Dancing With Chairs in the Music House

by Caro Soles

  “Your mother’s birthday is coming up. We can make something special for her.”

  We sit out on the balcony talking about what would be best—what would fit best with the grain of the wood and what Mother might like. We decide on a small chest. Daddy thinks he can get some cedar to line it with so Mother will have a place to store woollies and keep them from reeking of mothballs. He puts a finger to his lips. “It’s a secret now,” he says. “Not a word.”

  We smile, sharing this moment.

  But it’s not all good news. “Do you know about Lame Duck Lodge?” I ask.

  “Your mother told me,” he says, and I can see there’s a part of him that’s sad, too. “I telephoned Miss David from the hospital and offered to help show them how to fix it up.”

  We don’t say anything else for a few moments, just enjoying being together. Then I say, “Do you know all about what’s been going on in the Music House?”

  He sighs and nods and looks off into the distance. I wonder how long he will look rested and well, now that he’s back.

  “Jealousy is a terrible thing,” he says at last. He gets up and goes into the living room to talk to Mother.

  I climb up the ladder and peer over the edge of the roof. No one is there. I wonder what Daddy would say if I told him about Mrs. Pierce in her negligée on a Sunday afternoon. Probably that it was none of my business. I climb the rest of the way and walk over to the Pierces’ window. I can see the harpsichord, gleaming with polish. Music is open on the stand. The window is up a few inches, but there is no sound coming from within. I move over to the other side; from here I can see the alcove where the bed is. I wonder if the couch pulls out for Brian like the one in Janet’s house. The room is surprisingly big.

  Their door opens and Brian appears. He flings himself on the couch and puts his head in his hands. “Shit,” he says loudly. I back away, but not quickly enough.

  “Hey!” He is at the window, motioning to me to come closer. “Wait a minute, will you? I’m coming out.”

  I sit down with my back against the wall. The pebbles of the roof feel rough against my bare legs. It takes a while for him to come out, and when he does, he sits down beside me. We don’t say anything for a moment.

  “I wasn’t spying,” I say.

  “Who cares?” he says and grins.

  I laugh, a loud explosive sound that doesn’t sound at all ladylike.

  “Could you take another message to Helen for me?” he asks. He picks up a pebble and throws it into the Secret Garden.

  “Why don’t you just mail it?” I ask.

  “It wouldn’t get there in time.” He throws another pebble, this one with such force I can hear his wrist snap.

  Something is wrong. I can feel it in the tension in his body, in the tightness of his voice. I don’t know what to do, but I don’t want to take any more messages to Helen. But what excuse do I have? If I say we aren’t going to church tomorrow, he will know it’s a lie.

  “We’re still friends, aren’t we?” he asks.

  I nod.

  “It’s just tickets for the recital,” he says softly. “Please. Just take it.”

  “Helen has tickets,” I say. “She’s coming anyway.”

  “I helped you off the roof,” he says. “Why won’t you help me?”

  There’s no answer to that. “Okay.”

  He hands me a sealed envelope. I can feel a ticket inside, as well as paper. The message. To the Mystery Woman whose name he will not tell me? Surely a friend would tell me her name. I stuff it in the pocket of my shorts, get up, and dust off my hands. Without another word, I climb down to the porch, feeling the worm in my stomach shift and gnaw. Why didn’t I just say no? But right away, I know the answer. Loyalty. It is even part of the family crest. I may not be a blood relative, but I can keep the faith. I can be as loyal as d’Artagnan!

  Mother puts the beeswax candles Jonathan gave her for Christmas in the silver candelabra we brought back from Grandmother’s house last summer. She lights them, and it begins to smell a little like church. “We’ll have some of the wine I was saving for after the recital,” she says. Daddy has the complete silver place setting. I have the one that’s almost complete. Soon, Mother says, everyone will have a complete set.

  We are halfway through dinner when Jonathan drops a bomb.

  “I’ve been thinking,” he begins, and I can tell he is nervous. I have felt it from the time he came in and helped set the table. “I’ve waited till everyone is here to tell you what I have decided.”

