Читать книгу The Midnight Pianist - Julia Osborne - Страница 6

Three minutes to bell time.

Several girls crowded into the toilet block. Last cigarettes were puffed, stubbed and flushed. Voices echoed:

– Who took my comb?

– Move over ... give us some room!

– The bell’s gunna go ...

– Hurry up!

Sandra waited until the door banging water rushing noises ceased, tidying her long fair hair in slow motion. As the last girl hurried out, she leaned across the basin to the mirror, wet one finger and smoothly arched her eyebrows. She looked critically at her reflection, then breathed Hah on the cold glass surface. Her finger traced his name in looping letters ~ Nick ~ then she palmed it away and left the room to its silence.

The weatherboard school buildings bordered a quadrangle edged with shelter-sheds and a struggling garden where bits of rubbish, crumpled sweet bags and discarded drink bottles hid beneath fallen leaves and marigolds.

Sandra soft-shoed along the path as the bell finished ringing. Better hurry, she thought, swinging her case in time with her black lace-ups. Nick Nick Nicholas Nick. There was Emilia, always late, always arriving at exactly nine o’clock, looking rather like she’d dressed in a hurry.

‘Hey, Em, wait up.’

She caught up with her best friend and they joined the Second Year girls and boys going into English with Miss Pearce. Sandra and Emilia were last to be seated, finding desks closer to the front than they liked. Too much under the teacher’s eye. But Sandra didn’t mind English, and didn’t have to work very hard to be good at it. She often wove her fantasies into the lessons, especially free topic compositions. If she finished ahead of the others, she pretended to keep working as she doodled endless arabesques and treble clefs – filigrees of hearts and flowers that disguised her initials intertwined with Nick’s: SA~NM. It was her secret.

Teachers wrote on their reports: A conscientious, quiet student. Good Work. But sometimes they wrote: Concentration in class would achieve higher results. Or worse: Not achieving her potential. That dreadful word everyone used! Achieving, underachieving, like the story of the terrible bed that fitted all who lay on it. Those who were too tall had their feet cut off; those who were too short were stretched on the rack.

But Maths was another story. You couldn’t dream in Maths! Last week, for instance ...

‘Sandra Abbott!’ The Maths teacher had suddenly pinned her down with his beady stare. He wasn’t called ‘Crow’ for nothing. ‘What’s the cubed root of eight?’

‘Two?’ Sandra blurted, hiding her drawing under the desk and hoping she’d heard his question correctly.

‘Right. Pay more attention, girl, you were lucky this time.’

Miss Pearce rustled her papers on the desk. Young and pretty, she was a target for smart remarks from some of the boys so that she tried to keep a stern expression. A hard worker, she expected the same from her students.

‘This week we’ve studied the poetry of Banjo Paterson and Henry Lawson. We’ve read The Man from Snowy River and concentrated on the first five verses of Faces in the Street. We’ve discussed the differences in structure and content and we’ve found quotes to support those opinions. Now ...’ she looked around the room at the faces turned towards her, the lack of attention here and there. ‘I want you to write an essay based on those poems, describe the differences between country and city life and which you prefer. Those of you who haven’t been to a big city will have to make do with what you know from books and television. Use your imagination.’

Her gaze rested on Emilia, glossy black curls bent over her page. She knew the Ferrari family had migrated from Italy after the War, and ran a grocery shop. Enterprising people, the Italians ... all those vegetables in their back garden. She made a mental note to call at the shop on her way home for some of those funny new zucchinis.

Miss Pearce’s attention switched to Emilia’s slender companion. ‘This should suit you, Sandy,’ she smiled. ‘You’ll be able to stretch that mind of yours for this one, but remember, don’t drift away from the topic.’

Students idly leaned back on their chairs, or sat with shoulders hunched as they wrote. Emilia was already busy scribbling. Miss Pearce wandered about the room, heels tick-ticking on the vinyl floor. ‘Base your work on the way we’ve discussed the poems,’ she advised. ‘Use the verses as a trigger.’

