The Dissent of Annie Lang

by Ros Franey

  Edwina asks a hundred questions; she needs more convincing. She’s worried about what will happen to Millie if I’m wrong, and she does need to spend the rest of her life in an asylum. But she understands the urgency and the brief opportunity and, on the gamble that I’m right, has agreed not to alert the authorities ‘or anyone’. She is coming to England for the first time in six years and will meet Millie in London. Provided she agrees her sister is well enough, they’ll travel back to Canada together. This is wonderful news! Edwina says she’s written by the same post to tell Millie, so everything is ready now.

  Beatrice will be home for the weekend and arrives tomorrow evening: my father and I are going to meet her train. (The long-awaited Wolseley has been delivered and he’s keen to show it off.)

  Friday, September 9

  Ever since my visit to Iris Bagshaw, I have been steering clear of my father, except for family mealtimes when I can’t. So I’m sitting uneasily in the passenger seat of the new car, breathing a strong smell of leather upholstery and varnished wood. My father is exceedingly proud of it. ‘Very smooth, isn’t she?’ he comments as we glide into Woodborough Road. ‘Very smooth ride.’ He puts his foot down and we shoot forward. At a crossroads he scorches up behind another car and brakes abruptly. The movement is making me feel sick, like being on a boat. I just want to get to the station. I want to be with Beatrice.

  ‘So this concert, Annie,’ he says, glancing over at me. ‘Important night for you, isn’t it?’

  I frown. ‘Important night for the choir,’ I tell him. ‘It’s not about me.’

  ‘Sometimes,’ he says, ‘I worry about you, Annie. You need to own up to your achievements.’

  I say nothing. Whenever I try doing that, I get squashed by Mother. Which is it to be?

  ‘Well, it’s true, isn’t it?’ he persists. ‘Bright – and beautiful, with it.’

  He gives me a sideways look.

  I shrink further towards the window. I really don’t want to talk about this, or about tomorrow. I don’t want to be in the car at all.

  ‘Well I’m proud of my little girl,’ he says. He reaches over and pats my knee. ‘So proud, let me say, that I’ve half a mind to come and see you perform!’

  I’m aghast. ‘No!’ I say. I move my legs away and look around at him. ‘No, you can’t!’

  ‘Why ever not?’ His blue eyes turn towards me in innocent surprise. (Is this how he plays it with the girls?)

  I haven’t even considered in my elaborate planning that he might turn up at the concert. I fumble for a reason. ‘You’d hate it, Daddy!’ I splutter at last. ‘You know you detest choirs. And – and Mother wouldn’t like it!’

  ‘Well Mother doesn’t have to be there, does she? That’s settled it now. I’m coming, and that’s that!

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Saturday, September 10

  I can’t read. I can’t eat. I pack and repack the things I must take with me. Outside, the weather has broken and there’s a whiff of autumn around the yard: this is satisfactory, as I must wear my long mackintosh to the concert, a vital part of Miss Blessing’s disguise. Terrified of meeting my father coming home early from wherever he’s gone to this Saturday afternoon, I pick up my music case and the all-important bag for Millie and slip down to the kitchen. It’s far too soon, but I can take no risks. Maisie is standing at the stove. Dear Maisie, when I finally plucked up courage to tell her our secret, listened carefully, elbows on the kitchen table, hands pressed together. When I finished, she said, ‘I worry for you girls, I really do. I hope you know what you’re letting yourselves in for.’ She paused for a moment and muttered, ‘It’s high time something were done,’ so, as I had guessed, she knows more than she would ever say. ‘In that case … yes, duck, you can count on me. And good luck to you.’

  And today, our Maisie has come in on her afternoon off to wish us God speed. ‘Here, Annie,’ she says when she sees me. ‘I’ve done you a bacon sandwich.’

  ‘Ah Maisie, no!’ I protest. ‘I feel sick. I can’t eat anything.’

  ‘Nonsense, duckie, you can’t play the piano and the knight in shining armour on an empty stomach! Mr Brown says there’s never an occasion when you can’t find room for a bacon sandwich.’

