound. All that fearing the worst and here was something infinitely more terrible: she thought he was cheating on her with a slapper; in fact, he was betraying her with a cook.
There were jars ranged along the tiling, from small to large, with printed labels. She moved towards them–retching, trembling–like a detective discovering a chamber of horrors: bonito flakes, panko, stalks of lemongrass… It was years since Annie had been bothered to use stalks of real lemongrass. That James had found someone who did made her weep even more. And what was this on its own out here, in a dish, under a tea-towel, moist and ugly: the organ that a cannibal was saving for later? Annie sniffed it and identified it at once. That, as she lived and breathed, was a sourdough starter. Whoever she was, this thong-wearing vixen, she made her own, from-scratch, bloody trendy London bread.
She was still bent double, sobbing on to the shiny metal, when the door opened and James breezed in.
‘Love! Hey, what’s happened?’ She saw him think about hiding his two brown bags from Whole Foods, but then he just dropped them, ignored the organic pomegranate rolling across the floor and took her in her arms. ‘Tell me. What is it? One of the girls?’
She snivelled, shook her head. ‘They’re all fine. It’s you, you bastard. You’re the matter.’ She reached over for the nearest jar. ‘I mean, James, really, fenugreek? Fucking’–for a split second they both looked horrified: Annie never used the F-word–‘FUCKING FENUGREEK?’
He caught her hand before she smashed the jar at the wall.
‘Who is she? The scrubber with the sourdough fucking starter? WHO THE FUCKING FUCK IS SHE?’
‘Annie,’ his voice was all sympathy but there was in there an unmistakable Miller laugh, ‘she’s me, you daft old bat. She’s only me.’
Later, as Annie lay naked on the floor, her head resting upon a still-full brown bag, after James had licked and nibbled at every part of her as he had once done so often, and as if she hadn’t really changed, they lay together and talked for the first time in a year. He was propped up on his elbow, still stroking the length of her with the fingers of his left hand, skimming over the stretch marks on her tummy, when he asked: ‘So I’m still not quite sure… what did you think you’d find here?’
‘Um… well…’ she mumbled, ‘you know, just a thong.’
‘A what? I didn’t hear you.’
‘A thong,’ she said loudly and sighed.
‘Oh. Which is what exactly?’
‘Don’t you worry about it.’ Why slice your bottom up if there’s no public demand? ‘Nothing you need to know. I just thought you didn’t want me any more, that’s all. So when did it start, then, your gastronomic adventure?’
‘I want you,’ he kissed her, ‘more even than ever. If a chap’s married to the loveliest girl in the world,’ he kissed her again, ‘why would he go off with a thong?’
She gazed at him happily. Bless him: he wouldn’t know what a thong was if it fell on his greying, balding, beautiful, wrinkled head. ‘It’s not every thong as would have you…’ She bit her lip to stop herself giggling.
‘I don’t doubt it. I started cooking when Jess went away, and you said we weren’t allowed a proper dinner any more.’ He looked so downcast, her heart gave a little squeeze. ‘And then you were out every night, looking after all of Bridgeford instead of being anywhere near me…’
‘Daw, love, so this is your mid-life crisis’–she gasped as he ran his hand up her thigh–‘your reaction to our empty nest?’
‘No! It was my reaction to not being allowed to have a decent bloody meal unless there was a more deserving bloody child in the house. And being told I wasn’t even allowed to cook for my bloody self. And I do wish you would stop saying that, Annie.’ He put his hand on her face and turned it full towards him. ‘How can you think our nest is empty if it’s still got the two of us in it?’
She cried some more and spluttered a lot and felt a complete and utter fool. They made love again–even though she felt a bit sore, and there was some pak choi sticking into her ear. Then he drew himself away, put his boxers back on and went over to his kitchen. She watched his stocky figure marching up and down, the paunch over the ancient pants, the greying chest hair, the uncut toenails, the… Why on earth had she thought that she had a duty to be young and toned and thonged?
‘Anyway,’ he said, flinging open cupboards and brandishing a knife, ‘let me show you what you’ve been missing. While you’ve been cooking for all those old people and blind people and bad people and dead people…’
‘Darling,’ she sat up, reached for her bag, got out her phone, ‘you do exaggerate. I never cook for dead people—’
And then she saw her messages, and gasped. And she had to say, ‘Love, I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry, but something terrible has happened. I have to get back.’
On her train journey home, Annie had managed to contact all the Choir members to insist that they attend an extraordinary meeting at Tracey’s house at 9.30 p.m.; the only people who did not pick up the message were Tracey and Bennett. So when the bell rang at the appointed hour, it was once again a dishevelled, bemused Tracey who opened her own front door.
