Music From Standing Waves (23 page)

Matt met me outside my master class. I had
spent the last hour listening to Clara’s flawless Brahms Scherzo
and smiled in relief at the sight of his face.

“Don’t you have a composition lesson now?” I
asked, winding my scarf around my neck. Cold wind whipped my hair
against my cheeks.

Matt shrugged. “I don’t know. Do I?” He
grinned. “I got us a gig at the music ball! They want us to play
between courses, then they’re gonna put the DJ on for dancing when
we’re done. How great is that!”

I dropped onto the bench outside the lecture
theatre. “The music ball?”

He nodded excitedly. “They’re not paying us
much, but it’s gonna be great exposure. Half the Con will be
there.”

I nibbled my thumbnail. “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

I hesitated. “I don’t know if I’m ready for
all the other musos to hear me play your stuff.”

Matt chuckled and wrapped his arms around my
waist. “You’re not getting stage fright are you, Liberace?”

I began to wander towards the cafeteria,
kicking through a pile of dead leaves. “I don’t know,” I mumbled
again. “Hey, do you want to meet Jess and Roman for lunch?”

Matt stared at me. “Why the hell would you
not want to play?”

I swallowed hard. “I just don’t know how
we’ll be received.”

“What? I can’t believe you’re doing
this!”

A group of girls looked over as Matt raised
his voice. I heard them giggle.

“Shh,” I hissed. “People are looking.”

He let out his breath in frustration. “You
know everyone will love our stuff! You’re just scared to be seen
doing something different!”

“It’s not that. It’s just that Clara was
saying-”

“Clara again? Why the hell do you listen to a
word she says?”

I tried to take his hand, but he pulled
away.

“You know I love your music,” I said
desperately. “It’s just that I’m really serious about becoming a
performer. You know that.”

“And yet you’re turning down a chance to
perform. There’s some logic for you.” Matt’s voice was icy. “Why-”
He stopped abruptly. “You think my music will affect your
credibility. That’s it, isn’t it.”

I was silent. Matt glared at me, his dark
brow knitted.

“I can’t believe you’re doing this to me,
Abby. I thought you were different. If that’s the way you feel, I
wish you’d bloody told me from the start. I wouldn’t have wasted my
time on you.”

Jess paraded around the house in legwarmers
and a tiered skirt, giggling that ‘Return of the Rad Eighties’ was
the best possible theme for a ball imaginable. I stirred my coffee
and leant on the bench.

“I’m not going.”

Jess kicked off her costume. “You are
so
going.” She climbed into her jeans. “Are you worried that
Matt will be angry with you still?”

I sipped my coffee. “He was really pissed
off.”

Jess turned on the TV and started flicking
channels. “What else are you going to do? Stay home and watch
Titanic
for the hundredth time? I think we’ve all worked out
it wasn’t unsinkable.”

I wandered into the lounge and sat
cross-legged on the floor. Examined the black elastic waistband of
the disco skirt. “This is truly ugly.”

Jess snatched the skirt. “Don’t change the
subject. Tell you what. I’m going to ditch that guy from the pub
and go as your date instead.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I want to. You have to come. Roman’s going
to try and pick up that hot singer, Thomas. Besides, I’m kind of
over that pub guy anyway. He keeps trying to impress me with baked
goods.”

“Baked goods?”

“Or,” said Jess. “You could just play. Who
cares what those snobby divas think? How hot is this weather man by
the way?”

I glanced at the TV. “I don’t want to ruin my
reputation.”

Jess rolled her eyes. “You sound like Clara.
Nothing’s going to get ruined, okay. Just do it for yourself. No,
do it for Matt. You know how much this means to him.”

Roman shone like a beacon in his vintage
eighties attire; his luminescent clothes glowing among the dinner
suits and ball gowns. He tugged testily at his fluoro orange
shorts.

“Why isn’t anyone else in costume?!”

“I’m in costume.” I bent my head so he could
see the blue feather pinned into my hair.

“One lousy feather. What kind of lame-arse
costume is that?”

“We’re pretty early,” I said. “There might be
more people dressed up soon.” I clutched the white arm poking out
his cut-off t-shirt. “Come on, I need a drink if I’m going to get
through tonight.”

