Mercy (17 page)

I bet she did
, I think grimly. What can I do but nod my head tightly?

My answer secured, the man finally lets go of me and sails ahead to the podium, crying, ‘Let’s mix it up this morning, people! We’ve got one more week after today to knock this thing on the head!’ As he says this, he shoots me a conspiratorial wink. It doesn’t go unnoticed.

‘You’re so
two-faced
,’ Tiffany hisses angrily, before turning a cold shoulder on me.

Conditions in the rehearsal space are almost as arctic, and the prospect of having to enter this room and start all over again the following Monday makes even me groan out loud.

Mr Masson continues, deliberately upbeat. ‘Today, Miss Dustin and I will take the general chorus ladies

— choirs one and two — in the assembly hall.’ The

‘ladies’ in question roll their eyes and bitch loudly among themselves. ‘Mr Barry and Miss Fellows will take the general chorus men in the seniors’ rec room.’

‘Over my dead body!’ snorts one wag loudly, to accompanying laughter.

193

‘
I solisti
,’ Mr Masson says in a hammy Italian accent, ignoring the joker with a fixed smile, ‘will have some special one-on-one time with Mr Stenborg. He’s had a few good ideas about how to sharpen up the boys’

entry into Figure 30. You have to admit it’s still pretty sloppy. I’ve asked him to work on individual entries and exits with each of you.’

‘Spencer, Spencer, Spencer,’ someone interjects, to more laughter.

I scan the room and pick out Spencer easily in the thin line-up of tenors. He’s blushing a fiery red as usual, and dressed again like a mail-order-catalogue model, which does him no favours.

Mr Masson frowns. ‘Now, now, we’re not singling out anybody for punishment here. From where I’m standing,
everyone
could use a little work. Carmen excepted, of course.’

He beams again my way when he says this, the stupid idiot, and plenty of people begin to whisper, craning their necks to see my reaction.

‘She’s been note perfect and unimpeachable since she “rediscovered” her groove,’ he says, ‘which is more than I can say about the rest of you.’

His tone is light, to keep the sting out of his words, 194

but Tiffany flushes an unbecoming maroon, because, let’s face it, she’s been right on the money, too. Only no one’s noticed lately, and that’s got to be a first for her.

‘Crush alert,’ someone hisses maliciously behind me, and people around me roll their eyes and laugh.

The expression on my face doesn’t change. I don’t even turn around. Because, unlike the real Carmen, I don’t care what people think.

‘Soloists, follow Paul, if you please,’ Gerard Masson finishes. He stumbles slightly against the microphone as he steps away from the conductor’s podium, but only I seem to notice it.

Tiffany’s the first to her feet, hugging her music to her chest and chatting animatedly to Paul Stenborg’s clean, Nordic profile before the rest of us have even gathered our things. The seven of us follow the handsome choirmaster into the same room the sopranos occupied the day before, and draw up seats close around the piano — Tiffany front and centre as usual; me out on the margin, nearest the door; Spencer settling in shyly beside me.

He raises his eyebrows wordlessly as if to say:
Here
we go again
. I return the gesture.

I’ll have to get to Gerard Masson during one of my 195

‘special’ rehearsals. It will almost be worth being stuck in a practice room with the guy just to know for sure.

196

‘Now, isn’t this cosy?’ says Paul Stenborg gravely, but with a twinkle in his eyes, as he plays a loud piano chord with a flourish and turns half-around on the piano stool to face us, sunlight glinting off his steel frames, his artfully tousled hair.

He works patiently on the entry to Figure 30 with the boys, drilling them on their individual weaknesses, before attending to the handful of entries that are led off by a bass or an alto.

‘
Lumen accende sensibus
,’ — kindle our senses with light — he sings at one point,
shadowing Delia note for note during a difficult passage around Figure 33.

I sit straighter in astonishment. His voice is like liquid 197

amber
—
light, pure, supple. Itself wholly remarkable and more beautiful by far than Delia’s pedestrian instrument.

A countertenor’s voice, an angel’s voice, a complete show stopper. The man is a mystery box. Clearly, more than just great window dressing. I wonder again how he could be content with all … this.

