Читать книгу Playing with Keys - Julia Osborne - Страница 6

On the first morning that she woke up in her family’s new home, Sandra looked out the bedroom window but all she could see was the neighbour’s brick wall. She sat on the side of her bed to think about it ...

In Curradeen, her upstairs bedroom window in the bank residence overlooked the main street, where on countless Saturday mornings she’d watched through her curtains for Nick Morgan to drive into town, park his dusty ute across the road, and stroll into the newsagency.

All gone now. Gone, Nick and the polocrosse ponies. Gone, her dear piano teacher, the familiar high school, bicycle rides to the creek. And gone, best friend Emilia, consigned to a papery chaff of letters.

Her parents were happy with the move; she could see it in their faces. It was a good promotion for Don to the Randwick branch of the bank, and Angela was pleased to be back in Sydney after so many years in a country town. While her younger sister Prue danced around with excitement, it was only Sandra who rebelled.

Stupid brick wall. Prue’s bedroom had the same dull view, but she’d shrugged and said she didn’t care. Still, Sandra had to agree it was a very nice house that her father had bought, in a quiet street lined with similar old houses: tiled front veranda, hallway down the middle, and a garden out the back. After pouring over glossy catalogues with Prue, it had been fun choosing their furniture in a city department store, and Sandra was happy with her brand new bedroom suite ...

Searching for a handkerchief in her dressing table, she found the Violet Crumble wrapper – souvenir of the rainy winter evening when she’d bumped into Nick at the Silver Moon Café. Back then, she hardly knew him – a hello at the polocrosse, a brief barn dance at Denalbo hall ... little more.

She smoothed the wrapper with a fingernail, remembering how Nick had smiled in recognition, raised a quizzical eyebrow at her damp hair, the briefcase clutched to her chest.

Thrilled by this unexpected encounter, words had tumbled from her mouth: ‘I’ve been to a piano lesson, my sixth grade exam’s next week ...’ She stopped, suddenly tongue-tied.

‘Wow, maybe one day you’ll be a famous pianist,’ he’d answered, his eyes dark under the café lights, glisten of rain on his hair.

‘I’d love to try ...’ she’d managed to say.

Then Nick had shouted Sandra the Violet Crumble bar, and told her he’d won at poker. She remembered her shiver of excitement. Nick was a gambler! But he’d gambled with his life, that October night when he stepped into his ute with Angus.

Tired of unpacking, Sandra shoved the cardboard boxes of winter clothes under her bed. In two weeks it would be Christmas, and weeks of summer holidays stretched vacantly ahead of her – no friends, no plans, nowhere to go except the beach. The comfort of Curradeen was so far, far away, lodged in memory. Tearing a sheet of paper from her mother’s writing pad, she scrabbled around to find a biro.

23 Tyrell St,

Randwick, N.S.W.,

Friday, 9th December, 1960.

Dearest Emilia,

We’ve been here one whole week. It was horrible when we said goodbye at the train but I tried not to cry. Did you cry too? I waved till I couldn’t see you anymore and Mum wouldn’t stop talking about how good it’s going to be.

We put butter on Ginger’s paws so he would be too busy licking it off to run away. One morning he brought home a rat and it was still half alive and Dad had to hit it with a hammer. I thought I’d be sick.

Our house is nice, it’s very old but it’s all fixed up. I liked my old bedroom better. We don’t have bank furniture anymore so Mum bought lots of new things. I’ve got a beautiful Queen Anne bed and a dressing table with fancy mirrors. It feels odd having real neighbours and not another bank. My bedroom faces the brick wall next door, Prue’s room is on the wall side too but she couldn’t care less. Mum and Dad have a nicer bedroom, they can see the garden.

I skipped the last few days of school but we went to see the headmistress and I can start next year. She’s short as me and ties her hair in a little bun. I won’t miss Wilkins or Crow but Miss Pearce was nice for English and I hope I have a teacher like her.

Remember our pact to be friends forever? I miss you so much, please write really really soon and pleeease tell me if you ever see Nick.

