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Everyone nodded their agreement, and Liam wrote a note to himself in his book.
‘Great,’ Liam said. ‘I’ll see you all next week. Thank you for your auditions.’
Sophie stacked the four chairs up and put them against the hall wall, while Lulu, Albert and Greg gathered their belongings and made for the door, chatting amongst themselves.
‘Soph, have you got a minute?’
She turned at his voice, tidying the last chair away before she looked at her watch. She might have time, but she wasn’t prepared to use all of it talking to Liam Hawthorn, especially if their conversation descended into anything like their other meetings had in the last week.
‘Yes,’ she said finally.
Liam put down his music and baton and walked over to her. He pushed his curls back from his face and looked at the floor. When he looked back up at Sophie, his eyes were bright. ‘I just wanted to apologise for the way I behaved the other day at parents’ evening.’
Sophie nodded, but didn’t know what to say. She was taken aback by his apology – it was completely unexpected.
‘And the time we met before that,’ he added with an endearing, lopsided grin.
Sophie couldn’t help but smile. ‘You could have behaved better, perhaps, yes.’
‘I know you were only trying to do your job.’
‘I really was. But I won’t push it again. You know Cassie better than I do. And I guess if you need my help, you know where you can find it.’
‘I appreciate that.’
Liam made eye contact with her and for a moment, neither of them spoke. Sophie tried to stop herself from getting lost in his eyes, from noticing the crinkles in their corners. She shook herself out of it.
‘Yes, well,’ Sophie said, buttoning up her coat. ‘I’ll see you next week, Liam.’
‘See you, Soph,’ he said as she turned to leave.
Sophie found herself smiling, and she felt a little lighter as she walked down the street and along the brook back to her flat. Despite wanting to do some serious damage to Kate and Lulu for signing her up for the audition, she was a tiny bit glad that they had. Once she’d overcome her initial pang of terror, she’d actually quite enjoyed herself. And it was quite nice to think that she’d not done a terrible job of it either.
Her imagination flickered to the night of the concert: Sophie standing centre stage. Through the bright lights she could just make out her mother and father seated in the front row, applauding wildly at the end of her performance, pride written across both their faces. She’d pass her mother a wodge of cash from the ticket sales and they’d hug. It would be nice. She reminded herself that it was unlikely she’d get the solo, but smiled as she let herself into the flat at the thought of the possibility.
Sophie switched on the Christmas lights and made herself a hot chocolate. Something about her good mood made her decide to phone her mother and clear the air. They’d not spoken since their argument after school the other day.
After several rings, her mother finally picked up the phone.
‘Hello?’
‘Hi, Mum,’ Sophie said. ‘It’s me,’ she added unnecessarily.
‘It’s a bit late, don’t you think?’
‘Sorry. I thought you would probably still be up – which I guess you are seeing as you answered?’ Her voice went up as if she was asking a question, lightening the grump her mother seemed to have answered the phone in.
‘Well, yes,’ June said, ‘I suppose we are.’
Her mother was as stilted as Sophie had expected her to be.
‘Look, Mum,’ Sophie said, playing with a loose thread at the bottom of her cardigan. ‘I actually phoned to say I’m sorry.’ She gave her mother the opportunity to respond, but there was nothing. ‘I don’t want to fight with you.’ She wanted to get the apology out of the way and hoped her mother would give up her uppity tone sooner rather than later.
‘I appreciate that.’ No apology. ‘I don’t want to fight with you either.’
Sophie smiled. That was as close to an apology as she was ever likely to get, and she would have to live with it.
‘So, how are you and Dad?’