City or country: which was better? Sandra enjoyed the family’s occasional visits to Sydney on school holidays. It was a long drive from their home in Curradeen but in-between dreamily watching the countryside slide by, she played ‘I spy’ or the number plate game with her younger sister Prue. They’d stay in Bronte with her father’s unmarried sister, Aunt Meredith, and go by tram into town to shop, her mother dressed up in a new suit, hat and gloves. On their last visit, Sandra wore her red patent flatties and matching clutch purse and felt very smart.

She tapped a pencil against her teeth, and pondered how to begin the essay. She loved the atmosphere of the city centre, trams noisily bustling up and down to Circular Quay; the mirror and shine of David Jones department store: gilded lights and marble floors, the surprise of a pianist dressed in tuxedo playing melodic tunes on a gleaming grand piano; hushed fitting rooms where they tried on new winter topcoats, women in black dresses gliding about, arms full of garments.

Aunt Meredith took them to Rowe Street, the narrow lane lined with coffee lounges, studios for artists and decorators, and fashionable shops like Henriette Lamotte where the milliner displayed elegant and expensive hats from Paris. In the Strand Arcade, with its fancy balconies and glass roof, they pressed their noses to shop windows that glistened with trays of antique jewellery, babushkas, chocolates, sugared almonds, nuts and sweets of every description; a second-hand bookshop with shelves to the ceiling: Sandra breathed the smell of the old leather-bound books, weighed them in her hand, their fragile pages edged with gilt – inside the cover of one, inscribed in purple ink: To Hilda May from your dear friend, Mrs Watts, 1898 – that was almost as old as the arcade!

Or Paddy’s Market in Chinatown, people crowded around stalls of everything you could think of: Chinese silken dresses, duffle coats, felt hats, straw hats, every kind of bag and baggage; buckets of flowers, bins of vegetables, chooks and ducks and fluffy yellow chickens, finches twittering in little cages. Even glass tanks of goldfish. And so many cinemas and coffee shops ... better than Saturday afternoons in Curradeen with only a milk bar and the roller skating rink open, or a matinee at the one and only cinema.

As Sandra watched the masses edge towards the exits in the stuffy underground stations, she wondered what it would be like to live in the city. She knew one day she’d need to go there to study. Cars hurried along the streets, zoomed around corners. Sometimes a screech of brakes, a horn blast or a voice yelling Look where ya goin’ ya mug! Then the brightness tarnished, the grit in your eyes on a windy day was horrid. And the faces ... so many people enclosed in their own little world, marching up and down the pavement – like in Henry Lawson’s poem, except all his people were unemployed and miserable.

So for a while yet the country town was Sandra’s choice as the best place to live: crisp, clean air on sunny mornings with frost shining on the grass and picnics by the river – easy to get around with nothing very far from anything else. In five minutes you could be at your best friend’s house, the milk bar, or the roller-skating rink. Or you could cycle far out of town to where the tar met the dirt road, going as fast or as slow as you liked and wherever you liked, free as a bird.

– Don’t be home too late!

Yes, it was better to grow up in the bush. Ponies’ hooves shot flints as they picked their way along the mountain trails, the wind tossing manes and tails. They were chasing a mob of wild bush horses, the bay filly beneath her flying across the ground, hardly touching, wings on her hooves. Nick smiled beside her, cheeks flushed, brown hair blown back from his face, hands firm on the reins, knees gripping, leaning forward into a gallop as they came to the steepest drops. The other riders fell back, leaving Nick the only one, the bravest one, shirt flapping as he disappeared into the distance.

Shaking aside the dream, Sandra modified the action a bit, and finished her essay. English drifted into Maths, a double period that kept the class busy, heads down for the full eighty minutes. Geography. Science. It was a relief when lunchtime came. Students queued for pies and cream buns at the tuck shop or competed for seats, the seniors spread about in little groups on the grass. Sandra and Emilia grabbed a bench by the horticulture shed where they ate their sandwiches and chatted by themselves.

‘Sandy, who do you like? Who is it?’ Emilia pestered. ‘I know there’s someone. Is it Geoffrey in our class? Or one of the Third Year boys?’

