A Thousand Perfect Notes

by C. G. Drews

  Ha. The irony.

  August pauses to wrestle with her satchel and yank out her iPod. She peels wet hair off her face and tucks an earbud in, hands covering the iPod screen to protect it from the worst of the mist. Is this the end of the conversation? Beck isn’t sure if that’s a relief or a disappointment.

  But August yanks the bud from her ear and shoves it at Beck. ‘Listen to this. You have to. Your existence depends on it.’

  ‘Meaning what? You’re going to kill me and toss me in some ditch if I don’t?’

  ‘Yes,’ says August sincerely. ‘Don’t turn me into a murderer. Just listen to it.’

  Beck takes the extended iPod gingerly, like it’s going to combust. The last thing he feels like is listening to music. He craves silence.

  ‘Um, you do know how to work an iPod, right?’ August says.

  Beck realises he needs to do more than put the earbuds in. He jabs the play button and gives her a withering look – even though he, truly, has no idea how to work an iPod.

  She raises her hands in protest. ‘I’ve never seen you within ten feet of a computer! Or with a phone. Or even a calculator.’

  ‘So you assume I’m rubbish at technology?’

  August rolls her eyes. ‘Focus on the song, Keverich. Embrace your Twice Burgundy education.’

  But they’re at an intersection, which means pausing and taking one of Joey’s hands each and swinging her as they cross. Then Beck’s left with August’s favourite band in his ears.

  Sharing music is personal because music speaks, it feels, it breathes. And it always says something about you.

  Beck listens.

  What did he expect? Drunk lyrics and panpipes? Instead there’s an acoustic guitar and voices blended in aching perfection. One minute they are fast and violent as a summer storm – and then they’re sharing a lullaby of bittersweet change and loss.

  He’s never heard music like this before.

  It’s not like he’s a contemporary music virgin. He’s listened to – stuff. Ads on TV for one thing. Shopping centre speakers blasting the latest chart-topping single. The neighbours playing a thumping bass tune for twenty-four hours straight to get back at Beck’s midnight piano practices. There used to be yelling matches over the fence about this, but you don’t win arguments with the Maestro. They eventually gave up and ignored their bruised, incessant piano-playing neighbours.

  But August’s music tastes different. He wants more.

  It’s been three songs and he hasn’t said a word and suddenly they’re at the preschool gate. Disorientated, he jerks the buds out of his ears and rushes Joey into school. Then he’s out, clutching the iPod, feeling breathless like he just woke up and realised his dispassionately grey existence is actually tinged with colour.

  August’s lips twist in a smirk. It’s annoying, but he’s lost for words. His brain throbs entirely with music.

  ‘You like them,’ August says. ‘You adore them. You realise you haven’t been living without Twice Burgundy in your life.’

  ‘Are you kidding? I hate it.’ Beck wonders how he can get more of this. He needs more of it.

  August snorts. ‘Of course you hate it. If you want, you can borrow my iPod for the day and continue hating it.’ With a flip of her hair and the hip-length necklaces she’s wearing this morning, August stalks off. ‘Don’t get it confiscated!’ She’s swallowed by a huddle of friends – odd friends with mismatched shoes or crutches or twitches, who hug her hello and lean close to share a story. Is August just magnetised to the broken misfits?

  Beck holds the iPod like it’s his entire life and he wonders why his stupid feet don’t run after her and say something simple, something nice, like:

  Thanks, August, these songs saved my life.

  Beck decides to hide and avoid August – for the entire day. For someone who’s absconded with her iPod, it’s rude, but he wants to listen. Needs to listen. He loves the way her music drowns the études in his head. But he hates the way he craves it.

  It’s really August’s fault, because she has thirty-six Twice Burgundy songs and he has to hear them all.

  Beck hides out in the library over lunch – the absolute last place anyone would guess. He squishes between the rows of non-fiction and eats a tinned beans and jam sandwich, stuck together with toothpicks that nearly impale his throat. Thanks, Joey.

