The Square

by Rosie Millard

  There is no noise from upstairs.

  “I’ll go and get him,” she says. “Do you mind?”

  She has to say something. She is going to say it, because she knows it will annoy her client.

  “So I hear Anya came round and played the Blüthner, how was that?”

  Irritated that the piano teacher knows things about the house which happen when she is not there, Jane affects vague forgetfulness.

  “Did she? I can’t remember. Not sure. Think so, but I was out.”

  Roberta knows this is a lie. She knows that Jane was in the house when Anya turned up, she is certain she was, because Anya told her. She also knows that Anya has been asked to come round to the house regularly. She thinks this is probably not something to mention to Jane.

  “Oh, maybe I got it wrong. I thought you might have heard her. I have to say, she’s a very good pianist. Really excellent. Beautiful touch.”

  “Is she?” says Jane, absently. “Roberta, sorry to rush away but I really have got something rather crucial to do.”

  What, like getting online to Ocado, thinks Roberta. She can see how Anya’s proficiency rattles her employer. Well, other people can be skilled too, you know. It’s not just the owners of houses in the Square. It is people like Anya, and myself. People who have allotments and dull jobs, and make regular, ordinary shopping excursions to dull places like Tesco, not Waitrose. And I am not a ‘lesson’, either, she thinks sharply. I am a real person.

  She walks upstairs.

  “George, hello!” she calls. “It’s Roberta. I’m coming to extract you from your room.”

  She’s quite keen to see his room. She is fond of George and she would like to see him in his terrain, as it were, rather than in the very adult world downstairs.

  She knocks at what she guesses is his door. This is not a hard thing to divine since it is largely obscured by a giant poster of Obi-Wan Kenobi brandishing a large laser.

  “Enter!” a small voice calls imperiously from inside the room.

  She pushes open the door. The tone inside George’s bedroom is crepuscular since the curtains, which are decorated with a pattern of planets and comets, are closed.

  The array of toys and pictures within are testimony to an entire life; George’s life, so far. There are still framed nursery rhymes on the wall from his baby years, alongside the long rectangle and florid Latin motto of the Official Prep School Photograph. His entire Lego city is also there, balancing precariously on his desk.

  “Good afternoon my dear,” says George. He is crouching over a computer.

  “I am just working on my Film. The Film for which I shall play a live accompaniment at the Talent Show. I have decided,” he says, sitting back on his haunches, “to wear a Storm Trooper outfit for the night. My friend Finn has lent me his Storm Trooper. In return for a fortnight of my Lego spider from the Lord of the Rings Collection.” George pauses and considers the deal. “I think he will, anyway.”

  “Blimey,” says Roberta. “I bet you’ll win the contest dressed like that. Storm Troopers usually win, don’t they? Can I see what you’ve done so far with the film?”

  “No Roberta, they do not usually win,” says George. “They are the elite military soldiers of the Empire, under the rule of Darth Vader. They are the enemy.”

  But Roberta is not listening. She is watching George’s short animated film on his computer. She is watching something which in a minute’s time she will hope she does not understand, something which will cause anxiety to surge through her body to her fingertips.

  On the screen, a small Lego figure in a black cape and helmet is moving rather jerkily around several tall thin connected houses, also constructed from Lego. First, he is outside. There is a small tree, and a dog.

  “That is Darth Vader,” says George from behind her shoulder.

  Roberta nods, concentrating.

  “He is visiting our Square. Here he is outside our house.” He pauses. “You’ll have to imagine me playing the piano here. You know, that first rather dull bit of Hanon that you always make me do.”

  Roberta smiles.

  In the next shot, Darth Vader then appears to be inside a house. He moves towards a table around which people are sitting.

  “A boring party. The sort of thing my parents are always having. People just sitting talking. For HOURS.”

  Darth Vader leaves the party. He now has a laser in his hand.

  “What’s happening now?”

  “This is Darth Vader summoning the Death Star. I am playing shooting sounds now, like this, Peow Peow.”

  “Is the Death Star his ship?”

  “My dear, have you never SEEN Star Wars?”

