The Unfinished Symphony of You and Me (7 page)

‘Wow,’ Jan Borsos said, peering in the same direction. ‘I cannot believe we are here! It is miracle! We have much luck!’

‘Yusss,’ I croaked.

‘Sally, Jan,’ Brian called merrily. ‘Come and meet Violet Elphinstone. Another coursemate. How fantastic that you all arrived at the same time!’

I tried to give him a look that warned of impending homicide if he didn’t tone down all of this unnecessary jollity but my face was frozen. Which was probably a good thing because he was no longer a colleague but a tutor.
My tutor
. Oh, God.

Violet Elphinstone’s face was also frozen, although hers was frozen into a smile she almost certainly didn’t mean. She was probably five foot ten but a pair of
caramel-coloured ankle boots took her to well over six feet. There was nothing stooped or awkward about her. She just looked like she got a lot of sex with film stars. She had one of those shiny graduated bobs that never greases over and
her face was perfect
. As in, mathematically, golden-ratio-proportioned, da Vinci-certified perfect.

‘Hi, nice to meet you both,’ she said, meaning, ‘What the fuck are these two moronic freaks doing on MY OPERA COURSE?’

I shuffled over, feeling intensely fat and linen-covered, and shook her hand. ‘Likewise,’ I said. ‘I’m Sally.’

‘Um, yes, Brian just introduced you,’ she pointed out sweetly, then giggled, putting an insincere hand on my arm so that I couldn’t take offence.

For a few awkward moments we tried to find something to say to each other. I came in first with ‘Amazing boot!’

Violet Elphinstone started to reply, a standard ‘Thanks, they’re Gina, I like yours, where are they from –’

But I interrupted her, booming, in my broadest Midlands accent, ‘BOOTS.’

‘What?’

‘Sorry. Boots. I said nice
boot
but I meant nice
boots
… Oh, sorry, Office,’ I added, remembering she had asked me where mine were from. ‘Five years ago, I think …’ I stared down at my soft brown boots, worn and grooved like walnuts, and felt embarrassed. I should have bought better shoes. And I should have just shut the hell up.

‘Oh, I
love
a bit of Office sometimes,’ Violet said conspiratorially. ‘BARGAINOUS! But don’t you find you have to dress down a bit when you’re wearing cheap
footwear? Erm, like,
balancing act
, right?’ She fiddled with her Chloé satchel, pointedly ignoring my unstructured grey dress. Which was not made of silk or expensive Japanese crêpe. ‘Oooh, and I love your ring too,’ she whispered, bursting with insincerity. Nobody, not even me, loved my ring. ‘Nothing like a big statement piece!’

I was used to this sort of passive-aggressive behaviour. A few of the younger and more wanky opera singers at work had used it; it was an outward display of egalitarianism –
I’m still your friend, even though people pay £
350
a night to watch me sing and you’re just a twat with a sewing-machine –
but the subtext was always clear.
We are not equal. We never will be
.

I need to go shopping
, I thought glumly. Everyone around me, especially this shimmering column of a woman, was cool and youthful. No nice middle-class bohemian fashion, like I was used to at work. Just lots of … trendiness.
But it’s a bloody music college!
my mind wailed.
Shouldn’t everyone here be a posh geek?

Fortunately, Jan Borsos stepped in. ‘Violet Elphinstone, good day,’ he said grandly, stooping into another deep bow. ‘Please you forgive me for my shoe. I did lose one in France on my pilgrimage to London. It is a pleasure to meet with you today.’

I watched Violet decide what to do about this strange man flourishing theatrically at her feet. I waited for her lip to curl, but it didn’t. Instead, she began to smile. ‘What a
fab
greeting,’ she said. ‘Like, wow,
Jan Borsos
, what a name!’ Jan kissed her hand and she giggled, pulling the Chloé bag up her arm so it wouldn’t thump him in the face.

‘I don’t think I’m going to like her very much,’ said a
girl who’d appeared at my elbow. She had a messy brown ponytail and perky pink lipstick, and was clutching a big home-made folder saying, ‘OPERA SCHOOL YEAR 1’. She glared at Violet, who was prancing around Jan Borsos. ‘Thoughts?’ she asked. Then: ‘Oh, Jesus, she’s not your sister, is she?’

I was appalled. ‘What do you think?’

The girl chuckled. ‘It didn’t seem likely.’

‘Correct. But for the record, no, I don’t think I’m going to like Violet very much.’ I paused, looking fearfully at the throng of students moving around me. ‘Although I’m not sure I’m going to like
anyone
very much. No offence or anything.’

