The Square (27 page)

Everyone leans forward to listen as Bach’s creamy composition rolls out around the park, the wrestling arpeggios and runs of notes held together by the contrapuntal beat which overarches the composition like some sort of godly heart. On and on she goes. Jane watches Jay smiling fondly at her. Her stomach twists.

He’s so proud of her, she thinks with dreadful malice.

She’s so average.

Alright, she can play the violin, but so what? She’s fat. And old.

Beside Jay, Brian smiles proudly too. He nudges Belle, who is sitting next to him.

“She’s brilliant, your mum,” whispers Belle.

Brian responds by holding her hand.

The notes are running inexorably to their final position. Harriet is in the home strait. She knows it. The audience knows it. Alan knows it. He grasps the microphone, ready to leap in and thank her when he is distracted by a terrible commotion at the gate.

“Yeah but we want to take part, right? Is our money not good enough for youse then?”

Everyone abandons their focus on Harriet, and Bach, and turns round to see what is going on. A huge man with a bull terrier on a chain beside him is standing squarely in the gateway, and shouting at Jane.

Harriet continues with the coda.

“We’ve got talents, you know!” continues the man. “Ain’t we, Jacky?”

“Yeah!” shouts a young woman.

The man shoulders his way past Jane, ignoring her completely.

“Come on everyone.”

Jane hovers beside the gate, her arms flapping uselessly by her side, her mouth open in astonishment as she sees no-one other than the vicar himself, the vicar! Leading a group of people, no, she calls it a
posse
of… dreadful people, the people who live in the council estate nearby, walking as bold as brass into what she, this evening, has started to refer to as the ‘auditorium’.

They are dressed in sleeveless vests, tracksuit bottoms and trainers. Some are wearing football shirts. The children have aggressively short hair. Most of them have earrings. And tattoos. And giant golden chains. There are at least three dogs.

Jane is caught between standing her ground scornfully and heartily wishing she could sink into the ground and disappear.

The vicar waves his fingers in a conciliatory gesture to the astonished gathering who have, by now, completely forgotten about Harriet and her Bach piece.

Belle, hating herself for doing it, and Brian, are sniggering into their hands.

“Wot you find so fuckin funny, then?” shouts the woman called Jacky as she walks past.

They immediately drop their smiles.

“Nothing,” whispers Belle.

She turns round properly and sees Jas. Thank God.

“Jas!” shouts Belle.

He waves, pleased to see her.

“Oh, Belle, hi, there you are.”

He hurries up, pushing a smaller boy in the back.

“Go on Javi, Mum says she’ll catch up with you.”

Javi wanders away, unconvinced.

“What the hell is going on?” says Belle. “They ruined Harriet’s piece.”

“S’alright,” says Jas. “Once everyone has sat down, it’s alright. Just making sure nothing’s going to kick off. But I’ve got to go.”

“What? Why? You’ve only just arrived!”

She is conscious of wanting to uncouple herself from Brian, who is sitting closely beside her. She turns her back on him to face Jas.

“Where are you going?”

“Got to collect Gilda, haven’t I?”

Gilda. Oh, God. Belle had completely forgotten that Gilda was planning to do something at the Talent Show. What had she said she wanted to do, was it sing something? Russian folk? Belle couldn’t remember, feels a stab of guilt that she had never discussed it, as she said she would, with her mother.

She looks helplessly at Jas’ retreating back.

His mother, Brenda, comes running up through the lines of chairs.

“Sorry, sorry. Ooh, Belle, hello! So nice to see you.” She grabs Javi, the younger child, by the hand and takes her place with the rest of the recently arrived group.

Harriet finishes her piece. The front row clap with their hands up by their faces, as if to make up for the fact that everyone else has forgotten about her.

“Good evening,” intones the vicar. “So sorry we are so late. Gathered some people from my community project who would like to join in, hope that’s alright.”

“What community project might that be?” says Larry to Tracey.

“Who knows?” replies Tracey.

The council estate group sit squarely on the left hand side, dragging spare chairs around from the back so that they can be together, maintain their physical unity.

Alan Makin smiles at them in what he hopes is a welcoming manner.

Then one of the women shouts out.

“Ain’t you that chap off the telly?! Nobody told us there’s celebrities here! Hello! Hey! You’re much thinner than you look on the box! Are you doing autographs after?”