  Humbled, Roberta continues to watch while George’s tiny hero executes a number of aerial tumbles and moves, with the laser. He then appears to hide behind a sofa.

  At this point, two other Lego figures enter the scene. One male, one female.

  They move to one side of the room. They are closely bonded together.

  “Who on earth is this? What’s going on?” asks Roberta, with a slowly growing sense of dread.

  “Oh, that’s my mother and Jay, our neighbour,” says George, casually. “I think he was giving her some sort of massage the other night. When they had a dinner party. I was still downstairs by mistake, behind the sofa. I was meant to be in bed, but I was still up. And I thought it was really funny, seeing them on the sofa, and how funny it would be if Darth Vader suddenly appeared and brandished his lightsabre at them. Do you know, after Jay, our neighbour, had finished hugging her, he smacked her! On the bum-bum! I have never seen a grown-up do THAT before.”

  “You are going to show this film at the Talent Show?”

  “Yes. It’s taken me DAYS. It’s all start stop animation. Done on my bed. Look, here.”

  He shows Roberta the ‘set’ which is lying in pieces on the floor.

  Through waves of piercing anxiety, Roberta realises that if this film is shown at the Talent evening there will probably be no more piano lessons, anywhere, on the Square, for quite some time. And that she will probably be held responsible for George broadcasting a short film of his mother’s adultery with the neighbour. She is going to have to think about a strategy. She must consign this film to the oblivion of erasure. She is going to have to come up with something, quite fast, the Talent Show is ten days away.

  “George, this is great. But we must go and have our lesson. And I think we need to chat about it. Shall we turn the computer off, for now?”

  “Sure, sure. Do you like it so far? Do you like the animation? I’ve got quite a bit more to do, you know.”

  “It’s great. But I think I may have some other ideas for you.”

  “But I don’t want your ideas. I have my own ideas.”

  “Yes, I know. But I have some good ideas which might go with your ideas. The best ideas are joint ideas, has nobody ever told you that?”

  Roberta swallows, hard.

  The giant figure of Obi-Wan gently swings behind her as she carefully closes the door, and leads her small charge downstairs. She thinks of the computer upstairs, with its lethal cargo, and feels nauseated.

  She settles him at the piano stool.

  “Right, now. Let’s play ‘The Bells of St Paul’s’.”

  “Really? My dear, have we not grown out of that piece?”

  “No, I think it’s a great piece for you. And I think it’s a great piece for the show.”

  “What, the Talent Show?”

  “Yes, I do. I’ve changed my mind about Hanon. I think it’s just too dull.”

  “Hanon? Dull? But you always said it was an important structural thing to do and would help enormously with my fingering.”

  “Yes, yes. But honestly George, it’s an exercise. It’s like turning up as… as a Storm Trooper and simply walking up and down in your gear. Never turning the lightsabre on.”

  “Storm Troopers don’t HAVE lightsabres. They have Elite Guns.”

  “Well, their
Elite Guns, then,” says Roberta, flustered.

  “Alrighty,” says George. It’s a phrase he has picked up from Patrick. He thinks it makes him sound an awful lot older, like a boy almost in Year 5.

  “Now, ‘The Bells of St Paul’s’ is a great piece because it’s all about these little boys, isn’t it? Climbing over the walls and knocking all the apples down with their sticks?”

  “Yee… eessss?” says George. The long drawn out affirmative has also been learned from Patrick.

  “Well, I thought that would be such a lovely thing to put onto a film. You could make those Lego trees, and you could make little boys, and… ” She looks at his face. It has gone very red again.

  “But what about Finn and my Storm Trooper outfit?” he says miserably. “I really wanted to do something about Star Wars.”

  “Yes but you can’t do it about Star Wars at HOME,” says Roberta firmly. Then she has a sudden thought. “It’s against copyright.”

  “What? Is it?”

  “Yes,” she says. “George Lucas won’t allow any publication of a fantasy world alongside the world of reality with his patented characters. I read it somewhere.”

  “But I am not publishing anything.”

