by Rachel Joyce
He explains. Flash mobs are arranged mainly via social media. At a pinch, he reckons they could do it by Saturday. They won’t have time to rehearse and that’s a bit of a problem, but everyone knows the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’. The main thing about a group of people singing is that Frank will have to listen. They’ll have him surrounded.
‘You’re telling me that you will arrange an entire performance of the “Hallelujah Chorus” by putting a message into the ether?’
‘Yes,’ says Kit. That’s roughly what he’s saying.
‘People will come to sing?’
‘Yes.’
‘Because they love Frank?’
‘Or because they love vinyl.’
‘In the shopping mall?’
Kit says, ‘Twenty-one years ago, Frank tried to save vinyl and lost everything. This time we’ll save him. We’ll plan a flash mob.’
They have four days.
This is how it will work. Kit will phone the council to request permission to use the shopping mall. Then they will do a recce of the venue. Ilse will find a second-hand record player and a copy of the Messiah; she’ll only find that kind of thing in a charity shop but fortunately the city’s stuffed with them. After that they will recruit singers. Kit will make leaflets, which they will print and hand out. Father Anthony will telephone every independent shopkeeper in the city and every amateur singing group. Kit and Maud will use social media. Sadly Kit can’t mention the event on his radio show because the person who really mustn’t hear anything about this is Frank.
‘Such a shame,’ says Kit.
The Singing Teapot waitress insists the refreshments are free of charge. She’s not really the waitress any more. She bought the owner out fifteen years ago.
The glass doors of the shopping mall slide open. All the shops here have ‘Bargain’ in the name, or at least the promise of one. Poundland. Super Saver. The Eatery is a floor down, on the basement level. There are no windows. The only natural light comes from a glass-domed roof, which is mainly nicotine-yellow now. The group take the escalator and stare at the vast space as it comes into view. There are at least twenty different food outlets – Happy Wok, USA Chicken, Millie’s Cookies, TexMex, Auntie Anne’s Pretzels, The Great British Potato, and those are just the closest – with white plastic tables and chairs arranged in the middle. Giant waste bins stand at regular intervals, made in the shapes of blue fish and squirrels, with wide-open mouths where you are supposed to throw your rubbish. There are also vast pots filled with vast plastic leaves. Presumably all these things are designed to make people feel nice while they eat, though in reality if you came across a giant squirrel or a blue fish with its mouth wide open, or even a plant with leaves that size, you would be wise to drop your fizzy drink and run for it.
The place couldn’t make humanity look more shabby if it tried. Barely anyone is here. Just a woman mopping the floor, a man asleep, and a young mother feeding burger to her baby.
‘Well, at least we can’t miss Frank on Saturday,’ says Kit.
He shows where the flash mob singers can station themselves. If there are about twenty of them, there will be room to stand in front of the potted plants. They can give a quick rendition of the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ – and then disperse.
Ilse shivers. Something about this place makes her long for a green apple. She can’t wait to be back outside.
Kit’s years of craftwork have paid off. She drives him to a retail outlet on the edge of the city where they buy bulk packs of A4 paper, colouring pens, marker pens, string, ribbon, tape, glue, safety pins, badge pins, glitter pots, fabric shapes and trims, decorative tape, peel-off shapes, foils, films and flakes.
‘This is so exciting,’ says Kit. He does little Kit-like skips. Overhearing his voice, a man stops him and says he just needs to thank Kit. He rang in to his show once, when he felt really low.
‘Oh? What did I say?’ It touches Ilse that Kit seems to have no real idea of his influence.
‘You told me to take a nice walk.’
‘Did it work?’
‘That was how I met my wife.’
Kit spends the rest of the afternoon designing leaflets in the hotel suite. They encourage anyone who knew Frank’s music shop to attend the shopping mall on Saturday at 1 p.m. and sing the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’. Ilse drives with Father Anthony to the printers. They have dinner in the hotel restaurant before Kit nips off to do his radio show. He returns that night with a spare set of clothes for both himself and Father Anthony. Maud comes late after work with a small suitcase.
