Gut Ache and Heartache

Tags

Classic FM, dirty dancing, Eczane, Fonz, Imodium, leather jacket, melatonin, mid life crisis, Myra, non-U, recessive gene, silk leather, St Nicolas

Augustus Snodbury climbed onto the tour coach.

He was wearing a new ‘silk leather’ jacket (one size too

small) which he had purchased at the factory outlet

they had visited the previous day.  All the men had bought

one, slicking their receding hairlines back in a Fonz-like mime

of an attitudinal stanceattitudes they had never adopted,

even all those decades ago.  It was all down to the dirty

dancing from last night’s tourist show, no doubt.

Diana regarded him with scarcely masked distaste, as she

thought the garment made him look somewhat reptilian and it only

trumpeted his denial of being in a late-mid life crisis.  She mentally

bracketed leather jacket with woodlouse, or Sugar Daddy Long-legs.

No doubt the gyrations of the belly dancer the day before, aimed

specifically at those men in the audience who looked almost neutered,

had stirred the final glowing embers in a camp fire which had been

almost extinguished.  It now seemed that their gas was at a peep,

after all.

Horrid thought!

You’ll never guess...he began, addressing his daughter

and her mother, dragging the pockets down in a vain attempt

to look casual.

Geoffrey Poskett, interrupted Drusilla, getting it in one.

What is he doing here?  Is he stalking us, or what?

Gus looked crestfallen.  His coup de foudre had been

effectively conducted to earth and rendered impactless.

Apparently he and Milford-Haven responded to an advert for

an Anatolian trip, which had been placed in a music publication,

he began to explain.

Not that Classic FM magazine? Diana shuddered.

Gus ignored her and carried on.  They saw it just before half

term.

Milford-Haven?  Is Nigel here too?  Drusilla blushed.

Yes and no, Gus replied, somewhat cryptically.  He ate the

salad last night and forgot to clean his teeth with bottled water,

so he is resting at the hotel today.

Diana ate a pumpkin seed and looked less than riveted. So,

where are they, I mean their group, going next?

Oh, they’re off to Myra to see the the seat of Bishop Nicolas.

After Milford-Haven took the eponymous role in the school

concert he became fascinated by the character and decided to

follow in his footsteps. Odd that they didn’t mention their intended

trip in the staffroom.

Well, did you mention that we were coming here? Diana lobbed

him this query as fast as one of his Junior spin bowlers.

Eh, no.  I don’t recall that I did.

There you are then, she pronounced, spitting a seed into her

handkerchief. Typical man!

Drusilla watched the other coach drive off in a cloud of dust.

Horrors!  Poskett was waving and he blew her a kiss.  It had

been bad enough being under his baton in the concert, but

she had no intention of coming under him in any sense in the

future.  Egotistical little…

She hoped that Nigel would not contract hepatitis, or anything

sinister.  Poor love!

Drusilla!  Her mother bludgeoned her way into her reverie.

What?

Pardon? her mother corrected her.  She was wrong, but Dru let it

pass.  It was the same with napkin and serviette.  So non-U!  But

she had to admit that she was not a Mitford.  A Milford– maybe…but

she drew back from that sociological precipice.  A teacher marrying a

teacher.  It was like two recessive genes intermingling and would

probably result in a freckled offspring, with too much melamine.  Or

was it melatonin?  Whatever, as her boarders said. Anyway, any kid

they might have would look like a bird’s egg.

Eczane, her mother stated. Like Imodium.  That’s what he needs.

I bought some at the pharmacy yesterday, just in case.  We could

have sent him some via Poskett.

But Dru knew that Nigel would require something stronger to

restore his well-being once Poskett had blabbed that he had

missed seeing the angelic harpist who had tugged so endearingly

at their heartstrings in the concert. And all because he was lying in a

bed of sickness. (Horrible metaphor!)

Fifth Rehearsal

Tags

bratwurst, Britten, Camelot, Ceremony of Carols, faggots, gerund, Nunc Dimittis, Old Hundredth, Paradis XO, St Nicolas

Tension was running high.  There weren’t many weeks left until the St

Nicolas Concert and the Music Department of one-plus-a-few peripatetics

was becoming visibly anxious, willing the older boys’ voices to resist

breaking.

Augustus Snodbury, Senior Master at St Birinus Middle School

was almost falling asleep in the foetid heat of the rehearsal room.

Almost, but not quite.  He was there in his capacity of judge and jury,

for he had once sung the lead role in a very good amateur performance

of Camelot, but he refused to lower himself to participate in a school

production.  He regarded himself as a semi-pro.

