by Meg Bignell
(When not wearing my stage make-up, I was very shy. I was a violist, after all – eternal dark-horsey third fiddle with gangly arms, big ugly hands and a natural instinct to stay safely within the limited repertoire available to violists. Violinists had much more actual confidence than me. Ria and I told ourselves that violins were shrill and common, the blackbirds of the musical world.)
Hugh fiddled with the radio knobs and said, ‘What sort of music do you listen to?’
And I said, ‘Oh, whatever. Lemonheads or Madonna or something,’ which was a lie, but I was terrified of being too classically musical. Ria and I both hated the general Conservatorium attitude that classical musicians were on a higher plane than the rest of the human race: elite athletes with more class and less sweat. Her brothers had taught us very early on that we were nothing special, and we wholeheartedly believed them. As a result, we made friends with the contemporary rock students and joined a darts club. I dreamed of elevating the enigmatic viola from the shadowy recesses of the orchestra pit to the stadium stage. Really, when I think back, I was just elevating my twattage level a few notches above the others and securing my status as a person who never properly fit in.
Thankfully Wintergreen wasn’t too far away, because Hugh was a Lemonheads fan and I only knew ‘Mrs Robinson’. The home was one of those flash ones, with tasteful box hedging and no soup smell. Hugh’s grandmother was tiny, her skin almost transparent over her bones. A papery white phantom. There was family gathered: Alison, Laurence, Hugh’s sisters and brother, all tired-looking, some with bloodshot eyes. With a pang I realised I’d been invited to perform at a death vigil.
Shit, I thought, and went cold. I wished desperately I’d worn something other than fisherman’s pants and thongs. Hugh introduced me to his family. I don’t remember my first impressions beyond ‘upper middle class’ because the second person I met was ‘my girlfriend, Hannah’.
She was gorgeous: blonde, glossy and flawless. She had a purse that I just knew would clip perfectly shut on her hand mirror, non-supermarket lipstick and spare hair slide. It matched her shoes (heels) and her belt. And when she stood beside Hugh and smiled her dazzly breath-mint smile at me, I realised that the two of them were also perfectly matched. H&H.
Memory is wobbly after that, but I guess Hugh introduced my performance somehow, and I’m hoping my default settings included pleasantries and compassion. If I’d been more mindful of the moment, I might have switched the Bach piece to something more tributey and stirring. Heavenly bells and downy angels, etc. But I had departed the scene and fallen into the deep pit of unrequited love. Black holes, it turned out, were not formed by the death of a star but by the final poof of hope.
When I got my viola out of its case, it must have been like clutching the hand of an old, cahooty friend. ‘It’s us against the beautiful people,’ it might have said to me. ‘Phooey to them. And phooey to physics, restraint, happy endings and that perfect damn Hannah. And Bach,’ because without really thinking about it I was – down in my black hole – playing the bejesus out of a brooding, pissed-off viola solo I’d studied for my entrance exam.
I can only imagine what I would have looked like; demonic possession comes to mind. Anger blended with fierce jealousy and a proper nothing-will-ever-come-to-any-good broken heart. It was so inappropriate that I ought to have been marched from the scene like a lion from a butterfly house. The silence, when the heart-wrenching frenzy drew to a close, was excruciating. Hugh’s mum was actually gaping. Hannah had a hand over her mouth like I’d committed a violence. And in a way I had. If music could kill, they’d all be dead as stone, never mind old age.
I cast the viola-weapon back into its case and shut the lid on it, then stole a glance at the figure on the bed. She was looking directly at me and her pale, pale eyes were wide and sort of flashing. (Anger? Adrenaline? Agony?)
And she spoke. It was hard to believe that the clear, direct voice came from her. She looked so half-there, yet her voice was whole. ‘Tchaikovsky,’ it said firmly. ‘“Aveu passionné”. And what passionné, Susannah. What passionné.’
