5

My part in the deliverance of the class from the tyranny of Sandra had unexpected consequences. Her former attendants, floundering without their leader, began to transfer their allegiance to me. Not because they liked me or felt guilty about past unkindnesses, but because they were now frightened of me. It was as if the class was waiting to see what I would do next. This situation seemed to me hardly more appealing than the one it had replaced. The thing I had hated most about being bullied was the visibility; now I was more conspicuous than ever. ‘That’s the girl who cut off the other girl’s hair’ ran the whisper around the school walls wherever my shadow fell.

It was fortunate for me that something else soon arose to occupy my time or I might have abandoned myself to the role of School Bully Elect.

‘Do we want Abigail to learn a musical instrument?’ father said one evening over tea, reading from the school newsletter. ‘Do you want to learn a musical instrument, Abigail?’

‘Yes, we most certainly do,’ said mother. ‘How much does it cost?’

‘It’s free. We just have to tick this box. Are you sure you want to, Abigail?’ father persisted, his propelling pencil hovering above the paper. ‘It means lots of practice.’

‘Of course she does. I’ve always said she was musical,’ said mother, as if the fact was already proven. ‘Choose something like a flute that’s nice and quiet and easy to carry.’

‘A cello?’ There was a hint of concern at the edge of mother’s voice.

‘That was all they had left,’ I said. ‘Cellos and Tubas.’

‘Well, thank heavens for small mercies,’ said mother, eyeing the canvas-clad beast at my side.

‘Mrs Allen’s class is right next to the music cupboard and they went first and took all the flutes and violins and by the time it came to our turn there was only big stuff left.’ Strange to think my career should have turned on such an accident. ‘We can do other instruments if we want, but we’ve got to buy our own. I’d rather learn the flute.’

‘The cello will be fine,’ said mother firmly, and she put on Jacqueline du Pré playing Elgar (quietly) in the background while we sliced runner beans, just so I would know what I was aiming at.

How I hated that cello – dragging it to school like a corpse each week; hauling it on and off buses, blushing and apologising as I left a trail of skinned ankles and bruised shins in my wake; walking with a list to one side to keep it from scraping along the ground, my free arm stuck out as a counterweight. Physically we were such an odd couple – me: small, fair and skinny as a flute, and the cello: huge, dark and broad-hipped. It was by no means a new model either, but well used and slightly chewed around the waist so that I got splinters in my legs and had to have a special dispensation to wear trousers to my lesson, a further indignity. Nevertheless I resolved to bear this burden, did my practice for twenty minutes each day as instructed by the teacher, Mrs Ede, and subjected my parents to recitals of scales and demonstrations of my pizzicato technique which they endured with fortitude. After two months the little white tapes which had marked the elementary positions on the fingerboard were removed, leaving faint traces of glue which I used as a guide for weeks to come. Although I moaned and whined about doing my practice, and put it off until just before bedtime so that the shadow of it darkened the whole day, once I had actually begun to play I found I was enjoying myself and was unaware of the time. In my end-of-term report Mrs Ede praised my ‘natural ear’ – the first complimentary remark ever made about my ears – and I began to take the whole enterprise more seriously. By this stage more than half of those children who had elected to learn instruments in the first place had proved uninterested or incapable and had thrown in the towel: the music room was once again plentifully stocked with flutes. But, encouraged by Mrs Ede’s cheering words, I remained loyal to The Monster, as it became known at home. I even began to treat it with more respect, wiping the resin from the strings with a saffron-coloured duster, polishing the wood with Pledge until I could see my own frowning face in its shiny back.

After two terms of sawing away dutifully at scales and arpeggios and three easy pieces I passed Grade One with distinction and my vocation announced itself. As a reward and a spur to further endeavour, my parents offered to buy me a Big Present. I chose bunk-beds, and slept in the top like a princess in a tower, with the cello, my surrogate sister, on the bunk below in a nest of cuddly toys.