Hearing Helen

by Carolyn Morton

  I chewed the skin on my lip, unsure.

  “You’d be doing us a favour, really.”

  “Well, if you put it like that …” It sounded better than being given her sister’s old leftovers.

  “Do you need to let your mom know you’re coming over to my house?”

  I shook my head. She wouldn’t even know that I hadn’t been home.

  “Your brother must be really good at the piano,” said June.

  “I suppose so,” I said grudgingly. “He certainly should be, considering the time he spends practising. I never get enough chance to play.”

  “You must be pretty talented too,” she said thoughtfully, “for Madame Pandora to take you on as a student. Do you enjoy playing?”

  I wasn’t sure what to answer, realising that no one had actually ever asked me that before. Even I had never asked myself that before.

  “I don’t know.” I tried to imagine my life without playing piano. “I just kind of … do it, without thinking why.”

  That wasn’t quite true, but I didn’t want to tell her the truth. I was secretly hoping that I could also go to the Music Academy in Mill Park. In my more optimistic daydreams, I went one up on my brother and became star pupil of the school.

  “Ahhhh, she has the heart!” Madame Pandora would at last exclaim in her funny accent, clasping her little bejewelled fingers, which always clicked against the piano keys until she threw off her rings in exasperation.

  No one actually knew where she came from. Some people thought she was Iranian, Hank suspected she was from Greece, and Kean maintained she was putting on the accent and had been born in Pofadder. I secretly thought she was like Mary Poppins – no one would ever know from where or how she had arrived, and she would never tell. And one day, when her work was done here, she would just vanish into thin air.

  “I like playing when I’m angry,” I said, deciding to tell June a half truth. “I crash the keyboard and drive everyone crazy. Last week the neighbours complained twice.”

  “You must get angry quite often,” she said, startled. I felt as though she’d leaned too close, like she’d pried open a sealed corner of my mind.

  “Nah, the walls are just really thin,” I said quickly.

  “I wouldn’t have blamed you for being angry this morning.” June fiddled with her sandwich paper, unsure whether she should have brought up the topic. “When your satchel broke.”

  “What? Oh that?” I laughed, turning my face away so she couldn’t see my cheeks go red. “I’d forgotten it already.”

  “I hadn’t,” she said quietly. “When everyone just stood there … It was horrible.”

  Why would you care? I wanted to shout. It’s not like you’ve ever had to experience that! I felt like Dr Dolittle’s Pushmi-pullyu, the two-headed unicorn-gazelle freak from the children’s book Mom had read me as a child: I was torn in two directions at once, both angry with June for being so perfect, and grudgingly grateful. No one else cared how I felt.

  “Thanks,” I muttered.

  June scrunched up her sandwich paper and put it back into her lunchbox. I never even had wax paper around my sandwiches. It was like hers were more delicate, more aristocratic than normal people’s sandwiches and had to be protected against bruising, like in the story of the princess and the pea.

  “We kept chickens once,” she said, as we turned into her street. It wasn’t particularly fancy or smart, but I noticed there was no litter on the pavement, and the gutters were clear. “There was one that was a little different from the others. The rest were all brown and well fed. This one was softer, redder and smaller. It never got to the feeding trough in time, so I used to take it extra grain. One day, when I was at school, it injured itself and was bleeding. The others …”

  “What happened?” I asked, although I was pretty sure I didn’t want to know.

  “They pecked and pecked at it.” It sounded like there were tears in June’s voice. “When I came home, it was just lying there.”

  “Dead?” I asked, feeling sick.

  “Nearly. I managed to revive it, but it was never the same again. I blamed myself for weeks for not protecting it better. It carried a huge, ugly scar for the rest of its life, where the feathers wouldn’t grow.”

  “That was a bit like how I felt today,” I said quietly. I couldn’t believe I was admitting it to her: I never wanted to tell Mom or Dad stuff like this, especially when they came home so late with drawn, tired faces, and I’d be scared to share it with someone else at school, in case they used it against me.