He was incredibly proud of his daughter, Drusilla, who had been persuaded

to play her harp in the second half of the evening, when Britten’s Ceremony

of  Carols was to have its run through.  He had also passed on a few useful

tips on breathing to Nigel Milford-Haven, tenor and eponomyous Saint,

whose day job made him a little lower than the angels, as far as his

mentor was concerned.

He had been secretly impressed by Nigel’s practical assistance in

manoeuvering Drusilla’s weighty instrument into the hall.  She had been

surprised at such strength being demonstrated from what some would

term a weedy guy -the type who has sand kicked in his face.  Usually she

preferred a bass, but chivalry seemed to be a tenor characteristic, if not a

long-term sustainability feature.

The basses just wondered why he didn’t ask the school caretaker to

assist. They felt they had brains as well as brawn.  But they couldn’t know

how love gave Nigel the power to shift mountains.

Drusilla, being a House Mistress at St Vitus’ School for the Academically-

Gifted Girl, was playing a dual role.  She was accompanying, in both

senses of the word, some of the members of the girl’s choir, who had been

jolly rousing in the movement where they had been drafted in to brew a

storm in the Journey to Palestine section.  They had to sing, standing in

the upper gallery of the hall, on a pierced wrought iron platform, as if they

were on a boat, but Drusilla had stipulated that they should wear non-

uniform trousers for the evening.  In spite of this modest attire, they still

raised a typhoon of raging emotion in the ranks of the older, pre and mid-

pubescent male voices and nearly made a shipwreck of the session.

Gus’ head was just about to lag and his breathing was threatening to

splutter, when his attention became riveted by the words of the Nunc

Dimittis, which Mr Geoffrey Poskett, Choirmaster, was conducting so

feelingly.

How very apposite! thought Gus. Those words!  The boys must sing this

at my retirement, in the very near future.  I have been a shepherd; I have

been kind  and courageous: a ‘spendthrift in devotion’.  I have guided boys

through all  kinds of perils, on land and sea…Is that a different hymn?  I

have defended  them from the injustices of cruel men.  I mean, some of

my past colleagues who were quite unreasonable.  Like St Nicolas….Ah! 

Didn’t I overhear Pollux  Willoughby of Transitus A say that I was a legend

in my lunch hour?  Or was it in his lunch hour?

(Maybe it was a deliberate ploy to gain an exemption from litter-picking?)

He could foresee a –what was the collective term for a group of grateful

parents?– ‘pension fund of parents‘ pouring from a brass, no, a golden

vessel, a libation of something very expensive in the alcohol line, say,

Paradis XO, over his head- minus his Panama, naturally.  In that eventuality,

they should keep that nectar in the bottle and should anoint him with

something less valuable.  A laurel wreath would do.

He became lost in this soft focus reverie. Then he had to rush back to mark

some wretched scripts.  He left Nigel to assist with the harp, but noticed

Geoffrey Poskett getting in on the act, much to the tenor’s annoyance.

So, it was disappointing that, the very next day, Snod should have to be

confronting the troublesome John Boothroyd-Smythe, whose family was

experiencing difficulties, as everyone knew.  Still, there was no excuse.  The

bratwurst had behaved reasonably well in the rehearsal the previous

evening, but had disgraced himself in the refectory at lunch, by

commenting audibly, as he expectorated a lump of gristle, that the school

faggots– those culinary delicacies which the dinner ladies had been serving

up for aeons- were probably equine, or the products of the same butcher

that Nicolas, Singing Bishop of Myra/ Lyra?, had condemned for

sausagifying – was that a gerund?- the three pickled boys, Timothy, Mark

and John.

Gus refrained from issuing him with the ultimate punishment: suspension

from school, not physically, though there was a very useful flagpole should

the need arise, but he did require the irritating one to write out The Old

Hundredth in musical notation three times, for the following Friday.

The Senior Master was particularly annoyed as he had been on lunchtime

yard duty and there hadn’t been any faggots left by the time he got to sit

down and invite indigestion.  Only the vegetarian options had remained,

sadly. He was so hungry that he almost felt like eating a boy himself, saintly

prohibition, or not!

Copper-Bottomed Coffee Pot!

