The Square
Authors: Rosie Millard
Legend Press Ltd, The Old Fire Station,
140 Tabernacle Street, London, EC2A 4SD
[email protected]
|
www.legendpress.co.uk
Contents © Rosie Millard 2015
The right of the above author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data available.
Print ISBN 978-1-7850799-2-4
Ebook ISBN 978-1-7850799-3-1
Set in Times. Printed in the United Kingdom by Clays Ltd.
Cover design by Gudrun Jobst
www.yotedesign.com
All characters, other than those clearly in the public domain, and place names, other than those well-established such as towns and cities, are fictitious and any resemblance is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
Rosie Millard
is a journalist, writer and broadcaster. She was the BBC Arts Correspondent for ten years, since when she has been a profile writer at
The Sunday Times
, columnist for
The Independent
, arts editor of
The New Statesman
, theatre critic and feature writer. She makes TV and radio documentaries and appears as a commentator for a number of national TV shows. She is Chair of Hull City of Culture 2017.
Rosie has also written
The Tastemakers
, an exploration of the British contemporary art scene, and
Bonnes Vacances!
, a comic memoir about taking her family around the French Overseas Departments.
Visit Rosie at
rosiemillard1.wordpress.com
follow her
@Rosiemillard
To my dearest parents John and Rosemary Millard, who love reading. Please ignore the bits in this book where people’s clothes come off. Thank you.
Contents
Chapter Three The Residents’ Association Meeting
Chapter Seventeen The Dinner Party
Chapter Twenty-Six Sunday Lunch
Chapter Twenty-Seven The Talent Show (i)
Chapter Twenty-Eight The Talent Show (ii)
Chapter Thirty-Two The Screening
Chapter One Jane
Roberta climbs the steps and rings the door bell. In a disinterested way, she wonders who might answer. Patrick, the dishevelled husband? Jane, the trim, pressurised wife? It certainly will not be ‘Boy’ George. He will be where he always is. Upstairs, hiding in his room. Trying to squeeze another thirty seconds before being called down for his weekly ordeal.
Roberta is attempting to interest George in the complexities of the piano. Actually, no. She’s just trying to get him to learn to play. George is not very interested in the piano. George’s parents, however, are. Roberta has been teaching George for nearly two years.
Every lesson, Jane comes into the room that has been officially designated as the ‘music room’ and leans on the lovely Blüthner grand, with its blond wood and real ivory keys. She taps her fingers on the top of the piano in time to the music. Then, at a pause, she always asks about Grades, and more specifically when Boy George is going to take his Grade Two. Every single lesson.
Although most of her pupils have pushy parents, Jane is without doubt the pushiest. Just as well her son is so resilient, she thinks.
She glances across the Square; the perpendicular lines of the terraced houses face her, the grand facade of a palace. Built for the Victorian bourgeoisie, fallen into disrepair, divided up, broken down, reunited, refurbished, they are serving descendants of their original class once more. She is not disdainful of the Square; she is grateful to have found it. Everyone who has children on the Square hires Roberta. Perhaps it’s not so surprising. The cellular living spaces indoors are perfect for music. Outside, the identical white facades of the houses, and their uniform black front doors make the Square look like a giant keyboard.
“Ah, Roberta, how lovely.” Patrick swings open the door, and grimaces in a friendly way. Roberta, as a regular visitor, can be grimaced at. Roberta smiles back. He’s one of the fathers she’s warmed to. Cheery, not given to complaining. He is a man who has gone to seed, however. That belly. Pity.
“Sorry, sorry, Roberta.”
He rolls his eyeballs at her.
“Der Führer is on the rampage.”
That’ll be Jane.
Roberta takes her shoes off. Has to be done. Nobody even asks her any more; it’s part of the accepted greeting and entering ceremony these days. As if everyone lives in Buddhist temples.
“Boy! Roberta is here!” yells Patrick in stentorian tones in the vague direction of George, and disappears in order to make Roberta her customary tea.
She pads into the music room and unclips her bag, taking out her own notes. She finds George’s book on a coffee table, under a copy of the
Daily Mail
, and props it up on the piano. After a few minutes, the door opens and Boy George trails in, a diminutive version of Patrick, smiling at her hopefully.
“Hi.”
