by Louise Allan
She began. Hands close together, they crept up the keys, one soft, slow note after the other. There was no other sound except for hers. The notes joined and became a gentle rhythm. Debussy’s ‘Clair de Lune’. The tempo quickened and the sound built. I felt a familiar warmth rise inside of me. It was the thrill I always felt when I heard her music. I hadn’t heard it for a long time, more than a decade, and it was as welcome as a warm drink on a cold day.
Her hands moved up the keys, rippling in waves right to the top of the piano where the notes sounded like the tinkling of crystal. She paused between each wave, momentarily teasing us, making us wait until she played the next one. Then her hands came back down again, rippling wavelets, corrugations of sound, one after another, falling, falling.
She barely moved as she played, but she didn’t need to—the music moved for her.
I stood behind her, watching and listening, barely breathing. My chest and belly tingled and I never wanted it to end.
But it did, and when she’d finished, she sat with her back to us, still except for the gentle rise and fall of her shoulders. The wood of the piano gleamed, the sheet crumpled beside it.
‘Oh, it’s good to hear you play again,’ I said.
Grace ran forward and beamed at her mother’s back. ‘Play something else.’
Nora didn’t move and Grace stepped closer to the gleaming keys. She reached up and touched one. Tink. Then another. Tink. Tink. Then a jangle of notes.
Nora’s hands went up and covered her face, then she fell forward until her elbows hit the keys with a clang.
Grace stared at her mother. Slowly, her hand reached up and stroked Nora’s back. I laid my hand on Nora’s shoulder. She felt bony beneath her shirt. Then Alf was by her side, his arms around her, his big head against hers.
They stayed like that until eventually Nora turned towards us. She wasn’t smiling, but she looked alive, as if a veil had been lifted and she was herself again. I could see it in her bright eyes and her reddened cheeks.
‘All right,’ said Mum. ‘That’s over with. Let’s go in to dinner.’ She turned and opened the screen door. It whined and Mum let it bang shut behind her.
Alf kept his arm around Nora’s shoulder as she stood. The kids went inside, and Nora and Alf followed.
I stayed outside in the settling dusk. Her playing still moved me, even after all this time. Her music spoke, and it told me everything about her without the need for words. In those notes, I heard the musical child from the concerts in Grandma’s lounge. I heard the gifted girl who’d won the Eisteddfod and the joyful girl who’d been swept away by love in Melbourne.
I heard, too, the grieving girl who’d been forced to give it all up. I heard the longing for relinquished dreams. I heard everything she’d gone without all these years.
The blackwood table was set with a lace cloth, ivory-handled cutlery and delicate crockery with an aquamarine fleur-de-lys pattern around the edges. Alf sat in an ornate wooden chair at the head of the table and Mum took the chair at the other end, while we took our seats along the sides. Nora carried the roast chicken in and set it in front of Alf, before sitting down next to him.
‘Thank you, Lord,’ Alf began, his hands together and his eyes closed. ‘For all Your gifts, all of whom are here tonight.’
‘And thank you for the piano,’ said Grace.
Alf and I laughed. Nora even smiled—her eyes crinkled and looked lucent. Mum kept her face bland and Ted just glowered.
Alf picked up the carving knife, brandishing it like a sword and rasping it over the sharpener. The chicken rose from the plate like a trophy, and he looked confident as he carved it and placed the pieces on an oval platter. As Nora took the platter from Alf, their fingers touched and he smiled at her. Her gaze lingered before she turned away to dish up the roast potatoes and peas, and ladle the gravy over the top. As she passed his plate to him, he said, ‘Thank you.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’
Nora served the meat, vegetables and gravy as fluidly as she’d played the piano. The plates passed around the table like batons in a relay. There was a new lightness in the air. Everyone’s spirits seemed lifted as we sprinkled pepper and salt from the crystal shakers and began to fill our empty bellies.
‘I caught a frog,’ said Ben. ‘And a lizard. In the ditch. But Mum wouldn’t let me bring them inside.’
‘Oh, it’s good to be back at Ben Craeg,’ said Mum. ‘I never thought I’d see it again.’
