The Astrid Notes

by Taryn Bashford

  ‘Where did she go?’

  ‘I genuinely don’t know.’ He grips the back of the dining chair, peeks at me from under heavy lids. ‘She packed, emptied our bank account, took all her real jewellery, and left when I was out at a performance, leaving you and Savannah alone at night. She couldn’t even wait for me to come home. She left that note you found lying beside you.’ He pauses, lips trembling. ‘But when she did die, her lawyer told me it was lung cancer. Oh, Veronika.’ For a moment he’s lost in his memories, his knuckles white around the rail of the chair. ‘She had an addictive personality. Wouldn’t even stop smoking when she was pregnant.’

  ‘What else?’

  Maestro looks at his feet. An eyelid twitches. ‘Five years ago some lawyers in New York City contacted me. They couldn’t tell me much. She never remarried or bore more children. She had no money to speak of. I have no way of finding out what her life entailed. But it wasn’t much because when she died the press never picked up on it. I suppose she hadn’t sung in twelve years and she’d changed her name back to Miller. But she did bequeath her daughters two identical rings, taken from the diamonds in our wedding ring. Shall I fetch them?’ He moves toward the door.

  ‘No. Not yet. She didn’t know about Savannah and that’s why she didn’t come to the funeral?’

  Maestro reaches for the ornaments on the bookshelf, straightens them into a neat line. ‘How could she have? I had stopped performing and wasn’t in the public domain, so it wasn’t in the press. And I had no way of reaching her.’

  ‘Who bought the furniture in this house?’

  ‘I did. She hated shopping.’

  I study the straightened ornaments. ‘And it’s you who is tidy and organised. Not her.’

  ‘She left enough mess in her wake she should’ve hired a person to walk behind her to clean up.’

  I had imagined the tiny scratches in the table top were made by Mum while she ate or learnt lines from operas. But maybe not. Everything I constructed about her recedes, vanishes. And there’s such a big blank that I have nothing to hold onto.

  ‘Did she adore the view over the treetops from the music room?’

  ‘It would’ve been her favourite room in the house. Had she lived here. After she left I gave up performing and moved to this side of Sydney for a fresh start with you girls.’

  ‘What? You always said she lived here. Why? Why did you tell us she was dead rather than she left?’

  ‘There were a lot of reasons.’ Maestro can’t seem to stop blinking. He wipes a flat palm over his mouth.

  ‘Which were? You have to tell me everything now.’

  ‘Mostly, it was Savannah.’ His words come quickly. ‘She panicked every time your mother left. The first words that she spoke each morning and the last each night were to ask when her mum would be home. Even when she was gone for six months she asked every day. She had nightmares, lost her appetite. It was awful to watch. There was nothing I could do. When Veronika came home, Savannah wouldn’t let her out of her sight in case she left again. Of course, it made things worse for Veronika, who already felt trapped. If she’d been drinking and couldn’t drive, she would lock herself in the car just to get away from Savannah’s clinging. She said Savannah’s constant talking made her want to drink until she couldn’t hear her anymore.

  ‘So for Savannah it was better that she dealt with the fact her mum wasn’t coming back. Because this time I knew it was for good. And I know you might not agree, but having seen what being abandoned by her own parents did to Veronika – her low self-esteem, her anger and hatred that she’d express when she’d had a few drinks – I didn’t want that to happen to you. For me, being abandoned by your mother was worse than her dying. When you die you don’t get the choice. Leaving you was her decision. And that affects a child in too many irreparable ways.’

  She lost her dream and then threw us away.

  ‘What else?’ I ask.

  Maestro bites his bottom lip, then says, ‘Nothing else.’

  ‘Whose ashes did you sprinkle in Paris?’

  Maestro strains to keep his face from puckering. ‘No-one’s of course. But she always said she’d want me to do that. Now I have no idea what happened when she died.’

  ‘Her parents. Did they throw her out?’

  ‘That’s what she told me. They wrote to her. She said whatever they had to say was too late. She returned the letters unopened. After she left, they kept coming and I didn’t think it was my right to open them, so I saved them for her – until I heard she’d died.’

