by Jessie Tu
We theme it, the Coconut Party.
The man in the fruit store on Campbell Parade asks me why I am buying so many coconuts as he helps me load the five trays into my car. I tell him about the Coconut Party and he gives me a lingering look. I feel pressured into inviting him. He says he’s not free on Saturday night; that’s when he goes to his second job.
‘What’s your second job?’
‘Being a husband and a father to a three-year-old and a six-month-old.’
‘That’s nice,’ I say, even though I don’t think that’s nice at all. ‘You’re a good man.’
‘I’d rather be going to a party hosted by a pretty girl.’ He winks.
I get into my car and drive off, feeling violated. Intuitively, I reach for my phone to text Olivia, but stop when I find her name in my inbox. I’ll see her in a few hours. I’ll tell her then.
Back home, coconuts are cracked open and placed strategically around the apartment—on tabletops, the ledge of the balcony, on our heads, spread across the bookshelves. We fill them with a variety of booze. Vodka, whisky, bourbon, champagne, red wine, white wine, port, gin, sake. We slice up cheese and put it in coconuts.
People arrive and crowd onto the balcony, where two tables of coconuts and drinks are laid out. They laugh at the sight, then take selfies posing next to rows of coconuts neatly arranged like bowling pins. I check my phone for messages, but none of the names appearing on my screen is the one I am waiting for. I wonder when Olivia will arrive. Even if she doesn’t stay long, I want her to be here when the party is at its full capacity. I want her to know I can be without her.
‘Hey!’
Noah appears at the door. He’s wearing a white T-shirt and chinos. A Bondi Lifesavers cap hides his thatch of blond hair. His smile shifts something inside me.
‘Where’s Olivia?’ I ask. ‘She said she’d be coming.’
‘She’s at her mum’s.’
For a few seconds, all I want is for everyone around me to disappear; she is the only person I want to see tonight.
‘She said she’ll call you,’ Noah adds. ‘Sorry.’
The crowd continues to swell. The Sonos is at max volume, hammering ordinary, trippy house beats.
I busy myself filling coconuts, cutting more cheese. In the kitchen, a few people are doing shots; someone has broken up some coconuts, using the shards as bowls to drink from. I join them for a couple of shots, then retreat to the balcony to breathe. I look around. There are music producers, writers, filmmakers, artists, teachers, chefs, editors, lawyers, policemen, Uber drivers, personal trainers, graphic designers, social workers, sculptors and a few journalists. One public defender who looks out of place.
I decide I need to drink more and start squeezing through the crush to get back to the kitchen.
‘Where are you going?’ Noah shouts into my ear.
‘What?’
He doesn’t need to repeat himself, but I want him to lean closer to my face.
‘WHERE ARE YOU GOING?’
I stab the air in the direction of the kitchen. He indicates for me to lead; puts a hand on my hip and leaves it there as if he owns me, and I wonder why this small gesture feels so validating. I push through the crowd.
In the kitchen, all the cupboard doors are opened. There are coconuts on each shelf, between bags of muesli, bottles of wine, boxes of Lavosh.
There are people clustered in the kitchen. They’re orchestra members from university, mostly brass players. Potheads. Anarchists. They have names like Pippa, James, Marcus and Charlie. They’re doing lines of coke on the kitchen counter.
‘Join us!’ Charlie reaches for my arm.
‘I’m just doing coconuts tonight,’ I say.
‘How boring.’
The four of them collapse into a laughing fit.
‘At least they’re having fun,’ Noah says. He takes my hand and leads me out of the apartment through the back door.
We walk to the end of the street, far enough to lose the sounds of the party.
‘I wanted to ask …’ he begins. Pauses. ‘I was just wondering if you and Olivia are okay.’ He raises an eyebrow.
‘Yeah, of course. Why wouldn’t we be?’
‘I think she’s still annoyed you got in.’
I shrug, not sure what he wants me to say. And then I realise I don’t have to say anything. ‘Well, there’s nothing I can do about that.’
