Music From Standing Waves (6 page)

The people in the vans rarely stayed more
than a couple of nights. Unimpressed and restless, they’d pack up
and disappear out of our lives like half-baked memories. I’d stay
behind of course, stagnant and desperate, watching Sarah triple
check the campers’ payments because she didn’t trust boys with long
hair.

I felt I was watching my future.

I practised until my fingers were raw, my
arms ached and my neck was iron. I had no money. I had no parental
support. So it had to be music that would get me out of Acacia
Beach.

I let myself into Andrew’s basement, tears
flooding down my cheeks. He looked up from a crate of music he was
rifling through.

“What’s wrong?”

I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. “My
mum’s making me stop violin.” Fresh tears spilled down my face.

“You serious?”

I flopped onto the piano seat. “She says we
can’t afford it, but I know she’s lying,” I sobbed. “She just
doesn’t want me going to the city. She thinks it’s stupid to want
to make a career out of music. And I don’t make enough money
working at the caravan park, so I can’t afford to pay you either.”
I gulped down my breath, hatred welling inside me.

Andrew reached over and touched my wrist.
“You don’t have to pay me for lessons, Abs. You know I’ll teach you
for nothing.”

“I can’t expect you to do that,” I coughed.
“You have to make a living. And you spend so much time teaching
me.”

“I love teaching you. You know that. And I’m
making plenty of money working at the high school.”

I sniffed. “I’ll baby-sit for you whenever
you want. And I’ll give you all my peg money.”

Andrew laughed gently. “You keep your peg
money, Abs.” He brushed my arm. “Stop crying, okay. It’s
alright.”

I tried to swallow my tears. They left a
salty taste in the back of my throat. “Thank you so much.”

“Does your mum know you’re here?” Andrew
asked.

I shook my head. “She thinks I’m at
Rachel’s.” I lifted my chin slightly. “But I don’t care if she
knows. She can’t stop me from playing.”

He stood up. “Still, maybe you should stop
talking about leaving for a while. I feel terrible. None of this
would have happened if I hadn’t brought that up.”

“I want to do it so much,” I said. “And I’m
going to. I don’t care what my mum says.”

He flashed me a half-hearted smile. “That’s
good. But let’s just keep it to ourselves for a while. Maybe your
mum will calm down.” He knelt back on the carpet and shuffled
through the crate of manuscript. “Are you going to play? I thought
we were having a lesson now.”

“I didn’t bring my violin,” I sniffed. “Can I
use yours?”

“Sure.” Andrew produced an old, leather bound
folio with curly gold writing on the cover. “Elgar
Violin
Sonata
. Want to play it with me?”

The Elgar
E Minor
.

Back then, it was the most magical piece I
had ever heard. It made me think of somewhere distant and exotic.
Somewhere it hailed and snowed. Somewhere the sky was milky and
grey, where mountains broke the horizon. The music made me ache for
something I couldn’t define. Made me long for something I could
never express.

I opened the score carefully. The pages were
yellowing around the edges. Inside the cover was an inscription
written in faded fountain pen. ‘Happy anniversary 1930
.’

“Where did you get this?” I asked. “It’s an
antique.”

“I think it belonged to my
great-grandmother,” said Andrew. “If you like the piece, I’ll copy
it for you.”

I scanned through the pages of ledger lines
and accidentals. “It looks hard.”

“You’re up for it. We’ll take it slow.” He
took off his watch and sat it on top of the piano. “This will be
good for me too. I haven’t done much serious playing since I moved
here. This place isn’t exactly a cultural centre, is it.” He
plucked carefully through the opening staccato of the piano part. I
reached down and flicked open the violin case.

“Andrew?”

“Yeah?”

“Being stuck here is a waste of time for me,
isn’t it.”

“Well… Musically, yes,” he admitted. “You
could be learning a whole lot more somewhere else. But you have
your whole life ahead of you. Fourteen is still pretty young to be
moving across the country by yourself. And you’re not supposed to
be thinking about leaving, remember?”

He hit an A on the piano and waited for me to
tune the violin. I finished with an angry down-bow. I didn’t want
Andrew to be rational. I wanted him to take my side. To despise my
mother the way I did.

