by Gill Hornby
‘But are you happy with your price plan, Mrs Miller?’
‘I’d pay to get rid of it, Ravi.’ She tipped the soup into an enamel pan and lit the gas. ‘Pay to get rid of it. I honestly don’t think family life has ever been the same since. It’s all quite wrong, you know. All this worldwide snooping, not to mention the horrors of Googling a recipe and never holding a photo in one’s own hands. And as for mobile phones–well, don’t get me started. You know babies now–little tiny babies–would rather play with one than pick up a picture book. Doesn’t it break your heart, Ravi? Certainly breaks mine.’ She foraged in the bread bin for a roll or two. ‘Anyway, I know, I’m a dinosaur, save it all for Menopause Corner…’ Ravi made a noise like a choke. ‘Time to change the subject. Why don’t we talk about you?’ By the time Annie had warmed her chicken and mushroom, unearthed some cheese and returned to the sofa with a tray, she had established that Ravi was calling from outside Delhi and dreamed of studying Medicine. Before she had finished eating, they had together decided that Biochemistry might be just that bit more realistic–he could always convert later–Annie would research some suitable courses and funding options and he would call back at the same time next week.
‘Mrs Miller, I don’t know how to begin to—’
‘My pleasure, Ravi, really.’ Annie felt altogether calmer than she had done half an hour ago. ‘There is one thing, though, you could do for me. Would you happen to know how on earth I am supposed to turn on a television?’
Tracey, in the back seat, waited for her moment. She sat acquiescent as Annie took the keys out, trilled, ‘Here we are. Back in a sec,’ shut the car door and trotted through the neat front garden, and then she went for it.
‘Shit.’ Child lock. And weren’t Annie’s kids all, like, barristers or prime ministers or something? ‘Un-bloody-believable.’ She scoped the house–Annie had got to the doorstep–began to climb over the handbrake into the front and then heard a thud. A very bossy thud and a crisp little click. ‘Shit, shit.’ Central locking. She looked over just as Annie, fob in hand, whipped round, turning her back. Tracey fell back into her seat again, defeated.
For the past few weeks Annie had turned up to collect her every Tuesday and–as promised–saved her ‘getting the car out’. She had also saved her from a good few nice evenings in, several glasses of wine and a firm grip of her own identity but–partly because Annie was so impossible to argue with, mostly because Billy, irritatingly, always took Annie’s side and, all right, a tiny bit because she did like the singing–she went along with it anyway. This evening, though, was different. Tracey really, really did not want to have anything to do with this evening. And Annie clearly knew that, or she wouldn’t have bothered to lock her in.
She tore at a hang-nail with her teeth and ducked down to get a proper look at what was going on in that house. Annie was only picking up that Bennett, but it seemed to be taking for ever. Don’t say even he doesn’t fancy this gig? If it was too tragic for tragedy king Bennett St John Parker, it was definitely no place for Tracey Leck ford. They had not, so far, had any sort of conversation but, on cursory examination, Tracey had come to the judgement that Bennett had the personality and character strength of the average glass of Bridgeford tap water. Now, watching the charade playing out before her, she wondered if there might not be just a little bit more to him.
The downstairs lights were all blazing, and–bizarrely–the house didn’t seem to have any curtains, so Tracey and the rest of the neighbourhood could watch and enjoy what was going on like a bit of slapstick from the silent era. Annie pressed the doorbell; Bennett, in his suit and bent over a saucepan in the kitchen, jumped as if given an electric shock. Annie rang the bell again; Bennett vanished behind the kitchen door. Annie tiptoed across the manicured lawn–she was actually unembarrassable–and pressed her face to the kitchen window.
‘Come out now, Bennett.’ Tracey could hear her from the car. ‘I can see your shoes. And you’re burning the sausages.’
Bennett came out as bidden, clutching a potato masher. OK, so he didn’t quite have the bottle to stand up to Annie, but then he was only human. He was at the front door now, still clutching his masher and clearly still trying to wriggle out of coming. ‘Good luck with that, mate,’ Tracey muttered and settled down to await his surrender.
