Chapter Six

We were to play two concerts that day, a grey and slightly chilly Saturday. Our first stop was an open-air smart-casual gig at the hotel at a place called Flom, which would be followed by an evening performance at Nain Hall in Voss. For the Flom concert, Mr Morris said that he would be announcing the programme as we went along, and that we would be missing some of our prepared pieces. Many of us hoped fervently that 'Lord of the Dance' would be omitted, but I suppose that that was wishful thinking for one of those crowd-pleasing pieces. Originally, I had thought that these two venues were close to Bergen, but by actually reading my itinerary properly it clicked that they were several hours on the coach away. Never mind, I reasoned, this would be valuable sleeping time.

For the first couple of hours on the coach, I still felt quite awake, but I was yet again incapable of coherent speech. For a while, I admired the glorious scenery: the mountains reflected in the fjords, the grass on the bus shelter roofs. This soon became hard, though, as these were so many mountains in that way that the roads simply tunnelled through, rather than wasting all that time going around. The orange glow of the tunnel lights soon became monotonous. In the background, the rest of the coach watched the conclusion of 'Austin Powers,' then began a campaign to cajole the supervising staff into letting us watch some Monty Python offering, and finally succeeded.

Near Voss, we stopped at a waterfall that appeared to be rather popular with touristy types such as ourselves. I managed to lose Clio, Meghan and Rebecca as soon as I stepped off the coach, typically. Finding the best angle at which to view the falling water, I quickly took a couple. Whilst my camera started making strange whirring noises, I searched though my bag for film. After the camera silenced and I had determined that I didn't know how to work it at all, I became fed up and returned to the coaches, where I found most of the rest of the orchestra./

Fern had been talking to Naomi, Madrigal, Kathryn and Damien Halley when I arrived.

'Stevie,' called Fern.

'Yes,' I replied as I walked in closer.

'Isn't Mr Morris' arse nice?'

I answered in the affirmative. 'But I don't fancy him,' I hastened to add for Naomi, Madrigal and Kathryn's benefit.

'Fancy who?' asked Clio, who had materialised beside me, followed by the illusive Rebecca and Meghan.

'Mr Morris,' I said.

'Who would?' said Clio, disgusted.

'Fern likes his arse,' said Naomi, equally disgusted. 'And so does Stevie.'

'Yeah, well Stevie's a psycho,' piped up Halley. 'And she's schiz and insane.'

'Thanks,' I replied.

'It is nice, though,' said Meg.

'What, Halley listing my personality disorders'' I asked.

'No, Mr Morris' arse.'

'You as well?' cried Naomi. 'You're as bad as your sister.'

'Fern, you're a bad influence on me and your younger sister!' I said.

We arrived at Flom near midday. I didn't recognise it at first. Expecting a sizeable town, it took a while for me to get head around the fact that Flom was no more than a ferry port and a hotel, surrounded by mountains. Oh, and a car park. An open-bottomed marquee had been erected on the hotel lawn, which was where we were to play. Stepping out of the coach, I glanced at the sky above, which was filled with grey rainclouds of foreboding, predicting an afternoon of not much promise.

The percussionists, Fern and I, and Alice, the harp player, were drafted in to start unloading the heavy-instrument van beside the marquee after lunch. Lunch was horrific. We had been provided with packed lunches, which consisted of a packet of crisps, a bottle of water and some sandwiches that had been provided by the Youth Hostel. Members of the orchestra had already begun opening he greaseproof paper packages that contained the sandwiches by the time that I had finally got hold of some supposed nourishment. Some brave individuals were prodding a soggy slice of cheese on top of the sandwiches; others were giving the fillings a tentatively cautious sniff. I didn't like their facial expressions.

We weren't going to be eating dinner that evening until our 10pm return tot eh Youth Hostel, so I reasoned that the sandwiches couldn't have been all that bad, and that was the second biggest mistake of the day. The biggest mistake will soon become apparent. Back to the sandwiches. I took a bite from the top two-layers-of-damp-bread-containing-unidentifyable-pink-substance. A shudder coursed its way through me, and I hurriedly swallowed, considering it bad manners to run to the nearest bin and spit out my mouthful. Still hungry, I told myself that it couldn't really have been that bad (because I am a sufferer of chronic amnesia) and so I hazarded a try of the cheese version of what I had just attempted to eat. This really fared no better, and so I marched off to try and scab a second packet of crisps for later, vowing that I would eat the sandwiches provided for us the next day.