After a few champagnes, Roman’s gay-dar
spotted the proclaimed tenor, Thomas, strutting into the ballroom
in an expensive pin-stripe suit.

“Oh. My. God.” He sunk into his yellow slouch
socks and dashed desperately back to our table. I stumbled after
him.

“Roman! Go talk to him!”

He shook my shoulders. “Abby! Look at
me!”

I couldn’t hold back a giggle. I wondered if
Thomas would find slap bands erotic.

Jess and the disco skirt staggered to the
table in mile high pink stilettos. I sat between her and Clara,
clutching a glass of champagne. We looked up in surprise as Richard
the viola player swanned up to our table in green tights and
britches.

“Why are you dressed like that?” I laughed.
Richard tossed the white plait on his wig over one shoulder.

“I thought I’d bring back the
seventeen
-eighties,” he said proudly. “I’m Mozart.”

Jess shrieked with laughter. “Oh my God, you
are
such
a music geek…”

Matt had been setting up the P.A. and he
squeezed an extra chair up to the table as entrée was served.
“Thanks for saving me a seat, guys,” he drawled. “Now they’re not
going to give me any food!”

I poked tentatively at the fluorescent pink
crabmeat. “Have mine.” I pushed my fork into his hand. “I’m not
hungry.”

He rolled up his shirtsleeves and speared a
limp piece of seafood. “What’s wrong? You nervous?”

I wound a strand of his hair around my
finger. “Are you?”

“Nah. It’ll be sweet. You’ll see.”

I glanced across the table at Julian who was
swigging from a bottle of red; giant sunglasses over his eyes. I
wrapped both my hands around one of Matt’s. “Do you think you
should tell Jules to stop drinking? He’s going to be too drunk to
play.”

Matt laughed. “Relax. He’ll probably come up
with some really great alcohol inspired riffs or something. I know
I do my best work after I’ve had a few.”

To illustrate his point, he raised his beer
and took a swig. He turned back to me. “Are you glad you decided to
play?”

I nodded uncertainly. “You know when you said
you wouldn’t have wasted your time on me? What exactly did you
mean?”

Matt put his beer down. “I meant I wouldn’t
have written you all that music if I’d known you weren’t going to
perform it,” he said. “That’s all.”

“I thought you meant you didn’t want to be
with me if I didn’t play in Standing Waves.”

Matt shook his head. “No. I’m sorry you
thought that.”

“You sure?”

“Positive.” He stood up and pulled me to my
feet. “Let’s go tune up.”

Julian flung his bass strap over his head and
draped an arm around my neck.

“D’ya like my costume?” he babbled. I glanced
at the wide lapelled brown suit he wore for every special occasion.
“I’m myself frum las chear’s music ball.”

“What’s with the sunnies, man?” laughed Matt.
“You look like you’re watching a 3D movie.”

“You’re choking me,” I spluttered, pushing
Julian away. “Are you going to be able to play?”

“Sure.” He plugged in his bass and plucked
out a tangled riff. I took a deep breath and began to tune my
violin. I wished I was as relaxed as Matt. No one had seen me yet.
There was still time to back out.

I shot a nervous glance across the ballroom.
With three napkins hanging from the back of his shorts, Roman
swanned past the stage and pirouetted with David Bowie. A guy
dressed as Madonna was showing a group of shrieking girls all the
moves from the
Vogue
film clip. Another girl was hitting on
one of the waiters. Maybe the Con would be too pissed to be
critical.

I lifted my violin. In the corner of my eye I
could see Clara and her boarding house friends perched on stools at
the bar. Clara was sitting with her legs crossed, her black dress
sliding up her thighs. She and the other girls were clutching
champagne flutes, watching with tiny smiles and exchanging
whispers. I felt Matt’s hand on my shoulder.

“Don’t worry about them,” he said. “They’re
just freaking out because they’re about to hear a real violinist
play.”

I angled my music stand so my back was to
Clara. I could hear the syncopated rhythm before we began to play.
The beat was inside me and I began to tap my toe subconsciously. I
didn’t need to count myself in, my entry felt so natural. Matt
caught my eye and smiled. Hell, I thought, if I was going to ruin
my reputation, I might as well enjoy it.

