A Second Chance

by Shayne Parkinson

  The moment she touched the piano, her trembling stopped. She turned to Bill, eyes wide and mouth slightly open. ‘Oh, Bill,’ she breathed. ‘Oh, Bill!’

  The damage that had defeated Emma’s best efforts at hiding it stared accusingly at Bill. ‘I know it’s a bit knocked about, but Emma had a go playing, and it sounds pretty good. Anyway, it’s yours. You’d better try it out.’

  ‘It’s wonderful,’ Lily said, her voice faint. She let Bill help her onto the chair, placed both hands over the keys and began to play.

  Bill had difficulty distinguishing one piece of music from another, but he knew without being told that Lily had chosen to play a piece by Chopin. ‘He lets my heart speak through my hands,’ Lily had once told him when he asked her why Chopin was her favourite. That had been a more poetic answer than he had expected, but when he watched Lily bent over her piano, oblivious to the world, and heard the music coming from her, he felt that he was poised on the brink of understanding what she had meant. He sank into the nearest chair, moving carefully so as not to disturb Lily, and settled himself to watch and to listen. Emma perched on the arm of his chair and rested a hand on his shoulder, as engrossed in the scene as he was.

  *

  Lily looked up at last. Bill saw awareness of her surroundings seep into her face. Her eyes met his, and her mouth curved into a smile. ‘Thank you,’ she said, her voice scarcely above a whisper.

  She gave herself a small shake, and stood up. ‘Goodness, look at the time,’ she exclaimed on checking the mantel clock. ‘I must get on with my work.’ She ran her fingers soundlessly over the keys, and looked over with evident relief at Edie, who had managed to nod off during the last piece of music, so would not trail out to the kitchen after her. Emma was fussing over her grandfather, moving his footstool to a better position and plumping up the cushion that had slipped to one side of his chair. She gave a quick nod to Lily to indicate that she would join her in a few moments.

  The sight of Lily’s face bright with happiness was so beguiling that Bill found himself reluctant to part from it just yet. He followed her out into the passage, caught her up and was about to speak when Lily flung her arms around his neck and pressed her mouth on his.

  Bill wisely abandoned the notion of speech, and responded in kind. When he came up for air, Lily smiled at him, her eyes shining. She looked past him, and a flush spread over her face. Bill glanced over his shoulder just in time to see Emma disappearing back into the parlour, grinning broadly.

  ‘Caught in mischief by our own child,’ said Lily. ‘I hope you realise that rather diminishes our authority.’ Her blush was already fading; she was too brimful of delight for anything as trivial as embarrassment to take firm hold.

  ‘So you like it?’ Bill asked, knowing the answer but wanting to hear it anyway.

  ‘I love it. I was past dreaming I’d ever have a piano of my own again. You even found a Broadwood!’

  ‘I couldn’t manage to get a new one for you, but it sounds all right, even if it doesn’t look too flash. The tuner bloke said it’d probably been forgotten about, just left in a store room or something.’

  ‘Do you know, I think I love it all the more for its having been neglected like that, and then rescued by you.’ Lily laughed softly. ‘It’s a sort of fellow feeling, I suppose.’

  Bill was not entirely sure what she meant, but he kissed her anyway, rather more sedately this time.

  She disentangled herself with every sign of reluctance. ‘I really do have work to do. But I’ll play again this evening—I’m going to pull out every piece of music I own! You may come to regret this.’

  Bill smiled back at her. ‘I don’t think so.’

  He returned to the parlour. Emma was sitting with her hands folded in her lap, looking very prim and proper until he noticed the glint in her eye. ‘I’ll just go out and help Mother,’ she said, almost managing to hide a smile as she rose and left the room.

  Bill sat down where he had a good view of the piano, reviewing in his mind the picture Lily had made when seated before it. He had an odd sense that the piano was already missing Lily’s presence. A fanciful notion, he knew; but a harmless one. Lily would soon be back there. It had almost been worth having to wait so long, when the fulfillment was so very satisfying.

  Arthur stirred in his chair. ‘You know, Lily’s jolly good on that piano.’ His tone suggested that Bill might not have realised this without the benefit of his father’s wisdom.