The girl sniggered. ‘You’re right up my street, then,’ she told me. ‘Helen. Helen Quinn. I’m not just nervous, I’m fucking terrified. I haven’t eaten in three days and I’m thinking about running away.’

I nearly cried with relief. ‘Oh, Holy Mother of God,’ I whispered. ‘Thank you, Helen Quinn, for your honesty. You might just have saved me.’

Helen grinned and wandered off towards the opera school.

Brian, I noticed, was watching the whole pitiful scene like a proud dad. Right at that moment I hated him. I hated everyone, really. Brian for hearing me sing in the first place and Fiona for blackmailing me into auditioning. I hated the Royal College of Music for taking me on with cries of ‘What a wonderful story! Wasting away in the wardrobe department!’ and other such balls. And I supremely DETESTED everyone I worked with for being so lovely and encouraging about it, once word got
out that I could sing and was trying to get into opera school.

‘This is just
so
exciting!’ they’d all yelled.

Bunch of tossers
, I thought fiercely. I’d like to punch them all, one by one.

Please, please stop it
, I begged myself.

It felt sad that I was so mental these days. Since New York, the landscape of my life had changed dramatically and nothing was certain any more, especially my feelings. I missed being controlled and predictable. I missed the pleasant sense of calm I’d had when I woke up in the mornings, the knowledge that even if Fiona went bonkers or I lost a costume everything would be OK. These days I seemed to spend all of my time firefighting feelings. It was exhausting and distressing. I didn’t
want
to start college in this way.

Although, really, I didn’t want to start college at all.

From:
Sally Howlett [mailto
[email protected]
)

To:
Fiona Lane [mailto
[email protected]
)

Sent:
Monday, 10 September 2012, 22.59.55 GMT

 

Fiona Freckle. Hello darling. Now, I know I say this all the time but I miss you. More than ever. Is there any chance of you coming back to London?
Please?

Bah. I hadn’t cried today but now I’m bawling. I don’t even know what’s wrong with me. I suppose it’s still New York. Grief, anger, that sort of stuff. Having J turn up at my house last night didn’t help matters. Or maybe I’m just mental because of this stupid course. I HATED it, Fi. It was triple crap and I felt like such a big fat biffer.

We didn’t have to sing, which was a blessing because I would have actually shat myself, right there in front of everyone. I was mute for most of the day so everyone probably thinks I’m arrogant. I got lost
every
time I went anywhere; it’s a rabbit warren. And then I did a really noisy nervous poo in the toilet next door to this amazingly beautiful woman called Violet who is
going to be the star of the course and she and I will never be friends because she looks INCREDIBLE and I’m fatter than ever AND SHE HEARD ME POO.

There was a welcome talk in the theatre. It was awful. The man was saying, ‘You only get to be a student here once, so don’t waste the opportunity,’ and other scary things. I mean, he was very nice, and he was obviously really excited for us, but I just …

Ah, it’s pointless. People are there because they’re going to be the best in the world. Fi, I don’t
want
to be the best in the world. I don’t want to ‘make the most’ of my time there because I don’t want to be there at all. And then I feel even worse because everyone else is exploding out of their skin with pride at having got in.

Urgh.

My coursemates are a funny bunch. I expected them to be like the boarding-school kids we used to thrash at netball – what was that school called? Well, I thought they’d all be like that. WRONG. This Violet bird is super-posh and there’s a few other proper aristos – Hector someone, who has this distinguished fifty-year-old’s bouffant, in bright orange (he’s actually thirty), a mega-rich Malaysian guy who went to Eton, and a couple of girls who look exactly the same and keep saying things like ‘No
waaaay
.’ But everyone else seemed quite normal. There’s even one who’s poorer than me. He’s from Hungary and he’s mental. Only twenty-three but he’s a right little power rocket of a man. He’s already married a repetitor (I think I’ve spelt that wrong. Basically, a pianist who accompanies people while they sing) AND got divorced and trained with some operatic legend. As I said, by the age of twenty-three. WTF?!

But get this – this bit is the absolute best – he WALKED ACROSS EUROPE to get to the college. From Hungary to Calais
and then across to London! He had to walk because he lost most of his money in his divorce and then blew the remainder coming over for the auditions in February. I AM NOT JOKING! He even lost a fecking shoe in France! AND CARRIED ON WALKING! It’s bonkers, Fi. You’d love it here.

Actually, writing all of this, I sort of hate it a little bit less.

Maybe.

