Chapter Twenty-four

Three months later, I decided one of the absolute best sounds in the entire world is the rustle of an audience from behind a stage curtain. Throw in the murmur of anticipation and the squeaks and hoots of the orchestra tuning up and you cannot beat it.

The Grace Community Choir waited on the left half of the stage, in tiered seating allowing us to perch above our competitors sat on the front three rows below. Two more choirs took up the middle section, and the final two filled up the right hand side. Melody, sitting next to me, slipped her cool hand into mine.

“Peace, woman,” she whispered out of the side of her mouth. “You’re setting my nerves all a-twitter.”

“I’m sorry. I’m so anxious. Look!” I pointed my chin at my chest. “You can see my heart thumping through my dress! How much longer?”

She elbowed Rosa on her other side. “Rosa! How much longer?”

Rosa shrugged, before twisting round to April behind her in the soprano seats. “April! What’s the time?”

But before April could answer, a hush fell over the one thousand strong crowd as the curtain began to open in the Derry Millennium Forum.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” the evening’s host announced. “Welcome to the Community Choir Sing-Off national finals!”

We were fifth to perform. A good slot, according to Hester, as it left you fresh in the judges’ minds. An excruciating slot, according to the rest of the choir members, as it meant sitting and listening to four of the best community choirs in the kingdom smash it, rock it out, and bring the house down.

We had a twenty-minute interval before going on. This resulted in a sudden panic when, as we lined up in preparation to take our place centre stage, we realized Janice was missing.

“She’s in the loo again,” Millie declared. “I told her not to eat that packet of fig rolls. ‘It can only mean bad news,’ I said. But, oh no, what do I know? ‘Sound as a pound, Mille,’ she said. ‘Solid as a rock,’ she said, ‘intestines of steel’, apparently. Well, I said –”

“Enough!” Hester glowered down the line. “Can somebody please go and see what’s happening? Rowan. You’re at the back. Go.”

Rowan curled her lip up. “Urgh. No chance.”

A toot of steam escaped from Hester’s ears.

“Fine!” Rowan sprinted off, as easily as she could in a slinky red dress and six-inch heels, calling back, “I’m an Internet sensation, you know. Internet sensations aren’t supposed to sort out old ladies stuck on toilets with fig roll issues.”

Rosa shook her head. “Oh my goodness. Since she went virus that girl getting too big a head. By the time that tour finished she’ll be going Robbie Williams.”

“Eh?” April wrinkled her nose.

“Like Zayn from One Direction.” I helped her out with a twenty-first-century example of a band member leaving to pursue a solo career.

Kim shuffled in front of me. “Actually, if we’re waiting for Janice, I think I might pop to the loo…”

Hester zoned in her laser beam glare.

“I can’t help it, Hest! I’m dead nervous!”

“No one else is leaving this line.”

We muttered and wriggled for a few seconds as we waited, adjusting dress straps and tucking stray curls of hair back into place. A ripple of applause welcomed the host back on stage to announce our appearance, and we froze, all eyes on Hester.

“She’s not gonna make it,” Rowan huffed as she clacked back into the wings. “Said it’s like Mount Vesu–”

“Stop!” Mags begged. “I’m feeling sick enough as it is.”

“Well. Anyway, she isn’t leaving that bathroom anytime soon.”

A larger round of applause, and one of the stage crew beckoned Hester forwards.

“What are we going to do?” Leona gaped. “We might get away without her voice, but we’ve got to have an even number or the moves won’t work.”

“Someone else could drop out,” April said, wincing as the rest of the choir launched optical daggers at her.

Hester closed her eyes momentarily, sucked in a deep breath, and held up one finger to indicate she needed a minute.

Whipping out her phone, she jabbed at the screen. “How fast can you get here?” she barked down the line. “Make it two and you’re on.”

Baffled, we exchanged glances while Hester marched over to the crew member and muttered briefly at him. He stepped forwards and signalled to the host that there had been a slight delay.

The door behind us slammed open, and Marilyn burst through. “Ta daa!” she yelled in a sort-of backstage whisper. “Look, girls, I knew wearing red was a portent!” Spinning around to show us her dress, her smile nearly split her face in two.

“I can’t believe it!” She dashed up and down the line. “Where do I go? Here? Hester, you are awesome. I knew you’d let me sing in the end. I prayed for it and everything. Hooten tooten! This is one of the best days of my life!”

Hester coughed, a look of panic flitting across her face. We needed Marilyn’s moves, not her toneless voice. Polly reached out and pulled her into the line. “Yes, well,” she said, pointedly. “You’ve been one of our best members, Marilyn. Truly embraced the spirit of the choir. Grace – that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it, Hester?”

Hester blinked a couple of times. “Yes,” she said, her voice squeaking on the word. “Grace. Right. Let’s go.” As Marilyn skipped past she leaned forwards and said, “You can sing, as long as you keep it quiet.”

