The Choir (32 page)

“We must all give ourselves time to recover from this business,” the dean said. “Your mother and I go to Scotland next week and Cosmo goes to Wales. For all our sakes, we should not see each other for a while—”

She spun round.

“I can’t come home?”

“Not for a while. A few months. Are you in financial difficulties?”

She blushed scarlet.

“No—”

“The weeks ahead are going to be hard ones for Aldminster and there will have to be changes. I have yet to speak to the bishop
and the archdeacon, yet to consider Leo Beckford’s position. But you must stay away. You have Fergus and Petra in London and you have work to do. The money you received for the imparting of information must be returned to the newspaper.”

Ianthe had a flash of spirit.

“May I not give it to the choir fund?”

“I believe,” the dean said, “the choir fund hardly needs it.”

He went towards the door. He longed to be gone, out of this room with its musty pseudo-Edwardian clutter, away from this headstrong child of his, whose present unhappiness seemed to him just a symptom of the self-indulgent volatility of her whole temperament, away from London. Ianthe gave an odd little whimper. The dean crossed the room and put his arm about her. His heart was as heavy as lead. He said, “God willing, this will all pass,” and then he kissed her briefly on the top of her head and went away to catch his train back to Aldminster.

“Any more grave faces round the close,” the bishop said, “and I shall want to skip into the cathedral wearing a false nose. May I come in for a moment?”

Leo, who was laughing, said of course and led the way into his sitting room. He indicated the bishop’s cassock.

“If you walked across the close to see me dressed like that, I should think curtains were twitching all the way.”

“I haven’t time to go back after seeing you and change for even-song. May I sit here? Now look, Leo, I’ve come to see you before the dean does. It isn’t strictly speaking, being chapter business, any of my concern, but humanly speaking it’s my concern all the way. I’m rather sorry that in the last few months, with all this coming to a head, you haven’t been to see me. There Janet and I were, worrying away about the choir, and all the time you were busy on quite another tack. I’d rather hoped, you see, that we had established some kind of trust—”

Leo looked affectionately at him.

“The other man I trust tried to stop me.”

“Alexander Troy?”

“Yes.”

“You know they
are
to be turned out of their house?”

“I do—”

“Another sorry muddle. Another good idea perverted by the motives of self-interest. But Leo, what troubles me is that your relationship with Sally Ashworth seems to have been so sudden, and of course I am deeply anxious that all the upheaval it is causing really is for something—”

“It is.”

The bishop took off his spectacles and swung them by one hinge.

“The impulses springing from loneliness are so powerful, as are those when our lives reach, as all lives must, some kind of plateau. Are you thinking of marriage?”

“And children,” Leo said.

The bishop put the earpiece of his spectacles between his teeth.

“
Social
orthodoxy never troubles me, as you know, only the helping of forces for good, be they traditional or progressive.”

“Sally and I will be a force for good. I thought at first that I was the one in greatest need, but I’ve come to think rather delightedly that it might be the other way about. In any case, there’s plenty of building to be done. I suppose you wouldn’t marry us?”

“There’s a
blessing
service—”

“No. No, marry us. Marry us properly.”

The bishop put on his spectacles and said thoughtfully, “In a year’s time, I might. If you think it’s really necessary. If it’s what you really want—”

Leo smiled.

“Is this some kind of test?”

The bishop looked up at the ceiling.

“Dear me, how suspicious you are.” He paused and then dropped his gaze directly on Leo. “I must say something else to you before I go, something that I don’t much want to say.” He leaned forward. “Leo, immense loss as you will be, you must resign from the cathedral before you are asked to do so.”

There was a pause.

“Is the dean going to ask me to resign?”

“I haven’t spoken to the dean, but I don’t think he has any option but to ask for your resignation. You would be doing both him and yourself a service if you were to take the initiative.”

