The Orphan Choir Part 4

A disloyal thought pa.s.ses through my mind: is this why Stuart has been determined, since we bought 17 Weldon Road, to tackle the outside first and leave the redecorating of inside until later? So that all the neighbours who can't afford to have their brickwork sandblasted, including Mr Fahrenheit, can start to envy us without delay? I wanted to have the inside done first because it's where we live, but Stuart wouldn't hear of it. In the end I capitulated, worried that I might develop an aversion to him if I heard him say 'the fabric of the building' one more time.

'What if Mr Fahrenheit complains about Imran's noise?' I ask him, surprised I didn't think of it before. 'It puts us in a weaker position if our house is generating as much noise during the day as his does at night.'

Imran's shaking his head. 'Everyone has the right to do work to their home during working hours. If he tries to stop you, he'll fail. I've seen it happen time and again. Sometimes council jobsworths come and have a poke around, but I've never been stopped midway through a job and I'm confident I never will be.'

'Lou's got a point, though,' Stuart says. 'This guy works from home a lot. There's no doubt we'll disturb him.' He turns to me. 'Perhaps you should ring the council first thing tomorrow morning and withdraw your complaint.'

'What? Why would I do that?' Another small grey pebble, poised at the top of the chute, ready for the long roll-down.

'Well, it's hardly fair, is it?' Stuart says. 'Whatever position the council might take, and even if Imran's right, if we're going to subject Fahrenheit to weeks of sandblasting noise, perhaps we should wait to complain until it's over and we're no longer noise pests ourselves. Otherwise it looks hypocritical.'

'No,' says Imran firmly. 'You're comparing two things that aren't equivalent. One's legitimate noise, the other isn't. When it comes to noisy neighbours, you show no mercy. Appeasing them never works.'

'I'm not planning to appease anybody,' I say. Not Mr Fahrenheit, not my husband and not Imran. 'I was thinking that maybe we should delay the sandblasting. Or even cancel it altogether.' Since I have made the effort to attend this meeting, I might as well say what I really think. 'I'm sorry, Imran, I know this is the last thing you want to hear, having come all this way '

'Don't worry about me, Lou. It's no problem at all. I've got jobs to last me two years. Believe me, a cancellation's always welcome '

'Whoa, hold on!' says Stuart. 'No one's cancelling anything.'

'I might be,' I remind him.

'Lou, you're overreacting. Until all this happened with Fahrenheit-'

'That's irrelevant, Stuart. That was before. It has happened, and it's convinced me I don't want to live next door to him. Imran, this is nothing to do with you or your work. I know you'd do a fantastic job, but what's the point in our spending the money, really, if we're not staying?'

'Imran. We're not cancelling you.' Stuart's words gang up with the tone of his voice to pull rank. As if nothing I've said matters. 'We want you to start as soon as possible, for the very reason Lou gave. It seems we might end up selling the house, if Lou's serious about escaping from Fahrenheit no matter what '

'Why you do keep saying "Lou" as if it's just me? What about you? Do you want to live next door to a man who persecutes us in the middle of the night with the sound of choirboys?'

'What?' says Imran.

Stuart closes his eyes. 'Long story.'

'Well, not that long,' I say.

'I'm sure it was just a one-off,' Stuart insists. He obviously doesn't want Imran to hear the story, whatever its length.

'You have no way of knowing that!'

'Even if we decide we want to move, spending thirty grand on the sandblasting now is absolutely the right thing to do. It'll add at least fifty grand to the value. Probably more, on a street like this, so close to the station.'

'He's right, Lou. And bear in mind I'm doing this for mate's rates.'

'Right. So, we go ahead. Proceed as planned.' Stuart drums the flats of his hands on the table, rocking it and spilling my tea. I reach for the section of the Sunday Times that's nearest to me, and lay it down over the small beige puddle. I hope it's the news section. I further hope that Stuart hasn't read it yet and now won't be able to.

The liquid soaks all the way through to the top, despite the segment of newspaper being several pages thick. I turn it over and see that it's the property section my favourite. I haven't read it yet and now won't be able to. Does what goes around normally come around so quickly?

