Glitter (12 page)

W
e’re both quiet for a moment, listening to the violin sounds flying out of the laptop and soaring towards the sky. Sometimes it takes time to find the right words to tell somebody something that might be difficult for them to hear. And I’ve waited the whole of my life, so there’s no hurry now.

My dad sighs.

“She was on her way to the airport,” he says, “she was flying to Japan for a big series of concerts. She’d asked me to take her but Sebastian was so upset because he didn’t want Mummy to go away again I thought it would be better for everyone if she went in a taxi. I’d been begging
and begging her not to go. She was to be away for three whole months, touring around, and I just couldn’t bear to be apart from her for that long again and you were so tiny, and…and…and I was so angry, I didn’t want to make it easy for her to go.”

I squeeze his hand.

“So she left with us shouting at each other and with Sebastian crying and you squawking for a feed. Then the next thing I knew, two police officers knocked at the door, came into the house, sat me down and started making me coffee. I was bemused. I didn’t really know what was going on. Then they told me that a huge lorry had appeared from nowhere and jack-knifed in front of Mummy’s taxi killing her and the driver on impact. I couldn’t quite take it all in. Sebastian needed his tea and you had a nappy full and I just had to get on with it all. There was no one else to do it. For days I just moved from breakfast to lunch, from lunch to dinner. From getting you both up, to filling our day and getting you both back to bed. Your granny helped for a while but eventually she got on my nerves. She told me I should keep your mother alive in the house and tell you as you were growing up exactly what had happened. But I couldn’t, Libby, I was too scared, the
whole thing was just too painful. There was no room for anything else but the day-to-day chores and getting us fed and nothing else really mattered any more. Your mother didn’t stand a chance, Libby. And if only I hadn’t been so stubborn she might still have been here with us today. It was all my fault.”

A huge invisible hand swoops down, crumples my dad up like a sheet of useless paper, and collapses him on my lap. His tears come again and now they don’t scare me. I understand. It’s like they’ve been waiting somewhere inside him, in the same place as this terrible secret, waiting and waiting to be freed. We stay like this for ages, until my dad’s tears ebb away. I’m not crying. Now I know the truth I feel like a butterfly set free. Everything is beginning to make sense.

Suddenly my dad jumps up and picks up the pink photo album with my name on and runs his hand through his bed-head hair.

“I made this for you,” he says, handing it to me. “I stuck the sequins on and filled it with pictures of you until the very last page. Then something snapped in me, Libby, I was only just holding things together for us and I knew something had to change. I was getting too
maudlin with it all, it wasn’t good for any of us. I had to shake things up.”

I flip through the album feeling different about it now. It was my dad who made it, not my mum! A soft warm glow grows in my tummy.

“So you did love me then?” I whisper, stroking the photo of us both on my first birthday.

“Love you!” he roars. “Liberty, I adored you. I adored the very ground you crawled on. I adored every tiny bit of you. You were so delicious I had to stop myself from eating you up!”

I giggle.

“So what happened?” I brave.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he says, pulling me to my feet and leading me to the kitchen where he starts preparing lunch. “I tried so hard but it all went wrong. I couldn’t seem to make the place happy like she did. Something was missing, like a gap I couldn’t fill. I thought it was best to cut us off from your mother’s side of the family because having them around was too painful for us all. Too many redheads in one room, you see. And then the more you grew, the more like her you became. It’s incredible, Libby, how alike you are. Just looking at you
tore at every painful memory and every bitter regret. I loved her so much; missing her was like torture. And then you started up with the whole music thing. As a toddler you’d dance and jiggle and tap and then you went on about those darned violin lessons when you were seven. I just couldn’t bear to see history repeat itself. I couldn’t bear to see you become so obsessed that you ruined your own life too.”

I pour us some juice; it’s weird listening to my dad talk like this.

“So I did a terrible thing,” he sighs, getting out the plates. “I thought I could control you, Liberty. I thought if I just cut music out of our lives then I could guide you in another direction and keep you safe. And the music was too painful for me to hear, it reminded me of her, it reminded me of everything I’d left behind. I had to rid us of it. So I locked all the memories away in the trunks, banned music from the house, refused to talk about the past and bit by bit we started to build a new life. Your granny fought hard with me, but in the end I had my own way. That’s why we can’t stand being around each other any more.”

