A Second Chance (60 page)

The boys, and Bill’s brothers, soon lost
interest and wandered off, while Edie twittered away, largely
ignored, and Arthur stared grimly at proceedings from his armchair.
But Bill and Emma hovered near the tuner like anxious loved ones at
a sickbed, hardly daring to breathe for fear of disturbing the
healer at work.

After what seemed a long time to Bill,
though it was in reality only a few minutes, the tuner looked up
from his work and smiled. ‘Well, the outside appearance is no
reflection on the inside, I’m pleased to say. There’s no sign of
rot, and nothing important is warped or cracked. I’ll need to
replace a few of the felts, but that’s trivial.’ He patted the
piano. ‘Its heart is sound, and that’s what matters.’

Bill exhaled a slow sigh of relief and sank
into the nearest chair. He watched the tuner at work, vaguely aware
that his father was making a few caustic remarks about the
foolishness of buying a piano sight unseen.

‘That should be quite satisfactory,’ Mr Reid
said. He played a few scales, then packed away his tools and
stepped back from the piano. ‘Now, who’d like to try it first?’

‘That has to be you, love,’ Bill told
Emma.

She took a step towards the piano, then
stopped and turned to face Bill. ‘You don’t want to wait for Mother
to have first go?’

Bill shook his head. ‘I’m not going to be
easy in my mind till I’ve heard a tune out of it.’

He brought a chair through from the kitchen
for her, making a mental note as he did so that he would have to
see about getting a piano stool when he could next scrape together
some money. Emma perched on the chair, frowned in concentration,
and began a pretty little tune. Her playing was rather slow and
deliberate, but the room rang with the strong, clear sound.

‘Very nice,’ said Mr Reid. ‘The instrument
has a fine tone, as I’d expect of a Broadwood. It obviously hasn’t
had the treatment it deserves, but I can see it’s found a good home
at last.’

‘Yes, it has,’ said Bill.

He saw Mr Reid to his horse. By the time he
got back to the parlour, Emma had already taken to the piano with
an armoury of dusters and polishing cloths. Arthur had removed
himself from the scene of such womanly tasks, but Edie hovered
about. Emma worked away vigorously, and Bill watched the operation
in some awe.

She stood up from where she had been
crouched over the pedals. ‘That’s the best I can do,’ she said,
studying her handiwork with a slight frown. ‘I can’t do anything
about those really bad scratches.’

‘You’ve done wonders,’ Bill said. All trace
of grime had disappeared, and generous amounts of polish had hidden
the more minor scratches. The loose section of veneer, and the
spots where it had been gouged through to the wood beneath, were
still visible, and no one could miss the signs of the piano’s rough
treatment, but its woodwork and brass gleamed, right down to the
pedals. He put his arm around Emma and squeezed. ‘You’ll get as
good on the piano as your ma is, now there’s one in the house.’

‘No, I’ll never play as well as Mother.’
Emma had a thoughtful, considered way of speaking, weighing each
word carefully before she uttered it, that Bill was quite sure she
had not inherited from the Leith side of the family. ‘But I think I
might be quite good.’

Bill planted a kiss on the top of her head.
‘I think so, too.’

Under Emma’s direction, Bill pulled an
armchair closer to hide the dangling veneer, which he told her he
would make an attempt at gluing down when he had a moment; and she
placed a cloth on top of the piano where an ancient water stain had
defeated her polishing skills.

‘Time to go and get your ma, I think,’ Bill
said. Emma’s bright eyes reflected his own eager anticipation.

Lily was helping Lizzie and the girls wash
up after their jam-making session, but Lizzie insisted that she
leave as soon as Bill arrived. Lizzie exchanged a glance with Bill,
who gave her a quick nod to indicate that all was well. Bill loaded
the boxes of now-full jam jars, helped Lily onto the seat of the
cart beside him, and set off, careful not to give away his
eagerness by pushing the horse beyond a gentle trot.

‘Well, I won’t need to make jam again for a
while,’ Lily remarked. She sniffed delicately at one of her
sleeves. ‘Goodness, I smell of plums.’

‘You could smell of a lot worse than
that.’

Lily laughed. ‘Yes, I suppose I could. I’m
glad you came when you did, it was getting so warm in the kitchen—I
was hoping I might manage a little time on the piano, but there
really wasn’t a chance.’

