January 19 – Monday
Tess walked towards Dr Kilker’s little car. It was too small for him, of course. Kilker was a bear of a man, with grey wiry hair and whiskers threatening to become sideburns. He was a tweedy, check-shirted barrel of a man. At six foot, he stood tall for his age, but then he wasn’t as old as he looked. Tess had to remind herself that he could not be more than sixty-five. He was the sort of man who would have smoked a pipe, but gave up in time to keep his lungs clear and his vices affable. He arrived three minutes early and honked his horn loudly; it was just to infuriate her, but she decided she would not rise to the bait. She had been waiting for him, if not exactly looking forward to his arrival; at least she was ready for whatever might lie ahead. She’d spent some time getting ready, because she had no idea where he was taking her. In the end, she settled on a suit she kept for best, its light blue might have brought her eyes up once, but these days that was by accident as much as by design. She’d smoothed down her hair, glad the bruising had subsided, and found herself arranging strands about her face to soften out the years. She’d spritzed just a hint of perfume on her wrists and felt she was as done as she’d been in many years.
‘I’m really not sure about this at all,’ she said as she got into the little car. ‘And what do I call you, I can’t keep calling you Dr Kilker.’
‘I’ll wager it’s a hell of a lot better than what you called me on New Year’s Eve.’ He laughed to himself and, somehow, when she caught his eye, perhaps she could see the funny side to his humour. ‘Anyway, how are you feeling?’
‘Well, there was nothing wrong with me that my own bed wouldn’t have sorted,’ she harrumphed, but caught his eye as he manoeuvred through the traffic. ‘My arm is fine, you’d never know there was a break at all.’
‘Yes, well, maybe there’s some things we won’t agree on. From here on in, I’m just Kilker, that’s what most people call me, okay, and very soon, even if you do decide to go tripping yourself up, I won’t be at the hospital to put you back together again anyway.’
‘Kilker?’
‘Yep, or plain old Doc.’ They drove on in silence for a little while, but it was not uncomfortable and Tess found herself relaxing in the warmth of the car’s soft leather seats. The radio played gently, it was tuned to a classical station, which surprised her a little. She would have assumed he’d be a news junkie or maybe a sports fanatic when it came to his car radio.
‘I still don’t know why we’re doing this,’ Tess said and it was true. They hardly knew each other and she had a feeling that she was more a cause of amusement to him than any kind of potential friend.
‘We’re doing this,’ he paused, ‘we’re doing this because I do it every week and I have a feeling that it’ll be good for you. I also know that if I invited you to come along without making it clear that I had every intention of blowing my horn until the cows come home, you wouldn’t come.’
‘And where exactly is here,’ she asked as he turned in towards the hospital and came to a jerking halt close to the little old chapel that hid in the grounds, far away from the comings and goings of the medical personnel. ‘You’re bringing me to church?’ she asked.
‘Not exactly,’ he said, flicking his key fob towards his car and jumping slightly when it clicked closed. ‘Yes and no.’ He steered her towards the grounds expertly as if chaperoning her from the night air.
In the darkness, she could just about make out the narrow path. Kilker hurried ahead of her as they came towards the main door and looked inside as though to confirm something.
‘Right, we’ll go this way,’ he said, leading her to the transept door.
He stood for a moment and it was the first time she thought she could see some indecision in those wily old eyes. In that moment, she heard beyond the door the sound of the choir starting up. First off, the organ and then, a hymn from her childhood that she could not name, but still the words as the soloist sang them came to Tess’s lips.
‘Shall we?’ He was smiling at her now, that familiar nonchalant confidence playing about his lips once more. ‘We can sit and listen, if you’d like.’
They stole unseen past the choir who were mostly concentrating on their music sheets. Tess picked out a seat in the dimly lit nave and eased herself down to listen. After a moment she closed her eyes, began to drift away on the hymns. For a long time she sat in complete blissful joy. In that symphonic cocoon, all was well in the world.
After the choir finished their practice, Kilker nudged her. ‘You asleep, Tess?’
‘No, I was just…’ Tess knew there were tears in her eyes, but it didn’t matter, it was emotion, a powerful awakening reaction the likes of which she hadn’t felt in years. She looked at him now and realised he had known, how had he known? ‘Thank you,’ she said and if she was a touchy-feely sort of person, she might have reached towards his arm, but she had a feeling he understood.
‘We should probably tell them how good they were, shouldn’t we?’ He winked at her and he was up and moving before she had a chance to argue.
‘Kilker?’ We wondered where you were,’ the choirmaster called to him when they approached. ‘And, hello?’ He held his hand out towards Tess.
‘New recruit,’ Kilker said and he looked at Tess with something of a challenge in his eyes, so she couldn’t back out.
‘Well, maybe.’ Tess stumbled over the words. ‘You’re very good, I’m not sure I…’
‘There’s only one way to know. I’m Barry, by the way, and we’re on the lookout for a mezzo-soprano, so if that’s your range we’d be delighted to have you.’ He was smiling now in a way that Tess found almost infectious.
‘Well, I don’t know. I mean, I haven’t sung for years,’ Tess said and she smiled back at him, a real smile that came from inside, not something forced. Suddenly she felt a warm blush spill into her cheeks and she felt no older than a foolish teenager. Then, she realised, they were both smiling and no one was speaking.
‘Pearl,’ Kilker called to an elderly woman seated at an electric organ. ‘Tess here is going to give us a few bars; we’re hoping she’ll be our new mezzo.’
‘Oh, yes?’ Pearl cupped her ear and Tess had a feeling that she might be a little deaf. It might turn out to be no harm if they were all a little deaf, should she start to sing.
