Authors: Rosie Millard
“Jane, hello, how are you?”
“Good. Sorry to bother you so early. But I have a problem. God. The Blüthner won’t go through the door, can you bloody believe it? Can’t be done. Only way is through the window. And I’d have to pay £750 if you please, to the bloody vicar and his merry men. For the removal of a window, and scaffolding! What a joke. So much for our fundraising. Do you have any suggestions for an alternative, Tracey? I mean, I don’t suppose you want your upright piano outside, do you?”
Tracey considers the situation. She hasn’t got the energy to consider how on earth the Berry could be moved from her basement. Yet she thinks, vaguely, that there might be an easier solution.
“We have an electronic keyboard you could use. I mean, Belle does.”
“Do you? Do you?”
“Yes,” says Tracey, looking away from Alan, who is now almost prancing towards her. His towel has dropped off. Blimey. She is going to laugh out loud. She buries her face in the sofa. She loves all this messing around. It makes her feel young, unmarried, excited.
“It’s upstairs in her room,” she squeaks.
“Sorry, Tracey, I can’t hear you.”
She waves frantically at Alan.
“In her room,” she says, gasping. “I have no idea exactly where. Underneath a whole load of shoes, and other instruments, I believe. Belle is in, she’ll show you.”
“Oh God Tracey, that would be amazing. Could we use it? Does it run off batteries?”
“No. Look, pop over. I am at Alan’s, just… just tidying up the script with him. But do have a look. There must be a point we could run it off. Belle will show you where it is. She won’t mind playing it in the show, either,” says Tracey, keen to remind Jane there were others who had talent, apart from ‘Boy’ George. “Actually she’d probably prefer the keyboard to your grand, no offence.”
In her relief, Jane decides not to be offended. I bet Tracey doesn’t know the Blüthner is currently worth around £40k, though, she thinks. Plus, it was bloody nice of her, Jane, to offer it in the first place. As she puts the phone down, it occurs to Jane that a subtle shift has taken place. Tracey seems to have acquired a sort of quiet power. She seems a lot more self assured. Must be the television work. Jane knows Makin’s Makeovers, featuring Tracey herself, is due to go out in a week or so. She has already resolved to be out on the evening in question.
She texts Jay.
Bloody grand. Can’t be used.
Jay is watching Harriet deliberate over her breakfast, worrying over the calorific content of a single Weetabix.
“I feel so nervous,” Harriet says to Jay as she eventually decides to have marmalade on toast, for energy. “I wonder whether it was really a good idea to say I’d participate. I mean, it’s mostly children, isn’t it? Do you think people will think I am showing off? Do you think it will bore them?”
Jay smiles at her. “I don’t care if you are showing off. Why not? Not everyone can play a Bach partita at a moment’s notice.”
“Well, I don’t know if I can,” says Harriet dolefully. “I probably can, but the way I feel right now, I doubt whether I can even lift the bow. Who is texting you at this hour?”
“It’s Jane.”
“Oh?”
“Apparently her grand can’t be moved. She says that Tracey has an electronic keyboard, wants us to get it. I wonder if Brian could hop over and pick it up.”
“Why can’t she?”
“Too busy with chairs, apparently.”
Harriet reaches for her mobile phone. She taps in a number. Her son Brian is still upstairs in bed.
“Yeah?”
“It’s Mummy. Can you come down, please? I need a favour.”
There is no response.
“Brian?”
“On my way.”
Fifteen minutes later, Brian is standing on Tracey’s doorstep. He rings and rings. Eventually Belle, clad in a puce-coloured bath robe, appears at the door.
“Yep?”
“Your keyboard. We need it. For the show. Apparently. That alright?”
“Fine.”
She motions him in, leads him upstairs to her bedroom.
“There.”
He claws past several dozen shoeboxes, four bath sheets, a guitar and a Hello Kitty laundry bag, before locating and grasping the Roland keyboard.
“S’it. Cheers.”
“Yep.”
Brian leaps down the stairs two at a time. The door slams. The entire exchange must have taken no more than fifteen words.
Jay texts Jane.
We have the keyboard. All systems are go, Head Girl.
She tosses her hair back with satisfaction. Quite a thing, having a problem to solve in a tight deadline. She’s always been good at it. Just shows her touch hasn’t faltered.
She texts him back.