‘That’s a shame,’ Bill said, turning aside
to hide his smile.

When they pulled up to the house he called
Arfie and Will over to take charge of the cart, warning them with
his eyes to say nothing about the piano. He walked with Lily into
the kitchen, where Emma had the room to herself.

Bill was still puzzling over how he could
coax Lily into the parlour without giving away the surprise, when
Emma took her mother’s hand.

‘I just want to show you something, Mother,’
she said, her tone giving no indication of anything out of the
ordinary. ‘Come up here for a minute.’ Emma’s face was a picture of
calm unconcern, although Bill knew she was almost as full of
anticipation as he was himself. He watched her, impressed; he had
had no idea that his daughter had such a gift for subterfuge.

Lily allowed Emma to lead her up the
passage, Bill following in their wake. Just before they reached the
parlour door, Emma let go of her mother’s hand and stepped aside,
allowing Bill to take her place. ‘It’s Pa who wants to show you,
really,’ she said.

Lily turned a quizzical face to Bill.
‘Whatever’s going on?’ she asked, a slight smile playing on her
lips.

The moment called for a touch of ceremony.
Bill looped her arm through his, and ushered her into the room.
Edie smiled benignly from her armchair, while Arthur was already
regarding the piano with a proprietorial air.

They were halfway across the room before
Lily saw the piano. She stood stock still, and Bill felt a tremor
run through her. He tugged gently at her arm until she began
walking again, still trembling. When the piano was close enough to
touch, she reached out a quivering hand that hovered above the
keyboard, then slowly lowered until it rested on the keys, so
lightly that it made no sound.

The moment she touched the piano, her
trembling stopped. She turned to Bill, eyes wide and mouth slightly
open. ‘Oh, Bill,’ she breathed. ‘Oh, Bill!’

The damage that had defeated Emma’s best
efforts at hiding it stared accusingly at Bill. ‘I know it’s a bit
knocked about, but Emma had a go playing, and it sounds pretty
good. Anyway, it’s yours. You’d better try it out.’

‘It’s wonderful,’ Lily said, her voice
faint. She let Bill help her onto the chair, placed both hands over
the keys and began to play.

Bill had difficulty distinguishing one piece
of music from another, but he knew without being told that Lily had
chosen to play a piece by Chopin. ‘He lets my heart speak through
my hands,’ Lily had once told him when he asked her why Chopin was
her favourite. That had been a more poetic answer than he had
expected, but when he watched Lily bent over her piano, oblivious
to the world, and heard the music coming from her, he felt that he
was poised on the brink of understanding what she had meant. He
sank into the nearest chair, moving carefully so as not to disturb
Lily, and settled himself to watch and to listen. Emma perched on
the arm of his chair and rested a hand on his shoulder, as
engrossed in the scene as he was.

*

Lily looked up at last. Bill saw awareness
of her surroundings seep into her face. Her eyes met his, and her
mouth curved into a smile. ‘Thank you,’ she said, her voice
scarcely above a whisper.

She gave herself a small shake, and stood
up. ‘Goodness, look at the time,’ she exclaimed on checking the
mantel clock. ‘I must get on with my work.’ She ran her fingers
soundlessly over the keys, and looked over with evident relief at
Edie, who had managed to nod off during the last piece of music, so
would not trail out to the kitchen after her. Emma was fussing over
her grandfather, moving his footstool to a better position and
plumping up the cushion that had slipped to one side of his chair.
She gave a quick nod to Lily to indicate that she would join her in
a few moments.

The sight of Lily’s face bright with
happiness was so beguiling that Bill found himself reluctant to
part from it just yet. He followed her out into the passage, caught
her up and was about to speak when Lily flung her arms around his
neck and pressed her mouth on his.

Bill wisely abandoned the notion of speech,
and responded in kind. When he came up for air, Lily smiled at him,
her eyes shining. She looked past him, and a flush spread over her
face. Bill glanced over his shoulder just in time to see Emma
disappearing back into the parlour, grinning broadly.

‘Caught in mischief by our own child,’ said
Lily. ‘I hope you realise that rather diminishes our authority.’
Her blush was already fading; she was too brimful of delight for
anything as trivial as embarrassment to take firm hold.

