Heller's Regret (27 page)

From the smaller of the bedrooms emerged a
young girl. Her face was serious, her hair also swept-back in
mimicry of her mother. Her large brown eyes were the most
expressive things in her serious face. She wore a plain navy,
cap-sleeved dress down to her knees, clinched at the waist with a
purple ribbon. Short white socks and black, shiny mary jane shoes
completed her ensemble. Her fingers were long and elegant.

She didn’t look as though she had much fun in
her life.

“I have multiple chores to do while I’m here
in this city, so I need you to accompany Agatha at all times. The
rivalry for a place in this academy is fierce. There are mothers
out there who will do
anything
to ensure their child gains a
spot, though none of them are as talented and accomplished as my
Agatha. But that’s because those mothers aren’t prepared to put in
the hard work that I do to ensure their child practices as much as
Agatha.” She waggled her finger at me. “I want you to listen
carefully to what I say next. It’s vital that Agatha practices at
least ten hours a day. I chose this hotel because there’s an
excellent baby grand in the bar that the hotel management have
kindly allowed Agatha to use during the day. Of course, she can’t
be there at night, because they serve alcohol there and she’s only
eleven. But as long as she gets her ten hours practice during the
daylight hours, I’ll be satisfied. She can spend the evenings
studying one of the three other languages she’s learning.”

“Excuse me, Mrs Namoy, but when does Agatha
receive some exercise?”

“She does a fifty-minute treadmill workout.
I’ll take her down to the gym with me before breakfast each morning
to do it.”

“Sorry to ask another question, but when does
Agatha receive some fresh air in the sunshine?”

“She doesn’t have time for that.”

“What about relaxation time?”

Exasperated, she said, “She doesn’t have time
for frivolities this close to the auditions. I told you that the
competition for a place is
savage
. Agatha needs to be on top
of her game.”

Agatha stood quietly, her head bowed, looking
every bit as submissive as a dog that had been treated cruelly in
life, unable to escape. My heart wrenched for her. She should be
laughing, telling secrets to her best friends, singing along to pop
music and running, swimming, riding her bike until she was
exhausted. Not pale and driven by a mother determined to succeed,
perhaps to make up for her own failure to achieve great things.

When Mrs Namoy left, despite my mutinous
thoughts, I dutifully took Agatha down to the bar and listened
patiently while she did her warm-up exercises. It came as a huge
shock when she launched with great passion into what even I
recognised as a very difficult piece of music. I’d thought Samuel
was a good piano player, but Agatha was magnificent, closing her
eyes as she played some of the music as if she didn’t need to read
the notes. My parents had coughed up for two years of piano lessons
for me, from which I’d learned little more than ‘Chopsticks’.

After two hours of practising, in which she
didn’t stop for a bathroom break or for the glass of milk I
offered, she paused, stretching out her fingers and standing up to
shake the stiffness from her legs and feet.

I saw my chance. “It’s a lovely day, Agatha,
so why don’t we go for a swim in the hotel pool? I bet the water is
lovely and warm from the sun.”

She turned huge, shocked eyes my way. “B-but
Mother said I must practice at every opportunity before the
audition.”

“You’ve worked hard this afternoon, so I
think you deserve a break for a while. You need to relax and to
have some fun too. So let’s swim.”

“I can’t swim,” she whispered, ashamed.

“That’s okay. It’s not the ocean, it’s just a
pool. It has a shallow end. You don’t have to go anywhere near the
deep end.” I leaned towards her conspiratorially, lowering my
voice. “You know, I don’t swim very well myself. I might have to
buy myself some floaties. But don’t tell anyone.”

She giggled a little, a sweet, tinkling
sound. “Grownups don’t wear floaties.”

“That’s why you can’t tell anyone,” I
whispered dramatically. She giggled again.

I took her hand and led her over to the
panoramic window at the far end of the bar. It overlooked the large
pool, which sparkled and twinkled invitingly in the sunshine. There
weren’t many people there at the moment, most of the hotel guests
busy with business meetings.

“Doesn’t that look beautiful?”