‘
Amorem cordibus
,’ he corrects Spencer gently a moment later, rolling his
R
s extravagantly. ‘Your vowels are far too flat. This is a
romance
language, Spencer Grady. The mother of all romance languages. The phrase is literally begging you to put some
heart
into it.’

He laughs at his little joke. Only I get it.

Strangely, Paul does not look my way all morning.

Instead, he’s incredibly attentive to Tiffany, the other girls; at times, he’s even almost kind to Spencer, who hardly wriggles in the seat beside me. It’s like I’m invisible again. Is he
angry
with me? I can’t catch and hold Paul’s gaze, and I’m intrigued, almost piqued.

Maybe he means for me to be. Whatever, I’m happy to play along. It’s giving me time to think. I don’t enjoy being the centre of attention, never have. Though I can handle it. There’s a distinct difference.

‘Time’s almost up, children,’ Paul says eventually, swinging across the back of the piano seat to face us.

198

‘I know that some of you are interested in pursuing a career on the stage beyond high school, and are
more
than competent to do so …’ He looks directly at Tiffany and Delia and smiles. And the girls — cast-iron bitches both — actually blush with pleasure. ‘So since that’s the case,’ he adds, turning back to face the keyboard,

‘let’s see how much of our good work this morning has actually sunk in. I’m going to take it from the top and you’re really going to have to keep up. The weak
will
fall by the wayside,’ he warns with a soft laugh. ‘And there will be no mercy.’

I flinch at the word.

Flinch again as Paul strikes the first chord of the piano accompaniment. He’s true to his promise, working his way through the piece at a flying tempo, only stopping occasionally to beat in Tiffany, Delia, Spencer, the other two boys, with his right hand while his left continues to dance across the keyboard.

He doesn’t extend me the same courtesy, merely barking ‘Figure 7’, ‘Figure 10’, ‘Figure 12’ and so forth whenever a phrase begins with my part, the First Soprano. There is no let-up, no time to breathe, and even
I’m
being taxed to my limits.

‘Good,’ he mutters from time to time, head bent 199

over the keyboard. ‘Good.’

It’s Mahler on speed. And it’s great that I know the music sideways, because I need to. The others — save for Tiffany, who sees only what she wants to see, hears only what she wants to hear — follow our interplay with uneasy awe, turn the pages furiously, struggle to keep time, maintain focus, especially in the places where I am absent from the score.

Near the end, near my last crazed
Gloria
around Figure 91, even Tiffany’s about to break down, has a suspicious sheen in her eyes as Paul roars at her, ‘Double
forte
, girl. This is no time to run out of steam. Do that in concert at Carnegie Hall and you — will — never —

work —
again
.’

The final
Patri
— Father — rips through the room, all nine bars of it, and when we’re done, breathing heavily like we’ve just run the race of our lives, we look at each other in amazement. Spencer wipes his mouth with the back of one pudgy hand, Tiffany’s face is high with colour and Delia is audibly puffing.

‘Now
that’s
a rehearsal,’ Paul grins, slamming his score shut with satisfaction. ‘Let’s head back to the others now and give them hell.’

A little shakily, we rise from our seats, clutching 200

our music. I’m about to lead everyone from the room when Paul says quietly, almost as an afterthought, the question in danger of being lost in the scrape of chairs being pushed back, ‘Carmen? A word. Walk with me?’

Tiffany shoots me a hard look and sweeps out of the room, Delia at her side, Spencer glances back at me and Paul a little uncertainly as we trail the group back to the assembly hall.

‘I’ll admit, I wasn’t pleased at the way Gerard singled you out at the beginning of the rehearsal,’ Paul says, his voice pitched so that only he and I can hear.

‘He’s always been guilty of playing favourites a little too much. It causes … talk.’

I look at him enquiringly, sure Lauren was one of those favourites.

‘It’s unprofessional,’ he continues grimly. ‘And I don’t agree with his approach. Jealousies inevitably arise. But in any case,
that
, my girl,’ he smiles at me for the first time that morning, ‘was another test. And you performed
beautifully
. Those two,’ his voice is slightly scornful as he inclines his golden head at Tiffany’s back, Delia’s, ‘are mere cattle. Ordinary. But you …’

He breaks into a grin of open approval, a light flush high on his extraordinary cheekbones.

