Dont you dare sing
Your smile isnt right.
At first, Nina didnt realise it was aimed at her. She stared down at her hands, folded on her lap atop a navy blue dress shed never have chosen herself. Too tight in the shoulders. Too shiny. Too much like someone elses clothing.
Nina. I said, your smiles wrong. Too tense. People notice.
Graham spoke softly, his eyes fixed on the hall where the guests of his companys anniversary were already beginning to take their seats. Twenty years of business. A grand celebration. An important evening. Her role tonight had been set out in advance, in the meticulous manner of a business contract: sit beside him, look proper, dont chatter, limit herself to a single glass of wine, avoid speaking to partners unless permitted.
Sorry, she murmured.
Dont apologise. Fix it.
The restaurant was one of those places where wealth penetrates the air not ostentatiously, but tangibly. In the weight of the tablecloths, the muffled gleam of the chandeliers, the silent glide of waiters who moved as if barely touching the ground. Nina had been here several times before, and always she had this same sense: she wasnt meant to be here. Not as the wife of a successful businessman, not as herself. Just surplus. A woman with a name, a history, and something still lingering inside that no one ever saw.
She was fifty-five. Twenty-eight of those years shed spent married to Graham Davis. They met as she was finishing her studies at the Royal College of Music. Shed been vivacious, passionate, devoted to Vaughan Williams and Elgar. Hed been a young entrepreneur with blazing intensity and total confidence he could bend the world to his will. He looked at her as if she were the whole world. It turned out he simply wanted to remake her, too.
Graham, may I go say hello to Laura? Shes sitting over there by herself.
Laura can wait. You dont need to be at the Crawfords table.
Weve known each other twenty years
Nina, he replied, weary as a parent repeating himself to a stubborn child, Tonight is important. Just sit and smile.
She smiled. Properly, as instructed.
The room filled steadily: partners, clients, civil servants, their well-dressed wives. All chirpy, all talking about whats expected talk at such events. Nina listened to scraps of conversation and realised she couldnt remember the last time shed discussed anything that truly interested her. Music. How a fugue was constructed. About why Rachmaninoffs second concerto still tore her apart inside, even over the radio.
Not that radio was ever much played at home. Graham didnt care for classical music. Hed say it set his nerves on edge.
At the next table, a woman in a red dress laughed recklessly at someones joke real, low, vibrant laughter. Nina realised she was staring at her with a tinge of envy. Not for the dress, or the womans youth and beauty, but because she laughed as if she needed no permission, as though laughter itself was hers by right.
Dinner continued. Toasts. Applause. Predictable speeches celebrating twenty years of success and promising a glorious future. Graham delivered his own toast, short and pithy as always. The room applauded his ability to command a crowd was real enough. Nina clapped along, thinking that she, too, had once known how to command a crowd. To stand before people and sing so that they barely dared to breathe.
The last time shed sung publicly was twenty-four years ago a night at college, which Graham had driven her to and then whisked her away from early, summoned by a business call.
After pudding, the host announced a talent contest, a bit of fun to round off the evening anyone who fancied could come up to the little stage in the corner and perform. Joke, trick, song. Graham grimaced.
Rather tacky, he muttered.
Nina said nothing, watching the stage. The microphone sat waiting. The pianist, a cheerful young man with long fingers, had been quietly playing background pieces all through dinner. Shed noticed that he couldnt help gently bobbing his head to the beat, even when he played softly.
A couple of volunteers stepped up. One told a joke. The other played something on a harmonica. The room clapped politely but without enthusiasm. The host called for more volunteers, and a hush spread.
Something shifted inside Nina. Not a jolt, just as if a door that’d been shut for years finally shifted with a nudge. She set her napkin on the table. Stood up.
Where are you going? Graham asked.
To the ladies.
She went not to the toilets but to the host, murmured something in his ear. Surprise flickered on his face, then he nodded. She approached the pianist, bent to speak, exchanged a few brief words, and he nodded too, his eyes lighting up.
When the host announced her name, Graham didnt react at first. Then he did. Nina caught his face out of the corner of her eye as she ascended the three steps. She avoided looking at him directly, focusing instead on the microphone.
The hall was filled with strangers in expensive suits and elegant dresses. Most milled around, chatting. A few watched her with polite curiosity: go on, whats next?
