Only Strange People Go to Church (8 page)

Maria has arrived to hold auditions at the centre, euphemistically named Autumn House, run by the Elderly Forum. She curses herself for having forgotten her diary and with it the name of the woman she is to meet, Jean, is it? She’s met her before, several times, and can picture exactly what she looks like: a slim woman with white hair she wears in a ponytail. But she cannot remember her bloody name. Jean, or was it Betty?

‘Good afternoon,’ she says confidently to the aged yet fully made up receptionist. ‘I represent the Hexton Community Extravaganza. I have an appointment with Jean.’

All women in Hexton over the age of sixty are called Jean. There is the occasional Margaret or Betty but for the most part you can’t go wrong with Jean.

‘And you are?’ asks the receptionist somewhat imperiously.

‘Maria Whyte, Community Development.’

The snooty old bag is examining the appointments book, probably too vain to wear glasses, her nose almost touching the page. Maria tries to get a look at it upside down to see the name but the old dear is hogging it.

‘I’m afraid I don’t have a Jean.’

‘You’re joking! This place is heaving with Jeans, surely.’

The receptionist smiles and shakes her head, ‘Not on this list.’

‘Margaret? Betty?’

Another gleeful smirk from the receptionist.

‘I’m sorry, no.’

‘D’you have my name in your book?’

‘Eh…’

The receptionist goes back to studying the appointments diary.

‘Oh yes, we have you down, don’t worry.’

‘And is there a name beside mine?’

Again she studies.

‘Yes.’

‘And that name is?’

‘Alice. Alice Boyd. Alice is the centre’s Events Co-ordinator.’

Alice. How could she have forgotten that? Gallus Alice. Gallus is a word more often used to describe a cheeky sassy teenager. This is obviously where her memory device has let her down. As gallus as Alice undoubtedly is, she’s no teenager.

‘In that case may I speak with Gall… with Alice Boyd please?’

‘Certainly Miss, just one moment.’

‘You’re new, aren’t you?’ asks Maria, intent on reporting such incompetence up the line management.

‘Yes, I am!’ says the delighted receptionist. ‘Jean’s away, Jean McGowan that is, to her sister’s funeral. I’m filling in.’

‘I see, and what’s your name?’

‘It’s Jean, Jean Scott, pleased to meet you.’

Alice Boyd, in full Tiller Girl costume, is a strikingly glamorous figure. It turns out that not only is she the centre’s Event Co-ordinator but she’s also the founder and leading light of the Golden Belles, an all-singing, all-dancing entertainment troupe who tour elderly day centres.

‘The audiences aren’t great,’ Alice tells Maria, leading her out to the centre’s memorial garden and smoking area, ‘God love them, most of them don’t know their own name.’

Alice has to be in her sixties, maybe older, yet she wears bright red lipstick and smokes menthol fags. Her white hair is scraped back into a high ponytail, which is surprisingly long and thick. She’s a bit skinny but she has fantastic legs and despite the damage years of smoking has obviously done to her skin, her wide cheekbones support a strikingly chiselled nose and jawline.

Back inside Autumn House, The Golden Belles are first to try out. They are, unfortunately, brimming with talent, as are most of the other acts. The Glee Club ensemble and a rather charming
magician with rabbits are the ones that stand out. Maria wonders how the hell she’s going to fit them all in.

‘The big problem is rehearsal space,’ she tells Alice when the auditions are over. Autumn House has loads of under-used space, but Alice doesn’t take the bait.

‘Forget it. I can’t offer you space here. The committee won’t wear it.’

Maria is used to knockbacks, she’s not giving up that easily.

‘It’s frustrating. There’s so much talent in Hexton, loads of good singers and of course, the Golden Belles. Your act is bound to steal the show. It’ll probably be the headline act.’

Alice is apparently not susceptible to flattery or the veiled bribe of top billing.

‘We have our own space here,’ she says. ‘We can rehearse till the cows come home; it’s your other acts that need it. We can’t have them here, not after the business with the bliddy shitty nappy.’

Maria can’t argue with the shitty nappy and would prefer not to dwell on it, so now she tries pleading.

‘It’s so sad that we have all this talent without the available resources to nurture it.’

The Golden Belle remains unmoved.

Mention the kiddies. All old ladies love kiddies.

‘It’s the kiddies I feel for,’ says Maria, ‘the wee souls, singing their hearts out.’

Alice doesn’t flinch. The woman must have a heart of stone.

Time to apply a little more leverage. Alice made a tactical error earlier when she admitted her dissatisfaction with the elderly day centre circuit. She’s hungry for larger, more appreciative audiences. Maria’s only hope now is to exploit this.

‘I just don’t know what we’re going to do,’ she says ingenuously.

Now that they have retired, the Age Forum members no longer practice their crafts as plumbers and teachers and bakers. They no longer command respect for their knowledge, wisdom and experience. They shuffle to and from the Post Office, invisible to all except themselves, gradually fading in the community memory
and consciousness as their bodies fade towards death. They have lost the attention of everyone younger than themselves.

