Puccini's Ghosts (11 page)

I enjoy the sight of my finished stitches. A visual pleasure, simply enjoyed; why look for more? Balm for the eyes and balm for the soul should not be confused.

When I’m singing to Uncle George on the beach that summer night long ago, is that the mistake I make? Do I begin to fancy in myself a rare and finely tuned sensitivity that sets me apart from the likes of Enid and Senga? Beautiful, says Uncle George, of the sunset. But it is a sunset, nothing more. It was a sunset just as tonight’s was, and an aria. Not a symbol or portent but the end of another day and that is all, with a bit of Puccini thrown in. A flash of pink or mauve in the sky is not a glimpse of higher meaning. A top B flat does not reveal a spotless soul. Be dazzled, but do not let bright colours or pretty songs lead you anywhere.

But after Uncle George and I get back that evening I go to my room and stand looking out, wishing I could see the patch of beach where we have been sitting. The sun is going down with that final, burning desperation, and it strikes me how all my old days of the week colours were bland or cold.
Monday is pale green.
At the time they were the right colours for my days, the colours I saw around me, but how could I have overlooked the sky? I somehow missed the reds, pinks and silvers. I was in no mood to be caught up in their exuberance. I suddenly feel less separate from them, less drab in comparison. That evening a brightness seems to be growing, a flame glimmering below the horizon, and it includes me. Anything can catch and burn.

Oh, this is the wisdom of hindsight. It must be an illusion that I had a sense of what was coming for if I had, could I have stood at the window and not been terrified? Would I really have wanted all our lives to change, to be refined the way they were into something perhaps more honest but no purer, something clearer but also worse? I am uncertain. I do know that I took the days of that summer and threw them like sticks into a fire that drew everything to it until the air was tight with heat. Everything flared and was gorgeous for a moment. All of it glittered with significance until it expired in flames and now only I am left, blinking and blinded and giddy.

I’m just starting on this new piece of embroidery. This particular piece has a formal and pleasing pattern like a knot garden, with fleur-de-lys and trefoils and diamonds set within squares, and if I concentrate on it I shall keep hold of a certain perspective, I hope, that this house seems to want to send askew.

7

L
ila was glad the next day was Sunday because there would be no Enid. While Enid’s mum lay in the flat above the shop reading magazines or doing extra sewing, Enid took herself off and was Gathered for Morning Witness, for Repentance and Prayer and for Eventide Worship. Lila had all but given up a lazy campaign to goad her out of it.

So she was surprised, late in the morning, to hear the bicycle bell and see Enid appearing in the back garden. Raymond, cheerful again, was working in the vegetable patch. Lila came out to stop her saying anything embarrassing in front of him. She pulled her through the gate back into the drive.

‘Where’s the B A S T?’ Enid demanded. ‘It’s gone.’

Uncle George had been out early that morning and had already painted one coat of green over the burned-off traces of the letters.

‘Oh, they might not have the headquarters there after all. It might not be big enough. Why haven’t you got church today?’

‘We haven’t got church, it’s the Fellowship of Sinai,’ Enid said, sauntering back through the gate into the garden. She spoke with the authority of an archbishop, which they also did not have. Lila was tired of it all.

‘Okay, why aren’t you Gathered?’

‘Bird,’ Enid said, turning and walking backwards. ‘There’s this bird got in and they can’t get it out. It’s huge, a big seagull, they’re all up ladders with the windows open and clapping at it and it just keeps flying from side to side or it sits in the rafters, they can’t make it go. So they’re hearing the Word in the minister’s front room but the young folk got to go home.’

Raymond was washing a handful of carrots at the outside tap, and overheard. ‘Right y’are, Enid,’ he said, half-turning. ‘Act of God, was it?’ He stepped into the house leaving a trail of drips.

Enid grinned after him. Lila had noticed before the way she wanted Raymond to like her. ‘There’s mess all over the Word. It’s all over the minister’s big Bible, it was on the lectern open,’ she called out to him, ‘at the bit where Christ feedeth the five thousand and reproveth his fleshly hearers.’

She waited, hoping to be teased further. Then she turned back to Lila and whispered, ‘Honest, there’s number twos all over it.’

Just then Uncle George appeared and leaned in the kitchen doorway. Lila watched, expecting to be proud of his impact on Enid.

‘What’s this I’m hearing? No church? Because of a bird? Bird turd? Bird turd on the Word?’

While Enid was still gasping with shock he advanced and held out his hand. ‘So
you
must be Enid,’ he said, as if he could not believe his luck. ‘Hello. I’m George.’

‘Hello.’

‘So—not at Sunday School?’

‘We don’t get Sunday School.’

‘Oh?’

‘We don’t believe in Sunday School. The Bible Message is the same for everybody, young and old.’

‘They don’t get singing, either,’ Lila said. ‘There’s no hymns.’

‘Yes, there is, only we’ve got our own. We recite them.’

‘Bet you don’t really believe them though.’