Tags

Birinus, copper-bottomed coffee pot, Delia, diaphragm support, low self-esteem, Martin Luther, Mary Berry, parable of wedding guests, St Jude, St Nicolas

Half-term was supposed to be relaxing, but it wasn’t for Nigel-Milford-Haven,

Junior Master at St Birinus Middle School.  He was firmly under the iron rod of

his mother, who had compelled him to complete his decoration of her Cornish

bungalow’s bathroom, with the force of the estate manager in the parable

who issued the wedding invitations that couldn’t be refused, on pain of

damnation.   Even then, those invited could and did make excuses, but this

was not a viable option for Nigel, as Judgement would have begun there and

then and the mouth of Hell would have opened on the telephone.

Nigel felt like adopting as his patron St Jude, he who supports Lost Causes,

but he could not serve two masters: he was a committed devotee of a

different saint at the moment and he could only serve one master and one

mistress at this particular time.  He had prayed to be excused, but Jude had

only confirmed that he should bend to the will of She Who Must Be Obeyed. 

Even St Birinus had been a bit of a dead loss in his experience over the term.

Nigel supposed that he ought to have been grateful to the aforementioned

one for, at least, granting him a job, but sometimes he considered it a

poisoned chalice.

As he rollered the ceiling he practised his rapid-fire delivery of consonants, to

gain fluency for his Christmas concert eponymous role in Britten’s St Nicolas.

Copper-bottomed coffee pot, he pronounced over and over again.

Copper-fottomed botty-pot!  No..

Nigel!  What are you blethering on about?

Nothing, mum.  Copper-pottomed boffy-cot!

There’s your tea.  I thought you’d have been finished by now.

Damned with no praise.  Not even the faint variety.  Nothing changed

over the years.  No wonder he had a tendency to low self-esteem, which

the boys picked up on all too easily.

He supposed it had left him with a legacy akin to humility which might help

him in the convincing portrayal of a saint.  But he bet that Nicolas had never

been so sorely tried and that he had never been cajoled into painting his

mother’s ceiling, to her exacting standard, in his well-earned school holidays.

Frankly, he thought that it had been nothing short of miraculous that he had

not tipped the paint pot over her head.  He could have explained the action

away with a reference to Martin Luther’s casting of an ink pot at a demon’s

head. Perhaps.  As it was , he was practically served up a diet of worms,

the maternal cuisine not being up to the divine Delia or the meretricious

Mary Berry.  Oh, for the canteen of St Birinus!

Only three days left and he still hadn’t conquered that tendency to go flat on a

downward phrase.  Geoffrey Poskett had kept raising his finger at him in

rehearsal, which Nigel had, at first, thought was a crude signal that something

was amiss, but which was later explained to him was the time-honoured gesture

to indicate that more diaphragm support was needed.

If only he had retained Snod’s old Panama to keep the spatters off his face,

but he despaired of ever keeping his mother out of his hair!

First Rehearsal

Tags

Bishop of Lyra, Bourbon biscuit, bratwurst, Britten, Camelot, Ceremony of Carols, Elijah, Elisha, Frankfurter, Nunc Dimittis, Old Hundredth, Peter-Pears, Richard Burton, Richard Harris, St Nicolas

Mr Geoffrey Poskett, Choirmaster of St Birinus Middle School, was over-

excited as usual.  It was almost the end of September and he had given a

great deal of consideration- mainly in the wee sma’ hours-to the

programme for his showcase Christmas term concert.

Greetings, chaps and chapesses! he enthused. (Several singers groaned.)

Welcome to the parents and staff who are supporting the boys in the end of

term concert.  I am delighted to announce that we will be performing Britten’s

Ceremony of Carols and St Nicolas. If ever there was an accessible

programme, then this is it.  Now I know that you will be wondering who the

soloists are going to be and I can announce that the youngest boy in the

choir will be the youthful Nicolas, as is traditional..

Here some parents looked as if they were about to vote with their feet, as

they had assumed that their mini Peter-Pears-in-the-Making was going to

land the eponymous role.

In fact, John Boothroyd-Smythe might have been a good choice as he

had nerves of steel, but his voice was about to break.

Geoffrey couldn’t imagine the latter springing from his mother’s womb, singing

‘God be glorified!‘  He had tried to keep the delinquent on board, but when he

had offered him the part of the final member of the trio of pickled boys,

Timothy, Mark and John, the ingrate scornfully replied, Who wants to be a

singing sausage?

The answer to that was none of the boys, particularly, but all of their parents

were gagging for them to be chosen and were ready to literally sacrifice their

darlings, whether they were to be actually preserved in brine or not, for the

sake of a favourable mention in a review in the school magazine.

John’s rudeness had earned him a detention with Mr Snodbury.  When he saw

the on-duty master reach into his briefcase for a quick snifter from what looked

suspiciously like a hip flask, John felt that the old boy would have been first

rate as a pickled adult.

