When I opened my eyes again and waited for the afterimages of the dancing lights to dissolve, I saw that a blackbird sat on a branch, just at eye level, watching me. I almost gasped. It was a real blackbird, like the one I’d seen the other day, pulling the worm out of the earth. The bird stared and I stared back. Then it dipped its sleek black head, flapped its coal black wings, and rose from its branch, climbing the shimmering air. I craned my neck to watch as it swirled away into the green and leafy wood.
* * *
My mother grinned when she saw my head coming around the back door.
“We have a visitor, dear,” she said in a strange, high, excited voice.
She never called me dear.
I kicked off my runners at the door and came into the kitchen, carrying them by the laces. A scruffy man with a red baseball cap jammed down on his head sat at the table, opposite my mother. They were drinking tea.
I opened my mouth to speak to my mother, but no sound came.
My mother said, “Mags, this is Mr. Lafferty. He is an old friend of mine and your father’s, since our college days. He’s not my boyfriend, so don’t start on that again, and remember, do not mention prams outside supermarkets.”
Horrified, I stared at “Loony” Len. He took off his baseball cap and said, “Recognize me now, do you?”
I nodded, my eyes still wide, my heart thumping.
“She’s a good girl,” my mother was saying to Len. “A fine daughter. I tell her so myself, but she finds it hard to accept. She hasn’t got over Ben’s death, you know. It’s tough at her age, of course.…”
I couldn’t believe my mother was having this conversation about me with this stranger. But that wasn’t the main thing. What was the main thing? Oh yes, I had to warn her, somehow I had to warn Mum that this man was possibly dangerous.
“Mum!” I wailed, or tried to, but again no words came, nothing but a squawking sound, like Gillian tuning up her violin. My throat felt hot and thick, like the inside of the little wooden hut in the woods. I understood now what Gillian meant when she said she couldn’t play in there, the music got all muffled. That’s just what was happening to my voice.
I stared at “Loony” Len, and as I stared, little lights began to dance before my eyes, and he started to morph, very slowly, into Gillian’s father.
“You’re not in Girls’ Own territory now, you know,” he said, and leaned back in his swivel chair, smirking at my mother.
My mother went on grinning dementedly.
I tried to scream again. Still no sound came, but the effort threw my whole body into spasm and I woke with a start. As soon as I woke, the scream came, loud and long.
My mother came rushing into the room, snapping on the light switch. The light hurt my eyes and I pulled a pillow to my face to block it out. My mother called, “Mags! Don’t! You’ll suffocate!”
Slowly, blinking, I lowered the pillow. Carefully, I looked around the room.
“It was a dream,” I said, putting my hand flat against my chest, feeling my heart like a wild bird inside me. “It must have been a dream. Oh, Mum! I thought he was going to get you, kill you!”
I flung myself back on my other pillow and wailed. Tears pumped out of me and streamed down the sides of my face, soaking the pillowcase on both sides of my head. My stomach retched with sobbing. “Oh, Mum!” I wailed again, between sobs.
“It’s all right,” said my mother softly. “It’s all right. Sit up a minute.”
I sat up, still sobbing. My mother dabbed at my tear-dampened face with the corner of the duvet cover. Then she whisked the duvet off and turned it around in a flash, so the dry part was to the top. She turned the damp pillow over, put the second pillow on top, smoothed the pillowcase with both hands, and gently tipped me back onto the pillows.
“Now, stop crying,” she said, “or the second pillow will get wet too, and we’ll have to change the bed linen. I don’t want to have to do that at three o’clock in the morning.”
I managed a small grin and wiped the last of my tears with my fingertips.
“Now, I’m going to turn off the overhead light, but I’m going to put this lamp on for a bit, and I’m going to put the radio on too, for company, and then I am going to bring you up a nice cup of hot chocolate. And when you’ve had it, you can turn the radio and the light off and snuggle back down to sleep, but I’ll leave the landing light on and the door open, and I’ll leave my door open too, so it’ll be almost as if I’m in the same room.”
I grinned broadly this time. This exact speech was a ritual from my childhood.
“Thanks, Mum,” I said, “but I think I can manage without the chocolate. It’s too hot.”
“All right, then, I’ll bring you a glass of water. OK?”
“OK,” I said. “Mum?” I was going to make an admission I’d never make in daylight hours. The dark seemed to rub the corners off familiar things and make them seem different. “I miss Teddy Murphy,” I said. “I wonder what happened to him.”
My mother sniggered. “You big baby, you.”
I bit my lip.
My mother left the room and came back in a moment with a glass of water—and Teddy Murphy.
I opened my eyes wide with delight.
“Where did you find him?”
“Oh, I had him in my room,” said Mum. “He’s been there since I came across him in the unpacking. I didn’t think you wanted him anymore, and I didn’t like to think of him being lonely.”
“Mum! You are such an old softie!”
“Less of the old, please,” said my mother with mock primness. “Goodnight, Mags.”
“Goodnight, Mum.”
The Happy Ending
The advice seems to be to have a happy ending, and I have no principled objection to that, so this is it. Also, it’s what actually happened.