  She cuts two thick slices of bread and lifts the rasher out of the pan. ‘There you are. I’ve done it crispy, as you like it.’

  I put down my bags reluctantly and sit at the table. ‘He might come …’ I murmur.

  She looks at the clock. ‘Mr Lang only went out after lunch, Annie. He’ll not be home yet. And even if he did walk in, you tell him you’ve got to get up to the hospital in good time.’

  ‘He’d want to drive me …’

  She pats my shoulder. ‘Don’t fret, love. He won’t come. You eat now. It’ll calm your nerves.’ She pours me a cup of tea and, of course, I’m grateful; it’s what I need.

  Just as I finish, licking my fingers, Beatrice appears. ‘You off already, Annie?’

  I nod. ‘You’re wearing my coat, aren’t you?’ I ask her. ‘I’ll look odd walking out without one.’

  ‘I am. Don’t worry.’ Beatrice has her little blue costume to wear under my coat; we’re to swap at the chapel. Everything is planned. ‘You’ve got the hat?’ she asks.

  ‘You girls,’ Maisie laughs. ‘You’re both as bad as each other.’ She looks at us seriously for a moment. ‘I’d just like to say, though, how much I admire what you’re doing. You’re good, brave girls. Mr Brown and I are right proud of you both.’

  ‘We couldn’t do it without you, Maisie,’ Beatrice tells her.

  ‘Oh, it’s nowt to do with me,’ Maisie says. ‘Glad to be of assistance. She’ll be safe with us, don’t you worry.’

  I stand up, put on the mackintosh, pick up my two bags and turn to them for inspection. ‘Do I look odd?’

  ‘You’ll do very nicely,’ Maisie says. ‘You look just like a lady pianist going to play in a concert!’

  ‘Good luck, Annie!’ Beatrice gives me a quick squeeze. ‘Will I see you in the interval?’

  I shake my head. ‘Not with Daddy around: he might follow you. I’ll have to stay with her. Drop the coat in before it starts. Oh Bea!’ I’m seized with sudden fear. ‘Supposing she’s decided not to come with us!’

  Beatrice throws up her arms in an elaborate shrug. ‘Then we bring it all home again quietly and no one will know there was ever a plan!’

  The hospital is quiet as I walk in with my bags: it’s the late-afternoon lull before the bell rings for first tea. My smart shoes, not the ones I normally wear here, click-clack down the tiled corridor and the sound makes me feel conspicuous, though not a soul is around to see me. I enter the chapel, pass the rows of chairs set out for the choir in front of the altar, the rostrum for Dr Squires and the piano, pulled forward for me. With barely a glance at them, I make for the vestry and push open the door.

  Someone is inside. I jump, startled. It’s a nurse, and I realise to my shock that I know her: she’s my enemy from my first visit to the chapel, the time I first met Millie Blessing after the service. She is stacking hymn books.

  ‘I’m sorry!’ I say. ‘I wasn’t expecting anyone.’

  She turns and looks at me. ‘Nor was I.’ She comes forward a few paces. ‘I know you, don’t I? What on earth are you doing here?’

  I’m seized with nerves again, standing with a bag in each hand, feeling guilty. ‘I’m here for the concert,’ I tell her.

  ‘The concert starts at seven-thirty. Can you leave?’

  ‘No. I’m – you see, I’m playing for them, Nurse. The piano.’

  ‘You?’ She looks at me in disbelief. ‘Are you good enough to play for the choir?’

  I decide to ignore this. ‘I’m a volunteer, you see. I’m here—’

  ‘Who are you, anyway?’ She cuts across me.

  ‘Annie Lang.’

  ‘Well, I don’t care, Annie Lang. You’ve no business in my vestry. Go away and come back at the proper time.’

 
Nurse Bleakley: that’s her name. I remember her well.

  ‘I need to practise, Nurse Bleakley.’ I look her in the eye, trying to sound assertive.

  ‘Too late for that. You should have practised before. Just get out.’

  ‘Sister Jones said it would be all right.’ I hesitate. ‘Will you be coming to the concert, Nurse?’

