The Orphan Choir (10 page)

We parents are waiting for our sons again. Joseph and the other choristers and probationers are getting changed out of their cassocks and surplices, into what they call their ‘play clothes’. It’s another part of the routine that I resent. What does it matter what they’re wearing? Give them to us, O Lord, for ten minutes longer.

‘I’m not sure I can eat this lunch again,’ I complain to Alexis, whose one useful characteristic is that if you feel like bitching about something, she usually joins in enthusiastically.

‘It’s Groundhog Lunch,’ she says. Dr Freeman is chortling loudly on the other side of the room, through his Groundhog Beard. A circle of parents has gathered round him. It includes my treacherous husband.

‘Next time, I’m going to bring my own supplies from the Botanic Gardens café,’ I tell Alexis as I pick up a vol-au-vent I have no appetite for and put it on my plate.

‘You don’t like it there, do you?’ She wrinkles her nose.

‘I love it. I go most days for lunch. The food’s really different, in a good way. Last time I went, I had sweet potato and cottage cheese salad – it was delicious.’

‘If you say so. Sounds gross to me. You’re making me like the look of those chicken legs a whole lot more.’ She laughs, picks one up with a paper napkin and starts to nibble at it.

I ought to drop the subject, but I can’t resist saying, ‘The Botanics café also does soup, pork pie, lovely cakes – do you like any of those? And you can sit and eat with a fantastic view of beautiful gardens. You like gardens, don’t you?’

‘I can look at my own garden for free, thank you very much. Four quid a time, just to get through the gates, when it used to be free? No, thanks.’

Alexis is as predictable as Saviour’s buffets. She can’t admit that the Botanic Gardens have anything worthwhile to offer because they’re in Cambridge. Also counting against them is their proximity to my house and to my office, which reminds Alexis, presumably, that she’s stuck out in Orwell, miles from where she and her husband work, at KPMG. Coincidentally, that’s also very close to the Botanic Gardens: just across Hills Road.

‘She’d be a lot happier if she just admitted she’d love to live in Cambridge but can’t afford to,’ Stuart has said more than once. ‘You should tell her.’

‘Here are the boys!’ a female voice calls out, and then they flood in, running towards their parents. All over the room, small arms fling themselves round waists. Not Joseph’s; he’s heading for the buffet, shouting, ‘Hi, Mum! Hi, Dad!’ with his eyes on the cocktail sausages. I walk over to him and give him a big hug, hardly able to bear the joy and pain that spring up inside me: the way each recoils like the head of a snake as it senses the presence of the other and prepares to fight to the death, having forgotten that this always ends the same way; the winner is always the same – less deserving but stronger.

Does it ever get any easier? I could ask some of the older choristers’ mothers, but I’m afraid to, in case they look puzzled and say, ‘Why, are you finding it difficult?’ and make me feel like a freak.

Perhaps Stuart’s right. Perhaps I’m too invested in Joseph, too dependent on him. Except, in my defence, I’m sure I wouldn’t be if only I had the standard eighteen years in which to learn to let go. No one warned me I’d have to do it in seven.

‘You were brilliant, darling,’ I say, holding on to him. He wriggles free. I never used to do this: crush him against my body at every opportunity and keep
him there too long, so that he feels he has to escape. Saviour College School has created the problem of my clinginess; this time last year, it didn’t exist.

‘You always say I’m brilliant, Mum. Because you’re my mum.’ He seems fine. Happy. Exactly as he used to be. No harm has come to him. That’s good; I can use it to console myself later, when he’s gone.

‘You’re always brilliant, that’s why,’ I say. All around me, I hear parents saying the same thing to their sons. I wonder how many of them have wished for sudden tone-deafness to put an end to the brilliance. None as acutely as I have, I’m sure.

‘Mum, you know you said I wasn’t allowed to have high-tops?’

‘What?’

Joseph grabs a handful of small sausages and tries to put them all in his mouth at once. One falls to the floor. I cover it with my foot and crush it into the carpet.

‘Mum!’ Joseph chastises me, looking left and right to check no one noticed. ‘And you and Dad were talking during the service! I saw you.’

‘Sorry,’ I say.

‘I’ll let you off if you buy me some high-tops,’ he says hopefully.

‘What are they?’

‘You know, those trainers I wanted from Sports
Direct – you said you’d read somewhere that they’re bad for your feet or your ankles? Well, they’re not. Louis wears high-tops all the time and he says it’s not true. I’ve seen his feet and ankles and there’s nothing wrong with them.’ Louis is Donna McSorley’s son. Like Joseph, he’s a junior probationer.