‘Maybe,’ Sandra grinned, going along with the regular lunchtime conversation. Then as her friend was about to exclaim triumphantly, she said: ‘No! Get off my back, Emmy. Why do I have to like anyone special? Just ’cause you’re mad about Tony.’ She was determined to keep her secret even from her best friend. She knew if Emilia found out, other girls would find out too. Poor old Emmy couldn’t keep a secret and her feelings would become public with all the usual teasing. School was like that. Everyone poked their nose into your business. If you were away one day they wanted to know why. If you said you went out, they wanted to know where. With a boy? Did you kiss him? Did you let him ... you know? But Sandra had never been out with a boy. Oh, it was awful how they busy-bodied and gossiped. Better to keep quiet, better no one knew, though she hoped, how she hoped that one day Nick would look at her and see she wasn’t just a little schoolgirl.

They strolled around the school, lingering to watch the ball games on the quadrangle where some of the older boys were keeping the ball from the juniors. Tony was there, holding the tennis ball up high, away from grabbing hands as he laughed down at them. Sandra thought it unlikely that the tall boy in Third Year had even noticed plump little Emmy.

‘Oh, isn’t he gorgeous?’ Emilia hugged herself and spun on her heel in a circle.

Sandra nudged her, ‘Stop it. You’re embarrassing.’

‘I can’t help it, he’s so cute.’ She grabbed Sandra’s arm. ‘Look. There’s Lofty and he’s coming this way.’

‘Googly eyes,’ Sandra muttered. ‘Hide in the library, quick.’

It was too late. Lofty blocked the path, hands in pockets and a big grin. His round spectacles glinted.

‘G’day.’ He hurried beside the girls, juvenile and knobby-kneed in his school shorts. ‘Where y’ going?’

‘This way!’ Sandra suddenly wheeled left through the library doors, almost knocking Emilia off-balance.

Lofty gave a cheeky wave and the girls stuck out their tongues. They peered after him from behind the shelves.

‘That was silly,’ Sandra said,

‘So? He’s silly.’

‘But poking out tongues like babies.’

‘He’s a creep. All the boys in our class are creeps.’

‘I s’pose they can’t help it. Remember when Lofty had to read that Mark Antony speech, Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears, and his voice went all squeaky and everyone laughed?’

‘I remember, and you laughed too,’ Emilia said, then added, ‘Everyone knows he likes you.’

‘I don’t care, I don’t want a boyfriend. I want to be me and do what I like.’

‘I’d love it. Having a boyfriend, I mean. I wish Tony would ask me to go with him.’

‘Big deal. You want to stand around holding hands with nothing to do and nowhere to go.’

‘There’s the pictures. And school socials,’ Emilia protested.

‘Three times a year? No thanks. Look at Cathy and her boyfriend. What do they do, besides pash behind the tuck shop, showing off.’ She sounded fierce and Emilia was surprised.

‘Anyone would think you were jealous,’ she giggled as Sandra’s face reddened. ‘You don’t have to take it so serious. It’s not the end of our beautiful friendship.’

‘Oh, shut up.’ Sandra retorted, but she laughed too and they turned their backs on Lofty who was still leaning outside.

Sandra cycled home from school, suitcase rattling on the bike rack over the rear wheel. She waved to Emilia who only had to walk around the corner to her house.

‘See you Monday,’ she called.

‘See you.’

‘Don’t forget the Geography test.’

Schoolkids scattered on bicycles, meandered home carrying suitcases, or ambled lopsidedly with a vinyl bag slung from one shoulder. Several buses waited to take students home, some travelling up to an hour or more on rough and dusty roads.

Sandra liked living in the residence at the Bank where her father was the manager. She’d felt so special as a little girl coming home from primary school, pushing open the big wooden side gate, wheeling her bicycle down the path with its shady garden to the kitchen door. Built in 1860 during the gold rush days, it was a fine two-storey building with thick walls, arched windows and a tiled balcony. You had a good view of the street from there, and once she and Emilia had folded paper water bombs, dropping them splat! on school kids as they walked beneath. Her father made her peel all the damp paper off the pavement and Emilia wasn’t allowed to visit for a week. ‘That girl’s a bad influence,’ said Don Abbott.

Memory of an earlier home was hazy; it was as if she’d always lived in Curradeen. It was nice to feel part of the small town bustle and get home early from school. It gave her time to sit for a bit, before piano practice.