Marilyn smacked Hester on the backside without pausing. “Don’t worry, Hest. I’ll make you proud.”

Hester shook her head as she took her place at the back of the line. “You always do.”

We ended up coming in third, according to the judges. First, according to the unofficial vote of the Grace Choir and its equally unofficial fan club. First, if you rate our position on how much fun we had, how far we had come, how much passion we threw into it, and how many bows we took before the host herded us offstage.

The fun continued in the hotel lounge afterwards. My, those Grace women knew how to party. Throw in the actual winners, a group of ex-factory workers from Glasgow, staying in the same hotel, and the fact that the Irish need no excuse to party, and it looked as though we would be singing and dancing well into the night.

After all those years of organizing other people’s special occasions, watching them go wild on the dance floor from behind the bar, I lingered on the fringes, not quite sure how to join in without Perry to hold on to.

“Come on, Faith!” Rosa wove through the other people currently jiving to some sixties classic and stopped in front of me, hands on hips as her chest heaved from exertion. “Come and dance!”

I scuffed my fancy shoe against the edge of the carpet. “Maybe later on.”

“What? You don’t like dancing?” She shimmied in place for a couple of beats.

I shrugged. “I’m not used to this type of music. The kind of parties I’ve been to were a bit more… sedate.”

“Phooey. Even babies know how to dance. Come on, strut that funky stuff!”

She grabbed my hands and yanked me into the middle of the dance floor, where I stood swaying self-consciously to the music.

“Nah-ah!” Rosa shook her head. “Not like that. Copy me.” She did a few shimmies, and I tried to follow along, stumbling into one of the factory workers behind me.

“Okay. No. That’s not working. Try this.” She stopped bopping and stepped right in front of me. “Close your eyes. Do it! Close them!”

I closed my eyes.

“Now, listen. Feel the beat. Start to move your body. Don’t worry what it looks like. Pretend you are in your living room at home alone.”

I tried, sort of. I didn’t dance in my living room at home. And I had rarely had any time there alone since Polly and Esme had moved in, giving Marilyn and James space while I waited for Sam’s flat to sell so I could afford to move somewhere else.

I suffered until the song finished and made my excuses, finding a comfy sofa in the corner to sink into while recovering my dignity. A minute or two later Marilyn came and plopped herself down on the seat next to me. Wiping the sweat from her brow with a napkin, she took a large gulp of the glass of water in her hand.

“I thought I might find you sat on your own in the corner.”

“I’m soaking up the ambiance. Savouring the moment.”

“It was awesome, wasn’t it?”

I smiled. “It was. Are the twins in bed?”

“Yeah. James took them up. He’s making the most of some time with them before starting his new job.”

“Is he looking forward to it?”

“I’m looking forward to it. It’s been great having him around these past few months, but I’ll be happy to have him out of the house during the day so we can get back to some sort of routine. The place is a tip since he got back. Having said that,” she nudged me, “I still haven’t got used to waking up every morning and finding the love of my life there next to me. Let alone him coming home to me every night. A good man is hard to find. We need to keep ’em close once we do.”

I gave her a sidelong glance, but she ignored me, taking another drink. We sat there watching the dancers for a while. I thought about good men. One good man.

“Are you missing him tonight?”

I somehow managed to choke on my own breath.

Marilyn kept her eyes on the dancers in front of us.

I shrugged, ready to brush her off with a bland reply. Then she lay her head gently on my shoulder and my heart cracked open.

“Yes. I’m missing him. I keep expecting to see him being chatted up by Millie, or laughing on the dance floor.”

“It’ll take a long time to get used to him not being around.”

I sighed. “I feel like I should be over it by now.”

Marilyn sat back up again, and turned towards me. “What? That’s ridiculous. You’ll learn to live with it, but you’ll never be over it. You’ll always miss him. Why are you always so hard on yourself?”

I frowned. “How long should it take to get over a minor broken heart? It wasn’t like we’d known each other that long. Compared to losing Sam…”

She screwed up her face in apology. “Oh, I’m sorry. I was talking about Sam. I thought you were missing Sam, and that’s why you were looking so sad. Sorry. I should have realized you meant Perry.”

My eyes widened in surprise. Marilyn peered at me.

“Wait. You didn’t mean Perry. You weren’t sat here thinking about Perry. So who were…? Dylan!” She gasped. “You were sat here in the corner like a loser, dreaming about Dylan! Pining for him! Perry was right – you’re in love with Dylan!”

“Shhh!” I hissed. “Keep your voice down. Dylan was a good friend, and part of the choir. It’s only natural I’d be thinking about him for a couple of seconds tonight.”

A sly grin broke out across her face. “Have you spoken to him since the wedding?”

