‘Never a drop touches my lips, Vicar.’
‘Not even at Communion?’
‘That is the one exception to my rule; but other than that, I do not drink a drop. It’s the devil’s instrument, is alcohol, and causes all sorts of terrible behaviour as a result of too much being taken.’
Rev. Church had left the door of his study slightly ajar, and could see his wife, Olivia, hovering there, waiting to see if she was needed. And she was, and realised it, tapping gently on the door, before entering the room with an apologetic look on her face.
‘I’m terribly sorry to disturb your discussion, but I’m afraid there’s someone at the back door that you really ought to talk to,’ she informed her husband. ‘I think they could be in need of your services, and I could hardly turn them away.’
‘I’m sorry, er – Campbell, but I shall have to go. So much pastoral work to be done, even in a rural community. If you would please excuse me, I’ll see you out.’
When he had closed the front door, he made his way through The Parsonage to the back door, but found no one there but his wife. ‘What’s going on? Have they gone away?’
‘No, they’re still here,’ she informed him, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him towards her. ‘It’s me that’s in need of your services. Now you’ve got rid of that horrid little man, you can give me a kiss.’
Which he did – with gusto! Although their children had grown up and left home, and they were both in their late forties, they were still in love, and a fine example to many others who lived in Swinbury Abbot.
As they drew apart, Olivia said, ‘I don’t think I like that Dashwood man very much. A few of the band members have been talking to me on a Sunday after church, and he sounds very spiteful and cruel, from what I’ve heard.’
‘I don’t like him either, now. I thought, originally, that he’d been sent from above, as the answer to the band’s lack of musical direction, but I’m coming round to the opinion that he was sent by a completely opposite supernatural being, from rather hotter climes. I shouldn’t have interfered, but I don’t know how to put things right.
‘And as for replacing Edmund with him as organist – I must have been out of my mind. Granted, Edmund doesn’t play very accurately, but he’s always been there when needed, for weddings, baptisms and funerals, without a word of dissent. This cove wants to introduce all sorts of fancy organ voluntaries to the services, says he’ll have to consult his diary for anything other than Sunday services, and I’ve had a nasty premonition that he’s after the post of choir master,’ replied her husband, ending with a deep sigh of resignation.
Chapter Five
Sunday 11th July
I
Harry Falconer wandered downstairs, late for once, as it was his day off, and headed straight for the kitchen to brew a cafetiere of coffee. Stopped in mid-stride, however, he looked at the mess that greeted him on the kitchen floor.
Strewn across its usually shining tiles, which had been pristine when he went to bed, were the bodies of a bird, a vole, two mice, and a baby rat, all partly-consumed. Since he had adopted Cadence, he had come down in the morning to the occasional smear of blood, and a tiny organ from some minuscule mammal that he could not identify, but obviously did not make good eating, and was, therefore, scorned by this new addition to the household.
With a sigh, and a muttered, ‘You wasteful, murderous little beast!’ he put on the kettle, then filled a bucket with hot soapy water and disinfectant, gathered up the remaining body parts and deposited them in the dustbin, before commencing to obliterate the evidence of their presence from his usually immaculate kitchen.
He was not used to this sort of behaviour, as his other cats spurned anything that didn’t come out of a tin or a packet of dried food, and he was surprised at how annoyed he felt. It was only natural, after all, but ‘natural’ behaviour did nothing for the state his floor had been left in, and he wondered if this sort of thing was going to be a regular occurrence.
As he finished the mopping, the cat flap opened a fraction, and a little grey face peered through at him, something alive and squeaking in its mouth. ‘Get out of here, you furry killing machine!’ he shouted, brandishing the mop at it, and dropping water all over his nice clean floor. ‘Damn and blast you!’ he finished, squeezing out the mop once again, to soak up what he had just dribbled on the floor in his anger.
II
After morning service, Vanessa not entering the church until the congregation had dispersed, the band was entrusted to set out chairs for the ‘sound practice’, although those instructions included setting out the chairs in sections, according to instrumental grouping.
