by Gill Hornby
‘Well, I think we’ve definitely got our opener for the contest then,’ nodded Lewis. ‘That’s all sorted.’
‘All right then, Connie.’ Annie approached the bed, but addressed her husband. ‘Time for one more set. What’s it to be?’
‘Need you ask?’ he chortled, leaning over his wife to wipe away a trickle of spit.
‘Of course,’ chipped in Maria. ‘We’d better do a round or else there’ll be trouble.’
In the last few weeks, the Bridgeford choir new and old had really started to merge together, to form a cohesive whole. The meeting with Constance, though, split that whole right down the middle. In fact, it started to fall to bits. The new members, alienated as they were by this odd little pantomime, did not know quite what to think, but did know to question their own sense of belonging. Then Jazzy muttered, ‘Fuck. They’re all bleedin’ mentalists,’ just that little bit too loudly and several, including Tracey, gave her a look of comradely relief.
Lewis set about arranging them all into groups. If the regulars started off with the melodies, the newcomers could come in in their wake.
Summer is a-coming in
Although Annie, Pat, Lynn, Maria and Lewis were giving it their all, their all was not quite enough. By the time the meadow had blossomed, the attention of the younger and newer members had drifted somewhat. Jazzy and Katie were over their phones; a newcomer called Kelly was explaining the secrets of chakras to a puzzled Tracey; and the lot from the council were gossiping in whispers. Bennett alone seemed to be disengaged from his surroundings, eyes fixed on the far window, one finger tapping in an absent sort of way.
Bullock leapeth, buck doth skip now
Those singing, about to start the round again, looked at each other nervously.
Loudly sing cuckoo!
Surely the rest of them would come in. Wouldn’t they? They wouldn’t just leave them to sing a round on their own… Would they?
Spring the wood anew
The council lot all had their diaries out–there was a fortieth coming up, it was going to be totally massive–and they were no longer really whispering. The singers had reached the point for the next group to enter. Lewis raised his hand in signal, swept it down like a baton and
Summer is a-coming in
one voice sang, alone. Fortunately it was strong and pure enough to carry the part on its own, but still it was a shame that it was not accompanied. Bennett had looked as distracted as everybody else, but it didn’t matter because he was already prepared. It was drilled into him. He had been prepared for all this for most of his life.
The bells had stopped their pealing and given way to the chimes of the hour. It was ten o’clock. Bennett had walked past twice, in the manner of one frantically on his way elsewhere, but this was it. If he was going in, he had to do it now. The last few stragglers headed under the arch and he scurried into their wake.
The woman by the door, handing out the service sheets, had a familiar face and gave a smile of recognition, but Bennett could not quite place her. Living without Sue was, he was starting to think, rather like living with early-onset dementia. So many of the small details of their life together were–by whose arrangement: his, hers, mutual?–under Sue’s jurisdiction. When she left she had, of course, taken them all with her. It was fair enough, as they were all in her head, but he did often find himself wishing she had left him a helpful little folder, like landladies did for holiday rentals: a starter information pack for the rest of his own life. It wouldn’t take her a moment to jot down a few names for him–who did what to the house, who lived where in the street. A Who’s Who of the Miller family would be particularly useful: he had never quite got to grips with the names of anyone, and wasn’t quite sure, talking to her independently, who on earth Annie was nattering on about. (He did think Jess was the Miller dog, but dogs didn’t get tattoos, as far as he had heard, and he certainly couldn’t imagine how they could pull it off without owner’s permission.) And then there was the problem of Tracey. Bennett knew full well that they had met before–he had a niggling worry that in fact they were really old friends–but how, since when, where from? He would love to ask Sue, before there was any sort of awkwardness, but–he didn’t know why–he just had a hazy glimpse of the very stony ground on which any such enquiry would almost certainly fall.