  June linked arms with me, like a real friend. I imagined I was a Pushmi-pullyu again, with two heads on either side of my body, one absurdly comforted that someone should care, and the other one straining in the opposite direction because, after all, she could never really understand. No matter how hard she tried, she would never be a Pushmi-pullyu, right?

  *

  Three

  I HAD BEEN PLANNING to practise some of my scales, but Hank was already hogging the piano, wrestling with his pieces­ for the competition. Typical. He always seemed to get there first. Always practising, practising, practising.

  “Nerd,” I muttered under my breath, kicking my battered satchel aside, wishing it was Hank.

  I tugged my hair out of its ponytail and got changed, chucking my school uniform into the corner with my schoolbag. Most of my clothes were scrunched up under my bed or on the floor or shoved into whichever peeling cupboard or drawer they would fit, but I always folded my Calvin Klein T-shirt along the seams and placed it neatly in my top drawer.

  It had been my favourite shirt ever since I wore it to school on civvies day last term, and everyone noticed and admired me. Even Kean looked envious. Actually, it was just an ordinary white Mr Price shirt, but I carefully stencilled over the CK logo in a Seventeen magazine, then had it imprinted on the shirt for R40, and nobody knew the difference.

  When I wore it, my freckles seemed to fade, and I imagined that it magically transformed my arms and legs so that they were no longer matchsticks but curvaceous, like those of Marilyn Monroe in the poster above my bed. I dreamt that one day I’d look like her. She’d started out as a redhead too.

  I had another picture on the back of my door, the famous one of her standing in a billowing dress over an air vent, but my favourite was the one above my bed, with her gingery hair frizzing in the wind and the sea in the background. She looked really happy.

  “My family would often go down to the beach in Humewood, and I would stretch myself out on the sand and close my eyes, pretending to be Marilyn. We don’t go to the beach any more now.”

  “Perhaps I’ll look like you one day,” I told Marilyn. The poster was crinkled just over the corner of one of her eyes, and as it reflected the light, I imagined she was winking at me.

  In the background, I could still hear Hank playing. He was practising a Debussy piece, a nocturne, starting like the lightest wave of a wand as his hands floated several octaves up the keyboard in broken chords, and then letting the real magic emerge: an intoxicating, mournfully beautiful melody that made Mom want to cry on days when she was too tired even to say hello.

  “It makes me want to puke,” I said to myself, but actually, I felt more like crying too.

  Dad had been working late, so he only picked Mom up well after 7de Laan had finished, and I’d already switched off the TV and started getting things ready for supper. Not that I wanted to, but after a day as long as hers, she’d probably snap if I didn’t. I hauled out a tin of spaghetti, rinsed and chopped the tomato and onion, and then put it in the fridge with the defrosted mince.

  “Thanks, Helen love,” she said, kissing me briefly as she walked in later and headed straight for the fridge, automatically pulling out the tomatoes and the mince and switching on the stove with her free hand.

  Already, I was about five centimetres taller than her, and on long, hard days like these she seemed to shrink, rather than me growing. Her hair, always straight, lay lank and f
lat against her head, a dull grey broken by faded reddish streaks, and I noticed that her work shirt seemed to hang more loosely than normal on her pale arms as she plodded tiredly around the kitchen. She stood for a moment, with the fridge door open, as Hank played the final notes of his Debussy, and sighed a little, as though for a second she’d forgotten she was a cashier.

  Then my brother came in.

  “Sounds good, Hank,” Mom commented, half to him and half to my dad, who was banging the layers of dust from his shoes at the door.

  Dad rubbed his bald head so that a thin sprinkling of grey brick powder fell onto his overalls and nodded to Hank. “You’re doing well, son,” he said, placing his hand on my head in greeting as he sank into his chair. Mom had covered it in plastic because no matter how hard Dad tried, he still left a trail of dust on it which slipped into the cracks in the leather. I would hate to sit in that chair every day and not be able to feel its coolness against my skin, but he didn’t even seem to notice. He took out the free paper that was delivered every week and pretended to read it, his head nodding.