As they played through the ‘Cornelius’ March, Dashwood rushed from place to place in the church, his notebook out, busily scribbling in it wherever he stopped. At the end of the piece, he just shouted, ‘Again!’ and carried on with his perambulatory note-taking.
After the second rendition, he suddenly stopped dead, turned to the players and, singling out Gayle Potten, asked, ‘Do you think you could moderate your breathing to something that is more appropriate to playing the flute. You are overblowing, and changing register willy-nilly, without a thought for the written pitch, and I will not have it. If you can’t play the instrument competently, I suggest you leave the band temporarily, and have some lessons.’
Fixing them all with his beady eye, he added, ‘And that goes for the rest of you. If you can’t play your instrument properly, for God’s sake find someone who can teach you how to, and show some mercy for anyone who has to listen to you. I shall expect much more from you on Friday than I’ve been getting. I just won’t put up with people in my band who don’t practise. Please accept this as due warning!’
At that, he turned on his heel and walked briskly out of the church without a word of farewell, leaving behind him a shocked silence. Rev. Church, who had been in the vestry disrobing, and dealing with the coinage from the collection, put his head round the door and asked, ‘Did I really hear that?’
‘You did, Vicar,’ replied Marcus. Can you imagine what it’s like for us, for the best part of two hours, on a Friday night?’
‘Beastly!’
‘Exactly!’
‘I’m so sorry! I thought he was a godsend. It would appear that I couldn’t have been more wrong.’
‘Don’t worry, Vicar. We’ve decided that we’ll stick it out until after the concert, for the sake of the charities, but after that, we’re going to give him the elbow. He’s ruined all the fun we used to have, but if he gets us to play better for the performance, then it’ll have been worth the suffering.’
‘That’s very charitable of you,’ replied Rev. Church, genuinely relieved. ‘And I think you’ve made the right decision. I’m just so sorry that I put you in this position.’
‘These things are sent to try us, Vicar. Now, who’s for a drink over at The Leathern Bottle?’ suggested Myles.
‘But what about our instruments, dear? We can hardly drag those into the pub on a busy Sunday lunchtime, can we?’ asked his wife, sensibly.
At that moment, Harold Grimes exclaimed loudly and crossly, ‘Pissed and broke.’
‘Not again!’ Gayle called over to him.
‘Language,’ retorted the vicar. ‘You are in God’s house, after all.’
‘I said that one of my pistons was broken – as in ‘piston broke’.’
‘Oh, I’m so sorry. I totally misinterpreted what you said, Mr Grimes,’ apologised the vicar.
‘I’m staying on here,’ decided Harold. ‘I think one of these here valves might just need oiling rather than being actually broken, so I’ll just take a couple of minutes now, and do the lot of them, before I put the thing away, or the next time I play, another one, or even both of the others, will act up. I’ve also got to tidy the hymn books and ASBs [Alternative Service Books] before I go.
‘Tell you what, Vicar; you give me the key to the church, and we can all leave our instruments here for the
time being. I’ll finish off and lock up, then, when we’ve had our drink, we can come back and collect them, and I’ll put the key through your letterbox. If you need it in the meantime, I’ll be in the pub with the others.’ Harold was a sides-man.
‘That’s very decent of you Harold. Many thanks. Well, I’ll be off now, if that’s all right?’
‘Off you go, Vicar, and put your feet up until lunchtime. We’ll make sure that no one steals the candlesticks.’
Harold dealt with all his necessary chores, and joined the others, only twenty minutes later, participating in with the latest Dashwood-bashing bitchery with the greatest of relish.
III
Monday 12th July
After they had finished their evening meal, Myles got out his clarinet and erected his music-stand, putting on it the new piece of music they had been given. ‘Going to join me, my little flower?’ he asked.
‘What? You’re going to practise? I don’t believe it!’
‘Oh, come on,’ urged her husband. ‘If we’re going to go through with things the way they are, the least we can do is make the best of them, and how would it look if we turned out to perform, and simply couldn’t play the music, because we’d been sulking like children?’