“Andrew?”

“Mmm?”

“When Oliver grows up, you wouldn’t make him
stay here if it was a waste of his time, would you?”

Andrew turned back to the music. “Oliver’s
one, Abs, I can’t say I’ve thought about it.”

“But just say you had…”

“Come on. Let’s just play, okay?”

We sight-read through the first movement of
the Elgar. Slowed for each other in the difficult sections, but did
so without speaking, listening to the rise and fall of the melody.
The tune passed between the instruments in wordless dialogue;
hidden motifs spiralling underneath. Minor arpeggios yearned
upwards and I felt myself straining for escape with them. The music
made me long for something I couldn’t express. I let the melody
carry me.

Andrew moved his back and shoulders a lot
when he played the piano. I watched him in my bars rest, moving
with the motion of the music. I wondered if he knew he was doing
it. I wished I had the same deep understanding of music that Andrew
had. He’d begun to show me there was far more to my pieces than
just notes. Each sonata, each scherzo, each study was a product of
another time, another place. Another composer’s response to their
world. I heard Vivaldi’s religious devotion, Paganini’s love for
the stage, the salons of Mozart’s Vienna. I loved to think that for
thousands of years, there had been people like me who had been
moved inexplicably by sound. People who had spent their lives
striving to create beautiful music.

My tone was richer on Andrew’s violin and my
melody line soared above the piano’s wide tremolos. I felt a
shudder of excitement down my back.

“I got shivers,” I told Andrew. “I never got
shivers from my own playing before.”

He turned on the piano seat and smiled.
“You’re sounding fantastic. Very expressive.”

I plucked slowly through the last page again.
“I love this bit,” I said. “It’s so dramatic.”

Andrew nodded. “It’s beautiful, right?”

I told him about the way the music made me
long for things I couldn’t see.

“That’s interesting,” he said. “It sounds
angry to me. Full of confusion and regret.” He smiled. “Don’t you
wish you could tell all these dead composers what their music does
to you? Imagine being able to move someone like that.”

I turned to the opening of the second
movement. I knew that if anyone was responsible for my love of
music, it was Andrew. The dead composers were only along for the
ride.

I practised in the music room before and
after school. On weekends, I used empty caravans at the back of the
park. Music gave me a reason to get up in the morning. It gave me a
glimpse of freedom that Shipwreck never had. My fingers flew over
the strings as though they could think for themselves. I began to
believe Andrew when he told me I had talent. Sometimes, I would
hear the music as though someone else was playing it, then stop in
disbelief when I realised it was me. Surely, the things I could do
would be enough to lift me out of this life. I felt a new sense of
hope and independence. I could do it without my mother. I didn’t
need her.

I sent for the Arts College application
again. “Please Dad, just sign it. Just let me audition.”

“You know I can’t,” he always said. “You know
what your mother would say.”

I hated how passive my dad could be.

“What?” I pushed. “What would she say?”

For all her hatred of my violin, Sarah had
never given a reason. Dad couldn’t answer either. He just shoved
his hands in his pockets and started whistling so he could pretend
he hadn’t heard the question.

I hid my practice from my mother for months.
Then one day, I walked deliberately into the lounge, clutching my
violin. I still don’t know what possessed me. Something about
standing up to her, I suppose. Something about showing her what I
was capable of, despite her. I had just turned fifteen and felt as
though my whole life was being whittled and wasted away. I had to
make someone pay for it.

Sarah was in the kitchen slicing vegetables.
The knife hit the chopping board with a sharp, glassy crack. I
launched into the opening bars of the Elgar. She continued to chop
furiously. Finally, she dropped her knife and stood in the doorway
of the lounge. Waited until I reached the end of a phrase.

“So you’re teaching yourself are you?”

I repeated the phrase slowly. Sarah raised
her thin grey eyebrows. She stood behind me and looked over my
shoulder at the music. As I drew my bow down, I elbowed her
arm.

Her dark eyes lit up. “Stop it! I don’t want
to hear you play any more!” She picked up my violin case and flung
it into the hallway. It landed with a thud on the floorboards. “Do
you understand, Abigail? No more!”

My anger erupted. “You can’t stop me! I want
to play and I’m going to! And I’m going to the city to study and
I’m going to make it to the concert hall!”

