The newspaper was snatched away from Fergal. 'Heavy reading, is it?' roared Brother Cox. 'Let's try the weight of it.' When he eventually finished slapping Fergal about the head with the paper truncheon he turned on the rest of the choir. 'Eat up your breakfasts, all of you, that our hosts were so kind they provided us. And just you keep your minds on what you have to sing today instead of filling them with nonsense.'
Fergal might have retorted, if only to himself, that nonsense was the word for what they'd learned, except that he was no longer sure it was. The ache Brother Cox had beaten into, his head prevented him from thinking as he trudged away from breakfast and eventually to the coach, which threw his head about as it rewound yesterday's journey. Amid the chatter of his schoolmates he kept thinking somebody was practising the words of the last movement on either side of him. His mind was trying to retrieve the sentences he'd glimpsed as Brother Cox had snatched the newspaper. Had Simon Clay meant that the symphony never would be heard, or that it never should be? A more insistent question was why Fergal should care, especially when attempting to think sharpened his headache.
Cars were parked along the quarter-mile of lane nearest the church. Members of the audience for the world premiere that would be broadcast live at noon that Saturday were strolling up the drive while a small group of protesters flourished placards at them over the heads of several policemen who would clearly have preferred to be elsewhere. GIVE EASTER BACK TO GOD ... KEEP THE DEVIL'S MUSIC OUT OF GOD'S HOUSE ... RAISE YOUR VOICE TO GOD, DON'T LOWER IT TO SATAN ... As the coach drew up beside the porch a man stalked out, pulling at his hair to show that he worked for the BBC. He wasn't happy with the cawing of rooks in the trees, nor the noises the doves made that put Fergal in mind of old women around a pram. He was especially distressed by the chorus of 'Onward Christian Soldiers' outside the gates, and flounced off to speak to the police.
Fergal was trapped in the choirstalls when he heard the protesters being moved on. As a verse of 'Nearer My God to Thee' trailed into the distance, his urge to giggle faltered, and he realized he'd been assuming the protesters would ensure that the premiere didn't take place. There was plenty to be nervous of: the audience and the conductor and Brother Cox, all of whom were expecting too much of him; the BBC producer darting about in search of dissatisfaction; the microphones standing guard in front of the performers; his sense that the church and himself were liable to change, perhaps not in ways to which he'd begun to grow used; the imminence of an occasion he was being made to feel the world was waiting for ... As the conductor and Brother Cox took up their positions, Fergal gave the stained-glass window opposite him a look not far short of pleading. What might his old beliefs have been protecting him from? 'It doesn't look like a nightie really,' he almost mouthed, and then he heard a bell start to toll.
It was noon, even if the sky beyond the stained glass appeared to be getting ready for the night. The twelfth peal dwindled into silence not even broken by the hissing of the radiators, which had been turned off, and then the echoes of the footsteps of an announcer dressed like a waiter in an old film accompanied him to a microphone. 'We are proud to present the world premiere of Simon Clay's The Balance of the Spheres. Despite the controversy it has engendered, we believe it is a profoundly religious and ultimately optimistic work ...' All too soon the conductor raised his baton and Brother Cox, as though gesturing in prayer or outrage, his hands, to let the music loose.
Fergal managed to sing about the creation without dropping any notes, and could hear Harty's replacement was equal to the task. If Fergal started to be less than that he could .ilways mouth - except the notion of leaving the choir short of a voice made him unexpectedly nervous, and he sang with such enthusiasm that Brother Cox didn't glare at him once during the first movement. He felt pleased with himself until he wondered if he was using up too much of his voice too soon.
Why should it be crucial to preserve it for the final movement - above all, for the last and highest note? He set about appearing to sing with all his vigour while employing only half. The display seemed to fool Brother Cox, but was it the choirmaster he had to deceive, and if not, wasn't his attempt to play a trick worse than ill-advised? As the last seal was opened he sang as hard as he could, and was able to rest his voice while the trumpets blared. They fell silent one by one, and as the seventh prolonged its top note he saw the woman at the computer reach for the keyboard. The incongruity made him want to giggle: how could they broadcast a sound nobody could hear? Then the fragile brass note gave way to that sound, which crept beneath him.
He might have thought he was imagining the sensation - it made him feel he was standing on a thin surface over a void -if all the birds hadn't flown out of the trees with a clatter that was audible throughout the church. The conductor held his baton high and stared hard at the windows as the computer sustained its note. Was he waiting for the branches to stop toying with the stained-glass outlines? Freeing himself from a paralysis that suggested the sound under everything had caught him like quicksand, he waved his wand at the forces he controlled.
The words of the last movement filled Fergal's head and started to burst from his mouth. Even if he didn't understand them, they were part of him, and he felt close to comprehending them or at least to dreaming what they meant. He had to sing them all or he might never be free of them. He had to reach the highest note, and then everything would be over.
He had to sing to overcome the sound that was never to be heard.
Or could the choir be singing in some obscure harmony with it? He was beginning to feel as if each note he uttered drew the secret sound a little further into him. He tried not even to blink as he watched Brother Cox, whose scowl of concentration or of less than total contentment was in its predictability the nearest to a reassurance he could see. His breaths kept appearing before him like the unknown words attempting to take shape, and he told himself the church was growing colder only because the heating was off. He tried to ignore the windows, at which the darkening foliage had still not ceased groping minutes after the birds had flown, unless the trees had stilled themselves and the glass was on the move. The thought made the robed figure at the edge of his vision seem to turn a second face to him, and then another. He almost sang too loud in case that could blot out the impression, and felt his voice tremble on the edge of giving way, dropping towards the cold dark hollow sound that underlay everything, that was perhaps not being performed so much as revealed at last, giving voice to a revelation Simon Clay had spent his life trying to deny he'd ever glimpsed. Fergal didn't know where these thoughts were coming from unless they were somehow in the music. The choir and the orchestra had begun to converge, but they had minutes to go before they reached the final note that was surely meant to overcome the other sound. If he was failing to understand, he didn't want to - didn't want to see the stealthy movements in the window opposite. The choir had arrived at the foot of the ladder of microscopic notes, and he had only to sing and watch Brother Cox for encouragement - not even encouragement, just somewhere to look while he sang and drew breaths that felt as if he was sucking them out of a deep stony place, precisely enough breath each time not to interrupt his voice, which wasn't going to falter, wasn't going to let him down, wasn't going to join the sound that was invading every inch of him—