The Unfinished Symphony of You and Me (5 page)

The day we flew to New York was the day I discovered that Barry was pathologically afraid of flying.

‘Not comin’, Chicken,’ he told me briskly, when I eventually tracked him down in a far corner of Terminal Four. He was sitting on a luggage trolley, green of face, rocking back and forth, with his hands round his knobbly little knees. ‘Changed my mind.’ He gave me an authoritative nod to reassure me that this had been decided by someone who knew what they were talking about.

I smiled. ‘Nonsense. We’re going to tour
The Rite of Spring
round America. For six weeks! You’ve never been more excited in your life!’

Barry scrunched his face at me, just like Bea did at people who owned fake-leather handbags. ‘Please go away, Sally.’ He sounded darker.

‘No.’ Barry’s tantrums were rare; they were also child’s play next to Fiona’s. I sat down beside him. ‘I didn’t know you were afraid of flying, Barry, but –’

‘Well, I am, and that’s all I’ve got to say on the matter so I’m just gonna pop off home now, Chicken, OK? Bye.’

He sprang up and staggered a few steps. Almost as quickly he sat down again on the floor, putting his head between his knees.

‘I’m dyin’, Chicken,’ he muttered. ‘Dizzy. Quick, let me take refuge in your linens.’

‘You’re not dying, you’re just scared. Listen, Bazzer, I’ve got amazing news. Delta have upgraded you and the other dancers to business class!’

Barry looked at me desperately. ‘I’m not flyin’,’ he protested.

‘You are. I’ll look after you till we get on the plane and Fi can look after you in business class. You can get drunk and sleep all the way there on your FLAT BED!’

Barry’s face went greener. ‘
Sleep?
’ he hissed, as if I were completely insane. ‘
Sleep?
Chicken, I need to be awake every second of the way! Vigilance! I’m not usin’ no bed!’

I stood up, pulling him with me. ‘Come on,’ I said firmly.

‘
You
have my bed,’ he said. ‘We’ll swap, Chicken. I’ll take your economy seat. No bloody danger of me fallin’ asleep back there.’

I argued, but he was having none of it. So when I boarded Delta 3, my first ever transatlantic flight, I turned left. Just like they did in books. There was champagne in my hand before I could whisper, ‘Noo Yoik!’ and the world’s jolliest man, named Henk, forced blinis on me and told me I was going to get a FULL-SIZE DUVET LATER ON. And a PILLOW. ‘Can I get you a cocktail, darling?’ he asked. I nodded dumbly and wondered how a
woman with a fat bum and a Midlands accent had pulled off something like this.

After a five-course banquet I sat back clutching my stomach, blissfully happy. There had even been cheese after the pavlova. And unlimited wine! Champagne! ‘Shall we make up our FLAT BEDS, babe?’ I asked Fi, who was sulking in the seat next to me. The other dancers – whom Fi had gone somewhat cold on since she had missed out on promotion – had chatted animatedly over dinner but then gone to sleep, and Fi’s usual partner in hard drinking, Bea, had upgraded herself to first without even telling us.

Barry, whom we’d visited in economy, was fast asleep in spite of his earlier promise to stay AWAKE and VIGILANT for the duration of the flight. Now Fi had that dangerous look in her eye. The one that said:
Play with me NOW. Or I’ll go and find something else to do. And you won’t like it
. ‘One more drink,’ she wheedled. (She had forgotten she’d given up drinking as soon as we’d arrived at the airport.) ‘There’s a bar upstairs in first and Henk said we could go up if it was just the two of us … Come on, Sal. When are two pikeys like you and me ever going to fly business again?’

I yawned in the hope that this would get me off the hook. It didn’t.

‘Just a nightcap,’ she pleaded. ‘How are we going to get off to sleep otherwise? Listen how noisy those engines are!’

Fi always had a reason for a drink. If she was ill, it was a hot toddy; if she was nervous, a brandy. If she couldn’t sleep, a cheeky nightcap. And there was frequently a requirement for a ‘winding-down’ wine or a little
celebratory vodka. It had always made sense but as the years had passed I’d finally begun to notice that neither I nor anyone else I knew – except, perhaps, Bea – had such a regular and pressing need for medicinal alcohol.