She nodded wistfully, not able to tear her
eyes away. And when she did, she looked back at the piano with
guilt. “I should practice more. Mother won’t be pleased.”

I shrugged. “Just a little swim. It will
sharpen your mind, ready for more practice.”

“I don’t have any swimmers.”

“I don’t have any with me either. Let’s go
shopping in the hotel shops.”

We spent a very nice fifteen minutes in a
shop, trying on swimsuits. She finally picked a very modest
turquoise one piece. I chose a cheerful dark blue and yellow one
piece. We returned to her suite, changed and went down to the pool,
taking a towel each from the neat stack made available for
guests.

After conquering her initial fear of the
water, Agatha enjoyed herself, squealing and splashing in the water
like any eleven-year-old. She even dared to climb into the deep end
with me, clinging to the side, exhilarated and frightened by the
sensation of not feeling the ground beneath her feet.

Time escaped us, and we ended up spending
much longer in the pool than I’d intended. We showered back in the
suite, dressing in the same clothes we’d worn earlier. I took her
down to the hotel cafe for afternoon tea, letting her choose a
creamy little cake to eat.

Fuelled by exercise and that hit of sugar,
Agatha applied herself twice as hard to her playing, managing to
fit in another two hours of practice. And that’s how her mother
found us, studiously at work, me trying to make myself useful by
turning the pages of the sheet music. I wasn’t sure exactly how
helpful I was, considering I could barely read a bar of music.
Agatha had to keep prompting me when to turn. After a bit of trial
and error, we finally finessed it down to a nod of her head to let
me know when to flip the page.

All the musical notes, on top of each other
and thick on the page, made my head spin. How anyone could turn all
those symbols into beautiful music was a talent with which I’d
never be blessed.

Mrs Namoy burst into the bar, perhaps hoping
to catch us slacking off. Delighted with the quality of Agatha’s
playing, she promised her a treat tonight as a reward.

“There’s a documentary on African animals on
television tonight,” she announced. “You may watch that.”

Big, frigging deal
, I thought to
myself. A kid should be able to watch a show like that when they
wanted, not have it doled out as a ‘special treat’. Did this mother
really believe that everything her daughter did had to be
educational in some way?

“Thank you, Mother,” Agatha said quietly,
reverting to the mousy, little girl I’d met earlier.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Agatha. I’m sure
we’ll have a great day practicing again,” I said, giving her a
secret wink, almost breaking her demeanour. She managed to compose
her face back to its usual serious expression before her mother
noticed.

“See you tomorrow, Tilly,” she almost
whispered as her mother led her away, not even thanking me for my
half-day’s service.

I went directly from the hotel to the
hospital, visiting Dad for a couple of hours. I knew it wasn’t my
imagination this time that Dad’s breathing was more laboured, more
shallow. I hadn’t counted them, but he also seemed to be connected
to another IV.

A doctor came in as I prepared to leave. “And
you are?” she enquired.

“I’m his daughter.”

“Do you know if your father would want to be
resuscitated if that became necessary?”

The question upset me, my first instinct to
say
of course
he’d want to be resuscitated. But it wasn’t my
decision to make.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t answer that. I’m just
one of the family. You’d need to ask his next of kin, my mother, or
my oldest brother, Brian, who is looking after all the
arrangements. They’re usually up here every day.”

It was a gloomy drive back to the Warehouse
and an even gloomier night’s sleep spent worrying over why the
doctor would even ask me that in the first place.

Once or twice in the night, I reached out to
touch Heller, finding nothing more comforting than his pillow
beneath my fingers.

Heller, where are you and when are you
coming back to me?

Chapter 20

The next morning, Mrs Namoy departed in a
flurry of instructions, most of which I didn’t catch. Agatha
diligently applied herself to the piano for about another two
hours. After that, she stopped and stretched, looking at me
expectantly.