  Mother smiles. “What’s that, dear?”

  “Remember how you used to talk about not having just one string to your bow?” he says, looking intently at Mother. I watch her smile waver. “I’ve decided that what I want to do is go to university next year, instead of continuing to prepare for a concert career. I want to study comparative literature. Maybe teach afterwards.”

  Everyone looks at Mother.

  “But your whole life is music, dear,” she says. “How can you leave? After all this work! After all we have sacrificed!”

  “And thanks to you, I will always have music,” he says. “I appreciate everything you’ve done, believe me, but it’s time to assess my chances of success in this field, and after careful consideration, I’ve decided they are slim.”

  “Nonsense! You are very talented.”

  Mother is holding the edge of the table in one hand. I can feel her tension like a wound-up spring. Even Daddy is looking worried. He is not eating his favourite meal. I wish Jonathan would stop talking and the last few minutes could be erased.

  “There are thousands of people out there more talented than I am, Mother. Just off the top of my head, there are the three others on the program with me. There’s Janey Drew. There’s Glenn Gould. And Patsy Parr. All of them have more than I do. I am not that exceptional.”

  “What utter nonsense!” Mother says, her voice rising. “Everyone says you have a special talent.”

  “Now, Lil, let the boy have his say,” Daddy says. But I don’t think Mother even hears him.

  “It’s too big a gamble,” Jonathan goes on. He has obviously rehearsed this with someone. I wonder who it is. Helen? “We don’t have the money to finance the Carnegie Hall thing, you know that, and besides, it’s not fair to Vanessa. If you choose St. Mildred’s as her school—and I think it’s a great choice—there are fees to pay. Besides, she has talent too. What about her?”

  Amazed, I turn and look at Mother, interested to hear what she’ll have to say to counter this unexpected gambit.

  “Let me worry about Vanessa,” she says. “She’ll be fine. It’s you I’m concerned about. And speaking of money, how do you plan on financing university?”

  “I have a scholarship.”

  Silence descends. We all stare at Jonathan.

  “You’ve certainly thought this through,” Mother says, “and for quite a long time too.” She gets up, collects the plates, goes to the kitchen. We hear her scraping and rinsing.

  “You do what you think is best for you,” Daddy says. He gets up and follows Mother.

  Jonathan and I look at each other. I feel full up. He said I have talent.

  “That wasn’t so bad,” he says.

  “So far,” I say.

  He nods thoughtfully.

  “Janey Drew is really almost two years older than she says,” I whisper.

  “How do you know?”

  “Angelica told me.”

  “Showbiz,” he says disgustedly. “Most of them aren’t like that, though.”

  When Mother and Daddy come back, they bring the dessert. No one mentions music or school again.

  I wake up late that night and realize Mother is not beside me. Daddy is snoring lightly on his side of the bed, the way he always does: a few gentle puffs and then a long sniffling snort. I wonder if thi
s is what has wakened me. He has been in the hospital so long this time that perhaps I have become unaccustomed to his sleeping noises. Maybe Mother has, too. But I know inside that this is not really the cause of her sleeplessness. I am so finely attuned to her that I am surprised I didn’t wake exactly when she did. I have done that before.

  Carefully I climb over the foot of the bed so as not to disturb Daddy. It was probably not the homecoming he was expecting. I am disappointed that my good news has been so completely overshadowed by Jonathan’s startling decision, by the lingering guilty sadness of Miss David’s acquisition of Lame Duck Lodge.

  I am wearing an old T-shirt of Jonathan’s over underpants. It’s so big and stretched it’s almost like a dress. I go out into the hall and listen at the living room door. Nothing. I peek inside, but Jonathan is asleep in the daybed as usual, so I close the door again and go down the hall to the bathroom. No one there, either. The porch is the only place left. I tiptoe back up the hall and open the back door. I find Mother crouched in the corner where the window boxes are. She is filling a pot with soil and sniffling.