'So you're prepared to be in the dark for a while?' Imran asks.

'In the dark?' I say.

He looks at Stuart, puzzled. 'You didn't tell her?'

'It went right out of my head, I'm afraid. It won't be for long, will it? And I mean ... we've got electricity. And candles in the event of a power cut.'

'So?' I stare at him. 'Now that you've remembered, are you going to tell me what you're talking about?'

Stuart looks at Imran, who says, 'There's going to be scaffolding up all round the house. You knew that, right?'

I nod.

'We're going to need to cover the scaffolding with thick plastic sheeting, front and back, and cover the windows with cardboard, tape them up. You're not going to be seeing much natural daylight until we're finished, I'm afraid. But hopefully since you're at work all day it won't make that much difference. And with the nights drawing in '

'No natural daylight,' I repeat, looking at Stuart. I'm very aware of my heartbeat, suddenly. He wants to bury us alive. I feel as if it's happened already. The room seems darker than it did a few seconds ago.

'That's the advantage of the nights drawing in,' Imran says cheerfully. What is? I missed it, if there was one. I didn't hear anything I liked the sound of. 'Disadvantage is, the job's going to take a lot longer than it would in summer, because we can't work in the dark. So I'm afraid you're going to be stuck with our scaffolding and sheeting for a while.'

'Can't you do it in sections?' I ask. 'Cover the windows one floor at a time, or do the back first and then the front?'

'Sorry,' Imran says. 'It's just not the way we work.'

'Even if customers want you to work a different way?'

'Lou,' Stuart mutters.

'It'd double the costs if we had to get the scaffolders out twice,' says Imran.

'Then we'll pay double!'

'No, we won't,' says Stuart. 'Lou, don't be crazy. It'll be fine. Like Imran says, you're at work all day '

'Not at weekends! And what about the Christmas holidays? Joseph will be home then.' I turn to Imran. 'Will you be finished by the fourteenth of December? I'm not bringing my son home to a house with no natural light. I'm not! I'll tear the plastic sheeting off myself if I have to.'

'It's unlikely to be finished that soon,' says Imran. 'Sandblasting's a fiddly job if you do it right and I'm a perfectionist. Look, call me oversensitive, but the vibe I'm getting isn't one of unbridled enthusiasm. Maybe you two need to-'

'We need to go ahead and get it done,' Stuart insists, cutting him off.

It isn't only the light that we'll lose. The views will go too. Nothing but blackness at every window.

'There must be an alternative,' I say, panic building inside me. 'I'm not agreeing to this if it means living wrapped up in a dark box for months. I'll move out! You can live in the dark on your own,' I snap at Stuart.

'Lou.' He puts his hand over mine. Looks worried. 'You're tired, and you're ma.s.sively overreacting.'

'You are a bit, Lou,' Imran agrees. 'I've been doing this for years. People get used to the no-light thing. Honestly you'll be surprised how soon it seems normal. And if we don't do it, we'll have people queuing up to complain within half an hour of us starting the work. If you were in the depths of the countryside with no neighbours for miles around, we could forget the sheeting and you could keep your light, but ...' He shrugs.

Countryside: the word lodges in my brain. I heard it very recently. Where? No, I didn't hear it; I read it. On wet newsprint.

I look down at the tea-stained Sunday Times 'Home' supplement in front of me and see a full-page advertis.e.m.e.nt for something called Swallowfield: 'Where Putting Nature First is Second Nature'. No, that can't be right. Swallowfield must be its name, whatever it is, and the rest is advertising. 'The perfect peaceful countryside retreat, only two hours from London.' There's a background picture of fields at dusk, separated by hedges; a row of trees in the distance; a sunset of purple and orange streaks. On top of this, blocking out parts of the idyllic scene, are three other pictures in small boxes: a woman's bare tanned back with a row of round black stones dotting her spine and a white towel covering her obviously toned bottom; a large outdoor swimming pool with water that looks dark green and stone fountains at its four corners pouring new water into it; and a long, one-storey house that seems to be made almost wholly of gla.s.s with only the odd strip of metal holding all the gla.s.s together. The caption reads: 'Our award-winning Gla.s.s House'. It's beautiful. Like a jewel, with nothing around it but green emptiness.

