Free The Miracle Inspector by Helen Smith Page B

front of him, to prevent himself spreading them around as he breathed, spoiling a potentially pleasant evening.
    The two boys with guitars began to sing. Jesmond was on safer ground, here. People only ever wanted to hear the old protest songs that he’d written with Matthew, all those years ago. They never asked if he was working on another one of those. Like fans at a music gig, they didn’t want new songs; they wanted the old stuff, the familiar stuff they could join in with.
    Like the poetry, the protest songs enjoined listeners to rise up. Pretty much the only difference between the poetry and the protest songs was that the songs had a melody attached. Well, otherwise they wouldn’t have been songs, would they?
    Everyone in the back room drank too much wine. Most sang. At events like these, people sometimes made the mistake of telling Jesmond how much they loved the tunes of the protest songs, thinking that they would endear themselves to him. People were so silly sometimes. He had written the lyrics, Matthew had set them to music. Admiring the music in Jesmond’s songs was like going to a barbecue at a man’s house and admiring the design of the garden next door. It was not pertinent and it was most definitely not a way to win favour.
    But these kids were OK. They didn’t praise the music specifically. They let him know how much they loved the songs by the way they sang them. They belted out the stirring bits. They closed their eyes when they sang the moving bits. They punched the air or held hands, as appropriate. When they got to the chorus of the most famous one, Rise Up , the musicians showed their reverence for the words by stopping their strumming and beating out the rhythm with the palms of their open hands on their guitars as they sang a capella. They sang with conviction. Jesmond had noticed that when men spent the evening singing rousing songs with other men, it tended to make them feel that victory was possible. In the early days he’d believed it was a good sign and that it meant these men would join the cause. But it hadn’t happened. They’d just gone home again, as if singing was an end in itself. Maybe they remembered a time when you could still go to football matches, and the crowd would sing to urge their teams to victory, and take some of the credit for it when they did, and boo them when they lost. But singing was no way to seal victory in a revolution and it was certainly no substitute for action.
    Imagine a land for you and meee, sang the assembled group.
    Without borders or checks on our ID
    Imagine no CCTeeVeee.
    Jesmond felt dirty and sweaty and tired. He was neither wealthy nor healthy. He was an old man, on the run. What was it all for? Was it really for these moments when – if not actually happy – at least everyone seemed to believe in the possibility of happiness?
    The possibility of happiness. The phrase made him think of the woman he had once loved very much. Jesmond felt choked. It would almost be easier if someone were to come in and kill him now, or arrest him and take him away. He wouldn’t have to carry on. He wouldn’t have to bother with the burden of it. But then he thought, maybe he really had been wishing on a faulty talisman all these years because there never was any intervention to force him to give up his life, and so he endured. Still, he didn’t want to die. Not really, not while there was a chance that the woman he had loved was still alive. Deep in his heart, he still hoped for a reconciliation. Was that why he called for reunification of this country? Because he thought it might lead to a more personal kind of ‘reunification’?
    Sometimes he thought he was a fraud. Hiding it from other people was tiring but it seemed better than announcing it and making those who admired him miserable as well. He wasn’t lying, he was trying not to disappoint.
    There was a lull in the music while a lad changed a string on his guitar. Someone came up to him.
    ‘Jason