Love forever,

Sandra xoxoxox

What would Nick be doing right now? The last she’d seen of him after the accident, he’d been lying asleep in a hospital bed. Oh, that awful morning – believing Nick had been killed when his ute crashed, she’d run away to grieve alone in the bush. But it wasn’t Nick at the wheel that moonlit night – it was Angus who crashed, swerving to miss a black swan on the road, invisible until the last moment. Now Angus was dead, and Nick had to learn to walk again.

Mrs Morgan hadn’t told her much, except that because her son was a strong boy, he’d soon be back helping his father run their merino stud on Wilga Park. Mrs Morgan said we should pray for his recovery. Pray, for heavens sake! What good would that do?

Sandra wondered if she should send him a get well card. But what could she write? It was three months since the crash on Denalbo Road, and if she was going to send a card it should’ve been back then. Three months since she’d sneaked out of home in the middle of the night, crept into the dimly lit ward, sat by Nick’s bed, watched over his quiet breathing, his bruised face.

Dear Nick, this is just to say, hurry up and get better and I hope you will soon be playing polocrosse again ... no, that was awful. Dear Nick, best wishes from all our family for a speedy recovery ...

What she really wanted to say was: Dear Nick, I miss you terribly, I know I wasn’t your girlfriend, but we had such a good time the day we met in Sydney last September holidays, and you said I looked like the girl in the painting and bought me a pie in the Rowe Street tea room. I wish I could see you again, and dance with you again, and I hope you can ride Toffee again soon ...

Oh Nick, I miss you. All those Saturday mornings I waited for you at my window, longing to speak to you, and you had no idea.

She regarded her reflection in the mirror. The same old face stared back. Same long, fair hair and urky brown eyes, same skinny self, not even a little bit taller. Turning side-on, she surveyed her profile, but the small rise of her bust remained the same small rise. You would think, she reasoned, that after all I’ve been through I might look a bit different, sort of more grown up. Oh well, I’ll be fifteen in April, there’s still hope!

Aunt Meredith was magnificent the day the Abbotts arrived in Sydney. Sleek in black Capri pants, crisp blouse and a skitter of high heels, red hair flying, she whirled into their new home with an armful of yellow roses, her wrists a jangle of bangles amidst the boxes of china and saucepans surrounding Angela in the kitchen. ‘Dinner at my place,’ she insisted. ‘I’ll drive over and get you at six sharp.’ And, heels clicking, she skittered out the gate, Angela giving a sigh of relief as she gathered up towers of discarded newspaper. ‘If only Meredith would just quieten down a little. Your father will get here tomorrow with the cat. We can manage.’

‘We can’t,’ Sandra objected. ‘We haven’t unpacked half our things yet. I want to go.’

Thank goodness for auntie!

At dinner, as Meredith poured a glass of wine for Angela and herself to toast a welcome, she summed it up in a few words: ‘Life is full of variables. All our paths – both real and imaginary – criss-cross down different roads.’ She sipped her wine, with a knowing smile. ‘Make of it what you will.’

To a background of piano music, seated under the climbing roses in her courtyard garden, Meredith served quiche au fromage with salad in painted Spanish bowls, and the promise of cassata for dessert.

Starving, Sandra immediately sliced her tart. Prue always ate like a pig, she thought, watching her sister across the table. She envied Prue’s ability to slide unruffled into any situation – there seemed nothing that she regretted. Sandra glanced at her mother, fussily picking at odd bits of salad on her plate.

‘Artichoke hearts,’ Meredith enlightened her. ‘I cooked them myself ... from the thistle family,’ she added, over Prue’s smothered laughter.

Unconvinced, Angela pushed the odd little vegetables to one side of her plate. There was something about her sister-in-law that she couldn’t understand. ‘Flighty,’ she’d once told Don. ‘Generous, but flighty.’

No matter how Angela phrased it, commenting: ‘Meredith lives very comfortably, but she hasn’t a job, so how on earth does she manage?’ Don brushed the question away. Or Angela would hint, ‘She’s never married, I can’t imagine how she provides for herself.’ With a shrug of his shoulders, ‘Meredith has always had private means,’ was all Don offered. ‘She did some dressmaking when she was younger, but our father didn’t believe in women working.’ So that was the end of it. Meredith kept her secret.

Sandra probed her salad for the tiny sweet tomatoes, still pondering Aunt Meredith’s earlier remark about how all our paths criss-cross ... What paths, real or imaginary?