I like all the words I can see on this page. I like them a lot more than what Stuart and Imran are saying.

A gated second-home community in the Culver Valley. That might be two hours from London a little bit more, actually, more like two and a half but it's only an hour from Cambridge.

The perfect peaceful countryside retreat.

Our heated outdoor green slate 25-metre swimming pool, open to residents and their guests 365 days a year.

A hot stone treatment at our award-winning 10-million Lumina Spa.

There's a phone number. For a sales office. I tear my eyes away and look up, aware that I don't want to get caught. Now my heart is beating too fast not with dread but because of a phone number. I wonder why I feel guilty. Since the number doesn't belong to another man, I have no reason to.

Imran is still talking. 'It's up to you if you want to take the risk,' he says, 'but on a street like this, with people waiting to jump down our throats if we put a foot wrong, I'd suggest we wrap you up good and tight, or else there'll be dust clouds in all your neighbours' houses and spilling out all over the road. Did Stuart warn you about the dust?'

'No. He didn't.'

'I'm sure I did.'

'How much dust?' I ask.

'A not insignificant amount,' Imran says earnestly. 'We'll do our best to protect you by taping up the windows as thoroughly as we can, but ... realistically, you're going to be living with dust for a while.'

Dust. Taped-up windows. No air, no light. This is how I might be warned about death in exactly this way, with qualifications like 'realistically' and 'not insignificant'. As if nothing horrifying is about to take place. Terror lands in my heart from nowhere, without warning, and grips me. For a few seconds I can't breathe or speak. Silently, in my head, I recite what I hope are the magic words, and what Stuart would say: One day the work on my house will end and, when it does, the light will return and the dust will go away.

I have to make it clear to Stuart that the sandblasting can't happen. Later, when Imran's gone. He has already witnessed more than enough marital disharmony.

The perfect peaceful countryside retreat.

'I promise you, Lou it'll be worth it,' he says. Stuart nods along.

Where putting nature first is second nature.

'I know.' I realise too late that I shouldn't have said that, but my mind is busy trying to memorise Swallowfield's phone number.

Dr Ivan Freeman, Saviour College School's director of music, has the kind of beard I hate. It's tidy and shaped and dense, as if someone has fitted a rust-coloured carpet with a high pile count around his mouth. I see it every Sunday morning, and also on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. During term time it is not possible for me to see my son without seeing Dr Freeman's beard at the same time. I've started to dread its appearance, even though the first sighting of it on any given day means that I will soon see Joseph. I'm trying to picture it now, before Dr Freeman and the choir arrive, to prepare myself.

Stuart and I are sitting where we always sit in Saviour's chapel on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. All the choirboy parents have fixed places that they rush to as soon as the chapel doors open: the ones that offer the best views of their sons, each of whom always stands in precisely the same spot to sing.

Our sons.

We, the parents, arrive first: before our boys and before the rest of the congregation. We hurry into the cold, silent chapel, not giving a toss about its beautiful stained-gla.s.s windows or the elaborate woodcarvings on its centuries-old panelled walls because those things have nothing to do with our children, and we sit on hard benches, awaiting the agonising proximity. We're excited because we're about to be close to our sons for a short while, and already devastated because we know this blissful state will last only forty-five minutes, or an hour, or two hours if there's a buffet lunch afterwards as there is today.

And we won't be close enough; we'll be trapped, by custom and politeness, in our pews, several metres away, unable to hug our boys as we yearn to: audience, not partic.i.p.ants. Dr Freeman will be closer. When today's festivities are over, he will lead our sons away into the recesses of the school, and we won't see them again until the next service.

Perhaps not all the parents feel the way I do. I know Stuart doesn't. He's always delighted to see Joseph, but ready and willing to say goodbye to him when the time comes. As long as he's happy, Lou, I'm happy, and he's quite clearly in his element.

I don't want Joseph to be in his element. I want him to be in his house. Sleeping in his bed every night.

