The Orphan Choir (22 page)

‘You need to apologise to Bethan,’ he says, resting his head in his hands as if his neck can’t
bear its weight any more. He’s sitting on the floor of our bedroom, leaning against the closed balcony doors. I’m on the edge of the bed, my bare feet touching the floor, like a hospital patient who hasn’t walked unaided for a long time. Joseph is at the Welsh boy’s house: a temporary evacuee, sharing a normal morning with a normal family, or so Stuart hopes. ‘Sooner rather than later, ideally,’ he says, but I’ve lost the thread and can’t pin down what he means. ‘I can’t believe you swore at her, Lou. Poor old harmless Bethan!’

Right. Bethan.

‘I know,’ I say. ‘I’ll go round and see her. She’ll understand.’

Stuart laughs bitterly. ‘If she does, can you ask her if she’d mind explaining it to me?’

‘I’ll tell her the truth – I’ve no idea what came over me. Only that … it was something bad.’ Our shared experience was worse for me than it was for Bethan. Can I risk telling her that without causing offence? Probably not. ‘I’m not even …’ I break off.

‘What?’

‘I couldn’t swear that her radio was playing “Don’t Stop Me Now”. Maybe it was a different song playing, not the one I heard. Maybe she didn’t have a radio on at all! Look, I don’t know, okay? Don’t recoil! None of this is my fault! When things happen
that you think can’t happen, you start to wonder about everything. I’ll go and grovel to Bethan and sort it out. I’ll take her a bottle of wine.’

‘Don’t. Any wine we’ve got, I’m going to need.’

I look at him to see if he’s joking. He isn’t.

‘Stuart?’

‘Mm?’

‘Do you believe in premonitions?’

‘No.’

‘I mean … not seeing exactly what’s going to happen in the future or anything like that, but … some kind of warning?’

‘No,’ he says flatly. ‘I believe you’re cracking up. That’s what I believe. We need to get you back to Cambridge, soon as possible, and—’

‘No!’ The threat of a premature return to our Cambridge life helps me to focus. ‘Stuart, do you want me not to be mad any more? Do you want things to be like they were before? Before Joseph started at Saviour?’

‘Yes. If they can be.’ His voice is full of fear: fear of the wrong thing.

‘They can,’ I say with certainty. ‘But … how much do you want them to? Would you give
anything
?’

Silence for a few seconds.

‘Yes.’

‘Then listen to me now, do what I say, and I
promise you – I swear on all our lives – things will go back to normal.’

‘Lou, you’re not well enough to—’

‘Listen.’ I speak over him. ‘We need to take Joseph out of that school and out of the choir. If we do that, everything will be fine. If we don’t, we’ll die.’

Stuart starts to cry. ‘My God, Lou. Listen to yourself.’

‘I’m sorry. I know it isn’t pleasant to hear, but it’s the truth.’

‘We’ll
die
? What, all three of us?’

I expected him to ask me how I know, what happened to make me believe this. I’m glad he hasn’t; I wouldn’t have told him. The less I say, the better. There’s only one detail that matters anyway: the danger we must do everything to avoid. Heeding the warning.

‘No, not Joseph,’ I say. ‘Joseph will live, and Alfie Speake will live, and George Fairclough and Lucinda Price, and whatever her brother’s called, but you and I will die. So will other choir parents. Perhaps all of them.’ I can’t work out if it’s all or only most. I didn’t see Nathan Grant, Alexis’s son, in the Orphan Choir. I don’t think I saw Donna McSorley’s son Louis either.

Stuart stands up, wipes his tears away with his hands. ‘I won’t listen to this rubbish,’ he says. ‘You don’t know what you’re saying.’

‘Yes, I do. I know exactly what I’m saying. Agree to Joseph leaving Saviour or else I’ll leave you today and take him with me, and never come back. Agree to him leaving and I’ll do whatever you want – see a shrink for the rest of my life if you think I need to.’ I have a better idea: more selfless. Nobler. ‘Or you keep Joseph, lock me away in a secure unit for nutters and find yourself a new wife – anything, as long as you agree to take him out of that school.’ I would give up everything, even my son, to save him from becoming an orphan.

