The Unfinished Symphony of You and Me

by Lucy Robinson

  I wouldn’t get too excited, I thought, remembering what my school had been like.

  ‘But what is outreach?’ Jan kept asking, when we tried to plan it. ‘We do not have this thing in my town.’

  ‘I can assure you we didn’t have it in Stourbridge either. I think we just have to accept that it’ll be a disaster, Jan.’

  After brainstorming several ideas we decided to use Les Misérables as a starting point. Lord Peter Ingle was not so keen. ‘Very good,’ he said unenthusiastically. There was a pause. Then: ‘No. Very un-good. Les Misérables isn’t an opera!’

  He said ‘Les Misérables’ in a proper French accent, which left me feeling like a bit of a tool. But I stood firm. ‘Trust me, to get them to sing at all will be a triumph,’ I told him. ‘Les Mis is as close as a musical’s ever going to get to being an opera. And it’s becoming cool again because of the Les Mis film coming out in January.’

  Peter was unconvinced but when I explained that in my day it had been a thumpable offence even to join in the morning hymn at that school, he capitulated. ‘This may be more ambitious than I thought,’ he said ruefully.

  Once we were agreed on Les Mis, Jan and I were able to put together a plan quite quickly. We were going to keep it very simple and had agreed not to put anyone in the spotlight unless they wanted to be there (that was my contribution). We submitted our plans to our college development centre and started to study the score of Les Mis.

  In most respects, we were ready to go. But one thing remained outstanding, and it was keeping me awake at night. That thing was my family. Brenda and Patrick Howlett. Ramrod Hissing Woman and Pipe-smoking Doormat Man, as Barry called them.

  Mum and Dad had all but cut off contact since I’d returned from New York a year ago. There had been a dreadful reunion in Stourbridge during which nobody had spoken: Dad had stayed behind his newspaper almost all night, clouds of uncomfortable smoke foaming out over the top of the Mail, while Mum had been mute and, as far as I could tell, furious. It was as if she didn’t trust herself to open her mouth in case she spewed out abuse and blame, like molten lava. When I’d tried to talk about Fiona they had both been completely silent and I’d effectively conducted the conversation with the gas fire.

  The next day, when I’d got out of the car at the station, more devastated even than I’d been when I’d arrived, I made one last attempt. ‘Come down to see me next time you visit Dennis and Lisa at CrateWorld,’ I offered.

  ‘We’ll see,’ Mum muttered. Her eyes were darting from side to side, as if she were afraid. Afraid of what? Of people seeing us? Of the town gossiping about what had happened to me and Fiona? Then, with a strange nod, she’d got back into the car and instructed Dad to drive off. I’d been stunned, standing by the station entrance with my wheelie case, face wan and waxy from days of crying. The truth could no longer be ignored: they blamed me completely. They hated me.

  Mum didn’t call me again after that. She posted me some Tesco vouchers she’d saved from her Clubcard, and wrote to me when I got into music college saying, ‘Well done,’ but that she and Dad were very worried about the direction I was taking. That was it. If it hadn’t been for Dennis and Lisa grudgingly taking me in for the Christmas after New York, I wouldn’t have seen anyone from my immediate family in more than a year.

  It would be easiest if Jan and I simply turned up at Stourbridge Grange, slept at the hotel Lord Ingle had put us in and never told Mum and Dad I was there. But that was a dangerous game. As far as I knew, Mum’s friend Carol still worked as the school secretary and it would be only a matter of time before Mum found out we were there. And, anyway, I was sick of sneaking around. If they wanted to blame me, that was their business. No more hiding.

  ‘But your mum’s been a witch,’ Barry said, when I shared my decision. ‘She never calls you, just sends you supermarket vouchers, and there’s you dealin’ with all this shit about Fiona for a year. Why would you call her?’

  ‘Because I’m not going to be Mum’s scapegoat any more,’ I said, with more conviction than I felt. ‘I hate myself enough for New York. I don’t need them making it worse. If I’m in Stourbridge I should just bloody well be able to see them. They’re my parents, Barry!’

  Barry nodded. ‘Onward, Chicken Soldier,’ he said proudly. ‘You’re damn right. Don’t you take no abusin’!’

  ‘I won’t.’

