Today I’m having my second private piano lesson and Sir says he’s really impressed by all the practice I’ve put in; he’s proud of me and sorry he had to cancel last week.
“It was a family matter,” he explains, “but everything’s fine now.”
I want to look at him just to see his eyes but I carry on staring past my hands on the piano keys down to my bare legs. I’m wearing my hockey kit and my skirt has wriggled all the way up. I imagine him putting a hand on my thigh, running it under my hem and over my knickers, and I feel a quickening like electricity flicker through me.
He says softly, “Why don’t you show me more of what you’ve been practicing?”
I play “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” with both hands and it makes us both laugh.
I love it when he laughs. It changes his face in a way that lights him up from the inside and makes me feel as though I know him even better than I know me. His eyes crinkle up at the corners and his white teeth that are slightly crooked are beautiful. The sound of his laugh is deep and quiet and I want to tell him that it’s like a different, but better kind of music.
I carry on looking at him, but his laughter dies and he turns away.
I think to myself, Better run, girl.
I’m completely sure now that’s what he said when he came into the rec room to tell me he couldn’t make our lesson. He’s scared of his feelings for me, and I understand that, I’m scared of mine too, but I don’t think that’s any reason for us to hide from them when we’re alone together. In another few months I’ll be sixteen, old enough to get married, and he’s definitely who I want to marry.
Mummy says I shouldn’t be thinking about going down the aisle until I’m at least twenty-five, even thirty, and it makes me want to cry when she says things like that. It’s as though she doesn’t understand how I feel about Sir, but I know she does.
Last weekend, after he’d canceled our lesson, she said, “It’s only this once, sweetheart, and I’m sure he canceled for a good reason. You’ll have plenty more opportunities to swoon away to your heart’s content; you can even flirt with him, you little minx, but if you do you mustn’t be too hard on him.”
“You said once we could invite him here to one of your parties. Can we do it?” I asked.
She laughed at that and said, “We’d have to be on our best behavior if we did, and I’m not sure we’re capable of that when it’s the only time we get to relax.”
“He wouldn’t mind about the pot. He’s really hip and I expect he smokes it anyway.”
“The answer is still no, my angel . . . No, no, please don’t pull that face. Daddy would never allow it even if I would, so we must stop talking about it.”
I cried so much that weekend, and I didn’t really stop until yesterday, the day before my next private lesson. Everyone thought I was having my period so I let them; I wasn’t going to admit how terrified I was that he’d cancel again. Just in case he wanted to I avoided any places I might run into him. I even said I was sick to skip his music appreciation class but then I wished I hadn’t because all I did instead was lie on my bed wondering if he was falling for someone else because I wasn’t there. It drove me crazy, I wanted to scream and kick my feet, and I knew I’d kill whoever it was if she even mentioned his name.
Now I’m here and although I’m listening to everything he’s telling me I’m not taking much of it in. I can feel him next to me, his breath on my cheek, his fingers so close and even sometimes touching mine. I hear him when he says that it’s a pleasure teaching someone so dexterous and who has a good ear, and it makes me glad that I’ve practiced so much in my spare time in order to show him how important it is to me. I want him to know that it’s only because of him that I’m doing so well.
After an hour of being close to him, of listening to his voice, of breathing in the scent of him, and learning about flats and sharps he looks at his watch and says, “It’s time for the lesson to end now.”
I don’t want to go. I can hardly make myself move, but I have to. I say, “Do you promise not to cancel next week?”
He doesn’t answer straightaway, he stares at nothing, it seems, but then he’s staring at me. “Next week when you come,” he says softly, “you mustn’t wear your hockey kit.”
I leave in a hurry so upset and angry that I think he should be punished for being mean to me, something to make him sorry so he’ll never make me feel stupid again. I go up to my dorm thinking up ways to hurt him as much as he’s hurt me, and I decide that one of them could be to report him for putting a hand on my leg while I was practicing my scales. Or I could say that he tried to kiss me when he leaned forward to point out the bass clef symbol on the sheet music. That would definitely get him into trouble, a lot of trouble, but then our private lessons would be stopped and I couldn’t stand for that to happen. I know I’ve only had two so far but already I live for those lessons. Nothing else matters.
It’s lesson three and I’m wearing my usual school uniform of navy kilt and pale blue blouse. I’ve rolled my waistband over a few times so my hem is above my knees and when I sit down I toss back my hair and say to him, “Is this better?”
He looks puzzled.
“You told me not to wear my hockey kit,” I remind him.
“Ah, yes.”
“Would you prefer it if I didn’t wear anything at all?” I say and I can hardly believe the words have come out. My nerves are suddenly jumping around inside me, and I can tell by the way he’s looking at me that I really did speak out loud, and I don’t know what he’s thinking.
In the end he leans forward and opens the piano lid. He speaks so quietly that I can hardly hear him. “That’s a very beautiful image you’ve created for me. Thank you.”
I swallow, shocked and disbelieving—and elated that he thinks the image is beautiful. I want to say it again and again, but my heart is beating too fast, everything is jumbling up in my head. I want to show him the real thing. Should I offer to? I could go to the store cupboard at the back of the room and take off my clothes.
