home and watched the News.
The names of Kennedy and Khrushchev. The fear in grown-ups who perhaps expected war to happen because war was what had happened
to them.
He poured himself a glass of sherry when the News was over. Occasionally he had a sherry instead of whisky, and ate with it
a little piece of fruit cake. He would give me a piece of cake too, and a token sip of sherry in a small glass. When Peter
was away I became his privileged companion. In the days when it was still light outside we would walk at this time about the
garden. He would say, 'What did you learn at school today?' or, 'Are you being nice to poor Mrs Lacey?' as if looking after
me were hardship, and I would have some little story to tell him; and he would smoke a cigarette and when it was finished
press its butt down into the soil so that it did not show. But it was autumn now. In the garden it had long been dark, and
even the Michaelmas daisies were finished. When I came home from school I got wet brushing by them on the path, the long stems
that had fallen under a weight of October rain. I could see what he felt, sitting there, how the length of the dark evening
seemed to stretch and sag before him.
He sipped his sherry and I saw the melancholy of the idle moment in his face. It was an adult moment with a preoccupation
in it that a child could not break.
He put down his drink, picked the last crumbs of cake from his plate. He said that there was something special he wanted to
hear on the radio, and I didn't know how to stop him. He went to the radiogram, switched on, tuned, turned the volume.
Nothing.
Again. Nothing.
'Have you listened to this lately?'
'No.'
It was true. It was not a lie. And that was all. He didn't mention it again. That was like him. He didn't see or he didn't
tell you off, and you felt guilty about it and the guilt went deeper.
I went to practise at the piano. I think that it was a conscious act with a conscious purpose, to fill the silence. Piano
practice filled the house with order, with a picture of family life. A child knows that instinctively, how to create a mood.
I played my scales. First one hand, one octave; then two octaves; then both hands; arpeggios after; C major, A minor, and
so on. Going up and going down steps. A minor in the melodic, and then the harmonic scale. I liked the strangeness of the
harmonic scale. Sarah Cahn said that it had an oriental sound.
'How about your pieces?' my father asked. 'Didn't you start a new piece last week?'
There was a piece but I had not played it since I brought it home.
'I'm only doing scales today.'
'I don't think I've heard it yet. Won't you play it for me?'
'Scales are important. Mrs Cahn says so. Scales teach your fingers things.'
And leave your mind free.
The thing about scales was, they didn't trick you into feelings. They were known and they were there, and once you knew them
you could play them automatically, like a machine, only faster or slower. And your mind could escape elsewhere. Like a weaving
machine, your fingers the shuttle. (Or like the girls I'd seen on television, girls my age who worked making carpets in Persia.
What did those girls think of, all day long?) Black keys and white keys, hands, the reflection of them moving on the shiny
inner curve of the keyboard cover. Sometimes when I was playing I had the sense that I could see the girl on the piano stool,
as if I was in the ceiling looking down from above: a girl with fair hair falling out of its ponytail, a white sock slipped
down towards her ankle, her hands playing and reflected back.
M rs Cahn told me that my scales were almost perfect. I need not spend so much time on them.
'That's all right,' I said. 'I like doing scales.'
'Shall I find you another piece, something that you really like?'
She had shelves and shelves of music books but the spines were so thin that it was hard to read their names. She had a light
like a tall desk lamp that
The names of Kennedy and Khrushchev. The fear in grown-ups who perhaps expected war to happen because war was what had happened
to them.
He poured himself a glass of sherry when the News was over. Occasionally he had a sherry instead of whisky, and ate with it
a little piece of fruit cake. He would give me a piece of cake too, and a token sip of sherry in a small glass. When Peter
was away I became his privileged companion. In the days when it was still light outside we would walk at this time about the
garden. He would say, 'What did you learn at school today?' or, 'Are you being nice to poor Mrs Lacey?' as if looking after
me were hardship, and I would have some little story to tell him; and he would smoke a cigarette and when it was finished
press its butt down into the soil so that it did not show. But it was autumn now. In the garden it had long been dark, and
even the Michaelmas daisies were finished. When I came home from school I got wet brushing by them on the path, the long stems
that had fallen under a weight of October rain. I could see what he felt, sitting there, how the length of the dark evening
seemed to stretch and sag before him.
He sipped his sherry and I saw the melancholy of the idle moment in his face. It was an adult moment with a preoccupation
in it that a child could not break.
He put down his drink, picked the last crumbs of cake from his plate. He said that there was something special he wanted to
hear on the radio, and I didn't know how to stop him. He went to the radiogram, switched on, tuned, turned the volume.
Nothing.
Again. Nothing.
'Have you listened to this lately?'
'No.'
It was true. It was not a lie. And that was all. He didn't mention it again. That was like him. He didn't see or he didn't
tell you off, and you felt guilty about it and the guilt went deeper.
I went to practise at the piano. I think that it was a conscious act with a conscious purpose, to fill the silence. Piano
practice filled the house with order, with a picture of family life. A child knows that instinctively, how to create a mood.
I played my scales. First one hand, one octave; then two octaves; then both hands; arpeggios after; C major, A minor, and
so on. Going up and going down steps. A minor in the melodic, and then the harmonic scale. I liked the strangeness of the
harmonic scale. Sarah Cahn said that it had an oriental sound.
'How about your pieces?' my father asked. 'Didn't you start a new piece last week?'
There was a piece but I had not played it since I brought it home.
'I'm only doing scales today.'
'I don't think I've heard it yet. Won't you play it for me?'
'Scales are important. Mrs Cahn says so. Scales teach your fingers things.'
And leave your mind free.
The thing about scales was, they didn't trick you into feelings. They were known and they were there, and once you knew them
you could play them automatically, like a machine, only faster or slower. And your mind could escape elsewhere. Like a weaving
machine, your fingers the shuttle. (Or like the girls I'd seen on television, girls my age who worked making carpets in Persia.
What did those girls think of, all day long?) Black keys and white keys, hands, the reflection of them moving on the shiny
inner curve of the keyboard cover. Sometimes when I was playing I had the sense that I could see the girl on the piano stool,
as if I was in the ceiling looking down from above: a girl with fair hair falling out of its ponytail, a white sock slipped
down towards her ankle, her hands playing and reflected back.
M rs Cahn told me that my scales were almost perfect. I need not spend so much time on them.
'That's all right,' I said. 'I like doing scales.'
'Shall I find you another piece, something that you really like?'
She had shelves and shelves of music books but the spines were so thin that it was hard to read their names. She had a light
like a tall desk lamp that
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