Matt crawled into the back of the taxi. He
threw an arm over my shoulder and howled out a pissed rendition of
We are the Champions
.

“They loved us, didn’t they?” He stumbled up
the stairs above the coin laundry. I unlocked the door and followed
him into his bedroom.

“Yeah, they loved us.”

Matt knelt over me. “You are the best,” he
told me between kisses. “The best there is. You’ll be my star
violinist forever, won’t you? You won’t listen to those divas.”

I giggled and pushed him onto his back. “Fuck
the divas.”

I hadn’t done enough practice.

I stood awkwardly in my violin lesson,
swinging my bow on one finger while John listed the faults in my
questionable rendition of Bach’s
Partita in B Minor.

“Hmm,” he would say before each correction,
as though thinking about it made the mistakes less obvious. I shot
a sideways glance at the clock. It was only twenty past. I needed a
pearler of a question if I was going to escape the last ten minutes
without playing the
Allemande
again. Subtracting twenty-five
percent ‘hmm’ time, I wondered if John could talk for seven and
half minutes on the benefits of German resin.

“Is everything alright with you, Abby?” he
asked finally.

“Everything’s fine. Why?”

He sat down and crossed his legs, his
trousers sliding up his knee and revealing a stripe of skin. “You
just don’t seem to be getting as much practice done lately.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m just working two
jobs at the moment. And I’m playing in two ensembles. You know how
it is.”

“No wonder you’re falling behind. Can you
give up one of your ensembles?”

I chewed my lip. Perhaps I could find another
violinist for the quartet. But not in time for their next gig.

“Maybe.”

John nodded. “Alright. But please try and fit
in a few more hours a week. I don’t want you to undo all the good
work you’ve done, particularly with the concerto competition coming
up. It would be a shame if your performance didn’t reflect your
talent.” He shot me a pointed glance and I nodded obediently.

“I’ll try.”

When I let myself into the unit, Jess was
opening her seventh bottle of pink grapefruit juice in three
days.

“Help me!” she cried. “I have to stop this
madness!”

I threw my violin onto my bed and climbed
over the couch into the kitchen. I held up the bottle and read the
label. “It’s organic. And ninety-nine percent fat free.”

“It’s also four dollars eighty a bottle. We
need to move away from that gourmet market.” Jess carried her glass
lovingly into the lounge room. “I saw a ghost today,” she
announced. “I went to my piano teacher’s house for a lesson and the
dust particles in the light made the shape of a man. He was very
tall with big shoulders.”

“Spooky,” I said. “Did he hang himself in the
bathroom?”

“What?”

I smiled to myself. “When I was growing up,
we used to think this house across the road was haunted. Justin
told this story about some guy stabbing his wife in the bath and
then hanging himself from the light fitting. It used to scare me to
death.”

Jess raised her eyebrows. “You know Justin
pops up in a lot of your stories, Ab. Does Matt know about
him?”

Matt didn’t know about Justin, and I didn’t
see any reason to tell him. After all, he’s nothing to me now. I’ve
pushed that night to the furthest corner of my mind. I’ve pushed
all his memories as far away as I can. But I admit, sometimes they
refuse to stay forgotten.

Sometimes moving on isn’t as easy as moving
away.

John was taking master class that Friday. I
slunk into the hall and hid my unpractised self at the back. Two
fourth-years played through their pieces for the concerto
competition. Their movements were polished and memorised. I was
still learning the notes of my Dvorak. Then Clara strutted on stage
and handed the accompanist the score of her Tchaikovsky. She played
faultlessly, her technique sound, intonation carefully rehearsed.
She was an exact replica of the Vengerov CD she had listened to
constantly in our boarding house dorm.

“Thank you,” said John. Clara looked smug
while he rattled off his critique. “Class? Any comments?”

I raised my hand. “I thought it was a very
clichéd performance.”

Clara planted a hand on her hip.
“
Clichéd?”

“You played that piece exactly the same way
it’s been played by thousands of other violinists before you. You
didn’t put any of your own musicality into it. You’re just copying
someone else’s interpretation. Like a parrot.”