Second Fiddle (14 page)

“Hmm,” she said.

“I do a round trip of sixty miles twice a week,” I went on, “to go to my lessons. My mother drives me.”

I was babbling, I knew it. This had absolutely nothing to do with what we were arguing about. This whole conversation was going in completely the wrong direction. I didn't seem to be able to control it. Phone conversations are like that sometimes. That's why it's a bad idea to have serious conversations on the phone. The phone should be used only for making arrangements and telling people what time you will be home.

“Well, bully for you,” Mags said sarcastically. “Look, can we meet? I need to tell you about what happened yesterday. Your father said.…”

“You
went!
You went on your own?” I was flabbergasted. This possibility hadn't crossed my mind. I thought that when I didn't turn up, Mags would just have abandoned the plan. I shuddered to think what my mother would say if she heard Mags—
Mags
—had gone to beard the lion in his den. She would never believe me if I said it had nothing to do with me.

“Obviously,”
Mags said. “I didn't have much choice, did I?”

“Oh!” I said, thinking rapidly. “Well … listen, there have been … um, developments. My mother wormed it out of me that we were looking for Dad, and she
totally
freaked out. You should see her when she does that. She's like Tosca.”

I don't know what made me say that. It was utter nonsense, but I couldn't explain what “totally freaking out” is for Zelda. If I said there was complete silence, followed by a chilly command that I was not to see Dad, she wouldn't have thought that was very serious. I needed to get across to her how dramatic it really was. But of course, what would a kid like Mags know about Tosca?

“Tosca?” she said.

“In the opera, you know? Where she throws herself over the balcony at the end. Tosca's her favorite opera, and that's her favorite bit, the long scream at the end. She dies, of course.”

Mags clearly didn't want to admit that she hadn't the faintest clue what I was on about.

“But you haven't got a balcony,” she said.

“Unfortunately,” I said with a giggle.

She didn't think that was very funny. I didn't think so either. It was just a nervous giggle. She said nothing. Absolutely nothing. Was she annoyed about something?

“Mags?” I said.

“I'm here,” she said coldly. “Listen, we do need to meet. I need to tell you about what your father said. He.…”

“Oh, that doesn't matter now,” I said, trying to put her off talking about my father. It made me feel all peculiar, listening to her talking about him, after my mother had been so adamant about my not making contact with him.

“What do you
mean,
it doesn't matter?” Mags persisted, all up on her high horse now. “Of
course
it matters.”

I could hear the anger in her voice. I imagined that she was probably clenching the telephone receiver with both hands, giving it a good shake between sentences probably.

“No,” I said, “it doesn't. I've got the money now. I've got the tickets already. Tim's coming with me, to look after me. It's so exci— I, are you there? Mags? Hello? Have you hung up?”

“No,” Mags said, “but I'm going to. Good-bye, Gillian.”

And she dropped the receiver onto its cradle with such an angry
clunk
that it hurt my eardrum.

We didn't speak to each other for five whole weeks after that. Well, that's not quite true. There was one day that we half met. I mean, we were in the same place at the same time, but we didn't really speak, just exchanged a few words. Every day I had thought about phoning Mags to try and make it up, but I couldn't think what to say, and every day that I didn't phone, it became harder to think of what to say and less and less likely that I would ring her, and so it dragged on and on, day by day. And then, as I say, we met by chance at the hut. Tim was there too. It was a perfect opportunity and I was just planning to apologize and explain, but when I looked around to speak to Mags, she'd disappeared, just sloped off when my back was turned. I felt horrible.

After that, it was all much worse. Anyone can have a misunderstanding over the phone. Phone conversations are like that, because you can't see the other person's expression. But when a person just walks out on you when you're about to apologize, you feel as if you've been kicked in the stomach. That's how I felt, anyway. After that, I simply couldn't ring her. I was afraid she'd do it again. I didn't want to have that feeling again, so instead, I filled the time with practice, practice, practice.