She would think about it later in bed.

15 Bentley St.,

Curradeen, N.S.W.,

17th December, 1960.

Dear Sandy,

Thank you for your letter. I hope you are well. I miss you too, its not the same now your gone. School has broke up and I have to work in the shop like always. Lucky you to miss some school, nothing happens at the end of term, its all muck up days.

My Nonna (mamma’s mother) is coming to live with us because my grandpa is gone all strange and dont know who she is so his in hospital. I rode my bike to the cemetry on Sunday like we use to. There were people there so I didnt stay and I didnt see Angus’s grave.

I never saw Nick yet but I will tell you if I see him. The new people in your old bank have a little kid. It’s nearly Christmas and I wish you still lived here. I’m sorry I dont write real good letters in English, I never wrote one before.

Love from Emilia xxx

P.S. Yes I remember our pact XOX

Once upon a magical time the Abbots lived a half hour drive to the Denalbo polocrosse field. Now they lived a ten minute drive to the beach. Strange to live so near the sea.

Oh, it was fun for their annual family holiday at Aunt Meredith’s home in Bronte: packed into the car with beach towels, buckets and bathing caps, to drive to Bondi or Bronte beach every day, becoming salty-skinned and brown as toast, noses plastered with zinc cream. Best of all, on a low tide in the early morning, Sandra loved to search for pearly jingle shells on the smooth, washed-clean sand.

Although she ventured into the surf readily enough, trailing after her father, she never lost her fear of sharks. She hated the shriek of the siren when lifesavers spotted a dark shape cruising in the swell, the mad rush of swimmers to get out of the water. The thought of tiger sharks kept her close to the shore, itchy with sand in her bathers, picking at the sunburned flaking skin on her arms and legs, ignoring Prue’s shrill insult, Sooky baby!

Encouraged by the beckoning arms of her parents, Sandra would gather her courage and – dodging between the colourful umbrellas and sunbakers sprawled glistening with coconut oil – return to the hushing, lapping waves.

It was always the same. Maybe one day she would get used to the beach – give up comparing it with the essential freedom of the bush.

Sandra’s memory of an earlier home was hazy. It was as if she’d always lived in the small town surrounded by bushland and farms, being part of the small town bustle, and getting home early from school with time to do whatever she liked before piano practice.

Long ago she had promised herself to strive for the day when rainbow-coloured ribbons of music sang from her fingertips as easily as the songs she made up: to be the best possible pianist, invited to play in recitals and concerts all over the country – all over the world! She’d excelled in the concert last August, and everyone said her Clair de Lune was beautiful and by far the best performance of the evening. Her elderly teacher, Miss Brooks, resplendent in black with a crystal choker, her white hair rinsed blue, had almost cried.

Sure, when she left school, she’d want to go to university and study at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music – but not yet, not yet! She was just getting to know Nick, they’d even had that one perfect day in Sydney when Nick’s father sent him to enquire about the School of Agriculture at university, and she had cleverly wangled a visit for the same dates, to stay with Aunt Meredith. She and Auntie had visited the Conservatorium – Sandra’s excuse to her parents – while seeing Nick was a secret.

Together Sandra and Nick had explored Rowe Street, the inner city narrow lane lined with enticing little shops and arty studios that Aunt Meredith called a bohemian cosmopolis. Best of all, they’d visited the Art Gallery ... and while wandering the halls, Nick told her she looked like the girl in the painting, and when they said goodbye, he had kissed her on the forehead.

It had been so wonderful – she was sure it was the beginning of something special – until Nick’s accident drew a curtain across her happiness, and her family packed up and moved to Randwick. Flung there, ready or not, she was faced with a new school, no friends, and surrounded by her family who were all so annoyingly happy.

23 Tyrell St,

Randwick, N.S.W.,

6th January, 1961.

Dearest Emmy,

Happy New Year! I got your letter on New Year’s Eve. Did your family have a party? We don’t know anyone so we stayed home and watched TV till midnight. Mum and Dad sang Auld Lang Syne and it was so sad when they sang Should old acquaintance be forgot that I cried in bed. I didn’t want to make a New Year’s resolution because what for? I would only want to go back to Curradeen and that’s not going to happen.