I sighed, knowing I’d cave in. I so very, very often wanted to say no to Fiona yet I so very, very rarely did. Partly because I loved her and was desperate to maintain what fragile happiness she had, but mostly because I would do anything to avoid an explosive tantrum.

We went upstairs and sat at the Skybar where an atmosphere of sleek naughtiness prevailed. This was obviously the province of those who didn’t
need
their flat beds because they were going to see this bitch through with bourbon. There was a power-suited woman, hammering out something on a tablet, and a couple of overweight men in chinos, arguing about someone called Jamie. And a man, a very arresting man, with tight jeans and brooding dark eyes, nursing a Scotch. As we walked in he took us both in. I experienced the usual disappointment as his eyes skimmed over me and slid away, finding Fiona and her tiny little legs poking out of an Acne skirt. He raised an eyebrow at her and then –
what? Seriously?
– his glass. Oh, my God. I was an extra in the Ferrero Rocher advert.

I followed Fiona over to the bar, somewhat reluctantly, and we sat down with the man. The crackle of electricity as Fiona drew near him at least reassured me that my services would not be required for long. ‘Hey, girls,’ he said comfortably, as if he were used to summoning women with an eyebrow. ‘What are we drinking?’

I thought this was a bit unnecessary, given that it was a free bar. ‘Diet Coke,’ I responded stoutly. Fiona grimaced,
embarrassed by me, and murmured something about cognac.

‘Raúl,’ he said, staring at Fiona in a sexy sort of a way. ‘Raúl Martinez.’

‘Off of the Branchlines,’ Fiona said excitedly. Then she dropped her voice an octave. ‘Cool.’

Raúl looked pleased. ‘The very same,’ he said, forgetting to be smooth. ‘I didn’t think English girls liked our music!’

And that was that. The gauntlet was thrown squarely on the carpeted floor of the onboard bar. Fi, chemically unable to resist a challenge of
any sort
, took it and ran.

‘Actually,’ she began, ‘I used to be in a band. Our music wasn’t that dissimilar to what you guys play …’

She had been in a band. A diabolical band called Summer of Love that bore no resemblance whatsoever to anything that the Branchlines had written. The calibre of their lyrics could easily be inferred from their signature song:

When one of the dinner ladies had overheard this, my parents had been called in and our house was like a ghastly war zone for days afterwards.

I broke off from my dark reverie, realizing that Fiona and Raúl were looking at me expectantly. Fiona was already sipping coyly while Raúl held a Scotch in the flat
of his hand in a way that said, ‘Hi, I own a Scottish distillery.’

I looked back at them.

‘You sing,’ Raúl prompted me. Fiona blushed ever so slightly behind her cognac.

‘What?’

‘Oh, don’t be shy.’ He laughed easily but I couldn’t. I knew instinctively that something was very rotten here. ‘Fiona was just saying that you sing opera,’ he clarified.

I felt sick. How did she know? Had she heard me?
When?
Oh, God, oh, God. Opera had been my secret for twenty-one years now. Or had it?
Oh, God!

‘Oh, I don’t,’ I said vaguely. Panic wound itself tightly round my stomach. ‘Not really. Just a little bit when I’m in the bath or whatever …’

‘She sings in her wardrobe for some reason,’ Fi said, smiling. ‘And you know what, Raúl, she’s really bloody good! You should get her in as a backing singer or something!’

‘So you don’t have lessons or perform?’ Raúl asked, signalling to the waiter for another brandy. Fiona had finished the first already.

‘Jesus, no!’ I trilled, getting up off my stool.
Fiona knew. She had heard me. All these years
. ‘No, I just mess around. I’m not a
proper
singer …’

I was close to tears.

‘She is,’ Fiona insisted. ‘And she does nothing about it. I mean,
I
’m meant to be a good dancer and I’m trying my best to make it, even though my bosses are doing their best to hold me back, but Sally, she’s not even trying!’ It was a crummy, self-pitying dig, which Fiona instantly tried to soften by smiling encouragingly at me.

‘Well, don’t you waste your raw talent.’ Raúl sounded like an
X Factor
judge. ‘My best friend wasted his opera-singing talent and, man, I think he’s a dick.’

‘I’ll have to be a dick, then.’ I laughed hollowly. ‘Ha-ha! Night!’

I slunk off to my flat bed and felt tears of panic build in my eyes. Why was she doing this to me? Why bring it up now if she’d known all along? And who else had she told?

