MORNING SERIAL
‘LET’S lift the tone of these carnivals. I’m for the operatic tune. Let’s go through it again. It’s got a very warming beat, although I still think a nation that has to make the fighting of bulls a national cult is just passing the time on and trying to keep its mind off something else.’ Uncle Edwin gave Cynlais a nod and raised his hand to lead the group back into Bizet.
‘Don’t make difficulties, Edwin,’ said Gomer, and he was clearly torn between two conversational lines; one to censure Edwin for hanging a little close to the boneyard spiritually; second, to explain to us how he had come to spare enough time from the dialectic to find the title of such a tune as ‘I’m One of Nuts of Barcelona’, one of the least pensive lyrics of the period. But Willie Silcox nipped in before Gomer could make his point.
‘There’s another thing, too,’ said Willie. ‘Do you still want Cynlais to win the esteem of Moira Hallam?’
‘Oh definitely. It’ll give Cynlais that little extra bit of winning vim. What are you hinting at now, Silcox?’
‘This girl has got some sort of Spanish complex.’
‘No question about it,’ said Mathew Sewell. He turned to Tasso. ‘I expect you’ve heard, Tasso, that the adjective Spanish is often used in connection with various sexual restoratives and stimulants.’ But he got no answer. Tasso was not looking. ‘She’s even got me feeling like a bit of a picador, and I haven’t felt that sort of urge very often since I conducted the united choirs of Meadow Prospect in the Messiah three years ago.’ Sewell paused and his thoughts dived into waters that were not instantly visible to us. ‘Do you remember those sopranos in their snowwhite blouses? Do you remember the big dispute about my treatment of the last six hallelujahs?’
We remembered the sopranos, the steep, tumescent tiers of gleaming satin, the last great outlay on sheet music and cloth in the pre-bath-chair phase of the coal trade in the third decade. But we could recall no dispute about Sewell’s interpretation of that particular score. His hallelujahs had seemed to us orthodox, even flatly so.
> Gazooka by Gwyn Thomas is published by Parthian at £9. parthianbooks.com
CONTINUES TOMORROW