It was weeks later, I should explain. Gillian and I hadn’t spoken since that day on the phone, the day she hadn’t apologized, except for the few words we’d exchanged at the wooden hut, the day Tim and I ran away from her scales and had our little chat in the woods and he told me not to get divorced. I’d tried to get over it, especially after Tim had explained how awful things were for Gillian at home, but it still rankled, just a bit. I was working on it, though. I really was ready to put it behind me, if only she would just say something to break the ice. But it had turned into weeks now since we’d spoken, and it was getting harder and harder to bridge the gap that had opened up between us.
But we went along to the recital all the same, at the school in Ballymore. We weren’t invited especially or anything. We only heard about it in the village. It was Mum’s idea to come.
The chairs in the school hall were the stacking plastic kind that bend unsettlingly under your weight.
“How can they charge for tickets and expect people to sit on these things?” my mother grumbled. “I should have brought cushions. I don’t know why you wouldn’t let me. There’s nothing wrong with my cushions.”
“They didn’t charge for tickets!” I said. “But don’t say a word. I’m just too nervous. I think I’ll be sick if you say anything upsetting.”
My mother snorted. “I meant on other occasions, they must charge. And it’s performers who’re supposed to be nervous,” she said, “not the audience.”
“I know,” I said. “But I feel sort of responsible, you know? I encouraged the idiot. Oh, look, there’s Tim.”
I waved, but Tim didn’t see me. He was showing Zelda to a seat in the front row. She was wearing an alarming outfit consisting mainly of black satin straps, as far as I could see. The small amounts of material that were held together by the straps were also black satin. Her shoes were mostly straps too.
“That giant?” my mother was enquiring rudely. “That’s your friend Tim?”
“He’s not a giant, he’s just tall as a tree,” I said. “And he’s a sweetie pie.”
“Oooh, excuse me,” said my mother. “I didn’t know you two were such mates.”
Don grinned at my mother. I suppose you are wondering what Don was doing there. So was I. I imagined he was “passing through” again. Maybe he was on the way back from wherever he’d been going the first time.
Grandpa was there too. He insisted on sitting in an aisle seat, so he could trip people up with his walking stick. I sat beside him, then came Mum and then Don.
“Now, Barbara,” Don said, “I know it’s tempting to give Mags a dose of her own medicine, but I think you might desist just for this evening. She’s obviously nervous. You don’t want to make her worse.”
“Oh, look, there’s Mr. Regan,” I said, pointing excitedly but remembering to keep my voice down. I didn’t want to be spotted. “That’s Gillian’s father.”
“He’s tall as a tree as well,” my mother said.
“I didn’t think he’d come,” I said. “He doesn’t approve of Gillian’s violin. I wonder if he’ll sit with.… Oh, yes, he’s going to sit with Zelda. That is to say, Mrs. Regan. Though I don’t think she calls herself that.”
“I should hope not,” said my mother, who’d always been a Ms. herself.
“So, what do you think of that?” I asked.
“I don’t think anything of it. Why should I?”
“They’re separated, Mum. They’re supposed to be At Daggers Drawn! And he doesn’t even want Gillian to be a violinist. He didn’t approve of her doing the audition, even.”
“Well, I always say, you never know what goes on in anybody else’s family. We haven’t the least clue. And it’s none of our business.”
“It is my business, in this case,” I argued. “I was the one who found him, who tried to get him to pay up for Gillian going to her audition.”
“Mags, what are you talking about? What do you mean, you found him? Was he lost?”
“Worse,” I said, through gritted teeth. “He was hiding. And he told me he didn’t want Gillian to do the audition or to go to that precious school of hers, and now look at him, all smiles. I suppose he’s decided to make the best of it.”
“Mags! You have been interfering!” my mother said. “Did it do any good?”
“No, I’m telling you. I was sure all I needed to do was find him and then everything would fall into place. That’s what Gillian seemed to think, anyway. It turned out that he was absolutely useless, worse than her mother, and that’s saying a lot. I must say, he looks better when he’s dressed up.”
“So do most people,” said Don, leaning across my mother to talk to me. “I like the new dress.”
“It’s not too flowery, is it?” I asked. “Only, they hadn’t got any with triangles. I wanted one with triangles on it, but the people who design clothes have no imagination. It’s flowers or plain. I thought plain was boring.”
The dress had huge red sunflowers on a black-and-white background. And before you start objecting, I know sunflowers are supposed to be yellow, not red, but it’s poetic license, I suppose.
“It’s very … dramatic,” said Don diplomatically, and hid a small smile behind his program. “Very you, Mags,” he added, “if I may say so.”
I looked down doubtfully at my dress. “Well, at least it’s not silly,” I pronounced at last.
This time Don could not suppress a snort of laughter.
“You think it is silly?” I said, panic-stricken.
“No,” said Don, “I really do like it. I’m laughing just because it is such a Mags sort of dress. It’s as if the dress company knew exactly what you’d like and made it especially for you, confident in the knowledge that you would sail into a shop one day and buy it.”
