Collected Stories

by Bernard Maclaverty

  Now he rolled off the bed and decided to go downstairs and let his mother hear what he had learned that day.

  ‘First, empty that,’ she said. Danny went to the compost heap at the bottom of the garden with the scraps. On the way back he swung the empty colander and listened to the quiet hoot and whine of the wind through its holes. He liked listening to things. In the room with the two clocks he liked to hear how the ticks would catch up with one another, have the same double tick for a moment and then whisper off into two separate ticks again. The hiss of Miss Schwartz’s dressing-gown as she moved. The thin squeak of his compass as he opened its legs. The pop his father’s lips made when he was lighting his pipe. He left the empty colander on the draining board.

  ‘Are you ready?’ he asked her. His mother listened to his scales, her head cocked to one side, drying her hands on her apron. He played them haltingly.

  ‘There’s not much of a tune to that,’ she said. ‘How much do you have to practise?’

  ‘Until I get it right, she says.’

  ‘Who’s “she”, something the cat brought in?’

  ‘Miss Schwartz.’

  ‘Have a bit of respect, Danny.’

  Danny seemed to get it right with little effort, but what little he did he had to be goaded into by his mother. There was nothing Miss Schwartz taught him that he couldn’t do after several attempts. So, in the first months, Miss Schwartz increased the level of difficulty and the duration of his practice pieces. And he was always able for them.

  Along the sides of the lane that led to her house Danny saw the yellow celandine and the white ones with the strange smell. Wild garlic, she had called them. He met Mingo coming down the lane to where his father had parked the car. Mingo made a vulgar noise with his mouth as they passed but Danny ignored him. Miss Schwartz held the door open and he gave her the envelope with the clinking money in it.

  Seated at the piano, he asked,

  ‘Is Mingo any good?’

  ‘Mingo?’

  ‘The boy with the white hair that’s just left.’

  ‘Is that what you call him? That boy . . .’ she paused, ‘is average.’

  ‘Is he as good as me?’

  ‘Do not worry about other people. You will go forward as fast as you are able.’ She smiled at him the way he looked at her, then added, ‘You knew more on your first day than Mingo, as you call him, will in all his life. Now let me hear you play.’

  Danny played his piece and when he had finished she shrugged and smiled.

  ‘It is perfect,’ she said, ‘but still it is mechanical. Danny, you are a little machine. A pianola. Listen.’ She sat on the stool and began to play. Danny listened, watching her closed eyes, the almost imperceptible sway of her body as she stroked music from the notes. ‘At this point it must sing. Cantabile.’ She talked over her playing, pointing out to him where he had gone wrong. ‘Now try it again.’

  Danny played the piece again and when it was over Miss Schwartz’s eyes sparkled.

  ‘That was much better,’ she said. ‘Beautiful. You learn so quickly.’

  ‘I can’t play like that at home,’ he said, ‘but here it’s different.’

  ‘I think,’ said Miss Schwartz, ‘it is time for an examination. It will please your mother. And I think it will please you because we will get a trip to the city. And . . .’ she added after more thought, ‘it will please me. I will write a note to your mother. Although I will not say this in the letter, if you have any difficulties with the bus fare I will pay it myself. Do not say it, of course, if there are no difficulties.’

  They began to work on a new piece by her darling Schubert and when she felt they had accomplished enough she got up and made tea.

  Alone in the room, Danny stared at the pictures. Silhouettes, she called them. Jet black outlines of composers she had named. Beethoven, Mahler on the tips of his toes, Schubert. He liked Beethoven the best, the way his hair sprouted in all directions.

  As they drank their tea she played again the record that she had played at their first lesson. Now Danny knew it and could hum the melody as it played.

  Some weeks ago, when she had come back in with the tea, she had found Danny in the corner, crouched looking at her records. She kept them in a huge set of books, each page with a circular hole in it so that you could see the label of the record. Danny turned the stiff pages of the records, carefully looking at the labels, scarlet ones with a dog barking into a horn, green ones with the title in tilted writing. He took out a record and looked closely at its surface, angling it to the light. Intense black with light shining in the grooves. She handled them like eggs. When she came in all she said was, ‘Be careful, Danny.’ She poured the tea and then continued her sentence, ‘or they will end up like this.’ She leaned over and lifted a record which had a large bite out of its side.

