The Unfinished Symphony of You and Me (26 page)

There were a few uncomfortable questions and almost all of them refused to get involved with the ‘fun’ vocal warm-up we’d devised (which, we realized only too late, was excruciating) but Jan strode through every hitch with his endearing wit and wild charm. At my suggestion we took them outside into the windy afternoon and encouraged them to sing anything they liked, walking around the AstroTurf courts. Their voices would be lost in the fast-moving air and they would have to look nobody in the eye.

In these easier circumstances, several of them sang. Many whipped out mobile phones and whined along to rubbish R&B or 2-step Turkish, the girls shrieking with laughter to hide their embarrassment. But by the time we moved inside to start on
Les Mis
, the prospect of full participation had become a real possibility.

Sixteen isn’t too old
, I thought. There was still a child in there somewhere, sufficiently uninhibited to enjoy something as primal as music.
I wish someone had swooped in when I was sixteen
.
Taken advantage of that lingering courage
.

‘Sally Howlett, you’re doing an amazing job,’ Julian said, at one point. He’d appeared out of nowhere. ‘I don’t think half these kids’d be able to relax and sing without your
help. I’m very impressed.’ He smiled right at me, looking nothing like Julian Jefferson and everything like Julian Bell. I tried not to think about the familiar body underneath the familiar clothes. Tried not to think about how much I’d loved him and how desperately he had let me down.

I looked at my watch. Still another thirty-one hours to go in Stourbridge. My stomach crunched and billowed. I couldn’t stand it.

An hour later, Jan and I were weaving through a crowd of kids, who were singing with quite plausible anger about life in a Parisian slum. ‘
Look down and see the sweepings of the street. Look down, look down, upon your fellow man
,’ they chanted. Some were still messing around, a few others were stolidly refusing to sing but, for the most part, the rest were going for it.

Julian fell into step beside me. We wove through the crowd of beggars and I felt my body tense defensively. ‘They’re doing great!’ he remarked. ‘Just goes to show what happens when you let go, right?’

I blushed. ‘Your point being?’

‘My point being that you can do it too. Let go. Sing without reserve.’

I was speechless. What right did Julian have to talk to me about my fear of singing? What right did Julian have to talk to me about
anything
? I walked on, giving a thumbs-up to a girl who had begun to sing her first few words. ‘Thank you for your comments,’ I replied. I wanted to cry. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me …’

The boy who’d insulted Jan’s mother was in a corner of the room, ignoring everyone. He was playing a game on his phone and drinking something disgusting and bright
blue out of a plastic bottle. He scared me a bit but I felt instinctively drawn to him.

‘Don’t you like
Les Mis
?’ I asked him, sitting on the floor next to him.

He ignored me.

‘What sort of music do you like, then?’ I tried.

Nothing. Something was brutally murdered on the screen of his phone.

‘We won’t be doing
Les Mis
all afternoon, we’ll –’

‘I like
Les Mis
,’ he muttered.

I smiled. I felt so at home hearing that accent. It was like talking to Dennis as a teenager.

Then I realized what he’d said. ‘
Really?
You like
Les Mis
?’

He shrugged, continuing with his game.

‘Have you seen the show?’

‘No. It’s on in London.’

‘I just wondered if you’d been down to see it perhaps.’

He frowned witheringly, shaking his head into his phone. ‘We can’t afford to take a horse and carriage to fucking London to see a stupid fucking show.’

I nodded. ‘Right. Of course.’

The game ended; the boy had won. He smiled victoriously, then looked up at me. ‘Me mam had it on tape. She listened to it all the time. I was brought up on that silly shit.’

I smiled encouragingly.

‘It’s quite good,’ he said, scratching his head. He looked over at Julian, who was writing something in his notebook. ‘Who’s he?’

‘One of the coaches at my opera school. He’s also an opera singer. Quite a famous one.’

