Edie went to Mrs Newman’s most days after school and practised the piano furiously.
‘Slow down. Control,’ her teacher would tell her as she played the beginning of Für Elise.
‘But I don’t like tinkly water music,’ Edie complained. She liked the second part better. Not for her delightful minuets. She wanted grand music. Complicated music. She wanted to play Rachmaninov.
Sometimes Edie helped her mother with the filing or she’d curl up with books from the extensive library. Mrs Newman gave her The White Ribbon to read, Susie Mactier’s The Unequal Yoke: A New Zealand Story, and Mary Liddiard by William Kingston.
But on the day her mother stopped wearing black, Edie did not go to Mrs Newman’s. She ran home, desperate to get there before Robbie, who’d wandered off with his mates. She dropped her bag on the kitchen floor and went out to the backyard.
She’d watched her mother from her bedroom window. She’d seen her in the garden.
*
When Robbie came home, he didn’t kick a ball down the hallway or try to annoy Edie. He went straight to his room, opened the dresser and took out his father’s pocket-watch. He sat on his bed, fingering the gold chain, its greenstone amulets. Then propped a large hardcover book against his raised knees and pressed pen to paper.
‘Why don’t you come after school too?’ Edie asked, standing in the doorway.
‘That’ll be the day! Bet you can’t even come up with three good reasons.’ He continued writing.
‘Mrs Newman has paintings just like in a museum, and she has books you can’t get from the library.’
‘I said good reasons and anyway that was only two. Why would I want some stupid old lady telling me what to do? Mrs Newman says this. Mrs Newman says that. You’re starting to sound just like her the way you talk.’
‘We have madeira cake and shortbread and cold lemonade.’
Robbie looked up. ‘Bring me back some. If you can hide Brussels sprouts in your pockets . . .’
‘I do not! You’re the one who doesn’t eat your vegetables.’
‘Who’s the smart one now, eh?’
Edie bit her lip. ‘Who are you writing to?’ she asked after a while.
‘None of your blinking business. Just because you don’t have any friends. Blimey charley, if Dad could see you now . . .’
Edie’s face flushed with tears.
Robbie looked down at his letter. He knew he was Dad’s favourite; he didn’t need to rub it in. But it was too late now. ‘Go to Mrs Newman’s and eat your cake,’ he said at last. ‘I don’t care. And shut the blimmin’ door!’