J = Chapter nine

The Piano Teacher

by Kim West

Chapter 9

On the day of Eartha Dublaine's arrival in Edward's household, she had
led Denise through to the kitchen, calling to Edward from the back
door,
"Your pupil is here."

Blocking the door with her bulk, she defied Denise to pass and walk out
into the garden, where she would previously have roamed with him. Just
to make her new status in the household absolutely clear, Eartha closed
the back door and stood by it, holding the handle, until Edward
came.

"Oh hello Denise, my dear. I won't keep you a minute." Edward called
through the glass, wrestling a little to release the door handle from
his dominating new housekeeper's grip. He tugged at his boots. The
Dublaine woman then moved sourly away, watching, as if on guard.

"Thank you Mrs. Dublaine," Edward managed, as he walked in. He grabbed
Denise's hand and squeezed it as they escaped into the front
room.

That night full of anxiety, Denise had confided in her diary:

"A terrible thing has happened. A woman has come to live in his house.
He says that she is his housekeeper, but he never mentioned that he
needed a housekeeper to me before that day. She answered the door and
asked who I was and what my business would be. I tried to brush past
her, but she caught my arm. She nipped me. She is vile. Who in hell is
she? Why didn't Edward ask me to find someone? I could have suggested a
number of more suitable women from the village to clean and do for him.
I could have done something myself. Now she is here and he is very,
very quiet with me. Only when we are safely ensconced in the front room
will he tell me about her. Apparently she is a woman he used to know,
who has fallen on hard times. He owes her a favour and she is too
humble to just accept it. So, she has offered to be his housekeeper.
She doesn't strike me in the least bit humble, I must say. I can't
believe this. Our sanctity is defiled. She has taken over. I can tell
that Edward is very distressed over this, so I moderate my tone and beg
him to play me something special, but today he refuses and I am to play
for him.

I have been learning the Faure "Minuet". It is a piece that I adore,
but beyond the first page, it really eludes me. Many of the pieces that
I am learning do that to me. It seems that I cannot hold a thread
beyond the exposition. I suppose he admires me for trying. I even tried
the "Waldstein" one day, but as soon as I turned the page, I knew I was
stranded, because no matter how many hours I gruelled through that
second page, my wrists would not sustain the pounding and my talent
would run dry."

"Since she arrived, he rarely plays for me, except to illustrate a
point now and then. Still there is magic in the air, but only when the
door is closed upon her. He often takes my hand these days and we stand
together by the piano. There is a great weight upon him. I know this
now. I can feel it in the way he moves about the room. He is slower yet
more restless. As I am playing, he will be prowling around the room and
muttering.

"Think now Denise. Think about the phrasing. Bond those chords to one
another. Use your fingers and not the pedal."

I play for him with all my heart. I search myself for more and I know
that I must keep going.

"Here are the things I dislike about Eartha Dublaine:-
1.) She is, in my opinion, an ugly woman.

2.) She scrapes her thinning hair into a tight pleat at the back, with
a large metal clip to hold it in place.

3.) She only appears to have two outfits, based around a worn tweedy
skirt and a pair of nylon brown slacks.

4.) She is tall and hefty, and moves about without grace.

5.) She speaks very little and seems to have no awareness of my
personal space, which I find particularly noticeable when she hustles
me through Edward's hallway. Then she will stand too close to me in the
kitchen, as though she were my representative.

So now, we are much quieter than we have been used to. We tiptoe past
her, smiling and nodding, as though she was a sentry. She has destroyed
everything. I wish her all manner of horrid ailments and a much shorter
stay in this house than she has imagined."

Thus, effective in her intervention in his love affair, Eartha Dublaine
now seized the long awaited opportunity to slay her child's killer,
when Denise at length went away on the three week annual family
holiday.

Tortured at times by her own wickedness, Eartha nevertheless remained
relentless in her cause.

"If I could stop this now I would pack my bags and flee. If I could
leave the past alone I would let him be. But I can't. My little angel
lies in her precious plot while he walks the world.

