Coram Boy. Jamila Gavin
candlelight gleaming in the alcoves.
He stepped inside. ‘Look, Jester.’ He knelt down to be level with his dog and gazed up at the huge stained-glass windows, awesome in the dark night, their brilliant colours almost absorbed into black. The faces of saints and martyrs bent down to him in their suffering and ecstasy; they reached to clasp his outstretched hands. They drew him through their windows into the throng of all the spirits of the dead, who rose up from beneath the stones and stepped out from their entombment within the walls. But it was the angels he loved, with their huge curving wings and gentle smiles. They were his friends. Sometimes, they leapt out of their lead-encased glass windows and swooped round him, enveloping him in feathers and gentle hands and caressing fingers, and they would fly with him up into the stars above the towers and steeples of the city. ‘Why can’t I stay with you for ever?’ he would cry.
There was one angel in particular, with blue eyes, auburn hair and a face of the utmost beauty, who, whenever he stood before her, seemed to look directly into his eyes. Often, he would talk to her in whispers. ‘You are my angel. I would die for you,’ and he would lie down on the hard cold flagstones of the aisle so he could see her better and think himself dead. He was always doing that, ever since his mother died, though Meshak wasn’t always sure about the difference between being alive and being dead; wasn’t sure which was best.
He often looked at dead people – old people, poor people, babies and abandoned children. He sometimes saw them huddled in ditches or crouched in the forest trying to find shelter. They had died from cold or illness, or such strength-sapping poverty that they had lost the will to try to live. And then he would think about his mother and wonder whether she liked being dead. When he was awake, he couldn’t always remember her face, though he had an impression that it had been sad. But in his dreams, she would sometimes come, stroking his head, showering him with kisses, and her face would be smiling. She seemed so happy that he would wake up crying, ‘If being dead makes you so happy, should I not be dead too?’
When Meshak had ‘dead’ days he would lie for hours, stiff as a board, with open eyes but not seeing anything in this world. Otis gave him such a beating for his ‘stupidity’, but nothing would rouse him, even when his father kicked him and tried to beat him into activity. Gradually, even Otis had to accept that Meshak had dead days and leave him to it, especially when Mrs Peebles told him his boy had fits and that he should leave well alone. What no one knew was that Meshak stepped out of his body and into a paradise where he would meet his Gloucester angel. She would lead him through beautiful gardens of lawns and flowers and playing fountains, and sometimes show him his mother. Somehow, he was never able to touch her or talk to her, but he would see her from a distance, smiling and being happy. Once she waved at him with such sweetness, and he called out, ‘Why can’t I be with you?’ and she said, ‘Because you’re not dead.’ He would have tried to be dead then and there, but the Gloucester angel would lead him away and say, ‘Not yet, Meshak.’
Today, as he looked at his angel, he didn’t lie dead. The choir was rehearsing and he always loved hearing the singing. He edged further down the nave, wanting to be closer. Beyond the wooden carved Kent screen, in the chancel, men and boys stood in their stalls. He peered round, catching glimpses of their faces in the flickering candlelight as they concentrated on bits of paper held in their hands, with wriggly symbols which they translated into music. Tears welled in his great sloppy eyes. Music always affected him. He wished he could sing as they did. He opened his mouth. A frightful squawk came out. Some boys looked up and giggled.
‘Hey, you! Go on, get out of here and take that hound with you!’ A cleric came flapping down the aisle like some clumsy bird, waving his hands at them. He was always on the lookout for vagrants, who would endeavour to sneak into the church out of the cold rain for the night. Meshak and Jester ran out, little as ants beneath the huge flying buttresses and stone walls rising high as the walls of a canyon. They scuttled away across the great paved entrance and out into the mud and mire and filth of the city streets.
Chapter Four
The cathedral bells chimed. ‘Home, home, tomorrow we go home,’ the boy choristers murmured excitedly.
Thomas and Alexander shuffled in their stalls in line with the other boy trebles. They nudged and pushed and exchanged boyish insults, while the lay clerks, older men – the tenors and basses – cuffed their ears and told them to mind themselves.
‘Ummum, now boysum . . . we’llum sing through psalmum 48 . . . Sssh . . . ’ Dr Smith, the choirmaster, rapped the lectern fiercely with his baton. The great organ boomed out the opening chords of an anthem by their old organist, William Hines. The boys, with eyes fixed on the choirmaster, opened wide their mouths and sang with piercing sweetness.
Treble voices rang round the great cavernous cathedral. The candles flickered softly in the evening light, which barely penetrated the cathedral. They had been up since five, working to earn their keep by scrubbing floors, digging vegetables, feeding the livestock and cleaning out the sheds and stables in the cathedral close. Now they were yawning but excited, wanting to sleep so that the next day came quicker.
Alexander’s voice soared above the others as he took the solo – always causing a shiver of wonder at its purity. When he hit the very highest note, it cracked slightly. Thomas felt his friend shudder beside him, though Alexander didn’t falter and continued strongly to the end. Everyone knew that, no matter how glorious the treble voice, the time would come when it would break. And no one – but no one – could prophesy which boy could make the transition and become an equally good tenor or bass.
Alexander’s face was pale as he concentrated on producing a clear sound.
He had already begun to confide his fears to Thomas. ‘Once my voice has broken, that will be the end of my musical life,’ he had said with anguish.
‘But that’s not possible,’ Thomas had exclaimed. ‘Surely, you will play and compose. You’re not just a singer, you are a musician!’ Thomas glanced up at Alexander who, at fourteen, was tall now – almost manly. He wasn’t handsome in the normal way; he had thick, dark-brown, curly hair which fell round a broad-boned face, heavy lips, a protruding brow and eyes which, though blue, could look almost black and gave him a dazed, inverted look, as if he lived more inside himself than outside. Thomas noted the faintest shadow round his jaw and above his lip, and knew that his friend would not sing as a treble much beyond Christmas. But Thomas couldn’t understand how that would be the end of his life in the cathedral. Surely the cathedral wouldn’t want to lose him, and Alexander would teach, conduct and continue to compose as other gifted pupils had done when their voices broke?
But Alexander was gloomy and just said, ‘My father forbids it.’
‘Home, home, home.’ It sounded like the low buzz of honey bees. It was August and for a whole month there would only be ‘said’ service instead of ‘sung’ so that the boys could go back to their farms and help with the reaping and hay-making. Not since they became choristers had the boys been at home for Easter or Christmas Day, because that was when their music was most needed.
Alexander nudged Thomas in the ribs. ‘At last you’re coming to Ashbrook. At last you’ll see my dog Bessie and my new wolfhound pup Zanzibar – well not a pup any more. Isobel writes to say he’s nearly full size and very naughty. I hope he’ll know me and react to my commands . . . We’ll go shooting with him – yes?’
‘Ummum now, boysum . . . we’llum sing through psalmum 48 again.’
Thomas was saved from having to try to look enthusiastic when inside he was uneasy about his forthcoming visit to Alexander’s house. It would be the first time that he had ever left the city of Gloucester. Most of the other boys came from all corners of the county, one as far away as Dursley and others from Wotton-under-Edge, Bibury, Minchinhampton or Cirencester. Thomas had