by Gill Hornby
Only Squat had the energy to express his anger; the rest of them were too emotionally exhausted. Tracey had tried to make a speech when it was all over–when they were back on the coach and alone enough to cry. But her heart wasn’t in it. If there were lessons to be learned, she was in no position to teach them. As far as she was concerned, the lesson was quite simple: they were robbed.
She peered out along the bypass at the lights of the strange towns as they drove by. All those houses in all those places where the Choir just did not matter, all those people who knew nothing of their struggles and dramas and, even worse, did not care. She remembered how, just a few weeks ago, she had driven around there and seriously considered that she might move–that she was even capable of moving–to one of those towns. Breathing on the window, she rubbed a hole, stared through it and smiled. She understood it all now–that yes, of course you can live in any number of places. But you can only truly belong to one.
‘I just can’t explain it.’ Lewis spoke up to those who were nearest. ‘I simply do not understand.’
‘They just thought that other lot were better, I suppose.’ Kerry was lying with her head in Judith’s lap.
‘I mean, honestly: the Downtown Divas. Is that even a place?’
‘But look how much they loved us last week at the fête. I can’t imagine any of tonight’s lot has ever had a reception like that one…’ Judith had tears in her eyes as she stroked Kerry’s hair.
‘We were on our home turf. Tonight, we were just out of context.’
Tracey sat up, looked round, alert. ‘OK, so what is that? What is our context?’
Bennett shrugged. ‘Just where we come from… Bridgeford, I suppose.’
‘Yet when we do try and put on a proper concert, nobody bloody turns up.’
‘No,’ said Tracey, deep in thought now, talking into the black beyond them. ‘They don’t. So next time, let’s not even give them the choice…’
Annie, three rows back, was still shaking. That solo was the most extraordinary moment of her life. All those decades in the Choir, all those years of driving the girls around to music lessons, and only tonight did she remember what she had known quite clearly in her youth: she actually had a voice of her own. Of course the result of the contest was a terrible blow; she felt for the younger members particularly. The rest of them were quite used to life’s casual dispensation of pitiless injustice, but for those kids it was all quite new. And for them to be treated unfairly when they had actually tried for once–well, it was, as James would say, a bugger. You only had to look at Squat and Frank and all the rest of them to know that they had decades of defeats and disappointments ahead of them; Annie felt so bad that the first of them had happened on her watch.
But for all that, she could not buy in to this atmosphere of gloom and self-pity. The result was disappointing but their singing really was not. They had been amazing, and that she did not want any of them to forget.
On the journey there, they had sung all the way–of course they had. They were a choir on a coach trip: singing was what they had to do. So without really thinking, Annie started it again.
Oh, Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling
It was what her dad used to croon to her on their end-of-the-holiday night-time journeys. She would fall asleep along the back seat of the old Rover and wake up when the pain of transition was over–home, but still with the crunch of sand between her toes.
The summer’s gone, and all the roses falling
Of course, half the coach wouldn’t know this one. Like The Secret Garden and Russian dolls and English cooking, it was a perfect joy that belonged to another age. Well, if Annie had to sing yet another solo that night, so be it… In fact–she took a deep breath, prepared for the crescendo, pointed her voicebox at the roof rack–stand back folks and just bring it on.
But come ye back when summer’s in the meadow
But now Bennett joined in–his rich and fruity tenor soaked with disappointment–and Lewis and all the others of a certain age. And as the song was picked up and carried through to the back, Annie was astonished to hear the young ones take part, too.
And all my grave will warmer, sweeter be
And they know it, she thought, as their voices merged together.
And I shall sleep in peace until you come to me.
They already know it. She beamed as they came to the end, and sank back on her headrest. They were off now. Just as they had baffled her on the way there with alien rap songs, now they were enchanting her on the way back with stuff from the past.
You’ll ne-ev-er walk a-a-lone
But Annie was too happy to join in. Who could say how what they knew came through to them–via sport or adverts or YouTube or celebs? What mattered was that it came through at all. If things were good enough and relevant–if they might mean something to someone somewhere–then they lasted. And the personal implications of that for Annie were actually huge. She listened in quiet contentment as their young voices pulled off a pretty decent ‘Amazing Grace’.