And then of course there was the trip, and the audition and the excitement of it all. I did still think about Mags, but it was like a sore spot that you try to avoid touching, so when she floated into my mind, I shooshed her out again, and so it went on.

Mags

What happened was this.

My mother was babysitting for Lorna while Lorna's mother, Fionnuala from next door, went shopping. She'd never left the baby before, even for an hour, but took her everywhere in a little pouch thing that she strapped onto her chest. Today, though, she needed to try on some summer clothes, and she couldn't do that with Lorna fastened to her, so Mum had volunteered to mind her for a little while.

I went with her, to keep her company.

“I don't need company,” my mother had said. “Lorna is company.”

I glared at her.

“But of course, if you'd like to come, I'd be very glad to have you,” she added quickly.

The real reason I was so keen to go with her was that I was avoiding Gillian, and I was trying to fill up my time with things that were not-Gillian. I was so cross with her about the other day, first abandoning me and then not even bothering to apologize. I felt as if she'd squashed me underfoot like a wriggling insect. I know she's older and she thinks I am a bit silly sometimes, because I'm younger, but there's no need to treat me like some sort of a
pest.

As it happened, Lorna was fast asleep when we got there. In the daytime, she slept in a basket on the kitchen table.

“Why doesn't she put her upstairs in the bedroom?” I whispered, as Fionnuala closed the front door behind her.

“She can't bear to have her out of her sight,” said my mother. “Even when the baby's asleep, Fionnuala wants to be able to see her, hear every snuffle, scoop her up at the first sign of a whimper.”

“That's daft,” I said.

“No, it's not,” said my mother. “I was exactly the same with you. Kept you with me every minute. Couldn't bear to be parted from you. I even used to put you on the floor outside the bathroom while I whisked in to use the toilet. I'd leave the door open, in case you moved in your basket.”

“Really?” I said, surprised at how touched I was to hear this. “I didn't know.”

My mother smiled, but she didn't say anything more.

“Let's have some tea,” I said then, “while we wait for Lorna to wake up and entertain us. I'll put the kettle on. I bet you're glad of company now. You'd be bored just sitting here looking at her, wouldn't you?”

“No, I wouldn't be,” said my mother. “But I'm glad you're here all the same. Why aren't you out in the woods, though? It's another lovely day.”

“Don't want to,” I said. “Now, where does she keep the teabags?”

“Top left, over the kettle,” my mother said. “Biscuit tin is top right. I'll get the mugs.

“What news of your friend Gillian?” Mum asked when the tea was made. “You're not meeting her today? I thought you two were getting on so well.”

There she went again, trying to organize a social life for me. Before I could answer, or avoid answering, the basket on the table creaked. I looked over the edge. The baby was moving. She arched her back, stretching up her arms and waving her tiny fists in the air. Her mouth opened in a little rosy O and her eyes blinked open, deep and blue and clear.

“Oh, goody,” said my mother. “She's woken. We can pick her up.”

“You are a baby addict, Mum,” I said with a laugh. “You really are a bad case.”

My mother grinned at first, but then suddenly she turned her lips right in over her teeth, with her mouth closed, so that they disappeared altogether, and there was just a crazy line across under her nose, like a gash, where her mouth should be.

Oh, God, she's going to cry!
I held my breath, as if I could stop the world by not breathing.
She's trying not to cry.
Time kept creeping forward. I knew, because I could hear Fionnuala's kitchen clock ticking, ticking. I had to say something; I couldn't go on never saying anything about the saddest thing.

“I'm sorry,” I whispered.

My mother shook her head, but still her mouth was a crack across her face with no lips.

Until the saddest thing had happened, we had had something to look forward to together, me and Mum, something that kept us both linked to Dad. And then.…

The saddest thing was that my mum was going to have a baby, but then, two weeks after my father died, it just got washed away in the night. All the upset and shock and grief had made my mother so sick, she'd said, she couldn't hang on to the baby. She just didn't have strength enough for two. That was the saddest thing. We never even knew if it was going to be a boy or a girl. That made it worse, somehow, not knowing if it was going to be a boy or a girl. It's not the very saddest thing of all—that's not having Dad anymore—but in a way it was the worst thing, because it made everything else even sadder than it was already. That's why I call it the saddest thing.

