“Why can’t she?”
“Too busy with chairs, apparently.”
Harriet reaches for her mobile phone. She taps in a number. Her son Brian is still upstairs in bed.
“Yeah?”
“It’s Mummy. Can you come down, please? I need a favour.”
There is no response.
“Brian?”
“On my way.”
Fifteen minutes later, Brian is standing on Tracey’s doorstep. He rings and rings. Eventually Belle, clad in a puce-coloured bath robe, appears at the door.
“Yep?”
“Your keyboard. We need it. For the show. Apparently. That alright?”
“Fine.”
She motions him in, leads him upstairs to her bedroom.
“There.”
He claws past several dozen shoeboxes, four bath sheets, a guitar and a Hello Kitty laundry bag, before locating and grasping the Roland keyboard.
“S’it. Cheers.”
“Yep.”
Brian leaps down the stairs two at a time. The door slams. The entire exchange must have taken no more than fifteen words.
Jay texts Jane. We have the keyboard. All systems are go, Head Girl.
She tosses her hair back with satisfaction. Quite a thing, having a problem to solve in a tight deadline. She’s always been good at it. Just shows her touch hasn’t faltered.
She texts him back. Do you want to deliver it over to me? Five minutes.
At this point, the furniture van from Rayners in Wandsworth draws up with a flourish. The van is packed with 200 gilt stackable chairs that Jane has ordered. She explains to the man where she would like the chairs arranged, then turns to see Jay, languid, elegant, in her hall, casually leaning against the keyboard.
“Wonderful. I love you. You look wonderful. You are wonderful. Thank you.”
“Thank Tracey. And my son.”
She hates Tracey. She hates his son. She doesn’t want to include them.
“Yes, well I don’t want to. I want to thank you. You will watch, tonight, won’t you?”
“Jane, have you forgotten my wife is playing in this?”
In the pressure, she had. The reminder burns her heart. She hates his wife. Not personally. Well, actually she does hate her, personally.
“Oh, yes. Silly me.”
“Come on. Chin up. It can’t always be about you.”
“No, I know. Well, at the moment, I feel it never is, with you.”
“Oh, rubbish! You know you are irresistible.”
Yet he hadn’t been around much recently. Jane is too proud to point this out, but it’s clear. They haven’t had a hotel day for weeks.
“Look, thanks for bringing it round. That is really great. Saves the day. I must thank Tracey. I must organise a table for it, and of course the projector.”
“Projector?”
“For George’s film. The new, improved version.” Had she mentioned to Jay that George had originally intended to project a Lego version which appeared to reference their inter-dinner fucking? She didn’t think she had. She wasn’t going to now. It would seem so gauche. Anyway, that incident is over and forgotten. She thinks even Patrick has forgotten it. She fervently hopes he has. He hasn’t mentioned it, at least.
“It’s to be projected onto a sheet. At least that’s the plan. Larry’s putting it up.”
Indeed, in the Square, at that precise moment, Larry appears, bustling, holding a thick white bedspread tightly to his chest. He waves in a frenzied manner over to Jay, drops the heavy cloth, curses extravagantly, collects it up again, carries on walking. Behind him trails Belle, carrying a stepladder.
“Belle, thanks so much for the keyboard,” yells Jane.
Belle nods her head in acknowledgement of her usefulness, although all she did was to point out to Brian where, in the detritus of her room, the device had been abandoned. She carries on walking beside her father.
“Got to put this up here, apparently! On a tree!” he shouts over to Jane.
“This is all coming together,” she shouts back, happily.
“Oooh Come Together… over me,” croons Alan Makin as he screws Tracey for the third time that morning, this time on the leather sofa.
Chapter Twenty-Eight The Talent Show (ii)
Her fears that nobody would turn up have proved unfounded. She’s standing at the gate of the park in the Square, taking tickets. Or rather, taking money and giving people raffle tickets. Everyone is effusive about the event, and lots of people have come. Well, about thirty have already arrived. More will come, she tells herself. She knows most of them vaguely. Nice people who live around the Square. Everyone comes in smiling.
