Page 48 of Happiness Under a Summer Skye

‘Oh, aye and my Arabella’s working her magic on that for you, isn’t she? She’s verra talented, my Arabella,’ Isla said proudly. ‘She can give that Lawrence Lulu Lemon a run for his money, I’ll tell you.’

Angelia wasn’t sure at first who Isla meant but when the penny dropped, she had to try her best not to laugh. ‘Oh, yes, that’s right. Her designs are fantastic.’ She held her arms out. ‘And that’s about it really. So, what do you need from me?’

Bella said, ‘We need someone to guide us on the best songs for a relatively new choir to sing and how to come up with the harmonies.’ She glanced around at the others who all nodded their agreement. ‘Our last leader was great but unfortunately, she isn’t available now and we didn’t really solidify a set list. Apart from Christmas carols we have one song, “Love Shine a Light”, which none of us actually like.’

Angelia nodded. ‘And I understand you’re to perform at the village show in June, so carols aren’t really appropriate, I suppose.’ She grinned. ‘Okay, so how long a slot do you have?’

Caitlin told her, ‘It’s a thirty-minute slot before Ruby’s dancers.’

‘Great!’ Angelia said. ‘Do we have any other sheet music or song sheets to have a go at?’

Isla rolled her eyes and huffed as she folded her arms across her chest. ‘Amelia, our former director, was a huge fan of ABBA but no one wants to hear songs about chicken tikka, do they? I’m more of a Harry Styles fan these days, thanks to Arabella. And I do like a bit of Florence and her machine.’

Angelia, fighting threatening laughter again, said, ‘I love Harry Styles too. He’s a nice guy and a lot more talented than people give him credit for. And Florence is an amazing vocalist, although her songs may be a little too obscure for such an event. How about Queen?’

Isla pursed her lips. ‘Personally speaking, I liked her, although I wouldn’t say I was a royalist. Not sure about King Charles yet but I’m prepared to give him time. Why do you ask, hen?’

Angelia couldn’t help giggling this time. ‘I was referring to the band, Isla. Freddie Mercury?’

Isla laughed and slapped her thighs with her hands. ‘Och, that would make more sense. Although maybe best not to try to get us to perform that Bohemian rap song. I’m not sure we’re up to that! All that “scare a moose, scare a moose”, and all the harmonies might be a bit much, even for Glentorrin.’

‘Noted. No moose scaring or crazy harmonies,’ Angelia said as she shared an amused glance with Bella.

The first rehearsal went quite well considering Angelia hadn’t done anything like direct a choir before. They had selected Harry Styles’s ‘As It Was’ and Queen’s ‘You’re My Best Friend’ as starting points, the music for which Ferris had pulled up on his phone while the members of the choir had used their own phones for the lyrics.

Angelia found herself laughing with the singers on many occasions when lyrics were misheard or notes were completely missed, and she couldn’t remember feeling this relaxed in weeks. She managed to arrange the singers into their vocal ranges from Reid as baritone and Isla and Morag as soprano and everything else in between. The evening flew by.

The mixed-age group of people thanked her profusely at the end, saying how much they had enjoyed it; that it was much more fun than when Amelia had been running it; she had, allegedly, been a tad too serious and obsessed with the seventies, making only one allowance for the Katrina and the Waves song but only because it had been a Eurovision song contest winner and that had been her other passion. The members had, apparently, thoroughly enjoyed having a say in which songs they would sing rather than being dictated to.

Once the choir had left, Ferris walked her and Ed to the door. He held out his hand to Ed. ‘Good to meet you, Ed. Thanks for coming.’ He turned to Angelia. ‘That was amazing, Angelia. They clearly love you. But why wouldn’t they?’ He glanced at Ed and cleared his throat. ‘Anyway, thanks again for helping with this. I think they may try to kidnap you when it’s time for you to go back to London.’

Angelia left the church with a smile on her face, feeling like she had really achieved something for the first time in a while.

21

As they travelled back to Portree at around 9 p.m. that night, Angelia shared her plans for the record shop with Ed. He was keen to visit it as soon as possible.

‘I have to admit I’m a bit jealous. I’d love to own a record shop. And how cool were those people in the choir? Such a great bunch. You did such a great job tonight. Anyone listening in would be shocked that they had only just learned those songs. They sounded awesome.’

It had been such fun; much more so than Angelia had expected. And her condition hadn’t reared its head either, which was a bonus. Perhaps there was something to be said for being relaxed.

She thought back to some of Isla’s comments and couldn’t help giggling again. Working with the choir was going to be interesting if only for her malapropisms. ‘They are lovely, aren’t they?’ she said, more to herself than anyone else. ‘Isla’s hilarious, but I don’t even think she does it on purpose.’

‘Yes, she’s a gem,’ Ed said. ‘The chicken tikka comment almost choked me. I’m not sure how I kept it together after that.’

‘And the moose scaring,’ Angelia said, laughing. ‘She’s so serious when she says things though. She’s either an accidental genius or a cunning one who knows very well what she’s doing.’

‘Sadly, I think it’s the former rather than the latter,’ Ed replied, grinning, then fell silent for a while and seemed deep in thought.

The sun had begun its descent which, Angelia recalled, tended to occur later and later as May progressed. The weather was dry and the sky overhead was an inky blue that faded to lilac, then pink, then orange. The mountains were now a mere silhouette of jagged edges. She had missed this; missed the beauty of Skye and its ever-changing colour palette.

‘You didn’t tell me Ferris was hot,’ Ed said out of the blue.

‘Sorry?’ Angelia asked, quite surprised at his comment.

‘When you talked about him, I expected him to be some bald fat bloke with protruding teeth who spoke with a lisp.’

Angelia gasped but laughed all the same. ‘I never even described him so how did you come to that particular conclusion?’