  ‘Yes, she is,’ Bill agreed.

  ‘It’ll be good to have a bit of music in the house,’ said Arthur. ‘Yes, it’s a good thing we got that piano. I don’t know why we didn’t do it years ago.’

  It was clear to Bill that it would not be long before his father decided the whole business of getting a piano had been his own idea all along. That did not matter to him. What mattered was that Lily had her piano at last; and she knew perfectly well who had managed it.

  In any case, it was fortunate that Arthur was beginning to take responsibility for the idea; that could only make him more obliging when it came to ongoing expenses. And at the moment, Bill had no idea how he was going to pay the account the piano tuner had left with him.

  28

  Just before Christmas a parcel had arrived, addressed to Amy and postmarked from Tauranga. It showed signs of having been hastily wrapped, with a sheet of brown paper crumpled around it and held together by a clumsily knotted length of string. Amy opened it to find a bundle of waxy-looking coloured sticks that seemed to be meant for drawing. The printed label around them said they were wax crayons, a thing Amy had never seen before. There was no letter with the crayons, only a scribbled note on a roughly torn piece of paper that said, ‘Love from Milly.’ Amy blinked in surprise when she saw the note; the crayons were clearly meant for Eddie, but Milly seemed to have been so flustered when sending them that she had forgotten to sign herself as “Mama”.

  Amy told herself there was nothing to be wondered at in a pregnant woman’s vagueness; she recalled how hard she had found it when carrying her own children to concentrate on anything beyond the simplest tasks. She did her best not to dwell on how strange it seemed for a woman to forget that she was addressing her own child, and how much it seemed of a piece with Milly’s odd behaviour ever since her marriage. She wrapped the crayons up again, more neatly this time, and put them aside until Christmas Day.

  Milly’s letters were no longer arriving every week. Amy wondered if Eddie had noticed the longer gaps between them, but she did not want to question him on the subject. It was not as if there was anything she could do about it.

  She was relieved when a letter arrived in the middle of January, a somewhat belated response to her own note of thanks on Eddie’s behalf.

  I’m glad you got the parcel all right, Milly wrote. I couldn’t even remember afterwards if I’d written the address on it properly or not. I came over funny when I was in the Post Office. I had to sit down for a bit, and someone got me a glass of water.

  Sid had to go to Tauranga for his work that day, and he thought an outing might buck me up. I wasn’t showing so as anyone would notice, I’ve swelled up a bit since. I don’t think I’ll go again. He left me to have a look around the shops, so I thought I’d get something for Eddie and get it sent off while I had the chance. I thought those crayon things would suit, with him being keen on drawing.

  Sid took me out for lunch at a flash tearoom before we came back home. I didn’t like to let on that I was feeling a bit crook. I’ve felt a bit funny ever since. I suppose it’s the heat. I carried Eddie through the cooler weather, so it wasn’t so bad. It seems a lot harder this time. And I’ve got a few months to go yet. Still, there’s no use moaning about it.

  Amy wrote a short reply that same afternoon, seated at the kitchen table from where she could keep Daisy and Eddie in her sight.

  The children were sitting on the kitchen floor, Eddie with a magnificent book that Sarah had sent from Auckland as his Christmas present, and which h
ad immediately become his most treasured possession, propped on his lap. It was a large volume, bound in rich brown leather with gold lettering, and filled with stories of dragons and castles and brave heroes, all beautifully illustrated. Eddie was recounting one of the stories to Daisy, in a mixture of actual reading and telling from memory.

  Daisy’s attention was divided between listening to Eddie and the apparently fascinating possibilities of her own feet, one of which she was currently engaged in putting into her mouth. She removed it, took hold of both feet and waved them vigorously, chortling as she did so. It was hard to believe she was the same child who had kept the adult members of the household awake much of the previous night, howling at the discomfort brought on by her current bout of teething. Daisy seemed quite untroubled by her broken night, her overly-bright cheeks the only sign today of the offending tooth.

  ‘Do you want to come and do one of your nice drawings?’ Amy asked when Eddie seemed to have come to the end of a story. She placed a sheet of notepaper on the table beside Eddie’s crayons. ‘I’ve got a letter to send off to Mama, and I’ll put your drawing in with it.’

