Partner Piece

The idea behind this is that it be read out by two people - the writer and an unsuspecting "victim" - at a session of a writer's group. Copies will be printed out for the two participants and the all-important page break is as indicated below.

************************************************************

A: Have you seen what we’ve been asked to do for this week?

B: Something called “Partner Work” I believe.

A: Do you know what that is?

B: Haven’t a clue. What do you reckon it is?

A: I think the idea is that you write a piece that works a bit like a play – a conversation between two people so you read half the lines and somebody else reads the rest.

B: Like a dialogue in a play, you mean?

A: Exactly like a dialogue in a play. As I said just now, if you’d been listening.

B: Sorry. So have you written yours yet?

A: I’m working on it.

B: What’s it going to be about, then?

A: That’s what I’m working on. I want it to be interesting and informative. I hold to the principle that one should always write from experience – you should write what you know.

B: That should give you plenty of free time, then.

A: Thanks.

B: Don’t mention it. But seriously, I agree with you  – you can’t just waffle on for page after page, like you’re doing now, if I’m not mistaken.

A: As I said before – Thanks. But I have got an idea. What I really need is a thoroughgoing mug – I mean a fine upstanding citizen – who can be my partner and read out all the lines marked “B” if I read the lines marked “A”.

B: Got anyone in mind?

A: Funny you should mention that. I reckon you might be just the right candidate.

B: Why do you say that?

A: Good clear speaking voice, somebody who might scan their eyes down the first page of my script and think “This is a doddle, no problems here” and never give a thought to turning over to Page Two.

B: What happens on Page Two, then?

A: Do you really want to know?

B: I think I do.

A: Have you ever been on Mastermind?

B: You’re changing the subject now.

****************** PAGE BREAK *************************

A: So I am. Here we go then.

B: Do we?

A: Your name?

B:

A: Occupation?

B: Scribbler.

A: Specialised subject?

B: Words, names and phrases that I can pronounce but not many other people can.

A: OK – here we go then. Two minutes on – what you just said. What is the name of the first railway station you come to after crossing the Menai Straits on to Anglesey?

B: Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.

A: Correct – or maybe not. What happens near Edinburgh on a Sunday morning after you and your mates have been recovering in the cells after downing far too much amber nectar the night before?

B: The Leith Police dismisseth us.

A: A valiant effort. And the longest word to be found in the works of William Shakespeare?

B: Honorificabilitudinitatibus.

A: Nearly. And how would you describe the rapid emergence of eight alternately coloured commercial vehicles on to the A447 at Cadeby?

B: Red quarry lorry, yellow quarry lorry, red quarry lorry, yellow quarry lorry, red quarry lorry, yellow quarry lorry, red quarry lorry, yellow quarry lorry.

A: As you say. The longest place name in the world?

B: Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu.

A: Maybe. Oh dear, your time is up, which means that I can’t ask you for the complete chemical name of the protein titin, which as you probably know runs to nearly 200,000 characters and takes more than an hour to pronounce.

B: Oh dear, what a shame, never mind.

A: And will you be my partner the next time we do something like this?

B: Pass.

© John Welford

Identifying a Flying Object

I had always been highly sceptical about stories concerning visits from other worlds. There are plenty of people who swear blind that they have seen objects in the sky that simply had to contain beings from far away whose aim was probably to colonise our planet and destroy anyone who stood in their way.

There were even tales of supposed encounters with strange creatures that had actually landed and made contact with us. However, nobody could ever produce any solid proof of this. The tellers of these tales were almost always either off their heads or clever hoaxers who dressed up dead animals to look like corpses of aliens.

As for those inverted saucers in the sky, they could always be explained away as cloud shapes or reflections seen in aircraft windows. As I said, being sceptical was clearly the sensible way to go.

That was why I simply did not believe the reports that came our way about what some astronomers had seen in their powerful telescopes. They said that a strange object was heading our way that had to be of alien manufacture. It just could not be explained in any other way. 

It was of no great size, they said, so there was no way it could contain an invasion force of little green people. Indeed, it did not look like a vessel of any kind. It had a large white dish and lots of bits sticking out of it at odd angles. It could be nothing other than a set of scientific instruments and the means of relaying its information back to wherever it had come from.

Our leaders had to make a hurried decision, because this thing was travelling incredibly fast and, if we did nothing, it would pass us by very quickly and its secrets be lost to us forever. The chance had come to confirm, at long last, that we were not the only intelligent life forms in the Universe and that someone else was out there and was doing exactly what we had been doing for many generations, namely looking for other life-bearing planets.