While the orchestra had been assembling beneath the marquee, a breeze had been steadily mutating into a moderate wind - so by the time Mr Morris was standing at the front to signal the start of the concert, everybody's music had been clamped to their stands with the exceedingly sophisticated technology of clothes pegs. The 'moderate wind' escalated through the first half-hour of the concert, until it had built itself into a wannabe gale. This was confirmed when half the orchestra's music stands, including mine, were blown over part-way through 'Jurassic Park.' Because of this, only Pat and the woodwind section remained playing and Mr Morris had to restart us from Bar n once our music had been retrieved from the ground.

At the end of the piece, Mr Morris announced that 'Mission: Impossible' would be the next. Wrestling with my music stand after another gust of wind, I glanced at Mr Morris and he looked as if he was waiting for me to swap to Steve, because nobody else appeared to be changing positions. I hastily dumped Duncan on the wet grass and attempted a sprint to Steve, further back tot eh right. What I hadn 't realised was that while we had been playing it had been raining outside the marquee, and some of the water had sneaked in under the open bottom of the tent to drench the grass. I slipped, missed the ground and then found it again anyway, landing on my back in a spreadeagled hysteria. The biggest mistake of the day had been putting on my completely gripless purple shoes, which though aesthetically pleasing, are really rather impractical. If I had worn a pair of sensible trainers, I would have stood a chance, but no. I probably should have slept more the previous night, and Pat told me so as I regained an upright position. He was laughing. Bastard. 'Mission: Impossible' ' how apt.

Our second concert venue was two hours back down the road to Voss, where it turned out that Nain Hall was a Methodist church hall. It didn't have a particularly large capacity, but apparently the seats had all been reserved, so that was reassuring. Again, Fern, the percussionists, Alice and I had been forced into helping set up, and the rest of the orchestra had made a sensible exit to downtown Voss before they were roped in to unfold music stands, which we had to do instead.

The concert that evening was routine stuff: the same programme as in Bergen, a fair-sized audience, a few small mistakes here and there. This was all fine until the end of the concert, when we were presented with another standing ovation, which was lovely until Mr Morris announced that our encore would be 'Lord of the Dance.' Having got rid of my bow, I experienced a feeling of ' been-there-before.' Again, I glanced at Mr Morris, and again, he looked as if he was waiting for me, so I quickly put down Duncan. Quite promptly, I tripped on him on the way to Steve, skidded in my gripless shoes and fell into the piano.

'You should have slept last night,' said Pat whilst chuckling merrily.

I didn't think it was that amusing.

At around ten we found ourselves eating dinner back at the hostel, this time it thankfully wasn't breakfast. Sitting on my table were Clio, Meghan, Steven, Bobby, Rebecca and Ophelia. Steven had been distributing his ritual insults, so Meg asked him whether he ever paid anybody any compliments.

'No,' he replied.

'Try and pay me a compliment,' I said.

'No.'

'Try.'

He momentarily narrowed his eyes in thought, and I braced myself.

'You only fell over twice today,' he offered.

Beside my right hand was a full glass of water. Through some crazy, bizarre impulse, my arm moved of its own accord, picked up the glass and threw the water over Steven, who had been sitting directly opposite me. Part of me rejoiced in glee having fulfilled its ambition of three years, but another part of me felt extremely guilty. Another fragment of Stevie wondered as to what the hell had just happened.

Steven stood up, soaked and shocked, and turned to leave.

'I'm sorry!' I cried. I'm not fond of exclamation-marked apologies, so it took some work.

Steven's reception wasn't even stony - it was non-existent. I tried again.

'Really,- Steven, I am sorry.'

Steven said nothing and tried to make as good an exit as a short, wet, annoyed person could.

'Wow!' exclaimed Clio, and she, Ophelia and Bobby gave me their congratulations.

'It was Bad Stevie,' I said flatly, deciding that if Halley thought that I was schiz then I might as well use it to my advantage and blame all the bad things that I did on one of my multiple fragmented personalities.

Bad Stevie enjoyed all the praise that the Multiple Stevies received for her dirty work, but the Other Stevies felt rather guilty, especially Goody-Two-Shoes Stevie. So this was what it felt like to have a conscience.

The Stevies sans Bad Stevie tried a few more times to apologise to Steven, but he ignored them, which just made them feel worse. Even Bad Stevie felt a bit, well, bad, because her actions meant that Steven would now only have one jumper to wear now. However, in the end, we (the collective Stevies) all reasoned that Steven might not be so angry in the morning, so we fell asleep to gain some much-needed rest.


Chapter Seven

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