‘To be honest, we’re not that close. I was packed off to boarding school at seven and got used to looking out for myself.’ He pushed his plate away, his expression stony-faced.
‘Seven seems awfully young,’ I prompted. A picture arose in my mind of a small cherubic Ben in shorts and blazer, sitting on his suitcase at a railway station, alone, abandoned and I felt a rush of maternal feeling.
‘Was that the school where you met Michael?’ I asked.
‘No, that was later, when we were thirteen. He had it worse. His parents were diplomats–I think he told you. In the summer he’d fly out to wherever they were, but the rest of the time he was bundled between relatives. My mother took to him, so he often stayed at my parents’ place. He still goes to visit them, you know. He’s a better son to them than I am.’
Ben looked so glum that I said quickly, ‘I’m sure that’s not true. He works more regular hours than you, doesn’t he? Don’t forget, I know about being a musician–how it takes over your life.’
‘You’re telling me,’ he agreed. ‘I don’t feel I have any leisure time at all. Mind you, I’m doing what I love and I don’t know that Michael can say that.’
‘Doesn’t he like his job?’
‘Oh, don’t get me wrong, he finds it interesting. But you can hardly say he lives and breathes it in the way I can with music. Music is my entire life, Fran.’ There was a passionate light in his eyes as he said this and even then I could see that, for Ben, music came first, above everything else. But at that moment, the passion, the intensity, made him all the more interesting.
‘I’ve never felt that about my music,’ I told him soberly. ‘I love it, yes, but I could live without it.’
He shook his head. ‘That’s not me at all.’
‘I’m pleased how much I’m enjoying the stained glass again.’
‘That’s two things you’re good at,’ he said, getting up. ‘Don’t they say that the happiest people have two things they can do? Now, how does zabaglione sound to you?’
‘Do I have to make it?’ I asked warily.
‘No, no, only to eat it.’ He opened the fridge door and inspected the contents of a glass bowl. ‘Hope it’s set all right though,’ he said, looking doubtful.
Later, I slipped upstairs to the bathroom, and when I came out I noticed some pictures on the landing floor, propped against the wall, as though waiting to be hung. Aware that I was snooping again, I picked up the one in front. It was a long school photograph labelled
Wellingsbury, 1978
, and Ben was easy to spot on the back row scowling through a cloud of fair hair. Behind this picture was one I stared at for some moments, a graduation photograph of a breathtakingly beautiful Ben with shorter, spikier hair, perfectly moulded features and dewy skin, and then several more framed concert flyers. The last one was for a programme of Ravel and Debussy at a Northern music festival four years ago. Ben’s name featured, but it was beneath the name of another pianist, Beatrix Claybourne. Here was a dramatically lit photograph of a serious young woman with tied-back dark hair. I studied her intense expression for a moment or two, feeling faintly troubled by it, then replaced the pictures and went downstairs.
Ben had drawn the curtains in the living room, where we sat in chairs either side of the fire like a comfortable old couple, drinking our coffee.
‘So what happened in the pub after the rehearsal on Monday night?’ I said, sliding off my shoes and drawing my legs up under me. ‘You seemed to be under siege.’
‘Ah, the knitting circle,’ he said, draining the rest of his cup in a sudden gulp. ‘The dear ladies who bring cushions to practices and save places for each other.’
I laughed, but remembered something Dominic had told me. ‘Oh Ben, don’t mock, the choir is probably the highlight of their lives.’
‘Maybe, but they’re the kind who like things to stay exactly the same, even if a change would be for the better. They don’t see what’s going on around them–realise that you have to adapt to new circumstances. It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there, Fran. Especially when you’re chasing Lottery grants and booking bigger venues.’
‘But we’re not,’ I said, bewildered. ‘Are we?’
‘We could be. There’s a lot of potential in the choir if you think about it. We’ve a few really good singers and musicians like yourself and Val and Crispin. And plenty of contacts and commitment. I think we should be more ambitious.’
‘What does the choir committee think?’ I wanted to know.