If he would just break and crumble, I could call pity to his aid. But
he won't. His defiance spurs me on. His body lies bent and twisted here
at my feet, but his eyes still gleam at me like the eyes of a suffering
animal. He is fading away now. He can't live much longer. A few more
days and my little angel will be avenged. How I hate you Edward
Stenton. How I curse you for taking my angel's little life and snapping
its thread.
I suppose that you could never imagine this kind of rage in a mother
could you? Until now. Now when you're here at my feet with your life
draining. Now you can feel it. My revenge. Your careless moment is what
I have called you to count for. Compare your life, fulfilled and
successful, to my life. My life was wrung from me as I watched my child
die. You old fool. Now you are reduced to a stinking heap, so stay
there and disintegrate will you."

And with that grating resonance of unforgiveness, the physical presence
of Edward Stenton left this world, at the hands of his surly
housekeeper. Those last words sealed his exit and he mercifully flapped
through to the other side.

Once the influenza really took hold, she starved him. His grasp of
reality blurred, as his temperature soared. This gave her vengefulness
its chance. Now at her mercy he would not recover, of that she was
determined. Not one drink to relieve his stinking dehydrated body and
no sustenance to strengthen him in his enfeeblement. When the fever was
at its climax, he suddenly leapt out of bed and ran out of the
room.

Confused and bewildered he seemed to be trying to escape her and stood
teetering at the head of the stairs. Just one little push on the centre
of his back and he was cracking and tumbling to his resting place,
where he lay untended for 5 days as life ebbed from him.

It was there that Ronnie had found him, when Eartha Dublaine finally
called for help.

"Quick Ronnie, he must have fallen down the stairs. I've been away for
a fortnight and this is what I return to."

Ronnie stared in disbelief at the emaciated remains of that man he had
quietly admired so very, very much. How could this have happened? He
bent and, with tender care, picked up Edward Stenton in his arms,
feeling the hollow bird likeness of him. The foul odour of death
sickened him and he instructed Eartha to open all the windows and call
the doctor. He nursed his burden and lay him out on the sofa.

"Fetch me a sheet!" he demanded, arranging this once most dignified of
men as tenderly as though it were his own father. Closing his eyes
forever and covering him with a fresh white sheet, he turned to find
Eartha Dublaine was quietly making tea.

"Let's sit in the garden. The stink in here is too much for me," she
said, handing Ronnie an exquisite bone china cup and saucer, which he
could not grasp safely through the shaking and trembling which had
taken hold of him.

Tutting, she placed their cups on a tray and marched out into the
garden. Nothing more was said as they sat and awaited the doctor's
arrival. Everything proceeded with due reverence once the doctor
arrived. The cause of death was the combination of starvation and
internal injuries from his fall. The inquest in itself backed this up.
The terrible fall was due to his weakness, which had been caused by
dehydration and influenza.

No suggestion of foul play was even hinted at, as Eartha Dublaine,
although secretly living on in the house in Gollum-like quietness, to
guard her dying prey, had claimed to have been away. An isolated life
came to a bitter end.

However, the meticulously swift dispatch of arrangements for Edward's
funeral began to raise some suspicion and you know what suspicion is
like. Taking absolute control, Eartha dispatched his funeral, hot on
the heels of his inquest, too quickly for a distanced family to
participate. Eartha Dublaine took Edward's house for her own. She
locked herself in and when family did arrive to demand an explanation,
the police were soon called.

Bank accounts were checked. Then someone remembered seeing her locally
during that fateful fortnight. Eartha was quite unmoved throughout. Her
feeling of honour for what she had done uncoiled itself like a huge
cobra whose fangs extended to the village. The murder was something
that this village did not want to believe in. Not really an item of
gossip this, but more an item of communal nightmare for a stricken
community, as the cobra's head peered around corners and down
chimneys.

Soon, Eartha Dublaine was arrested without a struggle at the front door
of Edward Stenton's house. She freely explained in morbid detail to a
nauseated police officer the descent of Edward Stenton. As a stone
woman she passed through her trial unrepresented and undefended. The
morning came when judgement had been passed and sentence pronounced.
Eartha Dublaine was led away to a forensic security wing, where she
strangely felt at last some peace in a regime of the narrowest confines
and substantial medication.
The village sighed a little as the cobra stretched and slid away over
the horizon.

By this time every detail had been sifted.
As communities do, this horror was banished and laid to rest by common
consensus, but it would be months before many people could sleep in
peace.

The doctor's surgery was inundated by anxious folk seeking the nurture
of a placebo.