201

‘I wouldn’t say Tiffany’s exactly … ordinary,’ I cut in, keen to hurry him along. My thoughts are on Gerard Masson. If I have to rote learn a freakin’ Christmas carol to get inside the man’s head, so be it.

Groups of boys from the male chorus begin to filter into the hallway around us and Paul Stenborg drops his voice a notch lower. ‘She’s nothing,’ he insists.

‘Powerful, yes, I’ll give her that. But shrill. Not enough staying power. Good for the opera chorus at most.
You
, however, have what it takes to sing anything, anywhere.

I’ve only encountered a voice like yours a couple of times before in my career, and in my opinion — and I will tell Gerard this; he’s asked my views on the subject already — you far outshine them. You are, in a word,
superlative
, my dear. You should never let someone like Tiffany get to you. There’s simply no contest.’

‘Oh?’ I say, and feel a sudden twinge of discomfort.

Carmen? Can you hear this?

‘Gerard was right, you know.’ My gaze shoots back to Paul’s animated face at the mention of the man’s name again. ‘That mad, breakneck version of Mahler back there?
He
ordered me to force your hand this morning

— and I have to say that you more than exceeded our expectations! He’s going to be very excited about what 202

we’ve achieved this morning. Very excited indeed. Says he has great plans for you.’

Gerard Masson’s been laying unspoken traps for me? Formulating secret agendas? All this just makes me quicken my step towards the assembly hall. I have to get to him. I have to know.

Beside me, Paul lengthens his stride, keeping up easily as he confides, ‘Genuine talent like yours is truly, incredibly
rare
.’ My eyes flash to the back of Spencer’s head at the words, but he doesn’t hear or look my way.

‘If you say so,’ I reply as we turn the corner, the corridor suddenly full of students headed the way we are.

There’s that weird feeling again, like a stitch in my side, and I can almost hear Carmen begging me not to stuff this up for her, not to sell her too short in my quest to find Lauren. For an instant, I’m torn. Lauren first? Or Carmen? Who was I sent here to help?

Paul places a hand on my sleeve, which makes me look down in surprise. I’d almost forgotten he was there.

‘Do you want to grab a coffee after today’s rehearsal? I can give you some pointers on how to handle Gerard —

who can be a little … insistent,’ he says delicately. ‘Perhaps go over some of your career options? I have contacts —

203

better than any Gerard may offer you.’

When I don’t respond, he says a little more sharply,

‘I don’t think you’re really hearing me …’

And it’s true. I’m no longer listening, suddenly can’t even hear what he’s saying, because I’ve just caught sight of Ryan standing beside the entrance to the assembly hall. His eyes telling me that he needs me.

Paul makes a small noise of surprise, or protest, as I take Carmen’s sleeve out of his grasp.

People stare as I push through the crowded corridor in Ryan’s direction. I hear the whispers: ‘What’s
he
doing here?’ ‘When’s the last time anyone saw
him
at school?’

I put my hands on his shirtsleeves in concern. I can tell from his face something has happened. There’s a look in his eyes I haven’t seen there before. Like the death of hope. Something fatal to his resolve.

Plenty of people are taken aback at my familiarity, and heads swivel so fast in our direction that there’s a real risk of a general case of whiplash. It’s more reason for people to talk about Carmen, about him, but I don’t care. Seeing him like this has done something funny to my heart.

‘What’s happened?’ I say breathlessly. ‘Have they 204

found her?’

My touch seems to bring his splintering gaze back into focus, his eyes so dark I can’t see his pupils. Shock.

He shakes his head, his long, dark fringe falling over his eyes.

‘No,’ he says, and his voice sounds strange, remote.

‘But someone else just got taken. In Little Falls. It’s leading all the local news bulletins. She was a singer, too, a soprano. A little older. All the hallmarks of Lauren’s abduction. Happened over the weekend — they were trying to keep it quiet but the media got wind of it.

Almost two years to the day. The media are already linking them together. You were right about that part, the singing thing. I shouldn’t have set so much store by a stupid … dream.’ He swallows hard.