Puccini's Ghosts (19 page)

Of course I do, but what I really wanted to do was kiss it.
Lila looked at him again, surprised. Now she was inside his head and seeing herself: she felt the chiffon under his hands and her warm hair tangled in his fingers, knew precisely his impulse to lean forward and breathe the scent of her shampoo and taste strands of her hair drawn through his lips. She knew the sparkle that went through him when he touched her, all the magazine talk of destiny, romance and encountering True Love melting in a single, tyrannical leaping of the blood.

The bus rolled along, slowed and stopped. A man came upstairs with a cigarette in his mouth, pulling a greyhound on a lead. Its claws tapped like falling stones along the deck between the seats. If he had not come, Joe might have kissed her. ‘So, where is it you’re taking me, then?’ Joe said, after a few more minutes. ‘Where exactly are we?’

She tried to explain. ‘The bus only goes one way. It goes the wrong way, it comes along our road away from Burnhead and goes up to Monkton and back round all the little roads to Burnhead by the long way. The road’s not wide enough for buses to pass, that’s why.’

‘Oh.’

‘So you have to go nine miles in the wrong direction to get where you want that’s only one mile away.’

She failed to make this sound amusing. They sat in silence for the rest of the journey and by the time they got off the bus Joe seemed to have forgotten that the outing had been his idea. He dawdled a little behind Lila as if he were indulging her by consenting to follow. They joined Burnhead Main Street and walked along past the mix of gift shops and tearooms—
Ice Cream Made on the Premises, Sugar Novelties
—that sat side by side with the butchers, chemists, ironmongers and churches. Lila longed for him to assert how things were meant to go; the responsibility for making the day special was beginning to crush her. With a pang of sorrow she led him past Sew Right. She wished he were more curious about her because then she might be able to explain, at the very least, about Enid’s mum. But a single glance at him told her they couldn’t possibly pop in and see her together. She wasn’t sure why.

They followed the path through the public gardens between the beds of wallflowers and the children’s putting green and still they said little. Lila wondered what she was supposed to do with him now. If they could just stop marching along, if they could only come to a halt and look at each other and talk with nobody else around, all would become clear between them. But there were no places designed for them. There was nowhere they could linger and be out of the wind and away from other people, except perhaps certain notorious park benches where Senga McMillan’s initials were etched with several others and at which no right-thinking girl could suggest pausing.

Families defeated by the weather and giving up on the beach for the day limped past them, laden parents with faces cured pink by brine and wind, hauling behind them urchin offspring in sopping plimsolls, shivering and clutching their crotches and whining for a place to stop. A number of them lodged on the benches next to the swings and rubbish bins to eat their jam pieces and swig from Thermos flasks—dinnertime brought forward to half past ten for want of anything else to do—not far from the sinister, red-brick conveniences that were set back at the end of a path lined with thorn bushes studded with discarded papers.

At the point where the path joined Station Road and led down to the sea, Lila and Joe turned and wandered back up to Main Street.

‘Well,’ Lila said, slowing by the bus stop. ‘Well, that’s Burnhead. See, there’s nothing to do. We might as well go back.’

‘We’ve only just come!’ Joe stood with his hands on his hips, looking round, his eyes suddenly, newly bright. ‘I suppose it’s too early for a drink. How’s about a coffee? Where’s your usual haunt? Where do all the lovely young things go?’

There was nothing for it but the Locarno. These days the Chit Chat was soaking up the clientele the Locarno no longer wanted: the more prosperous sand-covered families from the beach who had the money for choice of sausage roll or fish and chips, orangeade or tea, and solitary old people dropping jammy scones in their laps. Nobody of Lila’s generation went there anymore. The Locarno was the place, the set high tea off the menu and newly done up, the dark panelling and bentwood furniture stripped out. Lozenge-shaped Formica tables with lethal metal trims were now screwed to the floor and brash lighting buzzed from the ceiling where the plaster cornicing and ceiling roses had been chiselled away like icing off an old cake. There, Burnhead’s teenage sophisticates sat numbed by the jukebox while condensation from the new, hissing coffee machine poured down the plate-glass window. Joe’s kind of place. They went in. He ordered coffee for them at the counter and sauntered towards a table. He knew without being told that the waitress would bring it.