‘Can I play the piano, too?’ said Grace.
Nora looked at her daughter. Grace’s eyebrows were raised, her eyes pleading. ‘When you’re older,’ said Nora.
Beside me, Mum had tensed. ‘I think it’s best to leave the lid down on that thing,’ she said.
‘Why?’ said Grace.
‘To prevent any…heartache,’ said Mum. ‘I remember the trouble it caused last time.’
Nora had stilled. Alf reached for Nora’s hand, but she brushed him away.
‘Be quiet, Mum,’ I said, shaking my head and glaring at her. ‘Don’t say any more.’
‘Let’s just enjoy being all together again,’ said Alf. He smiled.
Nora was glaring at Mum.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Let’s just enjoy our meal together.’
Mum picked up her knife and fork and began to eat. ‘It’s an ill wind,’ she muttered under her breath.
Nora glowered at Mum a while longer, her neck and cheeks blotched, and the tips of her ears pink. Then she resumed her meal, too.
After dinner, Mum went to the spare room where Nora had set up her bed. While Nora and I washed up, the boys helped Alf heave the piano up the steps and into the lounge, where they set it against the wall on the other side of the chimney.
Nora stood by the sink beating the soap dispenser under the hot water, while I scraped the leftovers into the bin. ‘This was meant to be a nice evening,’ she said. The cutlery jangled as she slid it into the soapy mountain in front of her. ‘She’s visiting for the first time in years and you’d think she’d be happy. But all she can do is pick my house to pieces and bring up old, dead memories.’
‘I know,’ I said. I returned to the sink, set the plates down beside her and picked up a teatowel.
Nora washed the cutlery individually, clanging each one down on the sink after she’d cleaned it. ‘She’s never liked me much, even when I was a child.’
‘She didn't like either of us much when we were children,’ I said. I wiped the knives and forks as Nora set them down. ‘I used to try so hard to please her, but I was never good enough.’ Nora moved onto the glasses, sponging them and setting them upside-down on the stainless steel. ‘I was a good girl. I prayed, said the rosary, went to mass. But it was never enough.’ She quickly slid the plates into the water and began scrubbing them, her hands moving faster now.
‘She’s a hard woman to please. Always has been.’ I picked up one of the glasses, wiping inside the glass and popping the glinting soap bubble.
Nora finished washing the plates and set them on the sink with a clang. She lifted the pot and slid it into the water, then took to it with the scourer, scratching at its bottom and rasping around its sides with urgency. ‘I was so looking forward to this night and she had to ruin it.’
‘She is proud of you, Nor. She just has a funny way of showing it. Don’t forget, your new house was incentive enough to get her on her feet again.’
Nora stopped, her hands still in the suds. A flush had appeared on her cheeks. ‘It’d be nice to hear her say she was proud.’ She lifted the pot and sat it on the sink. It gleamed. Soapy suds ran down its sides, along the grooves in the sink and back into the water. ‘But I won’t hold my breath.’
Before I went to bed, I slipped along to the lounge, just to view the piano again. It appeared warm in the light of the dying embers, a spidery glow flickering on the whorls in the walnut. The brass pedals glinted, unscratched. I placed my fingers on the lid, and it felt cool and smooth. But when I t
ried to raise it, it was locked.
When I passed the spare room, the door was ajar. Mum was sitting on the bed rubbing Pond’s cream into her hands. She beckoned me in and signalled to close the door.
‘Of all things to buy her—a piano,’ she hissed under her breath. She was frowning and the ruts either side of her chin looked deeper.
‘I thought it was the nicest gift he could have given her,’ I said.
‘What?’ She had a look of horror on her face. ‘A ghost from the past come back to haunt her?’
‘That’s a bit melodramatic.’
‘You saw what it did to her.’
‘And you saw how she was afterwards. It might be just what she needs.’
‘Fiddlesticks. No good’ll come of it, that’s for sure.’ She finished with the cream and screwed the lid back on. She gestured for her walking stick and I handed it to her. ‘And they’ll have to keep an eye on young Grace,’ she said as she pushed herself to standing. ‘I saw her watching and listening. She’s got it, too. That musical streak of your father’s and grandmother’s.’