Alan’s expression changes immediately. He cocks his head towards her, delighted.

“Yes I will be doing autographs,” his voice booms over the park.

“Oh, Christ, sorry,” he says, switching the microphone off. “Yes, I will be doing autographs.” There is already a small commotion in front of Alan Makin of people doing selfies with him in the background. Alan respectfully puts the microphone down and stands smiling as people crowd around him, their smartphones raised in totemic acknowledgement.

Jane has had enough. She marches up to Alan. She knew this should have been a private affair.

“Alan, please. We are in a public space so we will have to put up with this. But please, can we get on with our event. Poor Harriet.”

“Ah, yes, so sorry. Right. Where were we?”

“Harriet,” says Jane, icily.

Alan Makin regains his position at the front of the dais.

“Whoop whoop!” shout the newcomers. “Can I be on your show?” yells someone.

Jane turns, notices Roberta slip into the park. She waves a sheet of music at her.

Jane points theatrically to the house, where George is waiting. Roberta slips away again.

“Thank you so much, er, Harriet, for that wonderful piece and welcome to everyone who has just arrived. Now, who is next?” He glances down at the sheet.

Next on Jane’s programme is a modern dance piece by the Dance Ensemble from Grace’s school, The Prep. Oh, God. Alan Makin knows nothing about The Prep but correctly suspects that the troupe might be given short shrift by the newly augmented audience.

“Well, alright. Has anyone here got a piece?” he says, appealing to the new group who are sitting right beneath him.

What, thinks Jane, the hell is going on? She marches up to Alan.

“What are you doing?” she hisses. “There is a programme!”

Alan is aware of the entire crowd becoming restive. He carefully switches the microphone off.

“Look here, you stupid, stupid woman, these people want to take part! Can’t you see it?” he says to Jane. Jane gasps at him. But she leaves the podium.

“I had to be uncompromising to her,” he will explain later to Tracey.

Anyway, even if he had been paying attention to the small troupe of dancers from The Prep who were at that precise moment, shivering in their leotards behind the sheet, it would have been no good.

The large man who seemed to be the leader of the group has risen to his feet.

“Yeah, we’ve got stuff. We’ve got talent too, you know. Come on, Kylie,” he says, grasping the hand of a small girl dressed entirely in white.

Jane rolls her eyes theatrically.

“It’s hopeless,” she says sadly to Patrick, flopping down into her chair. She is furious at the way Alan Makin has talked to her, and a tiny bit ashamed. She should have invited those dreadful people, but she just couldn’t bear to. “It’s hopeless.”

She thinks about George and his piano piece with a sort of low level horror. Several women near her turn and smile sympathetically. Most, however, are loving the excitement and the combined frisson of jeopardy, class war and a possible fight.

“Most exciting thing that’s happened here for about a decade,” says Larry, to no-one in particular.

Kylie, a small child with furiously braided hair and a lot of blue eyeliner, takes the microphone.

“Mah baybeee luurves me!” she sings, both in key and a perfect mid Atlantic accent, into the microphone. “He lurrves me true!”

“Is this appropriate for a prepubescent child?!” sniffs Jane to Patrick, who is grinning and sitting forward in his chair.

“This is marvellous,” whispers Patrick back to her.

“Have you gone mad?” she says.

Kylie comes to the end of her piece. Her compatriots all stand up and cheer her madly. Brenda is grinning and waving at her.

“Well done babe!” she shouts.

“Thank you Kylie,” says Alan Makin grandly. “That was excellent.”

He gestures to the dancers. “And now, from The Prep, a piece of modern dance.”

Twelve girls in bare feet and lime-coloured leotards, each bearing wispy pieces of net, launch themselves out from behind the sheet to some music by Béla Bartók.

The middle class residents of the Square all sit watching the display and nodding their heads encouragingly. They would like to tap their feet, but the music doesn’t seem to have any reasonable sense of beat, so they just sit there, smiling and nodding.

After this, several non-problematic pieces are rolled out. A child does a bit of unconvincing magic; Grace sings a Robbie Williams standard, with recorded backing. Another person from the council estate group gets up and sings ‘When I Need You’, by Leo Sayer. The Single Mother shows how her dog, a large and friendly Labrador, can walk on its back legs. Everyone laughs.