“Thank you so much.”
“Great, thanks so much.”
“I know. It’s going to be great.”
“I can’t wait either.”
Behind her, the chairs are in rows on the grass. People are already sitting down on them. Others have brought rugs and are sitting, chatting, opening Thermos flasks of coffee, bottles of wine, cans of Coke. Most of them are only about twenty seconds away from their front door. However, some people are behaving as if they are on a far-flung camping trip, worrying about bottle openers and unwrapping sandwiches.
Oh well. Jane looks down at the spoils. She must have made about £350.
She looks at her watch. It is 5.56pm. In a rushed phone call with Tracey, she was informed that Alan would be appearing at 6.15, to open the show at 6.30.
“One… two… one… two,” intones Patrick down the microphone over by the stage. His voice appears, disconnected, from a large speaker under a tree.
Anya moves quietly around him, checking that Belle’s electronic keyboard is level, drawing up the piano stool so it is easy to sit upon. Jane looks at her with intense irritation. Still, it’s good that she’s helping Patrick with the PA system.
She shudders as she thinks about what might happen if the sound fails. Larry’s bedspread hangs from a tree behind them. A heavy piece of cloth, it looks rather fragile and is attached to a rope only by three plastic clothes pegs.
Jane’s phone trills.
It’s Tracey.
“Alright, we’re ready. Has everyone arrived?”
“Well, I don’t know. There seems to be quite a few empty chairs, but it’s only six. I’d give it a bit longer.” People are still arriving. There must be about sixty now in the park.
“Oh… okay.”
Tracey sounds nervous.
George. She’d forgotten about her son.
“Tracey, I have to go,” she tells her.
“Look, can you carry on taking the money?” she says to the Single Mother, who has just turned up. “It’s a fiver minimum for adults and a quid for kids. No exceptions. Remember we are fundraising. Try not to give people change if they give you a tenner.”
She throws the box at the Single Mother and darts out of the park.
At home, George is standing at the foot of the stairs. He is entirely clad in white. Finn’s Storm Trooper costume. He hums a little tune.
He is ready. He is composed. He is aboard the Death Star.
He raises an eyebrow as his mother comes bolting in.
“George, darling. Sorry I’m late. Are you ready?”
“I am,” says her son sonorously.
“Have you got your music?”
He looks at her, composedly. “Roberta has.”
As she steps from the bus, Roberta finds George’s music in her bag. God, that was lucky, she thinks as she hurries towards the Square.
Behind the bedspread in the park, Patrick is looking for the extension cable in which to plug a small spotlight. Anya comes behind to help him search for it.
“I think it’s here,” says Patrick, pulling out a cable from behind a laurel bush.
“Can I help you?” says Anya, leaning down. She turns her head towards him. He looks at her beautiful face. I might as well, thinks Patrick.
“Er, Anya, can I just… ”
H
e lurches forward, kisses Anya. Awkwardly. They stand up, behind the bedspread, kissing properly this time. Patrick puts his hand on her breast, finds the nipple. Thrillingly, he discovers this is as exciting as he had fantasised it would be.
As she kisses Patrick back, Anya is deeply satisfied. Another part of her mind is, however, slightly worried about George’s music, which she had been going through with him yesterday.
Where had she left it? Oh well.
Patrick breaks away from her.
“God, Anya. Sorry.”
“Sorry?”
“I mean,” he shrugs, smiles at her helplessly.
“Do you actually know where the plug is?”
She laughs. “It’s here,” she says, moving her bag and revealing it to him.
He pops his head around the sheet.
“God. Quite a crowd here. Must be about seventy people. Shouldn’t we have some form of music, sort of while we are waiting?”
Anya nods, walks round the keyboard and turns it on. It whistles, then the noise subsides to a low hum. She draws up the stool, puts her hands on the board and starts to play, quietly. Gershwin.