So he went about his business in the sort of vague, benign state that his poor senile father had adopted in his later years. Bennett just wasn’t quite convinced he was getting away with it. He nodded and smiled at the woman in the church–he hoped with the amount appropriate to whatever their relationship might be–took a prayer book out of politeness and grabbed the hymnbook with both hands.
Of course, Sue would never have been with him here, whatever the state of their marriage. She had fallen out with organised religion years ago–he could not now remember its crime; several institutions and many individuals had committed crimes against Sue over the years and it was hard to keep a track of all of them–and made it clear that if he must persist in going, Bennett could go alone. And although he had rather fancied it, several times, he never actually had. Now he hovered in the aisle, wondering where to sit. There were so many empty spaces–perhaps everyone had fallen out with organised religion–and far fewer clumps of families than there used to be. There was more of a fine scattering of isolated individuals all over the church. He chose a pew that was close to several worshippers but near to none, because he really didn’t want to stand out. But then, on closer inspection of those around him, he didn’t really want to fit in either. While he was on perfectly good terms with the Church, and enjoyed a distant, respectful, nodding relationship with God, today he was only here for the music. He looked up at the numbers on the board, looked down at his hymnbook and felt the first stirrings of excitement.
When Bennett was a little choirboy, he knew the numbers of all his favourite hymns off by heart. They all did, all the trebles, just like they knew the Latin of their anthems inside-out. They communicated in numbers and archaic languages in the robing room as if this was perfectly normal behaviour, because, for them, it was. As other boys could trot off the numbers of engines–train-spotting was still a thing back then–or the categories of dinosaurs or the batting average of Sobers, it was just what happened in Bennett’s gang. Like any other gang they dressed the same–in their case, long red cloaks with white cassocks, starched clean ruffs and extremely neat haircuts–and they had their own argot–‘Quis the descant in the Adoramus?’–and the years that Bennett spent with them were among the happiest of his life. He simply belonged. He wished, he really did, that he might find some sort of future singing with the Bridgeford Community lot, but he was starting to lose hope. He could see now that what he loved about his old church choir was not just necessarily the sort of music they sang, but the structure, the rigour, the hierarchy that that music seemed to demand. It had all been so reassuring, somehow. And while Bennett had certainly enjoyed singing again and didn’t even mind the songs–he was really rather partial to all those pop songs, frightfully catchy–he simply could not bear the state of permanent chaos around it all. Still, it had helped remind him of who he was, or at least who he used to be. He needed to get back in a proper choir–join another gang–and he was here to check this one out.
The vicar announced a hymn number from the back of the church and they all stood. Bennett did have a wish list–one that hadn’t changed since before his voice broke. It included ‘Your Hand O God Has Guided’, ‘Dear Lord and Father’–obviously–and ‘Lord of All Hopefulness’, of which he liked either version, the older or the more modern, poppy one, which used to make the choirboys feel incredibly with-it, like one of The Osmonds. He stood with all the others and found the words.
‘You Are So Good to Me’ was a new one on Bennett, and represented something of a stylistic change. And as the Choir, dressed in jewel-coloured sweatshirts and jeans, came jiving down the aisle singing about dancing in the street, shouting from the roof
and a love that set them free, he began to think there had been a few other changes too–perhaps more than he had bargained for.
The service was not, from Bennett’s point of view, a success; although he could quite accept that others in the congregation were happy as could be. The hymns were all a little too modern, unfortunately–one seemed to be about refuelling jet engines, which was rather an odd business–and he wasn’t entirely comfortable with all the clapping and unnecessary arm movements and so on. At one point it all got terribly energetic, reminiscent of Sue and her chums in front of Jane Fonda on the TV, back in the day. But the lowest point of a pretty low hour was the sign of peace. Last time he went to church, that entailed a nice curt nod to or brisk handshake with those closest to you. So Bennett was understandably a little taken aback to find himself swept up in the warm embrace of total–and rather aromatic–strangers: kissed by women to whom he had not been formally introduced, scratched by the whiskers of–extremely–strange men. ‘Splendid,’ he heard himself saying into the anorak of a big burly chap. ‘Jolly good,’ to a rather frisky little woman who wouldn’t let go. ‘Excellent. Let’s press on, shall we?’ as he peeled her off him. It was the closest physical contact he had known for many weeks, and it left him a little shaken.
