The Unfinished Symphony of You and Me (29 page)

‘I know,’ Julian said sympathetically. ‘I know how hard it’s been.’

I breathed out, more confused than ever. There was so much about my parents’ conduct that I didn’t understand.
So much anger balled up inside me, liable to explode at the slightest provocation.

But something had changed in Stourbridge. A door had been opened, just a tiny crack, but opened all the same. Whether I walked through it or not was quite another matter, but I knew it was there. And that would have to be enough for now.

‘When’s your mum arriving?’ I asked.

I could feel Julian smiling again. ‘Soon. I should get going. But, Sally – and I say this with absolute respect for all you’ve been through – I think it’s time you got out of this wardrobe. For good.’

I listened.

‘I know it’s kept you safe since you were little but, Sal, you
are
safe out there in the world. And I think you’re beginning to know that.’

I shrugged nervously.

‘No, don’t shrug. I’m serious. There’s a new chapter of your life in progress. One that doesn’t involve Fiona, or wardrobes, or hiding of any sort.’

‘My life will
always
involve Fiona.’

‘Of course. But you still have to let her go.’

‘But this is all for her! This singing and college and … stuff …’

Julian shook his head. ‘It
was
for her. And it’s wonderful that you’re going to make it as a singer, even though she couldn’t make it as a dancer. But it’s time you started doing it for you. Let go of Fiona. Let her rest. And start out again for Sally Howlett. Because she’s still alive, she’s being brave and awesome and, above all, she’s really precious. She deserves to be out there in the open.’

I felt my lip wobble childishly. ‘But I’m not ready …’ I whispered. She’s been like my coach. My friend. My advisor.’

Julian stroked my arm with his thumb. ‘You’re so much stronger than you realize.’

Carefully, he slid sideways out of the wardrobe. Once out he knelt down in the doorway, holding my hand. ‘I know how this feels,’ he said. ‘But it gets easier once you let them go.’

‘I’m afraid.’

Julian smiled. ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of out here,’ he said. ‘You can do it, Sal. I believe in you.’

Never taking my eyes off his, I uncurled my legs and – slowly, ever so slowly – I got out of my wardrobe, somehow knowing that this was the last time.

Today has to be very calm
, I reflected, as I drifted into college the next morning.
The law of averages says so
. I’d had enough drama in the last forty-eight hours to last me the rest of my life; today would be a millpond.

It was not.

‘Sit down,’ Brian said pleasantly, when I walked into my singing lesson. ‘I brought you some tea. And a Twix for us to share. It’s – oh.’ He pulled a warm, misshapen Twix out of his pocket and stared at it sadly. ‘It’s ruined.’

‘It most certainly is not!’ I replied spiritedly. ‘Open it right now! And then tell me what’s going on.’

‘Hmm?’

‘Come off it, Brian. Something’s going on if you’re feeding me rather than teaching me.’

‘Ah,’ he admitted. ‘Ah, yes.’

How I loved Brian.

We sat by the piano, dunking our chocolate fingers into Brian’s tea, and I waited for him to break his news. To my surprise, I found I wasn’t actually nervous at all. Since Julian had left last night I’d been filled with hope, an emergent, fragile sort of hope; a feeling that maybe I
could
start
a life free of guilt or fear. That I could do this course for me, while never forgetting my beautiful Freckle.

‘Now, Sally Howlett, there are two things I want to talk to you about. First, Peter Ingle has heard fantastic things about your work in Stourbridge. I think you’ve really impressed him, young lady.’

‘With my common touch, you mean?’

‘Aye,’ Brian agreed, in his best Huddersfield accent. ‘He likes us rough folk. Anyway, he’s invited you to sing at some big do in Mayfair.’

‘Oh.’

Brian tapped his fingers together, watching me. ‘And he’s paying you five thousand pounds.’

I nearly threw up my chocolate. ‘WHAT?’

Brian started chuckling. ‘I think that’s his way of giving you an extra boost. A little bit higher than the standard fee, as I’m sure you’ll appreciate.’

‘I can’t take that sort of money!’

Brian grinned. ‘You most certainly can, my girl,’ he said firmly. ‘I’ve known Peter since we were spotty youths, and if I know anything it’s that he wants you to have this. He thinks you’re brilliant.’

‘Brian, I’m from Stourbridge! I’m not a starving peasant! He can’t do that!’

‘Sally, be quiet.’ Brian smiled. ‘Peter could fart five thousand pounds out in his sleep.’

‘Shit!’ I breathed. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Quite sure. Jan will be performing alongside you. It seems Peter’s taken to the boy too …’

‘Good. Cos Jan was brilliant.’

Brian’s brow knitted. ‘There is one thing, though. You’ll
need to wear a performance dress. And I suspect that’s something you don’t own, my dear.’

He was right. Unlike my coursemates I did not possess one of those long, satiny monstrosities that opera singers insisted on wearing for concert performances. But with all of this positive energy bubbling around in me, I didn’t care. I had five grand to spare!