  Nurse Bleakley regards me with a mix of hostility and frustration. ‘I’ll be coming to the concert because it’s my job,’ she says grandly. ‘But Sister never consulted me. She knows I’m in charge of the chapel.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Nurse. I didn’t realise. I wonder if I might stay, now I’m here?’ I take a step back with my bags in tow, intending to keep everything safely by me at the piano. I don’t want her prying.

  Deep in the building, the tea bell rings. Thankfully, it seems to summon the nurse.

  She twitches. ‘Well, I have to leave now, anyway,’ she says. ‘Stay if you must. But don’t make too much noise. Remember this is a place of calm reflection.’

  I assure her I will play very quietly and back out of the vestry in my mac, with my bags. After a minute or two, Nurse Bleakley bustles past me as if I’m not there and I hear her shoes squeak away down the corridor.

  To be on the safe side, I play through the ‘Introit’ and then, when I’m sure she has gone, I tiptoe back into the vestry. First, I place my mackintosh over a chair. Then I take from my bag the small hat with a net that Beatrice has found in her cupboard. She modelled it for me last night, pulling the veil down as far over her face as possible, which is not far enough for our purposes.

  ‘Great for disguising spots,’ she observed drily.

  ‘I hoped it would cover more than that,’ I said.

  So next we found some of Bea’s old spectacles, a pair with heavy frames from which she expertly slipped out the lenses. Then she added a bright red lipstick. ‘This’ll do the trick,’ she said.

  I tried on the hat, the veil, the specs and the lipstick and turned back to the mirror: a transformation! ‘Excellent!’ Beatrice cried. ‘She’ll be unrecognisable.’

  I certainly hope so now, as I unpack each item and conceal them on the chair under the mackintosh. Then I take out the dress I’ve brought – one of mine that folds up small. She will have to make do with her own stockings and shoes. Oh Millie, I think. We’ve done everything we could. Please trust us! There will never be another chance like this!

  When there’s nothing more to do, I realise I have indeed come much too early. I play through the remainder of the Mozart and then settle down quietly in the vestry with my thumping heart, to wait.

  At ten to seven, the choir starts to arrive in dribs and drabs. Gone are the uniforms, the starched nurse’s caps; they are dressed in black, the women in long skirts and blouses, the tenors and basses in dinner jackets. Conversation is muted. I feel their nerves, and after venturing out of the vestry to let Sister Jones know I’m here, I retreat again. My own fingers are clammy as I practise phantom scales on my knee. I check and re-check the turned-up page corners of my music. At seven, the chapel doors open and the audience begins to drift in. I can see them through the crack of the vestry door, talking and smiling with not the remotest suspicion of the drama playing offstage.

  Then, at ten past seven, the vestry door opens wider and Fred enters. He is dressed in his hospital garb but his hair is neatly combed and flattened – I suspect with water – and he has managed somehow to look smart. He grins at me nervously. The hall is filling up now and I wonder if Beatrice and my father have arrived. I look at my watch: it’s gone 7.15 and I start to worry that something has happened, a crisis on the ward perhaps, or that Miss Blessing has lost her nerve at the last moment and may not come. A few minutes later, Beatrice slips into the vestry, my coat over her arm. It’s the first time she’s seen Fred in weeks and she gives him a silent hug. They exchange a few words of greeting before she turns to me.

  ‘Good luck, Sis.’ She never calls me that. I look at her in surprise. ‘We’re bang in the middle; good place to keep him stuck in his seat for as long as possible.’

  ‘Can he see the vestry from where you are?’

  ‘Not if he doesn’t know what he’s looking for. Is she here?’

  I shake my head.

  Beatrice glances at her watch and pulls a face: it’s gone twenty past. ‘Is there another way into this place?’ she asks.

  ‘Yes. We can do a quick exit.’ I nod to a small door I’ve found behind the robing screen. ‘You hang back quite a while with him. I just hope she turns up before it starts – though Fred will stay in here. She won’t be alone.’

  As Beatrice turns to go, the door behind the screen opens and Miss Blessing enters rather breathlessly, accompanied by an attendant I don’t recognise. She comes hesitantly round the screen and I jump to my feet, resisting the temptation to clasp her hands and wish her well. She is looking pale and scared beneath the now-familiar veneer of impassivity.