I shook my head. “You know I haven’t. He’s been on sabbatical. And I hardly think he wants to see me, given how I treated him after Sam went missing. And then the next time I saw him he got punched in the face.”

“Of course he wants to see you. He luuurves you. I think what he did after Sam went missing, despite the awful stuff you said to him, proves that.”

“He went on holiday. What does that prove apart from that he wanted to get away from me?”

Marilyn gaped at me. “You don’t know.”

“Don’t know what?”

“I can’t believe nobody told you.”

“Nobody told me what?” I pushed her gently, but hard enough to convey my irritation.

“He didn’t go on holiday.”

“What?”

“Faith.” Marilyn took hold of my hand, deadly serious now. “He went to find Sam.”

Those words were like a bomb going off in my head. In the smoking aftermath, I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t think. My head filled with white noise. Marilyn appeared to be watching me, her forehead creased, from the other end of a tunnel.

“He spent all those days looking, trawling through the worst sorts of places. Using all his contacts in the homeless shelters and the rehab centres to try to find someone who knew anything.”

She gave me time to let this sink in.

“I can’t believe this. I can’t believe I didn’t know. Why didn’t he tell me? Why didn’t he take me with him?”

“He told Perry. He actually asked him for help. Perry told him you didn’t want to know where Sam was. You couldn’t cope with it.”

I might feel angry about that later. Right then I was too overwhelmed about Dylan.

As the shock sank in, my throat closed up, my eyes burning. “Did he…?”

Marilyn nodded. “He found him in a squat in Nottingham. Near the Ice Arena.”

On that sofa in Northern Ireland, as my friends danced the Macarena around me, I felt as though I lost my brother all over again. The pain crushing me almost double, I fumbled for my bag on the floor.

Marilyn reached down and picked it up. “What do you need?”

“My phone. I need to speak to him. I need him to tell me everything. And I have to apologize. And thank him. How can I thank him? He really went to find Sam?” My tears were streaming onto my lap now, as sobs prevented me from saying anything more. Instead of handing me my phone, Marilyn put my bag to one side and simply hugged me, holding on tight until I began to steady my breathing again, and managed to stop making ugly hitching noises.

Patting me on the back a few times, she drew away. “Okay?”

I closed my eyes, took another deep breath. “Nearly.”

“Right, now don’t freak out when I tell you what I’m about to say.”

I released a shaky laugh. “Well, that’s making me freak out already.”

“Nobody said anything because they don’t know how you feel about it, and we know you’ve had a really awful time, but –”

Her phone rang. She paused to read the screen. “James. I’d better answer. Don’t go anywhere!”

She twisted her body round to face the wall in order to drown out some of the noise, pressing her finger over her free ear. I took the opportunity to sneak off. Wandering out of the room, I paused in the hotel foyer. I was sharing a twin room with April, who’d gone to bed with one of the headaches that still plagued her since her injuries, so didn’t want to go to my room. The bar on the other side seemed busy, and not being the kind of woman who feels comfortable sitting and drinking alone late at night, I turned towards the rear exit, which led to a courtyard area.

Initially the cold night air was a soothing balm against my feverish skin, but as I strolled aimlessly between the empty chairs and tables, I soon needed the shawl in my bag. Fishing it out, my phone came flying out with it, clattering onto the flagstones. I scooped it up, about to zip it safely into the side pocket when something stopped me.

I checked the time. Nearly midnight. Pacing up and down I tried to decide what to do. Leave it, and spend a sleepless night wondering, questioning, stressed out? Or phone him, and maybe get some answers, even if they weren’t easy to hear? I dismissed the lateness of the hour – once Dylan knew why I was calling he would understand. And the chances were high he would be at home, wherever that was for him now.

Finding a seat at the far end of the yard, looking out across the river, I dialled his number, holding my breath. It rang for so long, by the time it clicked through I expected the answerphone, so was about to hang up.

“Hello?”

“Hi,” I whispered. I could hear noise in the background – the thump of music, and people talking.

“Hang on a minute.” After a few seconds the background sounds diminished. “Hello? Is that Faith?”

I closed my eyes. His voice – oh, I had missed that voice.

“Yes.”

“Well, hi.” He sounded surprised. Maybe a little pleased. “Um, how are you?”

“Marilyn just told me. What you did for Sam.”

“Oh. Right.”

“I just wanted to say…” I stopped. If I spoke any quieter he wouldn’t be able to hear me. Clearing my throat, I tried again. “I wanted to say thank you. And I’m sorry.”

“You’re welcome. And I’m sorry, too.” His voice grew soft now. Something hard and ugly disintegrated inside me. I swallowed back the tears and kept going.

“And, I’d really like to talk to you about it sometime, if that’s okay. Not now, I mean; I’m supposed to be celebrating. But when I’m home, if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind at all.”

“Right. Well, it sounds like you’re busy, so I’m going to go, try to pull myself together, and get back to the party.”

