by Fiona Gibson
Next door’s front garden is all filled up. You can’t see the gravel. It looks like a secondhand furniture shop with the shop bit removed. The path has been blocked by a plump sofa in such a fierce shade of fuchsia, it’s probably capable of sweating. The brick-shaped man straddles the low garden wall and bites into a pie. His mate perches daintily on the sofa’s arm and tips Coke into his mouth.
A woman is running up the hill and lurches to a halt at the gate. ‘What the hell’s going on?’ she yells. Her plump face peeps out from a thick bale of magenta hair. Behind her are the indistinct shapes of two scuffling children. The woman tries to force her way into the garden but is blocked by the sofa.
‘Is this our new house?’ a child trills behind her.
‘I want everything inside,’ the woman thunders, ‘before it’s ruined.’ The brick-shaped man pops the last lump of pie into his mouth and sweeps his hands across his trousers.
‘Is it?’ the little girl asks. She’s wearing a pea-green mac that sticks out like a capital A. Her head and shoulders are entirely covered by a dome-shaped transparent umbrella.
‘Yes, Midge,’ the woman says, sounding defeated. The umbrella has antennae. It makes the child look like an alien, or how my younger pupils might draw an alien: triangular green body and a bubble for a head.
Behind her, hunched miserably on the pavement, loiters a larger child shrouded in a hooded pink jacket. The alien steps daintily along the wall, then sees me at the window and starts waving madly. I wave back and quickly turn away—I hate being caught spying—and slip Dad’s folded-up recipe into the red-and-gold Mexican box on the bookshelf. Crammed into the box are eighteen years’ worth of meal solutions I’ve never cooked: Chicken Maryland, Duck a l’Orange, Pork and Apricot Casserole. Dishes requiring the uneasy pairing of meat and fruit. No matter how full the box looks when you take off the lid, there’s always room for one more recipe. That’s the thing about onionskin paper. It folds up to virtually nothing.
‘It won’t go up,’ a removal man shouts, ‘not round that bend in the stairs.’
There’s a dull scraping noise, and the woman’s irate yapping. ‘She hit me three times,’ roars one of the kids. ‘She wants to blind me.’ Her accent isn’t from round here—South Devon—but farther north, maybe Midlands. These children, and that magenta-haired woman, are my new neighbors.
‘She hit me first!’ the other child yelps. ‘She’s a cow.’
‘Didn’t!’
‘Did!’
I spend my working days teaching primary-school children. I enjoy kids—love their spirit, the way everything’s fresh and new to them.
‘You stink of dog poo!’
But I don’t want them living next door.
‘You’re stupid. I hate you.’ Someone’s crying now, and I assume it’s the small one—the alien—but when I step outside, it’s the older girl whose teary face peeps out from a hood.
‘Hi,’ I say, ‘I’m Stella, I live next—’
‘Huh,’ the woman mutters. She’s edging backward out of the house, gripping one end of a salmon-colored headboard.
‘You’re gonna drop that,’ the smaller child announces.
‘Shut your face,’ the woman snaps.
‘Can we unpack now? I want my toys. What did you do with my light saber?’
‘It’s coming, easy now, easy,’ the woman says, as if she’s assisting a birth and keeping her voice steady will make everything all right. A faded denim jacket is buttoned tightly across her broad chest.
‘Can I help with that?’ I ask.
She flashes a quick, taut smile. ‘We’ll manage, thanks.’
‘I wish she was never born,’ declares the bigger child. She’s leaning against a scuffed melamine wardrobe, patting her tender eye.
‘It’ll have to go up,’ the woman announces. ‘You can’t have a bed without a headboard.’
I could point out that mine doesn’t have a headboard, but now might not be the right moment to discuss our differing tastes in home furnishings. ‘It’s so old,’ the bigger girl complains, still sniveling. ‘You said we were getting a new house, not a horrible stinky old house.’
‘I like it,’ chirps the smaller one. ‘There’s probably ghosts.’
The woman props the headboard against the house and smoothes its velvet pile. ‘You could try hoisting it up,’ I suggest, ‘through the bedroom window. The stairs in these houses are so narrow—that’s what I had to do with my bed when I moved in.’
‘Hoist it up,’ she says firmly. ‘Good idea.’