As it happened, we had a spacecraft with just the right equipment for the job that could be launched immediately. This was done, and the strange object was caught in a net and dragged back to the surface, where it could be examined in detail.

One thing that soon became apparent was that this craft was extremely old. Examinations were made of the materials of which it was composed, some of which were radioactive, and these showed that the craft must have been travelling for nearly as long as our species had been developing. Our planet had nothing on it more intelligent than creatures dwelling in swamps and saying “Ugg” to each other when this thing had started on its way. It had clearly long stopped sending information back to base and therefore posed absolutely no threat to us.

But where had it come from, and what sort of being had sent it?

Then a remarkable discovery was made. The scientists found a disc, made of what was probably gold, that appeared to be completely undamaged despite the vast amount of time that it had passed on his journey from one world to another. This was unlike any of the other instruments on board and so did not appear to be for the purpose of gathering information. There could only be one explanation – this was a means of giving information, not receiving it.

For one thing, the disk was sheathed in a cover that was inscribed with information that was not difficult to interpret. It told us which solar system the host planet orbited, and also gave full instructions about what to do with the disc, which was a repository of sounds, images, and a host of other information.

The disc proved to be a time capsule of a complete alien civilization, or maybe that should be a group of civilizations, because what came across was a picture of a very diverse world, in many respects. The most intelligent beings, who must have been the ones that made the disc and sent the craft on its way, clearly came in many shapes and sizes, as did the other creatures that inhabited their planet.

There were images of landscapes that ranged from huge cities to barren deserts, icy wastes and mountain ranges, as well as land that was used to grow food and seas that were swarming with fish.

The sounds included voices that appeared to speak in many different languages, and sounds that said nothing but were presumably made simply to give pleasure – some of these were indeed very beautiful, others less so.

So there we were, the recipients of a gift from a world that was so far away that it could only be detected with the most powerful telescopes we could devise. These alien people presumably had another purpose when they launched this craft – maybe they only wanted to explore their own solar system, but reckoned that it might well escape and end up being seen by lifeforms of which they could know nothing but assume must exist.

The ironic thing is that our experts recently detected a huge supernova explosion in a region of space not far from the solar system in question. They calculated that the blast would have produced a massive amount of radiation that would have destroyed all forms of life on any planet even remotely close.

What this means is that, even if the civilizations that we had seen on the disc had survived in some shape or form to this day, they could not have done so any longer. In other words, we now have in our hands the only record that life, intelligent or otherwise, ever existed on Planet Earth.

© John Welford

Put That Light Out

(This story is loosely based on a real incident)

It might be thought that the idea of night-time blackouts as a form of civilian protection during wartime originated in World War Two with the legal requirement to hide all lights that might be spotted by would-be aerial bombers. Those who remember the TV comedy series “Dad’s Army” will recall the cry of “Put That Light Out” that was regularly issued by William Hodges, the long-suffering ARP warden.

However, something similar occurred during World War One, although the main focus was not to protect against Zeppelin raids in London and other major cities but, in smaller coastal communities, to meet a threat that came from a different direction.

The German Navy had a fleet of submarines that were known to patrol the seas around the British Isles. The danger they posed was brought forcibly to public attention when a submarine sank RMS Lusitania off the south coast of Ireland in May 1915 with the loss of nearly 1200 lives. Britain had few defences against such attacks, but the night-time blackout along the Channel coast was a measure that was strictly enforced.

The idea was that a submarine proceeding along the coast would be able to see the silhouette of a ship if the latter was marked out against a brightly lit background. If the lights were not there, neither would the outline of a potential torpedo victim be visible.

For example, in the town of Poole, which spread from the north side of Poole Harbour all the way to the clifftops next door to Bournemouth, police constables were soon on their guard against cyclists and the occasional motorist whose lamps were considered to be too bright for safety, and the local magistrates had a profitable time collecting fines from offenders, whether they were road-users or citizens whose properties were showing too much light to the outside world.

One such case involved the landlord of The Lord Nelson, a pub on Poole Quay. The idea that a German U-boat could make its way into the shallow waters of Poole Harbour at night and then fire a torpedo at a quayside ship, only visible thanks to the merrymaking at a local hostlery, might sound fanciful, but that is the way the official mind works.

Robin Giles, the landlord in question, could not say that he had had no warning. His wife, Molly, had provided plenty of that in the days before his appearance in court.