  “Showing a film at the Talent Show accounts for publishing. I think George Lucas wants to keep everything intact, not allowing it to go out into the, the outer world. As it were. Now, if you were just to show the fantasy characters on their own, in their fantasy world, that would be fine. Alright, let’s not play ‘The Bells of St Paul’s’. Let’s do something completely new. Let’s have a look in this book,” says Roberta, flicking through Easy Classics For Piano as she speaks.

  “Aha!” she says, triumphantly. “Here it is! The theme tune for Star Wars! Composed by… ”

  “John Williams,” says George. He looks up hopefully. “Is it in there?”

  “You bet it is. And I will help you learn it. Do you have a version of the Death Star in Lego?”

  George looks at his teacher. “What about the copyright? Isn’t that going to be disallowed because of copyright?”

  Why do I have to have such a bright pupil, thinks Roberta.

  “Oh, this piece is out of copyright because so many small boys want to play it. That’s why it’s in this book. Now let’s have a look at it. Could you play this while you show one of your Lego Star Wars… ships flying around? Do you have any?”

  A small smile plays around his red lips. “My dear,” he says, “I have General Grievous’ Starfighter, with 1,085 pieces.”

  He puts his fingers on the keys and plays the chord of C Major four times. Da da da DAH.

  “And I have the Millennium Falcon. Version Six, 1,237 pieces. It took me eight months to build it.”

  “Well,” says Roberta, “phew. Why don’t we use them? And we can get some sort of backdrop with planets on it and get those things flying around. You can film it and then on the night, you can show the film, and play the John Williams masterwork. In your Storm Trooper outfit from Finn. Happy?”

  To her delight, George nods his head. The way she put it, with the mention of his friend, and the uniform, meant that it was going to happen. It really was.

  “I know,” he says. “We shall use my curtains as the set.”

  Saved, thinks Roberta.

  Chapter Twenty-Three Tracey

  Tracey pushes her way into the crowded West End jazz bar where a pianist is sitting hammering at an old Berry upright. Next to him, a man is brushing a drum with steel brushes. They are playing that old standard, ‘Ain’t Misbehaving’. Well, she wasn’t. She was having fun, though. A week of filming, not a week of packaging up cosmetics and organising people to go and sell them for her. This is her treat to mark the end of the shoot, a drink with Alan at his favourite bar.

  Where was he? She suddenly sees him by the long bar, an island in the middle of the room. He is sitting on a stool with two glasses of Champagne at his elbow. His suit is as immaculate as ever. She notices with pleasure that he is wearing a tiny touch of the mascara she had recommended. She slides onto the empty stool he has reserved, next to him.

  “Bubble?” he says.

  She breathes in the effervescent liquid.

  “Oh Alan. I cannot tell you how glad I am to be here.”

  “Why is that?” asks Alan Makin.

  “Because at home I am Public Enemy Number One. Thanks to you!”

  The piano continues its honky tonk routine, and suddenly the Square didn’t matter too much, to Tracey.

  She laughs as she sips the cool drink.

  “Oh, no, why?”

  “It’s all your fault, Alan.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Really! Harriet, Harriet, my neighbour. You know, who I went to the marquee with on that first time? Well she also had the idea that you should present our little show. And anyway I told her I had already asked you, and you had said yes.”

  “Yes, so? And?”

  “Well, I went and told Jane. And she was so cross!”

  It had not been an easy encounter. Tracey had bumped into Jane in the afternoon as she was awkwardly shoehorning George out of the family car, on his way back from school.

  “Oh, Jane, just the person,” said Tracey to Jane’s pert bottom.

  “Hi,” Jane had said, standing up immediately, turning round, smoothing down her dress, tucking her hair back behind her ears. She did not look overly pleased to see her neighbour. George scrambled out of the car behind her and began to walk along the kerb, loudly singing ‘Frère Jacques’.

  “Hi, hi. I wanted to ask you whether I might make a suggestion for the Talent Show?”

  “Fire away.”

  “Well, you know I am doing this filming with Alan, you know, Alan Makin. It’s going really really well.”

  “Great. I’m delighted for you. Really pleased.”

  “And the thing is that Alan really loves the Square. Loves everything in it. I’ve told him all about us, and our Association, and the Show, and the fundraising, so… ”

  “So?”