And she determined that it was time for her to order a skip.
When the coach drew up outside the Coronation Hall at midnight, there was a small crowd to welcome them home. Tracey and Bennett stood at the bottom step to say goodbye, thank them all individually. One by one, they went off to their waiting families. A low steady hum of consolation was filling the night air. Then Judith stepped down and suddenly a man lunged out of the dark at her with a loud and furious roar.
‘Oh Christ,’ said Kerry, coming down the steps with a lot of eye-rolling, looking rather bored. ‘You’d think he’d let her off, tonight of all nights.’
‘Who is it?’ asked Lynn, behind her. ‘What on earth is going on?’ The couple had moved off to the hall porch to carry on the row.
‘Her stupid fiancé,’ yawned Kerry. ‘Well, ex-fiancé. Don’t worry. I’ll sort him out. Night, all.’
‘Fiancé?’ murmured Lynn. ‘Really? Fiancé?’
Judith was standing to one side now, waiting and watching while her two lovers fought it out. And Lynn tottered over to her waiting husband, muttering about fiancés and looking tired and a little bit old.
‘See you next Tuesday,’ Tracey said to Squat as she took him in her arms and rocked him. She had got rather fond of him in recent weeks.
‘Eh?’ He pulled back. ‘Here, you said just till the competition…’ ‘Yes I did. But something else has just occurred to me–a new idea. We’ve got something even bigger to work towards now. So, sorry, lads, I’m afraid I’ve changed my mind.’
Bennett reached up to the blackboard, rubbed out LEMON DRIZZLE and chalked in CHOCOLATE FUDGE. Katie had been baking well in advance of their first day of business, but everything was selling so fast that she was stuck in the back kitchen at the moment, making more. He checked his watch as he wrote: 11.40. They didn’t have long, then. He had to let her out quite soon.
‘How can I help you?’ He took his order pad out of the large pocket of the CK-regulation butcher’s apron and prepared to serve. Every time he turned round, a new lot of customers was being seated. The publicity had been great and the turnover this morning exceeded all expectations; so many customers were here to wish them well. Bennett hoped they weren’t all going straight home afterwards, though. They absolutely must be made to stick around. He rubbed at his face: his skin felt hot but his insides almost freezing. He had never felt this nervous in his life.
Only one customer had been sitting in there all morning, and she wasn’t there to wish anyone well. Bennett collected her empty cup on the way back to the coffee station and asked her, pointedly, if she would like anything else.
‘Don’t worry about me, I’m family. What about old whatser-face’–Sue pointed with her red meaty hand–‘you know, thingy’–she looked suddenly rather lost, casting around for someone, Annie presumably, to help; of course it would never occur to her that Bennett of all people might know her name–‘by the wall there? They’ve been wa
iting YEARS.’ She caught a woman’s eye as she settled herself down. ‘Thank you for your patience, love. We do appreciate it. Please forgive him: early days.’
‘Tina,’ he called clearly as he walked towards her, ‘I’ve put porridge on the menu just for you.’
‘THERE YOU ARE, ANNIE.’ Bennett could only presume that Sue, in her position as ex of the patron, had assumed several other ex-officio roles. She was the–very loud–master of ceremonies: ‘AND THE WHOLE MILLER FAMILY.’ The–extremely vocal–spokesperson for the CK Complaints Commission: ‘HOPE YOU’VE GOT ALL MORNING. THE SERVICE IS HILARIOUSLY SLOW.’ And, although they had only opened at 8.30, he was pretty sure she was already the hot contender for Most Embarrassing Customer: ‘I THINK WE’LL SIT HERE. IT’S NO MENOPAUSE CORNER, BUT IT’LL JUST HAVE TO DO.’
‘Mum, shit,’ Lucy hissed at her. ‘What did she just say?’
‘Just ignore her, grab that table,’ Annie replied out of the corner of her mouth before speaking up to Sue. ‘Got the rabble with me this morning, we’ll stick ourselves over here.’
‘This,’ said Lucy, grudgingly, ‘is not actually uncool.’