“This place is a tip”, said Molly. “Don’t you ever do any cleaning or tidying in here?”

She was remarking on the state of the bar shortly before opening time one Saturday evening in June.

“It looks all right to me”, said Robin, whose standards were considerably lower in this respect than those of his wife.

“There’s dirt all over the floors, half the tables are covered in dog-ends, and there’s hardly a clean glass behind the bar,” Molly said. “Three ships tied up today, full of thirsty sailors who’ll be pouring through this door the second I open it. You’d better shift your backside pronto and get to work for once”.

Molly had never minced her words, which is one reason why she was the driving force behind this successful dockside pub, with its rough-and-ready clientele, in the early 20^th century.

“And another thing”, she told her husband as he reluctantly got to work on the glasses, “I told you weeks ago to get some proper blackout shutters fitted. Those old beer-crates shoved against the windows will do not good at all.”

“Oh give over”, said Robin. “Nobody will notice. We’ll be fine.”

But Molly ‘s advice proved to have been worth taking. On Monday morning, first thing, a knock on the door brought a summons to attend the Magistrates’ Court on a charge of not maintaining a suitable blackout during the hours of darkness. 

“I told you so”, said Molly, her statement being one with which Robin could hardly disagree.

At the Magistrates’ Court, evidence was given by Constable Percy White, who, he said, had been having a quiet drink in The Lord Nelson – while off duty, as he assured the Magistrate – when he had noticed two things.

“Which were, Constable White?”

“Firstly, Your Worship, that my glass was extremely dirty, and secondly that the blackouts in the windows were just a few bits of broken beer crate.”

“And when did you notice this, Constable White?”

“I don’t follow you, Your Worship.”

“He means,” Robin interjected, “was that after the seventh or the eighth pint of my excellent best bitter?”

“Mr Giles, you should not interrupt,”, said the Magistrate, “but you are quite right, that was roughly the question I was going to ask next.”

“That doesn’t matter”, said the constable, clearly getting a bit rattled, “the fact remains that the blackout was not sufficient to block light from reaching the outside world through the windows.”

“And how do you respond to that, Mr Giles?” asked the Magistrate.

“I say it was perfectly OK”, Robin replied. “And if you come down to my pub tonight I’ll prove it to you, and throw a free pint or two of best into the bargain.”

“That would be an unusual move to take”, said the Magistrate, “but if you put it like that, how could I refuse?”

So that is what they did. As darkness fell on Poole Quay, the Magistrate, his court clerk and Constable White stood opposite The Lord Nelson while Robin and Molly turned on all the lights and put their blackouts, such as they were, into place. A minute later Robin came outside.

“How was that?” he asked. “Did you see anything?”

“Nothing at all”, said the Magistrate. “Not so much as a gleam of light until you opened the door”.

“You must have cheated”, said Constable White, “You’ve fitted some proper blackout shutters since this morning, haven’t you?”

“Not at all”, said Robin. “Come and see”.

So he led the party back into the pub where Molly explained the situation.

“The fact is, Your Worship,” she said, “That my bone idle husband does not only not wash the glasses properly or sweep the floors, but he hasn’t cleaned the windows for at least seven years. They are so caked with muck and detritus that not a chink of light could possibly get through, as you have just seen for yourself. For once in his life, he’s actually got something right”.

“Case dismissed”, said the Magistrate. “Now where’s that pint? In a clean glass, if you don’t mind.”

© John Welford

Resolution

The Council Chairman rapped his gavel and stood to read the latest document that needed Council approval. He cleared his throat and began:

“We, being the lawfully constituted and duly elected members of Ossington Borough Council, do hereby, notwithstanding any previous resolutions of said nature, not including sections 7, 8, 10 (subsections 14b, 27c and 34 f, g and k) of the resolution proposed by the Ways and Means Committee and duly approved by the full council on 27^th May 2017, subsequently amended – according to due process under Standing Order 17B – on 30^th September 2017, resolve to take note of all previous reports on such matters as may want approval before any subcommittee lawfully constituted for such purposes, whether permanent or interim, and that anything said in committee, be that ultra vires or post positum nonsequitorum, be thereby subsequently approved.”

The Chairman paused, then asked, “Are we all agreed?”

He was met by a sea of blank faces.

“I said, are we all agreed? That sounds clear enough to me. You wish to address the Council, Councillor Locke?”

Councillor Locke stood and stated that he did indeed wish to do so.

“With respect, Mr Chairman,” he said, “I don’t think that’s clear at all. I surely cannot be alone in not having understood a single word of that resolution.”