  I wasn’t sure I believed myself. But I was willing to try. And as soon as I knew I was game, the quiet sense of courage – still so new to me – warmed my heart.

  Unfortunately, the decision as to how and when to contact my parents had been taken out of my hands.

  It was the day before our trip to Stourbridge and I was sitting underneath Jan in his narrow bed in Shepherd’s Bush while he held forth about the mid-section of his childhood. Jan loved telling me about his childhood and – perhaps luckily for us both – I was fascinated by the Hans Christian Andersen-ness of it all.

  He was telling me about how his mother who, by all accounts, was a beautiful yet formidable woman, used to sing English folk songs to him so that when he came to learn English he would have a head start. And then, quite casually, he broke off the story, peered into my face and announced, ‘And soon I meet the mother of Sally Howlett. I tell her her daughter is very beautiful and has great bottom.’

  ‘You won’t necessarily meet her,’ I told him. ‘Even if I do call her, she won’t be inviting us round for a cosy dinner. Trust me.’

  I had told Jan that my relationship with my parents was non-existent but had not really explained why. Uncharacteristically for him, perhaps, he had never pressed me on this, but there was a lot about me that Jan still didn’t know. Even though I had been hearing his life story in daily instalments since we’d met.

  But something in Jan’s furiously smiling, ever-so-slightly-guilty face was worrying me.

  He swept his hair from his forehead. ‘Aha! Jan Borsos knows different things about your parents!’

  My heart quickened. ‘Jan?’

  His eyes gleamed. ‘I call your parents.’

  ‘NO! YOU MUSTN’T!’

  ‘Sorry, this is my English. I called your parents. It is done already.’

  Anxiety howled through me.

  ‘I like you, Sally Howlett, and I want to meet your family. So I call them and I say, “Hello, it is Jan Borsos here. I come to Stourbridge with your child Sally Howlett and we help children at the school. Please we come for dinner at your house.” ’

  I gaped.

  Jan’s eyes narrowed. ‘She is battle-hammer, your mother.’

  I was too shocked to say ‘axe’. All I could do was try to carry on breathing.

  ‘At first she was saying nothing, but then she says, “Yes, you come for dinner at our house. If you are with our Sally we want to meet you.” ’

  I couldn’t believe it. Tears of panic pricked my eyes. Why couldn’t he have just kept a lid on it? Why did he always have to be so bloody impetuous? ‘Jan, I don’t think this is a good idea. You don’t understand the situation with my fa–’

  ‘No words! I will sing for them! They will love me!’

  ‘NO! You mustn’t sing! That’s the worst thing you could do. Oh, God, Jan!’

  Why had he had to do this? Could he not have minded his own business? Just for once?

  ‘No, Sally, it is good. We arrive into the Stourbridge on Monday, we do workshop, then later at the six thirty hours we have dinner with your parents. Then we do more outreach workshop Tuesday and we go home to London. It is all perfect!’

  I started to cry in earnest.

  Jan dismounted and lay down next to me, staring at my face in dismay. He thumbed away a tear from my cheek. ‘What is the problem?’ he whispered.

  ‘I wouldn’t know where to start.’

  ‘You can talk to Jan.’

  ‘No, I can’t.’

  Jan nodded thoughtfully. ‘Then I think it is best we have some sexing for now.’

  Much, much later, as Jan
slept with his hand flung across the pillow, Byron-like hair falling about his face, I snuck outside to the hallway to call Fiona. I’d not spoken to her for days and I missed her. As ever, I closed my eyes, as if to fool myself that she was there, next to me.

  We’d had a few bad connections recently but tonight I could hear her as clearly as if she was crouched in the corridor at Jan’s halls of residence. And as soon as she started to speak I knew I’d be OK.

  Fiona told me I absolutely had to go and have this dinner with Mum and Dad. ‘It’s time, Sally,’ she said. ‘Time for reconciliation. And selfishly I’m glad, because this mess is all my fault. I love you, Sal, and I want you to be friends with your parents. I’ve done you enough harm as it is.’

  She ended the conversation by reminding me that Stourbridge Grange was a tough nut to crack, but if anyone could do it, it was me. ‘You and that bloody Black Country accent.’ She laughed. ‘They’ll love you.’ Then she disappeared, as she always did. She was impossible to pin down for long, even in New York.