  ‘Some boys who come here are not as careful as you. Goodbye, Dinu Lipatti. I think I will have to make a flower-pot out of you. You see?’ She pointed to one of her plants. A record had been folded up in some way to make a container. ‘You heat it and you mould it until it is the shape you want. I hate to waste anything. That’s what comes of the war.’ She bit into her gingersnap and said through her chewing,

  ‘I would like to stand on his glasses.’

  Danny liked to dip his into his tea and bite the warm, mushy sweetness.

  When he handed Miss Schwartz’s note to his mother, she ruffled his hair with her hand.

  ‘You’re losing your blondness,’ she said, ‘but the sun in the summer should bring it back again.’ When she had finished the letter, the boy looked at her for a decision.

  ‘Yes, you can go,’ she said. ‘But you’ll have to stay the night. I’ll not have you travelling that much in one day. Maybe your Aunt Letty would keep you.’

  In the city they went to the Assembly Rooms and Danny passed his examination with the highest commendation. On the way down the steps, Miss Schwartz took his hand and although he made a slight attempt to take it away, she held tightly on to it. Then without looking at him, staring straight ahead into the rush hour traffic, she said,

  ‘It’s not too late. You can be great. If you try you can be really great.’ She squeezed his hand so hard it hurt. Then she let it go.

  ‘Did you say that to me?’ asked Danny.

  ‘Yes, Danny. To you.’

  Afterwards they met a friend of Miss Schwartz’s and went for tea in The Cottar’s Kitchen. Danny had never seen her in such a joyful mood. She laughed and talked and praised him so much that he became embarrassed. She called him ‘mein Lieber’ and introduced him to her friend as her star pupil, her Wunderkind.

  ‘. . . and this is Mr Wyroslaski. He plays the cello in a symphony orchestra.’

  He was a tall man with a very thin face. He had dark brown eyes, deep eyes, not unlike Miss Schwartz’s own. His hair was very long, almost like a woman’s.

  ‘Why do all music people have funny names?’ Danny asked.

  ‘Like what?’ asked Miss Schwartz.

  ‘Like Schwartz and Wyro . . . Wyro – your name,’ he said, nodding at her friend, ‘and all those composers.’

  ‘Names do not matter; you, mein Lieber, will be a great musician one day.’

  ‘My name is Danny McErlane,’ and the way he said it made them all laugh. Miss Schwartz leaned across the table and smacked a kiss off Danny’s forehead. He blushed and looked down at his plate.

  ‘Besides,’ said Mr Wyroslaski, ‘there is John Field. He is an Irish composer. Names do not matter. What matters is the heart, the mind. Did you ever hear of a composer called Joe Green?’

  Danny nodded that he hadn’t.

  ‘That is English for Giuseppe Verdi.’

  ‘Who’s he?’ asked Danny. He joined uncertainly in the laughter his question had started. Mr Wyroslaski looked at him and produced a large handkerchief from his pocket. He slowly folded it into a pad which he licked and leaned over to Danny.

  ‘Marysia, you leave your mark on every
one.’ He rubbed Danny’s forehead hard. It surprised Danny that Miss Schwartz had a first name. He sounded it over in his mind, Maur-ish-a, Maur-ish-a. He never imagined himself calling her anything but Miss Schwartz.

  Today she looked different. When she had come out of the Ladies’ Room her black hair was down, falling over her shoulders. Her normally sallow cheekbones were pink and her eyes seemed to sparkle and flash more than they did in the darkness of her sitting room at home. She wore a brown suit and a blouse of creamy lace. At her throat was a cameo brooch which matched the brown of her suit. It was the first time Danny had seen her legs, the first time he had seen her out of her dressing-gown.