Enid was sitting in a bay with Senga McMillan, Linda McCall and Deirdre Munro, one of several bovine quartets of girls slumped and chewing on their empty mouths or on straws poking out of Coke bottles, while their eyes travelled round for the subject of their next sneer. The boys, commandeering the jukebox in knots of four and five, shoved and showed off, breaking into laughter and catcalls that carried sometimes a sudden unfettered high note that was giddy and female. Lila raised a smile to Enid as she went by and sank into a seat opposite Joe.

The four girls leaned in and whispered and broke into laughter. Senga called over, ‘Look whit the cat’s brung in! Who’s yer friend, got yoursel’ a fancy man?’

‘And who do we have here?’ Joe asked Lila, turning round and sending them a lazy smile.

‘Don’t look round! They’re my friends.
Supposed
to be. I hate them.’

‘Look at the state of her. Haw, Lizzie! I seen your mum’s picture in the paper. Goin’ to gie us a wee song?’ Linda said.

‘Tra la! What’s your favourite opera? How’d you cry it again? Touring-whit?’

‘Aw, ’scuse me, my Italian’s a wee bit rusty, what’s Italian for fancy man?’

‘What’s Italian for fancy hair-do?’

‘What’s Italian for whaur’s yer knickers?’

Three of the quartet collapsed into more laughter; only Enid looked uncomfortable. Lila stared at the table, her face hot and red under the Max Factor, and folded her hands over her head to try to hide the scarf. Then, before she could stop him, Joe got up and walked over slowly, thumbs hooked into the front pockets of his jeans. The girls shifted, composed their faces and shook out their hair.

‘How do you do, ladies? Allow me to introduce myself. Joe Foscari,’ he said, planting himself in front of them. ‘And how are yourselves, ladies?’

He proffered a hand but none of them dared take it.

‘I hope I shall have the pleasure of seeing you all on Saturday,’ he said, looking round at the other tables, assessing the attention. ‘Full details, as you say, in the paper. I trust you
are
all coming on Saturday to join BAST?’

‘Well, hawdy hawdy haw. Opera, you kidding?’ Senga said. ‘BAST? Is that that shite you was telling us, Enid?’

‘What?’ Enid said. ‘Oh. Uh-huh. It’s some thing of Lizzie’s.’

Joe said, ‘It’s a great chance. We’ll be needing young ladies like yourselves.’

Senga turned lazy eyes back to Joe. ‘You—have—got—to—be—kidding. Opera’s shite. You wouldn’t catch me dead.’

A squabble broke out over by the jukebox. There was some pushing and complaining, and then ‘A Big Hunk O’ Love’ began blaring out of it.

Hey Baby, I ain’t askin’ much of you

No no no no no no no no baby

The boys fell silent and grouped round, some of them pumping from the hips with their eyes closed, lips pushed out; alerted, in with a chance, jerking with adult stealth to the universal beat of lust, the thump, thump, hump of an easy pick-up. Senga dropped her mouth open, pulling taut a sheet of gum between her top and bottom teeth, snapped it, flipped her tongue round it and joined in with the song, smirking at Joe:

Well you can spare a kiss or two and

Still have plenty left, no no no

The boys looked over. The girls giggled.

Well I ain’t greedy baby

All I want is all you got, no no no

Baby I ain’t asking much of you

Just a big-a big-a hunk o’ love will do

The song finished and another one started up. Senga sucked up a mouthful of Coke and stared at Joe without blinking.

He said, ‘Dear me. That’s a most grave error you’re making. Opera’s not what you think. You’ll be missing the time of your lives.’

Senga tried to engage the other three in an exchange of sniggers but now they were all watching him, trying to work out how, while being so polite and friendly, he was managing to make fools of them.

‘You surprise me, up-to-date ladies like yourselves,’ he said. ‘Opera’s the in thing. Everybody’ll be there. You’d better come or you’ll miss your big chance.’

Enid said, ‘Big chance of what? Singing in a stupid opera?’

Joe glanced down the aisle at Lila. ‘No, I mean your chance—your glorious chance—of appearing on stage with the tenor Giuseppe Foscari. That’s me.’

‘Haw! Fancy yoursel’, don’t you? Whit’s so great about you?’ Senga said. ‘That’s a stupid name, anyway.’ The others gasped. She would always go further than any of them.

Joe smiled and turned to Lila again. ‘Hear that, Liù?’ he called over. ‘What’s great about
me
?’

Just then the waitress came along with their coffee. To give her room to get past, Joe turned back to the girls’ bay and pressed himself hard against the end of their table. The edge pushed into his thighs. Even Senga had to look away.