Annie looked about, at the bleached wooden floors, the walls painted the colour of honey, the enormous blackboard and the simple tables and chairs. She had not been convinced when Bennett hired Squat and the gang to work on it for him, but she should have had more faith: it looked fantastic. The leather sofas and armchairs over against the wall were a charming new touch. She could just see herself with–who?–Tracey, probably, or Kerry perhaps, grabbing a quick bite over there whenever they could.
‘I tell you what, Min’s dad looks different these days, too.’ Rosie was always her most observant child. ‘Sort of, de-tragicked somehow…’
Jess studied him and nodded: ‘imlame.’
And Annie would have to come regularly, to bring her car to Curly’s Valet Service, which he was now running on Bennett’s land out the back there–must support those boys, when they were trying so hard.
‘What can I get you?’
‘Hey, Jazzy, that uniform’s an improvement. You look gorgeous.’ Annie put her hand on the girl’s arm. ‘We do miss you, you know, at choir.’
‘I know, but I couldn’t carry on with it, Mrs M.’ She fumbled around for her pen in the unfamiliar pocket. ‘I can’t waste myself on this stuff any more, I’ve got to get out there and get on.’ She took their order and walked away from them.
‘DID YOUR MOTHER EVER TURN UP AGAIN, JASMINE?’ bellowed Sue as she passed her. ‘I HEAR SHE DID A RUNNER AT THE WORST POSSIBLE TIME. AND YOUR GRANDMOTHER ENDED UP BACK IN HOSPITAL. WHAT A SHAME.’
‘She hasn’t changed,’ grumbled Lucy. ‘Fucking witch.’
‘How can you stick her?’ said Jess behind a menu.
‘The truth is,’ Annie said through a smile, ‘I can’t.’
‘You’ve changed though, Mum. Like, a bit. I mean, you know, nothing special…’
‘Oh really?’ said Annie, clutching at her tummy to contain the butterflies. ‘Give me a few more minutes, love. Because you ain’t seen nothing yet.’
Tracey stood at the top of the slope of Bridgeford High Street, trying to look nonchalant, even though she was neatly positioned on the white lines in the middle of the road. Lewis, whose power she had noticed was less that of the average council member and more that of an over-mighty baron, had shoved up some orange notices in the dead of night, scattered traffic cones around with happy and mighty abandon and had the street pedestrianised–completely illegally, just the once and for them.
The sun was not shining unconditionally upon the CK’s first day of business–it had occasionally to duck around the odd white and fluffy cloud–but it was an indisputably fine summer’s Saturday morning. The bunting borrowed from the St Ambrose Fête Committee was up to its customary fluttering, and from here it looked as though the punters might just be pouring in.
Everything was going according to plan. A large box had just been abandoned in the street, as if nobody gave a damn about their own environment any more. People whom Tracey had known and worked and sung with for weeks walked past with their families and snubbed her–just did not say a word. Lewis and his gang were in what looked like an ugly political argument on the bench outside the council offices. The war memorial was covered not only with minors and their cans and their crisp packets and their fags, but even more mature individuals like Curly and Squat were there, acting like hooligans, too. Katie was looking lost and alone, unattended in her wheelchair near the traffic island, directly between Carol’s news agent and the CK. Not a soul offered to help her. Tracey, her legs crossed at the ankles, her shoulders in a mooching position, her eyes fixed down upon her phone, felt a surge of an unaccustomed emotion that she could only presume to be optimism.
As the clock on the Corn Exchange said five minutes to twelve, she saw Min emerge from the CK, position her keyboard against the outside wall and plug it into a sound system, but nobody else seemed to notice. Billy, back for a week now, still brown of skin and white of hair, came bumbling along and leaned against a lamppost. He didn’t know what he was doing here, but he had got out of bed, put on some clothes and done what he was told–and that, in Tracey’s view, was progress. Primary-age children started to appear, in ballet skirts and football kits or with hair wet from swimming, eager to do whatever their new choir teacher might ask them, trailing mystified parents in their wake. From the old people’s home round the corner, organised by Annie and led by Maria and Lynn, came an army of Evergreens in wheelchairs and on Zimmer frames who were then positioned around the street.