I moved to the head of the bed and began folding back the quilt. ‘It’s not a bad thing to have,’ I said.
‘Well, you can think yourself lucky you took after me.’
I finished plumping the pillows and straightened. ‘Mum, why can’t you be nice to Nora? Let her know you’re proud of her and her house.’
She limped towards me, suddenly looking little and tired. ‘Seeing that piano today frightened me. I haven’t forgotten what happened the last time Nora got involved with music. It made her run away from home and then…a shotgun wedding.’ She sank down onto the bed.
I removed her slippers, lifted her legs onto the mattress and slid them under the covers. ‘It wasn’t music that did that,’ I said.
‘No, it was passion.’ She looked up at me. ‘You’re better off without it, then you don’t get let down and you don’t do anything stupid,’ she said as she smoothed the quilt over her. ‘You know that and I know that, and Nora needs to learn it as well.’
That night I lay in bed in the darkness. Grace was already asleep in the bed beside me. The moonlight darted in between the edges of the venetians and made scalloped patterns on the walls. I pulled the quilt around my ears and lay awake, watching the jagged lines of light on the walls sway in the draught.
Mum was wrong: I did have passion. I’d just learnt to hide it.
The following day as I was packing to leave, I heard a sniff. Ted was leaning against the doorframe.
I set the clothes I held in my hands on the top of the bed and turned to him. His eyes were so dark, the same colour as his pupils. He was turning eleven, still slightly built, and his skin as smooth and olive as always. ‘Are you all right, Ted?’
He shifted his weight on his feet. ‘Can I come live with you?’
‘Oh, Teddy…’ I felt the familiar twisting of my heart and stepped towards him. He was the height of my shoulder, but I could still see the baby I’d bathed and fed and held.
‘Please?’ His mahogany eyes didn’t leave mine but grew wider and sadder, more pleading. I wanted to fold my arms around him and say, Come. Come live with me. I wanted to pack him in the suitcase with my clothes and scoot out the door. But with a tiny, almost imperceptible movement, I shook my head. ‘I can’t.’
His brow furrowed and his eyes kept pleading. It took all of my self-control not to turn away so I couldn’t see his face and how much I was letting him down.
He kept staring and his lip quivered. ‘You don’t really care about us.’ His voice was sharp.
‘Teddy…I care so much, more than anything.’ I reached for his arm.
He pulled away, still staring at me. His brows lowered so he was frowning, glaring at me. ‘That’s not true. If you did, you’d let me live with you. You’d look after us.’
‘I can’t Ted. I’m…I’m not your parent.’ I stood with my hands by my side, not moving. A bird cawed outside. ‘But I do know how unhappy you are.’
He kept glowering at me. His eyes were glistening and his lip trembling, then he turned and walked out. His feet trod hard on the boards up the hall, and the door to his bedroom slammed shut.
I sighed and turned back to my suitcase. I finished packing my clothes inside and closed the lid. It felt heavy in my arms as I hauled it off the bed and carried it down the hall. Outside, Alf was already waiting by the Ford.
As we backed out onto the road, I gazed at the neat red brick, the trimmed lawn and the path lined with rosebushes. Through the window of the front room, behind the venetians, I saw the sad face of the boy I loved but couldn’t help.
Part III
They came from the mountain, and to it they returned, to sleep.
Chapter 23
Back at home, life was easier with Mum hobbling about. She got herself in and out of bed and down to the table for her meals, although she refused to use the outhouse and didn’t help with housework, except occasionally to shell the peas. In the afternoons, she took herself out to the verandah and sat there for a couple of hours making her hats, although there was less of a demand for them by then.
‘Tell you one thing I don’t miss,’ said Len. ‘The tinkle of that bell.’
Nora and Grace still came to town each month. Every time Nora stepped off the truck, she seemed to stand taller and look more confident. It was as if she’d been reinflated. She dressed fashionably—in slacks and blouses with precise creases. The patent leather of her shoes was always polished and her handbag always matched. She kept her hair short, cropped around her face. Her face filled out and became less angular, less sharp. Her cheek even felt softer to kiss and she smelt of jasmine.
