Audrey nodded, and as they exchanged a rueful smile, she had an uncanny feeling that she would know Ben for the rest of her life, however fleeting that might be.
‘But what about you? That day at rehearsal before I fainted, you were in the middle of telling me about your family and I feel bad we haven’t had a chance to talk about it since. I wanted to say how sorry I am about your son. I don’t think there’s anything worse for a parent than losing a child.’ Audrey was conscious of her airwaves narrowing, of a struggle between her desire to say more and her fear that she simply couldn’t.
Ben stared at her, unblinking, and Audrey felt sure he was going to turn around and walk away. But then he took a deep breath and began to speak. ‘There’s no need to apologise. I haven’t wanted to talk about it for five years so there’s no reason anyone else should.’
Something in Ben’s voice – a thin shard of light edging around the frame of a closed door – emboldened Audrey to continue. ‘Well, if ever you did want to talk about it, I don’t think I’d be the world’s worst listener.’
Ben glanced at her, then down at the floor, his body quite still, and it seemed to Audrey that she could see the grief leaking out of him, a vapour rising from his skin like a plume of gas from the surface of a distant moon.
‘Your daughter – Erin, isn’t it? How old is she?’
He took a deep breath, as if something in the air might provide him with the fortitude he needed. ‘She just turned sixteen. I … I haven’t seen her in a while. I’ve been travelling. After Zach … it was just … it was just too …’
His voice faded and Audrey watched the steady rise and fall of his chest, the clenching and unclenching of his jaw, the pinching of the skin at the bridge of his nose. She could almost feel the heat of his grief. She thought about placing her hand on his back, wondering whether there was any way of telling him that she understood without either of them having to say anything at all.
‘Mr Levine? I’m sorry to interrupt but one of the stage managers needs to have a quick word with you. Would you mind coming with me?’
Ben looked up, eyes glazed, as though he’d just woken from a deep winter sleep. He shook his head as if trying to free his thoughts before looking up and nodding at the young man wearing a headset, carrying a clipboard, and fidgeting from one foot to the other as though precious seconds were being unnecessarily wasted. ‘Will you excuse me, Audrey? I’ll be back soon. I want to get the choir together for a pep talk before we go on stage so don’t let anyone wander off, OK?’
He smiled at her, all traces of distress wiped from his face, and headed down the corridor with the young man.
Audrey watched him until he’d rounded the corner. She leaned against the wall, her shoulders lighter now that she’d told him the truth. It was as though her diagnosis had lost a little of its power now she had entrusted it to someone outside the family.
She turned around and walked into the dressing room where her fellow choir members were waiting to go on stage, hoping that Phoebe would find her way back soon.
‘OK, folks, can you all gather round? Can you guys hear me at the back? Harry, Siobhan – can I have some quiet, please?’
Audrey shuffled forward with the rest of the choir to where Ben was standing on a wooden crate, head and shoulders above them all. She looked back towards the door just as Phoebe rushed in.
‘God, Gran, this place is a rabbit warren. I thought I’d never find you. What have I missed – anything important?’
‘No, you’re just in time. Ben’s only just called us together.’
Audrey squeezed Phoebe’s hand and looked up at the clock on the wall – five minutes until the concert began, thirty-five minutes until they were due on stage – before turning her attention back to Ben.
‘I just wanted to say a few words. First off, I want to thank you all. It’s been a crazy three months and I know some of you doubted at the outset that it was possible to whip a hundred random strangers into a choir in such a short space of time. To be honest, I doubted it myself once or twice …’
A light wave of laughter rippled around the room.
‘But the thing I’ve been constantly impressed by is the commitment you’ve all shown to making this thing work. When you step out onto that stage tonight, I want you to feel proud of what you’ve achieved. Because I’m proud of you. I know you’re going to do a fantastic job out there. And this song we’re singing – just think about the power of that title: “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free”. I want you to feel every single word of it, just like Nina Simone did back in the day – feel it, sing it, communicate it, and let’s help raise a ton of money for charity.’
An almost imperceptible crack in Ben’s voice caused him to pause, swallow, breathe. He caught Audrey’s eye and she smiled at him.
‘Now, I know it’s late notice and I don’t want anyone to freak out but I want to make a tiny change to our song tonight.’
Panic bristled around the choir. Ben raised both his hands, palms flat towards the group, as if pre-emptively seeking forgiveness. ‘Just hear me out, OK? It’s not a huge change. I want to start the song as a solo – just the first verse, nothing more – and then we’ll pick it up as a group exactly as we’ve done throughout rehearsals. And I’d like you, Audrey, to take that solo.’
Audrey felt ninety-two pairs of eyes pivot towards her, felt their collective gaze burn into her cheeks.
Ben grinned at her, eyebrows raised. ‘What do you say? Will you do that? Just the first four lines, that’s all. I think it’ll be so much more powerful as a solo. And you can do it, I know you can.’
‘Oh, go on, Gran, you must. It’ll be awesome. You have to say yes.’
Audrey was aware of Phoebe’s arm around her shoulders, of nearly a hundred faces gazing at her expectantly, of Ben waiting for a response.
She felt words begin to morph into recognisable shapes in her head. Words that felt familiar, safe, reliable. Words that began to make their way towards her mouth as if knowing through decades of experience that they were the right ones.
No, I can’t. Don’t be silly. Of course I can’t.
Audrey readied herself to reply. And then a snapshot of memory flashed into her head.
She is lying on her bed, feet crossed at the ankles, the voices of contestants on Call My Bluff filtering through the partition wall from the sitting room next door. Her diary is propped up on her pillow, a pen in her hand. She writes. As she pours her hopes and dreams into her diary on the evening of her sixteenth birthday, she experiences an unbridled sense of optimism: that the whole world is out there waiting for her, just as long as she is brave enough to go out and grab it.
Audrey looked around the room at the faces of her fellow choir members, strangers three months ago and yet now part of a group to which she felt deeply attached. She raised her head to look at Ben. And then, without affording herself an opportunity to change her mind, she heard herself reply, loudly and clearly, ‘OK. If you really think I can, I’ll do it.’
In the hubbub that followed – Phoebe hugging her, the choir applauding, Ben calling them to order to explain exactly how it was going to work – Audrey could see out of the corner of her eye the ghost of her sixteen-year-old self, leaning against the wall and smiling at her.
Chapter 38
Audrey
Audrey stood listening to the last few resounding chords of Beethoven’s 9th, the entrance to the auditorium within touching distance ahead of her. As the sound of applause crashed through the closed doors, she breathed in through her nose and let the air out slowly through a tiny circle in the centre of her lips.
‘Right, that’s your cue. Good luck – and enjoy it!’
The stage manager ushered them forward, Ben first, Audrey fourth in line. She cast a glance over her shoulder to see if she could spot Phoebe but her granddaughter was too far behind.