Chapter Sixty Two
Sunday 15th December
Only You
"Don't worry folks, I'll be back!" Jorge said in Elvis style, handed the microphone to Stella and jumped down to talk to Harry.
"Please," Jorge begged Harry. "Just one, pick any one. Please!" Stella had started singing 'Our Day Will Come,' all the couples were still dancing, all except the huddle just to the front of the stage. Beto had given his apologies to Anne and joined them the minute Jorge had stepped off the small platform.
"We've come all this way. We miss you Harry!"
"You never needed me!" Harry scoffed.
"No you're right, we didn't," agreed Beto. "But we like you! What will it take to ram it into that thick skull of yours? Tell him Nikki, please!"
"He won't do it, I know he won't. He says he won't go back."
"Please!" Jorge begged again.
"Aguafiestas!" grumbled Beto.
"What if we all go up?" Nikki asked looking at Harry nervously. "You wouldn't have to stand near the mike."
"Come on Elvis," shouted Clarissa as she passed them by at top speed. "Don't keep us waiting."
"Harry?" Jorge and Beto asked together.
"Just ONE!" Harry insisted through clenched teeth.
"Yes, just one, any one. Please, oh Burro come on it'll be fantastic!"
"What shall we sing?"
"There's only one choice," said Nikki her thoughts drifting back to the first time she'd heard Harry sing. "'I can't help falling in love.' It has to be that one."
Harry gave a half smile, pleased she'd remembered. If they were all on stage, he could sing the song to Nikki and pretend he wasn't really performing. He'd done it before. He'd sung those words to her and meant them in a dingy gay bar; this was their wedding surely he could sing them now. And they weren't in a terrifying neighbourhood; they were in a conservatory in a smart London Park. If she'd asked for 'Fool such as I ,' he might have changed his mind back but he knew she remembered. He knew that that weekend in New York had been as important for her as it had for him, despite all the heartache afterwards.
Beto bounded back onto the stage, and made space for them all. As Stella's song finished he grabbed the mike again.
"Take your partners ladies and gentleman, this next song involves singing and dancing AND it is compulsory to join in. Elvis will be watching!"
Anne watched in astonishment as Harry and Nikki walked onto the little platform with Jorge.
"They're not going to sing are they?" Audrey asked nervously. "Does Harry sing?"
"Not to my knowledge," admitted Anne. But the band started playing and the four of them stayed put.
"I think you're about to find out," Audrey said.
'Wise men say, only fools rush in,
But I can't help falling in love with you.'
Harry kept his gaze on Nikki but it wasn't long before Jorge and Beto, their arms around each other's shoulders had manoeuvred themselves to include Harry and Nikki in one big on stage hug around the mike. Before he even noticed it, Harry found himself singing the harmonies, fitting his voice to Beto's and enjoying the broad smiles on his friend's faces.
"Do you think they've done this before?" Audrey asked.
"What?" Anne wasn't sure she'd heard her friend properly, the cheering at the end of that song had been deafening.
"Sung like that?"
"Audrey! You started the day claiming my son had had a nervous breakdown and had spent the year in hospital and not in New York and you're ending it telling me, he toured America with two gay friends in an Elvis act. They probably just had a bit too much to drink one night and did a bit of karaoke. I told you he taught at NYU."
"If you think so…" Audrey said cryptically and watched as the applause died away and the singers on stage took turns to hug and kiss each other.
"Thanks so much!" Jorge gushed excitedly. "Thank you Harry!" he repeated kissing him on each cheek, Colombian style. "And now I have one more favour to ask of you."
"Another?" groaned Harry. "You said just one!"
"Not another song."
"Oh?"
"Please may I have the next dance with your wife?" Jorge asked.
Harry looked from Beto to Jorge, to Nikki and back to Jorge. "Behave yourself!" he growled. Nikki giggled her throaty laugh and Beto slapped Harry on the back.
"Go and dance with your mother." Beto tipped his head in Anne and Audrey's direction. "Does her friend bite? I might take her for a spin next." He proposed.
"Probably!" chuckled Harry. "But you can handle it!"
Jorge was already leading Nikki on to the floor. Stella was singing through a selection of favourites, many Harry remembered from the Lyell Centre leaving party eighteen months previously.
"Mum?" Harry said bashfully. "Would you like to dance?" He moved with her out on to the floor and danced easily around, all the time keeping half an eye on Nikki and Jorge. "Have you had a good time?" Harry asked.
"It's been beautiful, Harry. I've had such a wonderful day."
"Sorry you weren't sat at our table."
"Don't be ridiculous darling. Who would I have talked to there? Audrey has been keeping me entertained."
"I bet she has!"
"Nikki said her face was a picture when we all walked in together."
"Yes it was," giggled Anne. "She said it reminded her of the Wizard of Oz."
"I suppose I was Cowardly Lion," Harry remarked.
"No, I think she thought Scarecrow, but I thought it was Tin Man who stood next to Dorothy…"
Harry chortled and raised his arm for his mother to twirl under.
"Do you know what her last suggestion was?" Anne began.
"No?"
"This one will really make you laugh!"
"How much wine have you both had?" Harry asked.
"Quite a lot I suspect. It was delicious darling, it's all been splendid."
"So what did she say?"
"She said, she thought that you and your two American friends had sung like that before! She made it sound like you did regular concerts! I told her you'd probably done some drunken karaoke."
Harry didn't answer, but Anne noticed him miss a step and scuff another to catch up with the music.
"HARRY!" she mouthed, pulling back and looking at him. "Really?" And then after a beat, "The road trip! Well actually that makes a lot of sense, I don't know what half the people here thought the three of you were really up to! What was it?"