The boy seemed impressed. He turned back to me. ‘He doesn’t look like one.’

‘No,’ I admitted sadly. ‘He doesn’t. He did, but then he … Well, never mind.’

‘Are you an opera singer?’ the boy asked.

‘Yes! Well, I’m training to be one.’

‘I couldn’t do that shit.’ He shuddered.

‘I understand. I feel like I’m going to be sick every time I prepare to sing. Once I open my mouth it’s OK, though.’

The boy looked at me as if I was mad, which was probably a reasonable response.

‘Do you sing at all?’

The boy jammed his phone into his fraying pocket. ‘Sometimes.’

He stopped talking. The other kids sang on in the background, accompanied by a tinny CD player that Jan had up on his shoulder like a beat box.

‘I like singing
Les Mis
actually. Only in the bathroom. My brothers’d rip the shit out of me if they heard.’

I beamed. ‘You don’t like people hearing you?’

‘Fuck, no. Singing’s for twats. Proper twats. Sorry, Miss.’

‘Oh, swear away,’ I told him. ‘Do you have a favourite song, then?’

He shifted awkwardly and I wondered how far I could push him before he clamped down. ‘ “Stars”? “Empty Chairs”? “Bring Him Home”?’

‘ “Empty Chairs”,’ he muttered, cheeks glowing red. ‘Fucking wicked song.’

Twenty minutes later, the workshop was over and, for the first time that day, I felt calm. It had been an unprecedented success and several of the kids had asked if we could fiddle it for them to come back tomorrow, when a different class was scheduled. In spite of the tangled mess in my head of grief about being in Stourbridge without Fiona, fear about seeing my parents that night and some other messy feelings about Julian and Violet that I didn’t want to look at just yet, I was rather exhilarated.

But the best was yet to come. Jan had removed everyone from the hall at my instruction – even our chaperone, who had agreed to wait just outside the door – and I stood now in the empty, echoing gym with the boy. His name was Dean and he lived on the same estate as my parents. The afternoon was growing darker and his face was bleached a deathly white by the huge strip-lights hanging from the ceiling.

‘How’s about you give it a go in the locker room, if the gym’s too big,’ I was suggesting. ‘I spent years singing in a wardrobe, where everything sounds awful. The first time I sang into an actual room it was a revelation. It sounded amazing!’

‘Mm.’

‘The problem was, someone came in and heard me. But I can make sure nobody comes and interrupts you. Go on, you’ve got nothing to lose. This could be your only chance to sing that song in a proper room!’

Dean snorted. ‘You’re weird, Miss. You want to be a singer and you don’t like singing?’

‘Well, yes.’

‘Don’t believe you, Miss.’

‘Ask the receptionist at the Hagley Premier Inn.’ I grinned. ‘He knows we’re singers, and begged us to sing … Jan sang about four songs and I was just like a silent weirdo in the corner!’

Dean laughed. ‘You’re
proper
weird.’

‘Yes. Although no more weird than you. Go on, give it a go. Even if it’s the only time in your life you hear yourself sing properly! Trust me, it’ll be worth it!’

Dean was fidgeting. He wanted to sing, I could tell. Jan had performed ‘Empty Chairs’ for the group earlier and the kids had been spellbound, save for the worst of the troublemakers. Dean in particular had been rapt. Watching him was like watching a ghost of myself.

Without further ado I started ‘Empty Chairs’ and put the CD player on the bench inside the locker room. ‘Go on,’ I said, gesturing towards the room. He went in, swearing a bit, and I closed the door behind him.

He let the accompaniment play and he didn’t sing. Even though I’d hardly dared believe he would, my heart sank a little. It had been a stupid idea anyway, I supposed. It had taken weeks of intensive help to get me out of a wardrobe and I was a lot older than that boy.

‘Can’t do it, Miss.’ He opened the door a crack. ‘Feel like a twat.’