  ‘All right.’ Eddie got up and came over to the chair Amy pulled out for him.

  ‘Don’t leave your book on the floor, Daisy’ll get into it,’ Amy reminded him, not for the first time. She rose and picked the book up herself, and put it on the table out of Daisy’s reach.

  Daisy crawled on the floor while Eddie worked at his drawing and Amy put the vegetables on for their dinner. When they were almost ready, she set the table, carefully stepping around the baby.

  Daisy pulled herself upright against Eddie’s chair and tugged at his arm. Eddie held his drawing down to her level to show her.

  ‘See, that’s you, and that’s Granny, and that’s me on Patch’s back,’ Eddie said, pointing out each coloured blob in turn. ‘It’s for Milly.’

  ‘For Mama, you mean,’ Amy corrected him.

  Eddie looked back at her, a hint of defiance in the set of his head. His new habit of referring to his mother by her name was proving hard to break. It had started when he saw the note she had enclosed with his crayons, signing herself as “Milly”. Eddie could now read well enough to sound the word out for himself, and recognise it as the name he sometimes heard Amy use to Beth or David when one of his mother’s letters arrived.

  He seemed to have taken Milly’s failure to called herself “Mama” to heart. Ever since the arrival of her note he had been behaving a little oddly whenever she was mentioned. His odd behaviour did not, however, extend to the crayons Milly had sent, which were well-used and already noticeably shorter than they had been when new.

  ‘It’s for Milly,’ Eddie repeated, still talking to Daisy. ‘She was my mama. She went away.’

  ‘She’s still your mama, Eddie.’ Amy thought she had caught the hint of a tremble in his voice. She wished she could take him in her arms and tell him that of course his mother would come back for him, but she could not when she was so unsure of it herself. She was not going to lie to Eddie.

  She sighed, and chose a more down-to-earth distraction. ‘I think Uncle Dave and Aunt Beth might be late again tonight. You can have your dinner now, and then have pudding when they’re back.’

  Eddie brightened visibly at the suggestion of dinner. Amy dished him up a plateful and placed it before him, then smiled at the sight of Daisy, who was still holding herself precariously upright against Eddie’s chair, and was now looking up at his laden plate with a rather woebegone expression. Amy cut a chunk of bread from the loaf in front of her, swept Daisy onto her lap and gave her the bread to gnaw on.

  Daisy was soon all smiles and crumbs. Amy popped her back on the floor so that she could finish getting their pudding ready to go in the range, while Eddie chose to take his plate and continue his dinner sitting on the floor with Daisy, talking away to her as if he was sure she understood every word. When he finished eating, he retrieved his book from the table and opened it to where he had left off.

  David and Beth came in just as Amy was beginning to think she would have to dish their meals up and keep them warm by the range. They both looked tired and strained. One of Beth’s Jersey cows had been ill, and Beth had been getting up several times a night to dose it with medicines of her own invention that she brewed on the range. The heifer was on the mend, but Beth was still keeping it in a shed close to the house so that she could check on it frequently. The run of broken nights had been capped by Daisy’s efforts of the previous evening.

  Amy waved aside a weary Beth’s attempts to help dish up their meal. She made them both sit down, and was relieved to see them gradually look a little more like their usual selves under the influence of a good dinner. Neither of them made any move to pick up Daisy, who was still contentedly sitting beside Eddie, gnawing on an increasingly soggy crust.

  Amy placed bowls of stewed fruit and custard on the table. ‘I’ve filled your bowl a bit full, Eddie, so come and start it up here.’

  Eddie came readily enough; a large helping of roast mutton, potatoes, peas and beans had not spoiled his appetite for pudding. He had just plunged his spoon into the bowl when Amy glanced down at Daisy, and saw that she was taking an unhealthy interest in Eddie’s picture book.

  ‘Eddie, you’ve left your book on the floor again. Pick it up—quickly, now—look, Daisy’s going to chew it!’

  Daisy had indeed managed to get a corner of the book’s cover into her mouth. She closed her eyes, a look of contentment on her face, and sank her little teeth into the leather.