Harry began to laugh; a full bellied laugh that shook his whole body. There was a certain relief about a discovered secret. He shot Nikki a glance. Jorge was jumping up and down, whirling her round and kissing her excitedly again. He was totally oblivious to the hard stare Harry gave him.
"We won the best newcomer act at the North Eastern States, Elvis Convention in Niagara Falls!"
Anne exploded with laughter. "Congratulations Harry, I'm very proud of you!" They danced on for a few bars.
"Really?"
"Really!" Harry nodded and she knew her son was telling the truth.
"Why didn't you want to sing tonight? Why wouldn't you let them say what you did together?"
"I don't know Mum, I was embarrassed. It seemed private. It was just something we did together over there. I didn't tell any of my work colleagues about it and I've not sung since I left New York… or not until tonight." He'd not told any of them, but Candy had known and she had used her knowledge to torment him. It was only since his return he's realised how well she'd succeeded.
"Nikki knew though?" Anne guessed.
"Yes she knew. She paid our entry into that competition. It was my 40th birthday present! Leo put some money in too."
Anne shook her head with a smile.
"Jorge got his Vegas job on the back of winning that competition." Harry continued.
"So that's why the two of them are so close," Anne said watching Nikki and Jorge dance together.
"Maybe? Jorge works really hard but he would never have got the chances he had without her."
"And she would never have got you!"
Harry looked at his mother quizzically.
"The reason you haven't wanted to sing…"
"Yes?"
"It made you vulnerable." Anne stated.
"What?"
"Singing, it peeled away all those protective layers Jorge was talking about earlier. It left you exposed…"
"Vulnerable…" Harry added; surprised at how easily his mother had worked it out. How suddenly it was all becoming clear to him.
"It gave you all the words you needed to say, but never knew how to before. It gave you a way of finding your feelings, of letting them out for a change." She paused and looked at her son. She didn't want him to think she was interfering but brilliant as he was, he'd always needed some things spelled out for him.
"It allowed you to fall in love," she stated. "Without it, Nikki would never be here, now, married to you! You have a lot to thank them both for!"
Harry looked at his mother. Why was this so easy for her? When he'd not been certain what had been stopping him from singing?
"Oh darling, don't look at me like that. I know you think you are just like your father, and there are similarities dear. But you have fifty percent of my DNA too you know! Singing with someone else, or acting or dancing; that relationship with your group, your partner; there's nothing else like it. The intensity, the passion, the satisfaction at making something greater than just the sum of its individual parts. You're more like me than you realise! You just have to choose those partners carefully."
Harry tipped his head to one side and reflected on her words. "Thanks Mum," he muttered. "Mum? As we're in the mood for revealing secrets…"
"Yes?"
"That time you sent Nikki to New York. Were you really ill?"
"Excuse me, that last dance has finished, may I cut in and have this dance please?" Jorge bowed to Anne, and put Nikki's hand in Harry's before holding his own out to Anne.
"Mum?" Harry asked.
"What do you think dear?" she said with a smile, as Jorge led her away.
"I don't know Mum, that's why I'm asking?" he called after her.
"Does it matter?" she answered with another smile. Watching him turn to his wife and pull her close to him.
"Is she alright?" Nikki asked.
"She's fine." Harry smiled, "You?" He mumbled into her neck.
"I'm fine too." She answered.
"She knows."
"Knows what?" Nikki said hastily.
"She knows about me singing."
"Oh there's a relief!" Nikki giggled. "It wasn't much of a secret with us all stood up there like that."
"Yes, it's lucky you could carry a tune, or Jorge would never let you sing with him, he's a hard task master!"
"He only wants the best."
"Too right!"
"What did you think I was talking about?" Harry asked thinking about Nikki's earlier reaction.
"Oh nothing. I'll tell you later. Now let's dance. Just the two of us."
Beto and Jorge had finished dancing with all the widows and single women, Jorge had danced with Clarissa more than once and sung one more solo number and another with Stella and had fallen gratefully into Beto's arms for the last few numbers.
"The last dance," Stella announced. "Almost as important at the first and another request from the happy couple." She had a quick drink. "Take your partners, here we are to finish with 'Only You,' originally by the Platters.
'Only you can make this world seem right
Only you can make the darkness bright
Only you and you alone
can thrill me like you do
and fill my heart with love for only you.'
Bundled up in coats, scarves and hats the wedding party walked back through the wintery wonderland of Kew Gardens to the waiting taxis. The artificial light cast a golden glow along the footpath. Anne looked up at the four young people walking along arm in arm together.
"Do you know where they're going on honeymoon?" Audrey asked her friend.
"Oh, they're going to Vegas, but not 'til the spring. It's not a good time for Harry to leave the business and there's plenty to do in their new house."
"There's no place like home," Audrey stated, smiling at the foursome in front.
"So what do you think they needed? Courage, brains, a heart or the way back to Kansas?" Anne asked.
"I thought you told me Harry was in New York last year!" Audrey said pointedly but with a chuckle. "I think they all found their way home. I'll not pretend to understand it, but there's something right about the four of them."
"Beto and Jorge are only here a couple more days, then it's back to reality for them."
"You said they worked in Vegas!" The two women laughed, causing Harry to turn round to cast a dubious eye on his mother, which only caused Anne and Audrey to laugh harder.
"I have to say Anne," Audrey said through the laughter. "I don't think I'll ever go to another wedding quite like that."
"I very much doubt you will." Anne replied with a smile.
Only You: The Platters and suggested by Freya82, so thanks and a bottle of H&N wedding bubbly to her.
*Aguafiestas = spoilsport