Anyway this Jan seems to want to be my friend, which is nice because everyone’s fallen madly in love with him already, and there’s also a really nice girl called Helen whose dad’s a doctor; she stole a prescription off him and got herself some beta-blockers so she wouldn’t die of fear in the first week! I like that. I might ask her for some myself – she seemed pretty chilled on them.

What’s weird, though, is that everyone except me and Jan seemed to know each other, or know each other’s singing teacher, or have done some stupid workshop together last year. It’s like a knitting circle, Fi. Everyone knows everyone else’s business. Don’t like it.

Anyway. Back in on Wednesday when we watch a masterclass with Julian Jefferson from America. He’s well famous in the States and they’ve got him in to ‘inspire’ us although I can’t see that happening for me. Wednesday’s also my first singing lesson but I refuse to talk about that. Or think about it.

I am going to want to kill myself. Urgh. But I’m seizing the day. Wearily.

LOVE YOU but also HATE YOU Freckle,

Me

Xxxxxx

When I arrived at college on Wednesday – my first full day – I was somehow lured into the building by the sound of bells from the Queen’s Tower. I had been standing under the glass portico, considering another sprint back to the tube, when the most ethereally lovely chiming began and I somehow lost my mind. They weren’t just crappy old ‘It’s now ten o’clock! Ho ho ho!’ bells, they were pure music: rich, fat peals which made me think of
Brideshead Revisited
and transported me to Oxford University on a warm summer’s evening in the 1920s. I became a willowy student wearing a boater and drinking port while the Christ Church bells chimed hazily in the distance.

By the time I remembered that I was a fat-bummed student wearing expensive new clothes that I wasn’t sure I liked, standing outside a college on a snippy, rain-spitty sort of a day in central London, I’d somehow fooled myself into walking through the front door and had already navigated my way to the opera school.

I was cross with myself for having been lured in by a
load of stupid bells. I texted as much to my new friend Helen, she of the beta-blockers.

Glad you came back. Meet me in the dressing room
, she replied.

I found my way down to the dressing room, which would apparently become my second home while at college. It was a fairly unprepossessing room: large, subterranean and rectangular with a long hanging rail for costumes and a lot of mirrors. But my fellow opera-school students had made it really quite jolly with photographs and good-luck cards, and the bulbs round the mirrors were sufficiently reminiscent of my safe world at the opera house to calm me a little. Dressing-tables ran around the walls; I’d been given one at the back by the fire exit.

Helen was not there yet. Nobody was there. I breathed in the smell of dressing room – surprisingly familiar – and felt my heart slow down a notch. If I could stay here, stay hidden in this womb-like –

‘SALLY!’ It was Violet Elphinstone. She was wearing extremely tight shiny jeans and a loose-fitting top with expensive leather sleeves. She was also wearing glasses, which made her look ready for action. Ready for work. Ready for sex.

You’ll spot the stars of the school straight away
, one of the opera singers at work had warned me.
They know they’re the best. If you’re lucky, they’ll be nice. If not … Good luck
.

Violet Elphinstone knew very well that she was the star of the school. It would be impossible for a woman that attractive to be bad at anything.

‘Hullow,’ I heard myself say. During challenging times my Stourbridge accent was at its strongest.

Violet’s face cracked open in a big film-star smile.
‘Oooh, just love your accent,’ she said chummily. ‘It’s
fab
. Where are you from again?’

I started to reply but was cut short by a heavy pounding on the fire door next to me. I stared at it uncertainly. A drug addict? A murderer? My panicked, fractured brain believed anything was possible.

‘Open it, lovely,’ Violet prompted, sitting down. ‘It’ll be one of the girls.’ Violet had already been at the college for two years on the master’s course and she knew how everything worked. On Monday she had laughed at me for sitting at a table in a corner of the canteen when, apparently, as a singer I must
never
sit
anywhere
other than the Singers’ Table.

I duly opened the fire door and was immediately assaulted by loud screams and the thundering of boots. ‘BABY!’

‘VIOLET!’

‘EEEEEEEK!’

‘OH, MY GOD, I MISSED YOU!’

There was a sizeable scrum of hugging, squealing women with Violet at its centre, screeching merrily. I stood at the periphery, bewildered.

The scrum continued; it started jumping up and down. Helen arrived through the main door. ‘Hi, ladies,’ she said calmly.

It wouldn’t have occurred to me to interrupt them. She must have been on the beta-blockers already.

The scrum began to fall apart. ‘Hello!’ one of the girls said warmly, dusting herself down and walking over to shake Helen’s hand. ‘I’m Ismene … Are you Sally Howlett?’

