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‘I’m – n-not sure I can remember the words of anything.’

Jago roared and slapped him on the back. ‘Better pick something you won’t have forgotten then! Lads – the Cornish national anthem for Harry Veryan – “The Song Of The Western Men”. Better known to the uninitiated as “Trelawny”.’

The shouts hurt Matt’s ears. His stomach was churning, his T-shirt sticking to him. He couldn’t do this – he just couldn’t – yet Jago’s arm was at his back. Zennor was at the front, her eyes willing him to succeed, and at the back of the audience there was Trev, willing him to fail.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Matt clenched his fingers by his side. He tried to speak but he could only cough.

‘Here, wet your whistle with this,’ Jago said.

Someone handed him a pint and he took a swig, grateful for the beer warming his throat and loosening his vocal cords.

‘We ready?’ he asked Matt quietly.

Matt nodded. ‘No, but let’s do it anyway.’

Jago spoke softly. ‘OK, boys, one, two …’

‘A-a good sword and a trusty hand,

A merry heart and true!

King James’s men shall understand

What Cornish la-ads ca-an do.’

The sound almost lifted him off his feet. It was so pure and deep that he felt it physically and marvelled that he was part of that sound. He felt connected to part of something bigger than himself, of a team – a community – even if he must be out of tune, and his voice as rough as gravel compared to the melodious harmony of those standing by him.

The whoops had stopped, the cheering had fallen away, and all that remained was a wall of sound, of which he was part: one part of the whole. One of the Cornish lads again.

‘And shall Trelawny live?

Or shall Trelawny die?’

Every eye was on Matt and the choir – the pride, the emotion, the collective sense of belonging beaming out of faces. Hardened men were misty-eyed, holding back tears.

Matt opened his lungs and ramped up the volume. So what if he was rusty and out of tune? It didn’t matter. Only the feeling mattered, the effort – and the singing again: that was liberating. He’d been out in the cold so long, banishing himself from his own friends and community and now he was back in the fold.

He realised that everyone on the terrace had joined their voices to the choir’s and they were all singing the anthem under the blue of the Cornish sky with the waves breaking on the beach.

He glanced briefly upwards and wondered – however fanciful it seemed – if Grandad Harry could hear them. It didn’t matter, because all the people who had known his grandad, and those who hadn’t, understood what this collective act of singing meant to Matt and all those who loved this land around him.

Zennor knew: her hands were over her mouth, yet he could see the amazement in her eyes – and maybe a tinge of pride.

‘And shall Trelawny live?

Or shall Trelawny die?’

He raised his pint for the final chorus, giving it everything he had.

‘Here’s twenty thousand Cornishmen

Will know the r-e-eason why!’

The applause and cheering seemed to lift the sky itself and Matt with it.

The song ended. Jago and a couple of the other singers slapped him on the back.