The Orphan Choir Part 2

Safe in his bed, with his mum and dad just along the hall in case he needs anything in the night, in case he has a bad dream and needs a cuddle ...

I bend over, gasp for breath. Why do I do this to myself? It might not be so bad if I didn't fill my mind with the very words that will hurt me the most. There's another way of defining Joseph's absence, one that's nowhere near as painful. Other words to describe the situation, which is, in so many ways, a good and fortunate situation so why do I never use them?

The sound of the kettle clicking off snaps me back to sanity. I move towards it, put my face near the steam; close enough to feel its wet warmth without risking a burn.

Was I really, only a few seconds ago, planning to deceive the council's emergency noise person about the whereabouts of my son? Crazy. I mustn't do it. It would imply guilt that, according to Stuart, I have no need to feel. We have done nothing wrong: the opposite. We'd be harming Joseph by keeping him at home, harming his future. I will tell Chibnall the truth, and, if he looks disapproving, I will pretend to be Stuart and say all the things he says to me several times a day.

Warning myself that I shouldn't silently insisting that I won't and am not I open the drawer where I keep tea towels. I lift them all out and take out the small plastic pouch full of cannabis that I stole from Mr Fahrenheit's house a few weeks ago when I went round to complain. We were standing in his kitchen, which has a large granite-topped island at its centre extra drug preparation s.p.a.ce and s.h.i.+ny silver pans hanging down from the ceiling above it like a contemporary art chandelier. Mr Fahrenheit got angry with me and left the room, and I picked up one of the three little bags of marijuana from the island and slipped it into my jeans pocket.

I wonder what effect it would have on me. Would I relax so much that I wouldn't care about anything any more? I haven't got any cigarettes or Rizlas in the house, so I can't roll a joint, but I've watched Mr Fahrenheit do it another way: with a plastic bottle, a hole burned out of its bottom. The bottle fills up with smoke at a certain point, I think, but I'm not sure how or if there's any other equipment involved I only saw Mr Fahrenheit do it once, when I was walking past his house and he'd forgotten to close the curtains. He was on his own in his lounge. He takes drugs in every part of his house, every day, Stuart and I have worked out, but only ever listens to music in the bas.e.m.e.nt.

Sighing, because I would try some if it were easier but it isn't, I put the little plastic bag back in the drawer and cover it with the tea towels. I probably ought to throw it away in case Trevor Chibnall stumbles upon it, but I don't want to. And he's unlikely to root around in my kitchen drawers. How ridiculous that I'm worried about him discovering my son's absence but not my stash of illegal drugs.

I stir two sugars into my milky tea, although I don't normally take sugar. It will give me some energy.

The Rachmaninov stops. I wonder what Mr Fahrenheit will play next. He must be sick of cla.s.sical music by now.

Come on, Mr F. Put something on, anything. Something really cra.s.s and intrusive that will prove my point, so that I won't need to say anything at all when Chibnall arrives.

My doorbell rings.

'It stopped a few seconds before you rang the bell, literally,' I tell Patricia Jervis, the Trevor Chibnall subst.i.tute who is sitting on my sofa, holding the mug of Earl Grey I made her in one hand and a pen in the other. She is short and stocky in her late fifties, I'd guess with curly grey hair held back from her make-up-free face by a green sweatband that is consistent with the rest of her PE teacher look: navy blue tracksuit, ribbed white socks, blue-and-grey trainers. I have been told to call her Pat because everyone else does, though she sounded far from happy about everyone else doing so when she said it. She's writing in a notebook that is balanced on her lap. 'Are you parked right outside?' I ask her.

'Hmm?' she says without looking up. 'Yes. Yes, I am.'

Five seconds to lock her car and check it's locked, another seven to walk to my front door ... I know from my own experience that whenever Mr Fahrenheit's music is audible in my house, it's also audible from the street. 'Didn't you hear anything when you first got out of the car?' I ask. 'Cla.s.sical music. It was loud. You must have heard it.'

Pat Jervis smiles down at her notebook. 'There's nothing wrong with my hearing,' she says, dodging the question. 'We all have to take hearing tests regularly. If you're worried that I don't believe you, don't be. Our department handles upwards of two hundred noise disputes a year. Would you care to guess in how many of those cases the complainant turns out not to have a valid objection?'

I shake my head.

'This year so far, none. Last year there was one. People don't sit up all night chatting to environmental health officers because they like the attention. It tends to be a desperate last resort.'