  “There are the dishcloths,” I said, pointing to the neatly folded pile on the work surface.

  Mom smiled for a second, her faded face momentarily beautiful, the same smile that had been directed at Hank when he walked in. It made her look like a young Mia Farrow, exotic and enchanting.

  I was going to tell her where I got the dishcloths, but she’d already turned her back and was rummaging in the cupboard for the frying pan.

  I gingerly shared my dad’s chair with him for a few minutes, reading with him until I couldn’t bear the artificial smoothness of the plastic any longer, and I slipped onto the carpet beside him.

  “We’re doing a project on pregnancy and babies in class,” I said to Dad as he continued to pretend he was reading by turning another page.

  He nodded and ruffled my hair absently to show he’d heard me, although I wasn’t sure he really had.

  “I’ll be working with June, the girl that you met today before your lesson, Hank.”

  “That reminds me, do you need to be practising some more, son?” asked Mom, looking up. “Madame Pandora said that you should do at least two hours a day.”

  “How much have you done so far?” asked Dad, putting down his paper for a moment.

  Hank turned to go. “I’ll practise another half hour or so,” he muttered and added what sounded like, “Will that be enough for you?”

  Dad glanced at Mom, who shrugged and turned back to her cooking.

  The haunting music started up again, the top notes of the melody each sounding like a voice on their own, trying to express something that no one was hearing.

  “So anyway, June from my class and I walked home to­gether­, and she has some cool ideas for our project,” I tried again, talking over the music. “We’re going to the library next week because the school’s internet time has been used up for the month.”

  I turned to look at my dad, but his head was on his chest, and my mom could not hear me over Hank’s playing and the spattering of frying onions.

  She smiled in my direction. “What’s that, Helen?”

  “My project with June,” I said, getting up to join her. “We’re using the internet at the library.”

  Mom tossed the spaghetti in with the fried onions and added the mince, stirring automatically. “Maybe someday we’ll be able to get internet,” she said, glancing around the tired kitchen, giving it a makeover in her mind. “Who knows how things could change?”

  When Hank has won the competition and has his own practice one day, I thought.

  “Has Hank always wanted to be a doctor?” I asked.

  Mom passed the spoon to me so I could stir while she wiped her hands. “I remember how he used to bandage everything in sight when he was a little boy. Dad’s arm, my head, even the table legs.” I smiled politely to keep her talking to me, although I had heard the story enough times to put me off my spaghetti bolognaise. “And when you bumped your head, he wound so much bandage round it that he covered your entire mouth and we couldn’t even hear what you were saying.”

  After supper Hank went back to the piano and I wandered off to his room, which was completely off-limits to me, making it all the more fun. Walking into his room was like going to school. On his wall, he’d stuck theorems that he taught the high school kids at Maths Magicians, and lots of them were covered in little sticky notes saying stuff like Remind re Pythagoras or Recap–tricky one to help him make his tutoring more effective.

  My brother’s role was to assist Mrs Meintjies, the owner, but I was sure he knew as much as she did. Behind his door were pictures of circles, filled with labelled diameters and radii, cut out of the Student Teacher magazine, which he bought with his salary from Maths Magicians. Thumbed, creased piles of the magazine lay next to his bed, with scruffy little strips of paper bookmarking his favourite articles.

  “Talk about taking a part-time job way too seriously,” I said, half to myself and half to the absent Hank, shaking my head at all his stuff.

  I ducked my head under his bed and pulled out the medical books that our parents had bought him at sales at the local library, blowing off the thick layer of dust that covered them. He really needed to vacuum more often. I did too, but the clothes on the floor hid the dust. Sometimes I wished I wanted to become a doctor, just so that I could keep important-looking books like that under my bed.