Enid’s face flushed. Not even Jesus knew that the only one of the recitations she was really interested in was the first one she’d heard, spoken by the minister on the esplanade last Easter holidays in front of a flimsy semi-circle of Fellowship members. Standing under a banner that said JOIN US IN JOY EVERLASTING they had intoned in unison:

Home come the soldiers of Lord Jesus,

Bloodied from the earthly fight,

Home to dwell in righteousness

Glorious in eternal light.

Weary soldiers of the Saviour

Rest ye in His grace and might.

Enid, at a loose end, had listened from a safe distance. The words reminded her of a picture she’d once seen. She couldn’t remember where, maybe in a history book or a photo in the paper, but it was a proper painting, a painting of those very words. It gave them shape. In it an exhausted soldier lay slumped back in a chair, his kilt hanging over his legs, bayonet cast at his feet and his boots half-off. His head was falling back against a woman who was standing behind him and his white neck was exposed; he was so tired, the poor soldier of the Saviour, he hadn’t even finished unbuttoning his tunic. But the point of the picture wasn’t how tired he was, or how long he’d been away or even how much danger he had been in. In the woman’s arms was a baby that Enid knew was herself.
Home come the soldiers.
The point was he was back. He was home, the weary soldier, the dad, the Saviour, Jesus in a kilt. He had come home, and that was all that mattered to Enid.

‘That’s not proper hymns then, is it? And you don’t sing them.’

‘We stand up and talk them and we listen to the Word. Music distracts from the Bible Message.’

Lila made a short snorting noise.

‘No hymns?’ Uncle George said.

‘The Lord listens when we to come to Him in quiet prayer,’ Enid said, still thinking of the picture.

‘But no singing!?’ cried Uncle George. ‘Oh, isn’t that the saddest thing you ever heard? We love singing, don’t we?’ he said to Lila.

Lila glared at him. ‘Don’t say that.’

‘Well, don’t scowl. But can you imagine? No
singing
!?’

Lila caught his eye and she saw that the joke was theirs. It was Enid who was being teased and isolated and who looked suddenly crushed.

‘Come on inside, both of you,’ he suddenly told them, his eyes glinting with something. ‘I’ve got something I want you to do.’

They followed him through the house to the music room where Fleur was sitting with a cup of tea. ‘See, Florrie? See? Here you are, for a start,’ he announced.

‘Fleur,’
she said firmly, but with a slight smile. ‘Hello, Enid.’

‘A willing recruit for you,’ he said, pushing Enid forward. ‘First of many. There’ll be hundreds more.’

‘George, you’re mad. It’s a mad idea,’ she said over Enid’s head. ‘
Turandot
’s huge, lots of proper professional companies can’t do it. And anyway, where? Where could you do it, round here? There’s nowhere nearly big enough.’

Uncle George was walking up and down the room. He waved all this away. ‘We’ll reduce the forces, of course we will. We can look into all that,’ he said.

His looks seemed to have taken on harder lines than Fleur’s. He had similar features, the straight nose and sharp jaw, but now his cheekbones glowed and his eyes glittered, as if something were heating up under the surface.

‘As to where, there are halls, aren’t there?’ he said. ‘And look, the scale of the thing’s the point. It’d really catch the imagination, it’d involve everybody. And just imagine, you’d be singing Turandot. Imagine!’

Fleur looked away.

‘Look, I’ll say it again.’ He paused with his back to the window. ‘Wouldn’t it help? If you and Ray
did
something? And anyway,’ he said, gesturing towards Enid, ‘see? They fetch up right on your doorstep. We’ll get plenty more—they’ll rope their friends in, there’s all the choirs, the amateur operatics, orchestras, they’ll
flock
to be in it.’

Lila’s mother glanced at Enid without much interest and took up some sheets of paper from the spindly coffee table.

‘We’ll advertise, hold a public meeting,’ George said. ‘There’s a local paper, we’ll talk to them. Get the ball rolling.’

‘You’re mad.’

‘I’m just trying to
do
something for you. Fleur?’

‘And the cost! That Premium Bond’s not boundless riches, you know.’ In a low, flat voice she added, ‘And what’ll he say? Raymond. You’re forgetting bloody Raymond.
He
wants to fix the damp.’

‘Oh, Ray’s fine! I’ve already told him!’ George said. ‘As long as you’re happy and we’re not letting him in for any more expense, he says you can have the whole Premium Bond for the production.’

Fleur looked up in surprise. ‘Raymond said
that
?’

‘As long as it makes you happy. And he says he’ll take his annual leave to fit in with the dates. I’ve asked him to be stage manager.’

‘He said that?’

‘Well,’ George looked sheepish, ‘well, about the annual leave, he hasn’t quite said that, not yet. But I’m sure he will when I ask him. He’d be all right as stage manager.’

He started pacing again and Fleur’s eyes followed him up and down.

‘The Premium Bond. All of it? Did he really say that? Are you sure?’

‘I promise you, he absolutely did. You don’t give him credit, you know.’