It would sound s.e.xist, so I never say it, but I don't care how Stuart or any of the fathers feel. They're men. It's different. I wonder about the mothers: how many of them loathe the set-up as much as I do? I'm particularly suspicious of the ones who stridently parrot the lines we've all been fed by Dr Freeman, the chaplain and the headmaster about how lucky we all are and how grateful we ought to be. I secretly hope that one day one of them will crack ideally during an important service and scream abuse at the top of her lungs before grabbing her son and making a run for it.

I only know three of the mothers by name: Celia Morris, Donna McSorley and Alexis Grant. All of them arrived before me today for the first time. This bothers me. I want to be first into the chapel, always, seconds after the doors open to the public. I want the chaplain to notice that I come earlier and wait longer than anyone else, and I want him to pa.s.s this information on to Dr Freeman, who, if he's ever tempted to release one boy only, like a terrorist holding a room full of hostages at gunpoint in an action movie, might be more likely to choose Joseph if he's heard about my extended, devoted vigils.

I know this is superst.i.tious rubbish; I might as well believe in elves or fairies. Dr Freeman isn't as willing to compromise as the average Hollywood hostage-taker, who has his crazed and trigger-happy moments, true, but who ultimately is usually prepared to set free the occasional frail old man or pregnant woman.

I noticed Alexis Grant smirking as Stuart and I hurried in, cutting it fine thanks to our meeting with Imran. She's worked out that I like to be earlier than early, and is pleased that on this occasion I've messed up.

I knew I didn't like Alexis ten minutes into my first conversation with her. She asked me where I lived and, when I said Weldon Road, she pulled a face and said, 'Oh, poor you, stuck in the centre of Cambridge. Have you got one of those big Victorian town houses?' Without giving me a chance to reply, she went on: 'Let me guess a maintenance nightmare? With a tiny garden, right?' I told her we didn't have a garden as such only a small courtyard and watched the delight spread across her face. 'We've got two acres,' she said proudly. 'In Orwell. I wouldn't swap it for anything.' I thought, but didn't say, that I wasn't offering to swap. When I told Stuart later, he snorted and said, 'There's one thing you can say in Orwell's favour. Only one. It's close to Cambridge. That's it.'

Celia Morris is less obnoxious than Alexis, but equally irritating. She's a timid, insecure woman who seems prepared to worship, instantly, anyone who dares to express an opinion, or, indeed, to do anything. Shortly after meeting me, she got it into her head that I was a brave warrior who feared nothing and no one I've no idea on what basis she formed this opinion and now whenever she sees me she says the same thing in a new way: 'Look at me, I'm soaked! I forgot my umbrella. I'm so useless. You probably never forget your umbrella, do you? I bet the rain wouldn't dare to fall on you even if you did.' Or: 'I would kiss you h.e.l.lo but I've got a streaming cold. I'm not like you you probably never get ill. Look at you, you're the picture of health.' She makes these absurd p.r.o.nouncements in a tone of deep admiration, with a fawning smile on her face, and if I try to point out that I'm capable of getting as wet or sick as the next person, she smiles even more adoringly and says, 'I can't believe how modest you are.' I would love to say to her one day, 'Celia, you know literally nothing about me. What on earth are you talking about?' She would either burst into tears and run from the room, or giggle affectionately and say, 'You're so funny. I wish I had a sense of humour like yours.'

Donna McSorley is by far the best of the three: a plump solicitor with an apparently endless supply of too-tight suits that show a lot of cleavage, and chaotic hair that she always wears not entirely down and not entirely up, with lots of bands and clips and bits sprouting out at odd angles, like a character from a Dr Seuss book. She has an enormous mountain of a second husband who dresses like an aristocrat-turned-vagrant expensive but scruffy and whom she clearly adores. The first time he came to a choir service, she propelled him towards me, one hand on his back and one on his stomach, calling out, 'Louise! Have you met my lovely man?' They giggled and kissed while the boys were singing.

I would never admit it to a single soul, but it bothers me that Donna, whom I hardly know, has a new husband that she is so enthusiastic about. I'm jealous of her second helpings. I don't want to divorce Stuart, but, all other things being equal, I think no, I know that I would love to have a second husband I adored enough to introduce to people as 'my lovely man', with my hand on his belly. I would like to have the chance to choose a husband now that I'm older and know how expertly I would choose, leaving nothing to chance.