Do you want to deliver it over to me? Five minutes.
At this point, the furniture van from Rayners in Wandsworth draws up with a flourish. The van is packed with 200 gilt stackable chairs that Jane has ordered. She explains to the man where she would like the chairs arranged, then turns to see Jay, languid, elegant, in her hall, casually leaning against the keyboard.
“Wonderful. I love you. You look wonderful. You are wonderful. Thank you.”
“Thank Tracey. And my son.”
She hates Tracey. She hates his son. She doesn’t want to include them.
“Yes, well I don’t want to. I want to thank you. You will watch, tonight, won’t you?”
“Jane, have you forgotten my wife is playing in this?”
In the pressure, she had. The reminder burns her heart. She hates his wife. Not personally. Well, actually she does hate her, personally.
“Oh, yes. Silly me.”
“Come on. Chin up. It can’t always be about you.”
“No, I know. Well, at the moment, I feel it never is, with you.”
“Oh, rubbish! You know you are irresistible.”
Yet he hadn’t been around much recently. Jane is too proud to point this out, but it’s clear. They haven’t had a hotel day for weeks.
“Look, thanks for bringing it round. That is really great. Saves the day. I must thank Tracey. I must organise a table for it, and of course the projector.”
“Projector?”
“For George’s film. The new, improved version.” Had she mentioned to Jay that George had originally intended to project a Lego version which appeared to reference their inter-dinner fucking? She didn’t think she had. She wasn’t going to now. It would seem so gauche. Anyway, that incident is over and forgotten. She thinks even Patrick has forgotten it. She fervently hopes he has. He hasn’t mentioned it, at least.
“It’s to be projected onto a sheet. At least that’s the plan. Larry’s putting it up.”
Indeed, in the Square, at that precise moment, Larry appears, bustling, holding a thick white bedspread tightly to his chest. He waves in a frenzied manner over to Jay, drops the heavy cloth, curses extravagantly, collects it up again, carries on walking. Behind him trails Belle, carrying a stepladder.
“Belle, thanks so much for the keyboard,” yells Jane.
Belle nods her head in acknowledgement of her usefulness, although all she did was to point out to Brian where, in the detritus of her room, the device had been abandoned. She carries on walking beside her father.
“Got to put this up here, apparently! On a tree!” he shouts over to Jane.
“This is all coming together,” she shouts back, happily.
“Oooh Come Together… over me,” croons Alan Makin as he screws Tracey for the third time that morning, this time on the leather sofa.
Chapter Twenty-Eight The Talent Show (ii)
Her fears that nobody would turn up have proved unfounded. She’s standing at the gate of the park in the Square, taking tickets. Or rather, taking money and giving people raffle tickets. Everyone is effusive about the event, and lots of people have come. Well, about thirty have already arrived. More will come, she tells herself. She knows most of them vaguely. Nice people who live around the Square. Everyone comes in smiling.
“Thank you so much.”
“Great, thanks so much.”
“I know. It’s going to be great.”
“I can’t wait either.”
Behind her, the chairs are in rows on the grass. People are already sitting down on them. Others have brought rugs and are sitting, chatting, opening Thermos flasks of coffee, bottles of wine, cans of Coke. Most of them are only about twenty seconds away from their front door. However, some people are behaving as if they are on a far-flung camping trip, worrying about bottle openers and unwrapping sandwiches.
Oh well. Jane looks down at the spoils. She must have made about £350.
She looks at her watch. It is 5.56pm. In a rushed phone call with Tracey, she was informed that Alan would be appearing at 6.15, to open the show at 6.30.
“One… two… one… two,” intones Patrick down the microphone over by the stage. His voice appears, disconnected, from a large speaker under a tree.
Anya moves quietly around him, checking that Belle’s electronic keyboard is level, drawing up the piano stool so it is easy to sit upon. Jane looks at her with intense irritation. Still, it’s good that she’s helping Patrick with the PA system.
She shudders as she thinks about what might happen if the sound fails. Larry’s bedspread hangs from a tree behind them. A heavy piece of cloth, it looks rather fragile and is attached to a rope only by three plastic clothes pegs.
Jane’s phone trills.
It’s Tracey.
“Alright, we’re ready. Has everyone arrived?”
“Well, I don’t know. There seems to be quite a few empty chairs, but it’s only six. I’d give it a bit longer.” People are still arriving. There must be about sixty now in the park.