  Danny had begun to dislike Mr Wyroslaski. He had pulled away from the handkerchief but the man’s bony hand had held the back of his neck so that he couldn’t. Now as Wyroslaski listened to Miss Schwartz his mouth hung open and his eyebrows were raised like pause markings, as if he did not believe what she was saying. His face was prepared for laughter even though nothing funny was being said. They were talking too much. Danny began reading the stained menu. Then Wyroslaski lowered one eyebrow and said something in a foreign language at which Miss Schwartz laughed, covering her lower face with both hands. She replied to him in the same sort of language. Danny turned the menu over but there was nothing on the back of it.

  Eventually she turned to Danny and said,

  ‘He is such a handsome boy, my archangel, isn’t he? Mein Lieber, we all must go. Your Aunt Letty will be worried about you. Mr Wyroslaski has kindly said that he will drive you there in his car. What do you say?’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Danny.

  ‘We’ll drop you off and I’ll see you in good time for the bus in the morning.’

  As they rose from the table, Mr Wyroslaski flicked his hair out from his collar with his knuckled cellist’s hand.

  The next day on the long bus journey home, Miss Schwartz was quiet and often seemed not to be interested in or understand what Danny said to her. She did point out the freshness and greenness of everything. Hedges flashed by, fields moved, mountains turned in the distance.

  ‘It is spring. The sap is rising, quickening in all things. Do you not feel it?’

  ‘No,’ said Danny. And they lapsed into silence again.

  At the next lesson, Miss Schwartz opened the door in her familiar black dressing-gown.

  ‘Well, Danny, have you forgiven me?’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘I thought you had fallen out with me. Is that not so?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You did not feel neglected?’

  Danny began searching through his pages for his piece. He shrugged.

  ‘It was your day, Danny. It was wrong of me to enjoy it.’ He set his music on the piano.

  ‘What did you think of Mr Wyroslaski? Wasn’t he . . .’

  ‘He smiled too much,’ Danny interrupted her.

  ‘You are annoyed, aren’t you, Danny?’

  ‘No.’

  And she touched his hair with her extended hand and her face opened in a warm smile of disbelief and delight.

  After he played for her she asked,

  ‘How did your mother like your certificate?’

  ‘She says she’s going to get Dad to frame it.’

  ‘Tell her not to bother. There will be more. Bigger and better ones. And what’s more, you can tell her I will give you extra lessons and it doesn’t matter whether she can pay or not. Two a week for the price of one. How would you like that?’

  Danny was not so sure, but he said yes to please her.

  In July Danny’s sister married. The remainder of the guests from the hotel all crowded into the McErlanes’ front room after the reception. Danny’s mother sat stunned and a little drunk. Her husband, Harry, was even more drunk, but had through practice learned to keep going. He was asking everybody what they would have to drink. Aunt Letty, who didn’t drink, was helping him pour the whiskeys and uncork the stout. Danny sat in the corner with an orange juice in his hand which he dared not drink. Everybody that day had bought him an orange juice.

  ‘Well, that’s that,’ said Harry, falling back into an armchair, his knees still bent. He waved his thumb in the direction of the corner. ‘There’s only one left. The shakings of the bag has yet to go.’

  ‘It’ll be a while yet, Harry,’ said a neighbour, ‘and he’ll only go when the notion takes him. He’ll not be forced.’

  Harry blinked his eyes and focused on whoever had spoken. It was Red Tam.

  ‘Tam, I hope you’re not meaning anything by that remark.’

  ‘What do you mean “meaning”?’

  ‘About being forced. There was no forcing at today’s match and well you know it.’

  ‘The child, Harry,’ warned Mrs McErlane.

  ‘My girl is a good girl. She’d have none of that sort of filth.’ Danny’s father spat the last word out.

  ‘Aye, I know. Time will tell,’ said Red Tam.

  ‘What the bloody hell do you mean, “time will tell”? If it’s a fight you want, Red Tam, we’ll settle it right now.’ He struggled to escape from the armchair. Red Tam put up his hands and laughed.

  ‘I’m saying, Harry, that time will prove you right. That’s all. You’re too jumpy, man.’

  Harry was not so sure. Mrs McErlane interrupted.

  ‘Danny is going to play the piano for us. Won’t you, son? A bit of entertainment will settle us all.’

  ‘The old Joanna,’ someone shouted above the din.