The best times were when neither of her parents was home – Angela busy with one of her charities and Don in the office. Then she and Prue did what they liked after school, enjoying the emptiness of the big rooms, drawing fashion pictures or sprawled to watch television. If the reception was no good, with ghostly images on the bulbous screen or continual ‘snow’, they read comics and played with the cat, pleased not to have questions about school:

– Did you have a good day?

– Yes.

– What did you do?

– The usual.

– Have you got homework?

– A bit.

– Well, don’t leave it too late.

– No, Mum.

Today, afternoon tea was on the kitchen table. Don had come out of the office for his usual break when the Bank closed its doors to customers, and sat with his pipe and cup of tea, absentmindedly stroking Ginger, as the cat rubbed against his chair.

Prue was already home from primary school; she had finished her glass of milk and was eating cake. Two years younger but already as tall as Sandra, with fluffy brown curls pinned behind her ears.

‘Hello, Sandy,’ both parents greeted her and her father said, ‘How was school?’

‘Fine.’ Sandra flopped onto a chair. ‘I did an English essay, a double period of Maths and we’ve got a Geography test on Monday.’ That beat him to it. Parents could be so predictable.

As Prue reached for more cake she complained under her breath to Sandra, ‘They didn’t ask me. Why are you so special?’ Then she added hopefully, ‘I suppose you’re too busy to play with me this weekend?’

‘Yes, I’m busy.’ Sandra spoke without thinking. She had nothing planned; Emilia’s relatives were visiting from Italy and she had to stay home and help. There wasn’t a single thing in sight for the whole weekend except homework. ‘Wipe your mouth,’ she said, ‘you’ve got a milky moustache.’

Prue screwed up her nose. ‘You always say you’re busy, but all you do is play the silly piano.’

Don glared at them both, ‘That’s enough, you two. Don’t start anything.’ He disliked the way both girls picked things up from their classmates, unconsciously copying words and gestures. And usually the worst behaviour, too. Well, what could you expect from the run-of-the-mill children going to that school? He was firm and quiet, with not a lot to say to his family. Most evenings he sat with his spectacles on the end of his nose, absorbed in the newspaper or a book; except on Monday nights when they all watched Pick-a-Box. Sometimes he withdrew to the office with his pipe and tobacco, saying there was business to catch up on. Sandra secretly thought that he read books in there too.

Ginger stood on his hind legs, stretching up to the table. ‘Go down, Ginge,’ Don admonished, easing the claws from the cloth. He ran his hand down the cat’s spine so that it arched and purred, then picking ginger hairs from his trousers he vanished back to work.

Angela cleared the tea things onto the sink. Prue ran upstairs to change out of her uniform.

Sitting alone at the table, Sandra turned the pages of her brand new glossy Vogue Australia. Carefully groomed models stalked across the pages. There were so many advertisements for cosmetics, the right thing to wear, what was a girl supposed to look like? Herself, or some trendy cut-out from a glossy page? It all made you more aware of your deficiencies. What was the Ideal supposed to be? Sandra wondered. Both her parents were tall, why couldn’t she grow a bit faster; it was embarrassing when your little sister was as tall as you. She felt so short and skinny beside the other girls. And she wished that her eyes were blue. Whoever heard of brown eyes with blonde hair? It was distinctly odd. She should have big blue eyes with long, thick lashes. Disheartened, she decided not to buy the magazine again – it was too expensive anyway, and she’d rather save her few shillings pocket money.

‘Sandy, don’t leave your practice too late today. You’ve been running into dinner and not finishing some of those pieces.’

Sandra mimicked her mother under her breath, dropped the magazine back into her school case. Then she seated herself at the keyboard of the big Beale piano in the lounge room, running her fingers through the scales. As if she needed to be told. Why couldn’t her mother wait and see when she was going to practise? She’d never forgotten, even once.

When Sandra was nine, Angela had bought tickets to see a famous pianist. It was such a lovely fuss going to Sydney and dressing up for the concert in the Town Hall. They were all so excited and after that wonderful night of Mozart and Chopin, she’d begged to learn the piano. She wanted the same marvellous music to flow from her own fingers. Now she was getting somewhere, flying through exams, forging into sixth grade studies, delighting her piano teacher to have such an exceptionally talented student.