She nodded to the pianist.
He struck the opening chords, and the room grew still this wasnt a party tune or cabaret number. It was Rachmaninoff, Vocalise. One of the most challenging and beautiful works shed sung at her graduation recital. No words. Only voice and music.
She sang. Even she could hardly believe herself at first, could hardly believe her voice existed at all after so many years of silence that it had not wasted away, had not withered to nothing. It was there. Different, perhaps deeper with the years, richer, but alive. Real.
Somewhere around the third phrase, the room fell silent. Not gradually but all at once: people stopped talking, set down drinks, faced the stage. Nina hardly noticed. She sang, concentrating on breath, on the line, trying not to think of Graham, his face, what would happen later.
Later didnt matter. There was only this.
When she finished, there was a frozen hush before the applause broke out people rising, not all at once but rising nonetheless. The applause was genuine. The woman in red shouted, Bravo! The pianist stared up in awe as if witnessing something rare.
Nina stepped off the stage. Legs a little shaky, heart thumping but steady. She returned to her table and found Grahams face waiting.
He did not clap.
Sit down, he said.
She sat.
Do you realise what you just did?
I sang.
Dont get clever. His voice was cold and level. You made a spectacle of yourself at my event. Without my approval. Do you see how that looks?
How does it look?
Like my wife craves attention. Like Im not enough. Were leaving. In ten minutes.
Graham, its still
In ten minutes, Nina.
Three people came to her before they left. The woman in red, whose name was Tamara, shook Ninas hand: You were marvellous, where did you come from? An elderly professor with a white beard simply said, Magnificent. Whose pupil were you? Laura Crawford, Ninas old friend, rushed over, embracing her. Nina nearly broke down then and there.
Nina, where have you been hiding all this time? Heavens, you used to sing like
Laura, were going, Graham cut in, suddenly beside her. He took Ninas arm not roughly, almost tender, but his fingers squeezed through the dress. Excuse us, Ninas had a headache all day. We have to leave.
He said nothing in the car all the way home. The silence was worse than anything he couldve said. Nina watched the citys lights, the empty pavements, took in a sense of deep calmness. Not joy, not fear, just something else. As if shed just recalled her own name.
At home, he hung up his jacket, turned to her.
Alright, he said, I get youre bored. I get that you want something for yourself. But you must understand there are standards. There are things you can and cannot do. Tonight, you embarrassed me in front of everyone who matters to my work.
I sang. People applauded.
You played the performer at a company do. Thats not the same.
It is to me, Nina heard herself say, and was surprised by how even it sounded. Explain.
He regarded her in silence.
You have everything. House, security, respect. I dont know what more you want, and I really dont care to find out.
Ill tell you. I want myself.
What does that mean?
You know perfectly well.
She walked to the bedroom, shut the door, lay still in her dress and stared at the ceiling. The ceiling, white and smooth, like their life looked from the outside. She heard Graham moving through the flat, opening and closing wardrobe doors. Then, quiet.
She didnt sleep. Instead, she thought. About how, fifteen years ago, shed agreed to leave her teaching job at the local music school. Graham said it was beneath his wife, the money a joke, pointless to work. Shed agreed, thinking shed find something else. But something else kept eluding her; every time she tried, Graham explained patiently why it, too, was inappropriate, unhelpful, unnecessary.
He never hit her. Never raised his voice. He simply explained, calmly, what was acceptable and not. After twenty-eight years, she was so used to his explanations that she couldnt recognise her own voice. Literally. Not even in her head.
Until the evening before.
In the morning, while he showered, Nina took her old bag from atop the cupboard. She packed her documents, passport, the Royal College diploma she found in a drawer, a few photographs. Mobile phone. Some cash, slowly set aside for years, never certain for what. Now she knew.
She dressed simply. Jeans, a jumper, a coat. When Graham came from the bathroom, she stood at the door with the bag slung over her shoulder.
Where are you going?
Im leaving.
A long pause.
Dont be daft.
Im quite serious. Im leaving.
Nina, he said, towelling his hands, exasperated by what he saw as another of her fits, Youre emotional now. Sit down, settle yourself. Well talk in the evening.
Weve talked already.
Youve no money, no work. Where will you go?
Ill find somewhere.
