M = chapter thirteen

The Piano Teacher

by
Kim West

chapter 13

So once again, there she was at the gate of his garden, her hand
resting upon the latch and her excitement barely confinable. The front
garden was trim and seemed back to its old self, with the addition of a
play slide on the lawn. People were swarming about the place admiring
flowerbeds and fresh paintwork. The door was bright blue now and the
window frames to match. Denise lifted the latch slowly. The old creak
had gone. She stepped inside Steph's garden. She felt that she was
growing smaller and smaller, as for some time she managed to mingle
with strangers unnoticed, just "Hmm"-ing and "Ah"-ing to affirm their
assertions over the work which Steph and Harry had undertaken to
renovate their uncle's house. A child donated her a paper plate with
cake upon it and returned with a glass of wine for her. Thus
assimilated into the throng and with the fortification of a dash of
alcohol, she grew a little bolder. She entered the house.

Shockingly, the hall had vanished and the front and back rooms had
merged before her eyes, as she found that she was jolted from the past
to the present arrangement of spaces in this once familiar place. She
dropped her plate, in astonishment, spilling the cake upon a vivid,
multi-coloured, swirling carpet. Quickly, she kicked the debris under
the hat-stand and placed the retrieved plate upon a low table, smiling
at the tiny toddling child who had observed her game.

"Shhh!" she hissed at him, as he burst into chuckles and waddled off to
hunt for her cake.
"Denise!" came the clarion call of her host.
"Denise, how lovely to see you. Have you been here long? Come and meet
my friends. Let me top up your drink. Have you had some cake? There's a
barbecue underway. We've been lucky with this late summer weather. Oh
look there's Harry. Wave to him. He'll come and meet you properly
later. How have you been? You look well. And your parents? It must be
six months since I saw you. How's the music? No need to ask, I suppose.
You musical types never stop do you? There's Aunt Dodi; I must
introduce you two. Drink?"
There were no gaps for answers. Several times she had opened her mouth
to interject, but closed it quickly, as Steph's barrage of hostess
chatter engulfed her. Denise reverted to her previously successful
currency of "Hmm"-ing and added some head nods in order to assure Steph
of her attention and interest.

Soon she was propelled across the room in haste towards a thin, frail
woman in her eighties, who was valiantly perched upon the side of the
family's garish sofa. Steph scooped her up from this perch and swooped
upon an upright chair momentarily vacated.
"Here you are Auntie," and Steph smiled lovingly.

"Now I must go and check the oven." The over-seeing hostess vanished in
a tornado and Denise settled to the quieter company of this elderly
relative. Unfortunately, Denise discovered that Aunt Dodi was actually
extremely difficult to communicate with. She was very hard of hearing
and seemed tired out by events already.

Denise asked her if she lived nearby and she said, "No" and smiled
sweetly at her. Denise asked her if she was Steph's aunt or Harry's
aunt and she said, "Yes" and smiled again. Actually, it was Aunt Dodi's
resort to sanity on such occasions, to switch off her hearing device.
She then found that she could watch the children play and not suffer
unduly. Denise fetched her a drink and wandered off, later observing
her earlier toddler accomplice handing Aunt Dodi a crumbling piece of
cake, which she accepted with good grace.

" I bet you two had a good chat about Edward," suddenly Steph was there
again at her side.

"Let's go outside and I'll introduce you to Harry." Once again she was
scooped up and found herself, hand-outstretched shaking the enormous
palm of Aran sweatered, ruggedly handsome Harry, who turned out to be a
dentist, not a lawyer.

"Denise it is so good of you to come. What do you think of the place?"
and suddenly silence fell. Startled at her first real chance to
converse, she swiftly stumbled through congratulations on what she
termed the "imagination" of the job. In a magazine she had read at the
surgery, it had stated that what was required in house refurbishments
was "imagination" and "vision". She found that using these terms and
drawing on deep draughts from her glass of wine gave her the ability to
convince this man that Edward would have loved his house conversion. It
was just as she had entered into a fresh conversation on the subject
with Harry's brother Frank, that she caught the view over his shoulder
and her words ran dry. The willow tree was gone. Not a stump remained.
Also the poplars and the walnut. She gasped. The transformation of
Edward's home was one thing, but his garden quite another. Frank took
her arm as she gasped.

"Feeling poorly Denise? Let's get you a seat." and he led her to an
orange deck chair, which swamped her gracelessly.

She managed a feeble, "Thank you".

Fortunately, her field of vision was now of the back of the house, the
tree morgue to her rear. Frank gallantly sat by her on the damp lawn.
Her skirt gaped open, but the incline of the deck chair made it hard
for her to grab the edge and tuck it in.

"Now he thinks that I'm a brazen hussy as well as a drunk," she
conjectured. Her feelings were tangled in a blur of headiness from the
alcohol.

Actually Frank didn't think these thoughts, because was watching his
big cousin and his hostess wife and precious children in secret
anguish. He nursed his own tangle, feeling that his sister in law's
inheritance had set him apart from his brother.

Just then, an elderly couple came round the corner. Denise did not for
some time register them as familiar. The man wore a smart lightweight
suit with a country and western string tie for fun. His hair lay flat
and his beard had been trimmed. His wife floated at his side in a
billowing mustard number. In sudden recognition, Denise sat up with a
jolt.

"It's Elsie and Ronnie!!" she wailed and jumped clear of the deck chair
as Elsie caught her eye.

"Coo-ee" came the cry, as Denise grabbed Frank's arm and dragged him
into the kitchen.
"Hey" he cleared his throat.

"What's up pussy cat?"

She cringed.