“But—”

“The dean,” the bishop said firmly, “has more to bear than we know of. If anything is amiss with cathedral or close—and nothing ever is amiss without repercussions ripping out all over the diocese—the blame is laid at his door. I shouldn’t think there are many deans who have served their cathedrals as Hugh Cavendish has served Aldminster, and if it has brought him joy, it has also brought him suffering of which he has never complained. For his organist simply to make a quiet and dignified exit will mean much to him and to Aldminster and I think you underestimate how much he values your contribution.” He stood up. “I seem to be sounding rather pompous. I really only meant to say with as much affection and simplicity as I could manage that you must leave Aldminster but that one of my greatest friends, headmaster of a significant school in Sussex, is badly in need of a director of music. They are regular performers at the Brighton Festival, I gather.”

“And Sally?”

“The headmaster must be put entirely in the picture.”

“Thank you,” Leo said with energy.

The bishop waved a hand.

“Don’t. Absolutely don’t. Anything that gets this poor precious old ship back on an even keel is its own reward. Aren’t you playing for evensong?”

“No, it’s Martin—”

“Ah,” said the bishop. “Well, there we are. There’s
someone
who will benefit from all this—”

Alan stayed in his father’s spare bedroom for a week. It was a week he felt he never wished to repeat, from the wretched nights on the old Victorian boat bed that had belonged to his great-grandmother to the grim days when he felt he had sympathy from nobody. His father, though not actively unkind, made it plain that Alan was facing what had been inevitable for some years, inevitable because
of his and Sally’s choices. In this life, Frank said more than once, you can only reap where you have sown, and if you don’t like the harvest, it’s no good casting about for someone else to blame for it. When Alan went up to Blakeney Street to try and sort things out with Sally, and the interview disintegrated rapidly into accusation and acrimony, he resolved to take his father with him the next time. For both Alan and Sally, Frank’s bulk and impartiality were immensely comforting; for Henry they were a lifeline.

It was Frank who, without condoning what Sally was doing, or rebuking Alan further for what he had done, made it clear that there was no marriage left for either of them to build on. It was Frank who made solictors’ appointments for them both. It was Frank who took Henry off for hours on end and was just ordinary with him. On one walk they met Leo coming rapidly across the close, and to Henry’s relief and gratitude, neither his grandfather nor his future stepfather appeared to be anything other than normal. Leo came round to Blakeney Street later that day and Henry, who had said he wanted to do something in his room, sat on the stairs and heard Leo tell his mother that they were probably going to Sussex. Henry had only the haziest notion of where Sussex might be, but a very defined notion that he didn’t want to go there, wherever it was. He went down to the big room straightaway and said so.

“It’s a school,” Leo said, “with a strong choral tradition and a famous chapel. Why should that be so different to here?”

“Everywhere’s different to here. I don’t want it to be different.”

Sally said encouragingly, “It’s always difficult to imagine a kind of life that you aren’t living, but why shouldn’t another life be better?”

Henry thought.

“I don’t want it to be better or anything. I just don’t want it to be different from now.”

Leo had his arm round Sally. When Henry burst in, she had instinctively tried to move away but he had held her firmly.

“The thing is, Henry, that I have to leave Aldminster.”

“Why—”

“Because there has been a lot of rubbishy publicity about Aldminster
recently, including that bit in the paper about my marrying your mother. It’s bad for the cathedral and the close if I stay—”

Henry said rudely, “Don’t get married then.”

“For whose sake?”

Henry went over to the dresser and kicked at the bottom of the doors for a bit.

“I don’t see the
point
—”

Sally said, “Of course you don’t. But you will, in time.”

“Why do I have to go to Sussex?”

“Because we are going and you must live with us until you are older. Then you can live where you like.”

Henry’s throat was suddenly thick with angry tears.

“Why does all this have to happen? Why can’t we just do what we were doing?”

“Because,” Leo said, “human beings never stand still, and nor do their relationships. They either develop or die. Look at you and Hooper, hardly speaking a year ago and now best mates. That’s change. It may change again, and if it does, you won’t die of it. All your father and mother and I are doing is changing, but as we are adults, it makes bigger waves.”

Henry shouted, “I’m not going to horrible Sussex!”