The best times were after her studies were completed. The hard work done she could go dancing up and down the keys with her own compositions, making them up as she played, remembering them perfectly. If her mother was occupied, she slipped them among the set pieces, drifting into her fantasy land with Nick standing beside her to turn the pages.

She smiled up at him, saw how much he cared for her reflected in his eyes.

‘You play so beautifully, Sandra,’ he said softly in his deep voice. He never called her by the baby name that irritated her so much these days. His long fingers turned another page. ‘Now play our favourite song.’

Her hands glided over the keys in a meandering melody; she hummed some lyrics as she went along. ‘If you feel that way ... if you’re going my way ... C’n I come too? La la la-la-la ... La la la-la-la ...’

‘Oooh, that’s terrible,’ Prue moaned, hands over her ears as she ran down the hall. ‘La la la-la-laaaaa,’ she mocked, poking her head around the door. ‘That’s not a proper song. You made that up.’

‘Get lost, prune face,’ Sandra hissed.

Prue skipped away, chanting, ‘Crosspatch, draw the latch ...’ but Sandra drowned her taunt with a fortissimo crescendo of arpeggios.

She remained at the piano, nursing her romance, going through her study pieces again. The hours of scales, the repetition, could be tedious, but she wanted to keep learning, to strive for that magical day when the rainbow coloured ribbons of music sang from her own hands just like the songs she made up. She worked through the hardest piece that she’d chosen herself, repeated it again and again to her satisfaction: Debussy’s Clair de Lune. She loved his music; she loved her record with handsome French pianist Philippe Entremont playing La Cathédrale Engloutie, an enchanted cathedral rising from the waves only to sink again, bells ringing mysteriously, engulfed by the transparent sea. Then she finished her practice with a Clementi study and closed the lid.

Angela was delighted with her daughter’s ambition, to begin the long haul up the scale to the peak of her skills, but in wanting Sandra to achieve that, sometimes she lost sight of the shy and sensitive girl. The music overwhelmed her and the notes became everything, losing the growing child in their immensity – the great sounds of Mendelssohn and Beethoven hid Sandra’s complexity – the splendid chords camouflaged her youth, her vulnerable nature. Sandra with her bright fair head, intense gaze and busy fingers was the music personified. Angela never saw the fragile ego, the eyes that searched faces, flashing on Nicholas Morgan and touching a glow to her cheeks. She feared that other interests might take her daughter’s time; she was glad for her quiet and reserved manner. Schoolwork seemed the only rival for the precious hours. There was Emilia Ferrari, but she could be discouraged with a word if she started spending too much time with Sandra; fortunately, she often had to work in her family’s grocery shop.

Sandra had already sat the fifth grade theory exam, passing with honours. The practical examinations would be held at the end of July. Tucked in her bed that night, she planned her weekend with Nick. Of course, when she saw him tomorrow on his regular visit to town, she’d say hello and so would he ... then she would invite him to lunch. She saw his delighted smile.

‘Sure, why not? I really miss seeing you at school, Sandra.’

He took her hand and they sat with milkshakes in the Silver Moon Café, talking of school friends and Nick’s other true loves, football and athletics. And Sandra described her passion for music, the pieces she composed, the songs she named for him so that he understood how she felt.

She slept with the melody weaving into her thoughts, her arms cuddled around the pillow – her Nick Nick Nicholas Nick – her deepest, most secret dream.

Sandra had first spotted Nick up front at assembly, when she was in First Year and he was in his Fifth and final year at school. It dawned on her suddenly, unexpectedly, that for several days she’d noticed him, liking the back of his neck with the brown wavy hair that curled on his collar rather than a regular short back and sides, and then his profile with straight nose and well defined chin as he turned to talk to the boy beside him.

‘Quiet please, Nicholas Morgan,’ came a reprimand from the teacher on the side lines.

