LAND OF YOUR DREAMS

Tuesday afternoon. Community singing in O.T.
"Come along Mrs Hirst."
"Diana, come on."
"Now Miss Bean -- come along. You know you like to sing."
But Mrs Hirst says she doesn’t want to go. She won’t.
Miss Bean is of the same mind, but she is more easily persuaded if you first remember to allow her to "take off" in her own way.

Miss Bean’s way of "taking off" is something akin to an aircraft on its runway. She must first distance herself a few paces, then right about turn, a pause, and she is poised for the correct course. A tiny frail old lady, but forget to allow her this ritual and she becomes rigid as a rock.

Down the hall Mrs Innes is seated at the piano and Mrs Jones, PT teacher, is all set for leading jolly choruses. Droves of patients come drifting in, shepherded by nurses and attendants. All are issued with a typed song sheet.

Mrs Innes tries out a few chords -- fingers flashing up and down the keyboard. One member of the audience makes a mistake and begins to pipe up. "No, no -- not yet, Mrs Ford. Wait."

Mrs Crutch arrives with all her necklaces on and a long gown almost covering her red bedroom slippers. In fine sonorous tones and good vowel enunciations she announces at regular intervals that "God has her mother in his keeping."

A tall well-made, middle-aged gentleman with a red beard comes in accompanied by a young student nurse. As he works his way between the rows of seats to his place, he lays the palm of his hand lightly on the heads of seated people, as though distributing blessings. His face is noble and absorbed, but one of his fly-buttons is undone.

The room rocks to the jolly nostalgic music-hall hits of the past -- "Tipperary", "We’ll Gather Lilacs", "It’s a Long, Long Trail a-Windin’" . . . .

Rows of faces -- anxious, blank, haggard, smiling -- mouthing the words. Occasionally figures rise, intent on some vital inner impulse, and are gently persuaded to sit down again ("Not now, Stella -- sit"). Diana holds her song-sheet the wrong way up and smiles secretly at it. Ann aged eighteen announces that she wants to give a solo

performance -- "No, dear, just join in with all the others. Choose a song and we’ll all sing it."

But no -- she demands to stand in front alone and sing. "Galway Bay" is her choice. "If you ever go across the sea to Ireland . . . ." Mrs Jones, benignly conducting with a forefinger, attempts to give support by a gentle low-toned hum. Instantly Ann stops singing and gazes accusingly at Mrs Jones. She will not continue if anyone joins in, it seems. She is young, blonde and slender. The delicate nose, the large grey eyes, the small cupid-bow lips are in themselves good, but the sum-total is wrong. Somehow, somewhere, the artist’s pen has slipped.

She renders her song in an over-meticulous fashion, shaping her lips exaggeratedly to each syllable, like a child who is learning to read, and staring at some fixed spot on a far wall. We all applaud at the end but she seems oblivious of us and remains standing staring stonily, until one of the nurses guides her back to her seat.

"It’s a Long, Long Trail a-Windin’ to the Land of my Dreams, where nightingales are singing and the pale moon beams . . . ." Mrs Alsop, once comely and with the remains of a good contralto voice, yearns and throbs to the familiar refrain while through the seat of her chair and on to the floor beneath, a small pool is collecting.

Mrs Hirst sways her head gently to the music and with sudden lucidity tells me that her brother "went through both Wars."

Diana’s lips are moving -- but whether to the words of the song or to unseen familiars is a matter of conjecture.

The gentleman with the ruddy beard is putting his heart and soul into it. Anybody’s uncle for the moment. Handsome, jolly, singing round the piano on a Sunday evening perhaps?

Just a twist of the lens and briefly, fleetingly, one sees the picture clear and whole. "Hold it! Hold it!" -- but no good, already the focus has slipped and the crack, the twist, the blur takes over . .. .

"A Long, Long Trail a-Windin’ to the Land of my Dreams . . . ."
Land of your Dreams!

Dear God -- you’re there mates. You’ve arrived.