Geoffrey has a merit in Grade 7 piano (taken 52 years ago), a distinction in Grade 1 recorder (59 years ago) and no qualifications whatsoever on the organ. Regardless, this makes him the most talented churchgoing musician under the age of 75 in the parish of Nether Marsham. As such, he has been the village organist for the worse half of the last decade.
It happened quite by accident one Christmas Eve. Geoffrey’s sister-in-law wasn’t the only reason he had spent three hours in the Fox and Hounds before Midnight Mass; it was also his first Yuletide since taking early retirement and he was in a generally ebullient mood. But there’s no doubt that four pints of Guinness on an empty stomach were a contributory factor to Geoffrey launching into a falsetto descant for both ‘Hark the Herald’ and ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful’, despite furious glances from his wife, Anne.
The vicar collared Geoffrey on the way out. That was quite the sound he had been making there. What a talented musician. Might he consider taking over from poor Margaret on the organ every now and again? Surely they would all appreciate someone who could tackle the hymns with more than two fingers – and get them home before 2am?
Anne had thought this an excellent idea. While her plans for Geoffrey’s retirement ranged from taking an Open University course on horticulture to tidying the garage, his focused primarily on hiding from Anne in the shed. Learning the organ would give him something to do while she slogged away her final few years before her teacher’s pension. It would also stop him singing.
A week later, Geoffrey found himself playing to a congregation of six, two of them related to him. It was fortunate, he reflected afterwards, that his first humiliation had so few witnesses, because playing the organ was much harder than it looked. There was no sustain pedal, to blur the mistakes, but there were an awful lot of other pedals, one of which he stood on during the Lord’s Prayer. There were also far too many keys – and keyboards – not to mention stops, some of them not labelled in English.
Geoffrey resolved to do some practice before the First Sunday of Epiphany, stomping through the village to the unheated church in skiing thermals and fingerless gloves, armed with sheaves of dog-eared piano music, a second-hand copy of Oxford Service Music for Organ Book 2 (Manuals only) and a German dictionary. By the summer, he had a full repertoire – five sombre preludes; five non-descript interludes; and two postludes – all of which he could play on loop without anyone noticing. He could also bash his way through most hymns, although he drew the line at the couple who asked for ‘Shine Jesus Shine’.
Weddings are Geoffrey’s favourite services. Full house. Lusty, young singers flirting with each other. He can play ‘Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven’ in his sleep; he even knows which preset to use for the quieter third verse (next summer, he might risk trying out the final D on the pedals, but for now, for fear of missing and hitting the C sharp with his toe, he’ll stick with the manual-to-pedal coupler which makes everyone think he’s using his feet). He only accepts the family’s token offer of payment if he doesn’t like them, and the invitation to the first part of the drinks reception if he does. And although brides are, generally, jollier than widows, Geoffrey is also quietly proud of the small role he plays at funerals, sometimes battling his own grief – as well as his Reynauld’s – as he tries to get himself and the congregation through the third verse of ‘Abide With Me’.
All in all, Geoffrey is even more delighted than Anne that he decided to take up the organ as a retirement hobby, especially when he considers his friends’ alternatives: golf; writing letters to the Telegraph; affairs. And although he still struggles with the vicar’s sermons, especially the ones involving extended sailing allegories, he has found a workable solution: double-check that all the stops are pushed in; bow his head, as if in pious contemplation; and balance a copy of The Spectator on the swell keyboard. On a good day, he can get as far as Dot Wordsworth before the next hymn.
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