After the trams stopped running, we caught the bus to town each month. Grace sat on my lap while Nora told me about the new things filling their house—a new wardrobe with a built-in dressing table and a new chenille bedspread with a ruffled flounce—and I heard the pride in her voice.
In town, Nora strutted about the shops, examining the chalky plums and telling Mr Wong they were too soft, or smiling and laughing with the shop assistants when they told her how gorgeous she looked in her new patent leather shoes.
At the end of the day, we always went home laden with parcels and boxes.
Life continued like that for the next few years. It was a relief to me that Nora didn’t have any more children. Pregnancy and childbirth seemed to unsettle her, make her anxious and angry. But during those years, I didn’t see Nora lose her temper once, although the kids told me they copped the switch on their behinds from time to time.
Over that time, Nora and I talked more than we ever had. We chatted in the kitchen as we prepared the meals or washed up, and late at night, after everyone had gone to bed, we sat in the lounge by the fire, talking until well after the mantel clock struck midnight.
One night, I asked her about the piano. ‘Do you play it much?’ I said.
She shook her head, then glanced over to where it stood against the wall. It shone like a mirror, reflecting the dancing firelight. ‘I can’t,’ she said. She still dyed her hair dark and the skin of her face looked bleached. Creases crept from the edges of her eyes and she looked tired.
‘I’m sure it’d all come back to you,’ I said.
She shook her head. ‘It’s not that.’ She picked at some fluff on her slacks, then brushed it away. ‘I can’t play the piano because it reminds me of the girl I was.’ She looked up. ‘Whenever I play, I want to go back there and be her again.’ She sniffed and went quiet.
‘You still are that girl,’ I said. A log spat a red-hot ember onto the hearth and I stood and picked up the fireside shovel. ‘And you could go back and be her again. It’s not too late. You could still play. Even sing again.’ I scooped the ember back into the fire and set the shovel back on its holder before taking my seat again.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said. ‘I’m thirty-three years old, and I have a husband and three children.’
�
�It mightn’t be at the same level, but you could sing again. Even locally…’
Her eyes flashed with anger. ‘I couldn’t do that. As if I’d want to sing at the Ben Craeg Memorial Hall when it could have been Covent Garden. Every time I got up on the stage and sang to farmers, I’d be reminded I wasn’t in London.’ She went quiet again. A log shifted in the fireplace, softly crunching against the coals.
‘Do you want to know what I think?’ she said. I nodded and she went on. ‘I think that when you’re a woman, you don’t have a choice. There are certain things you’re meant to do and that’s that. Too bad if you don’t like it.’ She glanced at me before continuing. ‘It seems to suit most women. I’m just the odd one out.’
‘I’m sure there are others like you,’ I said.
‘I haven’t met anyone.’ She rubbed one hand with the other, then fingered her wedding ring. ‘I’ve tried to want what everyone else wants, but…’ She shrugged. ‘I’m not made that way.’
I rested my chin on my hand and watched the crackling flames and spitting coals. ‘Each time you got pregnant, I used to feel so jealous I could barely look at you.’ Smoke hissed as it coiled its way up the chimney. ‘I tried not to show it, after what happened when we were kids. You know, when I was jealous.’ I rubbed my chin before continuing. ‘But every time you complained that you were having another baby, I wanted to say, “How can you not want a child? You have everything I ever dreamed of.” I couldn’t understand how you couldn’t want a family.’ I turned to her. ‘I’m not sure I’ll ever really understand. But I’m trying to.’
‘I think God got it muddled,’ said Nora after a while. ‘He meant to put my head on your body, and your head on mine.’ She scratched her elbow, then rested it on the arm of the chair again. ‘You say you’re jealous of me. Well, sometimes I’m jealous of you.’
‘What for?’ I said.
‘Your freedom. You can come and go as you please.’
‘I have my restrictions. One of them is in your spare room.’