There were nods and murmurs around the Council Chamber that made it perfectly clear that his opinion was shared by all those present.

Councillor Berkeley stood up.

“With just as much respect as offered by Councillor Locke, Mr Chairman” he said, “that resolution is a load of guff and twaddle. I propose that we amend it so that Councillors have at least a fighting chance of working out what it means.”

“And just how do you propose to do that, Councillor Berkeley?” asked the Chairman.

“For a start,”, said Councillor Berkeley, “we know who we are, so we don’t need all that ‘lawfully constituted’ stuff at the beginning.”

“And the same goes for ‘hereby, notwithstanding’,” said Councillor Hume, joining the fray. 

“And how about all those sections, subjections and standing orders?” offered Councillor Bentham, to general approval from his fellow Councillors.

“All right, all right”, said the Chairman. “We’ll do what you say”. He motioned to the Council Clerk that her large red pencil should get to work and start crossing out all the offending words and phrases that the Councillors had objected to. When this was done, he addressed the Councillors once more.

“Is there anything else you want changed?” he asked, hoping that that the answer would be No. But it wasn’t.

“Let’s cut that bit about permanent and interim subcommittees”, said Councillor Mill.

“And let’s stick to good, plain old-fashioned English”, said Councillor Russell. “We don’t need all that Latin stuff. This is Ossington, not Ancient Rome.”

“OK”, said the Chairman. “The Council Clerk has so far deleted everything from ‘being’ to ‘Council’, from ‘hereby’ to ‘nature’, from ‘including’ to ‘as may’ and from ‘approval’ to ‘and that’. I shall now ask her to cut the last bit out as well. That should leave us with a resolution that everybody will be happy with.”

There was general agreement in the Council Chamber.

“I shall therefore ask the Clerk to read out our amended resolution”, said the Chairman.

The Clerk duly rose and read what was left between all her crossings-out.

 

"We … do … not … want … anything”.

© John Welford

100 words for Christmas

The challenge was to write exactly 100 words on a Christmas theme. This was my response:

Over the Christmas period he sent her a weird assortment of presents, including people of varied social statuses, poultry, other types of bird, pear trees and gold rings. At first the gifts were welcome, but the novelty soon wore off. She felt she had no choice but to send the whole lot back. The postage cost her a fortune, especially as the lords kept leaping out of the boxes she put them in, as did the dancing ladies, and the pipers and drummers were so noisy. That was why she decided to defray her expenses by keeping the gold rings. 

© John Welford

Opportunities: a story

Saturday  8^th December 

I’ve just had a brilliant idea for a story that will absolutely knock their socks off at the Hinckley Scribblers. All I need is an hour or so to sort out the details and get it written. However, that could be a problem today, given that we need to clean the house this morning, and this afternoon we have to take some rubbish to the tip and pay a visit to B&Q in Hinckley. Maybe I’ll get a chance to do the writing tomorrow.

Sunday 9^th December 

We usually take the dog for a long walk on Sunday mornings, and today is no exception. We’re going to Battram, near Ellistown, where there are miles of woodland paths to explore and which the dog will love. This will take us right through to lunchtime, but I might get a chance to do some writing this afternoon.

On the other hand, I’d forgotten that the snooker final takes place this afternoon, and that could easily take priority. No matter – there’s always tomorrow.

Monday 10^th December

Writing opportunities will certainly be limited today, because this will be my final session at De Montfort University library before I retire, and I need a buy a box of chocolates in town as my farewell gift to my colleagues. My wife has suggested that I go into town early, so that I can also do my Christmas shopping as well as visiting Thorntons for the chocolates. Good idea.

However, this does mean that my morning at home will be severely curtailed, given that I also have to take the dog for a walk round the village before I catch a bus into town. So not much chance of being able to get anything written today.

Tuesday 11^th December

I had thought that today would be the real opportunity for writing the story, because Tuesdays are usually unencumbered by other distractions, but this week is different. I co-ordinate the volunteer rota at Newbold Verdon Library, and I cannot find a second person to do the morning shift. Given that today has been booked for the Tots Tales Christmas Party, I really have no choice but to fill the breach myself. So how about this afternoon for getting the story written?

No such luck. My wife has phoned to say that her sister, Jenny, has come to Leicester from Aylesbury for a business meeting and has another appointment at a branch of her company in Glenfield on Wednesday, so she has asked if she can stay the night with us?

