No more piano lessons.
No more piano lessons.
Chris David McDonald
1
No more piano lessons.
My father told me, before he went to prison, that the best thing you could ever do was find a
woman who was too good for you and put a ring on her. After he died in his cell –heart
attack– I was a wreck; a real unemployed, gym-junky of a wreck. I used to go to bars, get
drunk and look for someone to fight, aspiring for prison or death. Maybe that was my way of
trying to talk to him again.
Then this girl stepped off the stage of the Townie and said, “You look fucked.”
I stumbled back. “You’re beautiful.”
She laughed. “Get many chances to buy beautiful singers a drink?”
“Not lately.”
I bought her a double vodka and coke in a long glass. “You gotta catch up.”
I remember her saying, “Oh no, I don’t want to tell you all my dirty secrets.” We
made a toast to dirty secrets.
Most of the night after that is a blur in my memory. I’m sure we were outside, by the
park near Australia St, when she started crying.
“My daughter’s run away.”
I didn’t have words. I just held her. Her life was as fucked as mine and that gave me
hope. That made me think maybe I could become meaningful, like she was meaningful up
there on stage. I’d start by helping the pretty stranger, help just by holding her.
I hadn’t expected to see her again, but Poetic Steel Rats played at the Townie the next
week. After the gig, she led me to her favourite Thai place, ordering dishes I’d never heard
of. She was a puzzle I wanted to get to know, to understand, rather than solve and throw
away.
I didn’t think we’d become a thing. Now we’re married: Jessica and Blake Harrison.
With names that plain you’d think we were harmless.
I escape the afternoon traffic and speed through the last few streets till I’m home. The
gate is already open. The moment I walk through the front door I slip off my shoes, leaving
them by the polish in the shoerack, below a pile of letters and bills. I can hear Jessica playing
piano, a simple tune.
“Hey hey!” I pop into the piano room. An old brick house with a new pool, our place
is a pleasure in summer. The afternoon sun spills in from the window onto my wife’s long
green dress.
There is a girl beside Jessica, around nine years old. I try not to panic.
2
No more piano lessons.
“Hey babe,” says Jessica. “We’re playing some classic classical. Ciann’s a great
accompanist. Ciann, say hello to Blake.”
“Hello.” The girl hides behind Jessica.
“Hello!” I turn to my wife. “Where’s Ciann from, beautiful?”
“You remember the Pettmans from that neighbourhood watch meeting? Well, they
thought Ciann might want to try the piano.”
“Oh, nice. So this is the Pettmans’ daughter?”
The girl leans out from behind Jessica, looking up at me with shy brown eyes.
“I think it’s time for Ciann to go home.”
The girl tugs Jessica. “Aren’t we going for a swim?”
“No. I guess not.” Jessica gives the girl a hug. “The big bad wolf’s come home and
blown all our plans away. Come on, let’s pack your bag.”
We drop the girl at her house, saying hello to her parents, apologising that we can’t
stay. Jessica and I don’t speak the whole drive home.
I shut the door and she turns to me, her hand pulling aside the neckline of her dress.
“I’m glad we didn’t have dinner with them, they wouldn’t approve.” I can see she isn’t
wearing a bra.
“What’s wrong with you?”
Jessica covers herself. “What the hell’s wrong with you, Blake?”
“You can’t just take some kid and bring them home.”
“Her parents wanted her to learn piano! They asked me to take her.”
“They ask you for swimming lessons too?”
Jessica blushes. “I wanted to help the poor girl have some fun for once. They’ve
scheduled every second of her little life. But you! What’s with the freak out, Blake?”
“It’s just…” I wave my hand; storm past her. “I’m starting dinner.”
“Fine. It’s all you’re good for lately.”
A thunderous symphony erupts out of the piano room. It is a piece Jessica is teaching
her performance students at the Conservatorium. I wonder how I, who have never struck a
chord in my life, ended up with a master of these brooding, dramatic movements. The
operatic music gives way to an upbeat piece from Sweeny Todd and then to some swing
number from the 1940s.
The piano stops as I turn off the frying pan. She enters without a word; sets the plates
and pours us both a glass of wine. We sit. I avoid her eyes.
3
No more piano lessons.
“This is great.”
I keep eating.