‘Hiya,’ Helen said, shaking Ismene’s hand. ‘No, I’m Helen Quinn. That’s Sally Howlett.’ She pointed at me.

Ismene swung round. ‘Oooh,’ she said, eyes wide with excitement. ‘Sally! I’ve been really excited about meeting you!’

I was surprised. Clearly Helen was, too, but her beta-blockered Calm Face registered amusement, not offence.

‘Thanks, Ismene. Um, I’ve been excited about meeting you too?’ I tried. I wasn’t sure what was going on here.

Ismene laughed me off. ‘Don’t be silly. You’re the big story,’ she told me conspiratorially. ‘Our big news. Apparently you’re absolutely
AMAZING
and you’ve never had a lesson in your life! Is that true?’

Helen started to snigger. I decided I liked Helen quite a lot.

‘Oh, that. Yes, it’s true,’ I said. ‘Not one single lesson I’m afraid.’ Helen had warned me on Monday that my training would be the first thing everyone would ask me about.
Where did you train, who with, what have you got coming up?

But Ismene loved my response, for some reason. As did the other girls in the gaggle. ‘OH, MY GOD!’ gasped one. ‘You’re like ALFIE!’ They told me about a now world-famous tenor who had arrived at the college with no training whatsoever, just several years’ experience as a car mechanic and an incredible voice. Now he flew first class all over the world, performing in concerts for extraordinarily large fees, and had women throwing roses at him from the stalls.

I found the story of Alfie to be in no way reassuring.
‘Alfie and I are
not
the same,’ I stated, rather forcefully. It was embarrassing to identify myself as an imposter at the college but I knew that it was important to fool nobody. ‘He might have an outstanding voice but I don’t. Honestly. I’m mediocre and rusty and untrained.’

‘How
fantastic
that they let you in without any training at all,’ Violet said. She had detached herself slightly from the rest of the group and was watching me with a smile that I didn’t like. ‘Good on them for taking such a huge gamble!’

She said it with excessive enthusiasm but I detected precious little sincerity. She knew I was a fat-arsed pretender. She knew I didn’t belong there.

But she was good. Oh, she was good. She was far too clever to try to freeze me out: instead she was going to
friend
me out.

‘They must have loved you, Sally!’ one of the other girls chipped in. ‘I heard they were unanimous about you! How fantastic!’

I realized that, once detached from Violet, these girls were actually rather nice. Unlike her they all looked genuinely thrilled to meet me, and they wasted no time in telling me the story of my auditions, overlapping excitedly.

‘Turned up to audition for the master’s course in February …’

‘… halfway through her second aria they stopped her …’

‘… couldn’t believe it! Apparently Hugo was speechless! Can you imagine Hugo speechless? How cool is that?’

‘… told her to leave immediately and come back to audition for the opera school diploma instead …’

‘… gave her a standing ovation …’

‘… begged her to take the place! On the DIPLOMA!
Even Nicole didn’t get a place on the diploma! They said the competition was the stiffest ever …’

‘… and yet she …’

‘… isn’t it
amazing
?’

‘… and now you’re here!’

They stood, beaming at me, waiting for me to deny it.

I couldn’t. It was all true. After weeks of intense inner battles once I’d returned from New York – full-scale warfare at times – I’d realized I had no option but to apply for the stupid course at the Royal College of Music. I had made a solemn promise to Fiona that I would, and even though it filled every cell of my body with terror – no, every last
atom
– I knew there was no alternative.

Brian, who started his job there soon after, was overjoyed. ‘They’ll snap you up,’ he’d told me, offering unlimited coaching for the auditions. I declined. It would be an absolute waste of time: I wouldn’t be able to breathe in a one-to-one lesson, let alone sing. My only hope was just to turn up with my favourite wardrobe arias, hoping I didn’t have a seizure and die.

I’d been confused by the bewildering array of courses on offer but Brian had told me I’d be best off auditioning for the master’s: I’d learn the basics there and it would feel far safer and easier than the college’s professional diploma at the opera school.

But it had all gone wrong. I’d been auditioned by three (admittedly pleasant) singing teachers, only to be stopped, told that I sounded ‘sublime’ and ordered to come back in a month for the opera school auditions instead. ‘But I’m not …
ready
,’ I whispered, remembering what Brian had said.

‘You’re ready,’ said Hugo, the head of the opera school. ‘Mark my words. I don’t know about you, ladies, but I feel this is a special moment.’

The ‘ladies’ had agreed. As had Fiona when I’d called her in New York. ‘SPESHUL!’ she’d yelled excitably, in a bad American accent. ‘VERY COCKING SPESHUL, Sally! You have to go back!’