It didn’t occur to me to wonder why it mattered so much. It just did.

My singing is my business
, I thought shakily.
Mine and mine alone. Fiona can bloody well move out if she’s going to start causing trouble
.

Singing was the best thing I had. And it was private.

I took a sleeping tablet but I was horribly awake and still pumping adrenalin two hours later. The drowsiness the pill caused simply made my sleeplessness more offensive.

Fi knew I sang, and the worst of it was that she wasn’t the only one. Someone else knew. I had a letter in my handbag to prove it. Between them, Fi and this other stupid, interfering person could make sure that everyone in my carefully protected world knew that I was the girl who sang in her wardrobe.

I tried to steer myself back to sense. Surely it didn’t matter that much.

But it did. It mattered more than anything else.

The worst of it was that it was
my fault
that the other person – Brian the baritone – knew about my singing. My stupid, clumsy, self-indulgent fault.

I had gone to work at seven thirty yesterday morning to make sure I got everything finished before leaving for America. It had been a beautiful day and the air was milky when I got off the 38 bus at Holborn. Walking along Drury Lane I felt as if I’d been suspended in a pleasant sepia bubble. Things moved calmly, gently; even the vans
disgorging coffee beans, wooden boxes of lettuce, stacks of croissants seemed to belong to another time when people moved slowly and worried less.

As I often did when I got to work super-early, I headed for the empty auditorium. Even now – after all these years – it gave me a greater high than any drug I could imagine.

The front-of-house door shut softly behind me and the red, velvety silence reached around and hugged me. I exhaled happily, looking up at tier after tier of boxes, exquisite little treasure chests of gold, red velvet and marble. The candle lamps were dimmed and the beautiful gold roof arched up away from me, like a great shell, staggeringly high above the stalls.

I sat in a seat and closed my eyes, breathing gently, imagining this same air tonight: warm and swollen with hundreds of voices, thick with the smells of old-fashioned powder and the sharper, sexier perfumes of the young. I imagined the orchestra tuning up in their pit, all long, low blasts and high-pitched squeaks, like a ship’s dockyard. The stage managers buzzing around with their headsets and tiny Maglites; the makeup team pinning wigs and powdering faces, my wardrobe colleagues sliding things off hangers with the quiet, unfussy efficiency on which we prided ourselves.

And finally I allowed myself to imagine the singers waiting behind the safety curtain. Dressed in a hundred different colours; warmed up and ready; simultaneously relieved and frustrated not to be in the spotlight tonight. Somewhere among them would be the two stars, still nervous after all these years, breathing, stretching, humming. Ready.

‘Keith!’ someone yelled offstage. ‘They’re craning the
La Bohème
set out of the workshop. Move your fat arse.’

Smiling, I slipped out of the auditorium and took the lift up to Wardrobe, thinking about
La Bohème
. This coming autumn, once I was back from New York, we had a cast change and I was overseeing the costumes for the incoming singers.

It would be an honour:
La Bohème
was my favourite opera of all time. A love story that managed to be both beautiful and devastating, unfolding against a musical score that (to me at least) had no equal.

Mimi and Rodolfo’s duet in the first act, in spite of being one of the most famous and overplayed in the world, was utterly perfect. As Barry had once pointed out, ‘It’s bollockin’ mental, the idea of two people meeting in a sitting room and declarin’ their undyin’. Unnatural, Chicken. Unnatural.’ But the melody of that duet somehow made it believable. Made it totally acceptable for two people to meet and say,
Oh, hello, I’m Mimi, I’m Rodolfo, oh, your hands are cold, sit down, you pretty little thing, and tell me about your life … Oh! What the hell is this? I’m in love with you! I will love you for ever! And you’ll love me for ever! Awesome!

When you heard the music, it just made sense. Listening to that duet was the best way to use six minutes that I knew.

As I’d progressed through my twenties my ability to sing it had improved and, as I’d gone about my work in the workshop yesterday morning, I had found myself humming it.

Normally I didn’t let myself so much as whisper opera when at work. It would have been mortifying if someone
had heard me and concluded that I was some frustrated out-of-work singer.

But nobody was due in for hours; it couldn’t have been a safer time.

I started to sing softly, pleased by the sound of my voice. It filled a small part of the room and did so rather well. ‘ “You love me?” ’ I sang, raising the volume another notch. I imagined the sensation of falling in love as deeply and totally as Rodolfo and Mimi.