“Did you talk to Greg about that team leader role?”
“Later,” I whisper.
We can hear the steam rising out our rice. Jessica looks to the stereo, glances at me,
then darts over to put on an album. Counting Crows take over the kitchen.
I have to say it. “I know.”
“What do you think you know, babe?”
“About, you know, the way you appreciate…”
“Children? Well only other people’s children.” There is something sad behind her
smile.
“I know why your daughter left.”
Crash! She slams the plate down so hard, I don’t know how it doesn’t shatter.
“I asked you one thing, Blake. Please, don’t mention her.”
I make a little mound of stir fry with my fork.
“Sorry.” She checks the plate for cracks. “But you’re being ridiculous. I never even
told you her name.”
Her name is Beck.
Before our engagement and before my job at Commbank, I was a barman/waiter at
the Courthouse Hotel. One morning, a girl came to the bistro in senior school uniform. I
checked her ID: 18 years old, her last name familiar. She said that we had to talk, that she’d
found me through facebook. She said I couldn’t tell Jessica anything, or else she’d never
speak to her mother again. I clocked off and was led to this little café behind a bookstore.
I got her a hot chocolate, myself a glass of water. When the drinks came, we ordered
lunch as well. I knew Jessica wanted nothing more in the world than for her daughter to come
home. It’d been two years.
“So, do you really love mum?” Beck asked.
“Why don’t you visit for dinner one day and see for yourself?”
She gave me a stare, a sort of: nice try.
I laughed.
“Well, do you?”
“Your mother, is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
Beck frowned. “Would you love her, no matter what?”
4
No more piano lessons.
Such a teenage idea! Back then I still thought that, after a while, you’d get sick of
anyone. I didn’t realise that sometimes difficulty makes you care more about someone.
“Yeah, no matter what.”
Beck’s smile was very bright but soon faded, like the colours of a firework.
“I’m part of this special forum,” she said. “That’s why I came to find you. The other
members said I should tell someone. They said it’s better to talk about it.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah… and it might be good for you to know.”
“Know what?”
“I, ah….”
“Is something wrong? Are you in trouble?”
“No, it’s not like that.”
I nodded.
“I don’t know if mum told you much about us in Melbourne. You know she raised me
by myself right? I mean, there was this guy before you. Nice guy but kinda old. He left–”
“I’m sorry. You sure nothing’s wrong? You know you could come home anytime,
you’re–”
“I can’t go home, ever.”
She looked down into her hot chocolate, stirring in the little complimentary
marshmallow, crushing it against the inside of the cup.
A tear landed on Beck’s saucer.
I held up my hands. “Look, whatever happened, you don’t have to talk about it if you
don’t want to. Should–”
“No. I need to tell you.” Beck sniffled. “She used to do strange things. Like, she made
me leave the bathroom door open, ‘in case I tripped in the shower’. It took me a while to
realise these things weren’t normal.”
“Everyone’s parents are strange.”
“Not like this.”
“I don’t see what you’re getting at, Beck.”
I felt stupid and insensitive but I wanted her to go, to run off, not to say–
“She used to get things and teach me how to do it, without boys.”
“What?”
The waiter came with our meals and our cutlery. I went white with embarrassment.
Beck glanced at my tablespoon and shuddered.
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No more piano lessons.
The waiter stopped. “Everything ok here?”
“Fine, thanks,” I said. But he wasn’t talking to me.
Beck nodded.
As the waiter left I thought about how I looked, a man in his early thirties sitting with
this girl, too young to be her father, too old to be her friend.
“So… you were…”
She nodded.
“Jesus Christ.”
“Yeah.”
She was getting control of her sniffling. It was brave, if not risky, for her to tell me
these things. I could have accused her of lying, of making this up in some teenaged act of
defiance. But no. It takes a lot to drive a girl from home at sixteen. It takes even more to keep
her away until she’s old enough to drink. I don’t know whether it was because of my father’s
experience, but I knew that the worst stories were normally the true ones.
“I told you, specifically,” she said. “So you can watch her. So you can make sure she
doesn’t hurt anyone else.”
“Me! Why me? I–”
“Because you love her.”
“Oh, come on.”
“Well you’ve got to do it. It’s supposed to be unlikely, with others. But no one else,
no one ever, can go through what I went through.”