  “Go back to bed,” she says, looking up. Her face is damp with tears.

  Shocked, I back up and hunker down, waiting. I never know what I am waiting for at times like this. I just know that I have to be here so that I will know when she feels a little better or exhausts herself. It’s scary, but I have to be here to send out my loyalty and love. She feels it. I know she does. Eventually.

  She gives the pot a vigorous shove, and dirt spills all over the floor. I move closer, begin to sweep the soil into the pot again with my hand. Mother sits down on the floor and blows her nose.

  “Shit!” she says. “Bugger. Blast. Hell.”

  “Holy Willy,” I say. It’s Daddy’s favourite curse.

  She smiles and wipes her eyes. “Oh, Nessa,” she says and opens her arms. I crawl in and snuggle close, not caring about the dirt. “You’ll never leave me, will you?” she whispers.

  “No, Mummy,” I whisper into her softness. “Never.”

  My eyes fill with tears.

  22. LOYALTY

  ON SATURDAY I TELL JANET all about Dr. Bachman and the movie and going to school next year. I have been looking forward to telling her this news for days. I have tried to imagine her expression, her face, her eyes, her bright laughter when she hears how my life will change.

  She hugs me and grabs my hands and swings me around, hooting with joy. Luckily we are outside in her mud-packed yard, and so not liable to knock over crockery and such in the kitchen. I look up and see the trees spinning. When she lets me go, I stagger and grab hold of the fence.

  “That’s so wonderful!” She shouts out loud, and her mother comes to the kitchen window and knocks on the glass, a stern look on her face.

  I pull the excitement around me, driving out the darkness from the Music House, the black news from Jonathan, the accusation of thievery that may mean we lose our new home, our haven, but the happy moment bursts even as I try to hold it fast. Janet pulls me inside and is telling her mother my news before I even get a chance to open my mouth, the words spilling out of her, stumbling over each other. I feel a stab of disappointment that I didn’t get to tell her myself, but soon I am filling her in on everything about St. Mildred’s and Jonathan’s news. I don’t say anything about the bracelet. By now, Mother seems to think me going to St. Mildred’s is almost a fait accompli. “Of course, they’ll take you,” she says. “Your godmother is a nun.” I wonder if Mother will tell them my godmother was thrown out of her order and started her own shortly afterwards. But maybe a rebel nun is better than none at all, I think, and grin at the unexpected play on words.

  “I wish you could come to my school,” Janet says.

  So do I, but one part of me thinks Roman Catholic nuns might be scarier than the Anglican variety.

  Janet’s mother keeps coming back to Jonathan’s decision about dropping his music. She asks a lot of questions about it as if it’s more important than my news.

  When we go upstairs to Janet’s room, she asks an unexpected question. “What does Brian think of Jonathan’s decision?”

  I kick at the baseboard. “Who cares?”

  “Well, it cuts down the competition, doesn’t it?” she says.

  That hadn’t occurred to me. Janet is better at this sort of thinking. “I guess he should be pleased then,” I say.

  “Maybe Brian talked him into it.” Janet leans forward, her grey eyes bright.

  “Why would Jonathan listen to him?”

  Janet shrugs. “What does Rona Layne say?”

  It’s my turn to shrug. “I don’t think she knows yet. He says he’ll tell her after the Recital.”

  “If it was me, I’d not bother doing the Recital,” she says.

  “Oh! Mother would just die!”

  Somehow we can’t seem to get into any game today and just drift around, each in our own world. We wander down the street to the 48th Highlanders’ building at the end of Cawthra Square. I don’t know what they do here. Daddy never comes, so I can’t ask him.

  “Brian gave me another message to take to Helen to give to the Mystery Woman,” I say, kicking a pebble.

  Janet sits down under a tree and frowns. “Why is he still going through Helen?” she asks. “He knows the Mystery Woman’s name now. So why not tell you?”

  I sit down beside her and shrug.

  “Unless she’s married!” Janet grins wickedly.

