December, 2006
Sitting in the passenger seat of Raymond’s car, as they made their way to her flat from her university campus, Nadine’s conversation with a member of the visiting choir came back to her in flashes.
“I thought the singing was really powerful.”
“Thank you,” smiled the other girl, who had been in the choir that had just sung to a six hundred-strong audience.
“You OK, babe?” Raymond asked, as they pulled up outside the house that she shared with Stella and two other female university students.
“Yeah, I’m good,” she replied.
“You’ve been really quiet.”
“Yeah, I was just thinking of that visiting choir.”
“They were good,” he conceded. “It’s been a really long time since I heard a choir sound like that.”
“Yeah.”
“Like they were out of Sister Act – when the nuns became good.”
She laughed as they alighted.
Some hours later, Nadine lay awake beside a sleepy Raymond. She couldn’t shake the choir she had seen from her mind. They were a Christian choir from one of the universities in the South East of England. And they didn’t sound as dreary as she had feared they would, when she had practically been forced to purchase tickets from members of the Christian Union society, keen to publicise their Christmas event. They sounded great. Raymond was right. They reminded her of the nuns’ singing after Whoopi Goldberg’s character salvaged the absolute mess, which they most definitely were. Actually, they were more like the schoolchildren following the lead of the character played by Whoopi in Sister Act 2. The choir she had heard earlier that evening sounded spectacular and she just could not get their singing out of her mind.
Unaware that he was not completely awake, she nudged him. “Ray?”
“Yes, babe?”
“I can’t sleep.”
“What’s the matter?”
“It’s that choir.”
“What about them?”
“What do you think about them?”
“I already told you what I thought. I thought they were fantastic.”
“Well, yeah, but what do you think about their message?”
“What message?” he asked, wondering whether his confusion was due to drowsiness on his part, or her inability to be coherent.
“You know, the whole Christian thing.”
“I don’t know, babe … I think God loves us all?”
“Ray, be serious.”
“I am being as serious as I can be … at 2.30 in the morning,” he replied, exasperated, looking at the wall clock, “What more do you want?”
“I don’t know … maybe, we could give it a try?”
“Babe, you’re the only one who’s heard me sing and that’s the way we’re going to keep it, OK? On the other hand, you’ve the kind of voice that has the potential to go platinum and I honestly wonder why you haven’t signed up with some musical society here at your university.”
“Really … well that’s not what I mean.”
“So what do you mean?” Now he was facing her and was unsurprisingly more awake now, than he had been when they began the conversation.
“I mean the Christian thing … the lifestyle.”
“They had a huge effect on you, didn’t they?”
She nodded.
“Well, babe, if you think it’s going to be good for you, you should go for it.”
“Why don’t we both go for it?”
Now Raymond was lying on his back and he groaned in despair. “Nadine? Don’t get me wrong, they were great. But their singing couldn’t have had the same effect on us both. I mean, you’ve heard choirs before, right?”
“Yes, but …”
“Can we talk about this tomorrow? Because right now, I just want to get some sleep,” he said turning onto his side.
“OK, good night,” she replied, as he kissed her cheek.
Some minutes later, he was dead to the world. But it took her a while longer to fall asleep herself … and even when she did so with a smile on her face, the scenes in Nadine’s dreams were a somewhat jumbled mix of the unconventional choir that she had watched and heard earlier singing, and the youth choir from Sister Act 2 doing back-flips.