Nina, dont be ridiculous. Youre fifty-five, where can you go
She opened the door and stepped out. His voice followed, but she tuned out the words. The lift seemed to take forever and she caught her own reflection in its metal doors crumpled, unfocused. She almost smiled.
She walked through the city, breathing. It was a cold, dry autumn; the air smelt of leaves and fresh-brewed coffee drifting from a shopfront. She entered, bought a cup, sat at the window and took out her phone. She called the only person she could.
Laura, I need help.
Oh, love. Whats happened?
Ive left Graham.
Silence, then:
Where are you?
Laura lived alone on the outskirts, the children having long since moved away, her husband dead these past years. She opened the flats door, saw Nina there with one bag, asked nothing, only moved aside and said, Come in, the kettles on.
They sat in the kitchen till late. Nina talked, Laura listened, no sighing, no eye-rolling, just topping up the tea. When she finished, Laura said:
You left. Thats what matters. All the rest is solvable.
Hell freeze my accounts. He warned me. Last year, during an argument, tried to threaten me: See what happens if you go.
Lets see, Laura replied, lips tightening.
Graham didnt keep her waiting. By evening, Ninas phone rang endlessly: first him, then his secretary, then her mother whom Graham had evidently primed. Her mother wept, saying Graham phoned to say Nina had a breakdown after the party, had run out in a state and needed help.
Mum, I havent had a breakdown.
Nina, darling, hes so worried. He said you acted very oddly last night, that you need
Mum, I sang. I got up and sang. Thats all. Thats not a breakdown.
He says it was terribly inappropriate, that you shamed him
Mum. Im fine. Im at Lauras. Ill call you tomorrow.
Her accounts were indeed frozen. Her card wouldnt work at the cashpoint, and the stash in her bag shrank quickly. Laura refused rent, but that couldnt last.
Three days later Graham sent her belongings. Didnt bring them just sent two men she didnt know, with random bags. Nina sorted through them in the hallway. Summer dresses in October, heels, some ornaments nothing warm, nothing necessary. She could see the message.
Another day, her mother called: Graham had been round for tea, assuring her that Nina had always been high-strung, unstable, that hed tolerated her for years but now feared she needed professional help. Mum listened. Mum always listened to those who sounded reasonable.
Nina, maybe you ought to go back and talk
Mum, hes blocked my money and is telling people Ive lost my mind. Do you understand what that means?
Mum was silent.
Hes a man, darling. All men react that way when theyre hurt.
Nina stared out the window afterwards. Then, from her bag, she took out her diploma, placed it on the table. Navy cover, gold lettering Nina Charlotte Davies, Graduate in Vocal Performance. She hadnt touched it in fifteen years.
The next morning she phoned the College. Asked about Dr. Bernard Allen, her old singing teacher, fearing he must be gone. But he was still there, teaching, now over seventy. She was given his number.
Dr. Allen? Its Nina Davies. Do you remember me?
A pause.
Davies? From the fourth year?
Yes.
Of course I remember you. Where have you been, Nina? I havent heard you in years.
I disappeared. Youre right. I need your help.
They met two days later at the college, in a cramped studio on the third floor. He was just as she recalled slight, sharp-eyed, hands folded over his knees. He looked her up and down carefully.
Youve aged.
So have you.
Thats normal, he smiled faintly. Sing.
Now?
Whats the point in waiting?
So she sang uncertain at first, lungs not quite up to it, her top notes faintly shaking. Dr. Allen listened without interrupting. When she stopped, he paused then said:
The voice is there. Techniques rusty. Breathing off. But the voice lives, Nina. Thats what matters. The rest youll rebuild.
How long?
Depends on you. Work hard and in a few months itll come back. Why did you give up?
I got married.
And your husband forbade singing?
Not forbidden. It just faded. Bit by bit.
Dr. Allen looked at her long and hard.
I see. Well, Miss Davies, well begin.
They worked every day. Nina arrived by nine, left at two or later. The voice returned slowly and unevenly some days it all flowed, others it faltered. Dr. Allen never indulged her; he dismissed age as an excuse. The voice has no age. Only technique and will. All else is excuses.