‘What’s going on?’ she said to the masses who filed past her up the stairs. ‘Anyone mind telling me what you’re all doing here this time?’
She left the front door open and followed them up to the living room.
‘Dunno.’
‘All a mystery.’
‘Annie said to meet her here,’ Lewis was holding the handles of the wheelchair, Curly the footrest, ‘for an announcement.’
Squat bounded towards the stairs before anyone could stop him–‘Might just nip in the shower’–then bellowed over the banister in a voice rich with moral outrage: ‘Oi, what’s that Bennett doing up here dressed like a prat?’
‘They’re having sex,’ Jazzy bellowed back with glee.
‘No WAY!’ said Curly.
‘Yes way!’ Jazzy danced round the living room. ‘They’re so mad for it that they even did it in front of me! It
was AWFUL!’
‘Jazzy, for heaven’s sake, we did no such thing.’
‘Like rabbits, they are.’ She turned to address the whole crowd. ‘Really, really old rabbits.’
‘Aha. Annie. Good evening.’ Tracey gestured to the room. ‘Welcome to my soirée. Any plans to tell me what exactly is going on?’
Annie, whey-faced and trembling, came into the middle of the assembly. ‘Is everyone here?’ She looked around. ‘Then I shall begin. I have some terrible news. After all our prayers and hopes and wishes, I’m afraid that our beloved Constance didn’t make it. She died, with the family around her, in her husband’s arms, this afternoon.’
Lynn started to cry, Judith to pray; Maria–so used to death–shook her head in sorrow; Lewis coughed and pinched his nose. ‘I’m so terribly sorry,’ said Bennett, stepping forward with his hair on end and his arms tight around Tracey’s kimono. ‘I know how much she meant to you, and I’m so sorry.’
But the rest of the room did not seem to have any reaction at all. They looked sombre enough–although the young ones were possibly just bored–but definitely unmoved. There were nearly fifty members of the Choir now, and only a handful of those had worked with Constance; the rest did not even know her. Frank, Curly and a couple of others exchanged glances and then quietly got up to leave.
‘Sit down, please,’ sighed Annie. ‘That is not all I’ve got to say. I spoke with Connie’s family just an hour ago. Obviously the timing presents a few problems for us, with the contest only days away now, and the last thing I am sure any of us wants to do is cause offence to the bereaved.’
‘Why would we?’
‘Surely the best thing we could do now is go into this and win it for her?’
‘Of course, but I was worried about how they might feel if we went along and sang a song called “Happy”, and I was right to be. They would rather we didn’t. In fact, they went a bit further and expressed a preference that Constance is remembered on Thursday night with a rousing performance of her Sound of Music medley.’
Tracey’s house was for a moment suspended in silence, until a distant roar started up from the back of the room and suddenly the whole crowd was swept up in an outpouring of violent emotion.
‘But we don’t know it!’
‘We’re brilliant at “Happy”.’
‘If we change it all now, we’ll lose.’
‘If we change it all now, I’m bloody leaving.’
‘We can’t be singing that old crap.’
Annie held her hand up. ‘I’m sorry, but our hands are tied. We are Connie’s legacy. It is only right that we show our respect for what she has done.’
At a nod from Bennett, Tracey took to the middle of her own living-room floor.
‘I don’t think that’s true, Annie.’ She was calm and kind, but firm. ‘I’m sure Constance did a lot for the Choir. I wasn’t part of it so I really can’t say. But what I can say, for certain, is that we are the Choir now. I am the elected leader. I choose the programme. And this is our present, our here and now, our chance. We can’t go forward if we keep looking back. We owe it to all these members–and those crowds who cheered us just last Saturday, and all those people who have wished us well–to go and do our very best. For Bridgeford, for the Choir, for Connie’s memory and for ourselves.’
The noise was so loud that Tracey’s neighbours had every right to complain; but in fact most of Tracey’s neighbours were with her now.
Annie was standing by the door with her pen and a list; Tracey and Bennett were pacing up and down in the car park of the Coronation Hall.
‘She’s the only one now, Annie. We can’t wait any longer. We’ve got to get through that bottleneck on the ring road.’
‘Try her again,’ Tracey soothed. ‘One more call, and if she doesn’t pick up, then that’s it, I’m afraid.’
A chorus of Why are we waiting? started up at the back of the bus and was picked up by all as it drifted down the aisle.
Annie, her face contorted with anxiety, stood with a phone to her ear and her teeth on her top lip. ‘Voicemail again.’ She shook her head. ‘I just can’t think what’s happened…’
‘OK, well, on we all get.’ Tracey ushered them up the steps and nodded to the driver. The door of the coach closed with a sigh.