‘I’ll go and buy one! I used to be a wardrobe mistress, Brian, it’s about time I learned how to dress myself!’

Brian shook his head. ‘Your transformation really is remarkable.’ He folded his arms across his chest, watching me. ‘Your musicianship lessons are coming along in leaps and bounds, I hear, you’re reading music quite confidently now … you’re singing out of the wardrobe and look at you! You’re accepting offers to sing in concerts! It’s really quite unbelievable!’

He cocked his head to one side. ‘What do you think did it, Sally? What do you think has brought you out of yourself so beautifully?’

I wanted to say that it was Fiona, and Brian, and even Julian, to a certain extent. But I had begun to realize that someone else was involved, a lot more heavily than I’d known.

‘It was me,’ I said, after a long pause. ‘I changed myself.’

Brian looked a bit misty in the eye area. He nodded his agreement, a proud, dad-like gesture that made me want to cry.

‘The second thing I wanted to tell you was …’ he took his glasses off and polished them on the corner of his shirt ‘… we want to cast you as Mimi in next term’s production of
La Bohème
. But it was agreed that we would ask
you first, because we know how hard you find it to sing in public. We don’t want to give you something that feels too much, too soon.’

I gaped at him. My favourite opera in the universe. The role I had secretly dreamed of singing since I was a little girl. Not to mention the duet I’d sung in the poetry café with Julian.

‘We plan to cast Jan as Rodolfo,’ Brian continued, ‘Hussein as Marcello and Helen as Musetta. So you’ll have your gang around you.’

Still I said nothing. As much as I wanted it, was it not a bit more than I could handle?

Then I felt my heart beating slowly and steadily in my chest, my hands cool and still in my lap, and knew that – just as Julian had said last night – I was far stronger than I’d ever realized.

‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘I’d love to play Mimi. Thank you, Brian.’

In the canteen I sat with Helen at an otherwise deserted Singers’ Table. I told her we were playing the leads in
La Bohème
. We sat opposite each other, saying nothing other than ‘Shit. Oh, my God. Arggh. Bollocks. Fuck! What the Jiminy Cricket? Shit.’

This went on, on a loop, for a good ten minutes before Helen had to leave for Italian coaching.

I carried on solo.

After a while, Julian and some other teacher, neither of whom I could focus on, came to sit at the table with me. ‘Fuck. Jesus. Crap. Whoa. Shit. Rah! Oh, God,’ I muttered, unseeing. ‘And I have to buy a dress! I’m a bloody wardrobe mistress who still has no idea how to dress herself! I
have to find a great big shiny shitbag dress! Crap, crap, crap …’

‘I agree, crap,’ said the woman to Julian’s right. ‘Jetlag and old age are not happy companions.’

Her voice was crisp and American and very familiar.

‘Oh, God! Stevie!’ I wailed, as she came into focus. ‘I’m so sorry! I had no idea you were there!’

‘I could see that, my dear,’ Stevie Bell replied drily. ‘I shan’t ask how you are, Sally darling, because it’s quite obvious. Julian just told me about your forthcoming success,’ she added. ‘I’m thrilled for you. Don’t you give silly gowns another thought.’

Stevie Bell was the most awesome woman in America. I’d just ‘cursed and profaned’ in her direction and she hadn’t turned a hair. Not to mention the letters that I’d sent back unopened during those early days of bone-chilling grief. Or that I’d put the phone down on her in JFK airport, so devastated by what I thought her son had done to Fiona that I couldn’t even be civil. In spite of all that, here she was, her hair in a crop that was both elegant and sexy, a beautiful navy jumper and very cool spectacles framing her sharp and not remotely jetlagged eyes.

‘You are completely stunning,’ I told her, and didn’t even feel embarrassed. ‘I’m so happy to see you!’ I got up and hugged her. Julian’s delight was almost palpable. ‘And, Stevie, I …’ I blushed. ‘Stevie, about the letters and stuff, I’m really sorry I –’

‘Oh hush, darling,’ she said smoothly. ‘No need.’

I hugged her again. I loved Stevie almost as much as I loved –

I stopped there. Right there.

‘Mom insisted on coming into college,’ Julian said happily. ‘She’s bollocked me about my appearance, of course.’

‘He was really smart before!’ I told Stevie. ‘Honestly, you wouldn’t have recognized him!’

‘Oh, I know that look,’ Stevie replied crisply. ‘And I strongly dislike it. That cursed agent of his. Did he tell you I fired him and became Julian’s manager myself?’

‘Um … no!’

Julian pulled a packet of Wotsits out of his coat pocket and sat back, shaking his head. ‘I am here, you know,’ he said, but we ignored him.

‘When he told me he was going back into singing I took matters into my own hands,’ Stevie announced. ‘I’m sick of seeing my lovely boy all gelled and polished. He grew up in gum-boots, Sally! And wore hay in his hair as standard! Dressing to impress is such a waste of time. His fans don’t care what he wears to go buy a quart of milk.’

