Puccini's Ghosts (21 page)

I recognise Mr McArthur and Billy from the farm, Billy looking young and pointless. I discover a ruthlessness in myself, thinking what a narrow escape I am having and what a mistake a farm boy would be; what a mistake any fat-fisted, flat-eyed Burnhead oaf knowing nothing of Life and Opera and Art would be. I glance at the door through which Joe has just disappeared to remind myself where my true destiny lies. Thanks to Joe, ‘true destiny’ is the kind of phrase I am quite comfortable with now. Alec Gallagher is here with his notepad open on his lap and next to him is his fiancée, Veronica. Her hair is dyed and lacquered into a yellow helmet. She has fat knees and she chews the inside of her cheeks. Next to them are Mrs and Mr Mathieson. She has quick eyes and no neck and a spreading body with a comfortable undercarriage. Mr Mathieson sits with his brittle ankles crossed and his arms folded. Although he is old he looks more like a fledgling; he has the thin skin and damp, sorrowing eyes of a creature lately cast from its shell.

Oh, now Luke is back, asking me about milk and sugar, which I don’t believe I have. He hasn’t taken his jacket or hat off. Oddly, he brings a crocheted blanket that belongs on my father’s chair in the back room, and he places it round me. Still not a word about God.

My father is nominally in charge of refreshments and goes between the kitchen and music room with a tea towel tucked into his trousers between the buttons of his dreary braces. He brings in plates of sandwiches that he made himself but the butter was hard and the bread tore, for which he apologises as he hands them over to the Bergsma sisters and Mrs Mathieson who are on their feet now and helping with cups and saucers and plates, possibly because they are ill at ease watching a man do it.

Everyone in Burnhead knows the Bergsma sisters and knows their story, though probably they never tell it themselves. They don’t need to. In Burnhead, people’s histories are attached to them like invisible signs round their necks. What happened to the Bergsmas is like all other common knowledge, and in a place like this there’s a lot of common knowledge: for example, the path running up between the Bergsmas’ barber and hairdressing premises and the building next door is called Kyle’s Wynd, but there’s nothing there to tell you that. There’s no actual sign round the Bergsmas’ necks. It’s common knowledge.

Kyle’s Wynd? Luke says, puzzled. What are you talking about, Lila?

It’s still there but the Bergsmas’ place isn’t, I tell him. It’s all knocked down now.

In my mind the Bergsmas are typically Dutch. I picture the whole of Holland full of old-fashioned spinster sisters like Joanna and Willy (short for Wilhelmina), though of course nobody my age calls them anything except Miss Bergsma. Joanna’s hair is wound in plaits around her head and Willy has a bun that is glossier and darker than the surrounding cloud of her hair; it sits like a Bakelite light switch in a nest of jute. But this is not the most remarkable thing about Willy. One side of her face is a slip-sliding disaster of flesh that pulls her eye down so that it is constantly red-rimmed and teary. The skin on that side looks melted and is both pinker and bluer than the rest of her face, like a patch in a related but not identical material that has been stretched and crudely tacked over the torn original. It’s from when their house in Rotterdam was bombed in the war. Enid’s mum says Willy got burned rescuing her mother’s silver and tortoiseshell dressing-table set. This is part of their history and Burnhead’s common knowledge. How and why they got to Burnhead from Rotterdam isn’t.

Yes, war is a terrible thing, Lila, Luke says. He sighs and mutters something I don’t catch.

I don’t know if Willy Bergsma had a choice and went for the dressing-table set instead of the mother but like everybody else I know the mother died in the fire and I also know I’m frightened of that watering eye. It may have weighed up the silver and tortoiseshell against an evil-tempered old lady and if it did, well, we know what happened next; it’s common knowledge. Any minute the terrible things that eye has seen might start to ooze out of it and down Willy’s cheek.

Joanna does most of the shaving and trimming at their barber and hairdressing place while Willy keeps the appointments book and sells brushes and combs, compacts, travelling cases and shaving requisites. She seldom leaves the front shop, she calls through from the counter if she has something to say. Maybe she doesn’t like the mirrors in the back reflecting to her from every angle her ruined face.

Lila, you okay?

Luke brings in the tea and joins me on the floor. I don’t remember deciding to sit on the floor, but here I am. As Luke speaks, his breath forms a cloud and I notice that the room is cold.