I’d come back four weeks later and had had to audition for a panel of different people, including Brian.

It had been painful beyond any description. My entire face was shaking so badly that they’d had to give me special exercises to halt the shaking. After three arias, during which I’d all but blacked out, I was given a round of applause and told that I had been sensational.

They were wrong. All of them. Probably desperate for another Alfie story, I thought. I would make a great PR stunt. I had a broad Midlands drawl and a total void where there should have been years of school concerts, weekend workshops and minor opera festivals. I had never studied foreign languages so at best I had the vague gist of the words I was singing. I didn’t know those silly Italian musical terms either. I was a joke.

Which meant that, if the college had a secret admissions target for unknown-losers-come-good, I must be perfect. It probably also explained my two hefty scholarships, which covered all of my fees and a big chunk of my living expenses too.

‘Of course you got two scholarships, you wonderful clever girl,’ Fi had said, when I spoke to her. ‘Sally, this is meant to be!’

I didn’t agree.

‘Honestly, I’m not a great singer. I think they were all mad,’ I said to the girls in the dressing room. They laughed, told me not to be so modest and dispersed, pulling up chairs at their dressing-tables.

Helen, Violet and I were still standing. ‘Fair play to you, Sally,’ Helen said laconically. ‘You’ve got balls. I mean, you told me you had no experience but I didn’t realize you meant … well,
nothing
.’

Violet was smiling brightly. ‘You’re a brave little sausage,’ she said firmly.

Sausage?

‘I mean, I’d be terrified in your shoes! So much to learn, so little time …’ She shuddered in an affected show of respect for my bravery. ‘By the way, Sally, are you going to put yourself forward for the TV audition?’ she asked.

There was a new notice on the opera school board recruiting female sopranos. They needed a solo recording of the famous bit from
Prince Igor
for some TV advert – a ‘fantastic opportunity’ allegedly.

‘No!’ I laughed. I was determined to laugh when I was around Violet Elphinstone. It would be my armour. ‘No, I have a part-time job. I’ll be doing that for extra pennies.’

Violet raised an inquisitive eyebrow. ‘I’m a deputy wardrobe mistress,’ I said proudly. Just saying the words made me feel safer. ‘Well, I’ll be doing wardrobe assisting for now, because I can only do part-time hours … But, yeah, I work at the Royal Opera House. I’ve been there several years.’

‘Oooh, so you were trying to get in through the back door?’ she said conspiratorially. ‘You sly bugger!’

I stiffened.

‘I don’t think so,’ Helen said calmly. ‘Didn’t you just hear her story? She was dragged here kicking and screaming by the sound of it.’ She gave a definitive nod, as if to say the subject was now closed, then pulled up her chair, patting the dressing-table delightedly. ‘Yesss,’ she whispered to herself, already oblivious to Violet. ‘I’m here! At last!’

I definitely liked Helen. She was stout and cool and wore a battered leather jacket that, unlike Violet’s, didn’t look like it had cost two thousand pounds.

Violet laughed tinnily, not willing to be dismissed. ‘Well, you must really love your wardrobe job. Literally
everyone
else here subsidizes their studies by doing singing gigs. But
good on you
for wanting to do something different.’

I looked at her warily. Really?

‘You know, concerts, soirées, festivals, recordings … I suppose some of the less talented ones teach singing,’ she added vaguely, to distinguish herself from them.

I wasn’t just a fish out of water, I was a fish trying to live on Mars. It was hopeless.

I took a deep breath and sat down at my own dressing-table, trying to remember what I was doing.

Ah, procrastinating, that was it. My first singing lesson was in a few hours – directly after this stupid masterclass we all had to watch – and I’d come down here to try to get some beta-blockers.

‘Any chance of some drugs?’ I whispered to Helen, who was loading her locker with musical scores and libretti.

‘Not a chance on earth,’ she said spiritedly. ‘You’re obviously an operatic legend. As a lesser mortal I need them, Sally. I’ve only got enough to get me through the first couple of days. Hands off.’

‘Arggh,’ I said sadly. In desperation I tried to latch on to the conversation that Ismene and the others were having, rather than listen to my mad head. They were gossiping, it seemed, about a poo scandal.

‘Oh, do tell,’ I said timidly. ‘I like a good poo scandal.’

Delighted, Ismene explained that there was a mystery pooer at large. ‘We have our own bathroom,’ she said, gesturing towards another door. ‘It’s our own private one, just for us girls in this dressing room. And someone has taken it upon themselves to leave a massive log there every morning. They’re not even flushing it! It’s DISGUSTING!’