'Yes.' She wouldn't like it if I threw myself at her feet and said, 'Thank you for understanding.' Does everyone do that as well as calling her Pat? Has anyone ever done it?

'Seems to be an unfortunate fact of life that those adversely affected by noise nuisance are often so doubtful they'll be believed and so reluctant to cause trouble that they suffer in silence for years.'

'Or suffer in noise,' I quip.

'Yes, they suffer in noise for years.' She repeats my silly joke, straight-faced, then smiles at her notebook again. 'Meanwhile, the antisocial neighbours responsible for the anguish and disruption tend to have no such confidence problems,' she says. 'No doubts about their rights and righteousness whatsoever. They're convinced that any official procedure will find in their favour, and couldn't be more astonished when we tell them we're going to be taking legal action against them if they don't adjust their behaviour.'

Anguish. Legal action. These are all good words. I prefer Pat Jervis to Trevor Chibnall. I prefer her vocabulary. She bends forward to rub her ankle with her left hand. I noticed as she wandered around my kitchen looking at the seascapes on the wall that she rocks slightly to the left and right as she walks. 'You like paintings of the sea, then,' she said, touching the gla.s.s of one frame with the tip of her index finger. I told her the sea was only in the kitchen; none of the other rooms have themed art. I am averse to themed anything, generally, and have no idea why I decided to fill the walls of one particular room of my house with pictures of boats, sandy beaches, waves against distant horizons; I told Pat Jervis that too. 'Very interesting,' she said, sounding as if she meant it, but, at the same time, wanted to draw a line under the subject.

I am working on a theory that people employed by the council are not the same as the rest of us. It's still in the early stages of development.

Pat asks me all the same questions that Trevor Chibnall asked and more. She writes down my answers. I notice that her hands look older than the rest of her the skin dry and creased like paper and decide that it would make a good horror story: a woman whose job it is to transcribe day after day, night after night the details of other people's suffering, and whose hands age prematurely as a result.

Her voice is friendly enough, though making eye contact seems to be a problem for her. Does each member of the environmental health department have a different strength that compensates for another team member's weakness? Maybe Chibnall, if he were here, would give me the most amazing, sympathetic, bonding looks to offset his monotone and I would end up liking him better.

'Any children live in the house with you?' Pat asks.

I pull myself up straight. 'Yes, but ... not at the moment.'

'That's fine.' She writes on her pad. 'Joint custody situation? Child from a previous marriage?'

'No, I ...' It's not fine. It's not fine at all. 'My son Joseph lives here during the school holidays. He's seven.'

'But he lives here at least some of the time?' Pat asks.

Did she notice how terrible that sounded? How bad a mother it made me sound? If her manner were less straightforward I would suspect her of snideness, of deliberately crafting a double-edged comment that I can't prove she meant in the worst way.

'Just that it's useful in a noise case if we can say a child lives in the affected house. Homework, good night's sleep, all that stuff. We trot it all out.' Pat chuckles into her tea. 'Ironic, since children are far less bothered by noise disturbances than adults, as a rule, but there you go.'

Did she say 'the afflicted house'? No. 'Affected', it must have been.

Stuart and I don't have to worry about Joseph's homework, and neither does Pat Jervis; the doing of it will never take place at home. This has been put to me as one of the great advantages of the status quo. When our family is rea.s.sembled, in the school holidays, we can relax and have fun together, and Stuart and I will never have to harangue Joseph about learning his times tables, as the parents of day-schoolers have to.

'All right,' says Pat, looking down at her notes. 'So you've attempted to discuss the situation with Mr Clay on numerous occasions, and he's been consistently unsympathetic to your predicament would you say that's an accurate description of what's occurred?'

'Yes.'

'Yes,' Pat repeats.

'Until tonight, what's always happened is that he's argued with me, then reluctantly agreed to turn it down a bit, but he's always turned it back up by the time I've got back home and taken off my coat.'

'Doesn't surprise me at all,' says Pat. 'It's a cla.s.sic tactic. He's banking on you being too embarra.s.sed or tired to go back a second time in one night. Have you ever?'

'No.'

'No,' she echoes me again. 'If you did, do you know what he'd say? "I turned it down. You asked me to turn it down and I did." And he'd think he was clever for saying it. Now, is there anything I haven't asked or you haven't told me that you think I need to know?'

'Nothing that has anything to do with the noise issue specifically,' I say.