John’s interpretation of the boys as Frankfurters, or chipolatas, en vinaigrette,

was somewhat literal.

Geoffrey had bitten back a comment to the effect that the role of

metamorphosed, or resurrected bratwurst would be highly appropriate for

such a pupil as himself.

Some of the semi-professional male instrumentalist members of staff who had

turned up to lead the Junior String Orchestra had been hoping for an elevation

from the ranks and  longed for a recognition of their solo tenor voices.  In

short, they wondered if one of their cohort might land the part of the adult

Nicolas.

And so it came as a surprise when Poskett announced that Mr Nigel

Milford-Haven was going to sing the role of the saint, in view of his

enhanced experience which had been finely tuned– ahem!( he was aware

of his own pun) at the Bath Monteverdi workshop over the summer.

Nepotism! muttered one of the viola players, but that was to be expected

from a musician in their section.

Over tea in the staffroom the following day, Nigel raised the subject very

casually with Mr Snodbury as he stood in line to choose a biscuit from the

hostess trolley. He mentioned that he had been elected to sing the part of

the Bishop of Lycra.

Snod looked at him as if he was a first former and corrected him: Lyra, sir! 

Lyra! He then snaffled the last Bourbon biscuit, which Nigel had been eyeing

throughout the conversation. Still, he couldn’t have everything, he supposed.

Lyra, yes, of course, that’s what I meant to say, he stuttered.  Yes, it’s a

marvellous piece and the eighth movement is so homophobic.

Snod put half of the biscuit in his mouth and sprayed Nigel with a cascade of

dark brown crumbs:  Homophonic, you ass! 

He was clearly not having a good day.

Nigel considered reporting the Senior Master to the union representative

and fantasised about receiving enormous damages for his loss of self-esteem

and injured feelings, but to complain might mean that his stellar role would

be endangered and it was too important to risk that.

I heard the parental chorus sang the Old Hundredth fairly competently, Snod

remarked, as if nothing untoward had been voiced.

Yes, sir!  He was relieved that he was on surer footing now and sat down

beside Snod in an ingratiating manner which irritated the eminence grise.

The boys enjoyed the part where Nicolas is enjoying his bath, he volunteered.

Snod had heard that there had been one or two sniggers at this point.

We rehearsed the section where the bewildered mothers were looking for

their lost sons.  They assumed that the ‘wurst’ had happened.

Nigel congratulated himself on a very good joke, but Snod ignored it.

There’s a plethora of that type of female in the school yard, I always find.

Snod drained his tea in one-a practice he had perfected over many a break.

I don’t suppose Poskett was other than spoilt for choice. I hear he gave

the parts to the pushiest ones as usual.

I don’t know about that, Nigel practised being pontifically diplomatic, if that

wasn’t an oxymoron- ie/ he tried to sit firmly on the fence on any thorny

matter.

I expect that you can relate to the sixth movement, as can we all, mused

Snod.

How so, sir?

Isn’t it a description of the barren years of incarceration? Snod said wryly.

Still, everyone gets their Nunc Dimittis in the end.

He was hoping for his very soon.  Pension! God be glorified!  But you will have

to wait much longer for yours, won’t you, under the new government

regulations?  Never mind- God moves in a mysterious way.  Maybe you will win

the lottery, if you say your prayers.  You should buy a ticket in our

consortium. A tenner a month, that’s all.

Is that Camelot? asked Nigel who was somewhat otherworldly regarding such

vices and, in that respect, made more of a a convincing saint than any other

member of staff.

Camelot? repeated Geoffrey, who had only three minutes of break left, having

collected his large bundle of hate mail from his pigeon hole, all protesting about

his casting skills. Oh, there’s no Bourbons left!  He looked devastated.

Camelot! Now there’s a good summer musical for you, suggested Snodbury,

rising from his club chair. I once sang the role of King Arthur many moons ago,

but I leave you my musical mantle, Milford-Haven.  Even Elijah had to divest

himself of his garment so that the young Elisha could grow into his sandals.

Gentlemen, adieu!

And though there was no rushing wind or cloud of unknowing, he cast a

cursory glance at his empty pigeon hole and left humming:

Don’t let it be forgot

That once there was a spot

For one brief, shining moment

That was known as Camelot..

And Geoffrey and Nigel had to admit that there was a deal of musicality left

in the old dog yet!  In fact, there was even a look of the young Richard Burton

in his profile- or was it Richard Harris?  Both were before their time.