No point mentioning these reservations to Connie, he’s skipping around the place like he’s fallen in love. That’s why Titch has taken it upon himself, in his capacity as Master of Ceremonies, to have a little sneak preview of the Quartet’s performance. And guess what, the noise coming from behind that rehearsal room door does not sound like classical music. Or, some of it does? But those parts keep getting drowned out by other parts that sound like the Death Star exploding. And even as he watches, concealed within an alcove, Mario and Niall stagger by, hefting a) a computer and b) some sort of satellite dish…?
The whole thing is fishier than a mermaid’s twat. Titch decides to take the matter directly to the top, i.e. Mr Costigan.
‘Actually quite busy here, Fitzpatrick –’
‘Yes, sir, but it’s important.’ He explains his misgivings about the Quartet’s readmittance, and the strange noises he heard outside the rehearsal room –
‘Death Star? Fitzpatrick, what in God’s name are you –’ Then the phone goes. ‘Costigan – well, well, Jack Flaherty, you old son of a gun! How are ya, big guy? How’s everything in petrochemicals? A little bird told me you guys were running out… ha ha, of course not, listen here, we’re throwing a little shindig over here Saturday…’ The chair swivels away. Titch stands there jilted a moment before becoming aware that Brother Jonas is staring at him from the other side of the room.
‘What is troubling you, my child?’ he says, in his soft muggy African voice.
Titch takes one look at the little black man, and another at the Acting Principal, gabbing away with his feet on the desk. He smiles. ‘Nothing, Brother, it’s not important.’ Then he leaves the office. If they want to ignore their own Master of Ceremonies, they deserve everything they get.
It was Jeekers, not Dennis, whom Geoff thought they would have the hardest time getting back on board; privately he wondered if Ruprecht might be better off not mentioning the whole seance-experiment end of things, Jeekers generally being quite straitlaced and not such a seance-experiment sort of fellow, especially with his parents looking on. But to Geoff’s surprise, Jeekers agreed straight away, to all of it – actually he even seemed glad about the clandestine element, as if he had been waiting for just such a secret enterprise to burrow himself away in. That doesn’t mean the rehearsals are plain sailing.
‘It just doesn’t sound right.’
The three subordinate members of the Van Doren Quartet lower their instruments for the nth time with pained expressions. ‘It sounds like it’s always sounded. What do you want it to sound like?’
That’s just it: Ruprecht doesn’t know. He stares blearily at his notes. Symbols mathematical and musical chitter back at him meaninglessly, like glyphic fleas hopping about the page. They have been in here for what seems like years, playing Pachelbel over and over and over, until they can hear it even when they have stopped; so that when Geoff starts in again about how he wishes he could work out what the hell it reminded him of, Dennis gives him short shrift: ‘You idiot, it reminds you of itself. It reminds you of the nine squillion times you’ve heard it before.’
‘I don’t think that’s it.’
‘Trust me.’
‘All right.’ Ruprecht taps his baton on the Oscillator. ‘Let’s try it again.’
They try it again. In Geoff’s opinion – which he will accept as triangle-player is not worth all that much, certainly not as much as Jeekers’s or Dennis’s – they sound pretty good, especially considering their fortnight-long hiatus, and that Ruprecht’s French horn looks like it was run over by a truck. The sweet-sad notes slide circling slowly around them, derr… derr… derr… derr… bom… bom – darn it, Dennis is wrong, it’s not itself it reminds him of! But what the hell is it? It’s driving him mad – oh wait, here’s his triangle part – (ping).
‘Stop, stop –’ Ruprecht, who has been playing with an ear cocked and his brow so parodically furrowed his forehead resembles a concertina, holds up his hand.
‘What?’ Dennis beginning to fray at the edges. ‘What is it this time?’
‘It’s like there’s something missing,’ Ruprecht says wretchedly, seizing at his hair.
The room is a latticework of sidelong glances. Time is running out.
Derr… derr… derr… derr… Geoff thinks.
‘Maybe,’ Jeekers says slowly, ‘we should just play it the old way.’
Bom… bom… bom… BOM…
‘Because we’ll still know it’s for Skippy, and, you know, there’s going to be a presentation –’
‘It’s BETHani!’ Geoff exclaims. Everyone turns to look at him. ‘Oh, sorry. I just realized what Pachelthing reminds me of. That BETHani song? You know, the one Skippy used to play? After he went to see the girl? If you listen to it, it’s actually the same tune. Sorry,’ he says again, as from every direction stares bore into him, and then, ‘what?’
Friday night in the Residence. The Residence is what everyone calls it, they act like it’s this exclusive hotel? But inside it’s like being trapped in the world’s most boring horror movie, a house full of zombies with grey faces and huge hollow eyes that track you as you come down the stairs and stare at you as you search through the magazine rack for a magazine you haven’t read yet, and when they move they move like people who aren’t really alive, shuffling over the flowery carpet at like zero miles per hour with their arms hanging like old string at their sides and their Prada jeans flapping around their stick-waists and worst of all their horrible disgusting breath like something is rotting inside them. That’s why most of the time Lori stays in her room, except when she has to go to You-time or Group. She lies on her bed, holding Lala to her chest. The tears just come by themselves, she is not sad.
Her room actually is a bit like a hotel room, there are fresh-cut flowers and flounces on the bedspread, and though there is no TV you can write in the journal they give you to record your thoughts or sit by the window and look through the bars at the garden. Some girls – it is all girls – have been here for months or even longer. Most of them are sicker than Lori, still they laugh when Lori tells them she won’t be staying. Some are from the years above or below her at school, some she recognizes from the mall or mass, or they will turn out to be someone’s sister or ex-best friend. There’s one girl who Lori was in ballet class with years ago, she used to be so beautiful, like a beautiful dancing flower. Now she looks like some vampire drank all her blood and threw her away. For a little while Lori felt sorry for her and made an effort to talk to her, then she found out the girl was telling everyone that Lori came into her room at night and tried to touch her.
The Residence you see is basically exactly the same as school, bitchiness and cliques, all the girls in a secret race to be the thinnest. In Group they fight with each other to get Dr Pollard’s attention, sucking their fingers, swinging their legs back and forth, weighing each other up (ha ha) out of the corner of their eye while he shites on about esteem, it’s pathetic, it’s freaky, like watching skeletons trying to be erotic, you can practically hear their bodies rattle, in her journal she writes macarbra. Dr Pollard is a total dweeb, he wears lame Christmas-type jumpers every single day and you can tell the only reason he knows about self-esteem is because he learned it out of a book, still they drool over him like he’s the last piece of chocolate cake which they will vomit up afterwards anyway. Group is really the only time Lori misses being beautiful. She would love to show these skanks how it’s done, wrap Dr Pollard around her finger and then get up and walk right out of there, at the door she’d turn and blow him a kiss, Dream on, loser!