“I thought today we might be very adventurous
and leave the hotel. The Botanical Gardens aren’t very far from
here and they’re full of the most beautiful flowers you’ve ever
seen or smelt. And if we’re lucky, we might spot some cute little
finches hiding in the bushes. But you have to be sharp-eyed to see
them, because they’re very quick little birds.” I looked at her,
donning my most innocent face. “Do you know once in the Gardens, I
saw a trio of wombats busking.” Her eyes grew round and her mouth
formed an o-shape of surprise. I nodded solemnly. “True story. I
stopped to listen to them for a while, but I only gave them a
dollar each, and that was because I felt sorry for them. To be
honest, they weren’t very good.”

She giggled. “Wombats don’t busk.”

“No,” I corrected. “Wombats
shouldn’t
busk and most of them are sensible enough to realise that, which is
why you rarely see them doing it. I can tell you that it’s not a
pleasant experience hearing a wombat trying to play a piano
accordion. They’re not built for it.”

She giggled more, her hand over her mouth.
“You’re just making all that up.”

“Oh, okay, I was exaggerating. It actually
was a trio of kangaroos I saw, but they were just as bad on the
piano accordion. And they insisted on me putting the dollar in each
of their pouches. Talk about pushy.”

She couldn’t stop laughing then. Still
smiling, we changed into some shorts, t-shirts and sandals (I’d
come more prepared this time). We both donned sensible hats and set
out for the short walk down the block to the Gardens.

It was a beautiful day and we strolled around
the labyrinthine paths, Agatha rushing from one gorgeous flower to
the next. Glimpsing a couple of finches, darting around the bushes,
sometimes nothing more than flashes of beautiful colours, made her
day. She discussed them breathlessly for ten solid minutes.

“Agatha, is your father coming to watch your
audition?”

She looked at the ground, suddenly serious
again. I wished I’d never brought it up. “No, he’s travelling. He’s
always travelling. He’s a businessman. He’s very rich and always
brings me back lovely presents from overseas. But he never has time
to watch me play. He tells me that’s Mother’s job.” She didn’t say
anything for a while, stooping to inhale the scent from a glorious
rose. “He’s forgotten my birthday a few times. Mother told me not
to be silly about it because he’s an important businessman and
can’t be expected to remember everything.”

“My father’s in hospital at the moment. He’s
very sick.”

“I’d be sad if my father became really sick,”
she said.

“That’s enough sad talk for one day,” I said
with determination, noticing her downcast features. “How about an
ice-cream?”

“I’m not allowed to have ice-cream.”

I looked around me ostentatiously. “I don’t
see your mother anywhere, so I guess that means I’m the grown up in
charge today. And I say let’s have ice-cream. There’s a little shop
here in the Gardens that sells ice-creams and lollies. I only know
that because the kangaroos made me buy them an ice-cream after they
tortured my ears with their busking. They ordered grass-flavoured
ice-cream, which sounds disgusting to me. I told you they were
pushy.” Satisfied with her smile at my silliness, I asked, “What’s
your favourite flavor?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never tried ice-cream
before.”

“No way! Well, that’s the most exciting thing
I’ve heard all year.”

“Why?”

“Because you’ll have to try
every
flavour so you can work out which one you like best.”

“I can’t do that,” she said shyly.

As it was a weekday, and not in school
holidays, the ice-cream shop wasn’t very busy. Agatha carefully
studied each flavour, giving each an equal amount of time and
consideration.

“May I try the vanilla, please?”

“Vanilla? Sure. What other flavour do you
want?”

She returned to the brightly coloured tubs to
think again. “Um, may I have chocolate chip too?”

“Of course, one of my favourites. What other
flavour do you want?”

“Three flavours?” she asked in awe.

“If you’re going to have ice-cream, you have
to do it properly. But I think we might get yours in a tub instead
of a cone. It’s difficult to balance three scoops in a cone. I say
that from tragic experience from when I was a kid and landed up
with a scoop on each of my sneakers and only one left in the cone.
I would have eaten the ice-cream off my shoes, but my mother
wouldn’t let me.”

That made her giggle again and I was feeling
pretty pleased with myself for entertaining her so well.

“May I also try the tutti-frutti?”

“Oh, good choice. You have excellent taste in
ice-cream.” I ordered her ice-cream extravaganza, handing it to her
before ordering one green tea scoop in a cone for myself. We sat on
the grass, near the duck pond, relishing our icy treats.