Kylie’s father and some of his friends start smoking.

To Jane’s astonishment, the vicar takes one off him.

“May I?” says the vicar, reaching for a Benson & Hedges.

“Gwan then Rev,” says Kylie’s father genially. “Have a Bennie.”

Jane hears a commotion behind her, turns, and opens her mouth. No sound comes out of it.

The figures of Philip Burrell and Gilda are slowly walking up the path, accompanied by Jas, who is waving at Alan Makin.

“I think we have a last minute entry,” says Alan, who is enjoying himself hugely by now.

Jas detatches himself from Philip and Gilda, and walks up to Alan. He whispers in his ear.

The audience is transfixed by the figures of Philip, who is wearing a white boiler suit imprinted with the outline of a naked man, and Gilda, who is in her long gown with a train, caked in beads, sequins and glitter. On her head is a small crown.

Alan coughs.

“I would now like to introduce tonight’s surprise guests, our resident artists, Philip Burrell and Gilda.”

“Piss artists!” someone shouts from the audience.

“Sssh,” hisses someone else.

“Gilda is going to sing ‘It Don’t Mean A Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing’,” says Alan Makin, somewhat incredulously.

Belle ducks her head down and giggles. What happened to the Russian folk, she thinks.

“Which, as everyone probably knows, is by Irving Mills. Music by Duke Ellington and… er, Philip Burrell.”

He hands Gilda the microphone. She takes it in a jewelled hand and coughs loudly.

Philip, in the meantime, gets out his harmonica.

“No,” whispers Jane, shaking her head. “No, no. Please no.”

Patrick is enjoying himself hugely.

“Is this the sex-mad couple? I have to say, they certainly look as if they have talent. This is totally fucking brilliant.”

Foot tapping, Philip Burrell starts to play.

“What good is me-lo-dy,” starts Gilda, a mite huskily. “What good is mu-sic… if it ain’t po-ses-sin’ something sweet?”

Philip attacks the harmonica with gusto. Amazingly, he manages to hit the correct notes.

“It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing,” croons Gilda, swaying in her beaded carapace.

“Doo wha doowha, doowah, doowha… ”

The audience starts laughing, then clapping.

“That’s more like it,” shouts one of the men with the dogs, who, it turns out, is Jas’ uncle. Jas smiles, relaxes, gives a thumbs-up to Belle.

“Fucking hell!” says Larry to Tracey. “They’re not bad.”

The presence of Philip and Gilda, who lack allegiances both with the residents of the Square and the outsiders from the estate, seems to provide something which everyone can enjoy.

Gilda comes to her final, triumphant ‘Doowah’. Philip gives a trill on the harmonica. Everyone applauds, loudly.

Gilda bows deeply from the waist, throwing her head forward. Her crown bounces off her head, but Jas is there, gallantly picking it up and giving it to her once she regains her vertical position, somewhat dizzily.

She takes Philip’s arm, waves to her audience, walks regally with her lover back down the path and out of the park.

“Thank you, er, Gilda and Philip,” says Alan Makin faintly.

There is a commotion on the podium. What next, thinks Jane.

She doesn’t know if she can take many more surprises.

It’s Larry, setting up the projector. Oh, God. George. She has forgotten about her own son’s performance. He is there, walking solemnly beside Roberta through the park, spectral in his Storm Trooper uniform.

“And now,” says Alan Makin.

“In the spirit of George Lucas, I bring you the Square’s very own George.”

How could she have forgotten about him, thinks Jane. Thank God for Roberta. George marches up the aisle between the chairs in his outfit. He bears his gun aloft. He has his helmet jammed down over his head.

Jane’s friends clap softly.

“I fear the worst,” says Jane.

“Nah,” says Patrick. “He’ll be fine.”

As soon as he reaches the dais and clambers awkwardly on it, he turns around.

“May the force be with you,” a muffled voice comes out from under the helmet. The residents of the Square clap in a patronising manner.

However, Kylie’s father and friends go mad with enthusiastic cheering.

“Oh what the fuck!” shouts Jacky.

“Whoop whoop!” shouts the person who had shouted the same thing earlier.

George removes his helmet, which has the effect of making his hair rise above his head in a crested tuft. He sits down at the keyboard.