  He even gets away with earbuds in class since the rain has sent everyone mental. Half the kids come in from lunch coated in mud from a footie game. Everything smells stale and wet. The teachers flap between giving suspensions and mopping mud and instructing that-kid-who-fell-in-a-puddle to stand below the heater – which turns out to be set on cooling and probably gives the kid hypothermia.

  Beck watches dispassionately and inhales music.

  August catches up with him at the preschool gate, when he emerges with Joey, a note to the Maestro about Joey’s worryingly violent behaviour in class, and a spaceship made from yogurt containers and painted hot pink.

  ‘If you carry it for me, I’ll love you for nearly ever,’ Joey says passionately.

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Beck hoists it up, one earbud still in.

  She kisses his elbow and prattles on about her creation.

  Some kids on the bus jeer as they exit the preschool with the pink catastrophe. He doesn’t care, but he wishes he could cover Joey’s ears.

  August looks like a bedraggled bird. She’s taken her neon socks off and slipped them over her arms, which is probably warmer but terrible to look at.

  ‘Are you going to skip town with my iPod?’ Her eyes sparkle like his avoiding her is actually the most amusing thing of the day.

  Beck hands it back, struggling with the spaceship. Joey trots behind him, clutching her hands together in anxious worry that he might drop it.

  ‘I forgot I had it,’ Beck says. ‘Just sat in my backpack all day.’

  ‘You were listening just now.’

  ‘Hm? What? No, I wasn’t.’

  She gives him a playful shove and he has to leap over a puddle, clutching the spaceship as if his life depends on it. It does. An elbow-kiss can quickly turn into a shin-kick when it comes to Joey.

  ‘Be careful!’ Joey screeches and leaps over the puddle after him. Except she misses and ends up in the middle. She wades out scowling. ‘No pushing, August, or I’ll—’

  August raises her hands. ‘Sorry! Sorry! I didn’t think. But Beck has incredible balance, don’t you, Beck?’

  ‘Absolutely.’ He tries to turn the spaceship around so Joey doesn’t see it’s totally dented on one side.

  They resume walking, more docile now. But August is practically glowing with I told you so.

  ‘Which song is your favourite?’ she says. ‘“The Agony of Two Freed Souls in a Green Land”? Or “Morning in the Lonely Space”?’

  ‘That one called “Grill”?’

  August smacks her hand against her thigh. ‘Oh, yes. “Grill”. I love “Grill”. I love how it doesn’t even fit with the other songs, but it’s still amazing.’

  Beck wants to scoff, but he can’t. If he let himself, if he slipped up for just two seconds, he could fall in love with that music and talk about it for years.

  ‘It’s inspired,’ August says. ‘Twice Burgundy fling us into space and stars and galaxies and show us how to breathe.’

  He shrugs. ‘They’re OK.’

  Her glare is nearly formidable. ‘Stop it, Keverich. Stop pretending. You ran off with my iPod, which means you’re about to marry all the Burgundies like I am.’

  Joey, elbows out, shoves between them. ‘Who’s marrying a burger? I want to marry a burger.’

  ‘I want to marry a burger too, Jo,’ Beck says. ‘But right now, August and I are talking about – a harem?’

  ‘Polygamy. Shared custody of our true loves,’ August says. ‘Because Beck finally understands what real music is. Not your heavy clashing rock stuff.’

  Wouldn’t it be nice to tell her? Right now? To just open his mouth and let
it tumble out – about the music in his head that burns to be played, how the Chopin études are ruining his life, how the Maestro hates him because he’s not good enough.

  How he’s suffocating between piano keys.

  But he says, ‘My music is awesome, thank you very much,’ and a little bit of him dies.

  ‘What?’ August tilts her head. ‘I can’t hear you over the sound of my music being abso-freaking-lutely better than yours.’

  They’re in sight of the house now and Joey dashes ahead to open the door so Beck can get her precious creation inside.

  Beck pauses to check the mail – or is he just delaying the goodbye to August?

  ‘You don’t listen to a lot of music, do you?’ she says.

  ‘Not this kind,’ Beck says.

  ‘Well, I’m glad I could introduce you to paradise.’ August gives him a salute with her sock-covered arms. ‘But careful, Beck. You’ve started acting like a nice person.’ She turns and runs down the wet road, her hyena laugh flying behind her.

