Saturday Sample:: Saint Ettie's Music School, tea

 

Chapter 1

 

 

The door closed gently, like a dying kiss. The fingertips of her left hand did not move but remained touching the worn brass door handle, delaying the devastating moment for as long as possible when this tangible link with her dreams would be broken. With her right hand, she turned the heavy key one last time. She heard the lock click, withdrew the key, and turned to the man beside her. Still touching the brass door handle, she handed him the key.

“That’s it then,” the man said. “Everything is in the van now except for a few old instruments that we have left in one of the small storage rooms on the top floor. All the furniture and the good instruments are going to the new music school on the other side of the city.”

His words were painful, and her throat tightened. She loved her instruments. They had been her life. The beautiful music she had heard them create, the children that they had inspired. They had been her source of fulfilment, her dreams and her happiness.

“Have to get going now,” the man continued. He walked down the steps, got into the large van, which then drove away. She closed her eyes for a second, knowing the awful moment had come. Taking a sharp breath, she took her fingertips off the door handle, quickly turned, and went down the steps. At the last step, she hesitated, willing herself to go on, but she couldn’t. She had promised herself that she wouldn’t do this, but she couldn’t help it. Turning around, she swept her eyes over the decaying façade of the building. The brick grimy from decades of fumes, the windows spotted with dusty rain, the paintwork on the window frames faded and, in some places, peeling off, and then her eyes switched and settled on the board. The green and gold sign had seen better days, but there was still something inspiring, dignified and majestic about it. The flowing letters revealed the now empty building’s name in elderly splendour:

 

‘Saint Etheldreda’s Music School.

Established 1923.’

 

The final, irreversible step to the pavement broke the bond with all she had loved and dreamed of. Had she not suffered enough? Were the agonies of her childhood going to follow her forever? The words of self-pity filled her mind. The strongbox holding all the painful memories of her childhood, the place where she had put them away in order to forget, sprang open.

The loneliness of an only child, always nervous, often feeling she was not worth anything, and that it would be better if she was not there at all. The terrible discovery, overheard during one of her parents’ bitter arguments, that they had never wanted children, her difficulty in making friends, the dark place her mind lived in most of the time, which could change in minutes by wild mood swings, all went round and round in an endless loop, battering her like hammers breaking stones. The escape from this unhappy, loveless place were her weekly piano lessons. There she was in another world. Confident, she lost herself in the melodies her slim fingers made when gliding over the ivory-coloured keys. Only later, on her own at college studying the music she loved, only there had she felt more settled. She was still damaged. The sudden changes in her mind that could take her from a happy place to a black cellar of danger had never gone away. Maybe that would never change, but the time spent in the dark places was less than it had been before. There at the college, the birds of hope had started to fly, and she had been able to open the door to her little world of dreams.

Now all that was gone, smashed into a million pieces and thrown to the four winds. Head bowed and shoulders hunched, she began walking down the street to the bus stop. It was a dismal day. The sky, low with unbroken dark grey clouds, added to the burden of sadness she was already struggling to carry. Fallen autumn leaves, brown and curled, swirled and rustled over the road and pavement in the cold breeze. Others gathered in small, forlorn heaps in nooks and crannies, their lives over, their work done. All that remained for them was the final farewell, crushed to powder underfoot or ground into a muddy pulp in the gutters by passing wheels. The sad, mournful scene was a portrait of her inner self.

The bus finally arrived, and as it carried her back to her home, her eyes looked through the widows, but they did not see anything. Like a robot, with no memory of getting off the bus or walking the short distance to her apartment, she found herself standing in front of her door with the key in her hand. She opened the door, took off her coat and let it fall to the floor. It covered the mail lying on the mat, but she did not notice or care. Kicking off her shoes, she left them where they fell. She went into her bedroom and sat on the corner of her bed. For a few moments she did not move but stared down at her hands, looking at her fingers, wondering when they would ever touch the keys of a piano again. Her treasured old, upright piano, whom she had named Peggy, was gone. During the countless hours they had spent alone together, she would talk to Peggy as her dearest and closest friend, telling her about her joys, her sorrows, her dreams, her plans and her problems. Peggy knew more about her than anyone else in the whole world.

But now Peggy was in another place, and she was alone. The robotic spell broke. In an uncontrollable spasm, she took a short sharp intake of breath. Her throat tightened; her eyes hot. The lake of tears she had held in the dark clouds behind her eyes, now so heavy they could be held no more. Large, warm, heavy droplets, tinged with salt, gushed from her eyes and ran down her pale face. Half turning, she fell face down onto her white cotton pillow. Her lungs emptied in half choked gasps and refilled with strangled rasps through her constricted throat. Her shoulders heaved and her body shuddered with each agonising cycle. In total distress, Miss Elizabeth Rose wished the world would stop spinning.

 

But Elizabeth did not know. She didn’t know that Peggy had heard and understood every word she had ever said to her. Elizabeth had never heard the story of Peggy’s life, nor the suggestions she had sometimes made, or the words of comfort she had uttered when Elizabeth was feeling low. She had never heard Peggy’s joy at the sounds she made from her keys and strings because Elizabeth could not hear her. But Peggy didn’t mind. This was the way it was. There was a very old myth that some people could hear the instruments talk and could understand what they were saying, but Peggy only ever knew of one instrument that believed in it. But Peggy had an instinct, an inkling deep within her that said maybe, just maybe, if all the little pieces of a picture, especially if the piece that was the myth, was really true, if all those pieces, now separately floating and drifting around the galaxy of destiny all came together at the right time and in the right place, then she and Elizabeth would meet again.

 

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About the author 

Martin Varny was born into a music loving family.  A very early memory is seeing an old radiogram going up in smoke while playing a 78 rpm record of ‘Nymph’s and Shepherds’ sung by the Manchester Children’s Choir.

As a boy he sang in a local church choir and also tried to learn to play the piano.  Due to short, stubby, stiff  fingers, he found this difficult ,so, after Grade 2, he stopped the piano lessons much to the relief of his teacher.

School revealed that he had  no particular academic talents but, with the aid of a lot of good luck, a reasonable memory and stubborn perseverance, he managed to scrape through seven ‘O’ levels and left school when he was sixteen.

The sea was always a powerful magnet, so he spent most of his working life in operational functions in marine related  industries both in the UK and abroad. He is now retired.

This is his first novel and the idea for it came ‘out of the blue’ during a conversation about films.  The story stayed in his head so he decided to write it down.  Typing with one finger in the evenings and  weekends, the first original draft was completed in two and a half weeks.