We pretended our conversation in the pool had never happened. Violin became a part of my life that I no longer mentioned in Justin’s presence. For months, I practised in my bedroom with the windows closed, afraid the sound would drift into the street and remind him of things we were trying to forget.
A lot of the people that stayed at our park drove enormous, scruffy campervans. They slept on air mattresses in the back, drank juice straight from cartons and hung wet board shorts out the windows to dry. One van had a map of the world on the back, dotted with stars to mark off all the places they’d visited. I saw it out of my bedroom window and laughed at the thought of what my map would look like. I’d mark Antarctica with a star just to make myself feel better.
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.