My mother is standing by the grand piano. “I’d like to welcome all of you.” She speaks differently on these evenings, more affectedly.
I can see the broad, blond head of my brother Dudley on the other side of the room, and I move towards him, as inconspicuously as possible.
“I can wait.” My mother lifts an eyebrow. People are laughing. Dudley shifts along to make room for me.
Paul is sitting almost behind me. I become aware of how my back looks in this rose-coloured gown, chosen for me by Mother: too womanly, too close-fitting. My mother announces his name first and then mine, as if we belong together, as if our names follow each other’s by force of logic.
Newman, my father, starts with the second poem from his book Footsteps of Proserpine. It’s all about love and Blackbirds. Many of the poems in this collection were written for Mother. I suppress a yawn and move my fingers a little to warm them up. Ta-dada-da-dadada. He recites two more poems from his first collection, then declaims a long one about a city, which time has so much altered, and then another about the Trojan War, from his Greek cycle. His poems, without exception, are far too long and contain too many adjectives. Before Papa became a poet he was an accountant.
Kingsley, my oldest brother, rushes in panting and drops down so hard onto a chair in the back row that everyone turns around. He is still wearing flannels and I can smell him even from where I am seated. When I look at him, he pulls a funny face.
My father’s voice goes up a tone. He lets one more pause fall, then ends on a note of triumph. Paul walks to the front during the applause and I look at his feet, then briefly at his face, with the sun in it. My eyes fleetingly meet his. He is already speaking. I hardly hear what he says, but I know the words. And then it’s over.
My mother introduces me. I tune up. My fingers are tingling. And then I play: a question, an answer, a question.
When everyone has left, I come downstairs again. I go to where he stood, six feet away from where I was sitting, perhaps eight feet or so. I can see myself perched there, glancing sideways, turning my head. My cheeks are on fire again. Through the window I see my father pouring champagne into a glass. He gives it to my mother. The house is clearly breathing once again, through the open windows, while the last light of day dies away.
When I’d finished playing, Paul came to talk to me. He asked if I intended to take my musical ambitions further. I shrugged. “Possibly.”
“Then you must move to London.”
“I realise that.”
“I have acquaintances there. I could help you find lodgings.”
I nodded, thanked him, then said: “Sorry, but my mother wants to talk to me.” My mother! I’m almost eighteen.
“Of course.” He gave a nod and walked away. I took a deep breath, breathed in, breathed out. Outside the air smelled of grass and fire, of perfume. I thought he’d follow me, otherwise I’d still be speaking to him now. Expectations adhere to each other, forming even greater expectations. Something insignificant is added to the heap, and then something else, until it’s hard to see over the top, and then it’s difficult not to perceive yourself as hemmed in, and then it’s difficult to tell the difference between what is and what might be. Until he has gone, that is. Perhaps it will be weeks until I see him again. I should have said something smart or witty. The sun inside my breast departs, leaving a question mark in its place, an imprint of yearning. I could simply have talked to him a while. He wouldn’t have said what he did without a reason, those things about lodgings and acquaintances and so on. And he recited his poem about the woman who is always searching.
My father beckons me. I go outside.
“You played beautifully, my darling.” He hiccups, puts his arm around me, draws me towards him. The wind brings the smell of the sea with it, not the salt.
My mother drains her glass in one swift draught.
I wriggle free. “I want to study at the College of Music.”
“Sweetheart, you’re much too young still.” My father smiles apologetically at me.
“And then you’d have to move to London,” my mother says. “My little girl. I’m not sure you could cope.” She touches my cheek, gives it a little pinch.
“Of course I’ll cope.”
She is silent. My father stares into the dark garden.
“Of course I’ll cope,” I repeat, more loudly. “I’m not a child any more.”
My father puts his hand on my shoulder. I shake it off. Inside the house my shoes leave earth behind them, and grass. I meet my sister on the staircase, holding a plate with a sandwich in her hand. “Weren’t they charming?” she says. “Paul’s poems, I mean.”
“I think I love him,” I say.
“You’re in love, and that’s a completely different matter.” She looks at me sternly. “You mustn’t confuse one feeling with another, you know.” According to her it would be better not to act on feelings at all.
I heave a deep sigh.
“Stop acting all romantic.” She follows me into my room, sits on the bed and starts eating. She hardly eats at all during dinner and then afterwards she’s always hungry. “You really did play beautifully though.”
“I want to be a violin player. To play every evening. To build a new life, in London or somewhere else. I want to earn my own living.” I must find out what’s involved in taking the entrance examination for the College of Music, when I can do it, what my standard has to be.
“You don’t need to earn a living, surely? We’re rich enough.”
“I want to lead my own life.”
“You can do that here too, can’t you?”
I shake my head.
She puts the plate with its half-eaten sandwich on my bedside table and says good night.
I walk to the window. My parents are outside still, sitting on the bench. There is a little table in front of them with two glasses, an ashtray and my father’s book of poems. I can’t hear the Blackbird any more. I shut the curtains and undress myself. When I take off my dress, I can smell myself in the fabric. Myself and this evening. The imprint of the waistband remains on my skin. I fetch my diary and sit down.
Charles visited the garden this morning and came again in the evening. After everyone had left, though, I didn’t see him any more. He has probably gone to his roosting place at the edge of the wood. The Blackbird I heard must have been Mike, who has been living in our garden this past week. For a number of years now I have kept a record of all the birds who visit our garden, and sometimes I write stories about them. Papa is the only one who thinks they’re any good. Last year I sent a few of them to a magazine, but they didn’t give me an answer. So it’s better for me to focus on music. But birds are important for composers too. Paul told me, not so long ago, that Mozart was inspired by his pet Starlings. Paul. I write his name down, then scribble it out again.
Longing is—
Understanding that you are fathomless.
Understanding that you are flux.
Understanding that you are water and that water cannot be grasped.
The light in the old school seems tangible. Dust lends substance to the sunbeams. My nose is itching.
“Just a few more moments,” Margie says, impatiently holding her hand up. “I’ve almost got you.”
I give my nose a scratch.
“Come on, Gwen. Lie still a moment, won’t you?”
I gaze at the tear in the wallpaper behind her. The school closed a few years back and the building is no longer in use. Three weeks ago Margaret found out that the back door, half overgrown with ivy, is not actually locked.
“We can go in,” she announced yesterday evening. “Otherwise they’d have made sure the door was properly closed.”