Maria can’t look Alice in the face with what she’s about to say but for the good of the community, the whole community, she must say it.

‘If I can’t find anywhere I’ll have to cancel the show.’

‘So cancel,’ says Alice, shrugging her shoulders.

This afternoon pensioners have queued patiently for hours in the corridor in full make-up and costume waiting to audition. They want this show to happen, they want it bad, Alice and the Golden Belles want it most of all.

‘You don’t really want that to happen, do you Alice?’

‘No, and neither do you, so don’t try blackmail with me, dear. It won’t work.’

Maria is stuck for a comeback. There doesn’t seem to be anything left to say, she’s tried everything: brought out her big guns, threatened to cancel and still Alice won’t relent.

‘You’ll find somewhere else,’ says Alice, softer now. ‘Have you tried the church?’

‘You mean the Victory Mission?’

‘No, I mean the church, the old church.’

‘But it’s closed. It’s been closed for years.’

‘Well it’s open now, not as a church mind you. A joiner has taken it over; he’s making furniture in it. He might let you use it for your rehearsal, he’s a nice guy, and he could maybe do with the company. Ray, his name is. You should pop yourself round there and see him.’

Maria feels a bit self-conscious standing here. It seems a strange thing to do, knock on the door of a church. But then again, if what Alice says is true, it’s not a church anymore. It must be the same person, the guy in the van asking directions to the church, his name was Ray and it’s the same van parked outside. He was rather tasty she seems to remember.

Even from the outside this place is depressing. The perimeter fence has all but disappeared; all that remains are stumps of wall and a few rotting fence posts. The gravestones have either fallen or sunk. Those left standing lurch at odd angles, too tired and beaten to remain erect, too worn out to fight the neglect and moss that is slowly burying them. Clearly nobody looks after the graves. There are no urns or vases for fresh flowers. The only vessels are discarded Buckfast bottles and empty Coke cans, their lettering faded to pink.

She’s chapping pretty loudly, leaving intervals between each insistent knock but no one is answering. Perhaps she should just go in. There is a piece of paper stuck on the noticeboard but the rain has got to it and the ink has run. She can just make out the bottom line:
come away in.

I now find an excellent rehearsal space, Maria incants, I now find an excellent rehearsal space, I now find an excellent rehearsal space. She’s meditated on it several times now and each time, despite her knowledge of Hexton’s very limited resources, she becomes clearer in her mind as to what she needs and more confident that she’s going to find it. The heavy church door creaks open easily, invitingly, like the creaky old door in a horror movie. And there is something else like a horror movie: music. There appears, by
the sounds of it, to be a full choir and orchestra performing in the church. The music is beautiful but it’s frightening. She can’t make out what they are singing but it’s heavyhearted, sombre, funereal. Maria stops in her tracks. Has she got it wrong?

Is there a funeral on in here? This place has lain empty for years, how can that be? Has she somehow got caught in a time warp? Preparing to be met by a dance macabre at a phantom funeral, she puts her hand to her chest and creeps in.

The place is empty. There is no choir, no orchestra, there are no dancing skeletons or ghosts. There is a lot of wood strewn around the place and two massive stereo speakers. It’s a recording. But who’s playing it? There’s no one here. A door in the back corridor of the church is open and from there, above the sounds of the boneshaking music, a voice is calling.

‘Hello!’

‘Hello?’ Maria replies.

It’s a narrow stairway and so she shouts up the way, reasoning that the voice must have come from there.

‘Up here!’

She quickly scoots up the stairs away from the ghostly dirge towards the live human voice. It must be the joiner. The music doesn’t get further away, if anything it gets louder and clearer as it’s funnelled up the tapering space. Thick dusty ropes run up the centre of the stairwell and as she reaches the top she sees that the ropes are attached to large metal bells. At the top there is a small open door and Maria has to duck to pass through it. A one-eyed hunchbacked midget meets her.

‘The bells made me deaf, you know!’ the midget slavers in her face.

Maria screams.

She staggers back towards the open door. The midget suddenly transforms himself into a normal looking man, Ray, the man who asked for directions.

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.’

Ray’s laughing.

‘I was only joking, the hunchback of Notre Dame, d’you get it?’

By way of demonstration he leans forward and hunches his back, closes one eye and screws his face up.

Maria’s heart is pounding, she is confused and the sudden reappearance of the gargoyle frightens her all over again. Instinctively she backs away from him but as she does so he lunges towards her. Now he’s Ray again but he has a look of intensity on his face that is worrying.

‘Careful!’

He grabs both her arms and pulls her towards him. Maria is about to be raped by a split personality hunchback/normal guy on top of a church bell tower for all of Hexton to see. Fleetingly she wonders at the chances of a woman who has had no male attention for so long being sexually harassed in two separate incidents in the same month. As she considers this she becomes aware that her left foot is no longer making contact with solid ground. She turns to see that on this side of the tower there is no guardrail or barrier, nothing to stop her falling, and she is close, too close, to the edge.