The problem with that is that our spare bedroom is now my office, and full of books and other stuff, although the dismantled spare bed is propped against the back wall. This will mean clearing enough space to get to the bed, taking it downstairs, putting it together in the dining room – which is the only suitable space in the house for this purpose – and finding all the necessary bedding.

Bye-bye Tuesday!

Wednesday 12^th December

Sister-in-law Jenny is not leaving until mid-morning, so story writing is not really an option until she does so, after which there is another job to be done, which is reversing the tasks of yesterday afternoon. The spare bed has to be stripped and dismantled before going back against the wall in my office.

I then have to think about doing my regular shift at Newbold library, for which I will need to leave the house shortly after one o’clock. 

The shift ends at four, after which I will catch a bus into town to meet my wife, help her with the shopping and join two of our old friends for a regular get-together at Pizza Hut.

Chances of writing my story? Minimal!

Thursday 13^th December

At last! Now I have a real opportunity to get to work on my story for the Scribblers. Or at least, that would have been the case did we not have an invitation to a wedding on Saturday. The house will be devoid of people – but not dog – for more hours than we would really like to leave said dog alone for. We have therefore arranged for someone we know to come and take the little darling for a walk while we’re out. The lady in question, who has never been to our house, is paying me a visit this afternoon so that I can show her where everything is.

However, once I’ve got the morning dog walk out of the way, there should be time for story writing. On the other hand, Sod’s Law being as inescapable as it is, today’s walk turned out to be a lot more protracted than expected, due to an emergency involving an elderly lady whose Yorkshire terrier got over-excited on meeting our border collie and slipped his collar before running out into the road.

I therefore found myself chasing after a Yorkie while still holding on to our dog and stopping the traffic with frantic gestures. Success on this front was followed by the lady crossing the road to the bus stop, tripping over the kerb and measuring her length on the pavement. Fortunately other people stopped to help, although the bus then arrived and some other drivers got very cross about the obstruction caused by the cars of the people who had also stopped.

Everything got sorted out, and the lady and her dog were both perfectly OK, but it all ate into potential story-writing time.

But then, when I thought about it, I realised that maybe I didn’t need to bother about the story after all. This little diary is a story all on its own, isn’t it? 

I think I might give it the somewhat ironic title of “Opportunities”.

© John Welford

How Mark Became a Gospeller

This story is based on the line "Mark blushed as his voice became more highly pitched as each moment passed." I've changed it slightly, but it is there!  

**************************************************

Mark thought that he was going to be able to have a quiet coffee in the student cafeteria, but this ambition was not going to be fulfilled today. The coffee was managed perfectly adequately, but his peaceful solitude disappeared when three other students slipped into the other spaces at his table.

“Hello” said the student sitting opposite him. “You’re just the guy we need to talk to”.

“I am?” asked a somewhat surprised Mark.

“Let me introduce myself”, said the student. “My name’s Luke, and I’m a second-year Music student. This here is my friend and fellow Music student John, and sitting next to you is Matthew, who is a post-grad in the Music Department. 

“Nice to meet you,”, said Mark. “But why do you need to talk to me? I’m a final-year student in the Philosophy Department – I know precious little about Music.”

“We saw you last night in the student bar”, said John. “You must have had a few before we arrived, because otherwise you would never have attempted that karaoke number you did. You remember, surely?” 

Mark felt himself going red with embarrassment. How could he have forgotten? Nobody expects much quality from a pub karaoke session, but his effort had been what the word dire was invented for.

“Your problem”, said Luke, “was that you started in the wrong key, and an octave too high, and found yourself in the stratosphere when you reached the point of no return.”

“So you’ve come here today to rub my nose in it, have you?” said Mark, who was getting annoyed and starting to stand up.

“No, no – far from it”, said Luke, waving him back down again. “We liked what we heard – in a strange kind of way – and that’s why we want to talk to you.” 

“The first thing we did after we heard your performance was find out who you were”, said John. “And we couldn’t believe our luck when someone told us that your name was Mark.”

“You see,” said Luke, “the three of us have wanted for some time to form a singing quartet that we could call The Gospellers. We had Matthew, Luke and John – but were only lacking a Mark. And now we’ve found you – if you’ll join us, that is.”

“But I’m a lousy singer – as you’ve just reminded me”, said Mark.

“But your falsetto range has definite promise,” said John. “And that’s what we’re missing.”

“Let me explain,” said Luke. “Apart from the appropriate names, the three of us all have different singing voices. I’m a bass, John is a baritone and Matthew is a tenor. We only need one more male voice to complete the set”. 

