Keeping Mum. Kate Lawson

she was thinking more along the lines of getting drunk, running up a huge debt and staying out late, but didn’t say so.

      ‘It must be lovely for you,’ said Fiona. ‘Seeing them grow up—I was saying to Andy I’d like two, although I’d really like one of each.’

      ‘Anyone here want to sing or shall we just carry on chatting?’ Alan said, his voice cutting through the din like a band saw. ‘I’d like to remind you all that I get paid whether you sing or not and that the meter is running.’

      ‘So all’s well that ends well,’ said Fiona brightly to Cass, turning her attention back to Alan.

      ‘Sorry?’ said Cass.

      ‘Me and Andy. All’s well that ends well. You stopped me from making a total fool of myself.’

      ‘After four then,’ said Alan, raising his hands to bring them in again.

      Cass stared at Fiona; she couldn’t help thinking that maybe she should say something after all. Although Cass had a feeling that, whichever way she played it, this wasn’t going to end well. Which led Cass on to thinking about what it was she did know for certain, which wasn’t much, and from there to Fiona having a baby and from there on to how very complicated life could become without you trying.

      ‘Are you with us?’

      ‘What?’ Cass looked up and realised to her horror that the whole choir had stopping singing and turned to look at her. She reddened furiously. ‘Sorry, is there a problem?’ she blustered.

      Alan smiled. ‘That rather depends on how you feel about modern jazz,’ he said.

      Cass sensed this wasn’t going to end at all well either. ‘I was singing, wasn’t I?’ she asked.

      ‘Oh yes. You most certainly were,’ said Alan. There was a pantomime pause. ‘Unfortunately you weren’t singing the same song as the rest of us.’

      Cass stared at him. ‘Really?’ She said incredulously. ‘Are you sure?’

      Beside her, Welsh Alf and the rest of the lads nodded earnestly. Embarrassed didn’t anywhere near cover what she felt.

      Cass’s feelings of preoccupation stayed with her all the way home. And her thoughts were certainly not just about Fiona and Andy. The to-do list in her head was steadily growing longer and longer. Usually they went to the pub after rehearsals, so it would be after closing time when she wandered back home and there would be other people around coming back after a night out, but heading straight back after choir the streets seemed almost deserted. It was cold, the wind busily scouring rubbish up out of the gutters for dramatic effect, and under every streetlight lay a pool of film-noir lamplight, not that Cass noticed. The dog and cat were upset she had arrived back early having planned a night of chase, chew and snore, but she didn’t notice that either and headed up to bed for an early night.

      Trouble was that the night seemed never-ending and full of dreaming and waking and thinking and dreaming some more. Cass’s dreams were long and complex, full of Fiona and Andy and the girl in the market, and some kind of giant fish—possibly beginning with H—flapping about on a roof terrace, along with angels and singing and unseen tensions and hurrying, and hiding and a sense of impending doom; by the time the morning came, Cass was completely exhausted and relieved to get up.

       Chapter Four

      Rolling out of bed, Cass pulled on jeans and a sweater, deciding what she needed was a walk with Buster to clear her head before opening the shop.

      Outside, the new day was grey and heavy as an army blanket, but unseasonably warm, so that as Cass walked down High Lane to the river it felt almost clammy.

      It was ten by the time Cass opened the shop up, the new day still so overcast that she needed to put all the lights on to shake off the gloom. It didn’t help her mood at all. In the workshop she pulled the dustsheet off the armchair she’d been working on the day before, and took stock of what still needed doing. Cass bought most of her furniture and bric-a-brac in from car boots and at auction, giving things a new lease of life. Sometimes she painted them, other pieces were re-upholstered or just plain old-fashioned restored, giving chairs and tables, beds and bookcases, sofas and sideboards a quirky, idiosyncratic, more contemporary twist, so that everyone from designers through to arty first-time furniture buyers came along to the shop to see what she currently had in stock.

      The armchair Cass was working was stripped back to the frame and looked like something you’d find in a skip, although with a bit of TLC it would be just the kind of thing people would want in their home, a handsome feature in heavy corn-coloured linen that just screamed style and luxury.

      While she sorted out her tools, Buster settled himself into his basket under the bench and turned his concentration to sleeping, while Mungo the cat curled up on the discarded dustsheet. Hanging on the wall behind the bench in the workshop was a calendar on which Cass had been marking off the days to the All Stars’ concert and tour with big red crosses.

      Cass was really looking forward to a little late season sun. There would be dinner and dancing and warm nights sipping cocktails out on the terrace, and the thought of a week of beach life and sunshine lifted her spirits no end. She picked up a little tacking hammer and surveyed the frame of the chair, mentally busy thumbing her way through her wardrobe while her hands worked.

      It didn’t look as if she was going to be rushed off her feet, and so Cass pinned up the set list for the concert and started to work her way down through the songs. Buster and the cat studiously ignored her.

      Cass liked to practise a little every day even when they didn’t have a concert. When she was alone she’d put a CD of the choir’s current repertoire into her player—Alan recorded all the parts—so Cass sang along as she tapped away at the chair, sang while she replaced the beading, stained and bees-waxed a little mahogany sideboard in the main shop, and sang while she put the undercoat on a little chiffonier that she planned to distress, although Cass had stopped herself humming the tunes under her breath in the street and when there were punters in the shop, because she was conscious that it disturbed people—and there was that whole mad-old-biddy, slippery-slope thing that she sometimes felt herself sitting at the top of.

      Cass was halfway through the first set and well into the second verse of Moondance when the shop bell rang.

      Buster opened an eye but didn’t bother barking or moving.

      ‘Some guard dog you turned out to be,’ Cass murmured as she got to her feet. Putting down her hammer, Cass went into the shop, dropping a handful of brass tacks into the pocket of the big canvas apron she was wearing.

      ‘Hello?’ called a male voice rather tentatively from the front of the shop.

      Cass looked at the man for a second, struggling to place his face.

      ‘Mike,’ he said warmly, heading towards her extending his hand. ‘We met the other night at your mother’s house? Mike? I’m the architect?’

      Cass reddened, embarrassed. ‘God of course, I’m so sorry,’ she said hastily. ‘I was miles away—working…’ She didn’t mention the singing, as she indicated the back of the shop with a nod of her head and the last of the tacks cupped in the palm of her hand in case he might need some sort of visual aid. ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you here,’ she said although, even as she said it, Cass realised it sounded more like, I wasn’t expecting to see you again.

      ‘Right,’ said Mike. ‘I did ring. I was going to ring again but I didn’t want you to think I was stalking you.’ He tried out a laugh.

      And then there was a silence while Cass tried to work out if Mike had dropped by to see her, which was flattering, or whether he was curious about the shop, or had been prompted by Rocco and her mother. It felt awkward, and Cass was just wondering what she should say next when Mike said, ‘Actually,