“I mean,” I went on, “I mean that I'm sorry about what I said the other day, when Don was here. I shouldn't have said it. I meant it as a joke—sort of. But I shouldn't.…” I trailed off. Maybe I'd said too much already. Maybe I was making it worse, by reminding Mum of what I'd said that day.

There was one of those awkward moments when nothing seems to happen. The clock ticked on, like a clock in shock, its hands to its face in horror.
Tut-TUT,
it seemed to say.
Tut-TUT.

My mother relaxed her mouth and her lips reappeared, to my relief. Then she gulped down the rest of her tea, pushed her mug aside, and leaned over to lift the baby, who was just starting to whimper, out of her basket.

“She's too hot,” my mother said, not really to me. “I think she's too hot.”

Lorna smiled at my mother as she unwrapped her from her sleeping shawl and put her down on it to kick. A little dimple appeared in one cheek when she did it.

“Look, Mags,” my mother whispered. “She's smiling. She's not old enough to smile, but she's doing it, look! For us.”

“Bloody marvelous,” I said. “I think she's going to turn out to be human. That'll be such a relief to her mother. She'll turn out a fine daughter and be a comfort to Fionnuala in her old age.”

My mother turned to me then and looked right at me. There were tears in her eyes, but my nonsensical patter had made her smile all the same.

“Oh, Mags,” she said, and her voice was all choked up.

Flummoxed, and feeling tears starting in my own eyes, I looked away.

“Durn mugs,” I said, gathering them and the teaspoons and moving to the sink. “Better wash 'em up before the lady of the house gets back, eh?”

I left Mum chatting to Fionnuala when she got home, and took a walk in the woods. I felt as if my brain were boiling in my head. I could do with a bit of soothing shade.

I sat for a while on my table rock in the clearing, dangling my feet in the miserable trickle that was all that was left of the stream in this heat. I noticed the depression I had dug by the rock only a few days before, meaning to create a cool place for storing food. It looked like something I had done years ago, in my distant childhood. I couldn't imagine myself now ever using it. This whole place, though it was pleasant enough, didn't seem to belong to me anymore. After I'd dried my feet on my handkerchief, I tried crawling into the tunnel I'd made, but the ferns and scrub had grown quickly in the hot weather and had closed over from lack of use. I felt grumpy, as if I'd lost something important, but I didn't know what it was. I blamed Gillian for whatever was wrong, though I knew that wasn't really fair.

I picked myself up and started to wander home. As I went by the foresters' hut, I glanced automatically upward. Tim waved to me over the low balcony of the porch.

“Watch you don't fall over,” I called up to him, “and come to a sorry end, like Tosca.”

“Tosca!” he snorted. “No chance! Come up and have a cup of tea with me?”

“I will burst if I have another cup of tea,” I shouted, “but I'll call up to say hello.”

I liked Tim. There was no need to fall out with him just because his sister was a conceited brat.

As I set my foot on the bottom wooden step, I fancied I heard a snatch of violin music. It reminded me of the day I'd been meant to meet Gillian. I'd imagined I heard violin music that day too. I skipped up a few more steps, and it came again. Not anything I recognized, not really music, just notes, seemingly random. I hesitated. I didn't think I was imagining it anymore. Gillian must be there. Still, I'd accepted Tim's invitation, so I carried on up the steps.

Tim met me at the top and threw his arms open. For one awful moment, I thought he was going to sweep me up into a giant hug. I didn't think I could cope with that, but it turned out that he was just ushering me dramatically through the door into the dark and resinous interior of the hut. I expected it to be cool in there, because of the dark, but the little wooden hut seemed to soak up the sun and instead of the fresh and delicious cave I expected, the air was thick and heavy, almost as if you could touch it.