It turns out that Ray’s not trying to assault her; he’s trying to save her.

Given that her left foot is dangling 150 feet in the air, her initial reluctance to be taken into his arms has turned into enthusiasm. She throws herself towards him and clings on for dear life.

‘I’ve got you, you’re okay,’ he says. He has stopped being the hunchback.

‘Let’s get you down out of here.’

He leads her to the doorway to the stairs but she is fearful of letting go of him.

‘Okay, we’ll go together,’ he says softly. ‘That’s it, take it slow, you’re fine.’

When they reach the bottom and re-enter the church the music is still booming. He gently lowers Maria on to a pew and then goes to turn the music down. He doesn’t turn it off. He returns to squat low beside her, his face close to hers. She can smell tobacco off him. He’s chuckling again.

‘I’m really sorry, I shouldn’t have called you up there. I thought it was the lads. I was just going to show them the view. And the hunchback thing, it was really stupid, I’m sorry,’ he says.

But he’s still laughing.

Maria would like to slap him. The hand that she has clasped to her chest is itching to smack the stupid grin off his face.

‘It’s Maria, isn’t it? We met the other day when you and your friends gave me directions, do you remember?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘And I’m Ray.’

Ray holds out his hand and smiles. Maria hesitates, a formal handshake seems strange now after she’s wrapped her body so tightly around him two minutes ago on the belltower but she puts her hand out warily. It strikes her that perhaps he thinks she’s mentally disabled too; it wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened. She makes a point of never correcting people.

‘Can I get you some tea? What do you take in it?’

‘Black and weak, please.’

By the time he returns with two steaming mugs Maria has gathered her thoughts and got her breath back. The guy’s an arse, no doubt about it, but he does have a church.

For the sake of the show, and the community, she’ll put her feelings to one side. Nelson approves, he’s big on personal sacrifice, she can feel him with her on this. She’ll be the bigger person; she’ll be calm and polite.

‘Thank you,’ she says, ‘And don’t worry about it, really, it’s okay.’

‘Thanks,’ he says.

He’s obviously relieved, and so he should be.

‘I’m from Community Development. I’m organising a community show.’

Ray stands up and hits his forehead with a noisy slap, the fright from which almost makes Maria spill her tea. Her nerves are in tatters.

‘Right! Maria, Community Development! Sorry, I’ve got it now. Alice said you might come round.’

‘Really?’

‘She says I’ve to give you the church hall for your show, your rehearsals and that. I’ve looked out a set of keys for you.’

Ray goes to a toolbox beside a workbench and returns with a set of keys.

‘There you go,’ he says, handing them to Maria.

This isn’t right. This is too easy.

‘I’m afraid we don’t have any budget so we wouldn’t be able to pay for the hire of the hall.’

‘Don’t be daft, it’s free.’

There must be a catch.

‘Are you sure?’

‘No bother. I’m getting the whole place free off the council, it’s not costing me anything.’

‘I’m not sure exactly when we would need it, rehearsals might be at awkward times.’

‘Well, you’ve got your keys, come any time you like. I’m here most of the time, anyway.’

‘But the rehearsals will be noisy, we wouldn’t want to disrupt your work; maybe we should organise a rehearsal rota?’

‘I like it noisy; it’s good to have a bit of life about the place. If it gets too bad, I’ll just drown you out with my Mozart.’

He’s smiling. Maria reciprocates but she’s confused. Her instinct is to smile, he doesn’t seem such a bad guy really. But why would he give her the free run of the place? He doesn’t even know her. People don’t just do things like this. Unless they’re up to something.

‘I’m afraid as we’ll be working with children there are certain forms you’ll have to fill in. Sorry about this but they just need to know that you…’

‘That I’m not a criminal or a paedophile. Aye, fair enough, absolutely.’

Ray’s turning out to be actually quite a nice person. And not bad looking, too.

‘Okay, I’ll come clean,’ he says with a big smile.

Maria smiles.

‘I’m an axe murderer.’

Her smile is fading when he follows this up.

‘But I’ve given up murdering axes. It’s just no fun anymore.’

Ray hangs his head, smirking, a naughty boy expression on his face. She can’t decide whether to laugh or smash his nose. An involuntary snort breaks from her throat and she gives herself up to laughter.

As their laughter subsides Ray produces a tobacco tin from his back pocket and offers her a roll-up.

‘No, thank you.’

He knows that she’s a non-smoker but still he lights his cigarette in front of her. Not only that but as he proffered the cigarette
she noticed that he has a big gold band on his finger. A smoker and married. To disguise her disappointment Maria brings up the subject of his musical taste. He doesn’t seem like the type of person who likes Mozart.

‘So, Mozart, eh?’

Maria knows next to nothing about classical music.

‘Sorry, want me to change the CD? It is a bit heavy going, isn’t it? It’s the Requiem, not his cheeriest. Would you like me to put something else on?

‘Actually, do you have any Lady Gaga?’