‘Jesus, Lou. How can you—’

‘Say yes and I
promise
you, Stuart, everything will be fine.’ I have to make him agree. ‘Look, what if we just try it? You heard what Dr Freeman said about Joseph, how brilliantly talented he is – he’d have him back like a shot, any time. If I’m wrong, if we take him out of Saviour and I’m still mad two weeks later, I’ll never ask for anything again, but …
please
, just do what I ask, just this once.’

Silence stretches across the room between us. ‘You’re right,’ Stuart says eventually. ‘Dr Freeman would take Joseph back. Even if he left.’

‘Then you agree?’ I need to hear him say it. I can’t allow myself to hope until I have.

‘Not because I share your ridiculous paranoia that’s based on nothing.’

It wasn’t nothing. Yesterday’s visitation wasn’t nothing.

‘I’ll go along with your plan because I’m desperate,’ Stuart says.

As desperate as I am. Finally. Thank God.

‘That’s the only reason. I want you back – the old you. If there’s even a tiny chance …’ He shakes his head sadly.

‘Wait and see,’ I tell him. ‘You won’t regret it. You’ll get the old me back.’

‘I’m not sure I will – not so easily. I don’t want to lie to you, Lou. Or mislead you, even. You need to know that I think you’re in pretty serious trouble. Mentally. All right, Joseph boarding might have sparked it off, but I can’t believe it doesn’t go quite a bit deeper.’

‘Wait and see, Stuart. I promise you – let me take Joseph out of Saviour and I’ll be fine. We’ll all be fine.’

‘All right, then, here’s the deal,’ he says. ‘When does next term begin?’

How can he not know the date? Saviour’s calendar is pinned up on the kitchen noticeboard at Weldon Road; it’s burned into my brain: the day Dr Freeman will reclaim my son if I don’t stop him.

‘January the ninth,’ I say, scared again. Why is Stuart trying to offer me a deal when he’s only just agreed to mine? I don’t want to talk about this any more. I have
things to do, important things. I have to apologise to Bethan, then ring round other Cambridge schools and choirs to see which have places for Joseph.

‘If you still feel the same way on January the eighth, I won’t argue with you,’ Stuart says. ‘We’ll take Joseph out of Saviour, no questions asked. But in the meantime … we go to this extra Choral Evensong as planned. He does the Christmas Day service.’

‘No! He leaves now – we email Dr Freeman today.’

‘Lou, that’s not fair. We’re surely not going to die between now and Christmas Day?’ Stuart attempts a laugh. It comes out as a bark.

But he’s right: the danger is in February, not between now and Christmas. The first danger, anyway. Unless I’m wrong.

I don’t think I am.

Can I risk it?
No. I don’t want to
.

Stuart sits down on the bed beside me and takes my hand in both of his. Feeling the warmth of his skin, I am suddenly aware of how cold I am. ‘Lou,’ he says. ‘Our son was picked from hundreds of boys to be a member of Saviour College choir. That was and is an amazing achievement.’

‘I know.’

‘I’d like him to do one Christmas service as a Saviour chorister. Please. I tell you what – on Boxing Day, if you haven’t changed your mind, I’ll ring Dr
Freeman and tell him Joseph’s leaving. First thing Boxing Day.’

No. Absolutely not.

‘You have my solemn promise. But … please let him do these last two services. Let’s hear him sing with his choir a couple more times. I’ve been looking forward to it.’

I nod. ‘Okay. If it’s so important to you.’
No, no, no. On no account
.

Between now and Friday, I must find a way to stop this from happening and still get what I want. I’ll think of something; I have to. I can’t let Joseph do Choral Evensong. Or the service on Christmas morning. I can’t let him anywhere near Saviour’s choir ever again.

‘Thank you, Lou.’

As Stuart kisses my forehead, I wonder if I could make him too ill to travel on Friday without doing him any serious harm. I would never dream of doing that to Joseph, but to Stuart … maybe.

Bethan’s square wooden house turns out not to be called The Cube but The Hush. ‘I thought of the name myself,’ she says proudly as she puts the kettle on to make us both a coffee. Her kitchen/dining/
living area is open-plan, like The Boundary’s, and colour-coordinated to within an inch of its life – depressingly so. The cushions are the same yellow as the kettle and the mugs; the coasters, throws and rugs all contain yellow, beige and green, which are also the colours of the bland abstract prints on the walls.