She drew her eye away from Bennett’s pretty detached Edwardian villa and looked around at all the other pretty villas in the road. It was a nice neighbourhood round here, much better than Tracey’s own. The houses obviously dated from that era when small-town life was an upper-middle-class aspiration, a mark of arrival; these days people only lived here because they couldn’t afford anything else. Of course, anyone in their right mind would prefer either smart city life or gorgeous rolling acres. Well, Tracey certainly would any way, and she presumed the whole world felt the same. Small towns were just a compromise–a mark of not having got anywhere near where you had been aiming for; a sign of falling by the wayside of life. Her own area was entirely populated by people who couldn’t afford anything else. ‘The squeezed middle’, politicians called them and they were right, almost literally: their estate was just that, squeezed right into the middle, between the car park and the back of the leisure centre, and it wasn’t where you would choose to be at all.
The passenger door opened and Annie guided Bennett into it. ‘You know each other: Bennett, Tracey?’
Bennett climbed in. ‘Oh yes. I think we’ve met before, haven’t we?’
‘No. We haven’t,’ replied Tracey. ‘But hi.’
Their next stop was at the social housing behind the High Street. Tracey and Bennett waited silently, obediently, while Annie nipped out and up to the door of a ground-floor flat. They could quite possibly have run away here, but this wasn’t really the sort of country where you would want to run much, at least after dark. And anyway, before they could even think about it Jazzy came flying down the path and into the car, leaving Annie to hurry along after her.
‘Jazzy!’ Annie almost bounced into the driving seat and pulled on her strap. ‘Your mum’s back!’ She beamed over her shoulder as she pulled out. ‘How amazing.’
‘Yeah.’ Jazzy clicked her seatbelt in and stared out of the window. ‘And? Do I look like someone who even gives a shit?’
Tracey glanced sideways and thought, with a pang, that she did rather: she looked like she both gave it and was rather deeply in it, too.
‘She seemed very perky.’ Annie pulled out and headed for the ring road. ‘Is she on good form?’
‘Oh yeah. Great form.’ Jazzy was speaking into the window, hunched right down into her seat. ‘Not even a junkie any more, apparently. Cured.’ She clicked her fingers. ‘It’s a fucking miracle. And how long do we give that, eh? About a week? Till I get home one night and find her off her bloody skull.’
‘We must all help her.’ Annie settled into the slow lane of the dual carriageway and started to bang on about how to solve the problem that was Jazzy’s mum. ‘Now then…’
There seemed to be nothing, in Annie’s world picture, that could not be solved with a healthy dollop of Neighbourhood Watch–not even chronic addiction. Tracey, cringing in the back seat, could see that Jazzy was quite close to losing it. She leaned across and changed the subject.
‘Nice to see you and Katie getting on so well.’
Jazzy uncurled herself slightly. ‘Yeah. She’s sweet. I like Katie.’ Then she half turned with a jerk. ‘I’m not here for long, though. You do all know that, right? I’ll be off soon. Got plans, me.’
‘Oh. Sorry. I didn’t realise…’
‘Yeah.’ She flicked her hair back. ‘My nan says it’s good to come for a bit just for the experience, but I’m not to waste myself here for ever. Can’t hang around with these tragic deadbeats, can I?’
‘Of course you can’t. Where are you off to, if you don’t mind me asking?’
‘Going solo, aren’t I?’
‘Ah.’ Tracey felt a tug somewhere in her ch
est. It caught at her breath. ‘Of course you are.’
‘She’s got the most marvellous voice,’ Annie chipped in. ‘I first spotted her when she was seven–the St Ambrose superstar she was, when my girls were there.’
‘Yeah.’ Jazzy nodded, conceding the inarguable. ‘So. Auditions coming up. Shouldn’t take long. My nan says if that Adele can do it, they’ll be bloody delighted to find someone decent.’ She pinched her nose in apparent illustration of the nasty pong coming from the direction of Adele’s talent. ‘My nan hates Adele.’
‘Good luck with that.’ Tracey was hunched down now, talking into the window on her side.
‘Aw, ta.’ Jazzy was gracious. ‘By the way,’ she put her hand on Tracey’s leather sleeve, ‘I wasn’t including you in that. You’re not a tragic deadbeat.’
‘Oh? Too kind.’