Nicholas Morgan. Her mind flicked the names in various musical rhythms: Nick Nick Nicholas Nick. She liked it. Never Nicky, except maybe when he was little. Sandra couldn’t imagine that. Nick had always been this way: much taller than her, suntanned, his lean body muscular and fit from sport. He was especially handsome in his cadet uniform. Sandra smiled at her decision not to tell Emilia. Nobody would know. He didn’t have a girlfriend; his consuming interest was sport. When she managed to walk close to his group of friends at recess, she heard their talk of coming athletics, footy training, weekend sport. So he was hers to cherish secretly, only longing for his clear eyes to rest on her, longing for his smile.

Nick lived out of town on his parents’ property. It made Sandra happy to see him step off the school bus every morning, neat in white shirt and grey trousers. For months she watched him, hoping he’d notice her, checking him back on the bus in the afternoon. It was a wonder how Emilia didn’t catch on. Too busy searching for Tony. Every boy seemed cute to Emilia at first, until she eliminated him for one reason or another. Nicholas Morgan loved himself, according to her; that was why he didn’t have a girlfriend, although all the girls liked him. For a while there’d been a red-haired girl in Fourth Year who’d hung about. At school socials she’d leaned against him between dances, holding his hand. To Sandra and Emilia, the seniors may as well have been on the moon. And because the dream seemed so impossible, the stab of envy she felt looking at the red-haired girl was bearable. But only just. She was pleased when Nick chose his mates again for company. At the next school dance, the red-haired girl found someone else to lean on.

Emilia had other ideas. Surveying the group of boys clustered around the man spinning the records, she decided that Nick and the boys he was often laughing and playfully shoving about were all poofters. Sandra didn’t care. She felt different to the general mass of students who teased and gossiped and mucked about. Emilia was as bad as the rest sometimes, raving along until Sandra turned off. Idiots!

Then the final exams were over and Nick left school.

Sandra missed seeing him around the corridors and sports oval, and standing behind him in assembly lines. Now she only saw him on Saturday mornings when he drove into town. Her bedroom faced the Rural Bank on the opposite corner with a row of shops and the newsagent, giving her a perfect position to watch for his arrival.

On this particular Saturday she dressed carefully as usual, discarding, choosing her clothes to get exactly the right effect with slacks and twinset and a little white collar. She yearned to be taller, fatter. Combing the fair waves of hair that fell past her shoulders she wished it was long enough to sit on and as she passed Nick and his friends in the street, she would turn her head, swinging her mane like a beautiful curtain.

‘Who’s the sheila with the long hair?’ Sandra imagined him saying.

‘Don’t you know Sandra Abbott? She’s your type, Nick,’ a friend would reply.

The clear gaze turned to her again and a slow smile touched the corners of his mouth, lighting his eyes. He strolled over to where she stood. ‘So, you’re Sandra. How come we haven’t met before ... where have you been hiding?’ He held out his hands and she took the strong fingers in hers. Of course his fingers would be strong.

‘Hello, Nick. I’ve been here all the time,’ she answered.

Around ten o’clock as Sandra peeped through the curtains she saw the dusty green Holden utility appear, parking near the corner. She rushed downstairs taking two at a time, then putting her hands on wall and banister she swung over the last three stairs to land with a thump in the hall, drowning her mother’s loud sigh in the kitchen.

Her mad dash through the house and out into the street ended in her slowly walking into the busy newsagency, pretending to be occupied with her errand. Nick stood at the rack of magazines and she covertly watched him flipping the pages. Flip ... Flip ... Why doesn’t he look up? Her heart beat so hard she thought everyone could hear it and snatching up a Woman’s Weekly, she waited at the counter.

Coins cupped in his hand, Nick counted out the right money, newspaper tucked under his arm. They stood side by side, close enough to brush sleeves. Sandra ached to break the bind that kept her eyes down, kept her looking everywhere but his direction. What if she smiled and he didn’t smile back but stared right through her? Doesn’t everyone know the Abbotts who live at the Bank?

At the last moment Sandra forced herself to glance but Nick had already turned away. Jingling cash and keys in his pocket, he walked out the door. She watched until his green ute vanished around the corner. Next time, she promised herself. But she knew that next time it wouldn’t be any different, she would freeze exactly the same way. Slipping away from the counter, she replaced the magazine in the rack. Who wanted it, anyway? She could hear her mother’s voice say, ‘Just another magazine to waste your money on’, although she knew her mother liked the Weekly.

