1. They used to have a lectern, naturally – a cast-off bespoke eagle from St. Michael’s, kindly donated
by a deacon when the church had been presented with a newer model. The varnish had chipped,
grime had accrued in the grooves of the wooden feathers, it had looked more and more like a dodo,
but the thing had lent a certain gravitas, a certain sense of history and heritage. Then there had been
the altercation. An eagle with one wing is ludicrous and utterly unfit for purpose. So now they used
an ancient, wheezy music-stand, apparently cobbled together from the skeletons of dead umbrellas.
Somebody – presumably the late, lamented, formerly indomitable Bernard, had rigged it up with
hardboard reinforcements to allow for bigger volumes – Bernard always had, apparently, an utterly
vainglorious ability to ignore grubby surroundings, sticky floors, bad beer, technical difficulties,
schisms – but the old thing was still stupid and almost unworkable. Who it had originally belonged
to, no one knew – whether it had been borrowed or stolen, liberated from a skip or a school music
department or bought for the purpose had been long forgotten.
What it didn’t have – one of the any things it lacked – was somewhere to put a microphone. So not
only did Rajin have to pray that it wouldn’t collapse (as it did most meetings, on somebody’s watch),
and not only did he have to decide whether it was worth the effort of coaxing the thing down from
Stuart’s lofty airspace to his own more modest height, but he had to reposition Desmond’s bloody
mic-stand. Every AGM he raised the question of putting together a fund to buy a proper lectern.
Every year nobody could be arsed. But that was how things went.
This week he’d gone for Fukuyama. Just from a sense of irony, a cussed bitterness, and adopted
loyalty to underdogs.