He collapsed into his pew and, instead of taking communion, reflected on how the universe had shifted without him even noticing. Was everybody else across all these changes? Was the shifting universe something else that Sue had taken on, on their joint behalf, so that he should not be bothered? If so, he would say that he rather wished she had not. If she was always planning to cast him back out into this unrecognisable universe, it would have been helpful to him to have been aware of some of its features. How on earth was he supposed to get a new job or start a new relationship if even his dear old Church of England had turned in to something totally unrecognisable?
Twenty-five years ago, before he retreated into his life of hard work and busy family, God was part lord, part father, with a background in the military. He was in his heaven and all was well with the world. Now, it seemed, He had been rather sidelined for Jesus, who had grown up into quite a different sort of chap altogether, apparently. They had spent half the service telling him, in song, that he was beautiful and lovely and the centre of their being–not the sort of stuff they used to go in for in Bennett’s day. As for that one where they kept calling him, over and over,’ my king of love’–well, that was very rum. He had always been led to believe, by the women in his office, that there was a big chap with a deep voice called Barry Someone who was the King of Love. But now it was Jesus? How was one to keep up? Anyway, the point was that this new, latest son of God seemed to make everyone in the congregation very jittery and over-excited–as big Barry Someone had also done, if memory served, with the women in the office–and Bennett had to concede that this was not, after all, the solution to his problem. This church was not his gang.
Bennett was finding it hard to cut his meat, and not just because it was the texture of a good pair of brogues. Although he was tucked so far in to the kitchen table that it pressed on to his chest, every time he cut the food, he hit his elbow on the washing machine behind him. He could see, with his ever-expanding grasp of motive and explanation, why Sue had brought their table to this new house, but he was not yet qualified to determine whether she might be regretting it. Still, it was very nice of her to include him in the family Sunday lunch–even if he was sustaining a number of repetitive strain injuries in the process–and he was grateful to be there.
‘So,’ said Sue, chewing energetically. ‘How’s the job-hunting going?’ She poured on a bit more gravy. ‘Whenever the children start to get worried about my future, I say to them, “Don’t.”’ She held up her hand to halt all discussion. ‘I say–don’t I say this, kids?–“Your father is cleverer than the rest of us put together.”’
Casper rolled his eyes while shovelling food indiscriminately into his mouth. He was still in his muddy kit after the morning’s rugby and was looking enormous to Bennett. Surely he wasn’t still growing now he was in his twenties? Bennett wondered if perhaps the children shrank a little in his imagination now that he wasn’t seeing them every day: his mind’s eye returned them to smaller incarnations and happier days.
‘Well, I’m not sure about…’ Bennett tried to shuffle in his seat, but there wasn’t enough room. It was getting very hot in this little kitchen. He wasn’t sure the four of them had ever been crammed into so small a space before; there was certainly more room, as far as he could remember, in the family car.
‘He will be buried in job offers, you mark my words. Buried.’ She took a gulp of water.
Araminta, pretty in a new top that Bennett hadn’t seen before, put her fork down after three mouthfuls. She hated it when Sue went on the warpath, retreated into herself often before Bennett had even realised what was happening. In fact, over the past few years, Bennett had learned to use her as a barometer. He could be a little obtuse in picking up the changes in Sue’s emotional weather, but Araminta was finely attuned. She now had a pleat of long fair hair and was examining it for split ends–a classic signal that Bennett was in for a serious drubbing. He must be on his guard.
‘Well, the recession—’ But the truth was that his job-seeking had lacked a little energy of late. He had started off enthusiastically enough. He could remember that quite clearly: firing off emails (he was pretty sure about that, didn’t just send them, oh no, he was definitely firing them off) and fixing up meetings.