'Spit it out,' Pat says briskly.

'Just ... about my son not being here. Justin Clay's probably going to tell you that I sent my son away because he made too much noise in the house, and that's just rubbish. It's a lie.'

Pat looks up at me. Finally. 'You'd better tell me the situation with your son,' she says.

'He's a pupil at Saviour College School, a boarder. He has to be they won't let you be in the choir and live at home. Yeah.' I nod, seeing Pat raise her eyebrows. 'They're the great Saviour College and they know best about everything. My son's a junior probationer in the boys' choir, which is the absolute elite of the school oh, it's all so ridiculous to anyone outside Saviour's stupid, closeted, music-obsessed little ... bubble! I mean, does it make sense to you? A school with four hundred-odd pupils, three hundred and eighty-four of whom have a choice of whether to board or not, or they can board during the week and go home at weekends, and then there are the sixteen choirboys who are forcibly separated from their families for the whole of each term, no matter what those families happen to think about it. It's like some kind of ... awful primitive sacrifice!'

'Mrs Beeston ...' Pat Jervis leans forward.

'You can call me Louise.'

'Louise. I don't mean to sound uncaring, but ... how does this relate to the dispute between yourself and Mr Clay? This is about his antisocial behaviour, not your family's educational choices.'

'Yes.'

Except I don't have a choice. Dr Ivan Freeman, director of music at Saviour, believes that Joseph, as one of his precious choir's probationers, belongs to him at least as much as he belongs to me and Stuart. In Dr Freeman's eyes, we have as little right to comment as Mr Fahrenheit has in mine.

'I know a bit about Saviour College,' Pat says. 'Friend of mine's a bed-maker there, took me to see the boys' choir once, in the chapel. They were brilliant. I say go for it, much as you'd rather have your son here I appreciate that, but it's an amazing opportunity for him. My friend says Saviour's choristers have gone on to have amazing musical careers, some of them famous opera singers, prize-winning cla.s.sical composers, all sorts. Real star stuff, she says. If your boy does well in that choir, he'll be set up for life. And don't they waive the fees for choirboys? You can't say no to a deal like that, can you?'

'On the noise nuisance front, what's the next step?' I ask abruptly. Pat's speech about the benefits of a Saviour chorister education is uncannily similar to the one Dr Freeman regularly delivers. I've also heard versions of it from several of the other choirboys' parents. I suppose they have to try and believe it's worth it.

'Next step.' Pat slaps her notebook closed, making me jump. 'If you're happy to make it official, I can arrange to have a communication sent out to Mr Clay on Monday morning, first cla.s.s post, so he'll get it Tuesday. At first all we do is notify him that a complaint's been made, what might happen down the line '

'Which is what?'

'Well, we'll inform him that we'll be monitoring the situation,' says Pat.

Monitoring. That sounds like a terrifying disincentive.

'Any instances of unwelcome noise in the future, you call us out straight away, we a.s.sess the disturbance. If we agree it's a problem, we speak to Mr Clay in person, give him a final chance to behave reasonably. If he persists with the nuisance, we serve him with a noise abatement order.'

I try to listen to her, but the paranoid babble in my head is drowning out her voice. What if he does what he did tonight every time: turns off the music when he sees her car pull up outside my house so that she never catches him, never has a chance to a.s.sess his noise and label it problematic?

I'm so tired; my brain feels like a swollen balloon that's about to burst.

'After that, a.s.suming he violates the order, we're into serious measures,' Pat is saying. 'Confiscating his music equipment speakers, sound system. Sometimes it goes as far as a court case. People are fined, some spend time behind bars.'

A custodial sentence for playing Queen at too high a volume? 'Really?' I say.

'I've known noise pests to be that stubborn, yes.'

I picture Mr Fahrenheit in the dock, facing a stretch in solitary confinement. I kind of hope it goes as far as a trial at least, though I wouldn't honestly want him to be locked up: that would be excessive. I am feeling more lenient, now that Pat has convinced me she can solve my problem.

I realise that until she does, I can't put the house up for sale. Legal obligations notwithstanding, I couldn't live with myself if I sold it with an untamed Mr Fahrenheit next door. No, there's a better way: Pat will sort everything out, and then I'll be able to tell our buyer the full story, complete with happy ending. And give them Pat's phone number, just in case Mr Fahrenheit tries his luck again once I'm gone.