I smile, offer a hand. ‘I’m Stella.’
‘Diane. Bloody nightmare, moving. Everything soaking wet, ruined.’ She rubs her small, pebbly eyes, ignoring my outstretched hand. I try to give the older girl a neighborly smile but she glowers at me, and it sags.
‘I’m Midge Price,’ shouts the alien, ‘and I’m seven-and-a-quarter.’
‘And that’s Jojo,’ her mother adds. ‘She’s ten. Say hello to the lady, Jojo.’
Jojo looks as if she’s trying to shrink into her hood. Diane fishes a squashed Benson & Hedges packet and a lighter from her jacket pocket. The lighter just makes a rasping noise and won’t work.
The men are upstairs now, hanging out of the open window and gripping the rope that they’ve lashed around the head-board. The little girl waves some weapon of mass destruction with a light-up blade that she’s unearthed from a bin liner.
‘Steady,’ Diane says, gazing up at the dangling headboard. She gives me a quick look and says, ‘Cost me two hundred quid to have it recovered, Cilla.’
‘Stella,’ I murmur. The headboard sways uneasily, like an airplane part. Perhaps it’s just a temporary place; they’ll discover that there are no other young kids at this end of Briar Hill—it’s too quiet, too dull—and move back to wherever they came from.
The football-top man takes one hand off the rope. It springs from his grasp. The headboard’s a living thing now, bouncing against the rendered front wall and living-room window to land in a heap of shattered glass, flattening the Christmas tree.
‘Two hundred quid,’ Diane whispers. Dark wood shows through the ripped velvet.
‘I want crisps,’ Jojo whines.
The alien—Midge—catches my eye. She’s trying to keep her lips jammed together but a snort bursts out. She’s laughing hysterically now, teetering on the wall in her bright yellow wellies, then falling and landing in tangle of umbrella and light saber on a heap of moist satin cushions.
Behind her, streaking the bruised lilac sky, is a rainbow.
2
Bubble Gum
Paul Street Primary is a bright, airy school built on the site of the old Royale cinema. The music room, which doubles as the after-school club, has a row of acoustic guitars suspended from hooks on the wall, and another wall entirely made of glass, onto which pupils have stuck drawings done in markers on acetate (generally speaking, music lessons take place in school-furniture graveyards; seldom-used rooms filled with damaged tables and tremulous shelving).
Here, neatly seated and ready to play, is Sasha Rodgers, a delicate child with startling green eyes and the medical whiff of school soap. Here is Emily Catchpole, a talented flautist with speedy fingers that flick on and off keys like springing insects. Next to her, with grubby socks bunched down at her ankles, is Laura Sweet. You can spot the children who’ll soon decide they’ve picked the wrong instrument; they’ll suddenly yearn to play drums, or bass guitar in a thrash metal band, deciding that music—at least, this kind of music—is for swots with troubled complexions and no friends. Laura is one of these kids. Right now, she’s showing off the fake tattoo—entwined, spiky-stemmed roses—that circles her upper arm.
Willow Chambers thunders in and slams her tutor book onto the vacant stand. ‘Sorry,’ she gasps. ‘I thought it was Tuesday then realized I’d forgot.’
‘That’s all right,’ I tell her, ‘calm down, take a few minutes to catch breath. Now, everyone—Toby, could you at least look
ready?’ Toby is the lone boy here and is feasting hungrily on a fingernail. ‘Where’s your flute?’ I prompt him.
He continues to nibble the nail. Ignore bad behavior, if you can. Recognize and celebrate the good. Jen, the head teacher’s mantra. ‘At Paul Street we focus on the positive,’ she says at her introductory meeting with new starters’ parents. Second week of a new school year, and I’m on at Toby already.
‘Are you chewing gum?’ I ask.
‘No, Miss Moon.’ His jaw sets rigid.
‘Okay, let’s start with—’
‘We always start with scales,’ Toby announces. A whiff of gum, synthetically sweet.
‘Yes, we do, because it helps to warm up your flute, loosens the muscles…. You know this.’
He yawns dramatically. A flash of neon pink, embedded in molar.
‘Please get rid of that chewing gum. You know where the bin is.’
‘There’s no chewing gum,’ he says airily.