An administrative committee met regularly, I’d discovered. Michael was on it and Dominic and a few others. They organised things like the concerts and the sheet music, and assisted Val’s recruitment of the orchestra.
‘The first meeting of term is tomorrow, in fact, before church choir practice. I’m going to introduce a few ideas then.’
‘Well, the best of luck,’ I said. I stifled a yawn and glanced at the clock. ‘Goodness, I ought to go. It’s a whole new routine running a shop. I have to be up early.’
He laughed. ‘I have to get up for school three days a week. Come on, I’ll get your coat.’
At the door, when I left, he kissed me on both cheeks, for a moment holding me close. ‘It’s been a wonderful evening,’ he said in a gorgeously husky voice. ‘We must do this again.’
Halfway across the Square I turned to look back at the house and there he was in his doorway again like a charming angel. I waved and he waved back. But when I looked back again, the door was closed.
I walked home, thoughts whirling. It had been a lovely evening, but I couldn’t work Ben out. Did he like me only as a friend, or was there the promise of something else? Whichever, I felt closer to him after that evening. The image of that seven-year-old Ben going off to boarding school still tugged at my heartstrings. Despite his confidence and his devastating beauty, somewhere inside, Ben was still that lost little boy, who made me want to look after him.
Let triumph…the better angels of our nature.
Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address
Zac and I had set aside Friday afternoon to start work on Raphael. We closed the shop at three, and I helped Zac unroll a huge sheet of white paper. On this he began to draw the outline of the window in which our angel had to fit, using the measurements that he’d taken at the church that morning. Later, I watched him draw a grid of squares over a photocopy of Russell’s original sketch and a similar grid over the fullsize outline. This would enable him to copy out the sketch square by square, in the process enlarging it to a fullsize cartoon. After further searching upstairs, I’d discovered the original Victorian cartoon, but it had been folded and refolded so many times it was in pieces.
‘Perhaps it was used as a template for other angel windows,’ I told Zac, but he wasn’t sure.
‘The original design might have been, but the grid would only work on a window of exactly the same size. Thank the Lord we have it though, as a guide,’ and I had to agree with him, for it also showed us the shapes of all the pieces of glass.
Drawing the new cartoon of Raphael took Zac most of the afternoon, for he was always having to calculate and recalculate measurements and refer back to the Victorian cartoon to see if what he’d done looked right. Every now and then he wrote something in a hardback notebook he’d bought. He also took photographs.
‘You’re supposed to document everything you do when you restore a window,’ he explained, when I asked him about it. ‘In case future generations want to study it or further work is required.’
Between us it became known as
The Angel Book
. Over the next few weeks its pages were to be filled with Zac’s neat handwriting and illustrations and photographs.
‘The woman at the Museum was fascinated to hear about our archives,’ I told Zac. ‘Apparently very little about Victorian stained-glass businesses survives. She’s offered to come and look at all the papers sometime.’
‘Have you thought about donating everything to them?’ Zac asked, as he copied a border pattern of fleur-de-lys. ‘It’s not much use to us. We know how hard it is to find anything when we want it. At least they would catalogue it, make it more accessible.’
‘Zac!’ I told him, hurt. ‘It belongs to Dad and he’s writing his history. I can’t give it all away. When Dad…’
He said softly, ‘You’re right, Fran. I’m sorry.’
We continued work in companionable silence.
At the end of the afternoon, he asked, ‘Will it bother you if I come in tomorrow, it being Sunday?’
‘You don’t want to do that, do you?’
‘Why not? I’m not doing anything else particularly, and it would be good to get on with the job.’
‘Tell you what,’ I offered. ‘I’m not doing much either, so I’ll help you, if you like.’
‘That would be great,’ said Zac.
The next day, Zac transferred the fullsize drawing to a large piece of tracing paper, and by a process of half-tracing, half-copying, drew the lines showing where the lead would go and the position of the ironwork that would be required to support the finished window.
As humble assistant, my job was more mundane: to continue Zac’s work preparing the old glass–a fiddly and grubby business that involved melting off old solder, detaching glass from the battered strips of lead and cleaning off cement from both lead and glass. As I finished each piece I returned it to its place on the lining paper, under Zac’s critical eye.