Would he like that?
Would I have the courage?
“Shall we begin?” he asks.
We start the lesson as if no wonderful things have been said or even thought about, but my hands are clumsy and when he puts his over them, like bigger shells protecting small ones, I stop and wait for him to tell me what to do.
He doesn’t say anything and nor do I as we sit there next to each other staring at our hands and the piano keys as if they might play themselves.
I can feel my chest going up and down as I breathe and I think I might be shaking.
He says, “Perhaps we should end the lesson now.”
“No,” I cry. In a panic I turn my hands in his and hold onto them.
He doesn’t pull away, he lets me hold on to him until finally I let him go. I lower my head so that my hair is falling around my face. He pulls it back and when I look at him he says in an odd sort of voice, “Can something be impossible if it’s already happened?”
I don’t know what he means so I don’t try to answer, I just carry on looking at him.
“I understand what you want,” he says softly, “but you know it can’t be.”
“Why?” I ask in a croak.
His smile makes my head spin and as he watches his hand touch my hair I feel sure he wants to kiss me. If he does I know my heart will explode.
He says, “You have no idea what simply looking at you does to me. It’s why we shouldn’t continue this.”
Terrified he’s going to cancel our lessons, I say, “Please don’t send me away. I won’t be able to stand it. I’ll kill myself.”
His eyes roam my face as if he’s imprinting every part of it on his memory. “I’m trying to be strong, but you’re making me weak,” he tells me.
Encouraged, emboldened by this, I say, “I want to learn everything you can teach me. Please teach me.”
He doesn’t speak and I think he’s going to tell me to go now, or pretend he doesn’t understand, but then he says, “I’m going to teach you the piano.”
The lesson continues, but again I find it hard to concentrate and I think he’s finding it hard too. He repeats a number of things he’s already said, and sometimes his voice seems to catch in his throat.
At the end of the hour I say, “I wish I didn’t have to wait a whole week to see you again.”
He smiles and I’m not sure if he understands how I feel.
My next words flutter out of me like small butterflies searching for nectar. I can’t stop them, they have their own life. “Please will you kiss me?”
I hear him swallow. I think he wants to move away, but he doesn’t. He says, “Not here.”
Shocked that he wants to and desperate for it to be now, I cry, “Then where?”
He tells me where and I say,
“Do you promise you’ll be there?”
“I promise.”
I stand up to go and he takes my hand. “Come with me,” he says, and he leads me to the store cupboard, where he stands aside to let me go in first. He doesn’t close the door, he doesn’t even speak as he reaches under my skirt and pulls my knickers down. They fall to the floor and he holds my hands as I step out of them.
He stoops to pick them up and says, “I’ll return them the next time we meet.”
The incident in the storeroom didn’t happen, but it’s what I’ve been imagining every minute of every day since he promised to meet me.
Shall I tell you what I do as I wait for the day to come around, the lessons I don’t listen to, the games I can’t play, the girl chats that are all nonsense to me? Shall I describe my school, my friends, my daily routine? Would you like to hear more about the music I listen to that makes me think of him, because everything does?
No, I won’t tell you about any of that because it’s not what you’re interested in, is it? All you want to know is where we are going to meet and if he keeps his promise.
It’s the weekend now and I’m on the train to London, as I always am on Saturday mornings. Other girls are with me, we travel together, but their stops are before mine, so I am the only one who goes to the end of the line. My parents aren’t expecting me; I told them I’ll be spending the weekend with Mandy Gibbons. They won’t check, because I’ve stayed at Mandy’s before and they think I have a crush on her brother.
I walk out of the train station taking the exit he told me to and as I round the corner I see him waiting beside his car and I am so relieved and afraid and happy that I stop walking. I can’t move because I’m suddenly trapped between wanting to run to him, and away from him, and at the same time I want to laugh. He’s different; his clothes are modern and stylish, a patterned waistcoat over his open-necked shirt, a large belt buckle at his hips, his trousers are white and tapered to his legs. This isn’t Sir, this is a real man away from the school and I feel so nervous I am finding it hard to breathe.
He comes to take my hand and as he looks at me I want to put my arms around him: I want everyone to look at us, to see that we are together and we don’t have to worry about hiding anything, because I look much older than my age.
“Are you sure?” he asks.
I nod and, still dazed that he’s actually here I say, “I was afraid you wouldn’t come.”
He puts his fingers under my chin and tilts up my face. His eyes seem to sink into mine as though he can see right into me. He murmurs something that I don’t quite hear, but I think it’s “How could I not?”
He drops my bag into the back of the car and I slide into the passenger seat. When he gets in beside me he doesn’t start the engine, he just sits quietly for a while, staring straight ahead until he says, “I need to be certain that you’re sure.”
I turn to look at him and when I say yes, I’m sure, he puts a hand on my face. His eyes stay on mine and it’s like I can feel them. He leans forward to kiss me. It’s not the first time I’ve been kissed, but it is the first time I’ve felt the onrush of so much emotion. It’s flooding through me so fast and powerfully it’s making me dizzy. His aftershave is spicy and leathery and I feel it swirling around my senses making me intoxicated by it and by him.
