The Choir - Episode 1 - Business As Usual

WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO READ IS:

IRRELIGIOUS, IRREVERENT, AND IRRELEVANT.

THE PEOPLE, PLACES, AND EVENTS CONTAINED IN ST MUCKYMUCK ARE COMPLETELY FICTIONAL.  ANY AND ALL RESEMBLANCES TO REAL PEOPLE, REAL PLACES, AND/OR REAL EVENTS PAST, PRESENT, OR FUTURE IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL.  

IN FACT, ANY RESEMBLANCE TO ANYTHING AT ALL WILL BE REMARKABLY COINCIDENTAL.

It was another Thursday evening in late autumn. Gathering in the church hall of St Mocheomoc’s, known affectionately as St Muckymuck’s by the locals due to its unpronounceable name, was the choir for their regular weekly practice.  It was getting dusky and it was chilly and raining.  It was always raining.

The hall was small, very dusty and windowless. A large, out of tune piano stood in the corner and there were around 100 plastic stacking chairs piled up in the opposite corner.  The radiators clanked and hissed continually, producing intermittent heating.

Sister Gertrude was busy arranging the chairs and instructing the choir members where to sit while choir mistress Georgina ‘Ina’ Malarkey was shuffling sheet music importantly.

“NO! You can’t sit there!!” shouted Sister Gertie loudly. “That’s Billy Burt Flanagan’s chair”.

Emily looked shocked. “Sorry Gertie....but Billy Burt doesn’t come to rehearsals....so I thought it would be alright....”

“NO!” said Gertie, even more firmly this time. “You can sit......there” she pointed to a broken chair with only 3 legs which shoogled and shook constantly. Emily scuttled off to her chair gratefully.

Ina looked up sourly as the choristers filtered slowly in one by one and sighed inwardly.  “Useless.  Every bloody last one of them” she thought grimly, shaking her head.

She was in a particularly bad mood today. For the seventh day in a row, her knickers had gone missing from her washing line. They were especially nice ones too, frothy, frilly and frou-frou. She had been keeping them for a “special” occasion. And now they were gone.  Still, she’d had the satisfaction of giving her new next door neighbour Stacy Leach a particularly dirty look that morning when she passed him on the garden path. He just looked the type who’d steal her scants.

“Ah well” she sighed “Showtime!”  She plastered on her best smile.

“Darlings!” she gushed loudly through gritted teeth, as she clasped the sopranos in her arms.

“Oh it’s so lovely to see you all – my little songbirds!  Mwah! Mwah!” she made loud smacking noises with her lips as she airkissed everyone, her face frozen in a rictus grin.

Ina appointed herself Director of Music when the regular Director Steven Harold Ulysses Grant, lovingly nicknamed Shug by all, had left St Muckymuck’s to return temporarily to his native Oregon, USA.

He wanted to spend some time with his ailing grandmother Hilda, who was suffering from a prolapsed big toe.  It turned out to be rather serious, and Shug was gone for 14 long months.

But happily, his grandmother died, and he had returned to Kilcathclyde to resume his position at St Muckymuck’s, much to the obvious delight of the choir, the organists Chris Smith and Brendan Fochs, and the parish priest, Father Gabriel who had been offering up weekly novenas for Shug’s speedy return. 

The only one not in harmony with this love-in was Ina.  No, she was not delighted at all. She despised Shug with all his qualifications. Masters in this....professorship in that.....and now working for his doctorate at the University of Kilcathclyde.

“Pah! she spat silently “who does he think he is?  If that poofy wee numpty thinks he’s getting his job back, he can think again!” she fumed inwardly.

Her face got redder and hotter.  Was it anger or was it a hot flush?

Ina had no musical training whatsoever which was painfully obvious to everyone at St Muckymuck’s.  Everyone except Ina herself. The choristers only tolerated her because they knew Shug would return one day.

Father Gabriel endured her awful, tuneless warbling every week, her rhythmless conducting and her uninformed liturgical proclamations, comforted by the knowledge that Shug would be back soon.  And joy of joys, that day was here. Praise Jesus!

Ina was 49 years old, and in her opinion, wearing well but she was frustrated.  Frustrated in many ways.  Musically, emotionally, but especially sexually.  Married for 31 years to the long-suffering Damian, she was bored, bored, bored.....she found herself thinking about “going for tea” as she euphemistically called sex, all day. Strangely, those thoughts seemed to coincide with the hot flushes she’d been having lately. 

There was plenty of “tea” to be had at St Muckymuck’s, for sure. She especially dreamed of having “tea” with Chris and Brendan, the accompanists. She often thought about them playing with their organs. Hell, she fantasised about any man with keyboard skills – even Shug.  It made no difference to her that he was - eugh – gay.   She shuddered momentarily at the thought.

As for Father Gabriel, well, no man was safe......

©2010 Steven Gorman.  All rights reserved.