  I let those facts sink in a while.

  ‘I set the idea of your eighteenth in motion because I thought you’d be mature enough to deal with the reality by then and to understand why I lied,’ continues Maestro, ‘because I knew you’d be angry and might not agree with my reasons for lying, but at the time it felt right. I decided if you wanted to go find her, which was your right to do, you could do it then, but not before. I wanted you to be all grown up, to know who you were and what you wanted in your life before you went to find her. She was irresponsible and selfish and she wasn’t a stable person. She didn’t like herself . . . and she drank and smoked too much. I was afraid of what you might find when you located her. I also wanted you to feel loved, so I told you those stories that made her seem like a doting mum because I can’t think of anything worse than learning that your mum didn’t want you.’ Maestro’s voice cracks. ‘You can surely see why I couldn’t say these words to you when you were younger. I knew they would hurt you.’

  My mouth moves before I realise it’s me speaking. ‘And then she actually died.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Astrid. I took away your chance to know your mum and I’ll never, never forgive myself.’ Maestro blinks away tears. ‘The guilt has plagued me for five years now. Some days I believe I’m losing my mind with it, because I cannot fix it or solve it. And it’s made telling you the truth that much harder. All this time, I’ve been dreading your eighteenth birthday. And dreading that I’ll lose you –’

  As he surveys me, moments of time spark and die around us, but I cannot give him the reassurance he needs.

  He sits down again. ‘I’d imagined the discussions on your birthday would be about whether you wanted to go find her and how we’d start to track her down –’ His voice is feeble, spongy.

  Even with the table between us, it’s as though Maestro’s pressed up against me. I back my chair out, twist and glare through the window. This isn’t some dinnertime chat. This is the truth. The big secret revealed. And it sucks.

  The truth is my dazzling mum never wanted to be my mum and I can stop grieving for a person who never existed.

  I chose to become a soprano to honour her and help Maestro get through his grief. Do I continue to carry that burden? His grief looks different now.

  ‘Every time I thought you were grieving for mum you were pretending?’

  ‘Not at all. I grieved the loss of my wife, my old life. And I grieved your loss of your mother. But that grief turned into fear and worry after I learnt she had died.’

  ‘So when you got upset when I mentioned Mum it was because you dreaded telling me you lied?’

  ‘The thought of losing you – after losing her and Savannah –’ He turns away. ‘I would die inside.’

  Mum was cut short in her prime. The day they told her she couldn’t perform was probably the day she died inside. As would I, if I couldn’t sing again. It’s the single thing I will ever understand about my mother.

  ‘What I have – it isn’t the same as what she had wrong with her vocal cords?’

  ‘No. It’s completely different.’ Maestro stands and starts pacing again. I’m grateful for the distance it puts between us.

  ‘All this time she lived a different life, knowing we were here. She never wrote, never came back?’

  ‘Never.’ Maestro exhales. ‘I’m sorry.
But she didn’t.’ He pivots and trudges toward the stairs. ‘I’ll fetch the rings.’

  I listen to him climb the stairs in his socked feet. I always imagined Mum loved bare feet, never socks. But that’s probably wrong. I’m envious of Savannah because no-one ever tore apart her memories of Mum. Worse, I’ve been following in Mum’s footsteps all my life. Now who am I meant to be?

  Maestro returns, two rings on his flat palm. ‘They’re yours,’ he says. I peer at them; their diamonds are alive with light. They were more a part of her life than I was. ‘She left them for you in her will.’

  I stare at the rings, unable to touch them. ‘You said there were a lot of reasons why you told us she was dead. What were the others?’

  Maestro balls the hand containing the rings, turns away to look out the window. After a too-long silence, he says, ‘No. There weren’t other reasons. It was for Savannah.’

  ‘I want all of the truth. Look at me and say that.’

  He turns to face me, crossing his arms so that his suit jacket scrunches. ‘It was for Savannah’s sake. I was stalling when I said there were lots of reasons . . .’ I hold his gaze until he breaks contact and shows me the rings again.