  Beck knows. He should do something about it. Should …

  … but.

  He follows Joey inside, peels off wet shoes and socks and gently sets Joey’s creation in the kitchen. Then he disappears while she shrieks at him in German because of the dint.

  He’s nearly smiling, nearly happy – or something – until the Maestro appears in his doorway.

  He’s got a clean, dry shirt half over his head and a sudden sick feeling in his stomach.

  The Maestro holds a stack of graded theory sheets. Is it just Beck or has the red pen grown wilder, the handwriting more unreadable? Maybe her hand tremors are getting worse.

  ‘Remember how I said mein Bruder is coming out from Deutschland? It’s happening now. Arrangements are being finalised for his tour next month.’

  Ah, his uncle-she-curses-because-he’s-still-a-successful-pianist-and-she’s-not.

  Beck tugs the collar of his polo shirt. Is he supposed to say something here?

  ‘He’s agreed to hear you.’

  Oh.

  ‘But – but that doesn’t, I mean – what does it mean?’ Beck says.

  ‘It means everything,’ she snaps, like he’s being ungrateful.

  He’s not allowed to be confused? She’s throwing the bombshells.

  ‘If you impress him, he’ll give you lessons to correct your sloppy technique.’

  ‘Like, one lesson?’ Beck says and hesitates. ‘Because then he’s going back to Germany?’

  The Maestro’s lips thin. ‘Unless a miracle happens and he is impressed by your playing.’ Her eyes say that’s unlikely. ‘If so, you can return to Germany with him and work hard and make the Keverich name proud.’

  Wait.

  Did she – she didn’t.

  ‘Mum,’ he says, forgetting German, forgetting to paint his voice with respect. ‘Mum, I’m fifteen. I’m not even finished with school. You can’t just toss me into another country. I—’

  ‘If your uncle takes you,’ the Maestro says, ‘you go.’ Like that’s the end of it. Like nothing else matters.

  ‘What if I mess up again?’ It’s out before he thinks. Why is he always so stupid? He says it like a challenge, like a threat, and his face is hot with preparation to be slapped.

  What if I purposefully mess up?

  What if I refuse?

  ‘That is why,’ the Maestro says, ‘you will practise the études without fail. That is why you will work hard. Jan Keverich is the leading pianist on this earth, this earth. To have him accept you as a pupil would mean—’ She stops, flushed, excited, out of control. ‘A future. The Keverich line of fame will not die.’

  He holds back tears.

  The Maestro clears her throat, her arms tight around the red-inked theory pages. ‘It would mean you are something. Don’t you want that?’

  Yes – but. No?

  It could be an escape, for ever. He could leave behind this hellish room, the tongue lashings, the hateful glances, the reminders of how much he’s failed her. He could stop looking at her ruined, shaking hands with that mixture of relief and guilt.

  He could be free.

  ‘Practise.’ The Maestro sweeps out of his room.

  On the other side of the house, Joey yells for Beck to come and fix her spaceship.

  If he was gone, the Maestro would start on Joey.

  The piano glints a toothy smile.

  So Beck sits down, and plays, and plays and plays – his own music – with breathless passion.

  He won’t go.

  August (and sort of Beck?) gets an A on the paper.

  Beck’s never scored so high. In fact, it’s so unlike him Mr Boyne requests August and Beck stay behind to be scrutinised. August, with an innocently angelic smile, swears they did it together.

  Beck’s not sure if he should admire her ability to convince people so easily or be terrified.

  On the walk home, August demands celebration.

  ‘It’s not like you did anything,’ she says, ‘but I need congratulating. Tomorrow’s Saturday. What about that park we always cut through? We could meet up there at four and Joey can play. I’ll bring cupcakes.’

  Beck has a small panic attack. ‘I can’t—’

  ‘Refusal is not an option.’ August takes off for her own house, yelling over her shoulder, ‘You owe me!’

  He does.

  But what are they going to do at that playground? Hang out? He’s sure that’s where the drug dealers make their drops.

  How does he ask permission?