‘Come on, Tess, no time like the present, up you go.’ Kilker slapped her cordially on the back, but she knew he was pushing her forward. ‘You must remember some hymns from way back,’ he was goading her, insinuating that she was as old as Pearl. ‘What about “Amazing Grace”, sure everyone knows “Amazing Grace”,’ Kilker pressed her towards the lectern before she really knew what was happening.
‘Well, that’d be just grand,’ Barry was saying and he dropped his baton then handed her the sheet music and words to the hymn.
It all happened so quickly, Tess didn’t have time to back out. One moment she was sitting invisibly in a pew and the next she was standing at a lectern looking out on the darkened church, punctuated by a line of expectant expressions. When this was over, she reasoned, she had grounds to murder Dr Kilker.
‘Right, off we go so,’ Kilker said and he moved back towards the pews.
Tess cleared her throat a little, it felt strange to be standing here, strange to think that she would be making any sound above a whisper. Then she heard Pearl, at her back, finger out the opening notes and knew in one awful, terrifying moment that it was her turn to sing. She looked down at Barry and took a deep breath. Then she opened her mouth and… nothing. There was no sound. Nothing at all. Not even a bark. Mind you, she hadn’t sung in decades. What did she expect?
‘Nerves, it’s all right. Take your time,’ Barry was saying and she didn’t want to go over and strike him on the head with his baton. ‘Let’s go again.’ He signalled to Pearl and once more Tess heard the opening bars of ‘Amazing Grace’ and she knew she desperately wanted to sing. She wanted to fill up this beautiful old church, hear her notes bounce off stone, timbers and mosaics that had stood for a couple of hundred years. She wanted to feel herself drift up to the rafters and float among the souls who’d passed through here. She wanted her voice to soar and make her feel alive as she once had.
All of a sudden, she was singing, shaky and thin at first, but then she closed her eyes for a moment, concentrated on where her voice was coming from. Soon, the tremble fell away; within a few bars she could feel the notes gathering substance and force. They were coming from deep within her, rallying momentum as her breath pushed them from the bottom of her lungs. It was incredible, liberating, she was at one with herself, and every corner of the old building was breathing with her, taking her in and pushing her notes higher up into the atrium. She could hear her words float away from her, could almost feel them touch Barry, then Kilker and finally Pearl on the organ, who smiled serenely as though it was the most beautiful sound she’d ever heard. She sang her way through the first verse, the second verse and was sad to come to an end, as though a part of her was going back to sleep. As she drew out the final notes, she closed her eyes again and the smile that came to her lips had, she knew, risen up from the deepest part of her heart. This was happiness.
The church was quite still when she opened her eyes. Along the wall to her left, she noticed a small movement and then she realised that some of the choir members had waited to hear her sing. From the pew before her, sitting at an angle, with his legs crossed jauntily, Kilker began to clap. Soon the choir joined in, then Barry and Pearl too. Tess felt that swell of emotion that had bubbled inside her from when she’d listened to the choir go through their hymns earlier and she knew she had found something. It was something that she hadn’t realised she was searching for, but here it was, all the time, snuggled right in the middle of the city and all she had to do was open her heart to it.
‘Well, Barry, I think we have our mezzo-soprano,’ Kilker said when everyone stopped clapping.
‘We do if you’re available to come along on Monday nights to practise,’ Barry said, confirming it with the nodding choir members gathered around the lectern.
‘Really,’ Tess said and she heard that distinctly un-Tess-like wobble in her voice, so she cleared her throat again. ‘I’d be delighted,’ she said and, truly, she was.
*
Kilker drove her back to the Square at half past ten. The conversation in the car had taken on a mellow, friendly tone and they spoke of music and nothing else for the journey. Grudgingly, she had to admit, he could be interesting when he wasn’t getting on her nerves. She was almost disappointed that the night was over when they pulled up at her front door and she got out of the car.
Matt was waiting patiently for Tess and so the niggling thoughts of Nancy and that card didn’t make her feel as empty as they might have once. An unfamiliar feeling of sanguinity, just for tonight, cushioned them. In spite of all the years convincing herself that she had cut all ties, it was so obvious now that they’d always been with her, a background air to her every move.
She poured herself a small nightcap and stood for a moment before the little card. She should call Nancy, it was a chance to make some move towards putting to rights all that had passed between them so very long ago. She really should, but sipping her drink, she knew that would probably be the hardest thing she would ever have to do.
Matt was snuggled into the corner of the long narrow couch that had sagged a long time before he arrived, but it seemed to slump perfectly to his shape. These days, he ignored the little bed she made for him before the fire, but she didn’t mind, he suited the room, somehow, made the place even more homely. She rubbed her chin as she looked around the little sitting room. It was strange having Amanda King here. It was three nights ago, but still it rattled her a bit.
Today, Richard King had sent in a man to measure up her bathroom. He could start as soon as she wanted, if she was happy with the plan. It had upset her, seeing Amanda like that, made her feel like a Judas, who sold out truth for thirty pieces of silver. Her price settled on a heated toilet seat. Of course, she reasoned, she didn’t owe Amanda anything. Amanda King had stood by while her husband tried every trick to shift Tess from her home. It was funny, but before Robyn started to visit her, Tess never really gave any thought to the fact that they were actually real people, just the same as Tess, who felt the pain of betrayal every bit as badly.
If she was honest, Tess might have said she didn’t blame him. Over the years, her many spats with Amanda had led not just to dislike, but to feel something close to hatred for her. So much so, that until she saw her here, trembling and despairing, she thought it was as much as Amanda deserved. God, but she really was judgemental old cow sometimes.
The problem was, she wasn’t sure what she could do to make things better, but as she stroked Matt’s soft fur affectionately, she decided she was bloody well going to try.