‘Well, anyway, that’s not the only thing. If—
if
I decide to sing Turandot, I can’t do it opposite an amateur. I won’t. I will not sing,’ she said, ‘if an amateur is singing Calaf.’

‘Calaf’s not a problem, I told you.’

‘Unless we’ve got a proper Calaf it’s ridiculous. What makes you so sure this fellow would want to do it even if he’s up to it? Are you sure he isn’t just another of your protégés? George? George, are you listening to me?’

‘Oh, he’s up to it! Of course he’d do it. How many tenors would turn it down?’

Enid was still standing awkwardly in the middle of the floor. She glanced longingly at the door and widened her eyes at Lila, who was staring at Uncle George and biting her lip.

Fleur shook her head. ‘He’s really up to it, he knows the part? Sounds to me like one of your what’s-its. You’ve got him on one of your pedestals.’

‘That’s nonsense! Of course I haven’t. I know the real thing when I hear it. He’ll make a fine Calaf.’

‘What makes you think he’d come up here for the whole summer anyway?’

‘Look, he’ll love just getting out of London, let alone the chance to sing Calaf. He’s keeping himself going with a summer job. He could easily come if we laid on bed and board. I’ll stand him his fare.’

‘Even so. What about everything else?’ She began to count off on her fingers. ‘All the other parts. Venue. Rehearsal space. Staging. Scenery. Costumes. Props. Lights. Publicity. Huge chorus. Huge orchestra. Scores…’

Uncle George shivered and pulled a deep breath in through his nose. ‘I know. God, it’s thrilling, isn’t it?’

‘George!’

‘The point is,’ he said, lowering his voice, ‘yes, it’s huge, it’ll take some doing, but I
know
there are enough people out there. We just have to think bold. She really hit on something, you know,’ he said, nodding towards Lila, ‘she really has. I was awake half the night working it out. We could actually do it. You’d be wonderful and this place is crying out, you’re always saying so. I mean God knows there’s nothing else happening. You’re so bored you’re going mad—you think you’re the only one? Listen.’

He turned suddenly on Enid, startling her. ‘So, Enid,’ he said, looking at her hard. ‘Dear, lovely Enid. What are you doing this summer? What are your plans?’

Enid’s lower lip dropped free of the top one. The question could be either mocking or just meaningless and she couldn’t tell which. Lila couldn’t, either. Uncle George was moving away somehow, going beyond the reach of sensible remarks, setting the air in a spin. Didn’t he know? Plans did not enter their lives. They did what they were told or they did nothing. Plans belonged to girls in the kind of stories that left Lila sour with envy, girls winning scholarships to ballet school, entering gymkhanas or living on barges, not to her and Enid. The room seemed suddenly too small for four people when Uncle George was one of them. How could they keep up when he was whirring with an enthusiasm that nobody else understood?

He said, ‘See? Fleur, see? They’re bored out of their minds. There are dozens like them, hundreds! It’s just what they need. What you need, what
everybody
needs.’

He lunged across the room, pulled Enid forward and positioned her in front of the piano, pressing down on her shoulders.

‘Stand there, Enid, hands at your sides, shoulders relaxed. Relax! And breathe!’

Landing hard on the piano stool, he pulled back his shirt cuffs and sent a clatter of notes up the keyboard.

‘Now! To LAH! Sing!’ Red-faced, Enid sucked in a breath. Uncle George led her in with three chords, singing along himself, and then off she went obediently, piping up the scale in a tinny, pleasant voice.

‘Bravo, Enid! Well done!’ he cried, when she reached the top. ‘Again! Deep breath! Louder!’ Enid did as she was told.

He whirled round on the stool towards Fleur while Enid turned to Lila with a look of terror. ‘See, Fleur?’ he shouted. ‘Even Enid’s got a voice. Everyone’s got a voice. Everyone can sing!’

Fleur raised an eyebrow. ‘Chorus material,’ she said, ‘if that. And unless we’ve got a Calaf…’

Uncle George interrupted with a flurry of notes at the top of the keyboard, his fingers flickering as though he were catching beads tinkling from a broken necklace. ‘Sure we need to bring in our Calaf,’ he called to her, ‘we might need to reduce the number of principals, rewrite the really hard bits. But the chorus and little parts, everyone else we need, we could get from round here. There’s bound to be amateur orchestras, we’ll ask them—anyway we’ll cut down the band. We’d have to find plenty of brass and percussion, of course. It’ll be great.’

Enid, looking like a stranded cat, blurted out, ‘I need to go. My mum doesn’t know I’m here. I’m needed at home.’

She turned and ran. Lila followed her out the door but Enid sped back through the kitchen, past Raymond in the vegetable patch and round to the driveway where she jumped on her bike and tore away. Lila called after her but she did not turn round.

Lila drifted back into the house leaving the back door open, and stopped in the kitchen. Over the sound of her father’s spade from outside she heard Uncle George start up at the piano again and then came her mother’s faltering and shaky attempt at one of Turandot’s arias. When it was over there was laughter from the music room and outside, the chuck of the spade stopped and was followed by solitary, slow applause from the carrot patch.