The next morning, Ilse fetches boxes of button badges, which Kit has designed to hand out on the day. There are three different logos and they all come with exclamation marks. I love vinyl!, Hallelujah! and Sing for Frank! There is also a jumbly mix of all three, I love Frank, Hallelujah!
Time passes through her like glass. Every waking moment is spent planning the event. She barely has time to email her students and explain. She manages a few texts but they are simple messages, reassuring friends she is OK. She spends an entire day searching charity shops for a record player until she finds a second-hand Dansette Major, with a red leather trim and brass wire grille. The man at the till takes pleasure in showing her how to use it, and checking the stylus works. She riffles through hundreds of crates of second-hand vinyl and buys a 1959 recording of the Messiah, conducted by Malcolm Sargent on Decca. She also finds copies of the ‘Moonlight’ Sonata, Duke Ellington’s Satin Doll, James Brown and Nick Drake. She buys the lot for 50p. Noticing her interest, another customer asks if she has heard of Record Store Day? ‘Vinyl’s making a comeback,’ he tells her.
Kit and Ilse hand out their leaflets on Castlegate. Father Anthony sits on a bench and does the same. They explain to anyone who will listen, telling people about Frank and his music shop and how he just wanted to help. Over and over, they ask complete strangers to come to the shopping mall and, on a given signal, sing the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’. A few agree they will try to come if they remember.
Meanwhile Maud has also mounted her campaign on social media. She has set up a group page on Facebook. Friends of Frank.
What about a rehearsal on the day? asks Ilse. Kit explains again that there will be no opportunity for a rehearsal. The only thing they can do is offer simple instructions via social media about the music and what to wear. Kit is adamant that everyone must look as normal as possible. Father Anthony suggests everyone brings a sign, like a placard or something, so that Frank sees how many people are here for him.
At the end of each day, they lie exhausted in their executive suite, staring at the lights in the city, and playing the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ over and over on the Dansette Major. The sound is rich and deep, as if the music is reaching up to them from far away. Smoke lifts in pale columns above the food factory.
It’s midnight; twelve hours to go. No one can sleep. There are multiples of things that might go wrong. They have no idea how many singers plan to turn up. So far, many people have liked Maud’s Facebook page and Kit’s leaflets have all been taken, but no one has made any promises. Father Anthony has been in touch with the music master at the cathedral to ask if he can spare a few choristers. He has also had a promise of support from a few of his friends at the home. But, of course, there is no guarantee that Frank himself will show up. The thought of seeing him slings her heart sideways. Part of Ilse just wants to run away. It would be so much easier.
They sit in her hotel suite at midnight, Kit, Maud, Father Anthony and Ilse, surrounded by Kit’s artwork – he has been making placards ever since he got back from the radio station. Meanwhile Father Anthony has folded so many paper birds they are technically a flock and Maud has bitten off each and every one of her nice new nails.
‘You instructed people to assemble by the potted plants, Kit?’ says Ilse.
‘Yes.’ They have been through this over and over.
‘Just before 1 p.m.?’
‘Yes, Ilse.’
‘Looking ordinary?
’
‘Yes.’
‘With placards?’
‘Yes.’
But why would people turn up to sing for a man they don’t know? Why would they even do that for vinyl?
They lie in the dark and sometimes one of them says, ‘Are you still—?’ and another says, ‘Yes,’ and another says, ‘Me too.’
When morning lifts into the sky, they get up solemnly and wash and dress. No one can eat. Not even Kit. They listen to the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ but they can’t sing. The receptionist wishes them luck and they check once again that they have the record, the Dansette, the placards.
‘Have faith,’ whispers Father Anthony as Ilse helps him with his coat. He’s holding a plastic bag. It occurs to her that he actually seems robust and healthy.
She sighs. ‘It’s all so unknown.’
‘That’s because it’s a flash-mob event,’ Kit reminds her. ‘It’s a surprise.’
And here comes another surprise. As they approach the shopping mall on Saturday – so nervous they feel stunned – the glass doors slide open and Kit drops the Dansette Major.
