Free Puccini's Ghosts by Morag Joss

with the paint tin. It got knocked over. And the paint ran a bit when they did the letters.’
    ‘
Who
though? What for? What’s that meant to mean, bast? What’s it meant to mean?’
    ‘Oh, it’s just this thing. Are they new?’ Lila said, nodding at the pedal pushers. She was so envious of Enid’s clothes she usually could not bear to draw attention to them, but she had to deflect her; she needed time to think of something.
    Enid flicked a hand against her thigh and said, ‘Uh-huh. My mum made them.’
    Lila’s insides curdled. ‘Really nice.’
    ‘They’re only a Butterick,’ Enid said. ‘Out of a remnant.’ She picked away a loose thread. ‘You should get your mum to make you some.’
    ‘Uh-huh.’ Lila’s mother did not sew. Enid knew this.
    ‘See my mum? She made them all in the one go. Last night. Started when the shop shut.’
    ‘Oh? Right you are, then.’
    ‘If you ask her she’ll give your mum a lend of the pattern.’
    There was silence.
    ‘Want a lend of the pattern?’
    ‘Maybe.’
    ‘My mum says they’re that easy you don’t even
need
the pattern. Only four pieces and a zip, five if you want the pocket. Not counting waistband, you can just use bias binding. Could yours not even manage that?’
    ‘Maybe.’
    ‘Can she really not sew at all then? Thinks she’s the next Maria Callas. Senga and Linda says so too.’
    ‘She does not.’
    ‘See your mum, where is it she’s from again?’ Lila’s mother was English. Enid also knew this.
    ‘England,’ Lila said, in a deliberately tired voice. ‘So what?’
    Enid asked slowly, ‘And what is it you said she used to be again?’
    ‘An opera singer. I’ve told you before.’
    Enid was glaring at her. ‘Has she ever went to Italy?’
    ‘No. So what? Neither’s yours.’
    ‘Ha! So! She can’t have been a real opera singer, then. Senga says opera’s Italian, you get it in Italy, and your mum’s not from Italy. She’s never even went!’
    ‘What?’
    ‘She’s never went to Italy in her life! So how can she be?’
    Lila pounced. ‘See you? See Senga? You’re stupid, the both of you. You get opera loads of places,
loads
of places have opera, everybody knows that. You’re just stupid. You get opera everywhere.’
    Enid was unabashed. ‘Not round here, you don’t.’
    Lila stared at her. She was always underestimating how unashamed Enid was of her own ignorance. Somehow, because Enid seemed simply not to believe in it, it became Lila’s problem. She, not Enid, had to work around it.
    ‘You’re that childish,’ Lila drawled. Enid shrugged. ‘And anyway,’ Lila went on, ‘I’d have thought you’re too busy going to church to bother with Senga McMillan. I wouldn’t think going to
church
all the time was exactly Senga McMillan’s cup of tea.’
    ‘It’s not going to church, it’s the Fellowship of Sinai Gathering in His Name,’ Enid said. ‘Senga doesn’t go. You don’t have to if you don’t want to.’
    ‘Doesn’t she now? So is she not heeding the Word? Dear, oh dear, oh dear. I thought that was a sin, not to heed the Word,’ Lila said. ‘That’s what you said.’
    Enid looked over the garage roof into the sky. ‘The Lord is a loving father. He hears his children when they call unto him,’ she said.
    ‘And how is it you call, again? You don’t have hymns, do you?’
    ‘We do verses.
And
psalms.’
    ‘Don’t sing them though, do you? It’s stupid. You just say them.’
    ‘Music is a distraction from the Bible Message. Musical performance is a temptation to vanity. The Lord hears us when we speak in humble prayer.’
    Lila felt suddenly sick at heart. ‘Oh, who cares?’ she said. It was tiring, to despise but at the same time envy Enid’s certainties.
    ‘The Lord does,’ Enid said flatly. ‘Anyway, Senga says it’s a free country. What
is
that?’
    From the front of the house came a blast of brass and strings and Lila’s mother’s voice, rising with Callas’s:
             
    Son la