  If the Maestro is home in the afternoon …

  But she’s not. At midday, she leaves for the bus to do some jobs in town – probably eating out too, since there’s no food in the house and she never seems to go hungry like he and Joey have to. She commands Beck to practise hard, with the “or else” lingering in the air before she goes.

  It makes Beck angry.

  Angry enough to defy her?

  He could take Joey, walk out that door – walk for ever if he wanted to. Just walk and walk and forget about Germany, about the études, about his uncle he’s never met and who will probably be even worse than his mother.

  He slams the piano lid shut. ‘Joey! We’re going to the playground.’

  Joey appears, still in pyjamas, with two bald Barbies. ‘Really?’

  ‘But you have to swear not to tell the Maestro,’ he says.

  ‘Like a secret?’

  ‘Exactly like a secret.’

  Joey’s eyes shine. ‘I love you, Beck!’ She dashes off and returns in a glittery tutu over jeans and a paper crown, her hair sticking out in puffs like a mad scientist.

  Beck zips on an orange striped jacket that’s too tight, too short, but at least still clean and warm, and they burst out of the house into the crisp autumn afternoon.

  When did he get so brave?

  It’s not because of August. It’s because – because – of –

  August. Whatever.

  At the park, which hasn’t been mowed in thirty years, Beck does a quick circumnavigation to ensure the shadiest of occupants are far away and look stoned and not ready to pull knives, and then he releases Joey into the wild. She shrieks and heads straight for the monkey bars.

  Beck perches on a swing and waits.

  And waits.

  If she doesn’t show up, that’s a good thing, right? They’ll forget about this ‘debt’. She plays it tough, but she’s still doing him favours. Giving him cake, inviting him places, lending him her iPod, hanging out with him when she has no need.

  Joey is upside down on the monkey bars, clutching her paper crown. ‘I’M THE PRINCESS OF THE WORLD.’

  Beck is glad she can’t read the crude graffiti.

  At least he came, right? He left the house. He did something against the Maestro. He deserves a trophy for this, or congratulatory cake. But more so the latter. He’s starving.

  ‘Oh, look!’ Joey squalls, now on top of the playground tower, above the no climbing sign. ‘Your girl
friend is coming!’

  Beck’s heart gives a stuttering leap before he remembers to glare at Joey like he’s furious at the word girlfriend. Is he?

  Is he?

  August flies into the playground with a dazzling smile, like the knee-high grass and weeds aren’t inconvenient, like she’s entering the most beautiful place on earth. She holds a plastic box above her head, which promises something chocolatey. With weekend clothing freedom, she looks like a different person. She has rust-coloured shorts and a baggy crocheted jumper the colour of a Mediterranean salad. Her hair is knotted into a bandana and her bare feet – how unsurprising – are adorned with dozens of clinking metallic anklets.

  ‘You made it!’ she says. Like she’s not the late one.

  She slows down, panting, and flops into the other free swing, the box on her lap. Her grin is intoxicating.

  ‘You’re going to love these, they’re all gooey and …’ August pops the lid off and frowns. ‘OK, I swear they looked nice before I started running.’

  The cupcakes are one giant smoosh of chocolate and purple paper wrappers. August breaks off a piece and pops it in her mouth.

  ‘They still taste good.’ She shrugs and holds the box out to him.

  It’s polite to eat what food you’re offered, right? Not because he’s downright starving. They taste – weird. Like chocolate and – mud? But every second bite is an explosion of pure melted chocolate. And oh it’s so good.

  Joey appears at August’s elbow. ‘Are those for me?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  Joey takes two and runs off again. She’s halfway up the playground before she bites one and yells, ‘YUCK.’ And then keeps eating.

  Beck winces. ‘Sorry, she’s—’

  ‘Honest.’ August’s eyes have a wicked shine. ‘There’s beetroot in them.’

  What.

  ‘But the flavour grows on you, right?’ August takes another bite and holds the box back out to him. A dare.

  But food. He takes another misshapen cake and bites half in one go.

  Joey’s back at the top of the playground and demanding to be admired, so August bounces over and bubbles with dramatic praise. Joey’s grin is so wide her face is in danger of splitting. How does August do that? How does she make people feel special?