According to Alexis Grant, Donna's first husband was a disaster: violent, alcoholic, unfaithful, racist. All the bad things. 'Did she add "unimpressed by Orwell"?' Stuart asked when I relayed this information. I smile as I remember laughing at the time. My first husband is witty and clever and loves me. He doesn't drink too much, doesn't cheat on me, isn't violent, isn't racist, seems always to be in the same stable good mood. He has a steady and important job that I'm in awe of: Applications Group Manager for the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre. Alexis didn't like it when I told her that. Her own fault: if she hadn't demanded to know why we'd chosen to live in the noisy centre of the city, I wouldn't have been forced to mention Stuart's two-minute walk to work and what that work was.

The organ starts to play. My heart springs up in my chest. This means Joseph is here: outside, in the antechapel. We wait. The minutes feel like weeks. Then the doors to the main chapel open and Dr Freeman walks in, with his carpet-beard, smiling an I've-got-all-your-sons smile. Two columns of sombre-faced boys follow him in, dressed in red ca.s.socks with white surplices over the top and holding black files full of today's hymns, songs and prayers. I am desperate to catch a glimpse of Joseph, but I know it will be a while before he moves into view. As a junior probationer, he is at the back of the line. When he finally appears, I gasp. He looks healthy and happy. Radiant. Stuart puts a restraining hand on my arm. It's okay, I want to say to him. I'm not going to do anything crazy.

Joseph smiles up at us. I smile back and wave. At this point Stuart always looks at me anxiously, to check I'm not crying, and today is no exception. A few of the mothers always cry, smiling furiously at the same time to make it clear that these are happy aren't-we-lucky tears, not the kind that are likely to cause problems for the school.

My eyes are swollen, with red-mouthed wound-grins beneath them, but dry. Crying would be too risky. There's a fiery ball of outrage inside me that would blind me if I were to let any of it pour out. Dr Freeman would only need to catch one glimpse and he would guess that I'm secretly plotting the destruction of his career, Saviour College, its school, its choir, its reputation everything it has worked for hundreds of years to consolidate.

Joseph's hair shines. His shoes are scuffed. His face, pale and oval-shaped, draws all the light in the chapel to it and is the only one I see. Beside him, all the other boys look like cardboard cut-outs.

When the chaplain starts to sing the Opening Responses, I tear my eyes away from my son and look up and down the pews to check that Mr Fahrenheit isn't here. Silly; why would he be?

Because it's another thing he could do to intimidate you: a variation on a theme.

Some elements of the service are always the same, and these are by far my favourite bits. I am starting to think of them as part of my son. I have no choice but to love them if he's singing them whenever I see him. Not the psalm: that's different every time. Today, it contains a line explicitly stating that only he who does no evil to his neighbour will sojourn in the Lord's holy tent. Hear that, Mr Fahrenheit? No holy tent for you, just a great big theological 'f.u.c.k Off' sign at the entrance flap.

After the reading of the psalm, the chaplain says, 'Let us now offer to G.o.d our prayers and pet.i.tions.' Like the Opening Responses, this is a regular feature, but I don't love it because Joseph isn't part of it it's one of the chaplain's solo pieces. No tune either.

'This morning we pray for the sick and the injured. We pray for Betty Carter, Andrew Saunders, Heather Aspinall ...'

I block out the names, and pray only for my son to be allowed to come home with me today after the service.

'We pray for the recently deceased, and in particular, for the repose of the souls of Dennis Halliday, Timothy Laws, Edith Kelly ...'

I pray that Joseph will suddenly be found to be tone-deaf, so that he can no longer be a member of Saviour College boys' choir. So that he can be sent home.

'... We pray for peace on earth, but also for the establishment of justice, without which there can be no peace.'

'That's debatable,' I whisper to Stuart.

'Ssh,' he says.

'Peace will have to stand on its own two feet, since no one's ever going to agree on a definition of justice, let alone bring it into being.'

'Can we discuss this later?'