We look back at the party. The balcony is glowing with pink and orange fairy lights. The heads of people outlined in a quivering black landscape.
All I wanted was for her to see how successful I could be without her.
All I wanted was—
‘Thanks for agreeing to lead the event at Newington,’ Noah says.
I turn to face him. I’d expected him to bring up the kiss from that night two months ago. But it seems he’s forgotten about it.
‘Lead? I thought I was just playing in the ensemble.’
‘Olivia said you’d be happy to lead it.’
There’s nothing to do but walk, so I walk.
Noah follows. At the next corner, I stand and look up at the street sign, pretending to read it.
‘You want to go someplace else?’ he whispers.
‘No, let’s head back to the party.’
My phone pings and I pull it out of my pocket. A text from Mark. For the first time, I feel irritated.
‘Friend?’ Noah asks.
‘Nobody’.
24
A few nights later, Val and I watch Frances Ha in bed on my laptop. The air is still thick with the smell of honey and garlic from dinner—baked kingfish with pomegranate sauce. The sauce takes half an hour to make and leaves my fingers stained crimson.
Greta Gerwig leaps through the streets of New York’s Chinatown. I relax into a joy-by-osmosis as the camera follows her twists and turns and pirouettes. Next to me, Val is sucking on her fingers, rubbing the red off her knuckles. I yearn for a friendship like the one between Frances and her best friend, Sophie.
Olivia and I saw the film together when it came out a few years ago. It had become a sort of emblem of our friendship. I always saw myself as Frances and her as my Sophie. But Olivia said she was Frances and I was Sophie because I was the more successful one.
In the film, Frances and Sophie are madly in love. Friend love. That’s what we’re made to believe. In the beginning, they’re best friends who also live together—‘like a lesbian couple that doesn’t have sex anymore,’ Frances said. I want that closeness, that intimacy, that acceptance.
I glance at Val. She looks bored. I try to hide my devastation.
In the second-last week of July, it rains without respite. I carry an umbrella around like a spare limb. An annoying, spare limb. The final concerts with the American conductor draw closer. Relief settles in.
The return of our chief conductor marks the month of his seventieth birthday. Bryce announces a special birthday concert. They bring me on for a small ensemble because they want a high-profile musician to lead and Banks, who is a friend of the conductor, has nominated me. The program has been selected by the conductor himself—works by Brahms, Mozart and Haydn. At the first rehearsal, I propose we add Schubert’s ‘The Trout’, the conductor had always said it was his favourite piece of chamber music. Bryce is reluctant but I stand my ground. To my surprise, the rest of the ensemble support my suggestion.
After our first rehearsal, I bump into Banks in the green room at the Opera House.
‘You should think about the exchange,’ he says.
‘I’m not sure.’
I remember the American conductor had mentioned it on the night of the White Cocktail, and then Olivia had raised it, but that was weeks ago and I hadn’t thought about it since. ‘When is it?’
‘It would run from November through to the beginning of March next year. All your travel and accommodation would be covered. There are only four spots being offered across the world. Four in total. It’s a big deal, Jena. You’ll need
to audition, but your chances are good.’
‘I just started with the SSO. Wouldn’t that look bad?’
‘It’s New York City. It’s the Philharmonic. Who knows? You might even be considered for a permanent position there.’
I press a palm to my cheek.
He leans forward and places a hand to his hip. ‘There is one thing I need you to know though …’
I look at him, steady gaze, waiting. ‘Christopher Jennings will be on the audition panel.’
Christopher Jennings. That name. My arrogance. My humiliation.
When I was fifteen, I debuted at Carnegie Hall with the New York Philharmonic. The concertmaster was a steely man from England, a visiting artist who Banks had known when they were both students at the Royal College of Music. During a break one rehearsal, he walked back onto stage where I was still practising. He stopped me with a friendly wave and told me casually that he could not play without an occasional rest.