  I coax myself to pick one up, but a dark swirl of another question waits to be asked. ‘You said there were two problems when she came back. Her voice and – what was the other problem?’

  Maestro lets the rings drop onto the table. We watch them roll and spin until they stop. Chaos rumbles in Maestro’s eyes. Before I even comprehend the answer I start to cry.

  ‘She was . . . pregnant.’

  I lean back in my chair, picking through the debris of truth, failing to create a picture that makes sense. I’m about to ask what happened to the baby. But then I realise the baby was me.

  I’m panting as I stand. My chair falls backwards. Something inside me shatters and the shrapnel slices at me. Somehow my shaking legs carry me forward.

  Before I exit the room Maestro calls, ‘I’m here for you, Astrid. If you need me.’ He pauses. ‘I love you. You will always be my daughter. And I’m sorry.’

  But I can’t look back at him. I can’t say thank you. I can’t say it’s okay. Because it’s not.

  He stayed. He lied. My life is a lie.

  The truth is Mum was a flawed, selfish soprano star who abandoned her family and died from cancer not childbirth. The truth is Maestro has lied to me for nearly eighteen years. The truth is Maestro is not my father.

  But who am I?

  Later that night the anger hits me like a train. I storm into the guest room and tear each gown off its coat hanger. I toss the hats through the air, throw the shoes at the walls. And then I squat in the middle of the mess, huffing and crying and willing her ghostly form to appear. To explain. To redeem herself.

  I leaf through the memories I’ve pinned to the walls of my life. I had cherished them as works of art; they were beautiful Monet landscapes or Degas portraits. But now they’re cracked and altered, like a Picasso painting – nothing’s quite in the right place, everything’s out of alignment, misshapen. They convey shapes of light and colour rather than reality.

  She baked cupcakes once. She didn’t care about building forts. And waking at midday or dancing all night until the sun came up now seems selfish and irresponsible, rather than endearing or glamorous. And why did she swim far out to sea if it scared Savannah? I pick at the splintered works of art, plucking them apart and all the while feeling the cut of their sharp edges deep inside me.

  After a while I scan the floor, her dresses and hats scattered around me. I recognise, without any doubt in my mind, that even if I had a pair of scissors I could never vandalise these dresses. And the more I realise I don’t resemble Mum at all, the more I begin to see who I am.

  Maestro’s playing Prokofiev’s dramatic ‘Dance of the Knights’ from Romeo and Juliet at top volume in the music room. He’s set it to repeat and he’s accompanying it on his violin. It’s an appropriate soundtrack to end this day. I get to my feet and hang up each dress, placing the right shoes under the matching gown. There are eighteen hats, and I remember their exact order. When I leave the room you would never know I’d been there.

  23

  Jacob

  The room bursts with the sound of silence.

  It seems wrong that there’s the scent of Astrid in the studio, yet she’s not here. It’s wrong that I’m not with her now, standing by her side as she learns the truth she’s waited for all her life. It’s like turning up for a concert and discovering I’m a day late.

  I inspect the room from Doc’s perspective. The person who lives here has lost his way, or doesn’t care. The person who lives here needs to grow up.

  Do I want what Doc’s offering me? There’s nothing else in this world I do want. I try to re-live that certainty I felt on the stage in Vienna – that singing is what I must do with my life. That my voice is more than a song. It’s the one way I can lead a life that might be remembered. And with Astrid and Doc by my side, getting into the Con doesn’t seem so hard.

  Three rules to follow until the Con auditions at the end of November. Just over two months. Tidy up. No drinking. Keep it platonic with Astrid.

  I remember waking in the hospital and being goofy happy that Astrid was okay; the same moment I knew she’d found a crawl space into my heart. I was ready to let her push Harper all the way out of my head. But Astrid’s made it clear it’s not what she wants. Besides, she needs me in more important ways now. As a friend I can act as her rock. As a boyfriend, I come with Harper-shaped baggage. I let Harper down. I won’t let Astrid down.

