A Terrible Kindness(33)

He thinks he’s done a good job; buoyed by the lingering sense that he was soaring, not just his voice.

Phillip is looking into the distance, as if William’s voice is visibly hanging there. William doesn’t take his eyes off him.

‘Not bad,’ Phillip says eventually, still considering what he’s just heard. ‘Remember, it’s not reaching the high notes, it’s keeping control of what’s either side.’ Finally, he looks, lightly, briefly at William. ‘You mustn’t swoop up, and then of course,’ he says, as casually as if he’s talking about how to butter a piece of bread, ‘it’s too easy to smudge the quaver ornament on the way down.’ He smiles a little. ‘But we’ll get there. No doubt about that. Right, let’s move on …’



‘It’s like Narnia,’ says Martin, as they approach the frosted copper beech. A wren sits on the grass to the left of the path cocking its head at them as they pass, fearless of the noisy procession of boys.

‘Imagine Matron on a sleigh. Our very own White Witch.’ As usual, it pleases William that Martin’s laugh makes the boys ahead turn round to see what they’re missing.

This is William’s second term of his second year as chorister. He is almost as tall as Martin now, though much slighter. The rolling grind and crunch of the gravel through the soles of his shoes still satisfies him, and the tall plane trees on either side of the path still salute him as they did when he first arrived. If anything, he feels it all the more keenly now, aware that it can’t go on forever. Although he came late as a chorister at ten, it is forgotten now. The younger boys who started last September only know William as a soloist, and best friends with the other main soloist, Martin.

‘Your mum’ll be cock-a-hoop,’ Martin says. The grass looks like starched sea anemones, and the trees are bony and dark against the vivid sky. Small clouds of breath bloom from sixteen mouths.

It’s passed now, but even the most fidgety novice choristers felt it. Sometimes, something happens to this gang of boys, who fart and burp and pick their noses, when they know that what they produce is bigger and better than they are. Afterwards, stepping in puddles, telling jokes, it fades. But they never forget it.

‘You punched that C in the mouth.’ Martin leaps over the silver slash of water on the path.

The robust breeze plays with Martin’s dense hair, buffets William’s face and whips round his ankles. But singing Lent music has put a breath of spring in the air for him.

‘Thanks.’ He grins. ‘I just wish it went on for longer.’

Martin laughs. ‘Than twelve minutes?’

‘Mum says she could have it on all day and then get into bed and fall asleep listening to it.’

‘She won’t sleep between now and Ash Wednesday when she finds out.’

William laughs. ‘Once I’d been accepted here she cried every time she looked at me for about a week.’

‘She’s like a fairy godmother,’ Martin says as they reach school.

‘Why?’ William sits down in the vestibule to change his footwear.

Martin stamps his foot into his shoe. ‘She’s beautiful, she’s strong. She’d do anything to make you happy.’

‘So would your mum, wouldn’t she?’

‘It’s different. You’re the only one. It’s all about you. There are so many of us, it’s never all about me.’

Martin has been soppy over William’s mum since he saw her running down King’s Parade with William on her back. Late from an afternoon’s exeat, William had said he couldn’t eat a Chelsea bun and hurry, so Evelyn told him to get on her back and eat the bun, while she hurried for both of them. Martin had seen it from across the road, where he was with his own mother. What he’d liked was not so much her running along with an eleven-year-old on her back, but that she could do both those things and laugh.

‘She can be annoying too, you know,’ William says, walking down the corridor to history. ‘I know for a fact she won’t want Uncle Robert and Howard to come to hear the “Miserere”.’ When Martin took a big solo last term, his parents, grandfather, two brothers and twin sisters had all come. Seeing so many of them there just for him had made William sad.

‘Surely she’ll want them to come for this?’

‘She’ll say something like, “Life is hard enough without having to sit on a pew with Robert and Howard on display.” What does she even mean? I hate it, Martin, hate it.’ William notices that Martin’s pale cheeks have gone a little pinker.

‘If your dad was still alive,’ Martin asks, ‘would Robert and Howard come to hear you?’

‘It depends who won the argument. Mum would have wanted Robert to come on his own and Dad would have said that wasn’t fair.’

‘Are you going to tell her you want them both to come?’ Martin leans into the classroom door.

‘Yes, in my next letter.’ William pulls at his tie as he and Martin enter. He’s much too hot and he has the feeling there’s something about to explode in his head.

‘She’s just trying to protect you,’ Martin says as they walk to the two empty desks at the back.

William finds the statement so odd and bewildering, he doesn’t reply.



The dry dollop of mashed potato thuds onto his plate. Usually he’s ravenous by morning break, let alone lunchtime, but he doesn’t feel hungry today.