“I’ve wanted to do that since the first time I saw you,” he says in a whisper.
I remember that day in his music room at the start of the school year when he introduced himself to us and asked us to do the same. It seems incredible that when I’d told him my name he’d been thinking about kissing me because that was what I’d been thinking about him.
He looks down at my psychedelic mini dress and white knee-high boots. I felt like a model when I put them on, one that dances the twist and who knows how to have fun, but now, because of the way he’s looking at me I feel self-conscious and worried that I might have chosen the wrong thing.
He starts the car and turns on the radio. It’s crackly and loses the station now and again, but we can tell that the record playing is “Something Stupid”—and because it’s about saying “I love you’ we both blush as we smile.
He blushes so easily.
“Where are we going?” I ask as he drives away.
“To a place where no one knows us,” he tells me.
Quite soon the record changes to Percy Sledge singing “Dock of the Bay” and because we’ve sung it in his appreciation class we sing along now, knowing all the words, and we continue singing when the Beach Boys come on with “Good Vibrations.” I get quite excited when the Doors’ new one plays, “Hello, I Love You,” and he drums his hands on the steering wheel while I dance in my seat. I don’t feel worried or shy or afraid anymore, I only feel so happy I could fly.
We drive for a long time, much longer than I expected to, sometimes singing, other times just listening. I know we’re heading south because I recognize some of the signposts, but then I stop recognizing them until we pass one for Brighton. We don’t follow that turnoff, but soon after we take another and wind through country lanes, so narrow that we have to pull over sometimes or reverse to make way for cars and tractors coming in the opposite direction.
We stop in front of some tall wooden gates and he gets out to open them. At the same time he pulls letters from a mailbox. Once we’re through the gates he stops the car again to go and close them and then he drives us along a narrow lane lined with trees and wild flowers. At the end, in a small clearing is a house that’s more of a cottage with a thatched roof and ivy-covered walls.
“Is this where you live?” I ask, starting to feel nervous again. I know he has a flat in the town near school, but so do lots of teachers who have other places they go to at weekends.
“It’s my uncle’s,” he tells me. “He’s in Asia on tour and while he’s away he lets the rest of the family use it.”
He tells me later that his uncle is a famous conductor and that he travels all over the world. His mother is an opera singer and his father a concert violinist. He has a brother who’s in America learning about jazz from black people in the south, and a sister who’s traveling around India with some friends.
I must admit I’m finding it hard to take everything in. I’m thrilled and daunted and bemused and excited. I miss my parents, but obviously I don’t want them to be here. I feel I’ve entered another world as I follow him inside the house and help to open the curtains and windows. It smells of dust and lavender-scented polish. The ceilings are high and crisscrossed with dark oak beams; the walls are crammed with shelves of books and long-playing records and piles of glossy brochures. These turn out to be the concerts his uncle has directed from Berlin, to Hong Kong, to London, New York, Buenos Aires, and Cape Town. There is a wooden bar to separate the kitchen from the sitting room, and in front of some French windows there is a beautiful grand piano.
He’s brought a picnic basket in from the car and we take it into the back garden, where magnolia trees are coming into flower and the lawn needs mowing. He points out a gazebo that he and his brother used to defend from dragons and monsters when they were small.
We spread a tartan blanket under the trees among daisies and dandelions, and after we sit down he pours us some cider and lemonade to drink. I tell him I’ve had cider before, so he lets me have some of his. He’s brought pork pies and cheese sandwiches, bags of ready salted crisps, apples, grapes, and chocolates. The May sunshine is too warm for me to keep my boots on so he tells me to take them off and lay them down next to his shoes. He goes back inside and a few minutes later the sound of some classical music (Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 19 in F Major, he tells me when he comes out) drifts down over the lawn as lazily as the breeze that’s tilting the grass and cooling my legs.
We eat and drink, look at each other, blush, and laugh. He tells me that the music we’re listening to now is Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E Minor conducted by his uncle, with his father playing lead violin. I can tell how proud he is of them, and I feel proud that he wants me to hear it. I ask about his mother, the opera singer, and he laughs as he says she’d be very cross if she knew he’d told me about her brother and husband before telling me about her.
His family sound exciting, clever and different. I imagine them meeting my parents and I know they’d all get along because my parents love music of all sorts even though they don’t play any instruments themselves.
He lights a cigarette and when I see it’s a joint I ask if I can have some too. I know how it’s done, I’ve seen it often enough at home, but this is the first time I’ve tried it. Though I choke on my first inhale, the second and third are fine and as my head starts to swim with words and joy I can feel myself drifting and flying like a jubilant bird in currents of music and air. I wonder what I’m doing here in this strange and beautiful garden, but there is nowhere else I want to be.
I look at him and we laugh and laugh rolling around the blanket, convulsed in our merriment until the music stops and the cigarette runs out—and the bird is finally caught in his gentle hands.