AT THE PIANO, ALICE MAY MORRISON Taylor picked out the notes she saw in her mind’s eye, repeating under her breath the new hymn the choir had sung this morning. When she listened to the choir she pictured the shape of what they sang. Didn’t everyone? Sometimes the notes marched in a line as straight as Dumbarton Road. Other times the melody would soar as if to the top of Dumbarton Rock, then float back down to the Clyde. If Alice could keep its shape in her mind’s eye during the service and the walk home, she knew she would be able to remember it when she returned to her piano. She had come to think of the piano as hers, because Nance had given up all pretence of playing it, and, despite the organist at church being a man, their parents and brothers considered playing the piano as something only girls did.
The Dowanhill United Free Church was ten minutes from home. On the way there, one of her brothers would crack the joke about how it should be downhill, like its name. Nance giggled every time, but it drove Alice to distraction. Her favourite moment was rounding the corner into Hyndland Street and seeing the steeple pointing straight up to God. Soon she would be inside the church and singing, even if she were sandwiched in a pew between her fidgeting brothers instead of up the front with the choir where she just knew she belonged.
‘Surely there are quicker ways, Mother,’ James Taylor grumbled as they walked home along Hyndland Street toward Dumbarton Road.
‘It’s half a mile whichever way we go,’ his wife replied. ‘When Alice joins the choir she’ll have to get there and back by herself, and you know very well this is the simplest.’
Every Sunday Alice watched the conductor, old Mr Cunningham, her eyes glued to his narrow shoulders as he moved his arms in front of the choir, trying to imagine exactly what he was doing. As long as she could remember, she had yearned to join the choir. But musically speaking, Dowanhill United was a serious business: membership of the choir was by invitation only.
‘Mr Cunningham told me today he’d be happy to have you join the choir when you turn twelve,’ her mother had said the previous Sunday afternoon, unpegging the dry sheets from their section of the common clothesline. Alice had bent to help her fold them, trying to contain her excitement. ‘It’s God’s gift to you, your voice,’ her mother had said, the peg lodged in one corner of her mouth keeping her tone flat. ‘Sure as eggs you didn’t get it from us.’
Despite the peg, Alice had heard the quiet pride in her mother’s voice. But twelve? She had only just turned eleven. How could she possibly wait that long?