From time to time, when concentration allowed, Zac dropped fascinating snippets of information about Victorian stained-glass methods.
‘It’s interesting that Victorian techniques and materials were virtually the same as in medieval times.’
‘Really? You’d have thought something would have changed over the centuries,’ I replied.
‘Occasionally they tried to take short cuts. These would often fail. Have you heard about the great borax disaster of the 1870s? Some craftsmen mixed paint with borax, which fires at a lower temperature, so they thought they were on to something useful. Unfortunately borax is also soluble in water, which meant that when condensation ran down the inside of the windows, the figures literally wept!’
‘That’s awful. How do you know all this, Zac?’ I’d spent hours as a teenager reading all about the period in terms of art history. I was fascinated by the gothic revival that celebrated all things medieval and which led to a renaissance in stained-glass making. I read how Burne-Jones, William Morris and their circle transformed the decorative craft into a high art form that celebrated the integrity of the materials and the romantic values of the age. But I didn’t know the detailed chemical techniques as Zac did.
‘I’ve made it my business, haven’t I?’ he answered. ‘I’ve read stuff, been on courses.’
I asked Zac how he usually spent his Sundays, half-expecting him to say on his own work. But instead he said, ‘It varies. I visit friends, or go to the movies. I love walking. Sometimes I take a Tube or a bus somewhere in London and get out and walk. Richmond or Hampstead, Docklands, anywhere. I like visiting all those Hawksmoor churches in the East End. The ones that are open, anyway.’
‘Shame you didn’t go somewhere today, given the weather,’ I said. It had been sunny earlier when I ventured out to attend the eight o’clock service at St Martin’s. It was a simple spoken liturgy, without organ or hymns, so there was no sign of Ben, though I told myself he hadn’t been my reason for going.
We were tidying up at about four o’clock when the shop doorbell rang loudly three times. I had both my hands in the sink so Zac went to answer it. There was the sound of the door unlocking, then male voices, and he returned, followed by Ben.
‘Thought I’d see if you were in,’ Ben said to me. ‘You left this behind on Thursday night.’ He held up my striped scarf, which I hadn’t even realised I’d lost.
‘Oh, how stupid of me,’ I said, drying my hands and taking it from him. ‘Thank you. And thanks again for dinner.’ I felt awkward, knowing that Zac was listening.
Ben was walking around the workshop, looking at everything. Zac watched him warily. Ben stopped to study the pieces of angel, frowning, but when he reached out to touch one, Zac called out, ‘Don’t…’
Ben contemplated Zac with a steady eye. ‘Sorry, mate,’ he said. He turned to me and smiled. ‘So, you’re both working on the Sabbath, are you?’
‘
You
do,’ I came back at him, and pretended to play an invisible organ.
‘
Touché
.’ Ben laughed. He glanced again at the pieces of glass. I was sure he was about to say something else, but then he changed his mind. I wondered if he had some reason for coming that wasn’t to do with the scarf.
Zac refused to melt. He took a step nearer the worktop as though he might need to shield the angel from Ben.
Trying to lighten the atmosphere, I said quickly, ‘We’ve practically finished for the day. Perhaps you’d both like to come up for some tea. Or is it too early for a glass of wine?’
‘Thanks,’ said Ben, relieved. ‘Good idea. Actually,’ he went on, ‘I’ve something to ask you, Fran.’
‘Oh?’ I said. Ben glanced at Zac, who took the hint.
‘I’ll come up in a moment when I’ve cleared away,’ he said tiredly. I felt sorry for Zac, but annoyed too. He simply made no effort to be friendly to Ben and I found that rude.
‘You’re not to just disappear,’ I hissed at Zac over my shoulder as I followed Ben up to the flat, and he gave me one of his Celtic thundercloud looks.
Ben and I both decided on tea. ‘I had a boozy lunch with some old schoolfriends,’ he explained.