“Oh… okay.”
Tracey sounds nervous.
George. She’d forgotten about her son.
“Tracey, I have to go,” she tells her.
“Look, can you carry on taking the money?” she says to the Single Mother, who has just turned up. “It’s a fiver minimum for adults and a quid for kids. No exceptions. Remember we are fundraising. Try not to give people change if they give you a tenner.”
She throws the box at the Single Mother and darts out of the park.
At home, George is standing at the foot of the stairs. He is entirely clad in white. Finn’s Storm Trooper costume. He hums a little tune.
He is ready. He is composed. He is aboard the Death Star.
He raises an eyebrow as his mother comes bolting in.
“George, darling. Sorry I’m late. Are you ready?”
“I am,” says her son sonorously.
“Have you got your music?”
He looks at her, composedly. “Roberta has.”
As she steps from the bus, Roberta finds George’s music in her bag. God, that was lucky, she thinks as she hurries towards the Square.
Behind the bedspread in the park, Patrick is looking for the extension cable in which to plug a small spotlight. Anya comes behind to help him search for it.
“I think it’s here,” says Patrick, pulling out a cable from behind a laurel bush.
“Can I help you?” says Anya, leaning down. She turns her head towards him. He looks at her beautiful face. I might as well, thinks Patrick.
“Er, Anya, can I just… ”
He lurches forward, kisses Anya. Awkwardly. They stand up, behind the bedspread, kissing properly this time. Patrick puts his hand on her breast, finds the nipple. Thrillingly, he discovers this is as exciting as he had fantasised it would be.
As she kisses Patrick back, Anya is deeply satisfied. Another part of her mind is, however, slightly worried about George’s music, which she had been going through with him yesterday.
Where had she left it? Oh well.
Patrick breaks away from her.
“God, Anya. Sorry.”
“Sorry?”
“I mean,” he shrugs, smiles at her helplessly.
“Do you actually know where the plug is?”
She laughs. “It’s here,” she says, moving her bag and revealing it to him.
He pops his head around the sheet.
“God. Quite a crowd here. Must be about seventy people. Shouldn’t we have some form of music, sort of while we are waiting?”
Anya nods, walks round the keyboard and turns it on. It whistles, then the noise subsides to a low hum. She draws up the stool, puts her hands on the board and starts to play, quietly. Gershwin.
Patrick shakes his head. It is perfect. The girl is a wonder to him. “Perfect.” He looks down the aisle of chairs to see Tracey and Alan Makin hastening towards him.
Alan is dapper in a pinstriped suit. Tracey looks slightly flushed.
“Do you have a microphone?” asks Alan of Patrick. He hands him the single microphone, purloined from the Scouts, who use it for their Christmas show.
“Ahem!” says Alan Makin loudly, down the microphone. The low level burble of conversation ceases. Anya finishes her piece with a small arpeggio to the tonic note, stands, and bows. A faint ripple of applause marks her exit.
“Thank you… ” says Alan, realising he has no idea of the name of Tracey’s au pair. “Well, thank you. And welcome, one and all, to this, the very first Talent Show in the Square. We have a lot of wonderful acts tonight. Nobody is going to be judged, as such. Simply sit back and realise how very very talented you all are. All of you! Thank you!”
A larger burst of applause. Jane runs up to Alan and thrusts a running order into his hand. “You might need this, you know. It’s the running order. You have to introduce everyone.”
“Thank you,” says Alan, with the practised air of someone who is always being given running orders by inferiors. Jane recognises this. She bristles, but she cannot have people being unannounced.
“And now will you all welcome, er, Harriet, who is to play for us a wonderful Bach partita.”
He gazes down the aisle as Harriet wobbles unsteadily up towards the area where he is standing. She is wearing the lilac. She is also wearing a pair of very high heels, whose vertiginous nature she has not quite mastered. She has a lot of makeup on.
“Thank you Alan,” she says, waving her bow at everyone.
“Hello, the Square!”
It’s not Glastonbury, thinks Jane sourly.
Harriet turns to Anya, who is standing beside the bedsheet.
“Could you give me an A, please?”
Anya obliges, turning on the tuning device in the keyboard. Harriet fiddles with her violin for about three seconds, pauses, takes a deep breath, applies the bow and starts to play.