Kate Lawson - Keeping Mum

‘Whoa, whoa, there cowboy,’ said Alan, face contorted into a grin as he pulled an imaginary horse to a standstill. ‘Let’s try that again then, shall we folks? Just relax, feel the beat. Let’s be honest, if you don’t know it by now, really there isn’t a lot of hope. Basses, would you like me to run through your part one more time with feeling?’

There was a faint murmuring, which Alan took for a yes, at which point he began to go over their part line by line. Given that most of it was dms, it wasn’t so much a case of checking the words as the pattern. Cass looked around the rest of her section, wondering what the problem was. Fiona had barely said a word all evening, although everyone looked a bit down in the mouth tonight; surely they weren’t all keeping mum?

Cass closed her eyes and reminded herself that she wasn’t planning on saying anything about Andy, not one word, and that what happened between Fiona and Andy was none of her business. In fact, she had arrived a few minutes later than normal, and had to squeeze herself into place amongst the rest of the section, just so she couldn’t do any pre-match bonding with Fiona, and she planned to leave before the last note had stopped vibrating round the hall, so she wouldn’t slip up and nothing would slip out.

‘Righty-oh,’ said Alan, clapping his hands after they’d dm-ed the song through a few times. ‘I really don’t know what the problem was there, guys, but my advice is, you know it, you just need to relax and go with it. Right, let’s go from the top. And don’t worry, it’s pre-match nerves. Not long now and we’ll be on the road in Cyprus, on stage, on the terrace drinking pina coladas, groupies and sugar daddies hanging around wherever we go, clamouring for our bodies.’

‘For god’s sake don’t tell my missus that,’ said Welsh Alf, looking all flummoxed and anxious. ‘I’ve had a hard enough job getting her to let me go as it is.’

There was a lot of laughter.

‘You all set?’ asked Fiona, as everyone settled down.

Cass nodded. ‘For the trip? Oh yes, really looking forward to it,’ she answered brightly, making sure there was no room for any other questions.

‘Me too,’ said Fiona.

Across the hall, one of the sopranos stuck her hand up and waved it about like a schoolgirl keen to answer a question. ‘Alan? Alan?’ she called in a tinkling voice, trying hard to grab his attention.

Taking advantage of the hiatus, Fiona said, ‘Actually, Cass, I was hoping to have a word with you. Are you going to the pub afterwards? I wanted to talk to you about the other night.’

Cass felt her heart sink. After all, she could so easily be wrong about Andy and the girl, which was exactly what Rocco and her mum had said on Saturday evening, while eating a superb supper of halibut and prawns baked under a crust of Gruyère crumble, served with Cass’s homegrown spinach, pan-fried courgettes and sauté potatoes—along with a spare man called Mike who they had invited along to make up the numbers.

‘My advice? Snout out,’ Rocco had said, tapping the side of his nose by way of a visual aid. ‘You’re damned if you do and you’ll be buggered if you don’t in a situation like that. God only knows the bucket of worms you’ll be wading through.’ He pulled a face. ‘Blast, I just mixed my metaphors, didn’t I?’

‘Well and truly mixed, diced, and deep fried,’ said Nita, tucking a strand of bleached blonde hair back behind her ear. ‘Best to leave that one alone, Cass my darling. I remember what she was like when you were at school. She was always difficult. You did the right thing, told her to talk to him, and now it’s up to them to sort it out for themselves. Do you want some more fish—there’s plenty?’

‘So what’s your connection to the woman with the wayward husband?’ asked Mike conversationally, offering up his plate for seconds. ‘Nita said that you were in antiques—do you do counselling on the side?’

Cass glanced across at him. Mike was around five ten with grey-blonde hair and bright blue eyes with enough wrinkles around them to suggest he probably smiled a lot more than he frowned. Sadly, that was not enough to make him her type or fanciable. And, truth be told, he was probably nice, except that tonight romance wasn’t what was on her mind. So far he’d done little but listen and fiddle with things in his jacket pocket and she was torn between feeling sorry for him and being annoyed. Her mum and Rocco always did this, invite along some poor sucker, hoping to play matchmaker, when really all she wanted was to gossip with the pair of them.

‘We sing together,’ she began. ‘And we used to go to school together. She moved back to the area a couple of years ago.’

‘Oh right—yes—in the choir, Rocco was telling me about that. Sounds like fun.’

‘They sing like angels,’ said Nita.

‘You ought to hear them,’ said Rocco. Cass shot him a look. He beamed back at her.

Mike was an architect, and apparently yes, he was an angel too, because her mother had said so. He’d drawn up the plans for their kitchen and now he’d come up with some sort of fancy notion for the roof, which included taking most of it off and turning part of it into a sun terrace.

‘You’re having a terrace?’ asked Cass, as she shovelled more of the baked fish onto her plate.

Rocco nodded. ‘Uh-huh—your mother reckons if they’re right about global warming that our flat roof is going to be like St Tropez, so while we’ve got the whole thing stripped back to bare bones, why not? Who wants this last bit of fish?’

Mouth full, Mike waved it onto his plate. ‘Yes please, god, that’s really fabulous…’

‘Worth getting up at seven for?’ asked Rocco in passing. Mike, quite reasonably, looked mystified.

‘It’s a close call,’ said Cass. ‘Did you get to the airport on time?’

Rocco pushed the bowl of vegetables in her direction. ‘Certainly did. Your mum was going to pick them up, but you know what her driving is like.’ He tipped his hand sharply left and right.

Nita made as if to hit him with the spoon.

‘Oh, come on, Nita. Last time we went to Stansted you reversed over some poor bugger’s hand luggage and then drove off with both back doors open,’ said Rocco, topping up Cass’s wine glass.

At which point Nita hit him with the spoon. ‘You are such a liar. Here baby, take the last of the potatoes…’

Supper at their house contained more nurturing in one evening than most women got in a lifetime.

‘And be fair,’ continued Nita. ‘Rocco’s enough to drive Francis of Assisi to drink. Nag, nag, nag, look out for this, did you see that, mind that cyclist. Don’t drive in the middle of the road…He would drive anyone loco. Talking of which, Rocco tells me that you and the All Stars are off on tour?’

‘Um,’ said Cass, through a mouthful of sauce, ‘A fortnight today. You are coming to the concert, aren’t you? Rocco—you did tell her, didn’t you?’

The pair of them nodded. ‘As if we’d miss it,’ said Rocco. Cass couldn’t work out quite just how much of that was sarcasm. ‘We can get you a ticket if you want to come along too, Mike, can’t we Cass?’ continued Rocco.

Cass glared at him—not that Rocco noticed.

‘That sounds great. Where are you going on tour?’ Mike asked.

‘Cyprus. Seven days of singing with our lot and about twenty-five other choirs. It’s their first a cappella festival. I know it sounds nuts but it’ll be great. We’ve got some workshops and rehearsals together, a few performances and lot of sun, sea, singing and…’

All three of them looked expectantly in her direction, waiting for the pay-off line. Cass reddened and held up her hands. ‘It’s a competition—the winning choir gets a trip to the States. We’re going to be singing in a Roman amphitheatre.’