Laura found her temporary work: running a singing club for pensioners at a local community centre. The pay was modest but the money was truly her own. She led three classes a week, and she relished it. The group were women in their sixties and seventies, singing for no reason but the joy of it no dreams or pressures, just soul. Watching them was its own healing.
Meanwhile, Graham didnt relent. Through mutual acquaintances, stories filtered back. He spun tales that she had left for a teacher, that she was unstable, that hed endured her antics for years and finally had no choice. His stories changed slightly depending on the audience, but the thrust was constant: she was mad, he was the victim. Some believed him, some just didnt argue. Her mother phoned rarely, selecting her words carefully.
Do you think about the future? Where youll live?
I do, Mum.
He says hes willing to talk, if youll return.
Im not coming back.
But you could sort things out properly divorce, division of property
Mum, hes frozen my money and tells everyone Im unwell. With someone like that, you dont negotiate you leave. For good.
Her mother would sigh and change topic. Nina didnt hold it against her hers was a different generation, with different ideas of marriage and endurance. How could she resent someone who simply spoke a language shed never been taught?
A month later, Dr. Allen said something important. As she gathered her things at the end of a lesson, he said, not looking up:
In two months time theres a large charity concert at the town hall all classical repertoire, and theyre seeking soloists. I could recommend you.
Nina froze.
Dr. Allen, I havent sung publicly in twenty-four years.
I know.
And the audience?
A proper one. Its being televised. Raising money for the childrens hospital. Yes, it’ll be serious.
She fell silent.
Ill think about it.
Dont take too long. They wont wait.
She agreed two days later. Dr. Allen nodded, as if hed expected no other answer.
The next six weeks were among the most intense of her life since leaving college. They prepared: operatic arias, several art songs, and, for the finale at Dr. Allens insistence Rachmaninoff again, something longer and more ambitious. Nina worked herself to exhaustion, sometimes falling asleep on Lauras sofa before supper. But this weariness was different from the heaviness of her marriage this was alive.
Laura clucked over her, piling extra food on her plate, griping that Nina worked too much and ate too little. Nina just laughed, insisting it was how it had to be. They became closer in those months than theyd ever been in years before; real life side by side brings people together fast.
With three weeks to go, the troubles started. First the concert administrator, an anxious young man, called her to say there were questions about her participation vague, evasive. Nina asked directly:
Did Graham Davis contact you?
A silence.
I can’t comment.
I see.
She told Dr. Allen, who replied, Come tomorrow. Ill sort it out.
And he did. She didnt ask how, but she kept her spot in the concert. It wasnt over, though. A week before the event Laura rang during rehearsal:
Nina, two men came looking for you. From Graham, they said. Asking if you live here.
What did you say?
That I dont know any Nina. But theyre lurking outside. Be careful.
Nina felt not fear, but a cold realisation: he wouldnt just let her go. It wasnt love or pain it was order. Shed upset his order.
She told Dr. Allen, who cleaned his glasses slowly.
So, hell try to stop the concert?
Probably.
Are you frightened?
She thought honestly.
No. Im just tired of being frightened.
Good. Therell be a Mr. Victor Stanley at the concert.
Whos he?
A producer. Quite renowned, runs big venues. I invited him he heard about you after the night in the restaurant. Someone from his office was there, told him. He wants to hear you. So sing well, Miss Davies.
She looked at him.
Did you arrange all this?
Ive taught more than forty years, Dr. Allen said. Three of my students had real voices. One went abroad and became famous. Another died young. The third married and disappeared. I always wondered about her. Glad shes back.
Concert day was grey and chill. Nina arrived at the hall two hours early, walked round the stage, stood and listened to the void. Eight hundred seats stretched away into the gloom. She loved that moment, the empty hall already waiting.
An hour before showtime the administrator approached and murmured, nervously:
Miss Davies, theres two men outside. Claiming to be sent by your husband. Insist on seeing you.
Not my husband anymore. Ex.
They say they have medical papers saying you need to be sectioned.
Nina took a moment.
They can say whatever they wish. Im performing. If they want a seat, let them listen.
The administrator hesitated. Nina met his eyes squarely.
This is my performance. No one stops me. Do you understand?
I do, but
Please fetch Dr. Allen.
Dr. Allen dealt with it. She never learned exactly what he said to Grahams men, but they didnt come in. Just before the concert, she noticed a tall stranger in a fine overcoat speaking quietly with Dr. Allen in the foyer that must have been Stanley.