  ‘Good stuff.’ A spatter of applause went round the room. Danny blushed.

  ‘I’d wash my hands of any girl that would allow herself to be led into that sort of dirt before marriage.’

  ‘It happens, Harry. It happens.’

  ‘Not in my house it doesn’t.’

  ‘Look at big Maureen from Bank Street. Thirty-two years old, they say. At her age you’d think she’d have known better.’

  ‘An animal,’ said Harry, ‘if ever there was one. There was that many of them she didn’t know who to blame. The beasts of the field . . .’

  ‘Stop it, Harry. The child,’ hissed Mrs McErlane. ‘Go and get your music, son.’ She turned in explanation to her neighbour, saying, ‘He’s not allowed to play without it.’

  Danny lurched shyly from the corner, saying that he wouldn’t, but hands grabbed him and guided him through the crowded room to the piano. He took out the music for the piece he had just been practising.

  ‘What are you going to give us?’

  Danny propped the music up, opened the lid and the room became silent, except for the noise of somebody in the kitchen washing dishes. He began to play a movement from a Haydn sonata.

  ‘That’s grand stuff,’ said his father proudly through the music.

  ‘Very highfalutin’ but good. It’s well done,’ said Red Tam.

  ‘He has the touch,’ said Mrs McErlane. ‘So his music teacher tells me. Miss Schwartz, y’know. But you’d know to listen to him yourself.’

  Danny played on, the glittering phrases mounting in elegance. Letty leaned in from the kitchen and, aware that she had to be quiet, hissed,

  ‘Harry, will you have another stout?’

  ‘I will, aye.’

  ‘Whisht till we hear,’ said Danny’s mother. Red Tam rang notes on his empty whiskey glass with a horny fingernail and waved it at Letty. The piece came to an end and Danny’s fingers had barely left the keys but they were folding away his music. Everyone applauded loudly.

  ‘What was that?’ asked Red Tam.

  ‘Haydn,’ said Danny his voice barely audible.

  ‘Grand. Do you know any Winifred Atwell tunes? Now there is a pianist. How she does it I just do not know. The woman must have ten fingers on each hand. Do you know “The Black and White Rag” at all?’ Red Tam took a gulp of his new whiskey. ‘Did you ever hear any of her, Harry?’

  ‘Aye, she’s on the wireless, isn’t she?’

  ‘You can say that again. She’s never off it. Th
e money that woman must be making.’ He shook his head in disbelief. ‘And her coloured, too.’

  ‘Do you like the rock and roll, Tam?’ said Mrs McErlane, winking, ‘I thought it would be right up your street.’

  ‘Indeed I do not.’

  ‘You’re right there,’ Danny’s father joined in, ‘I can’t take this classic stuff the boy is at all the time but I know for sure the rock and roll is rubbish.’

  ‘I like some classic stuff,’ said Tam. ‘Mantovani . . .’

  ‘I like good music – something with a bit of a tune to it,’ Harry went on, ‘Bing’s my man.’ He stuck the pipe in the corner of his mouth, his eyes closed, and he began to croon, slurring the words in an American accent,

  ‘A’m dream – ing of a wha – ite Christmas.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Tam, interrupting the song, ‘that’s where the money is at. This rock and roll will not last.’

  ‘It’ll not be heard of in another year’s time,’ agreed Harry. ‘The boy there could be making money before long. There’s many’s the dance band would snap him up if he was older. The classical stuff is all right. It gets the hands going. Good practice, y’know. But the bands is the place where the money is.’

  ‘Or on the wireless,’ added Tam. Harry rose and stood expansive and swaying in front of the fire.

  ‘You did well at the speaking, Harry, for one that’s not used to it,’ said his wife.

  ‘Aye. At least I kept it clean. Which is more than I can say for some.’

  ‘Uncle Bob. Wasn’t that a disgrace.’

  One of the others, drunker than the rest, overheard and mimicked,

  ‘“The bride and groom have just gone upstairs to get their things together.”’ Half the people laughed again at the joke. Harry said,

  ‘That man Bob has a mind like a sewer.’

  Danny threaded his way to the door and once upstairs threw what was left of his orange down the lavatory.