  “How do you come up with these things?” I ask. I feel the thrill of the forbidden.

  “It’s either that or the Mystery Woman is Helen herself, and that’s not fair because she’s Jonathan’s girlfriend, isn’t she?”

  “I guess so.” I ponder this new idea. Jonathan always says she’s just a friend, but maybe boys always say this. Mother seems convinced Helen is special. “In either case, perhaps I shouldn’t deliver it at all.”

  “An ethical dilemma,” Janet says thoughtfully.

  “But I promised I’d do it,” I say. “How can I break a promise?”

  “But there’s the question of loyalty,” Janet says, pulling up some grass with one hand. “What would d’Artagnan do?”

  “Support his comrades,” I say at once. “But which one is my comrade? Brian or Jonathan?”

  “The only person one could break a promise for is family, wouldn’t you say?”

  “What if I just ask Helen if the note is for her?”

  “What if she lies? Or what if it’s really for the mysterious married woman?”

  “You’re not being much help!” I get up and stomp back up Cawthra Square to Janet’s house to find out what time it is. For the first time ever, I am going home alone. I’m supposed to go at three o’clock. This new freedom is overshadowed by the weighty question of what to do about Brian’s note. The easiest thing would be to deliver it, I decide, and I do owe him for saving me when I was stuck on the roof. But if I do deliver it, what about the consequences? What if Jonathan loses his girlfriend? What if Brian is lured down the path to perdition by a married woman? Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife. Selah.

  At dinner I have a headache and have lost my appetite. Mother sends me to bed and puts Vicks on my temples. The smell is comforting, and I soon drift off, wrapped in blankets even though it’s a warm night. Somewhere after midnight, I throw up, and Mother and Daddy have to clean everything up, change the sheets, throw the smelly ones out on the porch to deal with later. My whole body is heavy. It’s an effort to move.

  The next thing I know, the radio is playing softly and Mother is buttering toast and cutting it into quarters, trying to tempt me to eat. I shake my head. Talking seems to take too much energy. I fall asleep again.

  This time when I wake up, I feel better. I get up and go to the bathroom, come back, and wash my face and hands. I go across to the living room.

&n
bsp; “Where is everybody?”

  “Church. How are you feeling now?”

  “But I have to go to church,” I say, panic rising.

  Mother motions to Seth sitting atop the mantel. Just as I look at the clock’s face, he strikes half past eleven.

  “Oh no!”

  “It’s all right to miss the occasional Sunday, dear,” Mother says, smiling. “God will not smite you dead.”

  “It’s not that. It’s just … I promised!”

  “You couldn’t help being sick, dear. That’s a perfect excuse for everything. God will understand.”

  Perhaps, but would Brian? He would be at St. Paul’s with his mother by now, thinking Helen had passed on his message.

  Mother goes to the kitchen and brings back a bowl of cream of wheat smothered in brown sugar, just the way I like it. Even this treat doesn’t make me feel better about Brian.

  Just as I’m finishing the cereal, Mother comes back and stands looking at me. I freeze. She is holding Brian’s envelope, and it’s open.

  “That’s private!”

  “There was no name on it,” she says. “I need to know who is writing to my young daughter. Only it’s not yours, is it?”

  I shake my head miserably. How could she have opened a private letter?

  “Who is the ‘B’ who signed the note?”

  I close my mouth in a tight line.

  “Who?” she repeats. “Look at me!” She reaches over and takes my chin in her hand, tilting my face to hers.

  Her grey eyes are wide and scary. They pierce right inside like searchlights. I’m surprised she can’t read the name in my thoughts. “Brian,” I whisper, my eyes watering.

  “Brian Pierce?”

  I nod.

  “Good God!” She sits back and stares at the note. I can’t imagine why she looks so stunned.

  I take a deep breath and actually feel a little better, having unburdened myself in a way that makes me not to blame. Getting sick made everything fall apart. Surely he’ll understand. Now he’ll have to find another way to contact the Mystery Woman.