‘ “I will be yours for ever,” ’ I sang, allowing my voice to curl outwards.

‘ “For ever!” ’ Slightly powerless now, I felt myself build momentum. I was aware that I should stop singing – or at least take it down a few decibels – but I couldn’t.

‘ “I will never leave you!” ’ It rushed out of me and filled the entire room. I stopped singing, shocked. Sound waves snapped and fizzled around me.

I sounded like a proper singer.

‘Oh,’ I said to the empty room.

‘
Sally?
’ It was Brian the baritone, appearing suddenly through the door like a very unwelcome genie from a lamp. He was ‘popping in’ sometime this week to be measured for his
La Bohème
costume next September. I’d been really looking forward to seeing him. Until now.

‘Was that you?’ He looked stunned.

‘No.’

Brian’s brow furrowed. ‘Oh, I heard someone …’ His eyes scanned around for someone to pin the blame on but came back to me. ‘No, it was you,’ he insisted. He peered at me over his half-moon glasses. ‘You were singing Mimi. And it sounded ruddy amazing.’

I wasn’t much of a blushing type because I never got myself into a situation where blushing would be necessary. But blush I did, so intensely that I must have looked like I’d been at the crazy tomato festival that Fi went to every year in Spain.
This is why you never sing outside your wardrobe
, I thought furiously.
Too many interfering –

Brian interrupted my rising anger. ‘I cannot tell you how good you sounded,’ he said quietly. ‘Are you a singer? Have you been wasting away all of these years, Sally?’ He was looking at me far too intensely for my liking.

I squirmed, wishing I could vaporize. Horrible memories of Mum’s panicked face during the school concert hung in the air around us. I shook my head.

Brian smiled. ‘There’s nothing to be ashamed of,’ he said. ‘Quite the opposite, in fact. Carry on! I’d love to hear you!’

I muttered something about having come in early to order a load of knickers and disappeared into the laundry room, adding that Tiff would take care of his costume measurements. Brian must have known that I couldn’t order many pairs of knickers in a room full of washing-machines but, thankfully, he left it.

My heart was racing for a long time after the incident, but by lunchtime I’d managed to get a lid on it. It was OK. I was going to New York tomorrow, he’d be away all summer, and by the time we saw each other in September he’d have forgotten about it.

Only he hadn’t. When I left at the end of the day to go home and pack, Ivan from stage door handed me a letter. From stupid, horrible, interfering Brian. Whom I had stopped loving until further notice.

It had burned a hole in my bag for the next twenty-four hours and had somehow managed to get on the plane with me:

I’m retiring
[he’d said].
The wife’s had it with me running off round the world every five minutes. I’m in the middle of interviews for a contract teaching singing at the Royal College of Music starting at Easter 2012. They have an internationally renowned opera school there. If you were even a fraction as good as I thought you were, you have to audition, Sally. Don’t bury your light under a bushel. YOU WILL REGRET IT!

The plane jolted as we passed through a tiny patch of turbulence but, unlike my mind, it quickly straightened out and resumed its calm, low growl through the black silky sky.

It went without saying that I would never audition for an opera school. But if Brian was going to start hassling me – Fiona, too, for all I knew – I could be in deep water.

I’ll leave
, I thought angrily.
I’ll leave that job before I allow people to start gossiping about me
.

Finally, at about three a.m., I closed the door on my head.
You have a choice here, Sally
, I told myself. Drowsiness rolled over me, gently repeating like a wave.
You can wallow in the fear of something that’s not yet happened, or you can go and enjoy America. What’s it to be?

I was asleep within minutes, only to be woken by the lovely Henk bringing me perfectly scrambled eggs with smoked salmon and toast. When we started banking into New York an hour later, and Barry forgot that he was afraid of flying, galloping into Business to scream excitedly at me and Fiona, Henk somehow found him a seat to
land in and Fiona told me she was a dick and would never mention my singing again cos she knew I was ‘weird and private’, like my folks, and then I saw those buildings thrusting elegantly into the sky, reigniting memories burned into me by a thousand films, and I finally gave up and burst into tears. Happy tears.

I couldn’t believe it. New York. City of dreams! The most exciting thing I’d ever done. The beginning of my Act III; the greatest adventure of my life.