The Rectory

by Ivan B

  “Didn’t know you could sing as well,” she drawled in a mock Texan accent.

  She thumbed through the pile of music and handed me the score for the Connie Francis standard Love Letters. I’ve always liked this piece as it not only has a good vocal score but a piano accompaniment that enhances the words and mood. Without really thinking I set off on the opening bars to be astonished when Yolande started singing exactly on cue and exactly in pitch, well almost. She was a hairsbreadth off on the first two notes, but so close that most people wouldn’t notice, then she locked in on the pitch perfectly. When we finished I just couldn’t help myself.

  “Well, that’s certainly better than your violin playing.”

  She grinned.

  “They don’t call me the karaoke kid for nothing.”

  I tapped the music with my finger.

  “Karaoke kids don’t usually read music.”

  She giggled.

  “Twenty years a choir-girl and after you left I did music GCSE and chose my voice as my instrument.”

  We looked through the music and pulled out Mark Knopfler’s Don’t Worry. I played and she sang, like before. This time she took three notes to lock in to the piano; I was to learn that this is a characteristic of hers, no matter how many times she sings a song she always takes two or three notes to settle down. Next up we had a go at the old Max Bygrave’s favourite of Tulips in Amsterdam, we sang that as a duet. When we had finished a voice from behind startled us, I swung round on the piano stool.

  “Pardon?” I blurted out.

  “I said I’m glad you’ve arrived, I was beginning to have my doubts.”

  The speaker was obviously either the hotel manager or an assistant manager. I did my best smile as I hate being interrupted when I’m playing.

  “Sorry to disappoint you, but we’re just guests tinkering about, who were you expecting?”

  His face fall, “Betty and Reginald Banthrope, they are due to entertain the holiday guests this evening.”

  Yolande laughed.

  “Holiday guests, in this weather?”

  She vocalised my thoughts exactly. He shrugged and smiled at the same time.

  “You’d be surprised, we’ve got three coach parties all on winter holidays and all expecting an evening of light music.”

  Just then the door opened and a short man entered and dripped gently on the carpet, he smiled at the manager.

  “Hi, I’m Sam the sound engineer, have Betty and Reg arrived?”

  Sam took his coat off and I almost expected him to be wearing Gaucho trousers as his sad brown eyes, droopy grey mustache and tiny bow legs that supported a fairly plump torso made him look every inch a Latin American cowboy.

  He shook his head and Sam rolled his eyes.

  “I’ve told them to come via Thorpeness, but the roads horrid between there and here and when I spoke to them an hour ago they were passing Norwich.”

  For some reason we all looked out of the window and instinctively knew that they would never make it. The manager looked at us, desperation in his eyes.

  “I don’t suppose…”

  “Oh no,” said Yolande, “No no no no no.”

  I turned to Yolande.

  “Why not, you’re very good.”

  “We’ve not practiced anything.”

  I knew her well enough by now to know that she’d given an excuse, not a reason..

  “I’m sure we’ll cope, especially if we tell the guests that we’re just stand-ins.”

  She looked dubious and the manager said softly.

  “They would be most grateful, it is a rotten night and you do sound marvelous.”

  She shook her head.

  “I’ve got nothing to wear.”

  I almost made a quip that she looked attractive in dungarees, but realise, just in time, that it was this that was stopping her from singing. The manager smiled suavely.

  “That is sortable madam, there is a dress shop nearby and,” he fixed me with a stare, “they also hire wedding suits.”

  I grimaced at the thought.

  “I take it we’d get paid.”

  Uncertainty flicked across the manager’s face, I crossed my arms, “I guess you’d have paid the Banthropes.”

  He held his hands up, “OK, you’ll get paid £200 a night each, I can’t do fairer than that.”

  I felt like digging my heels in, but Sam muttered something like ‘Take it mate,’ so I did.

  Yolande left with the manager and Sam looked at me.

  “Just the two of you?”

  “Yes.”

  He nodded.

  “Then I’ll give you each a radio mike and mike the piano as well. Do you want fold-back?”

  I sometimes wonder about sound engineers and their propensity to cover everything with wires and microphones.

  “No, I’m sitting quite close to the piano so we won’t need foldback and is it really necessary to mike us up?”

  He nodded seriously.

  “I’m laying in a temporary inductive loop, some of the old dears usually have hearing aids. He looked at the piano and then turned to me.

  “You sure about the fold-back? Your singer will be standing some ten feet from the piano sounding board that’s about a hundredth of a second in sound terms.”

  I said dryly that I thought we could cope with that, he didn’t seem convinced and I knew that he hadn’t yet given up on the idea.

  By eight o’clock Yolande and I were dressed-up and ready. She had a off the shoulder ball gown in a pale red that made her look a million dollars and I had a gull-winged shirt and grey tails that made me feel like a puffin. The room seemed to be full of little grey haired old ladies with a mere smattering of elderly men. The manager took the microphone.