"Well nothing really Frank, I'm just going to powder my nose," and she
slipped upstairs unnoticed.

Denise was shaking. How could people change so much? Those next door
neighbours were almost unrecognisably different. Elsie, out of an apron
and slippers and into that tasteless mustard number, was not quite so
startling as was the sheer ordinariness of her previously tramp-like
husband. What had happened? She could not imagine talking to them to
find out, though. That dreadful woman had been so invasive of Edward's
privacy.

Denise had never been in the upstairs rooms of her dear Edward's house.
As she now ascended the stairs, voices from downstairs became
pleasantly muffled. She leaned against a cool wall waiting for someone
to come out of the toilet. Downstairs the stereo suddenly started up
with country and western music and someone whooped. The toilet flushed
and Denise moved down the corridor as the door handle twitched. She
found that she was staring at the brass door handle and gradually then
a conviction grew in her that it would be Edward who came out. She held
her breath. Downstairs people were laughing and clapping. The mood had
changed considerably, perhaps, she felt, because she was not there. The
door swung open and Edward came out shaking his hands still. He smiled
at her

"Must fix that towel rail again," he said over his shoulder as he
turned and descended the stairs.

Denise rushed in and bolted the door. The toilet was still flushing.
She hadn't imagined it. It was him. After a long sojourn in the
bathroom to grasp hold of her sanity, she descended.

Her stay at the party then consisted of dodging the attentions of
Frank, now very tipsy, and the possibility of bumping into Elsie. It
was an aged uncle who had turned out to be the life and soul of the
party. He had the children line dancing, as his wife watched amazed.
She had no idea of this secret hobby of his. No idea at all. Whilst he
had not been to a party for forty years, and was set to make the best
of it in case it was forty years till the next one.

Thereon, Denise lurked in the darkening back garden, taking on the role
of server at the barbecue. This gave her the excuse to cut short all
manner of dull conversations as she would be needed back at barbecue
headquarters. Steph would pass her and bombard her with gushing praise
for her help, but all she could think about was that visitation from
Edward. He was here. She slipped easily into an acceptance of this. It
felt like a warm coat. She could no longer see him, but he was here.
All the time that she had spent transforming from Plain Jane had been
for him. Now she knew that he could be proud of her. She had even been
sought after by another man. A very novel experience for her. Maybe
Edward had been jealous and that's why he had showed himself.

As it grew darker outside and the barbecue fizzled in a light drizzle,
Denise half closed her eyes and reinvented his trees and his music
room. Later, Steph introduced her to several of her relatives who had
come down from Lincolnshire for the weekend. They sat around drinking
tea in the kitchen and talked about Steph's childhood, all immensely
proud of her and her family. Nobody had mentioned Edward, until Steph
introduced her as his piano pupil.

"You poor dear thing," someone chanted and echoes rippled around the
room. It was unnerving to suddenly find that she was the centre of
focus for twelve pairs of eyes.

"Why poor?" she blurted loudly, swaying slightly. "He was a wonderful
teacher and true companion. I miss him very much. I knew him for
thirteen years. He was a remarkable pianist and teacher. He was a great
man." Where this declaration had come from God only knew. She had not
intended to share any of this at all. Now there was a very
uncomfortable silence amongst this kitchen committee. Someone coughed.
It had turned into a wake.

"Hmm. Yes he certainly could play."

"Fancy giving it all up."

"Not as if it was his fault."

"That woman."

"The poor child."

Fragments burst forth and then vanished into conversational dust, with
the surfacing of that helpful, "better sweep it under the carpet again"
attitude, but another wave burst.

"Shocking," was the consensus.

"All those hours of practice," muttered a big woman with a nasal
twang.

"Just giving it all up because of the child," ventured Aunt Dodi, now
apparently tuned in and fully alert.

"Poor child," added the big woman, staring out of the window at her
overgrown son who was drinking too much.

"Enough to drive you insane," conjectured Aunt Dodi, hearing aid now
fully adjusted.
The only man in the room, a tall thin ill-looking character wearing a
scruffy cravat and leaning against the wall, helped them at this point
with his assertion that; "She was insane."

"Serve her bloody right," ventured a middle-aged woman in a blue velvet
trouser suit, who sat by the sink nibbling at her fingernails.

"Hush now, you hardly knew him. None of us had seen him for years,"
responded a little woman in the corner.

"Not for want of trying," snapped the big woman.

"Oh come on you can't tell me that any of us tried that hard. Otherwise
he might have had someone to talk to," said the little woman in the
corner.

At this, all eyes settled upon Denise. Wanting to vanish, she shifted
from one foot to another and then back again.

"Did he talk to you?"

"Yes."

"Did he tell you things?"

"Yes."

The featureless accusing mass sighed, as with a timely breath of night
air her father entered the back door like a knight on a white charger.
It was nine o'clock.

"I'm sorry, I couldn't make anyone hear at the front. Are you ready
Denise?"

"Yes Dad I am."

And they were gone.

No "goodbyes" to the host. Just quickly popped out of the back and
round to the front. From the road father and daughter stopped to catch
a last look at the house, ablaze with lights and the merry sounds of
line dancing, whilst the sombre kitchen crew continued their vigil of
gloom for things that they had left undone.

There were too many things to think about. Her mind was invaded by
these busy, unwanted memories. To select which threads she would hold
onto and in some way treasure, she lay awake till the early hours with
eyes wide open. Just before dawn, Edward entered her room and very
quietly slipped under the sheets beside her.

"Now sleep my dear girl. Just sleep. I will always be here."

She nestled down into his arms and slipped away into a new
peacefulness.