There are others here, too: Jimmy Brock the coalman, scrubbed into ordinariness, Sandy and Lydia Scott, stalwarts of the Ayrshire Amateur Operatic Association, wearing badges that say ‘AAOA Committee Member’. In addition, because he is President, Sandy wears a medal on a chain. There’s a woman with two children dressed for Scottish Country Dancing in kilts of acid yellow tartan with velvet waistcoats, lace jabots and pumps, who are clutching their certificates for
1st Runner-up: Formation Sword,
and
Highly Commended: Flora MacDonald’s Fancy
. To my embarrassment Mr Black, the principal music teacher at Burnhead Academy, is here with his wife and his stuck-up daughter who goes to a fee-paying school in Troon where Mrs Black teaches Domestic Science. Mrs Black has tight hair that’s bumpy on the surface and is neither fair nor grey. The colour looks boiled out of it and reminds me of porridge.

Uncle George stands behind the piano making over-hearty gestures of greeting. He is unnerved that the glorious idea has come to this: a crowd of ill-assorted people who in the very act of turning up may be marking themselves out as the oddest in Burnhead. The idea—my idea—ran away with him and now he is aghast. I think he has it in mind to make a speech.

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen!

Who are you talking to, Lila?

Now Joe comes in last, making George wait. He picks his way over to where I am leaning against the wall. My heart jumps because he is singling me out to stand next to. From here we can see nearly everybody but more important perhaps, to Joe, is that nearly everybody can see him. George watches me watching him watch the room.

Thank you for coming. We are all here, as you know, for a purpose.

You’re welcome. And indeed we are, Lila. We Evangelical Lutherans believe that firmly. We believe that we are here because Jesus Christ…

Uncle George stands there, unsure what to say next. We wait. My heart is thudding. It is terrifying to watch the slippage of a dream. Is anyone safe, ever, once they have laid eyes on what they want? How long before it becomes what they need, and if they have to go without, what then? All George’s London confidence is blurring. He is shrinking, losing buoyancy. Beside me, Joe shifts against the wall, pinches the end of his nose between finger and thumb and looks at the ceiling.

So do we, I mean, is anyone—anyone at all, familiar with
Turandot
? At all? Uncle George asks, but he has no idea what to do about the thick cluster of hands that goes up, among them my mother’s, the Scotts’, the Bergsmas’, the Blacks’. Even Billy’s is half-raised.

Right, he says. Very good. Well.

He clears his throat and looks at his notes. He picks up some papers and waves them vaguely. We wait again.

Mr Mathieson stands up.

I’m John Mathieson for anyone here doesn’t know me. See—George, is it?—I’m thinking, George, maybe we could do with a wee committee. Get ourselves going. Get organised kind of thing, eh?

Lila? Lila, are these papers important? Is there something you want to show me? Luke says. What is all this? It’s all just scrap paper, isn’t it?

Uncle George’s notes of the meeting are still bunched in my fists and lying in my lap and on the floor around me.

Of course it’s not scrap paper. Here, I say to Luke, and I shake the papers at him. This is what happened. Here are the notes, this is a
true record
of events.

He pulls my fingers open and takes them from me. He places a mug of tea in my now empty hands and the warmth of it makes me sigh.

I watch Luke gather the papers up. The writing is worn away in places and it’s hard to read, I admit that, but I think he makes particularly heavy weather of it. He looks only at the first couple of pages. The first five lines are in pen, George’s attempt at an agenda some time before the meeting. Everything that follows is in pencil and written fast.

Mtg 9 July

Introduce—self. Intro others. Intro opera. Does anybody know Turandot???

THE TASK AHEAD.

What we need to achieve: make list.

Ask people. Split into groups?

COMMITTEE?

Orchestra sub-cttee:
JIMMY Brock (coal) t b in charge of band. JB plays coronet & trombone. NB now rtd from mine but still in colliery
brass band
—can get other band members, min. 12 players, all exp’d, most vg. JB can transpose parts!!! Will work with GORDON BLACK—will get school orchestra members to join, maybe another 12. Can borrow stands and lights. AYRSHIRE AMATEUR PHILHARMONIC Orchestra—he will contact, bring on board.