  So I have no choice but to stick to rule three. And then how hard can the other two be?

  My hangover kicks in but I pull open the curtains and pick up dirty dishes. Instead of counting on beer as a cure, I sit on the sofa with a glass of water and painkillers. My feet squelch on an old banana peel. ‘You filthy pig, Jacob,’ I mumble. I survey the bombsite around me. Nothing’s going to change unless I change it. I need to put down the baby rattle and man up. I’m going to get into the Con and move out of home.

  After switching on some dance music, I find an empty box left over from the new piano stool and take the first step into my future. I start clearing up rubbish near the fridge and come across the photo of Harper, the one where she’s eating an apple at the beach. Wistful, I pick up the frame and gather the other scattered photos and picture frames of her and place them in the bottom drawer of the cupboard.

  ‘Yo! My man. What crawled up your butt?’

  I laugh out loud. If anyone can keep me off the grog, Dex can.

  ‘Tidying up, kid. You can help.’

  ‘You tidy up? You wouldn’t know one end of a feather duster from the other.’

  ‘But I can learn. Know anything about fixing vacuum cleaners? Mine’s busted.’

  ‘I got this.’ Dex gives me an elaborate salute, clicks his heels together and disappears out the door.

  I finish throwing rubbish and food leftovers into the box and start dusting. Dex comes crashing back into the studio lugging a contraption that bears no resemblance to the vacuum I’m used to. He boogies with the vacuum, pretending it’s a dance partner and twirling himself around the room.

  ‘You should be a ballroom dancer,’ I tease, but when I next turn around, he’s juggling fire – literally.

  ‘They’re cotton balls soaked in alcohol,’ he explains, closing his hands around the balls of fire to extinguish them. ‘Your dad’s booze cabinet’s well-stocked.’

  ‘Doesn’t it burn you?’

  ‘A bit. But a moment of pain never hurt anyone.’

  ‘You should find a safer hobby, kid.’

  Dex dries up while I wash dishes and we haul four bags of rubbish and the box up to the main bins at the side of the house, fist-bumping after it’s done.

  ‘Do we get to sing tod
ay?’ Dex glows at the prospect, reminding me of how I used to feel about singing, and underlining how much I take for granted. Sure I don’t have ‘normal’ parents, but I have a lot. Compared to him. Compared to Astrid.

  ‘’Course we can. Let’s do this.’ I ruffle his hair and he slaps away my arm before using his fingertips to re-shape his coif.

  Later, when his alarm beeps he slumps against the piano. I feel bad about wasting his singing time by having him clean up with me. ‘See ya tomorrow, kid,’ I say, closing the music book. I vow to help him clean the main house next time, so we’ve got more time to sing.

  ‘Where’s Miss Scusami? I liked her songs.’

  ‘She has more for you. If you like them, maybe we can record something.’ This is how I can help Astrid. She wants to be a songwriter but her dad’s not going to help her with that and she knows nothing about the pop market or submitting demos. Writing and recording songs with Dex will keep her mind off her injured vocal cords, her mum, her dad – everything. And at the same time, I’ll be helping Dex. The kid’s had it tough; he irons my carpets and cooks for his sick mother but he’s hiding a talent that needs to be discovered. He just needs a lucky break.

  And I need to concentrate on the living.

  Dex scours the soundproof booth as though it’s an ice-cream stall and I told him to help himself to all he can eat. He whoops and punches the air. ‘I’m gonna get signed up. Be famous.’

  ‘That’s what you want?’

  ‘It’s all I think about.’ Dex’s face flickers with the hard edges of ambition. I consider him, with his absurdly angled cheekbones and boyish charm, his boy-band body and dreamy dark looks. Teenage girls will go mental for him.

  I pound him on the back. ‘We’d better get you signed up with a label then.’

  ‘You can do that?’

  ‘I can help you record something. You’ll have to do the hard work. We can give it a go.’ I tried submitting demos to labels for Purple Daze earlier in the year – not that we got anywhere.