‘God, there’s you nearly done and me just starting,’ Fee had said. ‘Doesn’t that make you feel old?’
Cass hadn’t known how to answer that and so instead said, ‘Oh, and I sing in a choir.’ It had been a throwaway line.
‘Really?’ said Fiona. ‘You know I’ve always wanted to join a choir. Remember when we used to sing in the school choir? God—that was such a giggle.’
Which was why Fiona, the week after she moved in, had turned up to join Cass at Mrs Althorpe’s All Stars—Beckthorn’s community choir, which was a lot sexier and loads more fun than it sounded. When she saw Fiona waving and hurrying over to her, Cass groaned and wished she’d kept her mouth shut. Two years on and she hadn’t changed her mind.
‘God,’ Fiona had said, as she slipped in alongside Cass. ‘Isn’t this great? Just like the good old days.’
Cass hadn’t said anything.
As a lady bass and occasional tenor, Cass did a lot of well-synchronised do-be-do-be-doooos, dms, and finger snapping that made up the heartbeat of the doo-wop and blues numbers the band was famous for.
Originally Cass had joined the choir because she couldn’t get a place on the garden design course, hated aerobics, and had always wanted to sing. She’d also thought it might be a good place to meet men, which it was—although as it turned out almost all of them were well over 50 and mad as haddock. It was fun though, because there was no need to be anything other than yourself with them.
For the choir’s performances, which took place everywhere from church halls to street corners, the All Stars wore full evening dress, men in black tie and occasionally tails, the women shimmying and swaying in gowns of every colour under the sun, all glitzy and glamorous and very over the top with lots of diamante, feathers, sequins, tiaras and an ocean of bugle beads. It certainly beat workout Lycra into a cocked hat.
After Tuesday evening rehearsal, the choir traditionally went on to the pub. Which was how Cass and Fiona came to find themselves squeezed into the end of a pew behind a long table in the snug bar of the Old Grey Whippet, alongside Ray, Phil and Welsh Alf, whose voice came straight from the heart of the Rhondda—which didn’t quite compensate for the fact that he often forgot the tune and occasionally the words—and Norman, who only came because his wife had an evening class across the road on Tuesday nights and didn’t drive.
Cass hadn’t intended to sing bass when she joined. But when she signed up there’d only been one man, Welsh Alf, and so, Alan—their musical director—had suggested that some of the female altos sing the bass parts an octave higher. (Which at that point meant nothing to Cass, who hadn’t sung a note anywhere other than in the bath since leaving Beckthorn County High.)
Four and a half years on, there were half a dozen men and around the same number of women in the bass section, with a sprinkling of men in the tenors and of course Gordon in the sopranos, who sang falsetto, plucked his eyebrows and occasionally wore blue eyeliner, although he was the exception rather than the rule.
Her only real gripe was that while the sopranos got the tune and the altos had the harmony, the tenors grabbed the twiddly bits, and so nine times out of ten all the basses got were the notes left over and they didn’t always make much sense musically. There certainly wasn’t much in the way of a catchy little tune to hum while making toast.
So, after choir on Tuesday evening, everyone was just finishing a blow-by-blow dissection of how the evening’s rehearsal had gone, and Gordon was perched on a stool at the bar, halfway down his second Babycham, when Fiona, who was sipping a bitter lemon said, ‘I was wondering—could you do me a favour?’
Cass looked round. Fiona said it casually, in a way that suggested she wanted Cass to pick up a few bits from Tesco on her way home from work or maybe pop round to let the gasman in, and so, halfway down a glass of house red, Cass nodded. ‘Sure. What would you like me to do?’
But before she could answer, Bert, the big chunky tenor, an ex-rugby player who sang like an angel, drank like a fish and was tight as new elastic, bellowed, ‘Anyone fancy a top-up, only it’s m’birthday t’day, so I’m in the chair.’ Fiona’s reply was lost in the furore.
‘Maybe it would be easier if I popped round some time?’ Fiona shouted above the general hullabaloo as people fought their way to the bar to put their orders in. ‘Make an evening of it?’
‘Okay,’ said Cass, easing her way to the front. ‘Why don’t you come round for supper one night next week?’
Which was why they were now standing in Cass’s spare room with a suitcase full of props and the remains of a bottle of Archers which Fiona had brought round—probably, Cass now realised, as a liquid inducement. It had slipped down a treat. Unlike Fiona’s little favour.
It had taken Fiona a couple of glasses, a lot of idle chitchat and much admiring of Cass’s home before she managed to get around to what she had in mind. What Fiona wanted was a little light surveillance. More specifically, she wanted Cass to follow Andy, and find out what he was up to, where, when and with whom—although so far the reasons behind it all were a little hazy.
‘So tell me again what exactly has brought this on?’ asked Cass. ‘If I’m going to go the full Mata Hari, at least I should really know what I’m getting myself into.’
‘Andy’s seeing someone,’ said Fiona, gazing past her into the mirror, presumably trying to gauge the effectiveness of Cass’s disguise.
‘How can you be so certain?’
The questions seemed to take Fiona by surprise. ‘Because he’s been acting very strangely over the last few weeks. He’s changed the password on his email account.’
‘And you know this because ?’
‘Well, when I was on his computer I couldn’t get into his email,’ said Fiona, casually.
‘You read his email?’
At least Fiona had the decency to look a bit sheepish. ‘Of course I do, I mean, doesn’t everyone? We’re practically married—’
‘And that makes it all right, does it?’ Cass couldn’t imagine anything worse than having someone nosing through her private life.
‘What on earth has right got to do with anything?’ said Fiona indignantly. ‘He shouldn’t need to hide things from me.’
‘So presumably Andy’s got your password too?’ asked Cass.
Fiona looked outraged. ‘No, of course he hasn’t, but that’s different—I mean, I’m not up to anything.’
‘Changing your password is hardly proof of being up to something though, is it?’
‘He keeps getting texts…’
‘Oh for goodness sake, Fee, we all get texts.’
‘Which he erases,’ Fiona countered. ‘I know because I’ve looked while he’s in the shower. His inbox is always empty—you’ve got to admit that that is suspicious?’
Cass wasn’t sure there was any sane answer. Experience told her that if you think someone is up to something, then your mind is only too happy to fill in the gaps, and everything the other person does only conspires to make them look even more guilty. And while Fiona’s plan all sounded pretty crazy from this side of the fence, no doubt inside Fiona’s head it sounded just fine. When it struck, jealously, insecurity and uncertainty could be a destructive and all-engulfing madness.
‘How long have you two been together?’ asked Cass, adjusting the wig and adding a bit more lipstick. She’d always wondered how she’d look as a blonde. Cass turned to catch a look at her profile; realistically she probably needed something a little less Barbie.
‘Nearly four years. I read somewhere that four years is the new seven-year itch. And besides, if Andy’s got nothing to hide, then why does he keep wiping the inbox on his phone, why does he have a new password on his email account and why does he sneak about? Did I tell you he’s been sneaking about—’
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