  Eddie scrambled from his chair, crossed the few steps to Daisy, and snatched up his book. ‘You leave my book alone!’ he cried, his voice shrill. He clutched the book to his chest with one arm, and to Amy’s shock he swung his other arm at Daisy, catching her a blow on the side of her head.

  Time seemed to stop. Eddie stared down at Daisy, his eyes wide with the enormity of what he had done. It had been a clumsy blow, with no real force behind it, but everyone in the room was stunned into silence. Then Daisy opened her mouth and began howling her outrage, Beth moved to scoop her up into her arms, and at the same moment David erupted from his chair.

  ‘Don’t you touch her, you little bugger!’ he roared. He grabbed the front of Eddie’s shirt, lifted it till Eddie was on tiptoe, and shook him like a dog with a rat.

  Amy had never seen such rage on David’s face. She wanted to take hold of him and pull him away from Eddie, but as if she were in a bad dream she found herself unable to move, not even when she saw David raise his fist.

  Eddie did not seem to take in the significance of the fist so near his head, but he was certainly aware of the anger suffusing the man who loomed over him. He hung limp in David’s grip, staring back into the eyes glaring at him.

  David abruptly let go of Eddie’s shirt. Eddie staggered back a step or two, and swayed on his feet. Through it all, he had somehow managed to keep hold of his precious book. The rage had seeped out of David’s face, to be replaced by something closer to horror. He turned away from Eddie and pounded both fists on the table, setting the dishes rattling.

  ‘I don’t know what to do,’ he cried, his face contorted with distress. ‘I don’t know what to do!’

  Amy recovered the power of movement at last. She took hold of Eddie’s arm, left Beth to cope with her distraught husband and child, and dragged Eddie from the room. She hurried him though the house, not stopping until they were in his bedroom. She pushed Eddie onto the bed and stood over him.

  ‘That was a wicked thing to do, Eddie! Hitting a little baby who can’t stick up for herself!’

  ‘But she was wrecking my book,’ Eddie protested. ‘Look!’ He held it out to show Amy the damage, which consisted of the small marks of Daisy’s front teeth and a generous smear of dribble, with a few crumbs of bread stuck to it.

  ‘That doesn’t mean you’re allowed to hit her.’ Amy knelt beside the bed and put a hand on each of his arms. ‘Listen to me, Eddie. You’re never to hit girls,
and you’re never to hit little kids smaller than you. That’s just being a bully. You don’t want to be a bully, do you?’

  Eddie lowered his eyes. ‘She was wrecking my book.’

  ‘And that’s because you left it on the floor again. She’s a baby, Eddie. She doesn’t know any better. You gave her an awful fright—and look how you upset Uncle Dave.’

  Amy thought she saw a trace of contrition in Eddie’s face. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt Daisy,’ he said, so quietly that she barely caught the words. ‘She just made me wild.’

  ‘Well, you can’t go around hitting people just because you get annoyed. I want you to think about what you did.’ Amy unbuttoned his shirt as she spoke. ‘You’re going straight to bed with no pudding.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ Eddie muttered, his face taking on the defiant expression that made him look so like his father. He reluctantly let her take the book out of his arms so that she could finish undoing his buttons.

  Amy pulled the nightshirt over his head. ‘And no stories tonight, either.’ Eddie’s face fell at that, but he said nothing. He climbed into bed; when Amy leant down and attempted to kiss him, he turned his face away.

  She picked up his book from the chest of drawers where she had placed it. ‘I’m going to put this book away until I’m sure you’re sorry for what you did.’

  Eddie sat up in bed, his mouth open in shock. ‘That’s not fair!’

  ‘Hitting a little baby’s not fair.’ With an effort, Amy hardened her heart against his disconsolate expression. ‘You can have it back when you’ve learned your lesson.’

  Eddie’s mouth trembled. ‘Are you going to send me away?’

  ‘Send you away?’ Amy frowned in confusion. ‘What do you mean, Eddie?’

  ‘Milly said it. When her and me came here. She said if you didn’t want me she didn’t know what she’d do. She said she’d have to send me to a boys’ home. She didn’t want to, but she’d have to. And if I was bad you wouldn’t want me. And hitting Daisy was a really bad thing.’ The last words came out muffled as Eddie buried his face in the covers.