Disappointed, Sandra wandered the main street for a while. Several of the town’s motorbike gang were parked near the hotel. Sandra thought the boys in their leather jackets and big black motorbikes looked rather romantic in a dangerous way. Like James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause. They often parked outside the pub, smoking, talking, whistling at girls, and Sandra hurried past without a sneak peek. They revved their machines, spewing smoke across the footpath, yelled to one another, then took off in a spray of gravel and disapproving looks from passers by.

Saturday mornings filled the town like an overflow from Friday afternoon. Lots of people came in from outlying properties and every month there was an even bigger crowd when the local races were held. But apart from that, and unless you played sport, there was nothing to do. What a dull weekend it was going to be, she thought, with Emilia busy and nothing but piano practice and studying for the test. Ugh. Maybe Prue and I can ride our bikes out to the creek like she always wants to.

The creek was a favourite place for the girls to visit: an easy fifteen minute ride on a dirt road to the muddy stream that in summer dried into water holes, fringed with ancient river red gums and casuarinas with fine green needle leaves.

The camaraderie of those old, easy-going days was slipping away. Often Sandra was lost in thought, yet she missed the times when it had been a simple thing to jump on your bicycle, feel the pedal going down beneath your foot as you gathered speed, tyres whispering against tar.

She pushed open the heavy wooden gate, soft-shoed down the path to the back door.

‘Where’ve you been?’ her mother asked.

‘Around.’

‘We’ve been waiting for you to come home. The Bank’s already closed. We’re going out this afternoon to the polocrosse at Denalbo.’

‘How come?’

‘Please don’t say “how come”, it’s common.’

‘Why, then? We’ve never bothered before.’

‘The girls at golf told me there’s a carnival this weekend. We thought it sounded a nice idea.’

‘Is Prue going?’

‘We’ll all go. Wouldn’t you like that?’

‘I s’pose so. I’ll miss Bandstand.’

‘I thought you’d be pleased as you like horses so much, but you don’t sound very interested. You’re always at a loose end on Saturdays.’

‘I know. But I won’t know anyone and ... Oh, forget it.’

‘Don’t be sharp with me, Sandy. Go and get ready.’

Sandra climbed the stairs to her room. It was true. She was always at a loose end on Saturdays, no need to rub it in. It was just that the whole week went by with school, homework and piano and by the time the weekend arrived there ought to be something exciting to do. Maybe the polocrosse will be okay; there’ll be nice horses. Oh, why do I get so grumpy lately, Sandra cursed. I feel good one minute and the next I’m being awful. And then I feel mean and miserable. Why does Prue have everything so easy? Nothing worries her. If Sandra mentioned her frustrations to her mother, Angela could only offer dusty words to console her.

– When you grow up. When you’re older.

That was the answer to everything that wasn’t right. Why did parents throw that at you? Old enough ... I’m fourteen!

She should have been happy about the polocrosse but instead she sat on the edge of her bed wondering how Nick would spend the afternoon. Her reflection caught her eye. How dejected she looked, slumped there all down in the mouth. Drawing back her shoulders she pasted on a smile and her reflection immediately looked more cheerful. Better leave it pasted there, or Mum’ll be after me to tell her what’s wrong. She’ll think it’s about my exam and the concert. That’s all she ever thinks about where I’m concerned.

They packed the car with the afternoon tea basket, rugs, cushions and coats.

‘It could be cold,’ Angela said, ‘and if we stay for the dance—’

‘What dance, Mum?’ Sandra interrupted.

‘You didn’t give me a chance to finish telling you, there’s a bush dance in the hall after the game.’

‘Day-dreamer,’ Prue whispered.

‘A barbecue first, then the dance,’ her mother explained. ‘We know some people out that way and today’s so nice and sunny—’

‘And we’re staying for the dance?’

‘We thought that’d be good fun, and we don’t need to dress up, we can wear our woollies.’

Maybe it wouldn’t be such a boring Saturday, after all!