‘The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit.’ The dean’s words are as familiar to William as his own name. ‘A broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise. Let us humbly confess our sins to Almighty God.’
There’s nothing to be done. Time and place have buckled, and William is caught in the very moment from which he has been running for thirteen years.
56
Lined up in the narthex, the choristers feel the bulge of expectation in the air. Usually on high days, William imagines the chapel’s excitement at having so many extra bodies. Today, there’s no space in him for that kind of fancy. He is simply terrified.
He looks left at Martin, who stares straight ahead. Since the caning two weeks ago and what happened afterwards in the toilets, he and Martin haven’t spoken, haven’t looked each other in the eye. Yesterday, in the changing rooms after rugby, someone shouted, ‘Don’t stand with your back to Mussey!’ and William simply carried on buttoning his shirt.
The organ starts, loud and riotous, and William could scream at it all. Here he is, on the day he’s dreamed of since he was five, and yet he’s never felt as wretched and anxious. At the threshold of the chapel, Martin dips his head close to William, so swift and sudden it makes him jump.
‘Did you send the letter to your uncle?’
‘Yes,’ William replies. ‘I should have listened to you.’
Martin raises his eyebrows and exhales, cheeks like ping-pong balls. ‘What did you say?’
‘Not much – “Just leaving Cambridge for Swansea. Back in two weeks for William’s big day. Please come. Both of you. I’m sorry.”’
Martin says nothing.
Too late now; his mother, Uncle Robert and Howard are in there. Perhaps they’ve already spoken, worked out what he’s done. The possibility that Evelyn could be anything but furious to see them is now so completely ludicrous, he hates himself.
He won’t try and spot them. He breathes in sharply, and resolves that for the next hour, he’s a chorister and principal soloist. That might be enough. If not, well, he’ll worry about being a son and nephew afterwards.
A hard slice of daylight widens to their right. Sixteen boys turn to see William’s mother dashing in. She notices William immediately.
‘Sorry!’ she mouths, two or three yards away, hand on her panting chest. ‘There was an accident.’
The clerk appears, black cloak swinging with the speed of his approach.
‘You’ll have to wait until after the choir have processed.’ His hand is at her elbow, guiding her away from the boys.
‘Of course. Sorry.’ She points at William. ‘I’m his mother.’
Martin is staring at Evelyn and William hears him swallow. As they start to process, William fixes on the colour-flecked glow of the windows behind the altar and lets the faces of the congregation, turning so eagerly to watch them, remain a claustrophobic blur.
Setting his music down, his decision to ignore everything except Phillip and the music is obliterated, because here’s Evelyn, tiptoeing in on shiny high heels. With the pews ranged at the sides, facing the aisle, no one can sneak in unseen. William doesn’t recognise a single thing his mother is wearing; coat, bag, scarf, shoes. All new. She stops before a pew on which the people aren’t too squashed and waits for them to create a space for her. To her left, William is shocked to see Mr and Mrs Mussey. When he stayed at Christmas, they said they’d like to come if he got the solo, but he assumed Martin would have told them not to.
It’s not until Evelyn’s removed the silky yellow scarf and accepted an order of service from the man to her right that William realises, with a hot rush of blood to his face, that Uncle Robert and Howard are sitting directly behind her.
‘The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart,’ the dean begins, ‘O God, Thou wilt not despise.’
Robert and Howard are smiling uneasily. What has he done? Evelyn glances at the order of service, but her body is turned towards the choir. Towards William.
‘Let us humbly confess our sins to Almighty God.’
‘We have erred, and strayed from Thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts.’ On a usual Wednesday evensong, the dean’s words are answered with a smattering of subdued responses. Today the swollen congregation booms back at him. ‘We have offended against Thy holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; and we have done those things which we ought not to have done; and there is no health in us.’