I wished them all well and left pretty quickly after that. Despite the apparent affirmation from Gran, there were some very intense dear-God-get-her-out-of-here vibes crackling around the room. I didn’t care about that, though (which amazes me, really; these days I’m so fearful of putting a foot wrong that I barely put either of them anywhere). I just cared about all the pieces of dashed hopes messing up the room and the fact that Hannah smelled suspiciously of Chanel No. 5. I brushed off Hugh’s offer of a lift, wished them well and caught the bus back to college with my viola on my knee. I cried a bit (buses are very good places for shedding lonely tears), but I also patted the viola case and whispered, ‘Go us.’ With my viola I wasn’t really lonely at all.
Ria was only a slight comfort when eventually I found my way back to my room. She plied me with bourbon and cigarettes. (I never smoked, but it sort of fitted with the whole being-a-bit-beside-myself thing. They were Alpines, which Ria said were like a breath of fresh air.) Once she’d managed to prise the story out of me, she said something like, ‘Jesus, I wish I’d been there. When Tchaikovsky talks serious, he has every person in the room sucker-punched with his passionné. You’re a wild bird, Susannah Mackay; no one is safe from your singing hands.’
Later (after more wine) I said, ‘There’s every chance I finished off poor Granny.’
‘Oh, well,’ said Ria. ‘What a way to go. Exactly what I’d choose – you and your hypersensitive viola. And, anyway, if she’s dead, she won’t let on to Hugh what the title means; “Passion Confession” is a dead giveaway.’
I didn’t go to any more Astronomy. Stargazing was no longer on my agenda. I wanted instead to forget about Hugh and the planets and the whole experience – I was being tortured enough by my own brain conjuring up endless visions of Hugh and Hannah eating our marinated olives with our clever and attractive friends. Besides, Astronomy didn’t need me and I had surely failed it, dismally.
But about a fortnight later I ran into Hugh in the computer lab (funny to think that no one had their own computer back then). Anyway, there he was, in a pale blue jumper and with those eyes. My knees wobbled. He jumped up from his desk, said my name and put his hands on my shoulders.
‘Susannah! The exam’s next week and I haven’t seen you. We have work to do.’
‘But it’s over between me and astronomy,’ I said. And us.
‘But you’ve done okay on your assignments, haven’t you? A pass is really possible and besides, repeating your elective unit would be madness when you should be focusing on that gift of yours.’
He said gift. I swayed for a minute. ‘Is your granny okay? I think I was a bit …’ I didn’t know how to apologise for such a bonkers vehement performance.
‘She died. She was really old, ready to go. The funeral went well.’
I must have looked horrified. ‘Oh, God. I’m so sorry, Hugh, I’m so … I should never … I was really …’
Hugh rescued me. ‘She loved your music, she really did. She wished you’d stayed for more.’
‘Really?’
‘Of course. You were kind of intense, but jeez, really bloody amazing. She loved it so much that she wrote you a thank you letter. Here …’ He rummaged in his bag and pulled out an envelope, sealed, with my name on the front in tiny, wobbly letters. ‘I don’t know what the handwriting’s like but her brain was in good shape … Anyway, let’s meet in the library tomorrow for Astronomy cram, okay? I need it too; you’ll be doing me a favour.’
I told him I would, then spent the next almost-hour sitting in front of him on my allocated computer, trying to concentrate on my assignment and wondering whether I was meant to open the letter while he was there or wait until later. I could also feel the heat from Hugh behind me and wondered whether he might be noticing the knots in the back of my hair, or the splay of my bottom on the chair, and whether he could see that I was getting nowhere with my assignme
nt. It was torment, finally ending when Hugh’s computer time blessedly ran out and he had to leave. He waved me see-you-later and once I was sure he’d gone, I opened the letter.
And here (deciphered as best I can from the shakiest of handwritings) is what it said:
Dear Susannah,
I must thank you for your music. I am very pleased to have it now among my milestone memories. I’ve had a long life of music and this, from you at the end, was an unexpected bounty.
I do hope that you can continue on. It would be a terrible shame if you didn’t. You need to make sure those big, clever hands of yours are kept warm by someone, so they can fly like that always. May I misquote my old friend S T Coleridge and say, he who loveth best, playeth best?
Yours, Coralie Parks
PS I have always found dear Hugh to be a very warm fellow. Perhaps, simply tell him, do you think? Time is precious.
PPS And try to remember that what seems like love is just the beginning of love.