  It was only then, as I sat on the scratchy corridor carpet, leaning back against the cold wall, that I knew I’d be all right.

  ‘Thanks, Fi,’ I said to the empty corridor. ‘I love you.’

  And so, even when the College Development Centre called us in to say that Lord Ingle had asked if a tutor could come up with us, and that the college had asked Julian Jefferson to go, I remained calm. Fiona wanted me to do this and it didn’t matter who was there to complicate things. In fact, it would be an advantage to have such an incredible singer with us.

  ACT THREE

  Scene Sixteen

  September 2011, New York

  I had a boyfriend. A proper one I was mad about. Who made me laugh, who looked after me and whom I wanted to look after. A man I was proud to be out and about with, or in with, or frankly anywhere with. A man I was in love with!

  Julian Bell. Julian Bell. Sometimes when I wasn’t with him I just whispered his name, like a stalker from a horror film, then squeaked things like ‘RAH!’ and ‘BEEP!’ because there was no stalking and no horror film going on here. Just a gorgeous, sparkly New York Romance.

  With him, I felt like the funniest woman on earth, which I really was not, and in him I felt like I’d met the funniest man on earth, which probably wasn’t true either. But we spent hours – days – laughing. We didn’t sit talking about philosophy until the early hours, which is how I thought proper relationships began. In fact, we often talked a load of bollocks and laughed until we hurt.

  I knew it was love because it was easy to talk about a load of bollocks and laugh until we hurt.

  I thought Julian Bell was the most perfect-looking man I’d ever seen and he told me I was beautiful. I’d often catch him watching me with a lovely half-smile and I’d think, Everything about your face is AMAZING. When I asked him what he was thinking, he replied, simply, ‘That I love you.’

  I knew it was love because I believed him.

  The first time I saw him in his own apartment – in the middle of his books, his non-matching wine glasses, his worn jumpers and his rolled-down packets of biscuits with elastic bands round them – I fell even more in love with him. I adored all the little details of this man. We ate imported Somerset Cheddar and had some bonks and sang and danced to ‘Eye of the Tiger’.

  I knew it was love because here was a man who imported English cheese and owned ‘Eye of the Tiger’.

  I had been enjoying my life until this point. Really enjoying it, at times. But Fiona had been right: I’d never really pushed my boundaries, which had been fine until now. Pre-New York, the size of my life had been just right for me. But I was in Act Three now and things were expanding. I felt as if the Sally I’d left behind in London had been on an empty stage with a few dim spotlights here and there, but now this steady, beautiful Julian Bell character was illuminating every corner. He saw every part of me and seemed to love the complex mess that was Sally Howlett. He helped me see a bigger life for myself, not in terms of wealth or success but in terms of bravery. Being visible. Being me.

  In fact, he saw things that even I’d failed to notice.

  ‘Right. I’ve been polite and waited a bit,’ he announced one day. We were eating tacos at La Superior. ‘But enough. Sally, what the HELL is going on with you and opera?’

  I hastily shoved down a prawn taco in case I lost my appetite, and Julian laughed. He had remembered to wear his glasses tonight and he looked clever and gorgeous and a bit mad because they were still held together with gaffer tape. ‘What do you mean, what’s going on with me and opera?’

  ‘I mean, you cry like a child whenever you see an opera, you work in opera and, most importantly …’ there was an unsettlingly dramatic pause ‘… most importantly, Sally, you’re clearly an opera singer.’

  I choked.

  ‘Don’t deny it! I heard you sing Mimi the night we met! And don’t choke. You’re not allowed to choke.’

  I stopped choking and shoved down another mouthful, waiting for my appetite to evaporate and my body to freeze.

  They didn’t.

  Slowly, stunningly, I realized that I wasn’t actually that bothered. Dear God, my head said dazedly. You’re going to tell him! Aren’t you? Dear God! I replied. Yes! I bloody well am!

  ‘Um, well. I’m not an opera singer. That’s the truth. I’m a wardrobe mistress. But I’ve been singing since I was seven. In private.’

  ‘What exactly does that mean?’

  ‘It means I sang in my wardrobe. And I still do.’

