A Terrible Kindness(23)
‘Muvanwuay.’
‘Better. Good. Next line, a bit tricky …’
19
‘That was juicy.’ Martin has been humming the melody across the playing fields.
‘What colour?’ William’s foot slides on mud and he grabs Martin’s arm to right himself.
‘Plum, of course, D flat.’
William always understands Martin’s choice – violet for ‘Faire is the Heaven’, egg-yolk yellow for ‘God is Gone Up’ – but he could never come up with them himself.
Martin hangs up his coat next to William’s before they make their way with four others to maths on the far side of the school. ‘Pity there aren’t any solos.’ Martin bends down to pick up a conker in the middle of the corridor and slides it in his pocket. ‘Will singing at the memorial be tough?’ Martin keeps his eyes on the ground. ‘Because of your dad?’
‘Not sure.’
Martin puts his heavy arm round William’s shoulders briefly before he opens the classroom door.
It took a few weeks for William to get used to arriving late for the first lesson of the day, but now he quite enjoys walking in once everyone has started and having a quiet few moments with the teacher to catch them up. As they weave through the desks in the room of bent heads, Martin mutters, ‘I’m going to learn it in English, and I’ll sing it for my party piece at Christmas.’
Mr Shrubs comes to their desks and drops a worksheet before each of them. He crouches down, resting his big index finger on William’s purple bander copy. ‘Long division. More practice, carrying on from yesterday.’
William can do long division. Fractions and percentages, not so good. As he scans the worksheet, he wonders if he could sing at home this Christmas. Martin’s huge sprawl of a family are always performing to each other. He’s told William about school holidays when he, his four siblings and nine (nine!) cousins spend all day writing and rehearsing a play; making a stage set, ransacking wardrobes for costumes, and then performing to the adults in the evening after supper. Imagine that! William thinks of himself, with just his mum, Uncle Robert and Howard sitting in the lounge together, quiet and tense. Still, they would love to hear him sing.
‘Martin?’ William mutters after completing three of the sums. ‘Can we practise “Myfanwy” together? Then I can sing it at Christmas too.’
By the memorial service four days later, Martin and William have sung the English and Welsh versions so many times they’ve been asked to be quiet by three masters, everyone in their dorm and the head gardener. William has even sung it in his Donald Duck voice, thrilled at the loud belly laugh it raised from Martin. Always, at the last lines, ‘So give me your hand, my sweet Myfanwy, For no more but to say “farewell”,’ Martin grips William’s hand with one of his, the other melodramatically over his heart.
? ? ?
Tiny, stick-limbed and hunched, Professor Hughes’s widow reminds William so much of a bird, he thinks she could hop right into the showy floral display at the front of the chapel and not be noticed amongst the bright fleshy petals. William stares at the three young children, who he presumes are the professor’s grandchildren, squirming between their parents on the front row. The dark army of gowned staff behind the family look too solemn for a celebration. William thinks it’s all a bit of a nonsense. Isn’t it always just sad when someone dies? He starts to picture his mother and uncle at his dad’s funeral, but it’s time to sing.
They leave the stalls to stand before the altar. William wants to watch the professor’s widow, but by now he is too well trained; he keeps his eyes on Phillip, who waits for complete stillness and attention before he lifts his hand.
The sound is rich and mellow with an insistent sadness that scoops deeper and deeper with every line. By the velvet bloom and fade of the last verse, with Phillip pulling the feeling from the music with every fluid move of his right hand, the surf of emotion rolling back to them from the congregation astounds William.
The instant Phillip ties off the final note, William glances at Mrs Hughes, in time to catch the look between her and Phillip. It lasts a fraction of a second, but her gratitude and his kindness bring instant tears to his eyes. Blinking, he bites the soft sides of his mouth, until the physical movement back to the choir stalls rescues him.
In bed that night, he can’t stop thinking of the service and all the stories about the professor that made everyone sad and happy at the same time. He wonders what stories would have been told about his father, with him and Evelyn, Robert and Howard sitting on the front row, the smell of lilies sharp and powdery in the air.
Someone, probably some vicar, would definitely say how much fun he was. How when he came near, William’s body would tighten a bit, get ready; to be picked up, thrown in the air, tickled, cuddled. How his dad always had to sit in the middle of the sofa when the three of them watched telly, so he could put his arm round both of them and say he’d got all he needed to be happy right here, tucked under each armpit. But, William wonders, how would a vicar know that? Only he and his mum knew about that. The vicar would probably say how proud his dad was to be an undertaker and to carry on the family business with his brother, and that makes his tummy tight because he knows it would make his mum feel left out and lonely.
The best memories a vicar wouldn’t know about, and anyway, William’s not sure what a best memory is; they’re all a muddle of good and bad, warm and cold. There is one of him sharing a private joke with his dad that he loves so much, it’s worth enduring the not so nice sequence of events that led up to it.