The clock struck the hour. Katie picked up something in her lap and Tracey looked up and caught her eye and Katie played a short phrase on the recorder, and perhaps because she was in a wheelchair nobody seemed to give a damn. But then Min joined in on her keyboard and suddenly Annie swung through the café door, grabbed a microphone, ran into the middle of the High Street and jumped up on to the abandoned box.
SING, SING A SONG
she belted out with her newly discovered, quite extraordinary talent.
SING OUT LOUD
SING OUT STRONG
‘FUUUUUCK,’ shouted one of her daughters, who had all run out after her. ‘SHIT. MUM’S GONE MENTAL.’
Tracey was down in her allotted place, conducting now. She pointed her baton at the newly Farrow & Ball-painted CK front door and Ben emerged, holding her old guitar.
SING OF GOOD THINGS, NOT BAD
he sang to all of Bridgeford as he walked, strumming, into position next to Annie.
SING OF HAPPY NOT SAD
‘DAD,’ called another of Annie’s children, in a voice of pain. ‘DO something.’ But James was staring at her, immobile and utterly lovestruck.
Then Tracey pointed at Lewis and the council lot and they jumped up from their bench and like a boy band–yes, a slightly eccentric, niche-market sort of boy band but, hey, a boy band none the less–marched down to the singers in perfect time.
DON’T WORRY THAT IT’S NOT
GOOD ENOUGH…
And the door of the newsagent’s flung open and Judith, Kerry and Lynn and all the sopranos danced over too.
… FOR ANYONE ELSE TO HEAR
There must have been about thirty singers out there now, but the number of delighted onlookers was well into the hundreds. People were filming it and sharing on Twitter. The senior citizens were clearly enjoying the highlight of their later lives. You wait, thought Tracey, smiling as she watched them. You just wait.
SING A SONG
She pointed her baton at the war memorial and twenty hooded youths leapt to their feet, formed an orderly crocodile and swung towards them.
La la la-la-la
Le la la le-la-la
Le la la lalalala
The whole town cheered them on as they clicked their fingers and sang and danced into the centre of the whole show. The louder the cheering, the louder their singing. ‘It’s SQUAT!’ squealed a little girl
, and suddenly dozens of them swarmed towards him. ‘SQUAT. SQUAT. SQUAT…’ He raised his thumb at them, winked and carried on his song.
‘That’s the sound of their choir doing a flashmob in the High Street for the Saturday-morning shoppers,’ said Drivetime Dave, who was standing right next to Tracey, recording a piece on community spirit. The girls were all dancing round Squat and toddlers were twirling about the pavements and the adults were clapping and the shopkeepers had all come out to enjoy. And, Ah, thought Tracey, as the whole town joined in the chorus, as she conducted hundreds of people on the left side, the right side, behind her, above her and the middle of the street, haven’t I always said so? Soft pop and local radio: very heaven.
Min, laughing her pretty laugh over at the wall there, moved up another key and the chorus started up yet again.
La la le la-la
Tracey smiled at her and carried on flicking her wrists at them all in time. There was a very real chance that this might never end. The song was getting louder and louder, the sound fuller and fuller, the performance better and better the more people joined in.
There were only three faces in the whole locality that Tracey could see that were not happy ones: Ben’s ex, Sue, was standing out in the street with her arms crossed, torn in half between being proud of her daughter, hating everything else and loathing, most particularly, of course, Ben out in the middle of it all being a star. Old Pat, standing beside her, rolled her eyes in elaborate despair.
JUST SING…
And there was Jazzy, scowling out of the CK’s window, her perfectly nice voice silenced: too big for Bridgeford; only interested in the world.
… SING A SONG
She’ll learn, thought Tracey, singing and dancing and swaying and conducting in a state somewhere near ecstasy. Eventually, like Tracey, she would have to learn: that our lives are swaddled under many layers; that that is a good thing; that even when your family lets you down, there is another microcosm, all around, just waiting and wanting to catch you. Making yourself known to the whole world out there might work for a few people, but it isn’t the only answer. Because the world out there isn’t for everybody. The likelihood was that it would turn its back on Jazzy, as it had on Tracey, as it had on so many. But, with a bit of luck, someone, some day, somehow would make her realise that the trapped and scrunched and narrow little lives are often, from the inside, just the best.