Sarah laughed with a cold, machine gun burst.
“You can’t be a concert violinist without a teacher!”

“I have a teacher,” I snapped. “Andrew
doesn’t care that I can’t pay him. He’s been teaching me all
along.”

She pursed her lips until they were narrow
white lines. “What does he think you are, a charity case?”

“I am a charity case,” I hissed. “To have a
mother like you.”

Sarah sucked in her breath and slapped me
across the face. My eyes widened in shock. I felt the sting against
my cheek, but refused to give her the satisfaction of seeing me
wince.

“I’m not going to stop,” I coughed. “There’s
nothing you can do.”

Sarah reached out and snatched the
violin.

“Give it back!”

She held it above her shoulder, her long
fingers curled around the neck.

“Mum, please.” My voice caught. The violin
teetered beside her head. “Please give it back.” I held out my hand
despairingly. “Please.”

She slammed the violin into the coffee table.
Strings snapped out of the pegs and the bridge flew into the air.
Shards of wood shot across the lounge. I stared in disbelief. Sarah
tossed the violin onto the floor and turned away. The air hummed
with harmonics.

Neither of us spoke. I snatched the broken
violin off the carpet and rushed into the hall. Sarah returned to
the kitchen and the crack of the knife began again. On my knees in
the hallway, I sat the violin back in its case. Tried to lay the
strings over the shattered bridge. Tears blurred the mess in front
of me. I felt like my mother had smashed my identity. Without my
violin, I had nothing. I was nothing. My hands shook with rage. I
rushed outside, the case banging against my knee. I didn’t stop
running until I reached Andrew’s house.

He opened the door with a plastic truck in
one hand and a towel in the other. Oliver clung to his shin like a
barnacle.

“Hey Abs,” he said. “Are we having a lesson
now? Sorry, I must have forgotten.”

“Can I come in?” I asked, pushing past
him.

“Sure…”

I threw the case onto the lounge room floor
and opened the lid.

Andrew stared at the mess of strings. “What
happened?”

“My mum.”

“Your mum did that? Oh shit…” He folded his
arms and paced across the room.

“I told her you’re still teaching me,” I
admitted.

“She took it well then?”

I lifted the violin and cradled it, batting
Oliver away from my case. “Can you fix it?”

Andrew frowned and knelt beside me. “I don’t
know, Abs…” He tried to stand the bridge up. “It’s pretty wrecked.
Maybe we can take it to the music shop or something.”

I rubbed my eyes.

“Hey, don’t get upset, okay?” He touched my
shoulder. “Leave it here and I’ll see what I can do. Do you want to
borrow my violin for now?”

I paused, then shook my head. “No. I think
I’ve pushed my mum as far as she’ll go.”

Sarah took her anger out on Nick.

“What do you mean you can’t afford to move
out? Where does all your money go?”

“Jesus, what is this, the third degree?”

Dad got involved too. “Your mother asked you
a question.”

“Well how the hell should I know?”

I was listening to Dvorak in my bedroom. I
turned up the volume on my stereo.

“They pay you enough. Are you even
going
to work?”

“Of course I’m bloody going to work. Just
fucking leave it alright… Jesus Christ…”

I heard Nick thunder up to his bedroom and
slam the door. I felt sorry for him. Turning off the CD, I tiptoed
up to his room and knocked lightly. He was lying on the bed with
his eyes closed, headphones over his ears and a cigarette between
his teeth. I could hear the song coming muffled from his Walkman.
The same song he always listened to. Ah, that damn cold November
rain.

I tapped his knee and he sat up suddenly.

“You shouldn’t have your music up that loud,”
I said. “You’ll damage your eardrums.”

“Don’t you start.” He tossed the Walkman next
to the cushion he was using as a pillow. “What do you want?”

I shrugged. “Nothing really.”

“Well in that case you can get out of
here.”

I perched on the torn brown bedspread. I
couldn’t remember the last time I had been inside Nick’s room.
T-shirts were strewn across the carpet, muddy boots tipped over by
the door. A tape deck poked out from under a wet towel. Everything
smelled like cigarettes and dirty clothes. I crossed my legs.