‘Do you want to leave this class? Stop lessons right now?’
A small smile tweaks his lips. Willow rolls her nose against her cardigan sleeve. I never thought I’d turn out like this, fizzing mad at things that don’t matter. At college I’d visualized the kind of teacher I’d turn out to be: inspirational Stella, always addressed by her first name, capable of detecting the merest hint of musical ability and coaxing it from a child who’d been written off as hopeless. Music had done this for me: become my thing, then pretty much my entire life, after the bad thing had happened. It had nothing to do with my celebrity Dad, or colossal-brained brother. I really thought music could rescue a person.
Toby lifts his flute and swoops through his scales. He plays beautifully, the notes flooding the r0oom. But the moment he’s finished, he shrinks back into his chair, his face partially concealed by a shock of black hair. He behaves as if his talent has been draped around him like an embarrassing cape.
Willow launches into the Fauré piece. She starts at a steady tempo, gradually gathering speed and cantering onward until, with cheeks blazing, she charges to the finish like an out-of-control horse.
‘Lovely, Willow,’ I tell her, ‘but try to play steadily next time, not so much of a rush.’
Willow mumbles something that sounds like: I wasn’t Russian. We discuss phrasing, how to take a breath so it doesn’t sound like a desperate intake of air, as if you’ve been given an injection. Toby peers through his fringe at the acetate drawings on the window. ‘Okay,’ I say, as the kids put away their flutes, ‘remember to practice your minor scales for next week. And no chewing gum, Toby.’
‘It’s not chewing gum, Miss. It’s bubble gum.’ He hurtles out of the room, leaving a knocked-over stand and a chemical-strawberry aroma.
Somewhere along the line, I’ve turned into the kind of teacher who loses her rag over gum.
My first flute teacher was an elderly lady called Mrs Bones. She had ivory skin and neat, closely packed teeth. The beads of her necklace were tiny black-and-white dice. ‘Breathing, Stella,’ she’d say, ‘it’s all in the breathing.’ Sometimes she would devote entire lessons to breathing techniques: Push down the diaphragm, fill up the cavity to the maximum, the absolute maximum. I’d never thought of my angular nine-year-old body as having a diaphragm, or a cavity. I pictured myself cross-sectioned in a medical book, filled with billowing air.
The building where Mrs Bones lived had oddly shaped windows like circles and half moons. The house had been split into four flats, and Mrs Bones lived at the top. From the outside you couldn’t work out where one flat ended and the next one started—how they fit together.
Mrs Bones was the only person I knew who lived in a flat. Our house was detached, with an assortment of sturdy out-buildings and wooden sheds and unruly herbaceous borders. Dad would try to tame the borders, digging up plants and shifting them, then moving them all back to their original positions. I rarely saw him doing anything practical inside the house. Annoying things, like a wobbly shelf, or a tap that couldn’t be turned off, remained broken until we stopped noticing the wobbles and drips. Kids at school assumed I went home every night to a grand dinner, but Dad didn’t even cook for us. Mum said, ‘Your father works very hard. He’s had quite enough of food at the end of the day.’
‘I’d like a word, Mrs Moon,’ Mrs Bones said to Mum one ordinary Saturday afternoon when she came to collect me. She ushered Mum to the kitchenette off the living room. I waited on the brocade armchair, breathing in old lavender and dust.
‘Stella has an exceptional talent,’ Mrs Bones murmured, ‘which must be encouraged at all costs. It’s imperative that this child is encouraged to fulfill her potential.’ Her voice grew louder until she sounded almost angry. ‘We’re talking about her future, Mrs Moon,’ she added firmly.
‘Yes, of course,’ my mother said. She trod softly back into the living room. Pink patches were showing through her powdered cheeks. She squeezed my hand as we stepped carefully down the twisting stone stairs. Instead of heading through the town center she took me to Bay Street where the shops had sagging, moss-covered roofs. I knew this street. Mum and I had come here, to Grieves and Aitken, to buy my first flute.
‘Where are we going?’ I asked as we approached the shop, but Mum didn’t answer. In the music shop’s window stood a gilded harp. My eyes followed the sweeping curve of its frame; it was beautiful. I realized Mum was gazing at it, too. ‘Isn’t it lovely?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ she said. She swallowed hard, then blinked at me, mustering a smile.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
‘A harp,’ she said, deliberately misunderstanding.