“Which is?”

“Countertenor, otherwise known as the male alto, singing an octave higher that the normal tenor range. Back in the day they used to castrate boys so that their voices wouldn’t break, but that custom is no longer practiced.

“I’m glad to hear it”, said Mark.

“However,” Luke continued, “Some men have a natural countertenor voice, and others can be trained in the falsetto range to produce something that it is nearly as good.”

“And we reckon that you could be just such a person”, said John. “With the proper training, you could be the fourth Gospeller and we could give concerts round the University and anywhere else if we wanted to.”

“Singing what?” Mark asked.

“Our own arrangements”, said Luke. “Madrigals, folk songs, religious stuff, that kind of thing.”

“But what about the training?”

“That’s where Matthew comes in”, said Luke. “He’s a professional voice trainer who worked with dozens of singers before joining the University and now he does the same here. What do you reckon, Matthew?”

"It’ll be a challenge”, said Matthew, “But I reckon it might work.”

So that is precisely what happened. Mark had twice-weekly sessions with Matthew for the next six weeks, after which the new Gospeller – thought not quite the finished article - was reckoned to be good enough to be let loose on an audience

When the four of them next got together, Matthew had news for them. 

“We’re going to give an end-of-term concert”, he said. “Just to the Music Department. We’ll do a set of madrigals for the main part, but the conclusion is all yours, Mark.”

“What do you mean”?” Mark asked.

“I want to perform the Professor’s own arrangement of The Lark Ascending, by Vaughan Williams. He’s set it for countertenor voice and small orchestra, and it’ll be a real showstopper if you get it right. Are you up for it?”

Given that Mark had no real idea of what was involved, he agreed on the spot.

Rehearsals for the concert went really well, although as the concert date approached, Mark became increasingly worried that he wouldn’t be up to the job. For one thing, he had no real musical knowledge and he would be performing in front of an audience of musical experts.

And then there was the little problem of being able to conclude the concert by singing a piece arranged by the Head of the Department, in his presence, and producing a final sustained top note that was as high as any male singer – trained or not – could be expected to reach. During rehearsals he was sometimes able to get it right, but by no means always. 

On the night of the concert, Matthew took Mark to one side to give him some final advice.

"I’ll be conducting this piece”, be said, “So you’ll need to keep the final note going for as long as my baton stays raised. Take a good deep breath before the final rising sequence and then keep the last note as steady as you possibly can. The volume is not so important, but the purity of the note most certainly is.”

Mark had this in mind all through the concert, which went very well with the audience clearly enjoying what they heard. The final piece was then announced. Matthew took to the podium and the other Gospellers, whose work was now done, sat in seats in the front row of the audience. 

Fortunately, the Music Professor’s vocal arrangement of The Lark Ascending was not quite as intricate as the original violin version, being considerably shorter and with far fewer twiddly bits. However, that did not mean that it was not a very tricky piece to perform. As it proceeded, Mark was fully aware that without Matthew’s excellent training none of this would have been possible.

The climax of the work was approaching. Mark became acutely aware that every eye in the audience was on him and his old self-consciousness returned. He blushed as each moment passed and the notes got progressively higher. 

And now here it was – the final sequence. He took the deep breath that Matthew had advised before allowing the “lark” to reach its final height. He watch the tip of Matthew’s baton more like a hawk than a lark, but he also became aware of something happening in the audience just behind Matthew. His fellow Gospellers appeared to be mouthing something, and it looked for all the world that what they were mouthing were numbers.

And it was not just the Gospellers. All the audience members were counting in rhythm. Despite continuing to sustain his final top C, Mark could definitely hear “six, seven, eight, nine”.

And then they all shouted “ten”, at which the baton dropped, and Mark felt like doing so as well. There was wild applause and cheering and everyone rushed up to Mark to congratulate him. The happiest person in the room appeared to be Matthew, who was also being mobbed by his fellow students.

“What was all that ‘eight, nine, ten’ stuff about?” a puzzled Mark asked John and Luke. 

“I supposed we’d better come clean”, Luke said. “My name is not Luke, it’s Dave. John is Peter and Matthew is Alec. The whole Department were in on this, including the staff. We all knew that Alec was good, but the Professor, having written his Lark Ascending arrangement, bet Alec that he couldn’t produce – from scratch – a proper “count to tenner” for the final note.

“We all reckon that Alec – thanks to you – has won his bet and he owes you drinks for a month!” 

© John Welford