Maria came rushing up to the front. ‘I just got a call from the hospital. They’ve admitted Jazzy’s nan. Apparently her mum did a runner this afternoon, she didn’t get her medication and when Jazzy got home from work the old dear was unconscious.’
‘Oh no. The poor darling. But what about her solo?’ Annie wailed. ‘Her whole life has been leading up to this. She’s worked so hard. I should go to the hospital and—’
‘No. Annie, sit down. We’re a choir,’ said Tracey over her shoulder, moving down the bus and counting heads. ‘A very brilliant choir,’ she said more loudly, so that everyone could hear. ‘POSSIBLY THE BEST CHOIR IN THE COUNTY,’ she shouted to raucous acclaim.
‘And not a collection of soloists.’ She had moved up to the front now; this was said for Annie alone.
‘Are we ready?’ she called from the front.
They were.
‘Are we steady?’
Some were steadier than others–in the sopranos there was a serious case of the jitters–but they all said they were anyway.
‘One small change: Jazzy’s not with us tonight, so Annie Miller will be taking the solo in “Lean on Me” and she will, as we all know, do it brilliantly. Enjoy the journey. Let’s GO.’
‘… And now, put your hands together for our first contestants tonight, THE BRIDGEFORD COMMUNITY CHOIR.’
‘Listen to that,’ she whispered to them in the wings, flicking her thumb towards the auditorium. ‘That’s for you. Let’s show ’em.’ She grabbed Annie by the shoulders, looked her in the eye, said to her, ‘You are wonderful,’ and then proudly led her men out on to the battlefield.
The set could not have gone better: they gave the performance of their dreams. ‘Lean on Me’ was stirring, powerful and memorable, Annie’s solo so deep and emotional that some claimed to see tears in the judges’ eyes. The harmonies of ‘Homeward Bound’ were subtle and lovely, the sound surprisingly and rather wonderfully at odds with the appearance of Squat, Curly and Frank in the front there. The stalls of the Theatre Royal were full of other choirs; friends and families were up in the circle; and it was heart-warmingly, beautifully, inspiringly clear that Bridgefordians were out in force. Annie stepped forward and made her announcement: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we perform here with joy in our voices, but some sadness in our hearts. This week, our beloved Constance, who led this choir for twenty years, lost her fight for life. It is in her name that we are singing here tonight and to the memory of her spirit that we dedicate our final song.’
And how, after that, could they possibly go wrong? Even Lewis was move-perfect in ‘Happy’; the audience lapped up, with soppy smiles, the unabashed joy in the faces of the awkward adolescents. Every solo was a minor triumph and the whole theatre was up and clapping along.
Performing like that had an extraordinary effect on all of them. At first, to the outsiders in the red plush seating, they had looked like who they were: a cross-generational, socially diverse collection of amateurs with nothing in common but music and geography and the determination to have a really good time. But almost at once, the transformative power of the human voice worked its magic. Both within themselves and–miraculously–in the dampened eyes of their beholders, they became something quite other. For ten glorious minutes, they stepped out of their own lives, touched each other’s souls and took off into another world. When they came to the end, the noise of the audience shocked through them to their very core.
In all of their various, varied lives, this was the one thing that none of them had ever known. All those good works that Annie did in the community; all that nursing that Lewis did for his girl; the caring–the endless caring–that Maria performed for different people in differe
nt houses the whole week long; the meals that they cooked for their children; the duty with which they raised their young; the stoicism of those young in the face of poverty and unemployment; the supernatural patience that they sometimes had to summon just to get them through the tedium of their day–and the one thing that never happened to them, however much they had earned it, however much it might have helped, was a standing ovation from a theatre full of strangers.
It was a moment, not just for one, or a respectable handful–it was an extraordinary moment for them all: a great white heat of a moment of communality that would weld them together for ever more, like the very heart of a fire in a forge. Each took their neighbour’s hand, raised their eyes to the spotlights, and then they dropped together in a grateful bow.
The four judges, who had been bent over their table scribbling, all looked up and smiled. Then the chairman looked up, raised his hands to clap them and mouthed the word ‘Bravo’.
‘Well, beat that,’ mouthed Tracey as she turned around and winked at them. ‘Just beat that. Come on, you lot. Let’s go and watch them try.’ Trembling with emotion, she led her warriors from the stage.
Tracey sat in the front of the coach, her head on Bennett’s shoulder, her gaze fixed on the window and the dark late night beyond.
‘FUCK!’ Squat shouted for the tenth time, thumping his fist on the seat in front. ‘FUCKING BASTARD JUDGING FUCKERS!’ He looked over his shoulder to his acolytes. ‘GET THEIR FUCKING NAMES AND THEN WE CAN GO AND BREAK THEIR FUCKING STUPID JUDGEY LEGS.’