I thought suddenly of little twenty-one-year-old me, blowing my entire salary on
natural fibres
so that I could look like a proper wardrobe assistant. Then buying loads of trendiness to fit in here at college.
Aged thirty
. ‘Um, I’ve been guilty of that,’ I admitted ruefully.

‘Oh, me too, sweetie, me too. I kitted myself out in all manner of waxed cotton to attract his father. I even bought a flat cap. The shame! I was a professor of linguistics!’

If someone as clever and brilliant as Stevie had got caught up in that madness, perhaps I wasn’t as weak a moron as I’d imagined.

‘We’re all flawed,’ Stevie remarked, as if reading my mind. ‘We all struggle to believe in ourselves.’

‘Mm,’ Julian and I said, at the same time. I wasn’t quite sure who was mm-ing about what.

‘But there’s still a happy medium,’ Stevie rounded on her son sternly. ‘Such as ironing one’s clothes, Julian …’

Julian pretended not to hear her.

‘Julian’s very attached to creased shirts and crumpled jumpers,’ I said. ‘I never really believed the smart suits.’ Immediately I blushed. Far too familiar.

‘Oh, Sally, it really is such a joy to see you.’ Stevie grinned. ‘Tell me how you’re finding college.’

‘Well, it’s been really nice to chat,’ Julian said peevishly. ‘I enjoyed our catch-up. But now I’ve got a student to coach.’ He grinned. ‘Bye, Mom,’ he said, ambling off.

‘Tuck your shirt in!’ Stevie yelled after him.

We watched Julian go. ‘I do wish I could stop telling him what to do.’ She smiled. ‘You know, a mother tries her best but we just make mistake after mistake, doing what we think is right for our child. We’re blind, Sally! And that, my dear, is because we love too much. Nothing prepares a woman for how she feels about her child,’ she said. ‘Nobody warns you of that fierce, wild love …’

I fiddled with my yellow ring, wondering if Mum had ever felt that way about me. Certainly there had been scant evidence of fierce, wild love in my childhood.

‘Was your mother in your face all the time?’ Stevie asked. ‘Always trying to “help” you and being a pain in the butt?’

‘Um, well … No. She kind of kept me at arm’s length.’

Stevie cocked her head. ‘Really?’

I didn’t answer. I was still extremely confused about Mum and Dad. I gave a non-committal shrug. ‘Pretty much.’

There was a long pause. I stared out of the window at a very drab autumn sky.

‘I often wonder if Julian felt that I did the same to him,’ Stevie said eventually.

‘I doubt that very much. He raves about you!’

‘Good. But, still, I worry …’

‘Honestly! I don’t think you have anything to worry about!’

Stevie traced a finger round one of her chunky silver bangles. Something sad had come over her. ‘When he was eight I realized I couldn’t stay with his father any more. He’s a good man, in his own closed way, Sally, but he couldn’t communicate. With me or anyone. And, well, you may have noticed that I’m quite fond of talking.’

We both giggled.

‘I’d fallen in love with the idea of living on an English farm. In Devonshire! All those cream teas and wild moors and cows! Even educated Americans are susceptible to all that,’ she said drily. ‘But although I could have coped with the disappointment of the greyness and the solitude of that farm, the ceaseless mud, vets and broken fences, I couldn’t live with a man who couldn’t talk to me. I’m a Brooklynite. I missed my home. I missed my life. I missed
talking
. I felt like I was dying of loneliness. I delayed and procrastinated because I couldn’t bear to disrupt my little boy’s life. But in the end I had to go.’

Julian had told me about the move to America; how confused and lost but thrilled he’d been. And how, after a year, his mother had sent him back to Devon because he was falling in with a bad crowd at high school and had stopped singing. ‘I did what I thought was best for him,’
she said helplessly. ‘I cried every night for two years, wondering if he thought I’d abandoned him. Or that I didn’t love him.’

There was a long silence. ‘Did I do the right thing?’ she asked, eyes bright. ‘I don’t know, Sally. But I did the best I could do as his mother. The very best I could do at the time.’

I nodded thoughtfully.

‘Ignore me,’ she said, smiling. ‘As I said, a mother never stops worrying!’

‘I have to go,’ I said. ‘It’s so lovely to see you, but I’ve got some … things to do.’

Jan Borsos bowled into the canteen and swooped over, kissing me on my cheek, nose and chin. ‘My big furry Chinese panda,’ he exclaimed loudly. ‘Good day!’

He turned to Stevie. ‘I am Sally’s boyfriend,’ he announced. ‘How do you do?’

‘I am Julian Jefferson’s mom.’ Stevie twinkled. ‘And I’m very well, thank you.’

‘I was just heading off,’ I told Jan. ‘Shall I come round tonight?’

‘YES! We will have fun times, Sally!’

‘I’m so glad I saw you,’ I told Stevie. ‘So glad. Have a good trip.’

‘And I’m glad you’re happy,’ Stevie said. There was a slight crack in her smile as she watched Jan and me heading off. ‘You take care, Sally.’