‘You know exactly how to play me, even if the old bugger moans about your ability to play the clarinet.’
‘I’ve even put a two-and-a-half reed in, just to satisfy the miserable old sod.’
‘I’ll get my music and cello, if you’ll put up my stand for me. You know what a tangle I always get into. It’s like some people and deckchairs. Me, I can’t do music stands. They’re like the worst kind of Chinese puzzle, as far I’m concerned,’ she agreed, opening her cello case, from which she removed her instrument, looked at it in a rather perplexed manner before stating, ‘My spike’s not here. How the hell can I have lost that? In fact, where the hell can I have lost that? It doesn’t seem possible.’
‘Maybe it fell out in the church,’ Myles suggested.
‘Well, I don’t see how I wouldn’t have noticed.’
‘We were all steaming mad when we left there. You just may not have noticed because of what that little prick said, so you mislaid your bigger prick while distracted. Sorry! Bad joke! Are you sure it’s not in the case somewhere?’
‘Absolutely! I’ve looked in every nook and cranny, and it’s nowhere to be found.’
‘Well, let’s wander over to the church and take a look. It could be sitting there on the floor between the choir stalls now, just waiting for mummy to come and fetch it home.’
‘Don’t be silly, Myles,’ she admonished him, but she smiled as she said it. ‘Come on, let’s get a move on, or there won’t be any time left to practise.’
But there was no trace of the missing cello spike in the church, although the vicar came with them with the key, and searched alongside them. They checked in the choir stalls, in case someone had kicked it, and the vicar said he’d had nothing handed into him by the cleaners, who always came in on a Monday, to clear away any mess left by the regular tramping of Sunday feet.
‘That’s that then,’ said Myrtle despondently. ‘I’ll just have to get straight on to the internet, and order another one. If I’m lucky, I should have it by Wednesday, and then I can get down to some proper practise, because I certainly can’t use it as it is.’
‘Never mind. It’s only a couple of evenings without it. We’ll just have to work extra hard on Wednesday and Thursday, to get up to snuff for Friday night’s harangue.’
Chapter Six
I
Wednesday 14th & Thursday 15th July
Myrtle’s new cello spike arrived, punctually, on Wednesday morning and, that evening, she and Myles ran through the new piece, first inaccurately and hilariously, then with a little more confidence, actually managing to be playing in the same bar at times, even if not on the same beat of it. After an hour they took a break, but neither made any comment whatsoever on how they were playing.
They followed the same routine on Thursday night, but neither of them could keep from commenting after they had finished. ‘I think we’ve more or less got the hang of that,’ offered Myrtle, both surprised and reluctant to admit that Dashwood had been right.
‘I’m afraid I have to agree with you, old girl. We seemed to have improved no end and that’s just two night’s practise. Think what we could sound like if we did this more often.’
‘I can’t bear to think that the old bugger was right, but it would seem that we have been rather lazy in the past.’
‘Much as I hate to say it, I have to agree with you,’ said Myles, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘I’ll tell you what, kid; we’ll dump him like we said we would, because I don’t think there’s any chance of him mellowing. If he treats us like that when he’s only just met us, think how much worse he’ll probably be in another year’s time.’
‘There wouldn’t be any band left in another year. He’d have driven everybody away.’
‘That’s true enough. I say, Myrtle – here’s an idea: we get rid of him, like we agreed, then we go back to having the practices here, but not like they used to be. We’ll play first; still start at the same time, and rehearse for between an hour and a half and two hours, then we eat, and it doesn’t matter how long we take over the meal, or chatting afterwards. We’ll have done our playing, and we’ll be free to indulge ourselves. What say you?’
‘Myles! That’s absolutely brilliant. That way, we benefit from playing more, and we get our social time. Would we still meet once a week, or go back to once a month, like we did before?’
‘Oh, once a week, I think, but we could circulate between each other’s houses: that way you wouldn’t have to cook every week, and miss out on playing time.’