It would be too easy to say, ‘There’s nothing wrong with his feet and ankles
yet
, but you watch – he’s sure to be disfigured in later life because he wore the wrong trainers.’ I don’t know if there’s anything dangerous about high-tops and I never did; I added a half-remembered rumour about the lace-up knee-length boots I wore as a teenage Goth to my desire to leave Sports Direct as soon as possible; the ankle-and-foot-damage line was what I came up with. I can’t admit this, so I say, ‘You can probably have some high-tops, yes. Maybe for Christmas.’

‘Really?’ Joseph looks astonished. ‘Epic!’

‘What’s epic?’ Stuart asks, joining us. He ruffles Joseph’s hair: a typical ‘affectionate father’ gesture that could have come from a manual. I want a demonstration of my husband’s passionate love for our son, not something that looks as if it’s been inspired by a building society advertisement.

Alexis Grant tugs at my sleeve. ‘You’re number nineteen Weldon Road, aren’t you?’ she says.

‘No. Seventeen. Why?’

She taps the screen of her iPhone. ‘Christmas card list,’ she says.

I don’t believe her. If she wanted to send me a Christmas card she could hand it to me after a choir service any time between now and 25 December.

‘Well, if you’re delivering by hand, there’s no number on the door. Just look for the dirtiest, most pollution-stained house on the street.’

She perks up like a dog at the mention of walkies, eager to hear me list more of my house’s faults.

‘Still, not for long.’ I proceed swiftly to my punch-line: ‘We’ve having the brickwork cleaned, starting a week tomorrow. It’ll look amazing once that’s done.’

‘My mum says I can have some high-tops for Christmas,’ Joseph tells Nathan and another boy who has wandered over: Sebby, I think. I don’t know his surname.

‘Epic,’ they both say in unison. Then Sebby turns to Nathan and says, ‘Jinx padlock!’

‘You’ve been padlocked,’ Joseph tells Nathan, as if this is something serious and final that cannot be revoked.

My son has become bilingual in the languages of school and home.

I see Dr Freeman approaching and feel my skeleton stiffen, as if its hardness can protect me from the inside. Instead of saying, ‘Hello, Mrs Beeston,’ or
‘Hi, Louise,’ he says, ‘And here’s Joseph’s mum,’ as he sidles up to me. I would so love to reply, ‘And here’s Joseph’s choirmaster.’

‘The boys did well this morning,’ I say instead.

‘Didn’t they?’ Dr Freeman beams. ‘I think it was the best service so far this term. They’ve made amazing progress in only a few weeks – it’s incredible, actually.’

I wouldn’t go that far. They sang a few songs. Nicely. How hard can it be?

‘Our junior probationers are quick learners this year. It makes a big difference. Joseph’s coming on in leaps and bounds.’

‘That’s great to hear,’ Stuart gushes. ‘Working hard, is he?’

‘I could probably work harder,’ Joseph says.

‘He’s extremely committed,’ says Dr Freeman, and my son looks relieved. ‘All the new boys are. It’s wonderful. Don’t let all this praise go to your head, young man.’ He pats Joseph on the shoulder, then turns to me. ‘I know it’s hard for parents at first, but I hope you can see there’s no need to worry, Mrs Beeston. Joseph’s blossoming.’

‘Yes, he seems …’ This is the most I can manage, and it nearly chokes me. It will have to do. In order to avoid looking at Dr Freeman, I turn to my left and stare at Alexis’s back instead. She’s talking to
the organ scholar, Tobias, about something he has applied for or is about to apply for.

Blossoming
. He could have said ‘getting along fine’ or ‘settling in nicely’, but he chose to say ‘blossoming’ instead: a word that brings to mind a flower suddenly bathed in light and water, with plenty of room to grow after years of confinement in suboptimal conditions. The arrogance takes my breath away.

‘Oh, I can Google it for you,’ Alexis says to Tobias. Before she has a chance to key anything in, I see the screen of her phone over her shoulder. On it is my address, the price Stuart and I paid for our house and the purchase date. I read the line beneath and see that number 27 Weldon Road sold in November 2011 for £989,950. To the Shamirs. It doesn’t say that on Alexis’s phone, but I know Salma Shamir; we go to the same yoga class.

It takes me a few seconds, but I get there in the end: a sold-house prices website. I’ve heard about them, but never seen one before.

