‘I see a woman with many friends who love her, who will do whatever it takes to protect her and make sure she is safe and can live somewhere safe. Like my house. I have a spare room with a soft bed and cushions and a cream dressing table. You won’t fall and hurt yourself at my house, Polly.’
Polly hated every second of it.
She tried to cover up the bruises with her hands, stared at the floor and looked as though she was trying to shrivel into her shame. I wondered how many times she had stood like that in front of the monster who decorated her arms.
It would be a long road, no doubt, but we were only getting started with Polly.
Hester then tried to move on to phase two of the evening, but we weren’t ready. We jostled her into the special place before the mirror and forced her to look at herself.
‘Hester, underneath that chain mail, you have the biggest heart of anyone I know,’ said Ebony, a quiet soprano who spent most of the time caring for her elderly parents.
Hester snorted.
‘Don’t you dare snort. It’s our turn now,’ Janice barked. ‘I see the woman who brought me dinner and sat and ate it with me every night for two weeks after my no-good, cheating, brain-in-his-pants husband ran off with the tart with no heart. That’s above and beyond the call of duty. You go above and beyond.’
We carried on around the circle.
I said, ‘I see a woman who cares more about us than about what we think of her. Who is prepared to be disliked and moaned about if it means we can be better women. That’s a rare and courageous thing. You are selfless, Hester.’
‘Got something in your eye, Hester?’ Millie asked.
Hester spun around like a soldier on parade. ‘Enough! We are now twelve minutes behind schedule, thanks to your sentimentality. Please assemble before the mantelpiece in concert formation. Quickly now!’
Our brief mutiny over, we all formed a huddle in front of the hearth. Before we had a chance to wonder why, Hester ordered us to ‘remind yourself of the most pleasing thing someone said to you in front of the mirror.’ We did. There was a flash, and Hester took our picture. She handed it to Yasmin, an ITwhizz, who took a couple of minutes setting it up on Marilyn’s enormous television.
First, she showed a still of the choir practice when we had been recorded. Then she flicked to today’s photograph.
Were they the same women? We looked taller, stronger, freer. Beautiful. All of us except for Polly, who looked miserable and terrified. We looked raw, and we looked real.
‘Choir. Do you need make-up and fancy fashion to be beautiful?’
No, ma’am, we did not.
‘What do you need?’
We called out the answers: confidence, to feel good about ourselves, to relax, great friends, honesty, to feel proud, to know we’re loved, to know we are accepted. We needed each other.
Were all choirs like this?
Or only the great ones?
‘Now. This is what makes me mad!’ Hester smacked her hands together. Uh oh. ‘Why did you need a special meeting, bullying, make-up remover, a pile of white T-shirts, and a mirror to discover this? Why are you not telling each other this stuff all the time? Why does it take a crisis, or a tragedy, or a birthday – or someone to die – before we can spell out what it is that makes them unique, and marvellous? What are you so afraid of?’
She glowered at us all.
‘I tell you this. And it is not a threat; it is a vow. If we resort back to them’ – she flapped one hand distastefully at the rehearsal recording – ‘we will do this again. And full nudity will be required. Rowan.’
Rowan reopened her suitcase and took out a bag of hairbrushes, like those you would get in a salon. She then took out straighteners, curlers, rollers, and a load of clips, grips and other hairdressing equipment.
‘Right. Hester said if we did okay, I could do your hair. If you want. But I have to get my bus in an hour so it can’t be everyone.’
‘Rowan, if you can sort this squirrel’s nest, I’ll give you a lift home,’ Leona said.
Kim put up her hand. ‘I can help, Rowan. I did a bit of styling on my beauty course.’
So, the weird evening morphed into a pyjama party, only with white T-shirts instead of pyjamas. Marilyn and I fetched more drinks and cakes while the choir were primped and styled in Rowan and Kim’s capable hands. Rowan instinctively knew what would suit each of us.
‘Can you cut hair, Rowan?’ Mags asked, while Rowan began a complicated type of chignon.