‘Or,’ suggested his wife, ‘we could order food in from that take-away place in the High Street, if someone didn’t feel like cooking. I mean, none of us is living on the breadline; we could all afford to chip in.’
‘Even better, my sweetie. Let’s get together in the pub after tomorrow night’s practice, and put it to the others; see what they think of the idea.’
‘I’m sure they’ll love it. Oh, Myles, it’s all going to be all right, and we shan’t lose our beloved band after all.’
‘Correct! Just that ghastly man’
II
Friday 16th July
The temperature had continued to rise since the weekend, and Friday was an extremely warm and beautiful day. The evening was exceptionally balmy, and Myles was surprised not to have received any phone calls with excuses not to spend the evening shut up in the meeting rooms. He knew they would have called him, because nobody wanted to speak to Dashwood, and would only have done so if their life depended on it.
Nearly everyone arrived at the hall well before seven o’clock, eager to set out the chairs and stands, and be ready for a prompt start. From the conversations that were being indulged in, it would seem that everyone had done exactly the same thing as the Midwynters, giving practice at home a try, and had realised how beneficial it could be.
The last to arrive was the piccolo player, Geraldine Warwick, who puffed her way in at four minutes to seven, apologising for being late, which she, in fact, wasn’t. ‘I wanted to get here earlier, but I was having a little play through, and I totally lost track of the time,’ she explained, then looked around her and asked, ‘Where’s Dashwood? I’d have thought he’d have been at the front, his baton poised, matches at the ready, waiting to roast the lot of us.’
A chorus of ‘don’t know’ greeted her question, and silence descended, as they all took a moment to think.
‘Perhaps the phone caught him on the way out,’ suggested Gayle Potten. After all, it was always happening to her, and she often arrived at her destination a few minutes late, and out of breath.
‘I’ll conduct,’ offered Edmund. ‘He’s taken me off keyboard – well, I assume he has, as he said I was suspended after last week, and that business with the church orga
n. I don’t need to do anything fancy. We’ll just have a run through while we’re waiting for him. Knowing what he’s like, he probably looked in the mirror to check his appearance before he left the house, and started having a row with the chap that looked back at him.’
‘Ha ha! Very funny!’ said Myles, slightly sarcastically, then continued, ‘OK, old son, you’re on. Everybody got their music ready? Beat us in then, Edmund, there’s a good chap.’
‘One, two, three, four … No, no, no! You’ve got to watch me, otherwise it won’t work,’ Edmund chided them.
‘You’re starting to sound like him,’ called out Harold, ready to pull his leg if the opportunity presented itself.
‘Oh, no I’m not,’ their temporary conductor denied. ‘Now, watch everybody. Here we go again, and concentrate. One, two, three, four …’
This time they managed to get all the way through the piece, admittedly with little tangents here and there by some individuals, but they had begun together, they had ended together (more or less) and had made contact with each other, at certain points, in between.
Edmunds congratulatory words were drowned in cheering from the rest of the band, who couldn’t believe they’d done what they could not even have attempted the previous week. ‘That was fun!’ exclaimed Fern Bailey.
‘Yes! Let’s do it again,’ urged Lester Westlake.
And so they did. And again, and the next thing they knew, someone looked at their watch and called for attention. ‘Does anyone realise that it’s a quarter past eight?’
‘Good God!’
‘Good Grief!’
‘How did that happen?’
‘What, already?’
III
‘So where the hell’s Dashwood?’ Lester asked. ‘Has anyone got their mobile with them? I think we really ought to give him a ring.’
Myles did the honours, but the answerphone cut in after eight rings, doing the same thing when he tried another two times. ‘I know, ring the vicar, and see if he knows anything about where Dashwood’s gone. He may have said something to him: might even have asked the vicar to get a message to us. You know what a scatterbrain the Rev. can be at times,’ Myrtle suggested.
Music to Die For (The Falconer Files Book 6) Page 8