I looked at Dean, at the delicate greeny-yellow skin around his left eye, and imagined what his home life must be like.
I was just like you
, I thought. Paralysed by fear and awkwardness.

Before I knew it, I’d started the track again and begun singing it myself. I walked back out into the gym, which – now empty – carried my voice beautifully. The song was below my bottom range, but even in those conditions I could feel that warm, rushing freedom opening up in my chest again. I walked slowly around the gym, sensing Dean watching me by the locker-room door. I didn’t look at him, partly out of embarrassment, and partly in the hope that he’d sing too.

And then he did.
He began to sing
. Quietly at first, but building quickly until his voice – a surprisingly powerful wall of sound – filled the hall. I quietened, then stopped singing altogether, watching Dean, terrified he would stop, too, but rooted to the spot. As he approached the highest, most emotive notes, he began to lose himself.

‘
Oh my friends, my friends forgive me
,

That I live and you are gone
.

There’s a grief that can’t be spoken
.

There’s a pain, goes on and on
.’

I watched Dean with his scuffed trainers and black eye, and I cried. For me, for him and most of all for Fiona. When the song finished and he became paralysed with awkwardness once again, I clapped, slowly, and dried my
eyes. ‘That was perfect,’ I told him. ‘That was bloody perfect, Dean.’

‘Hear hear,’ said a half-American half-Devon voice behind me. I spun round. ‘That was
totally
brilliant, mate.’ Julian grinned. He was leaning against the doorframe with the chaperone, arms folded over his chest. I was temporarily slammed by a memory of him standing in another doorway the night we met, looking every bit as handsome as he did now, smiling in that same irresistible way. My calm was shattered; the churning anxiety returned.

Dean slid out of a fire-escape door without a word. ‘I promised him I wouldn’t let anyone in,’ I told Julian tightly. ‘Could you not have stayed out?’
And bogged off back to bogging Violet Elphinstone
, I nearly added.

‘The teacher said they can’t be left on their own with visitors,’ Julian told me. Then he walked right up to me, until he was centimetres from my face. He bent down slightly towards my ear and I could feel the warmth of his breath on my neck. ‘And could you stop being so rude to me, Sally?’

‘I like this man!’ Jan Borsos exclaimed furiously. He was flushed with good humour and what looked like Scotch, having been in the hotel bar with Julian since we got back from school. I’d been upstairs showering and trying to manage my panicking, fractured mind. I was simply not up to the challenge of seeing my parents tonight and I didn’t know what to do.

Briefly, I pondered whether it would be OK to kiss Jan in front of Julian, and then felt angry with myself for even wondering. ‘Hello,’ I said, kissing Jan firmly on the mouth.

‘I like him so much I invite him to dinner!’ Jan cried. ‘We all go to see your parents!

‘Sally?’ he added, plucking at my sleeve when I whited out. ‘Sally, are you OK? Are you happy that I invite Julian?’

Julian, I noted, was studiously avoiding my eye.

‘I’m delighted,’ I said woodenly. ‘Really very happy indeed.’

‘Let’s PARTY!’ Jan shouted excitedly. ‘I must go empty bowels!’ And with that he sprinted off towards the toilets, bellowing ‘Do You Hear the People Sing?’.

‘He’s quite a character.’ Julian smiled, after a long, tense pause.

‘Yes.’ I drew an uneasy circle on the patterned carpet with my toe. ‘There’s nobody else quite like Jan. And that’s pretty cool.’

Julian nodded. ‘Pretty cool.’

He toyed with the key card. ‘Are you happy, then?’ he asked casually.

‘Er, yes! Yes, actually, I am.’

‘Good.’

‘Good,’ I concurred.

Julian was watching me, slightly accusingly. His collar was still poking up like the ear of a naughty dog. ‘I just want you to be happy, Sal.’