“Okay.”

“We came third, did you hear?” I asked, suddenly reluctant to end the call.

“I heard. You were amazing.”

I couldn’t help smiling. Swinging my feet back and forth like a teenager talking to that boy she dreams about. “Well, I don’t know about that. Marilyn had to step in for Janice at the last minute, and while she got most of the dance moves down, some of those high notes had an added twist I hadn’t heard before.”

“I thought it was the best you’d ever sung.”

“What?” A spurt of adrenaline whooshed into my bloodstream.

“Breathtaking. I may have even cried. Which I’m allowed to, because I’m a minister and therefore kind of feeble.”

If it was possible, my heart pounded even faster.

“I also thought you looked fantastic. Far better looking than the Glaswegians. If they were judging it on entertainment factor, Millie’s hat should have swayed it in your favour.”

I laughed. There were tears still mixed up in there too. “She knitted it especially. Actually, she knitted us all one, but the rest of us politely declined.”

“And that routine you came up with for the last song? I’m sorry I missed all those rehearsals now.”

The moonlight, the lights dancing across the river, they made me bold. “So, why did you miss them?”

“I thought you needed some space. I didn’t want to be an unwelcome distraction in the lead up to the competition.”

“And is that why nobody told me you were coming to watch us today? Why you snuck around so I didn’t know you were here?”

He laughed now. “I didn’t ask them not to tell you. And I didn’t sneak anywhere. I had to catch a later plane and only just got here in time.”

“But you weren’t at the party.”

“I’m here now.”

My breath caught. Those words had not been spoken down the phone line. I hung up, and turned around.

“See,” Dylan said, pulling out the chair next to mine and sitting down, loosening his tie as he leaned back, looking out across the water. “I have this thing about girls who sit on their own at parties.” He glanced at me. “Sort of a rescue complex thing.”

“Ah yes.” I nodded. “I’ve heard this about you. Your need to step in and save the non-beautiful girls from their terrible, lonely fate.”

I peeked at him out of the corner of my eye. I could see his mouth twitch as he tipped his head to the side. “Yeeah… I’ve been working on that. Trying to cut down, as it were.”

I kept quiet, wondering where this was going. Finding it hard to breathe, speak, or swallow, quite frankly.

“I’ve decided only to rescue those rare girls who think they’re non-beautiful, but are actually so incredible you can’t think properly when you’re in the same room as them. You risk life and limb to catch them when they fall. Bunk off church to help their brother. You turn into an idiot who blabs stupid comments at really inappropriate moments. You offer to, I don’t know, give them driving lessons or something. Even though you know it’s a really bad idea because they’re already engaged to a rich, handsome guy – which of course they’re going to be.

“But even though you keep promising yourself to stay away, to stop killing yourself over her, you can’t help finding chances to make her smile, or help her out, or turn up uninvited to her wedding. Because she is absolutely the last girl in the world who should be sitting by herself in the freezing cold at a party. So, yeah. I’m sticking to that kind of girl. Well. The one girl. Woman. Who makes me feel like that.”

Nope, still lost the ability to speak. Or move. Just about managing to breathe, although the icy air will soon put an end to that.

“So.” Dylan jiggled his chair round to face me, producing a horrible screech as it scraped the stone. “Do you want to come inside and have a dance?”

He ran one hand through his hair, his face taut.

I bit my lip. “I can’t dance to this music. It’s just, well…”

Right on cue, the tempo pulsating through the wall slowed as the song changed to a love song.

Dylan gave a shaky grin, raising his eyes to the sky. “And who said God doesn’t answer prayers?”

I still hesitated – flummoxed, overwhelmed. Terrified.

He held out his hand. “Okay. You don’t have to dance with me. But can we please go inside before we turn into ice sculptures?”

I took his hand, allowing him to pull me up. We stood, so close together I could feel the heat coming off his chest. Seriously, how had I ever thought I could somehow conjure up this kind of feeling for Perry? He put out one hand, and tucked a stray lock behind my ear. I couldn’t tell if it was me trembling, or him.

“Your hair’s grown back.” His mouth flickered as he softly ran his finger down my cheek and along the bottom of my jaw, never taking his eyes off mine. “I think we’d better go inside before I do something we regret.”

I took a huge breath in, blew it out along with my doubts, my anxieties, and my messed-up, mixed-up mentality, and sucked in some personal power, right down to the bottom of my lungs, where it whizzed through my bloodstream, along my arteries, and into every cell. Up into my brain and right down to my feet, as I bent them to stretch up on tiptoe.

“Hmm.” I placed my hand over his, where it still lingered near my face, and pressed it to my cheek. “I think the only thing I’m going to regret about tonight is if I let you go inside without kissing me.”

So, when Dylan had managed to control the jaw-splitting grin on his face, he did.

Hooten tooten. We were going to have to do that again.