We were standing in the kitchen, waiting for the kettle to boil. Ben glanced at his surroundings and I felt both embarrassed and defensive about my scruffy childhood home.
‘I hadn’t realised you could see my place so well from here,’ he said, peering out of the window.
‘We could flash signals to one another at night,’ I joked. But Ben seemed to consider the idea seriously.
‘The light in the window signalling to a lover. Which opera’s that?’
‘I don’t know. Is there one?’ I said, trying to keep my voice steady.
I waited as he came closer. He said softly, ‘And what would we signal to one another, eh?’ and his finger brushed my cheek.
I looked away, suddenly dizzy, as though I’d lost control of my limbs–exactly as I remembered feeling with Nick. And suddenly I knew I wasn’t ready for this. I was scared.
‘Better get the kettle,’ I muttered, for it had started to whistle, and Ben stepped back.
‘What was it you wanted to ask?’ I reminded him, trying to make things normal again as I poured water on the tea bags.
‘Oh yes,’ he said, not looking at all put out by my rejection. ‘It’s since the choir committee meeting yesterday. It has been suggested that I call together a wider group to discuss the choir’s future direction.’ All this sounded a bit formal. What was wrong with a chat in the pub?
‘I’d like you to be involved,’ he went on. ‘With your musical experience and your objective viewpoint.’
‘Oh,’ I said, surprised, and thinking I was moving beyond being able to be objective with Ben. ‘And there was me thinking this was a social visit.’ I passed him his tea and we sat opposite one another at the table by the window.
He laughed. ‘It is, of course,’ he said, narrowing his eyes in a very attractive manner, ‘but it seemed a good moment to mention it.’
‘Did they like your ideas at yesterday’s meeting, then?’
‘They thought it sensible to take soundings,’ he replied rather cagily. ‘So will you do it?’ He leaned forward, giving me one of his soul-searching looks.
I grinned.
‘What?’ he asked, smiling. ‘
What?
’ He put out his hand and lightly brushed mine.
‘Oh, I don’t know. You’re clever at getting round people,’ I told him.
‘So you will?’
‘I’ll think about it. I’m not very good at committees. And anyway, I might not agree with you over everything. Who else are you asking?’
‘Val, Dominic–he’s sensible.’ He tapped the table as he thought. ‘One more, maybe. Crispin, our soloist, would be best.’
‘Michael?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Why the reluctance?’
‘I already know his opinions. He doesn’t think anything should change.’
‘Oh,’ I said, privately thinking that Michael’s views should be represented. ‘What would this group do?’
‘Brainstorm ideas,’ he said. ‘Naturally, the vicar must be on side. I’d need to invite him. But surely as long as we didn’t ask the church to subsidise the whole thing he wouldn’t object to us spreading our wings a bit.’
‘Ben, I don’t mind offering advice, but if you did make big changes you’d need to have the whole choir behind you, wouldn’t you?’
‘That,’ he said, ‘will be part of the challenge.’ And this time when he smiled at me there was a glitter of resolution in his eyes. It made me uneasy.
Just then we heard slow footsteps on the stairs, followed by a gentle knock. I got up and let Zac in.
He smiled unhappily at me and nodded at Ben sitting at the table. His mood hadn’t improved and this annoyed me in turn.
There were only two chairs in the kitchen so I suggested we all move into the living room. Back in the kitchen I was glad to be alone, making a third cup of tea. I strained my ears to hear whether they were talking–they weren’t. When I took the milk out of the fridge I held the carton briefly against my hot face.
Ben and Zac, Zac and Ben. They represented the two different sides of my life. Music and art, and I couldn’t manage either of them. Especially when they came together. I took in the tea, to find them standing in uncomfortable silence, their bulk seeming to fill the whole room.
‘Here we are,’ I sang brightly. ‘The drink that cheers but does not inebriate.’
They both looked at me rather oddly. We drank in awkward silence then Zac put down his mug half-finished and said he had to go. I was almost relieved when Ben followed him out a moment or two later.
‘All right,’ I told him, ‘I’ll come to your discussion group.’
‘Great!’ He kissed my cheek quickly and was gone.