Oh, I haven’t read this for years. How right she was about time being precious. I mean, I believed her then, I think, but I didn’t actually feel it. Back then, my future was so very far away and nothing seemed a rush. Little did I know that before too long I’d give my time to another person and then a decade to babies and when eventually I raised my eyes to the horizon I discovered that my future had arrived while I was testing the bathwater and pureeing chicken. It was upon me like a large woolly blanket: comforting and warm but slightly cloying, too close to see any pleasing design, and sometimes a little itchy. Coralie forgot to say that the state of one’s hands might be improved by not having babies. Women can’t, after all, ‘have it all’. Something always goes wrong. Didn’t Jane Austen jump out a window to escape a betrothed, a life spread too thin and the traumatic fallout of too much juggling?
I’ve kept the letter ever since and never showed anyone, not even Hugh. Or Ria. It seemed too sacred. Hugh has never asked to see it, possibly not even wondered over it. I wondered over it for years and years. And now as I ponder it again, I realise that I don’t remember when the beginning of love ended or whether we had a middle. I think, though, that I might have glimpsed the end …
THURSDAY 2nd MARCH
The digging for sparkle must have worked because after I left the wardrobe last night I went to switch off the telly in the sitting room and there was an ad on for Blundstone boots. A gorgeously grubbied jillaroo pulled on a pair of old boots, jumped from a shearer’s quarters verandah into a huge-skied morning and said, right in my face, ‘Get up and put ya boots on, Austraya.’
Come on, Austraya, I thought. Put ya boots on. And then, There will be no endings here. This is still the middle of things.
I gave my stupid self a shake, waltzed to the bedroom (Come on, Austraya) and jumped on my husband.
He sat bolt upright – taking me with him – and yelled, ‘What?’ His fists were clenched and for a horrible moment I thought he might throw a punch. That or pick me up and toss me off the bed.
‘Sorry. Oh, sorry.’ I shooshed into his ear and stroked his hair until he lay back down and relaxed again. ‘I just thought we might have a snuggle.’
He put a sleepy hand on my back. Under the sheets, he was so warm. I kissed his chest and he sighed a good sort of sigh so I moved up to his face and kissed him hard on the mouth. I kissed his neck and breathed into his ears and wondered whether I should whisper his name. (I’ve never done that talking-during-sex thing. If I started now, it would seem weird, wouldn’t it?) I stayed silent and instead just breathed a little more heavily and guided his hand to my boobs chest. He massaged gently and with a little groan (groan or moan? Which is less negative? Grunt?) he ran his other hand to my bottom and then onto my clitoris. Those little nubs really can charge you up, can’t they? It’s as though Hugh’s pressing on it loosened the ligaments in my hips. I felt all pliable, my thighs fell apart and I pulled him onto me. I was really surprised by how wet I was, and by how quickly his thrusts brought me to a sudden, intense orgasm. It fired along my fibres, switched on my muscles and held me clenched for a long, shuddering moment. When it finally passed, I pressed my head to his chest and let his heartbeat almost put me to sleep.
But he hadn’t climaxed yet so there had to be a bit of rousing myself. It went on for ages quite a bit, actually, and after a while, it all got a bit, um, frictious. Okay, dry. I had to concentrate extra hard. I thought about that younger, lust-worthy astronomy Hugh, the one in the pale blue jumper. And (eek) a tiny (really, really tiny) flash of Max the Wardrobe Man.
We made love for over an hour, all told, which is a bloody long time when you’re fifteen years married and forty-three years old with crazy hair to think about. But it was all worth it in the end, because when Hugh climaxed he held me just tight enough to make him seem a little bit possessive and me a little bit loved. Perhaps I do have something to give, I thought, even if it’s just a slippery(ish) hole and some pleasure.
Anyway, I’m feeling better about it all. This lovemaking business does actually make love. I just need to focus and stop being so erratic. More erotica, less erratica. My new catchphrase?
SUNDAY 5th MARCH
I have a bladder infection. I am writing this from the after-hours doctor’s surgery. The one where you can’t make an appointment but just have to sit among the germs and wait. They are playing Dolly Parton in the waiting room. She is twanging on about eating apples and fishing, which is probably what everyone’s doing with their Sunday, for God’s sake. In the meantime I need to wee but not wee ALL THE TIME and I wish she’d SHUT UP. Shut UP, Dolly Parton. The romance is not here. It’s curled up to die in my bladder and leaves only an afterburn when I wee.