I don’t feel very hungry but I sit at the table anyway
and pick at my food. An anger bubble is pushing its way up. I try to keep it down because I can’t risk it; I need to hear the whole of this story, first. We need to set things straight.

“But starting a new life was hard, Libby. I had no experience in anything but music and being a dad. So I took all the money your mother had made, and there was plenty of it, and ploughed into a business. But the business took me away from you and then the further away I got, the easier it became to keep my hurt at bay. And then with the credit crunch I went and lost all the money and opened all the trunks and discovered that all the hurt and all the pain hadn’t gone away at all. It was still there, just as fresh, waiting to leap out and bite me.”

I’m listening to my dad, but I can’t stop thinking about the violin on his bed that first morning we arrived here. I know it’s somewhere, hidden in this secret, waiting to come out and be played.

“Did my mum love me?” I whisper.

“Of course she did,” he says, stroking my cheek. “She adored you, Libby, and Sebastian. But the music was like an addiction to her, she couldn’t get enough of it. She didn’t know when to stop. I will understand if you can’t
forgive me, Libby. What I did was wrong, I know that now.”

“I know that feeling of music being as important as breathing,” I say.

He sits up straight, suddenly alert. “You do?”

I nod. My angry words are bubbling up to the surface but I have to be careful here. I have to tell him gently.

“I need music, Dad, just like my mum. It’s a part of me, I can’t help it and you have to stop controlling me. You have to let me be myself. I might get to be a success, like you want me to be, if you’d let me do things my way. I promise I won’t get hurt. I promise I won’t hurt anybody else and I promise you won’t lose me.”

He nods, holds both my hands in his and drops his head.

“I know I have to let you be you. I know what I did was unfair. I’m sorry, sweetheart. I tried my best but I truly messed up, didn’t I? And so much for the big success, look at me! I’m ruined in every way!”

And then I don’t know why but we both start giggling. We’re gazing into each other’s eyes and the giggles just keep on coming.

“I’m such an idiot,” he giggles.

“You are,” I smile.

Then he pulls me up and folds me into his arms. I feel warm all over. We’re here, just my dad and me, together.

“
O
h, there’s just one more confession,” he says, leading me back to his room.

He heaves the old, brown, sticker-covered suitcase on to the bed and rummages in his pocket for the key. My heart is beating like a balloon full of birds. I wish, I wish, I wish. I hope, I hope, I hope.

“I had to lock them away,” he says, “it’s the only thing I could do to stop myself playing. You see, I know that feeling of music being as important as breathing too. We all have the family bug,” he smiles. “Except Sebastian, of course, he’s the only sensible one out of all of us.”

He opens the case and lying inside is not one violin case, but two!

“One each,” he smiles; looking like a huge shadow of shame has been lifted from his face.

“This is for you,” he says, handing me the same dusty case that I drew the heart on. “It was your mother’s, of course.”

My hands are shaking as I open the catches. Lying inside a beautiful red velvet nest is my mum’s shiny violin, untouched by time or tears or death. I pull it out. I’m shaking all over and my breathing is rapid; I’m nervous now, I have to do this right. I pull out the bow, apply the rosin to the hair and tighten it so it’s ready to play. Then carefully, I pick up the violin, place it under my chin and play. The bow kisses the strings like long-lost friends meeting for the first time in years. They stroke each other and their out-of-tune sounds fill the room with an eerie wail. I laugh and my dad laughs then I tune up so I can play properly and I play a tune I know by heart. My dad is watching me; I can feel his eyes looking and looking, checking what I’m doing. I feel nervous and shy. Then he starts moving quietly around me. Adjusting my elbow,
relaxing my shoulder, shifting my legs.

“There…” he says gently coaching me, and, “just like that…yes…good girl…a little more like that…yes…lift your elbow…”

When he’s got me in the right position he sits back on the bed to watch and when I’ve finished he applauds.

“You’re a natural, Libby,” he smiles. “There’s no doubt about it, you really have got the family bug and I feel embarrassed that I’ve kept you from it for so long. But to be fair, you’ve a lot of catching up to do. I’m not sure where we’ll get the cash from, but with the right lessons and enough commitment to practice…well maybe…you just might make it…I think it’s possible.”