‘There isn’t a company in Britain who wouldn’t be desperate to get your father on board.’
And he had rather expected, like Sue, that it would all be sorted out quickly enough. Contacts in other companies had always rather given that impression, when the situation was purely hypothetical.
‘Not. In. Britain.’ Sue was thumping on the table.
But nothing had happened. And quite quickly it seemed that he was more caught up with the minute details of his own day-to-day existence than he was with the larger question of his own future. The planning, shopping for and composing of his own meals, which had begun as a way to pass the time, had turned somehow into a raison d’être. He enjoyed his little forays to the High Street throughout the day, had started to use more ingredients in order to get out of the house more. And he had even been known to strike up conversation with young shop assistants of his own, independent acquaintance. Now he thought about it, life really was rather pleasant.
‘So which one are you going to choose?’
‘I’m sorry?’ He was still thinking about young shop assistants.
‘Job offer?’ She looked at the children and beamed. ‘We’re dying to know. Which is it to be?’
‘Well.’ He completely panicked. He mustn’t lie, of course he mustn’t. ‘It’s down to two, at the moment.’ Oh dear. He seemed to have lied. It was just that Sue was making it all sound so easy, and she was so sure. For a moment there, Bennett himself had become convinced that job offers were things of such abundance that even a low wretch like him must surely have picked up at least a handful. ‘Yep, think I’ve narrowed it down to the two…’ And when those words came out, well–he did enjoy hearing them. Pathetic as it may seem, it was rather nice to find himself a success again–to be admired rather than pitied, a focus of celebration instead of resentment. Just the once, for a change, he wanted to be congratulated.
‘I knew it! Didn’t I say? Isn’t that exactly what I predicted? Credit where credit’s due, I said…’
Bennett put his knife and fork together and slumped. Araminta took his hand under the table, and gave it a little squeeze.
‘… at least two by now, I said. Must admit I was hoping for even more, but still, two’s enough and I did say two. Even you, Bennett, must admit that I was bang on…’
His eyes met his daughter’s in a moment of loving complicity.
‘… I’m really quite pleased with myself about that. Two–that is exactly what I said.
Anyway, come on then. Who are they?’ She waved her knife around the table. ‘Surely you can tell us.’
He sensed danger.
‘Yeah, come on, Dad.’ Araminta nudged him. ‘We won’t sell it to the Actuary Daily News. Promise.’ She wasn’t being deliberately mean to him, he knew that. She was a darling girl–she just couldn’t help herself.
‘Or put it on Actuarial Entertainment,’ joined Casper.
None of them could.
‘Tonight, live from the Actuary Red Carpet…’
The real joke was that Bennett had never, ever wanted to be an actuary. He was not from that sort of stock, not at all. His father was a bishop, his mother did good works. He had been brought up to help and to serve, but helping and serving did not, in his wife’s opinion, keep any of them in the style to which she rather fancied becoming accustomed.
‘They say they won’t.’ Sue shook her head as she piled up the plates. ‘But you’ll leave here and the paparazzi will be banked up on bleachers up and down our humble little road…’
And now he was, once again, just an object of ridicule. In a moment of boredom last week, Bennett had found himself, much to his own surprise, casting his eye over a dating website. He would never go on one, he was sure about that, but he was curious about the sort of person who did, what they were looking for in a man, what they were offering about themselves. One of the many things he was interested to learn–well, there was a lot that was extremely interesting. Who knew people said those sorts of things? That shifting universe, up to its tricks again–was the way they all went on about their Good Sense of Humour. He was baffled by that at the time and sitting there, enduring the torture of his hilarious family in full comic voice, he found himself even more so. Why on earth would anyone want to live with anybody who thought they had a good sense of humour? He watched them all, bent double with laughter at his expense, around his kitchen table and shook his head. If Bennett Parker was ever going to embark on any relationship ever again, it would be with someone who could prove to him that she had no trace of humour whatsoever.