… I’ve been waiting for so long that I’m going to have to call home and ask Hugh to get the washing in before the dew gets it. It’s really hot in here. I’m starting to feel woozy and I want to go home.
WEDNESDAY 8th MARCH
Gosh, I was really sick. I had to have intravenous antibiotics.
Ria thought it was hysterical when I phoned to tell her that I’d recovered and not to drop everything and fly in. ‘Sparkle Project going swimmingly, then,’ she said, laughing.
‘It’s not funny. I probably could have died.’
‘God, you’d hate that. Death by wee infection is so unromantic, Helen Burns.’
(Once, when we were about eleven, I made Ria be Jane Eyre while I was the saintly Helen Burns. She had to cry over my dead body. She’s never let me live it down.)
‘At least you’d leave a very useful legacy – always do wees after intercourse and never wipe from back bottom to front bottom. They could announce it at your funeral. You’d be your grandchildren’s cautionary tale. Hilaire Belloc could write the eulogy.’
‘Shut up, please.’
‘Sorry, Helen. Helen Fanny Burns.’
Anyway, in light of a near fatal kidney infection, a bent-back penis and a close encounter with a wardrobe man, I think I can safely say that the early phase of the Sparkle Project has been a total FLOP.
Time to get serious and spark the heck up.
WEDNESDAY 15th MARCH
I’ve decided to give my interior a complete makeover. I just read that back and it sounds as though I’m getting a colon cleanse. Or a douche (silly word). No, I mean that I will improve my inner self; I will shiny myself up into a selfless, patient and generally better person. A pillar and a role model. In doing so, I might start to LOVE MYSELF. There is only so much self-respect to be generated by yelling at children, keeping biros in your ponytail and finding a jar of pasta sauce with no preservatives.
I don’t hate myself. I think I’m okay. If I saw me walking down the street one day, I might even smile and say hello (after all, there is nothing awe-strikingly unapproachable about me). But there is definitely a regular ‘you could do better’ spike in my self-awareness charts. I feel inferior to most people in our circles. I’m never as confident or skilful, thoughtful or patient, brave or brainy as anyone
else. Or as stylish, but that’s an issue for another day.
As previously noted, I need some brave without the stage. Real confidence that manifests as real action. Actual doings. Not a bunch of invisible crotchets and quavers floating around in the air like dust motes. Dust notes.
The dusty smell of the theatre used to bolster my courage too, I think: dust and paint and leather. Theatres and music studios don’t have windows, but this never once bothered me; there seemed to be no better place. I probably didn’t look outwards enough. I never thought about all the terrible things that can happen …
Anyway, during my week or so of relaxation kidney recovery and reflection, I had a think about my current motivations and they really are, as observed by Ria, very narrow. They are: to keep my family safe, healthy and happy, the household running smoothly and Barky out of trouble. How boring. Also how unhealthy. There’s no consideration of community in my current scope. And no consideration of myself. And I’m probably smothering instead of mothering. No one wins.
Any potential moments I could spend enjoying my own company or contributing to the wider community get squandered on thoughts of disaster or worry for my family’s welfare. For instance, this morning I had the chance to enjoy a bit of pottering time in town while looking for a birthday present for Alison, but instead I got all jumpy because Eloise hadn’t messaged me to say where her tennis lesson had been moved to. She wasn’t trapped under a fallen bookcase – she just didn’t get around to it until after lunch – but I couldn’t help worrying. Eloise and silence have never been a comfortable pairing. Mum always says, ‘It’s no wonder you catastrophise, darling. You’ve had a trauma. You are post-traumatic,’ in her best tragic voice, but jeez, it was twelve years ago and I wasn’t in the war.
So, yes, time for a shift in attitude. I will be interested, look further afield for motivation and do for others. I will be so inner-glowy that I won’t need a stage or any limelight for people to notice me. I will positively sparkle. Hugh will be unable to resist me. Compassion equals passion.