“Ok ok ok. I agree with that.”
“Then watch her.”
It took a few more minutes for Beck to gather herself, to pretend to eat her sandwich.
She got up; made to leave without saying goodbye.
“Beck?”
She turned.
“If this happened to you, why didn’t you tell anyone? You know, report it?”
Beck frowned, giving me a stare that screamed: Isn’t it obvious? “She’s my mother.”
I was left alone with the bill and the dirty plates.
But Momentum is a powerful thing. While I was a little aloof for next few weeks, I
soon carried on as I had been. It was impossible to equate Beck with everything else in my
world. Jessica and I weren’t engaged yet. But I didn’t want to move out. I didn’t want to go
6
No more piano lessons.
back to the Townie looking for a brawl. My mind started making strange rationalisations. The
teenager remained out of sight. At the end of the day, it’s easy to ignore something when
your happiness depends upon it.
A few months later, a new year began, a leap year. On February 29th Poetic Steel Rats
performed their biggest concert yet, opening for Chet Faker.
I realised the moment that they started a loop in one of their jazz numbers. The
drummer said that they had a very special announcement and wouldn’t finish the song until I
was on-stage.
A thousand hands lifted me and sent me to the front. Up there with the band, I could
see them, all the faces enjoying this moment, and I was glad Beck’s face wasn’t among them.
With a spotlight blinding us, Jessica went down on one knee. I could barely hear her over the
approving screams of the crowd.
“Blake, baby. I’ve never been more stable, more faithful, more happy or more alive in
all my life.” In front of all those people, Jessica said she would be honoured if I would be her
husband.
Lifting her off the filth of the stage, I kissed her and said yes. I said I’d loved her
since we met, that I wanted nothing more than to stay with her. I meant every word.
I don’t need to tell Jessica this, she already knows it. I mention that I met Beck, once,
and that is all. She washes her plate, goes into our bedroom and closes the door. I walk
around the house, running my hand over the marble of the kitchen bench, staring off the back
veranda into the pool, closing the cover over the black and white keys of the piano. I lay
down on the lounge and put on channel V. A few minutes later I’m having dreams about
kicking children out of pubs.
In the morning, Jessica pretends to sleep as I get dressed. The day passes, as usual,
with Greg and I arguing over whether working for Commbank is really better than working in
hospitality. In the afternoon, when I drive home, I do not speed.
I smell the bolognese as soon as I enter. The piles of letters on the shoerack are
ordered and tidy. I take off my jacket. It’s too early for me to be hungry but I come into the
kitchen. The Living End is playing, my music.
“Hey hun.”
Jessica smiles. “Perfect timing.”
She serves the linguini bolognese onto our plates and pours red wine into our glasses.
I eat. She eats. I drink. She drinks quickly.
7
No more piano lessons.
Jessica stands up, drains her glass. “Sorry. I thought I could have dinner with you.”
She runs into the bedroom, leaving the door open. I hear her sobbing.
I swirl the wine. I sip. I take a breath. I repeat the process until the glass is empty and
the pasta is cold. Her sobbing has almost died down.
Saying nothing, I enter the bedroom. She is sitting on my side of the bed, glancing up
at me.
“I’m sorry, Blake, for yesterday.”
“Yesterday will be ok.”
“I...” Jessica sits up. “I called the Pettmans. I told them, too busy. No more piano
lessons.”
“Oh, good.” I exhale.
“I wasn’t going to… have a problem. But it’s best to be safe.”
“Yeah, let’s be safe.”
Jessica hums. She buries her head in her hands. “I miss Beck.”
She breaks down. I sit down on the bed and I hold her. I say nothing. They don’t
make words for a time like this.
As I feel her tears wetting my sleeve, I realise that there is no one else in the world
who can hold this woman the way I’m holding her. There is no one else in the world to love
her.
“I will be ok,” Jessica says.
“It’s good you called the Pettmans.”
She grabs me. Her kiss is wet and salty. “I wish you could have told Beck how sorry I
am.”
I wipe the mess off her face.
“I don’t know how you can love me,” she says.
I have to.
She kisses me again. We roll over onto the bed. She cries a little more.
We fall asleep there, in our clothes, holding each other.
8