Let it go
, I begged myself.
Just let it go
. But I was powerless. ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’

Julian had a brief inner battle, which was as clear to me as if he had tickertape running across his forehead. Then he spoke: ‘I
mean
, I can’t help but wonder if this relationship you’re in with him is a bit disingenuous, and I’m not sure I understand what your connection is, and I guess most of all I mean he’s not really your thing, in my opinion.’

‘Oh, really?’ I said angrily. ‘He’s not my thing, isn’t he? And why is that?’

But Julian was also angry. His face had flushed and he looked at me in the same determined way he’d looked at me the first time he’d told me he loved me. ‘He’s … Well, he’s a bit mad,’ he said. ‘And he’s about sixteen years old. And I think you’re making a mistake.’

I gaped at him. ‘You think I’m making a mistake? Because you think Jan is
mad
?’ I glanced at the toilets, but Jan was still inside. I could hear him singing gaily over the hand dryer.

‘OK, OK, not mad. Just … not
you
. Do you two really connect? Deeply? Spiritually?’

How
dare
he wank on about spiritual connections after what he’d done to me? I tried to reply but couldn’t.

Julian folded an arm tightly across himself, like he always had when he was uncomfortable. ‘I know I’m being out of order,’ he said mulishly. ‘But come on. Look at what you did today. Jan was great, he made them laugh and stuff, but
look what you did
, Sally. Look how many kids you got singing! Look how well you understood them, got their trust, made them let go. That kid Dean, you could just have changed his life for all you know!’

I went to sit down but realized I wasn’t near a chair so just shifted around on the spot, staring at the carpet. It spiralled colourfully, like my mind.

‘I like Jan a lot,’ Julian persisted. ‘But I have to wonder what you’re up to, Sal.’

‘Well, I have to wonder what you’re up to with Violet Elphinstone. But unlike you I had the manners not to say it.’ It shot out of my mouth before I had time to think.

Julian went silent. ‘OK. I’ll take that.’ He took his glasses off and put them back on again in rapid succession, just like he had on our first night when he’d got all shy and confused about his hair fluff. ‘But, um, is everyone really talking about it?’ he asked. ‘Because it – I mean, we …’

‘Oh, spare me.’

‘It’s stupid of me,’ he said tiredly. ‘I keep wondering if I should resign. It’s such bad practice, a coach and a student …’ Then, astonishingly, the defiance returned. ‘But that’s not the point,’ he said, eyes narrowing. ‘You can carry on pretending, if you want, but we both know you’re making a mistake. Jan is not right for you. Period.’

‘Well, thanks for your analysis of my boyfriend,’ I hissed furiously. He had no right.
No bloody right!
Jan was emerging from the toilets at the other end of the bar. ‘But you know what, Julian? At least he’s got
passion
. At least he cares about singing. At least he got off his
backside
and got himself into college. He practises for hours every day, Julian. Is that a bit distasteful for someone who can’t be arsed singing any more? Who just wasted their training, jacked it in because they couldn’t be bothered – and started some
newspaper
instead?’

I wondered how it had come to this. How I could be saying horrible, venomous things to Julian Bell in a Premier Inn near Birmingham, when last year I’d stood with him on a roof in Brooklyn and fallen head over heels in love with him.

Julian swallowed painfully and I knew I’d gone too far. ‘I didn’t just jack it in,’ he whispered. His eyes flashed with sudden tears and a pain I’d never seen before. ‘You have no idea. No idea at all.’

‘And you have no idea about my relationship with Jan,’ I stammered. ‘So kindly back off.’

We stared at each other and the air crackled with dissipating anger and growing sadness. And something else, some echo of the past. I had never felt so insane in my
life. I had to escape – but where to? Mum and Dad were expecting us. And I was cornered.

Jan burst in. ‘Let us go to have laughter and love with your family,’ he said expansively.

I gripped his hand like a vice all the way to Mum and Dad’s. I adored Jan Borsos and I would not,
would not
, let Julian patronize him or harm him in any way. It was horrible of him to wander in, so selfishly and forcefully, and pull apart the life I’d forged for myself since Fiona’s death. He was cruel. Shameless. And wrong.