Patrick shakes his head. It is perfect. The girl is a wonder to him. “Perfect.” He looks down the aisle of chairs to see Tracey and Alan Makin hastening towards him.
Alan is dapper in a pinstriped suit. Tracey looks slightly flushed.
“Do you have a microphone?” asks Alan of Patrick. He hands him the single microphone, purloined from the Scouts, who use it for their Christmas show.
“Ahem!” says Alan Makin loudly, down the microphone. The low level burble of conversation ceases. Anya finishes her piece with a small arpeggio to the tonic note, stands, and bows. A faint ripple of applause marks her exit.
“Thank you… ” says Alan, realising he has no idea of the name of Tracey’s au pair. “Well, thank you. And welcome, one and all, to this, the very first Talent Show in the Square. We have a lot of wonderful acts tonight. Nobody is going to be judged, as such. Simply sit back and realise how very very talented you all are. All of you! Thank you!”
A larger burst of applause. Jane runs up to Alan and thrusts a running order into his hand. “You might need this, you know. It’s the running order. You have to introduce everyone.”
“Thank you,” says Alan, with the practised air of someone who is always being given running orders by inferiors. Jane recognises this. She bristles, but she cannot have people being unannounced.
“And now will you all welcome, er, Harriet, who is to play for us a wonderful Bach partita.”
He gazes down the aisle as Harriet wobbles unsteadily up towards the area where he is standing. She is wearing the lilac. She is also wearing a pair of very high heels, whose vertiginous nature she has not quite mastered. She has a lot of makeup on.
“Thank you Alan,” she says, waving her bow at everyone.
“Hello, the Square!”
It’s not Glastonbury, thinks Jane sourly.
Harriet turns to Anya, who is standing beside the bedsheet.
“Could you give me an A, please?”
Anya obliges, turning on the tuning device in the keyboard. Harriet fiddles with her violin for about three seconds, pauses, takes a deep breath, applies the bow and starts to play.
Everyone leans forward to listen as Bach’s creamy composition rolls out around the park, the wrestling arpeggios and runs of notes held together by the contrapuntal beat which overarches the composition like some sort of godly heart. On and on she goes. Jane watches Jay smiling fondly at her. Her stomach twists.
He’s so proud of her, she thinks with dreadful malice.
She’s so average.
Alright, she can play the violin, but so what? She’s fat. And old.
Beside Jay, Brian smiles proudly too. He nudges Belle, who is sitting next to him.
“She’s brilliant, your mum,” whispers Belle.
Brian responds by holding her hand.
The notes are running inexorably to their final position. Harriet is in the home strait. She knows it. The audience knows it. Alan knows it. He grasps the microphone, ready to leap in and thank her when he is distracted by a terrible commotion at the gate.
“Yeah but we want to take part, right? Is our money not good enough for youse then?”
Everyone abandons their focus on Harriet, and Bach, and turns round to see what is going on. A huge man with a bull terrier on a chain beside him is standing squarely in the gateway, and shouting at Jane.
Harriet continues with the coda.
“We’ve got talents, you know!” continues the man. “Ain’t we, Jacky?”
“Yeah!” shouts a young woman.
The man shoulders his way past Jane, ignoring her completely.
“Come on everyone.”
Jane hovers beside the gate, her arms flapping uselessly by her side, her mouth open in astonishment as she sees no-one other than the vicar himself, the vicar! Leading a group of people, no, she calls it a posse of… dreadful people, the people who live in the council estate nearby, walking as bold as brass into what she, this evening, has started to refer to as the ‘auditorium’.
They are dressed in sleeveless vests, tracksuit bottoms and trainers. Some are wearing football shirts. The children have aggressively short hair. Most of them have earrings. And tattoos. And giant golden chains. There are at least three dogs.
Jane is caught between standing her ground scornfully and heartily wishing she could sink into the ground and disappear.
The vicar waves his fingers in a conciliatory gesture to the astonished gathering who have, by now, completely forgotten about Harriet and her Bach piece.