He stamped out of the room and went upstairs. He got out a drawing pad and his tin of paint sticks and wrote “NO NO NO” all over several sheets of paper in the most violent colours he could find. After a while his mother came up and said they were going out for half an hour, to walk, and did he want to come. He yelled no, he didn’t. After they had gone, he went downstairs to the television and the telephone rang.

“Is that Henry?”

“Yes—”

“It’s Nick Elliott.”

“Oh,” Henry said with warmth, “
hi
!”

“How are you doing?”

“OK—”

“Listen, I really rang to speak to your mum. Is she there?”

“No, she’s gone for a walk—”

“Well, I’ll tell you. How do you feel about making another record?”

“
Great
” Henry said, and then, remembering, “but I can’t. I’ve got to go to Sussex.”

“
Sussex
? Why on earth—”

“Mum and Mr. Beckford are going.”

There was a pause.

“Sorry,” Nicholas said, “I forgot.”

Henry was afraid he might be going to cry.

“Look,” Nicholas said, sensing it, “d’you want to talk?”

“I don’t know—”

“I know how you feel. My dad went off when I was five and I only ever had my mum and she’s a nutter. Tell you what, I’ll come down. I’ll come down on Saturday. We’ll go and have a pizza. OK?”

“Thanks,” Henry said.

“Want some good news?”

“Yes—”

“You’ve sold, in England and Europe, one hundred and fifty thousand copies.”

“Wow—”

“Pity they won’t let you give any interviews.”

“Well, I’m a chorister, you see, I’m a chorister really.”

“You hold on to that,” Nicholas said. “That’ll get you through. I’ll see you Saturday.”

Nicholas took Henry to the pizza place where Ianthe had taken him three months before. Henry had the Super Special and a tall glass of Coca-Cola with a blob of ice cream in it, and Nicholas thought for the thousandth time how amazing it was to have money in his pocket that he had earned and that was entirely his own to spend. They talked mostly about the choir, and Nicholas told Henry how he had nearly died of envy that morning, coming into the cathedral and hearing them singing “Tu es Petrus” and Henry remembered coming down the steps and finding him, because Harrison had swiped him with a flute case and his leg really hurt. They did imitations of Leo—“Now keep that note really
clean
to the end,” “Come on, you little horror, open, open,
open
”—and compared
memories of choir outings and Henry said they were going to Norway next term and then he remembered about Sussex and for the first time he looked terribly depressed.

“Don’t go. Don’t go to Sussex. If you stay here you’ll be head chorister in under two years.”

“I’ve
got
to—”

“Why?”

“Because of Mum and Mr. Beckford.”

“You could board at school.”

“Yes,” Henry said dejectedly.

“Come on—”

“None of my friends do.”

“You’d make new friends.”

“I don’t want
anything
new,” Henry said.

“Look,” Nicholas said, “the most important thing is the choir. Right? You can’t leave that. But if you’re going to stay in it, you’ll have to think of some other way of staying in Aldminster. Boarding isn’t too awful, and then you could spend the holidays with your mother and Mr. Beckford.”

Henry looked unconvinced.

“What about your father?” Nicholas said.

“He’s going back to Saudi Arabia soon. That’s where his job is.”

“Oh. Well you can’t live with him
there
—”

“I don’t think he likes being in Aldminster much.”

“But he’s your dad—”

“Oh yes—” Henry looked away.

“When I have kids, I’m going to stay right with them.”

Henry said nothing. Nicholas summoned the waitress for the bill, and went over to the cash desk to pay. Henry stayed on his chair and felt very full. When Nicholas came back he said, “That was
superb
. Thanks a lot.”

Nicholas walked him home. He very much wanted to put in a word for Leo, but there didn’t seem to be the right moment, with Henry in the mood he remembered all too well himself feeling, that the world was deliberately trying to make you miserable. Instead, as they went along Blakeney Street, he said that the only way to
feel better was to make something happen that you wanted, and he knew he was a fine one to talk but he was convinced it was true all the same.

“Like what?”

“Well, you want to stay in Aldminster so you’ve got to make that happen.”

Henry went into the house and found his mother and his grandfather sitting at the big table, talking about him. In case they had been planning something while he was out, he thought he had better remind them that he wasn’t going to Sussex.