  ‘Welcome, Miss Blessing,’ I say, and to the attendant, ‘Thank you. I’m so glad you could come.’

  ‘We almost didn’t!’ says the attendant tartly. ‘Another patient kicking off – and I can’t stay.’

  ‘We quite understand,’ I tell her. ‘My brother is here to sit with her. My sister will be in the audience, too.’

  Everyone shakes hands. Beatrice says, ‘I must dash! Miss Blessing—’ She touches Millie on the shoulder, mindful of the attendant who is still hovering beside her. All she says is, ‘Enjoy the concert.’ And she goes. The attendant leaves a moment later by the opposite door.

  I smile at Millie with a confidence I don’t feel and raise the corner of the mackintosh to show her the elements of her disguise laid out beneath.

  She barely examines them, but nods and sits on the next chair. Does the nod mean she’s agreed to leave with us, then? There’s an expectant hush outside, and I’m too scared to ask. ‘Good luck, Annie!’ she says. For a moment, the tension leaves her and she raises her head and smiles at me with sudden warmth.

  I thank her, and then it is half-past and Dr Squires is on the rostrum. I take my seat at the piano and the concert begins.

  We start with Stanford’s Three Latin Motets. Someone has thoughtfully laid a programme on the piano stool and once I’ve given them the chord to begin, for the first time I can read the translation: ‘Justorum animae in manu Dei sunt …’

  The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God,

  There, shall no torment or malice touch them.

  In the sight of the unwise they seem to die,

  But they are at peace.

  Miss Blessing versus the insipientium, the ‘unwise’: it’s like a prediction for her future. I look out over the audience and spot Daddy and Beatrice in a sea of upturned faces. After that, I stop feeling nervous.

  The interval seems to drag on for an age, while members of the choir hand out cups of coffee to the audience. I dread Daddy barging into the vestry, but Beatrice is clearly steering him away. Perhaps he has met some more friends from the Lodge. Perhaps he has met Dr Squires! I feel a sudden rush of nausea. Fred, Millie and I sit in an agony of waiting, not wanting to talk. Then Millie says, ‘The sopranos didn’t go flat in the Parry, did they?’ And we all giggle. ‘They get the energy from their nerves, I suppose.’ I feel my fingers damp and puffy. How can I contend with Mozart when all I want is to bundle her out of the vestry right now and not stop running until I’ve got her safely on the bus to Maisie’s? As the interval ends, I nod to Millie and she raises the mackintosh again, softly collecting each piece of her disguise. Once she puts them on, there’ll be no going back. I watch her. Our eyes meet. Then the audience falls silent again and I leave the vestry.

  The choir is more confident with the piano accompaniment than singing on their own. They seem to have relaxed and our performance of the Mozart goes well. We stand for the applause and then Dr Squires gestures for the sopranos to lead off into the auditorium, where they will be reunited with their friends. I
slip away on the other side and walk sedately towards the vestry. Behind me I hear a rising babble of voices.

  We need to leave at once; not before the audience itself, but before the arrival of the young soprano nurse who has been ordered to take Millie back to her ward. I sincerely hope she has friends and parents to greet before fulfilling her duties. Fred and Millie are waiting. She is sitting stiffly, straight-backed, the small bag of her worldly possessions on her knee. As I enter, she stands and I look at her face. The hat is pulled well down, the veil reaches just far enough over her nose. Beneath it the spectacles seem to change the shape of her face and below it the lipstick glows redly. It doesn’t look absurd, as I had feared it might, but the difference is almost shocking. ‘I would never have recognised you,’ I murmur as I stuff the music into my music case, and behind the veil I see her eyes briefly gleam with relief. Fred is ready with my coat and as I fasten the buttons, he goes to the little door and looks out. People are starting to move back down the corridor. I hesitate, torn between leaving too early and being spotted, and getting out before anyone comes to find us.

  ‘Let’s go,’ says Fred.

  I put my hand on his arm. ‘No. Wait a moment longer.’

  ‘They might come!’

  ‘We’ll be too conspicuous if we leave now!’