'Nine cases out of ten, the first letter we send out does the trick,' Pat says. 'Oh, it'd be very useful if you could log all incidents, keep a noise diary also, of any interactions between you and your neighbour, your husband and your neighbour, even your son, though obviously he's not here at the moment. But when he is. Anything at all. There's no knowing at this point what we're going to need, so, if in doubt, put it in the log. Depending on how stubborn your neighbour is and how much he wants a fight, it might come in useful.'

'All right,' I say. 'Should I log what happened tonight?'

'Yes, might as well.' Pat stands up. 'And remember, next time it happens, ring me straight away. Me or Trevor or Doug. You've got all the numbers, have you? Office hours, emergency call-out?'

'Yes, thank you.'

Pat walks up to the mirror and touches its surface with the index finger of her right hand, exactly as she did with the gla.s.s of the framed painting in the kitchen. What an odd woman she is. Still, she's also the noise nuisance Terminator, so she can do no wrong as far as I'm concerned.

Once she's had enough of pressing my mirror with her fingertip, she turns to face me and stares past my right shoulder into mid-air, as if that's where I'm standing. 'People whine that there's no point ringing the council, they never do anything,' she says. 'Nothing could be further from the truth. You watch you'll see. We'll sort out your Mr Clay. I don't see it taking very long.'

I feel less rea.s.sured than I did a few seconds ago. Is she allowed to be so c.o.c.ky? Doesn't the same council rule book that forbids eye contact in case a member of the public misinterprets it and falls in love with you also warn against promising people favourable outcomes that you can't possibly guarantee?

'I'm not allowed to tell you that officially.' Pat plays with the zip on her tracksuit top, pulling it up and down. 'Trevor wouldn't. Doug wouldn't. Never get their hopes up, that's what we're told, but I say if it goes our way, there's no harm in having started celebrating early, and if it doesn't go our way, well ...' She spreads her arms as if it's obvious. 'You're not going to feel any worse because you spent a few months hoping for the best, are you? I've yet to meet someone things have gone wrong for who wishes they'd started feeling miserable a d.a.m.n sight sooner. Have you?'

'No. But ...'

'Goodnight, Mrs Beeston. Louise, sorry.' Pat shakes my hand without looking at me. 'Get some sleep. But fill in the log for tonight first, if you would. You'd be amazed how much detail a night's sleep can wipe out.'

I open the front door for her and she hurries away, bobbing from left to right as she goes.

I sit up, my eyes still glued together with sleep. My mind slumps forward inside my body: boneless grey mush that I must force into an upright position because something is happening and it's frightening, and I need to think about what it means.

Music. Different. Too close.

I open my eyes and feel as if I'm breaking them. Something's not right. I run my fingertips along the hollows beneath them. They don't feel hollow. They stick out: lumpy. It's as if they've been filled in with a thick substance that has swollen and started to rot. Perhaps it's just tiredness, or a build-up of angry tears I've held back. Moving my eyelids is like driving two sharp pins into the back of my skull.

What time is it? I could find out by reaching for my phone on the bedside table.

The singing isn't coming from next door's bas.e.m.e.nt this time. It can't be. This is sound that has travelled no distance. Children's voices. Boys.

Stuart snores beside me: a different rhythm from the music playing on the other side of the wall. That's where it must be coming from: Mr Fahrenheit's bedroom.

That's Joseph singing.

No.

The tune isn't one I've heard, but I know the words very well. It's the Opening Responses. Saviour College's chaplain and the boys' choir sing them at the beginning of every Choral Evensong.

O Lord, open thou our lips: And our mouth shall shew forth thy praise.

O G.o.d, make speed to save us: O Lord, make haste to help us.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Praise ye the Lord.

The Lord's name be praised.

There are many different musical settings for these words, just as there are for what Joseph calls the 'Mag' and the 'Nunc': the Magnificat and the Nunc Dimittis. Before Saviour College School kidnapped my son, he didn't know the street names of any liturgical pieces of music.

That's Joseph singing.

No. Impossible.

I can hear my son singing to me through the bedroom wall.

I am shaking. Trying very hard not to scream. I think I'm about to fail.

Noise Diary Sunday 30 September, 5.25 a.m.

I have just put the phone down after having had the following conversation with Doug Minns from Cambridge City Council's environmental health team. What follows is pretty much word for word, I think.

Me: h.e.l.lo, could I speak to Pat Jervis, please?

Him: Can I ask what it's in connection with?