44
Flash!
‘WHY ME?’ ILSE hisses in the entrance to the shopping mall. The glass doors slide shut.
‘Because you’re the musician,’ Maud hisses back. The glass doors slide open.
‘But I don’t play any more. I just teach.’
‘What kind of teacher is that?’
The doors slide shut. Open.
‘Do you think we could possibly move away from the doors?’ asks Father Anthony.
Forty minutes to go before the flash-mob event and they have no music. Actually they do have music. They have ‘Toxic’ by Britney Spears. It is playing on a loop through every sound system in the shopping mall. But in terms of Handel and the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’, they have no musical accompaniment unless Ilse agrees to play. She suggests she could run out to try and buy another Dansette, but she knows even as she says it, this is not an option. There is no time.
Kit paces with his phone. He is texting with one hand and scratching his head with the other.
‘How can I possibly play?’ insists Ilse. ‘I have no violin. And no music.’
Father Anthony lifts his plastic bag. Kit has taken the liberty of borrowing sheet music, as well as a violin – he was just too frightened to mention it. It was in case the Dansette didn’t work. The violin has a battered brown canvas case and the bow is missing some horsehair.
‘But I can’t really play any more.’ Ilse’s voice comes out as a raspy whimper.
‘Now’s your big chance, then,’ says Maud.
Father Anthony is still holding the violin. He hugs it to his chest as if it is a small pet he has rescued. ‘Do we need to tell someone we’re here?’
At this point, Kit goes very quiet.
‘Is something wrong?’ asks Ilse, more than a little tense. ‘Apart from the broken Dansette Major?’
Kit fiddles with his zip. He, uh, he hasn’t liked to mention this before, but he never quite got round to phoning the council.
Maud swings round to face him. ‘You mean this event is illegal?’
Um. Sort of. Yes. Did they seriously believe the council would give permission over the phone for a thing like this? It would take weeks just to fill out the paperwork.
‘We can’t do it, then,’ says Ilse.
‘We have to do it,’ says Maud.
Kit agrees. It’s not as though you get security guards in a place like this. In the circumstances, he suggests the best thing to do is to disperse and pretend they don’t know each other.
‘Suits me,’ says Maud, already stamping down the escalator.
Kit says he will go incognito. He doesn’t want Frank, or indeed any of his fans, to spot him yet.
As the moving staircase carries her down to the basement level, Ilse’s hands begin to shake. It’s small at first, but by the time she steps on to the floor her entire body is trembling.
Saturday lunchtime. The place is packed with people eating junk food. Why didn’t they think of this? Couples, solitary shoppers, middle-aged women on outings, a group of men in football scarves, gangs of teenagers – practically entire classrooms of them – and even families, two or three generations. The noise is a roar, and so is the smell. So many people with takeaway dishes, and fizzy drinks in cups the size of lampshades. Others queue at the different food outlets. She wishes Father Anthony was beside her, but he is busy inspecting the crowd, searching for a sign of some choristers or anyone he recognizes from the home. She looks up at the domed yellowy roof light, hoping for comfort.
Sitting directly beneath it, she finds him.
Frank.
The breath goes clean out of her. She almost falls.
He sits erect and alone on a white plastic chair at a matching plastic table, eating a burger from a paper wrapper. He is wearing his factory overalls, even on a Saturday. His skin has a cheese and onion look, like a film of yellowy sand, and so does his long white hair, which he has tied back from his face with a rubber band. It’s the tenderness with which he takes a chip and dips it in a sachet of ketchup that really gets her. He chews very carefully, making sure the taste is right. He adds a tiny sprinkling of salt.
She doesn’t want to cry but she can’t help it, she can hardly see him any more through tears.
He is the same, older, the dearest man in the world. He lifts his burger to his mouth, takes a small bite, puts it down, chews carefully, and then picks it up again. When a child stops and stares at his long hair, he nods.
But why is there another person with a beard waving at her, as if he is bringing a plane in to land?