‘I wish I could play it. I bet it’s really hard.’
Mum started to say something but instead turned away and pushed open the door. ‘Come on,’ she said, ‘let’s see what we can find in here.’
Inside, the shop smelled of oiled wood. ‘Can I help you, Mrs Moon?’ Mr Grieves asked. He had a shiny bald patch and a soft-looking gray mustache. I assumed he could play every instrument in the shop—I was convinced he did this, the minute the Closed sign went up—and wondered if the mustache got in the way of his secret playing.
‘Stella would like to try all your flutes,’ Mum announced. She was wearing a fitted trouser suit—a larger version of the one she’d made for me from Golden Hands magazine—in a color she called burnt-orange.
My face had flushed, and I was aware of a panicky sensation beneath my ribs. ‘I don’t need—’ I began.
‘Just try them,’ Mum said.
Mr Grieves pieced together a selection and I played them in turn. They were ordinary, no better than the perfectly good flute I’d been playing for the past two years. ‘This,’ he said when I’d finished, ‘is something special.’ He delved into a cupboard close to the floor and placed a slender black case on the glass counter.
He opened it, pieced the flute together and handed it to me. It felt weightier than my own instrument, and more precious than anything I’d ever touched. I wasn’t grown up enough to be let loose with something so special. I was sure I’d lose control of my hands, that they’d flop open and the flute would land with a terrible crack on the shop’s cold tiled floor. ‘Just play, darling,’ Mum whispered.
I lifted the flute to my mouth. I never felt nervous playing in concerts but now my lower lip buzzed. Mr Grieves had brought through a spindly wooden chair from the back room for Mum to sit on. I took a breath. The sound poured out like water. Mum sat with her legs neatly crossed at the ankles, drinking me in.
‘The head joint is solid silver,’ Mr Grieves said when I’d stopped playing. ‘I don’t think you’ll hear a richer, fuller sound.’ Richer, fuller: like the coffee adverts on TV. I played some more. I didn’t want to stop. An old lady had stopped on the pavement, and was gazing into the shop. Mr Grieves petted his mustache and had a conversation with Mum about money, which I pretended not to hear. I knew we weren’t poor—we had just had our kitchen refurbished, complete with turquoise Formica-topped br
eakfast bar—but the price of the flute still made me feel dizzy. Mum wrote a check and I carried out the flute, snug in its case, in my arms.
Next door to Grieves and Aitken was an Italian café where sorbets were served in hollowed-out fruits. ‘Lovely Eleanor,’ announced Dino, the owner, touching my mother’s arm. She chose lime sorbet, I had lemon. I didn’t like sorbet—I’d rather have had raspberry-ripple ice cream—but wanted to be grown up and elegant like Mum. Our sorbets came with mint leaves on top. I opened the flute case on the table. ‘It’s lovely,’ I said.
‘You deserve it. You’ve been practicing really hard.’
‘What will Dad say?’
It doesn’t matter. This isn’t about Dad.’
‘But it’s not Christmas,’ I protested, ‘or my birthday, and Dad says—’
‘Our whole lives revolve around him,’ she snapped. ‘What about you, me, Charlie? He’s not interested in either of you, he—’She caught herself and scraped a spoonful of sorbet from its shell. Usually she stuck up for Dad, pretending that we were a fully functioning family. Now she’d blown the housekeeping money on a flute. ‘I don’t want you to miss out,’ she added, ‘on any chances in life.’
I was going to ask, ‘What chances?’ then noticed that her eyes were brimming with tears that were threatening to spill into the lime shell. ‘He’ll be mad,’ I said, ‘if he knows how much it cost.’
Mum smiled unsteadily. ‘Then we won’t tell him.’
‘Okay. We’ll keep it a secret.’
I felt warm inside, even though I’d wolfed down my sorbet. Mum stared at the flute, gleaming in its purple velvet nest, and said, ‘Never tell your Dad that this is anything special.’
Jen sips her beer and asks, ‘And how was the delightful Toby today?’
‘Grumbling about playing scales, refusing to spit out his gum…’ Put that way, my gripes seem pathetic. He’s just a child, an immensely talented child.