I tap Alexis on the shoulder blade and she turns round. ‘We’d have gone up to one point five million if we’d had to,’ I say in a matey, confiding voice, nodding at her phone’s screen. Since she seems at a loss for words, I help her out by saying, ‘In your shoes, I’d still send me a Christmas card, however embarrassing it might be. Not sending one’d be worse.’

I turn back to Dr Freeman and Stuart, who are talking about a national classical composition prize for under-twelves. Joseph, Nathan and Sebby have wandered off to the far end of the buffet table where the cakes are. I wait for a gap in the conversation and say, ‘I’ve been thinking about the boarding thing.’

Stuart widens his eyes at me: a clear ‘Stop’ signal.

‘The boarding requirement. For choristers,’ I clarify.

‘Yes.’ Dr Freeman looks solemn. ‘I know you had your reservations when we spoke in the summer –’

‘Only that it’s taken to such an extreme. I don’t mind the idea of boarding per se, but I was wondering – would it be possible to consider a minor modification to the system, to reflect more of a balance?’ I smile brightly. Stuart will tell me later that I wasted my breath and made a fool of myself; I ought to know that no aspect of the Saviour College choirboy routine has changed since the early 1700s. I should infer from this, as everyone else seems to, that it never will.

‘Balance?’ says Dr Freeman. The expression on his face – one of genuine open-minded enquiry – is flawless. From years of practice, no doubt. I can’t believe I’m the first mother to suggest change, or complain.

‘Yes, between the school’s need to have the boys
on site as much as possible and the need for them to have a proper home life,’ I say. ‘I mean, what if during term time they boarded for four nights a week and lived at home for three, for example? They could still have choir practice four out of seven mornings before school – mightn’t that be enough?’

‘Ah. Oh, dear.’ Dr Freeman smiles sympathetically. ‘I’m sorry if you’re finding it hard to adjust to Joseph not being at home. It really will get easier, you know.’

‘Yes, but one way to make it easier would be to change the rules, wouldn’t it?’ I say. ‘Just because something’s always been done one way—’

‘We believe it’s for a sound reason, Mrs Beeston. The choirboys have so much on their plates – so much more than our non-chorister pupils, probably double the workload. It just wouldn’t be feasible for them to be ferried back and forth from home to school every day, I’m afraid –’

‘I didn’t say every day –’

‘It would be so disruptive.’

‘What about five, two then? Five nights at school, two at home.’

‘They need the boys living at school during term time, Lou,’ Stuart intervenes. ‘Otherwise they wouldn’t make it a requirement.’

‘I accept that you and Dr Freeman think that, darling, and that you might be right and I might be
wrong,’ I say in a Sunday-best voice that I’ve never used before. Nor have I ever called Stuart ‘darling’, nor sided against him with people who are trying to steal his child for no good reason. ‘What I’m asking is – is it possible to get this on to some kind of … school agenda, so that it can be debated by everyone with a stake, including the parents and the boys? If I’m outvoted, I’ll concede defeat, but I think it’s something that ought to be reviewed.’

‘Mrs Beeston, I really wouldn’t want to raise your hopes –’

‘You haven’t. And I’m sure you won’t.’

‘Give it a few more weeks. I’d be very surprised if you didn’t feel happier by then.’

‘You’re misunderstanding me. You don’t need to worry about my emotional state – that’s my responsibility, not yours.’

‘Lou, for God’s sake. I’m sorry, Dr Freeman.’

‘For what?’ I ask. ‘Taking the Lord’s name in vain, or me asking a reasonable question?’

‘It’s quite all right, Mr Beeston. No need to apologise.’

‘It’s a simple procedural question, Dr Freeman. How would I go about raising this as a topic for discussion, so that opinions can be solicited from all the appropriate parties?’

‘There’s always Jesus College,’ Alexis suggests from
behind me. ‘The Jesus choristers all live at home.’

I didn’t realise she was listening.

Everyone is listening.

‘It’s not the same,’ says a mother whose name I don’t know. She sounds nervous. ‘They don’t get the same fully rounded experience. Nipping to choir a few times a week’s not the same.’

Dr Freeman says, ‘Jesus has an excellent choir. Of course, I think ours is far superior, but then I’m biased.’ He chuckles. ‘Now, parents, do come and help yourselves to more food before your sons eat it all.’

Please, sir, can we have some more?
As Oliver Twist might have said. He was a boarder.

The five or six faces that looked anxious a few seconds ago have reverted to bland, smiling normality; Dr Freeman made a couple of light-hearted remarks and now all is right in the world of the choir mothers once again.