“Hey.” George sits down at the piano, ruefully stuffs his mobile device in a pocket, and considers his book. Then he looks at the keys. What is the relation between the two? He wishes he could know. He wishes, as if by a magic spell, he could suddenly just play. He puts his fingers on the instrument, and sighs. He wonders, doubtfully, if someone was holding a gun to his head, say a Nazi, whether he would suddenly be able to remember the piece from sheer panic.
“Now, shall we do some warm-ups? Remember? Shall we start with Hanon?”
George nods. He wants to please. He wants to be liked. He likes Roberta, too. He just cannot be bothered to do the necessary tasks in order to master this instrument.
Laboriously, he opens the papyrus-coloured score and commences the deceptively simple five-finger exercises followed by keyboard neophytes since Hanon wrote them 200 years ago.
A tray bearing a mug of tea comes into the room, followed by Jane. She is blonde, bobbed, bony. She smiles brightly, but no-one is deceived.
“Roberta. Lovely to see you, here’s your tea. How are you? Now, I have told George he has got to buck up. I’m sorry, but this week’s practice timetable has not gone to plan. Has it, George?”
George shrugs happily. He stopped playing the moment his mother came in the room.
“If you say so, Maman.”
Jane chooses to ignore this carefully weighted snub, and smiles again at Roberta.
“Piano has a tough trajectory,” says Roberta. Think about something other than Grades, she wants to say. Let the child learn how to enjoy the music. But Jane will not. Grades are the holy grail. Roberta suspects the mothers of her pupils gather together on a regular basis comparing notes. Why is it so important? Don’t ask. It just is. Learning the preludes and fugues of J.S Bach is improving. Baroque music is good for you.
Roberta never sees it in this way. For her, music has always been a code, a discipline which gives the world some meaning. She plays a Bach prelude every morning. Every evening, not too late (neighbours), she plays a fugue. There are forty-eight in the series. After she finishes the book, she starts again.
“… and so I said to George, if you pass Grade Two, I’ll buy you one.”
Roberta smiles. She has no idea to what Jane is referring, but can only guess it is a bribe involving an electronic toy of some distinction.
“Great idea. Come on George, let’s see what shape these pieces are in.”
George sighs, shifts on his stool. Thursday afternoon piano lesson is just one of the rather duller hurdles in his week.
“
Ça va
, Roberta, my dear. Here we go again. Encore.”
The patterns of Hanon emanate rather feebly from the Blüthner.
Jane leaves the room. Goes into the hall. Looks in the hall mirror. Sees a middle-aged woman with crow’s feet. Thinks about when she was pushing George, fatly huddled with earmuffs and a scarf in his buggy, aged two, to Martha’s Music Group. “He has real musical talent,” Martha used to say, when George was minded to pick up a glockenspiel stick and wave it. So much for Martha.
She looks at her face again. Those lines. Thinks she might invest in Botox. If only it wasn’t so bloody expensive. If only it wasn’t so frightening.
She wonders vaguely when Patrick is going to find out about her affair, not whether he is, but when he is. She feels that she must hold the present together with all her might, as if it is a vase which is just about to break into a thousand fragments.
At least everything, for the time being, is calm. Earlier that day, it had not been. It makes her heart race to think about it.
Several hours earlier Jane’s lover, Jay, texted her. Says he is coming over. Well, she had suggested it.
How are you darling?
was all he had written.
Come over
, she had messaged him back, immediately.
Patrick is at work. George is at school. Can’t wait to undress you.
Fine
, he replied.
Is it safe?
Oh for God’s sake, Jane thought. What do you think?
Patrick is at work
, she texted, again, irritated.
Then she goes to put on matching underwear.
Jay arrives.
She sees his shadow through the glass of the front door. Even through opaque glass, she desires him. He steps into her house. Mercifully, and rather uniquely, after he enters the house, she takes the precaution of putting the chain on the door.
There is then a frantic scramble between Jane and Jay, as if they are backstage at a show, in the wings, and must change their costumes instantly. Except the promise ahead is the more thrilling performance of having sex.
They cannot wait to get into another room, there is no time. There is no time for their desire to wait another second. There is no time even to speak. They are still in the hall, and he is pulling her cashmere jumper up, over her head, and at the same time, pulling down her trouser zip and then her trousers. She is getting out of her bra and at the same time, pulling his shirt roughly out from the back of his trousers, scratching him, yanking the starched cotton away from his body.