My eyes are glittering with joy. My heart is about to burst open letting a thousand sunflowers and roses peep their beautiful heads out and climb towards the sun. He’s saying I can have lessons and I haven’t even had to ask! But there’s another question bouncing on my tongue, burning in my tummy. Would it be too greedy, I wonder, to ask for something else?

“Can I?” I stutter, “Please…just…”

“Spit it out,” he says. “Don’t be scared. Let’s face it, after all I’ve confessed to you today, Libby, nothing can be worse than that.”

The question is pushing through my lips, wanting to pop out, but a part of me is holding it back. I’m scared to ask, I’m not used to asking for anything. Ooh, I don’t know! Can I? Will I look stupid? I don’t even have anything to wear!

“Come on, come on,” he says, “spit it out, I’m itching to play.”

“I just wondered…if I could…I mean…if you’d let me play the little violin part in
Bugsy Malone?
”

“What are you talking about, Liberty? I’m lost.”

“Well,’ I say, “don’t you remember, on my birthday how they all started talking about
Bugsy Malone?
And we had the big argument and I told you I wanted play and then I ran off and Tyler brought me home? Well, I asked at the school and Mrs O said they didn’t have an instrument…”

And the whole story comes tumbling out like an avalanche down a mountain.

“Have you got the music?”

I nod.

“Well, what are you waiting for?”

I charge into my room, pull the music out from under my mattress, hug it tightly in my arms and skip back into my dad’s room. We tune our instruments and then my dad starts teaching me the piece. I can’t believe what’s happening! It’s not too difficult because I taught myself the tune on the school keyboard, but he’s making sure I get it right. He’s fussing about my posture and picking holes in my technique, but I don’t care. I want him to show me, I want us to play together. I learn the piece fast, then he takes the music away and we play it together, over and over until I’ve learned it by heart. We keep on catching each other’s eyes and laughing and giggling with the madness of it all.

“I’m impressed, Libby,” he says, smiling, “really.”

While I’m showering and getting ready to race off to school to find Mrs O, the sound of my dad playing his own violin fills our flat with music, air and glittering light. We can both breathe again, at last. Everything has suddenly come alive, like someone has picked some fresh bright daffodils and filled our flat with their blooms. And suddenly I can’t wait to phone Alice and tell her. And Cali and Dylan are going to be amazed and
even Tyler and Joyce and all the other old people.

“Got everything you need?” says my dad, helping me into my coat.

And then I suddenly realise that I can’t go because I don’t have anything to wear. I slump on my dad’s bed.

“It doesn’t matter,” I say, holding back my tears, “it’s not the end of the world, not compared with everything else today.”

“What do you need?” he says.

“I guess some black trousers would do. I could use my school ones,” I say. “Then I’d need a white shirt and a black bow tie.”

“Well that’s easy,” he says, searching through the trunk mess, “you can use these.”

My dad hands me his very own concert clothes that were hiding away with my mum’s dresses. I can’t believe he’d let me wear them.

“I can’t,” I say. “They’re your precious things, your memories.”

“Oh, poppycock,” he smiles. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned today, Libby, it’s to live in the present. What’s the use of hiding these old memories away? It won’t bring her back, will it? It won’t change anything. Take
them, go on, and have fun.”

I didn’t know the word fun was in my dad’s brain dictionary.

“It starts at 7pm,” I say, rushing from our flat with my violin and his clothes in my hand, “if you want to come, that is.”

W
hen I get to school the drama studio is quiet and dark. So much has happened this afternoon. There’s so much to take in and so many questions that I still have to ask and I feel dizzy with it all. I feel different about my dad, too. I hate that he’s been so angry with me for so long, but now I know the reasons why I can just about begin to understand. I mean, I must remember that
he
was the one who stayed with Sebastian and me, while
she
got lost in her music.
He
was the one who gave up playing in concerts to look after us, while
she
travelled all over the world. And all this time I’ve been thinking that life would be better if my
mum
were still around, when really it was my
dad
who was
always trying his best. I want to run and say sorry for hating him for so long and I want to tell him that I forgive him for everything, because although he did do a pretty terrible job at it, he did at least try his best. He did what he thought was right at the time.