‘Normally new homeowners pick a house name from the estate’s list, but you can choose your own if you want, as long as the board approves it. The Hush went through with no hassle – they only really object if someone wants to use something that’s not in keeping with the ethos and atmosphere of Swallowfield. Once we had a chap who applied for permission to use the name This Is My Smallest House.’ Bethan giggles. ‘He meant it in a tongue-in-cheek way, but the board thought some people might take offence. It was one of the biggest houses he was buying, and other homeowners might have thought he was boasting.’

I wonder if I should interrupt her flow, try again to apologise. I tried as soon as she opened the door, several times, but she wouldn’t let me. ‘Let’s put it behind us and move on,’ she insisted, beaming at me. ‘I could tell you weren’t yourself yesterday.’

I’m grateful for her willingness to let bygones be bygones, but also suspicious of it. Why won’t she let me explain even a little bit? Has she really cast it
from her mind as if it never happened? How can she have? If someone I knew who had previously always been friendly and polite suddenly swore at me for no reason, I’m pretty sure I’d want to hear what they had to say about it afterwards.

Perhaps Bethan’s cheery banter is a cover for embarrassment: she doesn’t want to get into a heavy or awkward conversation. Which would be fair enough. She hardly knows me, really.

‘The Hush is the perfect name for this house,’ she says. ‘It’s
so
quiet. I mean, the whole of Swallowfield’s quiet, obviously, but here you literally don’t even hear another voice from one day to the next. That’s why I sometimes have the radio up quite loud – there’s no danger of anyone being disturbed by it. Apart from you, no one’s ever wandered over here before. I don’t know how you managed to find it – it’s really tucked away, on the far side of Starling Copse. Most of our homeowners don’t know this little area exists. To be honest, the board kind of made that a condition when I told them I wanted to buy.’

She brings our coffees over to the lounge part of the room, hands me mine. I expect her to sit opposite me in one of the two armchairs, but instead she sits beside me on the sofa. A strange choice; now I will have to move either my head or my body in order to
see her. She’s wearing too much perfume. It smells the way fruit with far too much sugar on it would taste. I wonder if she’s one of those women who gets all drunk and giggly on nights out and then expects other women to share a toilet cubicle with her as a sign of close friendship.

‘When I first started here as sales director, I never for one minute imagined I’d end up buying a house,’ she says. ‘I couldn’t afford it, to be honest, not even one of the apartments over by the main playground, but then I fell head-over-heels in love with the place. I had to buy a house here, I
yearned
to. So we did.’ She smiles, but not happily. There’s a sadness in her voice too. ‘We sold our house in Rawndesley – downsized to a two-bedroom flat. It’s a bit poky, but I’ve never regretted it.’

Then why do you sound as if you do?

‘Swallowfield had to come first.’ Bethan nods as if to assure herself that she’s right. ‘If you’ve got two homes, it makes sense to have the best one in your favourite place, like my husband said at the time. And how could Swallowfield not be anybody’s favourite place? It’s like paradise, isn’t it?’

It wasn’t like paradise yesterday
. I’m starting to feel as if I might have to leave in a hurry. Normally I can handle small talk as well as the next person, but today it feels almost negligent to be indulging in it. I’m not
sure I can fight the rising tide of everything I’m not saying for much longer.

‘Trouble is, it’s obviously a bit funny for one of the Swallowfield sales team to be a homeowner too – bit of a conflict of interests, maybe?’ Bethan prattles on. ‘That was the board’s worry. They didn’t want to lose me as sales director, though – not to blow my own trumpet, but I’m pretty good at my job – so they offered to build me a house miles away from any other homeowners, at a knock-down price, and here we are! The Hush.’ She looks admiringly around her own lounge. ‘I was amazingly lucky. But, much as I’d love to rave about my lovely home at Swallowfield when I’m showing prospective buyers round, the board asked me not to. That’s why I didn’t say anything to you about living here. I think they think … well, I’ve got my own island, haven’t I? I can hardly say, “Sorry, none of the other properties have got that, only mine.” The sort of people who come here wouldn’t take kindly to a sales pitch from someone with a better second home than she’s offering them. Not that the other houses aren’t just as special in their own way,’ Bethan adds quickly as she realises what she’s said and how I might take it. She pats my arm. ‘Yours is particularly lovely – I’ve always thought that.’