Help me
, I implored Fiona in a silent scream, but she refused to comment.
I can’t do this! I feel totally mad! I can’t go and see Mum and Dad – they’ll just blame me for losing you and I’ll go bonkers, Fi, I’ll implode, I’ll just die!

By the time we turned into my estate I was like a boiling kettle.

Dad answered the door. He looked older, more stooped than when I’d last seen him, and his jumper was cheap and bobbly. He shook Jan’s hand warily, and Julian’s, then turned to me, awkward and hesitant. Should he hug me, kiss me, smile? Dad didn’t hate me; I’d always known that. He just had no idea what to do with me. (Or with anyone, really.) Tonight, though, I needed him to show he cared.

Eventually he held out his hand.
For me to shake
. ‘All right, our Sal,’ he said, as if nothing had happened. As if we’d all been the best of friends since Fiona died.

‘Hi, Dad,’ I said sadly. ‘How are you?’

Dad’s eyes looked watery for a moment. He didn’t just seem stooped but actually shorter; a little old man with
shadows on his face. ‘Getting by,’ he said. ‘Go on through. Let’s get you a drink. Bren’s got some wine in.’

‘Are you OK?’ Julian asked, as we shuffled through.

An image of him kissing Violet sprang into my hot, cauldron-like mind and I ignored him.

Mum couldn’t make eye contact with me. She was louder and fractionally more welcoming than usual, and I noticed makeup and a new top. She bustled around, topping up the boys’ glasses with wine I’d never imagined her buying, and gave me a glass too, telling me to take a seat on the couch. But she couldn’t look me straight in the eye. She asked how I was, then ran off to the kitchen before I could answer.

Julian, who knew everything about my family, was watching. Jan, who knew almost nothing about my family, was not. Jan Borsos was unfortunately quite drunk. His hair was wilder than usual and his cheeks bright red and dramatic. I watched him, feeling both tender and uneasy. I liked him very, very much, I thought – his energy, his optimism and his humour. And, my God, I admired him. Nobody at college had worked as hard as Jan had to become a singer.

But tonight I hoped – prayed, even – that Jan would magically transform himself into a measured, thoughtful man who intuitively knew how to handle my parents.

No chance.

‘Mrs Howlett, you look VERY BEAUTIFUL tonight,’ he said grandly, grabbing Mum’s hand.

Mum tried at first to shake his but when she realized Jan was going to kiss it she froze with horror. ‘Let me get
some snacks down you,’ she muttered, scuttling off to the sideboard.

Jan shoved his hands happily into his pockets. He moved around the room, smiling furiously, admiring Mum’s massive TV and odd collection of ornaments. ‘I am liking these plates!’ he said excitedly, pointing at the three mounted willow patterns above the fireplace. ‘And this! This is my Sally! LOOK!’ Before I knew it he had grabbed my hand and yanked me over to the picture of Dennis and me, sitting on the front doorstep with Fiona in 1986.

‘Look at you! You little angel of fatness!’ He kissed the side of my face enthusiastically and I felt the room draw breath. Public Displays of Affection were unheard of in our house. I ducked out of his grasp to see Dad searching urgently for his pipe.

Jan started singing ‘I Feel Pretty’, ensuring with absolute finality that the night was ruined. He shouted about me being pretty and witty and gay and then broke off laughing. ‘Except you are not gay, no? You love Jan Borsos!’ I wondered if I would pass out soon. Surely no human body could survive panic and anguish on this level.

Half an hour later we were starting on the leathery steaks that Mum had served. They were cooked badly but everyone in the room was grateful for the diversion. Cutlery chinked jarringly on our worn plates while
The Million Pound Drop
wittered on in the background.

Mum still hadn’t properly looked at me. And Dad had barely talked to me. I couldn’t stand it.