  “Ladies and gentlemen first the bad news. Betty and Reginald Banthrope haven’t made it through the snow. Then the good news, we’re pleased to have in their place Yolande and Richard Holmes who have stepped in at the last moment.” He paused, “Our sound engineer for the evening is Sam and he assures me that if you have a hearing aid you will hear better if you switch over to the T position.”

  About a quarter of the audience fiddled with their ears. I gave Yolande the nod and we started on out first piece. We had agreed on ‘I don’t know why I love him’ as our starting piece and I played the introduction only for Yolande to miss her cue, I smiled at her and vamped a little and then repeated the introduction; this time she came in on cue and, after three notes, in perfect key. The after-song applause gave her confidence and she sang another pair of show songs to equal approbation. I then gave her a rest by playing a medley, I like playing medleys: in fact I’m good at playing medleys. I started with the opening chords of The Warsaw Concerto and melded them into Greensleeves which underwent metamorphosis into a Scott Joplin rag which became It’s a long way to Tipperary and so on. I think I played for about eight minutes and did around six transforms. The funny thing is sit me in a studio and I couldn’t do it, put me in front of a live audience and the buzz of playing allows me to invent wondrous chord changes. After the applause had died down Yolande sang ‘Love Letters,’ ‘Walking back to happiness’ and ‘Lipstick on your collar.’ I noticed that the audience were beginning to join in the songs, so I decided to have some fun. I stood up.

  “Who knows the Gilbert & Sullivan pattersong ‘I am a very model of a modern major general?”’

  I dozen hands shot up and I called the ladies out and arranged them in a chorus, from somewhere Sam produced a radio-microphone and placed it in front of them. I both played the piece and sang the major part with the old ladies coming in on the chorus, it went down a real treat. After that Yolande, who was gaining confidence all the time, led a sing along with songs chosen from the audience. I intended to close by playing Goodnight Sweetheart, but Yolande had other ideas. Once the applause from that had died down she asked me for the first bar of The old rugged cross, after the first bar she sang unaccompanied; it brought the house down.

  The m
anager, who by now had a smile as wide as Watford Gap, thanked us profusely and asked us if we’d do it again the following night. I recollect laughing and saying that it was for one night only, he smiled tolerantly and said it was still snowing. Sam the sound engineer removed our radio mikes and muttered something about needing a few more microphones if we were going to get ad-hoc choruses. Yolande handed him her mike with the immortal words;

  “I never realised it would be so hard to hear the piano with everyone singing along.”

  He shot me a glance that proclaimed ‘I told you so.’ And we went to bed.

  We actually stayed for two more days. We were snowed into Aldeburgh and had no choice really. So Yolande and I had a whale of a time. In the mornings we practiced a few pieces and in the evenings led the concert; this time with her wearing ear-pieces fed by some sort of radio fold-back of the piano via the sound-desk. It actually made no difference to her slightly off first few notes, but at least she could both walk about and hear me playing when everyone was singing. As the hotel had a somewhat limited selection of music on the Saturday we did a music from the 40s and 50s singalong with Yolande only singing five songs and me playing two medleys. On the Sunday we had a hymn singing evening with Yolande rounding off singing the piece ‘There were three wooden crosses on the hillside’ unaccompanied.

  Monday morning the radio told us that the road out of Aldeburgh had finally been cleared so as we ate breakfast we contemplated the end to our temporary fame. Sam disturbed out meditations by joining us. He looked slightly embarrassed.

  “Thought you ought to know that I taped your concerts.”

  He pushed over a small pile of discs that Yolande scooped into her shoulder bag. She followed this act by pushing a piece of toast into her mouth, it was rather like watching a mouse swallow an ostrich egg.

  “I wouldn’t waste your discs if I was you.” she remarked casually.

  He fiddled with a napkin.

  “Actually there’s quite a market for this type of music, call it the grey market if you like, but albums of such material sell well.”

  I wondered what he meant by well and he answered me before I could ask.

  “Last CD that the Banthropes put out sold over four million.” He said enticingly

  Yolande buttered another piece of toast, “In this country?”

  “Yep.”

  She shook her head, “Never heard of them.”

  He laughed, “You’re way too young. They advertise their albums in magazines for the over sixties.”

  I was getting curious.

  “Why you telling us this?”

  He took a deep breath.

  “Reckon I might be able to market this, if you wanted.”

  Personally I didn’t think he stood a snowflakes chance in hell of selling the recordings.

  “Won’t Betty and Reginald be annoyed if you market our stuff?”

  He grinned,

  “I’m just a local sound engineer, they’re out of my league.”

  Yolande and I looked at each other and both nodded.

  “OK, “ I said, “what cut are you after?”

  “20%.”

  I reflected that 20% of nothing was still nothing and Yolande and I agreed. He smiled, well his moustache twitched in the right direction.

  “I guess we’ll have to draw up a contract.”

  Frankly I didn’t want the hassle.

  “Did I hear you say you did some work at the Greenbelt Christian festival?”

  “Yes, every year.”

  “You a Christian then?”

  “Of course.”

  I held out my hand;

  “Then no contract needed. Whatever profit there is you get a 20% cut.”

  His eyebrows rose as if I was mad.