‘So you like it?’ Bill asked, knowing the
answer but wanting to hear it anyway.

‘I love it. I was past dreaming I’d ever
have a piano of my own again. You even found a Broadwood!’

‘I couldn’t manage to get a new one for you,
but it sounds all right, even if it doesn’t look too flash. The
tuner bloke said it’d probably been forgotten about, just left in a
store room or something.’

‘Do you know, I think I love it all the more
for its having been neglected like that, and then rescued by you.’
Lily laughed softly. ‘It’s a sort of fellow feeling, I
suppose.’

Bill was not entirely sure what she meant,
but he kissed her anyway, rather more sedately this time.

She disentangled herself with every sign of
reluctance. ‘I really do have work to do. But I’ll play again this
evening—I’m going to pull out every piece of music I own! You may
come to regret this.’

Bill smiled back at her. ‘I don’t think
so.’

He returned to the parlour. Emma was sitting
with her hands folded in her lap, looking very prim and proper
until he noticed the glint in her eye. ‘I’ll just go out and help
Mother,’ she said, almost managing to hide a smile as she rose and
left the room.

Bill sat down where he had a good view of
the piano, reviewing in his mind the picture Lily had made when
seated before it. He had an odd sense that the piano was already
missing Lily’s presence. A fanciful notion, he knew; but a harmless
one. Lily would soon be back there. It had almost been worth having
to wait so long, when the fulfillment was so very satisfying.

Arthur stirred in his chair. ‘You know,
Lily’s jolly good on that piano.’ His tone suggested that Bill
might not have realised this without the benefit of his father’s
wisdom.

‘Yes, she is,’ Bill agreed.

‘It’ll be good to have a bit of music in the
house,’ said Arthur. ‘Yes, it’s a good thing we got that piano. I
don’t know why we didn’t do it years ago.’

It was clear to Bill that it would not be
long before his father decided the whole business of getting a
piano had been his own idea all along. That did not matter to him.
What mattered was that Lily had her piano at last; and she knew
perfectly well who had managed it.

In any case, it was fortunate that Arthur
was beginning to take responsibility for the idea; that could only
make him more obliging when it came to ongoing expenses. And at the
moment, Bill had no idea how he was going to pay the account the
piano tuner had left with him.

Just before Christmas a parcel had arrived,
addressed to Amy and postmarked from Tauranga. It showed signs of
having been hastily wrapped, with a sheet of brown paper crumpled
around it and held together by a clumsily knotted length of string.
Amy opened it to find a bundle of waxy-looking coloured sticks that
seemed to be meant for drawing. The printed label around them said
they were wax crayons, a thing Amy had never seen before. There was
no letter with the crayons, only a scribbled note on a roughly torn
piece of paper that said, ‘Love from Milly.’ Amy blinked in
surprise when she saw the note; the crayons were clearly meant for
Eddie, but Milly seemed to have been so flustered when sending them
that she had forgotten to sign herself as “Mama”.

Amy told herself there was nothing to be
wondered at in a pregnant woman’s vagueness; she recalled how hard
she had found it when carrying her own children to concentrate on
anything beyond the simplest tasks. She did her best not to dwell
on how strange it seemed for a woman to forget that she was
addressing her own child, and how much it seemed of a piece with
Milly’s odd behaviour ever since her marriage. She wrapped the
crayons up again, more neatly this time, and put them aside until
Christmas Day.

Milly’s letters were no longer arriving
every week. Amy wondered if Eddie had noticed the longer gaps
between them, but she did not want to question him on the subject.
It was not as if there was anything she could do about it.

She was relieved when a letter arrived in
the middle of January, a somewhat belated response to her own note
of thanks on Eddie’s behalf.

I’m glad you got the parcel all
right,
Milly wrote.
I couldn’t even remember afterwards if
I’d written the address on it properly or not. I came over funny
when I was in the Post Office. I had to sit down for a bit, and
someone got me a glass of water.

Sid had to go to Tauranga for his work that
day, and he thought an outing might buck me up. I wasn’t showing so
as anyone would notice, I’ve swelled up a bit since. I don’t think
I’ll go again. He left me to have a look around the shops, so I
thought I’d get something for Eddie and get it sent off while I had
the chance. I thought those crayon things would suit, with him
being keen on drawing.