‘That’s why you’re not a soloist.’
I remember the look he gave me; a blend of astonishment threaded with admiration and offence.
Banks heard all about it, of course. Jennings seemed like the least surprised person that evening when I didn’t finish the performance. It was like he’d known what I was about to do.
‘There’s no chance I’ll get in,’ I say.
‘That was eight years ago.’
‘You haven’t forgotten. Why would he?’
He shakes his head. ‘I’m only telling you so you aren’t caught by surprise. The audition is the first of September. I will help you.’
25
My mother is my motor. She was my motor. When I call to tell her about the exchange, she suggests I set a practice recital in preparation for the audition. It’s always good to perform your audition program to get a feel for the order of things. Like putting up a series of paintings in a new gallery and going for a walk around the space.
‘How about we raise money too?’ my mother suggests over the phone. ‘It’s Alzheimer’s Awareness Week next month—perfect timing.’ She assures me she’ll arrange everything. Venue, accompanist, promotion, catering. We’d need at least two rehearsals.
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I’ll need to run it past Banks. We’d have to invite him.’ It’s been years since my mother and Banks have seen each other. Neither asks about the other. And yet, the sensation I felt when I saw them backstage that night is still fresh. I think about the possibilities of reopening old wounds. ‘Would you be okay with that?’ I ask.
She tsks, as if I’ve offended her. ‘Don’t worry about me.’
In the lounge room, I set out two stools next to the stand: one for the rosin, tissue box, wrist band; the other for a water bottle, pencil, rubber. Metronome. I click it on and listen to its repetitive knock. I close my eyes and bring my violin to my neck. Without the shoulder rest, without the weight of clothes, I am free. I bring the bow to the G string and begin playing scales, ascending, descending. Weight and gravity. I think about the way my left wrist feels solid and tight like a compressed piece of aluminium, the single vein running from the start of my thumb to the bony part of the hand. It throbs as I move it from side to side, a braised pink groove circling my flesh like a friendship bracelet.
The other night, my wrists had been bound by a thin leather rope. Mark had run his nose down my body, slow breaths like the sea lapping on the shore. I feigned ecstasy, moaning and lifting my body off the bed.
I spend longer on the E string because the higher registers are harder to get in tune. I do it over and over, until my finger pads feel like they’re being sliced by a thin blade.
As my fingertips navigate the floss-thin string, my mind disappears into a cave and all I see is darkness and light, existing in one frame. When I hear the intonation crystallise underneath my fingers, I wonder how it came to be that I can no longer tell the difference between pain and pleasure. That I might never truly know the difference.
When I arrive at the church for our first rehearsal, Sandra, the accompanist, is already waiting near the entrance, a folder of sheet music clutched to her chest.
‘Sorry to make you wait.’ She shakes off my apology.
She’s a small woman with wiry black hair and rimless glasses, serious, mid-thirties with a competent, feminine face. She was a student of Dr Resling, and I have played with her a handful of times. She is quiet, reliable and astute, which is exactly what I need in an audition accompanist.
I open the front door to the church with the keys left under the doormat, instructions sent to me by the minister, an old friend of my mother’s.
I find the light switch behind the curtains. White light pours over the interior of the church. The industrial haze of organised religion.
Sandra shields her eyes with a hand.
I unpack my violin at the front pew, while Sandra takes her position at the piano, readjusting the height of the piano stool, bouncing a few times to test its stability. She wipes the low keys with her sleeves, taps across the black and white. It’s cold. Wine cellar cold. The chill of unventilated timber floors and high walls. It takes a while for my fingers to warm up.
We run through the program, a standard spread of Franck, Mozart and Brahms sonatas. Crowd-pleasers. I breathe in the spaces between phrases and melodic twists, and watch for Sandra’s changing expressions.