I looked at him curiously. “But it hasn’t got triangles,” I said flatly. “Oh, look, here comes Gillian now. Oh my God, she looks a million dollars!”
Applause burst around the hall as Gillian appeared onstage, caught in a soft creamy spotlight, and gave a tentative little bow. She was wearing an electric-blue dress that fell softly from the shoulders and was gathered in flatteringly at the waist. Her fuzz of hair was braided tightly to her head, and tiny strands of blue silk shone among the braids. I don’t suppose she’d been to Lanzarote. Someone must do it locally. I made a note to find out.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” boomed a voice from the other side of the stage. The school principal, only you couldn’t see her as she had no spotlight, so the effect was rather eerie, like the voice of Big Brother. “Ladies and gentlemen, Ballymore Community School is delighted … this short recital … blah blah blah … local musical celebrity … prestigious Yehudi Menuhin school … blah blah blah … an honor … a magnificent.…”
I sighed and wriggled in my seat.
“Now, Gillian has an arduous few years ahead of her … blah blah blah … all looks very glamorous and exciting … very hard work, blah blah blah … failures and disappointments … achievements and accolades. What you or I might consider a breathtaking level of skill and talent is only average in the environment she is entering … hopes and dreams are quite a burden.… We all wish.… and we hope…”
Silly old bag. Let Gillian get on with it.
The audience evidently shared my feelings, because they suddenly burst into loud applause and drowned out the principal’s witterings. Gillian moved to center stage.
She bowed nervously while the audience still clapped like mad, and then tucked her violin under her chin. I couldn’t bear to look while she pecked and twiddled for a moment at her instrument—but then it happened, just as I knew it would.
First the gypsy dancers came trooping onto the stage, gathering quietly and tapping with increasing impatience and finally throwing themselves into the frenzy of the dance. Firelight crackled, skirts swirled, feet clacked, until at last, with a wild flinging motion, the gypsy princess flew through the air, skirts flying, into the arms of the prince, who twirled her till she spun and spun and her hair flashed with fire and joy.
Applause drowned the final triumphant note or two, as Gillian yanked the bow across the strings and flung it out from her body and bowed, all in one swift, fluid movement.
“My goodness!” said my mother, as the applause swelled up so that the whole hall seemed to ring with it. “Good heavens!”
Gillian’s little gopher face seemed to swell up to almost normal proportions as the applause thundered around her. I grinned like mad and stood up, clapping with my hands in the air.
Gillian bowed again and then she stepped forward a little, the spotlight following her. I sat down when I realized I was the only one standing.
She played a few other pieces after that, ones I didn’t recognize. They were good. Everyone clapped like mad at the end of each one. Then after about half an hour of this, Gillian lowered the violin to her side and addressed the audience in a clear, strong voice.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” she said, “the next piece is dedicated to my friend, Margaret Rose Clarke.”
Goosebumps shot up all over my skin. I felt as if someone had just opened a freezer door as I passed by. Then the world all went red. I blinked in my darkened seat and everything I looked at glowed a dull red. I blinked again and closed my eyes. Even the insides of my eyelids were red, like theater curtains. I held my breath for a moment, waiting for those tense, delicious opening seconds of near-silence to be over, for the sound finally to grow and establish itself and fill the hall so that here in the stifling late-summer air, with people coughing gently and shifting on their uncomfortable chairs, a phantom blackbird would swoop and skim and fly through the greenwood, joy pouring from his faultless throat.
“Well done, Mags,” said Don, when the applause died down.
“What!” I snapped. I felt as if I were made of something very delicate, something that might crack and fall apart at the least tap.
“I mean, congratulations on the dedication.”
“I’m not her friend; she’s not my friend. We are acquaintances, merely,” I said.
; “Well, congratulations on your remarkably fine acquaintanceship, in that case,” said Don, arching his eyebrows and taking my mother’s hand in his as they stood up.
I stared at their clasped hands.
“You two…,” I said, but I couldn’t find the words to finish what I had to say. “Well then,” I added lamely.
“Us two,” said Don, smiling, and swung my mother’s hand gently by his side.
She smiled too, unnecessarily soppily, in my opinion. Grandpa stared at them with his mouth open, but he didn’t say anything, which is surprising, because he usually does say something and it is generally the wrong thing. People say I am like him in that respect. That is total rubbish.
“I think you might go and congratulate your … acquaintance,” said my mother. “You two, you could get to be friends, with just a bit of.…”
I waited to hear what I needed a bit of in order to become Gillian’s friend, but my mother was stumped. She looked at Don to help her out.
“Oh, I think Mags can work it out for herself,” Don said, which was quite the most sensible thing I had ever heard him say. I thought he might do. “She’s pretty smart. She may not be a world-class musician, but she knows a blackbird from a sausage all the same.”
“And I’m sure you want to say hello to Tim,” my mother added. “He looks such an interesting boy.”
“Well then,” I said gruffly, and turned away to walk out of the hall ahead of them in my startling new dress, my head whirling with possibilities, bright red possibilities, sunflowers of possibility, for tonight, for tomorrow, for the rest of the summer, for life, even.
Second Fiddle Page 12