It is Kit. God help him. He is in disguise.
He is letting her know he too has spotted Frank. He points to his watch. Twenty minutes to go.
There is no one else in the crowd she recognizes. Not even the Singing Teapot waitress has made it. A toddler spins herself to dizziness beside Sweet-you-like until a woman scoops her up and carries her, yelling and wriggling, to a pushchair. A young man in a jogging suit approaches a woman and she shakes her head, as if to say, No, you’ve been late too many times.
At another table, three overweight businessmen with briefcases eat pizzas, paper napkins tucked into their shirt collars to protect their businessmen suits. A pair of old ladies share a slice of cake. A woman drinks a plastic cup of coffee opposite her young son, and the look on her face is so empty, you’d think they’d been here years. When he starts bashing her mobile on the table, she just stares. Two cleaners drag their mops across the floor.
At another table, a young man is fast asleep with his head in his arms. In the far corner, a woman with a baseball cap peels the crust from a sandwich and pecks at it with the tiniest bites, as if she is afraid it will turn round any moment and bite her back. Another woman is entirely shrouded in a yellow cagoule. People everywhere. And not one of them a singer. Ilse throws back her head in despair.
That’s when she spots them. Two security men. Up on the first floor.
She takes the escalators to check. They are standing in front of Ann Summers and they don’t look especially lively. In the shop window behind them, a mannequin wears a peep-hole bra, suspenders and a pair of pants that is more ribbon than pant. She’s also holding a pair of handcuffs though presumably she is not trying to help the security guards.
Ilse returns to the Eatery. She stands with hands gripped in a ball. She can’t stop shaking. Never mind playing a violin. In her present condition, she wouldn’t even be able to unzip the case.
When she next spots Kit, he is flashing his fingers at her. Ten minutes to go.
Where is the joy, Frank? she asks herself. We had Bach. We had Mozart, you and I. Schubert, Chopin, Tchaikovsky. Even when she was teaching, there would be a child, once in a while, who got it, who really understood. But this? Is this where the world has been heading? To canned music and burgers and no daylight and plastic bins in a shopping mall? Every man for himse
lf? Is this where it all ends?
Father Anthony appears at her side. ‘OK?’
‘No. I am terrified. There’s no one here.’
‘There are lots of people here,’ says Kit, appearing at her other side, sans beard.
‘But none of them have come to sing the “Hallelujah Chorus”.’
‘We asked them to look ordinary.’
‘Not this ordinary. They’re all eating burgers. And what about the placards?’
‘Hm,’ says Kit. ‘You’re right. There are no placards.’
‘Have you seen the security guards?’ She lifts her eyes in the direction of the first floor. The two security guards remain with their arms folded in front of the not-very-dressed lady mannequin.
‘Shit,’ says Kit.
Maud joins them. She carries a tray with bottled water. ‘I thought you might need a drink before you start.’
Ilse’s mouth is sandpaper. Her body is frail and nothing but air. She can’t tell if she is very hot or very cold. ‘How can this work? There’s no one to sing with us. There’s security upstairs. And Frank won’t even hear.’
Kit says, ‘How about “Happy Birthday”? We could do that. Or we could just join in with “Toxic”?’
Ilse stares at Kit. ‘Are you serious?’
‘We are trying to save Frank,’ says Maud. She stops talking for a second and then remembers who she is. ‘Pillock.’
Father Anthony glances up at the two security guards. ‘I’m not sure this is a good idea, you know,’ he says quietly.
On the other side of the Eatery, Frank continues to eat his burger.
‘Three minutes to go,’ whispers Kit.
‘No. I can’t do it. I can’t. And it won’t even be in tune.’ Ilse puts down the violin. But before she can move away, she is caught by one small and very firm hand on her shoulder. It actually hurts.
Maud grips Ilse tightly by the collar and draws her face right up close to hers. They are nose to nose. Maud snarls through clenched-together teeth. ‘Listen. We have waited twenty-one years. You need him. He needs you. We need you to sort this out. So pick up your fiddle—’