We lock eyes at simultaneous entrances. Her motion is fluid. Her eyes possess the steady focus of an aerial skier gauging the jump she is about to make. Soloist–accompanist relationships take years to build. A good combination is hard to manufacture. You have to trust each other completely. It’s not just the soloist who is performing; the pianist is also a musician, also onstage.
My mother walks into the church during the slow movement of the Mozart. She creeps forward slowly, taking a seat in the front pew next to my case. At one point, I see her reach for Monkey and pat him on the head, adjusting his body upright.
Banks enters a few minutes later and sits in the back row. There was a time when I wouldn’t think twice about how to perform around him. Long ago. He was my teacher. My confidant. My everything. All those years. We toured the world together. Now, after years of absence, he has re-entered my life. I have to remind myself how to be around him.
At the end of the second movement, my mother comes over to greet Sandra. ‘You’re playing well.’
Sandra smiles politely.
Banks remains seated at the back. ‘Well? Keep going,’ he says.
My mother sits back down, this time directly in front of me. Sandra and I continue onto the third and fourth movements without interruption. Neither has acknowledged the other.
Banks calls out from the back, ‘Go from the start!’
Sandra and I blink at each other and start from the beginning.
After the first phrase, Banks gets to his feet. ‘The tempo is wrong.’
I see my mother’s face change. She plays with the straps of her handbag.
Banks makes his way to the front of the church and stands next to the piano. He leans over to read the score on the stand. ‘Allegretto moderato. You’re taking it too slow.’
‘Oh?’ Sandra looks offended. ‘I’ve always played it this way.’
‘Try again, this time a bit faster.’
Sandra and I lock eyes. I swing the tip of my bow from side to side, indicating the new tempo. We burst through the opening phrases. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Banks nodding enthusiastically.
My mother walks to the back row, sits where Banks had been sitting before. By the time we reach the end of the movement, she’s made her way to the front again. Her face is sour, her fingers now clamped firmly around the handles of her handbag. ‘It’s much too fast,’ she says.
Sandra and I share a fleeting look of frustration. We turn back to Banks.
He is looking at my mother with a confused grin. ‘How so? I think it’s the perfect tempo.’
‘Well, if you sit at the back, you’ll hear a
jumbled mess of noise.’
Banks crosses his arms in front of his chest. ‘The acoustics in this hall will not be like those in the Opera House where Jena will have her audition.’ His tone is condescending.
My mother looks at him coldly. ‘I know that. But this is a performance.’
Sandra is the only neutral individual I can rest my gaze on. I look at her, pretend there’s only us.
I hear raised voices outside—a group of kids walking past, boys arguing about ball possession.
Banks rubs his temples with his thumbs, concealing his eyes behind his large hands.
When I was touring, they’d never once had a disagreement in front of me. Back then it was just me, my mother and Banks. The newspapers and anyone else who cared about child prodigies called us ‘the Three-headed Beast’.
We toured three weeks on, one week off. I had a tutor who accompanied us. Banks didn’t like her. He thought she got in the way of my musical development. He would often interrupt our lessons. I didn’t mind. To me, he knew best. I trusted him completely. It was only later that my mother told me that she and Banks had different views about my playing; that Banks would always win because he was the teacher.
‘Perhaps, if we just make sure nobody sits near the back?’ Sandra offers.
Banks and I look at each other.
‘The acoustics aren’t great in here,’ she continues. ‘The sound will reverberate more than usual anywhere you sit, really.’
I look down at my ballet flats; the bow on the left pair has disappeared.
‘Could we try it again in the speed we started with?’ I ask.
Sandra nods and plays a few bars at that speed. I look across to Banks, who is assuming a seat. We play the first few lines, and then I nod, stop playing. This time I don’t look at Banks.
Two days later, my mother sends me a picture of the recital ad. My face is serious, my hair clipped behind one ear, my forehead dominating. It’s a picture taken from my final year of touring. I look deceptively calm. Fifteen. My mother posts the event on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, all the platforms she is active on through her work on the boards of numerous charities. She does not call. I don’t call either.