Nina was the third soloist on the programme. The hall was filled, the television camera at the side. She wore a simple dark dress shed chosen herself no sequins, nothing showy. She stepped up to the microphone, looked out.
And sang.
The first piece came easily, almost joyfully. The second needed effort midway she nearly lost control but kept going. By the third, she felt oblivious to everything except the music. Here was her place. Here was who she was.
As she began the Rachmaninoff, the hush in the hall deepened the rare kind that means people arent just hearing, but really listening. Nina sang and felt almost like someone newly recovered from illness, suddenly aware the sky had been there, bright and waiting, all along.
She finished the final phrase as Graham bustled in through the side doors, striding quickly, gesticulating at a security man. His face was red, tense, another man following behind.
Nina sang right to the end. Didnt drop a note.
The hall stood.
Graham stood frozen halfway down the central aisle, now intercepted by Stanley, who spoke to him very calmly, barely even gesturing. Nina saw Graham protesting, saw his face change, something inside him simply break not dramatically, but quietly, inevitably. A man realising at last that here, he was nobody.
Then he turned and left.
Backstage, Stanley approached, shook Nina’s hand.
Ive heard of you, he said, Now Ive heard you. We should talk.
About what?
A contract. Tours. Here and abroad. I have several venues across Europe seeking exactly that voice. I assure you, no one will trouble you again.
Dr. Allen watched from a distance. When Nina met his eyes, he merely nodded once, as if everything that needed saying had been said already.
Her mother and she truly spoke only afterward. Nina went to see her; they sat in silence in the kitchen, until at last her mother said, I saw you on the telly. At the concert.
You did?
Laura called, told me to turn it on. I didnt know you could sing like that.
You heard me at college.
That was years ago. Then I was your mum, I was nervous for you. On the telly, I was just watching and out you came. Im sorry, Nina.
For what?
For believing him over you. He knew how to talk. You kept quiet. I thought silence meant you were fine. I didnt understand.
Nina squeezed her hand.
You understand now. Thats enough.
You’re not cross with me?
No.
Her mother wept softly, not sobbing, just tears flowing. Nina sat with her and thought how forgiveness wasnt about pretending nothing happened. It was taking forward only what you truly needed. Leaving the rest behind.
A year passed.
Nina stood backstage at a concert hall in Vienna, listening to the murmurs as the audience settled. The noises were unfamiliar yet universal: the rustle of clothes, murmured conversations, a cautious cough. The hall was old, ornate, ringed with tall windows. Snow fell outside.
Her life now looked like this: a small rented flat in Vienna, but her own; a contract with Stanley, which let her sing and make a living; a suitcase, always half-packed, as she moved around; Dr. Allen calling weekly, sometimes discussing music by video; her mother visiting every few months, always astonished at how much Nina could achieve.
She heard of Graham rarely, in scattered rumours. It was said his business went downhill after their story broke; a couple of partners pulled away. Within six months he remarried, to a young, quiet woman stranger to nearly everyone. Nina heard this, and simply felt tired understanding. No vengeance. No pain. Just knowledge: some people never change, merely seek the next pliant soul.
She pitied that woman but it was no longer her story.
Her story now was something else: fatigue from flights, quarrels with conductors over tempo, awkwardness in foreign tongues, solitude in bland hotel rooms. Yet there were also early mornings in unfamiliar cities, the right to buy her own dress, to phone whom she liked, to close the door and know no one waited to tell her she was wrong.
She thought sometimes of wasted years. Not bitterly, just honestly. Twenty-eight years. So much time. She could have sung all those years been someone else, or herself, only sooner.
But theres nothing more pointless than could have. Shed learned that well.
She was here now. Her voice was here now. Her stage was here now.
A stagehand peeked in: Miss Davies, three minutes.
Coming.
Nina adjusted her dress simple and dark, her own choice. Took a few breaths. Closed her eyes.
Into her mind came Grahams face from that restaurant a year ago telling her, Your smile isnt right. Her apologising. Sitting there, mask-like, wondering why shed lost her voice.
Now, she simply smiled not correctly; just for herself. Because she wanted to.
And walked on stage.
The hall stilled.
And she sang.