I can’t actually believe that I’m sitting here, waiting for
Bugsy Malone
to begin. I feel silly and a bit embarrassed. Mrs O’s going to think I’m mad for turning up like this and although it might seem strange, actually playing in
Bugsy Malone
suddenly doesn’t feel so very important any more. I mean I have my whole life to play the violin, what’s so special about today? I can hear people coming into the school. Cali is singing “I’m feeling fine” at the top of her voice and if I had supersonic hearing I know I’d hear Dylan cracking his knuckles. I can hear Mr Forrest’s voice telling everyone to calm down and Mrs O directing the orchestra towards the studio. And suddenly realise that I’m feeling fine too and that I don’t really need to be here doing this. I mean playing in
Bugsy
will be great but there really are more important thing in life, like finding out about your past for instance and getting to know your dad when he’s suddenly changed from being an angry monster into a totally new man that you never thought would exist. And
I can’t wait to see what our lives are going to be like now. I mean I know that miracles don’t happen overnight, but just imagine what it would be like going to a real live classical concert with him or even having music playing on the radio in our flat. I’m just about to duck out of the way and make my escape through a side door when Cali bursts into the room.

“Liberty!” she smiles, doing a Bugsy dance across the floor to get to me. “What are you doing here? I thought you were ill.”

“It’s a long story,” I say. “I’ll tell you about it one day, but basically I took your advice, Cali, and I found out all about my mum. And look,” I smile, holding my violin in the air, “I got this too, it was my mum’s.”

“Does that mean you’re playing in
Bugsy?
” she squeals.

I nod and Mrs O and Mr Forrest clap out loud.

“I had every faith in you Liberty,” smiles Mrs O. “I knew you’d get something together.”

“Come, come, ladies,” sings Mr Forrest, “there’s work to be done, and fast!”

So, quickly they run me through my part, showing which side of the stage I have to come on, how I have to walk around the restaurant tables, and when I have to
leave. In the changing room everyone’s going mad with excitement. We’re all getting dressed up and putting our stage make-up on and having fun practicing singing and dancing. I never thought I’d be part of this. And it’s amazing to be here, but there’s something else, nibbling away at me and with me, when something starts to nibble I just can’t let it go. Just like my mum, I suppose.

Just before
Bugsy
starts I hide in the wings and look out to the audience to see if my dad has arrived.

“Quick,” I call to Cali, “you just have to look at this.”

And there on the front row is my dad and Hanna and Joyce and Jean and Len and Ivor. I can’t believe it! They’ve all come to see us! Everyone is here! Then I see Tyler arrive and I can’t believe my eyes. Tyler in the theatre! He squeezes in next to my dad and smiles. Hanna’s handing sweets around and my dad has a camera ready in his hand.

When it’s my turn to go on stage I suddenly feel scared. I’ve never played in public before and I’m afraid I might mess things up. But once I’m there, under the warm lights, looking out at a sea of faces, I relax. I was born to perform, I remind myself. Go girl. And here I am totally swimming in love. Everyone’s here to see me
and I have my dad’s precious shirt on my back and his tie around my neck and I know they’ll they bring me good luck. I gaze up to the roof and imagine myself seeing right through it and out to the glittering blanket of stars that are twinkling overhead, and I know my mum is there too, wrapped up in them, watching me, cheering me on.

Bugsy
is brilliant! I’m brilliant, Cali is brilliant and even Dylan gets a laugh with his brilliant knuckle crunching. I never knew happiness like this was possible and I have to pinch myself to make sure I’ve not got stuck in a dream.

After the show we all pile back to Hanna’s for a party. She’s made a mountain of food and decorated the flat like Hollywood. She found an old piece of red carpet at the dump and cut a strip off of it so it’s like the real red carpet that the stars walk down to collect their Oscars. Everyone take turns in walking down the carpet and everyone cheers and makes a fuss and takes photos like the paparazzi do. And of course, Hanna being Hanna, she’s got an Oscar for us all, even for me.

“But you didn’t even know I was going to be in
Bugsy,
” I say.

“I always have an Oscar up my sleeve, Liberty,” she smiles, “for you never know when you’re going to bump into a real-life star.”

On the way back down to our flat I slip my hand into my dad’s. He holds me tight and smiles.