‘It’s true actually. You’re cool–well, quite cool, you know, considering…’ She glared at the front of the car, rolled her eyes, made an L with her fingers and then fell into a deep and sulky silence.
Tracey lay back against the leather upholstery and listened to the conversation in the front.
‘So how is everybody, Annie? How’s the gang?’ Bennett was asking. Tracey got into the brace position. Here it came: an avalanche of smugness and boasting. After all, her kids had to be perfect–otherwise why would she get her kicks poking her nose into Billy’s business? But:
‘Oh God, Bennett, it’s so awful,’ she heard Annie wail. She sat up straight and pricked up her ears. ‘It’s Jess. She’s gone and got a bloody tattoo.’
‘We’re very early,’ moaned Tracey as they pulled in to the car park. ‘You’re always early. What are we supposed to do now for half an hour?’ She peered out at the monolithic Victorian hospital with modern knobs on. ‘You’re not going to make us clean all that, like you do the Coronation Hall?’
Annie got out and unlocked the back doors. ‘And you do help such a lot with the Coronation Hall.’
Ouch–that was rather sharp. Tracey got out of the car without meeting Annie’s eye.
‘I thought,’ Annie locked the car and led them all towards the entrance, ‘we might do a bit of chatting on the ward before we start. Or do you object to visiting the sick like you object to everything else?’
‘Yes,’ Tracey was about to say. ‘Obviously.’ She honestly couldn’t think of anything worse.
But Bennett cut in: ‘Of course. Lovely idea.’ And after that she thought she had better shut up.
The four of them headed for the entrance, Annie and Bennett striding ahead, Tracey and Jazzy mooching along behind. Parkway Hospital serviced several towns and Tracey was struck, as she followed her in, how few people Annie said hello to now that they had crossed the town boundary. Since Tracey had joined the Choir, they had bumped into each other quite a lot around and about–that was, if Tracey didn’t see her coming first–and it was no exaggeration to say that Annie knew absolutely everyone and absolutely everyone knew Annie. But there they were, a few miles down the road, and it was quite a different story. ‘Hey, Annie,’ she called to the back of her navy raincoat. ‘You know what you remind me of? A French pop star. Mobbed at home, a nobody abroad.’ Tracey giggled. They walked past a family huddled beneath a noticeboard. ‘Look, they’re all ignoring you. Don’t you know who zis ees?’ she asked a passing stranger in a cod French accent. ‘Eet’s Annee Mileur. Eet’s ZEE Annee Mileur. De Breej-fod.’ She caught at a swing door before it swung right in her face.
When they got to the ward, though, Annie was back on home turf; Tracey could see that immediately. The vast, cheerless space was crammed with ladies of a certain age and Annie was on close terms with at least one in three of them. Their little group moved from bed to bed like the party of a visiting dignitary and they chatted to them all. Tracey met a woman who had given Annie her job at the library all those years ago, and set up the children’s book group which Billy had loved–she was in with her osteoporosis. There was a good sort with nine kids who’d been a school governor for decades–her uterus was playing up, apparently. Hard to blame it. Someone who cleaned the church every Friday had broken her hip and was worrying about the aisle carpet. Annie promised to go and sort it all out and Tracey did wonder how on earth she would find the time for that and all the other stuff she seemed to do, but she didn’t say anything. Obviously. Christ, she might have ended up hoovering it herself.
Tracey kept her distance then, not wanting to get too embroiled, and leaned back by the door looking down on them all. And two things struck her.
The first was that, in their various different ways, they were all Annies, these women: doers of their bit, thinkers of others, busiers of bodies. They were all Annies, and they were all knackered. Who was going to take over from them all, when they couldn’t do it any more? Was Annie really going to run the lot?
The second was: at least they were not alone. They were ageing and they were knackered but, clearly, they still mattered. Their beds were surrounded by cards and flowers and home-made cakes. The primary school had done a frieze for the retired librarian; the Sunday school had made a little garden in a box for the church volunteer.
