The Parish Talent Show
I wished so badly I’d had the nerve to get up and sing. That I owned mismatched turquoise and orange socks. That I’d been brave enough to use three to four cans of hairspray for just one night of splendour. That these three weren’t going to witness me slinking on stage after them — with my flute.
The opening act — a trio of giggling 15-year-olds from Notre Dame High — clattered onto the battered stage in mini-skirts, hints of what had once been fishnet tights and yards of mascara. Their belligerently teased hair brought them six inches closer to the sputtering yellow-brown strip lights and tired, beige chipboard church hall ceiling. The three sniggered and elbowed each other into position beside the bacon roll hatch and held a precarious pose while they waited for Sister Margaret to press play on the tape recorder.
Electronic drumbeats snapped them into action, jerking the girls in approximate time with the tinny, synthetic strings of The Pointer Sisters’ 1984 disco anthem Jump.
“Your eyes tell me how you want me”, the three Notre Dame girls screeched.
“I can feel it in your heartbeat”, they belted.
“Oh, baby, I’ll take you down where no one’s ever gone before…”
Monsignor Rossi coughed uncomfortably. In terms of Saint Peter’s church hall, this truly was where no one had ever gone before.
“Your love burns inside…” bellowed the girl with the pink batwing blouse.
A nun to my left gasped.
“And if you want more, if you want more, more, more…” the three chorused with glee.
I wished so badly I’d had the nerve to get up and sing. That I owned mismatched turquoise and orange socks. That I’d been brave enough to use three to four cans of hairspray for just one night of splendour. That these three weren’t going to witness me slinking on stage after them—with a flute.
“Jump!” they screeched, out of synch, flailing limbs.
I wished so badly that I could be as bad as them.
“If you want to taste my kisses in the night, then jump! Jump for my love!”
The ripple of outrage from priests and church ladies swelled, reaching a loud collective breaking point of indignation that drowned out the three as they gyrated, flounced and guffawed their way towards the second chorus.
Where are their mammies? Sister D tutted.
Who are their mammies? Sister Mary Pius growled, eyes roaming the room.
Sister Margaret rushed over to press stop on this travesty.
She called, “Aefa Mulholland will now give us…” She scanned her ruffled papers, “The Sound of Silence.”
And there was the sound silence as Monsignor Rossi frogmarched the disgraced trio out of the hall, a blur of batwings, fluorescent ankle socks and smirking defiance. I straightened my freshly laundered, hand-me-down school blazer hoping some residual tutting and muttering would cover me until the previous act had left the building. Hoping I could make it on stage without those girls seeing my flute. Hoping I might survive school on Monday.
I walked, hunched, toward the stage, trying to cram the unwieldy instrument inside my blazer. But as Monsignor and his charges reached the door, the 15-year-old with the most vertical hair and the most daringly ventilated tights glanced around and saw me.
“Oh ma goad, that wee lassie’s going to play the flute!” she shrieked as the three dissolved into helpless peals of mirth.
In the front row, my mum sat up straight, smiling, proud. I took a breath and chuntered into a ragged version of The Sound of Silence, its mammy-pleasing notes backdropped by cackles of teenage laughter, the sound of imminent social death.