‘Ah! What’s so great about me?’ he said softly, easing himself back on his heels. ‘That, ladies, I shall demonstrate.’

The last verse of ‘Please Don’t Tease’ was bouncing from the jukebox. Joe took a few steps down the aisle and waited while the song died away. Then he turned and fixed his eyes somewhere above the girls’ heads. He was on stage; he placed his fingertips on his ribs, took a deep breath and from his mouth came a caramelly slick of sound that coated the steamy air of the Locarno:

Ma il mio mistero è chiuso in me,

Il nome mio nessun saprà!

No, no!

It was
‘Nessun dorma’,
though to Lila’s ears, pitched a couple of tones lower. The hairs rose on the back of her neck at Joe’s effortful, insistent sound. It was over in a matter of seconds. People turned to see if they’d heard right. There were murmurs, snorts of laughter, raised eyebrows. A few people peered round, whistled and stamped, then they turned back. Talking resumed.

Lila’s face burned. She could have told him Burnhead people were the most heart-sinking on earth. Joe deserved cheering and clapping and most of them hadn’t even taken their straws from their mouths. Then the Locarno’s proprietor, Mr Locatelli, appeared from the back. He wiped his hands, raised an arm and laughed. ‘Bravo, bravo! Bravo,
signor
!’ he called. Conversation stopped again.

Joe bowed towards him. ‘
Prego.
Ladies and gentlemen,’ he said, ‘come and sing in an opera! Details in your excellent local paper! And now if you’ll excuse me, my coffee’s getting cold.’

He slipped onto the bench opposite Lila, beamed at her and reached for the sugar. He seemed refreshed. The jukebox began again. While Lila waited for him to finish with the sugar, she glanced round. She was beginning to enjoy herself, nervously; being with Joe filled her with an uneasy, though pleasurable sense of importance.

After a while Enid and the others got up to leave. They loitered at the door, calculating interest in them. Joe called out, ‘See you on Saturday, ladies!’

All of them sailed out except Enid, who hung back, came over to their table and sat down. She looked embarrassed.

‘They’re away to get cigs. I’m not going. My mum’d kill me.’

‘Well, quite right,’ Joe said evenly. ‘Sensible young lady.’

‘See my mum?’ Enid turned to Lila. ‘She saw the advert in the paper. The BAST what d’you call it. She says I’m to join, it’ll keep me out of the wrong company.’

‘I thought singing was supposed to be against your religion,’ Lila said.

Enid clicked her tongue. ‘That’s only when we’re Gathered, stupid,’ she said. ‘Otherwise music is one of God’s gifts, except Elvis Presley. Anyway, my mum says I’m to join.’

‘Well, how splendid!’ Joe boomed. ‘You must come and sing!’

Enid considered. ‘I can’t. I can’t sing…you know, yon way. Like you. You’re dead good. Are you the star of it?’

Joe laughed. ‘I am singing the tenor lead, yes! But leave the tough stuff to us. You don’t need a big voice for the chorus, just come and sing.’

Lila said, ‘I’m singing one of the main parts too, did you know that?’

‘
You?
How come?’

‘One of the best natural lyric soprano voices you’ll ever hear,’ Joe said gravely. ‘Totally astonishing for her age. She could have a great future.’

Lila murmured, adoring Joe’s adoration enough to forget that he had not heard her sing so this assessment must be Uncle George’s. Her insides were rocking joyfully at the sight of Enid having to hear him speak admiringly of her. Enid had never managed a fraction of that kind of compliment from anyone, not even a slow-eyed Burnhead lout, let alone a handsome and devoted man like Joe Foscari.

‘My mum,’ Enid went on at last, ‘she says if you want any help with the costumes you just need to ask. She can get you material wholesale if you want.’

‘Her mum’s the manageress of Sew Right. She can make anything,’ Lila said. ‘She’s dead good.’

‘Splendid, splendid, splendid!’ Joe said, raising both arms. ‘Your kind mama’s contribution is most gratefully received! Please do convey to her our thanks. And, so, young lady, we look forward to seeing you on Saturday!’

It was a dismissal, and Enid left.

It was then that Joe’s perfection almost faltered. While Lila waited for him to say something, he sucked the dregs of his coffee from his spoon, belched, and turned to look vacantly through the window. Then she realised he was being natural with her. Soul mates do not put on performances for each other. He belched again.