  My books were mostly worn copies of actresses’ lives: not just of my all-time favourite Marilyn, but also Julianne Moore and Mom’s icon, the screen legend Greer Garson. I always told people the initial of my second name stood for Gina because no one at school had heard of the movies Mrs. Miniver or Goodbye, Mr. Chips, but my mom had watched Greer acting in them over and over when she was pregnant with me. I was born on 6 April, exactly a year after the actress died, and so I ended up Helen Greer Booysens. I actually liked it, but no one would understand. They’d just laugh, so I kept quiet and admired her in secret.

  I was so absorbed in leafing through Hank’s books that I almost didn’t notice when the music from the room down the passage stopped. Becoming aware of the silence, I quickly shoved back the books and stood up.

  Doing that, I saw a note jotted in funky, rounded letters on a piece of paper acting as a bookmark in his most recent Student Teacher magazine.

  “Definitely not Hank’s handwriting,” I muttered, and jerked it out curiously, feeling less guilty than I probably should have. My eyes widened as I read the note, then I shoved it quickly into my pocket.

  I dashed to the doorway and lounged nonchalantly against the frame, just outside my brother’s room.

  “What are you doing here?” Hank asked as he walked in and flung his music book onto the floor before collapsing onto his bed. “I told you to stay out of my room.”

  “Nothing. And I’m not in your room.”

  “You’re looking very pleased with yourself,” he said.

  “So, did you have a good session today with Madame Pandora after work?” I asked smugly, not bothering to answer his question.

  He didn’t answer directly. “Why do you ask?” he said, opening a Student Teacher magazine so he didn’t have to look at me.

  “No reason,” I said airily and sauntered away, pleased to know I had him at a disadvantage.

  I barely waited until I’d locked the door of my room before unscrunching the piece of paper I’d taken from Hank’s room.

  Today’s date was on the top and a cellphone number I didn’t know, with flowers over the 1s. Then followed the words Seeulater –maybeafterwork? and underneath it a row of little hearts that were definitely not from Madame Pandora.

  Very interesting, I thought, scribbling down the number.

  *

  Four

  MADAME PANDORA came to talk to us the next day. It wasn’t her regular day, but she breezed in, thanking Mrs Smith so pompously that I got the impression she was doing our teacher a favour, rather than the other way around
.

  Mrs Smith, who had been in the middle of talking about our baby and pregnancy project, frowned. I breathed a secret sigh of relief at the interruption. As part of our project, each group was going to be assigned a crying doll that was our “child” to look after so we could experience the Responsibilities of Being a Parent. Anything postponing that couldn’t be bad.

  Mrs Smith looked pointedly at her watch. “Two minutes is all I can spare, Mrs Pandora,” she said firmly, emphasising the Mrs. She probably felt that calling yourself Madame was putting on airs.

  “Thank you, my dear Lydia,” beamed Madame Pandora, breaking the rule that no teacher should address the other by her first name in front of students. “What a wonderful opportunity to share with the class. They are so fortunate.”

  Mrs Smith’s lips twitched and she nodded to Madame Pandora to go ahead.

  “Those of you privileged enough to have classes with me will know that I work at the Music Academy in Mill Park too,” she began. Kean muttered something behind his hand to Joe, sniggering, and Mrs Smith gave him the death look.

  Madame Pandora raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow at Kean. “Did you speak?” she asked coldly, leaving him in no doubt that he did not. Under the combined onslaught of Mrs Smith and Madame Pandora he wilted. I grinned sympathetically at him, but he turned his back on me, embarrassed by pity, and stared down at his desk.

  “I am speaking to those of you who take lessons with me,” Madame Pandora continued, “as well as those who take lessons with …” she paused for a moment to rub a smudge from one of her many rings, “others.”

  Madame Pandora didn’t actually say she pitied those who had not been selected as her students, but her well-timed pause proclaimed it far more audibly than mere words.

  “There are two very important events that take place at the Academy each year. The selection of the Academy’s scholarship winner from all the applicants at schools where I and other contract teachers work, takes place at the end of the year. The other event, which is even more important, is the annual music competition.”