“Don’t be nervous. This is all totally informal. All we want to do today is sing a song, have a quick chat, and figure out whether you’d be happy in this choir we’re putting together. So what brings you here today?”

Audrey thought about her teenage diary, could taste a residue of that adolescent optimism. And then she thought about the future that was arriving far too soon and felt the truth dissolve under her tongue. “I always loved singing when I was young but . . . I don’t know . . . I’ve barely sung at all since I was a child. And now . . . now I’m getting on a bit, so I thought it was time to put that right.” The half-lie fizzed on her lips.

Ben hadn’t seemed to notice her awkwardness and he sat down at the piano, smiled at her, gestured for her to stand next to him. “Well, that seems like a pretty good reason to me, though I don’t think you’re getting on a bit. The oldest person I’ve had audition so far today was ninety-two, so from where I’m sitting you’re a veritable spring chicken. What are you going to sing?”

Audrey hesitated, still unconvinced of the answer to a question that had kept her awake for the past two weeks.

“‘Dream a Little Dream of Me’ by the Mamas and the Papas. I’ve got a CD here of the backing track. My granddaughter downloaded it from YouTube—I hope that’s all right?”

As soon as she’d spoken, the words tripping over one another, Audrey prepared to apologize, to say that she’d made a mistake, to tell this nice young American man that she couldn’t possibly sing that song. It was a song she’d studiously avoided for almost three decades, one that had habitually prompted her to switch off the radio, flick television channels, beat a hasty retreat from shops, restaurants, cinemas. It was a song she hadn’t dared listen to in full since they’d played it on a portable cassette recorder at the funeral almost thirty years before.

But before she had a chance to speak she heard the opening notes of an introduction that tugged at her heart in a way no other musical sequence ever could: a gentle lilting refrain that caught in the back of her throat and threatened never to leave.

“No need for a CD. I know it. G major should be good for you, I think. Does that sound about right? We can go half a tone lower if you like, but I think this should work.”

Audrey nodded as Ben played, unwilling to tell him that she didn’t know her G major from her A minor, that she’d never learned to read music, that there’d never been enough money for lessons. She’d always learned everything by ear, picking out melodies and harmonies instinctively, singing lower or higher depending on what her vocal cords required.

“I’ll run through a four-bar introduction and then you come in, OK?”