‘Sally told me you both worked in textiles,’ Julian said, breaking the silence. ‘Is that a big industry around here?’

Profoundly grateful for the intervention, Dad sat taller in his chair. ‘Well, son, there’s always been a bit of it round here, although not as much as in areas like Nuneaton – do you know Nuneaton?’

‘I know
of
it,’ Julian replied politely.

Dad continued, undeterred: ‘This area was more about mining, but Hall’s was a great employer. They’re shutting down soon, though. We’re having terrible trouble with all those blinking Chinese making clothes on the cheap.’

‘Dreadful quality,’ Mum said. ‘And then the Indians, and the bloody Eastern Europeans are getting involved. They’re killing us off,’ she finished spiritedly.

Bloody Eastern Europeans?
Where did Mum think Jan was from? Bognor fucking Regis? Mum and Dad’s faces were red and indignant. They obviously didn’t care where their guest was from. It was the third time today I’d heard my lovely Jan Borsos insulted and my blood was boiling.

Jan’s face, however, remained the same. ‘Many of my people have been poor for a very long time,’ he said calmly. ‘We need the business.’

Four sets of eyes swivelled towards him. ‘I am from Hungary,’ he explained. ‘I am a bloody Eastern European! But, Mrs Howlett, you must understand that we need the industry, and that we take great pride in it. Our neighbours in the Balkans are much poorer than us. They need it even more. We are certainly not trying to kill off the people of Stourbridge.’

Dad knew he was cornered and so, as usual, he shut down. Mum did no such thing. ‘Well, I can understand that, but those
Chinese
.’ She grimaced. Mum always needed someone to blame. ‘Blinking nightmare!’

‘
Mum!
’ I whispered. I could not let anyone else insult Jan today! I could not! My temples were pounding and my pulse was going through the roof.
MAKE IT STOP!
my head screamed.
MAKE ALL THIS GO AWAY!

Mum kept her eyes on her oven chips. ‘You don’t know the half of it, Sally,’ she muttered. ‘I know you like to be all multicultural, but it’s different for us. Us locals don’t get work any more what with all those foreigners.’

That’s Mum
, I thought.
Attacks Jan, then attacks me
. I had to get out. I couldn’t do this. I dropped my fork because my hands were shaking so much, then felt Jan’s foot touch mine, momentarily balancing me. I looked at him, grateful, then realized it couldn’t be his foot. It was Julian’s.

‘It
is
hard,’ Julian said to my parents. ‘My dad’s a farmer and he’s worked like stink all his life, but now he’s being undercut by cheap imported meat sellers and he’s really fighting for survival.’

Mum and Dad nodded vigorously.

‘Exactly,’ Mum said triumphantly. ‘You understand the situation perfectly.’

‘He’s just being polite,’ I exploded tearfully. Everyone stopped eating. ‘And he’s blaming
capitalism
, not foreigners. He’s not being racist!’ My voice dissolved into sobs.

‘Neither am I –’ Mum began, but I interrupted.

‘Yes, you are! Yes, you are! You were rude to Jan! I expect you to be horrible to me, but not my guest! Say sorry!’ I buried my face in my hands and sobbed silently, while the deepest, purest silence spread across our dining room. Even the steaks were terrified.

‘I wasn’t being a racist,’ Mum responded querulously. ‘I’m great friends with Mrs Yu from the takeaway.’ She
looked uncertainly at Dad, who was there in body but most definitely not in spirit.

Just for a second, among all my rage and despair, I had a flash of insight, recognition of how hard it must have been for my mum never to be backed up, married to a man who spoke only when completely necessary. But I was devastated; the compassion was short-lived.

‘What you said was awful,’ I wept. ‘Please apologize to Jan.’

‘I’m sorry, Jan,’ Mum said dazedly. She suddenly seemed tiny. ‘I really didn’t mean no offence or nothing …’