Don’t worry if your English isn’t perfect, neither is mine. You’re lucky to have your granny live with you. I never knew my grandparents, I was too little when they got old and died. Sometimes when I wake up in the morning I forget I’m here and I think what will we do today, you and me, and all of a sudden I remember that I don’t live there anymore and we’ve had Christmas in Sydney and Aunt Meredith cooked a big turkey dinner. We never had turkey at home.

That’s funny, I just wrote at home without thinking, because this is home now.

I still haven’t seen our neighbours but sometimes we hear them in the back yard. I don’t think they have any children unless they’ve left home. I liked it better when I knew people in the street and they said hello. We get our milk delivered in bottles now instead of a billycan on the front step from the dairy.

Are you working in the shop the whole holidays? Remember all those jelly babies we ate, I bet you pinched them. No, not really.

I’m sorry I didn’t write much before but we spent the whole time unpacking and then it was Christmas. We all got beach towels for presents and on Sunday we’re going to Bondi. We have been here exactly 36 days not counting the day we arrived.

Love from your best friend,

Sandra xoxoxo

15 Bentley St.,

Curradeen, N.S.W.,

6th January, 1961.

Dear Sandy,

It feels ages since you left. We had a big Christmas like always. I got a brush and comb set and a necklace of china beads. We went to midnight Mass and Mamma cooked roast duck and afters was Nonna’s special “picciddati ring cake” which takes ages to make, a pastry ring filled with armands, figs and wallnuts and lots of honey and I ate too much and sleeped all afternoon.

Mrs Morgan came in the shop yesterday but Mum served her and I didn’t get to ask about Nick. She bought some vegies and went out.

I saw Lofty down the street, he still makes silly faces like at school. I don’t have any more news.

Love from Emmy xxx

15 Bentley St.,

Curradeen, N.S.W.,

Australia Day, 26th January, 1961.

Dear Sandy,

I got your letter and it’s funny we both wrote the same day. I’ve never been to the beach.

Pa says Joan Sutherland is Australian of the Year. I bet she lives in Sydney. Do you know her? You’ll know everyone now you live there.

You can get The Pill in Australia now but you got to be married and maybe you would have to make a confession to the priest. In maths class a girl got caught passing “Peyton Place” round under the desks and got into big trouble, they said it’s real dirty.

Its 104 today and Pa’s tomatoes got sunburned.

I use to pinch the jelly babies. Don’t forget me your friend.

Love from Emmy XXX

On their first day at Randwick Girls High School, Prue pulled tight the belt on her blue and white striped cotton dress, happily putting on her new straw hat, whereas Sandra complained to her reflection, ‘Look at me, I’m dressed like a juvenile.’

Prue disappeared immediately after assembly to the first year classroom, while Sandra, lost for direction, wandered up and down the stairs with nobody to tell her where to go until she found a prefect, who then sent her to the wrong room. Humiliating!

When she reached her third year classroom, the teacher had begun to call the roll and was querulously asking, ‘Sandra Abbott, please. Where is Sandra Abbot?’ More humiliation as a titter of laughter ran around the room, and speared by dozens of curious eyes, she found a spare desk.

23 Tyrell St,

Randwick, N.S.W.

10th February, ’61.

Dearest Emmy,

I’d rather forget my first day at school it was so horrible. I didn’t know where to find my classroom and walked around like an idiot for ages, everyone staring because I’m new. The school’s a big, old 2 storey brick building and I still sometimes get lost.

I haven’t any friends here and mostly all they talk about is going to the beach. I wanted to sit by myself but the teacher made a girl called Carol sit with me. She has frizzy hair and freckles, poor thing. She told me I’m stuck up but I don’t think I am.

Dad drives us to school on his way to work but when we get used to it we’ll get the bus. Prue is in class 1A. There is nowhere nice to ride our bikes. Do you ever go to the roller skating rink? I miss being able to go to your place after school. “Peyton Place” must be very rude to be banned, did you get to read any?

Mum found me a piano teacher. He lives in a flat a few blocks from our place and his name is Mr. L’estrange, I think he made it up. My first lesson is next Tuesday. I wish I still had Miss Brooks, even though she was old. Mum says I’ll get used to it.

Love from Sandra xoxox