Belle, hating herself for doing it, and Brian, are sniggering into their hands.
“Wot you find so fuckin funny, then?” shouts the woman called Jacky as she walks past.
They immediately drop their smiles.
“Nothing,” whispers Belle.
She turns round properly and sees Jas. Thank God.
“Jas!” shouts Belle.
He waves, pleased to see her.
“Oh, Belle, hi, there you are.”
He hurries up, pushing a smaller boy in the back.
“Go on Javi, Mum says she’ll catch up with you.”
Javi wanders away, unconvinced.
“What the hell is going on?” says Belle. “They ruined Harriet’s piece.”
“S’alright,” says Jas. “Once everyone has sat down, it’s alright. Just making sure nothing’s going to kick off. But I’ve got to go.”
“What? Why? You’ve only just arrived!”
She is conscious of wanting to uncouple herself from Brian, who is sitting closely beside her. She turns her back on him to face Jas.
“Where are you going?”
“Got to collect Gilda, haven’t I?”
Gilda. Oh, God. Belle had completely forgotten that Gilda was planning to do something at the Talent Show. What had she said she wanted to do, was it sing something? Russian folk? Belle couldn’t remember, feels a stab of guilt that she had never discussed it, as she said she would, with her mother.
She looks helplessly at Jas’ retreating back.
His mother, Brenda, comes running up through the lines of chairs.
“Sorry, sorry. Ooh, Belle, hello! So nice to see you.” She grabs Javi, the younger child, by the hand and takes her place with the rest of the recently arrived group.
Harriet finishes her piece. The front row clap with their hands up by their faces, as if to make up for the fact that everyone else has forgotten about her.
“Good evening,” intones the vicar. “So sorry we are so late. Gathered some people from my community project who would like to join in, hope that’s alright.”
“What community project might that be?” says Larry to Tracey.
“Who knows?” replies Tracey.
The council estate group sit squarely on the left hand side, dragging spare chairs around from the back so that they can be together,
maintain their physical unity.
Alan Makin smiles at them in what he hopes is a welcoming manner.
Then one of the women shouts out.
“Ain’t you that chap off the telly?! Nobody told us there’s celebrities here! Hello! Hey! You’re much thinner than you look on the box! Are you doing autographs after?”
Alan’s expression changes immediately. He cocks his head towards her, delighted.
“Yes I will be doing autographs,” his voice booms over the park.
“Oh, Christ, sorry,” he says, switching the microphone off. “Yes, I will be doing autographs.” There is already a small commotion in front of Alan Makin of people doing selfies with him in the background. Alan respectfully puts the microphone down and stands smiling as people crowd around him, their smartphones raised in totemic acknowledgement.
Jane has had enough. She marches up to Alan. She knew this should have been a private affair.
“Alan, please. We are in a public space so we will have to put up with this. But please, can we get on with our event. Poor Harriet.”
“Ah, yes, so sorry. Right. Where were we?”
“Harriet,” says Jane, icily.
Alan Makin regains his position at the front of the dais.
“Whoop whoop!” shout the newcomers. “Can I be on your show?” yells someone.
Jane turns, notices Roberta slip into the park. She waves a sheet of music at her.
Jane points theatrically to the house, where George is waiting. Roberta slips away again.
“Thank you so much, er, Harriet, for that wonderful piece and welcome to everyone who has just arrived. Now, who is next?” He glances down at the sheet.
Next on Jane’s programme is a modern dance piece by the Dance Ensemble from Grace’s school, The Prep. Oh, God. Alan Makin knows nothing about The Prep but correctly suspects that the troupe might be given short shrift by the newly augmented audience.
“Well, alright. Has anyone here got a piece?” he says, appealing to the new group who are sitting right beneath him.
What, thinks Jane, the hell is going on? She marches up to Alan.
“What are you doing?” she hisses. “There is a programme!”
Alan is aware of the entire crowd becoming restive. He carefully switches the microphone off.
The Square Page 21