And then an image swam up before her: of herself in here, in, if she was lucky, several decades’ time; of one card, from Billy, on her bedside table and nothing much else. Or perhaps even no card at all. Did Billy actually know that that was life’s cycle–that love and care and nurturing were a two-way thing; you got it, you gave it and then, by rights, you got it back again? Of course, Tracey had no contact with her parents from one year to the next, but that was different. She and Billy, they were good, they were best friends. They had it sorted. Didn’t they? And Billy had picked up on all that. Hadn’t he?
The Choir was holding its Tuesday session on a hospital ward at the request of Connie’s family. Judith had been keeping her informed of all developments but still Constance was, they were told, terribly frustrated at not being able to hear them in person. Also, her recovery wasn’t going quite as well as expected and it was hoped that this would really buck her up. Most of the Choir had arrived now, and were gathered around the nurses’ station ready to perform. There was only one thing missing, and that was their leader.
Constance was not on this ward just yet–not quite well enough, apparently–and was coming down from another wing especially. The Choir old guard were excited to see her–only Annie and Judith had been allowed to visit so far; the family was keeping things very low-key–and the new members were agog. When Connie was talked about at practice–which she very often was–it was with the sort of rapture only reserved for the most extraordinary humans of a generation. She was, they had all been told, charismatic, inspirational, dynamic, life-changing… And among those who had not yet had the privilege, expectations were, quite reasonably, high. They shuffled their lyrics, chattered away, craned their necks to witness her arrival. Each member had developed their own mental picture of Constance and was eager to have it confirmed. But there was bound to be at least a modicum of disappointment; some were expecting a sort of mature Beyoncé, others Mrs Thatcher, a couple Joan of Arc and one the Queen of Sheba. However extraordinary this Constance was, it would be hard for her to tick every single box.
‘Here she comes,’ clucked Judith in the voice of a nursery nurse. ‘How are you, Connie? On the mend?’
A bed was wheeled in with two nurses on either side and Connie’s husband bringing up the rear. Beneath the sheet, attached to the mobile drip, was a tiny, grey-haired creature–very pale, worryingly gaunt–who was either deeply asleep or even unconscious. A sense of shock rippled through half of the Choir: they weren’t prepared to see her so ill; a muffled, unanimous disappointment ran through the rest: they weren’t prepared to see her so… so very ordinary.
‘She’s doing so much better, aren’t you, darling?’ her husband shouted at the bed. ‘And this is a sight for sore eyes, isn’t it, eh? Just the ticket.’
‘Look at you, love.’ Annie stepped for
ward and kissed a white cheek. ‘I can’t believe it. What an improvement.’ A few singers exchanged glances and raised eyebrows. ‘Now what do you fancy hearing first? You’re in charge!’
‘Oh yes,’ chuckled her husband. ‘Isn’t she just? We’re all in our place, aren’t we, nurse?’
An inner circle continued a group conversation around Connie’s bed–speaking for her and about her, yet at no point acknowledging that she was not speaking herself. Loved ones do this with the very sick: interpret words that are never said, emotions that can only be guessed at, wishes that may or may not be there. It’s not so dissimilar from that rather touching anthropomorphic thing that besotted owners do with their pets: ‘He wants…’, ‘He hates…’, ‘And he looks up at me as if to say…’ It is just one way of coping with the unspeakable truth that your best friend in the whole world is a labradoodle, or your partner on life’s journey might be about to get off at the next stop.
‘I think we all know what you want, Connie,’ laughed Judith.
‘Goes without saying,’ nodded her husband. ‘She’s not called Constance for nothing!’
‘Sound of Music medley it is,’ agreed Annie. Mrs Coles lifted her hands above the keys of the portable piano, and they began.
Connie’s nurses, bent beside her prone form, clapped along, beaming; her husband wiped away a tear. A couple of patients on the ward were not best pleased with the intrusion. It was time for EastEnders and they put in their ear plugs and swivelled round their TVs, but there was no need for the Choir to take offence. As Annie loudly whispered, they were, after all, ‘non-Bridgeford’–as if, on a variant of dogs and whistles, their music could only properly be heard by ears from a certain postcode.
Good-bye
Good-bye
Good–byyyyye.
‘Oh, she loved that,’ pronounced Pat, on the basis of no evidence whatsoever.
‘Aw, bless, look at her,’ agreed Lynn. ‘It’s all been worthwhile.’