  “On a handshake?”

  “On a handshake, we’ll do it on trust.”

  He hesitated for a moment and then shook my hand followed by Yolande’s hand. He poured himself a coffee.

  “What do I call you?”

  “Richard and Yolande,” I said.

  “Yolande and Richard,” she said.

  A pleasant discussion ensued on how we would be listed on non-existent CD cover that neither Yolande or I believed would ever be printed.

  The drive home was not pleasant, least not as far as the weather was concerned. The roads were open, but only just; even the A12 was dodgy in places. Yolande opted to be taken home and I promised to pick her up the following day as her van was still at the rectory, in the event it was a week. She rang me up that afternoon saying that her dad had booked himself on a four-day course to update himself on modern alarm systems, but had now picked up an urgent job at the prison so she was going in his place. I wished her well and spent the afternoon dusting and polishing Fiatimo.

  Three things happened during the next four days. I finished sorting the mail, knew where my Sword of Damocles was coming from and I realised that I missed Yolande, in fact I missed her very much.

  Chapter 14

  Missing Pieces

  Even though there was thick snow on the ground Barney and I managed to meet for a drink and a yarn. I decided halfway through the evening to try some lateral questioning, I opened with a simple starter.

  “How’s Millicent, she must have worked really hard on that history.”

  He laughed and took a pull of his lager.

  “Still working on it; now she knows that Mari Mathu is involved she probably won’t let it go until she’s squeezed out the last drop of information.”

  “Not too much for her is it?” I asked nonchalantly.

  He gave me a funny look.

  “No, why should it be?”

  “Doing it on top of everything else,” I ventured.

  Barney didn’t take the bait.

  “She loves it.”

  I gave up, but Barney took my questioning from an entirely different angle.

  “Getting concerned about women are we? So how is young Yolande?”

  I replied as indifferently as I could.

  “Don’t know, she’s off on a course.”

  He laughed and nudged me in the ribs, which was a shame as the bruise there was beginning to heal nicely.

  “Come on! You spend three days snowed into a hotel with her and you don’t know?”

  “I told you earlier, we spent the time singing.”

  He rolled his eyes.

  “Oh yeah, pull the other one.”

  “I’m serious, we had separate bedrooms.”

  He laughed his dirty laugh, in fact it was his abominably dirty laugh.

  “So that just gives you two places to have an intimate get together, if you know what I mean.”

  This statement was accompanied by another bone bending dig in the rigs. I put my drink down, I was actually annoyed. Annoyed that he’d think that of me, but more annoyed that he’d think it of Yolande. I replied with enough coldness to put frost on a glass of warm beer.

  “I rather think that after all these years you’d have know me better by now and I would certainly not sleep with Yolande before marriage and I can assure you that she’s not that kind of girl anyway.”

  Barney took on the expression of a startled gazelle.

  “Sorry mate, I didn’t mean anything shady.”

  I nodded and we drank our beer in silence while I reflected how women came between male friendships. He suddenly put his glass down.

  “So do you intend to marry her. Millicent says that you’d be good for one another and I think she might be right.”

  Now I could have laughed off this statement, instead I turned to Barney for help, believe me I needed help.

  “How would I know?”

  He rubbed his nose.

  “How would you know what?”

  “If Yolande feels anything for me.”

  He shook his head and sighed the sigh of a despairing man.

  “Wrong question mate. First up: do you feel anything for her?”

  I must have seemed like a hedgehog
caught in the headlights of a Robin Reliant for Barney gave me a look of total exasperation.

  “You haven’t even thought about it have you? Typical Richard, just roll along with the breeze and if an attractive woman gets blown into your path you never stop to think.”

  I was at a total loss, this was not numbers or musical notations on a page, this was emotions.

  “Just what should I think?”

  “How about how would you feel if the breeze blew her out of your path?”

  I pondered on the question and decided to park it for a while.

  “You still haven’t answered my question, even if I feel something for here, how can I know if she feels for me?”

  Barney patted my arm.

  “Try talking to her mate, or even better try and give her a kiss.”

  I remember that night well. It stands out in my memory because for the first time ever I had to really consider my feelings towards a woman. I lay in bed turning over in my mind questions concerning Yolande. Currently we saw a lot of each other because of her task in the rectory, but what would happen when the job was over? I knew that I valued her company, and her opinion, but did I love her – could I love her? What was love anyway? Dare I risk turning the friendship into anything more; especially after my debacle with Roberta and before her with Amelia. I was well aware that most things I touched turned to dust or had a way of biting back at me; would Yolande fall into the same category? Eventually I fell into a fitful sleep dreaming of Yolande in her ball-gown pulling in cables under my floorboards and singing sea-shanties while I played a harmonica.

  To my surprise Yolande’s father turned up at the rectory on Tuesday morning and found me delving into the depths of the last mailbag. He looked so tense that I made him a mug of tea and tried for normal conversation, especially as he made me extremely nervous by his politeness.

  “Yolande said you were doing a job at the prison.”

  “Lot of fuss over nothing,” he said huffily.

  “So you missed the course for nothing?”