—Strings—cd. be prob.—J Bergsma played viola as girl.
Willy Bergsma USED TO TEACH VIOLIN!
NEED MORE PLAYERS PERCUSSION WOODWIND

Chorus sub-cttee:

REHEARSAL PIANIST V IMPORTANT—GORDON BLACK available hooray!!!
WILL COACH CHORUS

CHORUS—Sandy SCOTT—President of Ayrshire Amat. Opera. Assoc. says WHOLE CHORUS OF AAOA MAY BE WILLING. On summer break, no commitments—individ members always keen to sing. Mrs Scott says ditto her ladies choir—65 members—she will persuade (consider definite)

ALSO—S Scott offers loan props/costumes of AAOA!!!!!

Costumes & props sub-cttee:

Stella Foley (M of Enid)—gets material wholesale, + trimmings, beads etc. Can make anything, needs designs, sketches will do. YES will tackle headdresses. Needs team helpers…tb arranged. ?Chorus make own??

Joe—prod: concept modern & simple, muslin drapes etc. lighting min. NEEDS CLOTH—QUANTITIES??

Chorus = peasants: pyjama style, black pumps. Principals = Silks, colours, more elaborate. S Scott—AAOA has FULL MIKADO costumes.

So this is how it happens. Mr Mathieson’s frail and mournful surface dissipates. He’s a fiend of an organiser. He comes to the front of the meeting and takes charge and soon has the whole room confessing to skills and contacts and signing up to do special favours. There is nobody he does not commandeer. It’s all written down; he gets promises that he intends to see kept. In no time he is Production Manager and Mrs Mathieson is Production Secretary. Uncle George is happy just to scribble notes.

People grow trusting and optimistic and talk as if they have been waiting all their lives to be useful. They form committees and subcommittees for this, that and the other. Mr Mathieson scolds us to be brief and keep to the point. Just as I think there can’t be anything left to talk about, Uncle George whispers a few words in Mr Mathieson’s ear. He nods.

He says, And now George here reminds me of another crucial matter and that is fund raising. We need to raise money…

More hands go up. We hear more ideas and make more lists. The
Burnhead & District Advertiser
might publicise any fund-raising events for free. Some of the ladies will organise a raffle. The shops will have collecting tins on their counters. Mrs Mather will suggest to Mr Mather a donation from the Round Table.

Aye, fine, Mr Mathieson says, but we need something bigger, a big event that’ll raise a good sum. It’s dear, opera.

And soon there’s talk of a ceilidh. It’s to be in the shed at the farm, once it’s painted. A date is set, ticket prices decided. Folk will flock to support such a good cause, tickets will go on sale throughout Burnhead. Trestle tables can be arranged, plus a few chairs. Mr McArthur can find straw bales for extra seating but insists it’ll have to be soft soles only; boot nails could spark on the concrete. Jimmy Brock’s brother-in-law in Annbank lives next door to a man who gets up an accordion band every Hogmanay and Burns Night; he’ll do it no bother for beer and expenses and maybe a wee fee. The ladies will do a tea. Tea will be extra so we’ll make a bit more that way.

Sounds like a real old-fashioned barn dance, Luke says. I’ve been to plenty of those! Lila, is the gas connected here? Does this work?

No mention in the notes, of course, of my heart boiling with jealousy as Joe’s attention wanders. I can see him out of the corner of my eye but I sense it anyway, his focus lengthening across the room and alighting on Senga and Linda and Deirdre. He doesn’t need to wink though I can see he may want to. They’re drawing themselves up straighter and turning about to show themselves at better angles, as if he jerks wires tied to their ankles and wrists. They whisper together, mouths behind hands, eyes on him. He tips his head back against the wall and inspects them down his hawkish nose. He shifts without taking his eyes away, pulls his arms apart and clasps his hands behind his head, glances once at George and then looks back to them. The room has grown stale. I cannot move away from the tang that now comes raw from his armpits—in fact I draw closer. The smell is rank and urgent and, this late in the day and in a hot room, not quite clean. I want to roll in it. I will stand inside the circle of his odour if it chokes me, in the space around him that nobody enters without invitation, the territory of the air he fills with sweating and breathing and base male habits I suddenly want to know all about. Blood is rushing in my ears so I barely hear what is being said but I will occupy this space because it belongs to me. Across the room Senga and Linda and Deirdre squirm and preen, the sniggering tarts. He’s only doing this with them because they don’t matter. It’s a compliment to me.

Hey! It works after all, Luke says, and there is a burst of orange in the room as the gas fire whups and sighs. I blink and my eyes smart in the sudden brightness. I have not noticed how, without the lights on, the air in here has descended and enshrouds us in charcoal gauze.