  “I asked him if he wouldn’t mind hosting the Talent Show.”

  There is a barely discernable pause, a beat of silence.

  “Hosting it?”

  Tracey suddenly sees the gulf between her idea, and Jane’s master plan. She feels she needs backup.

  “It was Harriet’s idea, actually. She thought we needed, she thought it would be sort of nice, to have a celebrity do it.”

  “Oh, did she? Rather than keep it all in the Square? My, celebrity culture really has taken hold of everyone, hasn’t it!” said Jane, with a harsh giggle. “First the Lottery comes to call, grace à vous, then it’s all about famous people.”

  “Is that okay?” says Tracey. She is not even going to acknowledge the Lottery dig.

  “I mean, had you thought about a presenter?”

  “Yes I had. I mean, I thought I was going to step into the role myself. Though only, and this is the honest truth, because I couldn’t think of anyone else mad enough to do it. But if you and Harriet think we need a celebrity, that’s fine. Just fine. Great.”

  “Oh, Jane are you sure? Are you really happy about it? I mean, do you want to do it?”

  “Nah. No, I don’t,” said Jane, who had privately been working out her opening words and had already booked a hair appointment for the day before.

  “No, that’s fine. Have you actually asked him, though? Will we have to pay him? Have you even thought about that?”

  “Oh, I have asked him already,” says Tracey, with a thrill of correcting Jane running right through her, “and he says he’d love to. I don’t think there will be any payment. No, I haven’t exactly put it to him in those words, but I think that all should be fine. Do I need to give him a running order, or special words to say, or shall I leave it up to him?”

  “Mummy, can we go now?” said George, who had returned to the car, and was pulling at her coat.

  “Let’s talk about that later,” said Jane with a flint
y smile. “Sorry, must dash.”

  And with that, she had disappeared into her house, leaving Tracey standing on the pavement.

  “And that was that.” Tracey looks at Alan, laughing. “As I said. Public Enemy Number One. Whoops!”

  “Well, never mind,” says Alan. “The political intrigue of a Garden Square in London. Fascinating.”

  “But you will still do it, won’t you?”

  “Of course I will,” he reassures her. “And no, I don’t need a fee, in case you are wondering. Is she performing in the show itself?”

  “No. Her son is. I think he is playing the piano and showing a film, or something.”

  “What are you going to be doing?”

  “Oh, God, I hadn’t thought. I was going to leave it to Belle and Grace to cook something up. Maybe I’ll do something with them.”

  She sighs, sips her Champagne again.

  “You look great. That the new foundation?”

  “Yep. And a tiny touch of the mascara.”

  “Thought so. It looks perfect. Just gives you the definition you need.”

  “You sound so professional when you talk about makeup,” says Alan, smiling at her.

  All at once, there is a commotion on the other side of the bar. A man in a green shirt is trying to catch Alan’s attention.

  “Hey, Alan! Alan Makin!” yells the man.

  Alan and Tracey look up. Alan smiles at the man, acknowledges his presence graciously.

  “Viewers,” he says to Tracey, who sits back on her stool, overwhelmingly impressed. This happy state of affairs lasts about two seconds, before it is made manifestly clear that this is not a particularly grateful viewer.

  “Alan Makin, I’ve seen you on television and you are nothing but a great big cunt!” shouts the man.

  “Supporting those bankers, those wankers, I saw that show you did, what about their bonuses, eh?”

  Alan’s smile has vanished. His face is white. He puts the palms of his hands down on his trousers, and turns to Tracey.

  “They either tell you how marvellous you are, or how hideous you are,” he says, with a twisted grimace.

  “God, Alan,” says Tracey, shocked. “Really?”

  “Hey! Alan Makin! Makin! You are a cunt, do you hear me!” shouts the green-shirted man again. People start moving awkwardly away from him. Alan is frozen to the spot on his bar stool opposite. The pianist gamely continues to play jazz. This time, the bar staff respond. One burly man from behind the bar lifts up the counter, and moves round expertly to the green-shirted man, taking him firmly by the elbow.