  Julian sat back, folding his arms. Wonder and something I hoped was affection worked its way across his face. ‘You sing in your wardrobe?’ He spoke slowly. With complete amazement.

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘Because you didn’t want your parents to hear you,’ he said, almost to himself. I nodded. I didn’t need to explain any more because he’d got it already. My family. The crazy fear of being noticed. The shame when we were.

  ‘Dear God,’ he murmured. ‘You learned to sing like that in a wardrobe?’

  ‘I’m not that good!’ I took another taco, a pork one. This was great. Julian had stopped eating, I hadn’t died of a heart attack and I was getting all the tacos.

  ‘You’re seriously good. On a technical level you’re really quite excellent,’ he said. (It didn’t occur to me to ask him how he knew. A year later I would remember this moment and smack myself around the head, wondering how I could have missed it.)

  ‘Ah, not really,’ I replied. ‘I’ve been buying masterclasses for years so I’ve learned some stuff through them.’

  Julian came to his senses again, sequestering three tacos in case I ate them all. ‘Back off,’ he ordered. ‘So can I just be certain. You have never had a lesson? Never sung for anyone? In your life?’

  I began to flush. ‘I was supposed to sing at the school concert when I was in primary school,’ I said, ‘and I was so terrified that I wet myself. And then I never tried in public again until the poetry slam. And I blame it on you because you put some sort of a spell on me and I ended up singing in front of everyone. And while we’re at it, how come YOU were so good?’

  Julian batted me off. ‘Oh, I had singing lessons when I was younger. Did a few things.’ He sipped his Modelo, then reached over the table for my hand. ‘I’m so sorry you weed yourself,’ he said gravely. ‘It must have been awful.’

  ‘I’m sorry too,’ I said cheerfully. ‘It was.’ And, out of nowhere, I was laughing. I laughed and laughed and laughed. I laughed so hard that a bit of shredded lettuce flew out of my mouth and splatted on the side of Julian’s beer bottle and I didn’t even care. I laughed about that awful, deadening experience because suddenly I could, and eventually Julian laughed too and trendy Williamsburg people looked at us as if we were dicks, which we were. Julian didn’t push me any further. It had only been a few weeks but he knew my limits.

  Had I mentioned that he was amazing?

  But, for all the love and laughter, t
hese were not halcyon days. My cousin – my sister, my best friend – was going completely off the rails. That she was on drugs was now indisputable. She had stopped drinking, because of the calories, but was distressingly wired most of the time. Mostly she was argumentative and overbearing, paranoid and noisily present, but other times she seemed almost comatose. Her appearance was going to pot and so was the flimsy thread of dependability she’d once possessed.

  She would not eat, whatever I tried. Her diet was no longer something she had any control over: the only deviation she could take from her morning egg white, her lunchtime peas and her dinnertime salad was to eat nothing at all. Her eyes had begun to look bug-like and her body more obviously hairy. The disintegration, so sudden and brutal, caused me physical pain. Julian’s warm arm would curl around me, as I lay watching the shadows shift across the ceiling, and I’d wonder how it would end.

  I spent as much time with her as I could. I was frantic with worry.

  What surprised me was that Julian seemed to want to spend so much time with her too. It was as if she had become a project, although he appeared to have no interest in trying to stop her taking drugs. He just seemed to want to hang out with her. A lot.

  More than once I got back from the Met to find them sitting on the sofa, Bea or Barry watching warily from the other side of the room. Fiona was a lot more animated around Julian than she was with the rest of us. The second time I found them together on the sofa she was laughing uncontrollably at some video clip he was showing her on his phone. She grabbed his arm as gales of laughter rent her tiny, frail body.

  ‘Hello!’ I said, grateful for the sound of happiness.

  ‘Hi, baby,’ Julian said, reaching for my hand. Momentarily, it irked me that he didn’t get up to kiss me. Fiona took the phone off him without acknowledging me, so she could carry on watching the clip. Her eyes were slightly bloodshot.

  ‘Hello.’ I leaned down and kissed Julian, telling my head to be quiet. He didn’t need to get off the sofa to show me that he was in love with me. He’d told me last night, about a hundred times, as we’d lain around my bedroom counting each other’s moles and discussing types of fart.