Girl in the Dark Page 5

  November 2005

  Pete has the first full week of November off work, because it is Tree Week—the period when autumn colour is at its most splendid, and therefore most worthy of a photographer’s time and attention.

  Of course, Tree Week can vary depending on climatic conditions—if it has been blowing a gale, most of the leaves can be gone. Or, if the weather has been mild, a number of trees may not have fully turned. But employers do not grant photographers spontaneous tree leave—everything has to be booked in advance. The first full week of November proves to be right more often than not.

  “How did you get on at Winkworth Arboretum?” I ask, when Pete returns one afternoon, humping tripod and camera gear in from the car.

  “It was great,” he enthuses. “There weren’t many people about, so I was able to get out my central column.”

  I laugh in a coarse and lewd manner.

  “Really,” he says severely. “The young ladies of today. That was a perfectly legitimate photographic remark.”

  As all serious photographers will know, the central column is the extra pole in the middle of a tripod which can be extended upwards, above the legs, to gain additional height. The language of photography is rich in such stimulating metaphors. It is not uncommon to talk about “taking a second body,” or “keeping my old legs but getting a new head.” Shooting in large format requires a rising front, whilst those who use digital boast about the spectacular size of their sensors.

  “My plan is to go to the New Forest on Friday,” says Pete. “Would you like to come with me, if your face is feeling up to it?”

  I eagerly accept. I’ve never been to the New Forest, apart from once to a wildlife park for the purpose of seeing wild boar, for which I have always had a soft spot, after reading all the Asterix books when young. The boar stalked about in a stately way, thrusting their long snouts into the churned-up ground. The interpretative board on the fence of their large wooded enclosure praised their high intelligence and low cunning, their ability to run fast, swim rivers and elude pursuit. Since ancient times, it went on, hunting them was considered an extremely hazardous and therefore highly prestigious activity. I was pleased to find myself a fan of such a superior creature.

  On Friday morning, however, we are on the hunt for other things. We bound down the A339 as it dips and surges between two smooth walls of trunks.

  “Look out for a turning on the right with a sign for Bolderwood,” says Pete.

  “There, there!” I shout.

  We swerve off on to a single-track road that tunnels into the trees. Inside the car, the light goes dim. The sounds of traffic on the main road die away, and soon all we can hear is the scrunch of our own tyres and the engine’s purr, loud in the leafy silence. It is as though we are being absorbed into an enormous living organism; if I were to look back and see the forest close in, amoeba-like, behind us, I would not be surprised.

  Time stretches. For what seems hours, but must only be minutes, there is nothing but our gentle forward motion under the upraised arms of the trees.

  Finally we stop in a small gravelled parking bay to the side of the road. I get out and look up to a sudden slice of brilliant white sky. The air prickles as I inhale, like sparkling water. Pete opens the boot and extracts his gear. “I’m glad I bought this lightweight tripod,” he says. “It’s much easier to lug about.”

  I sing him a chorus from Handel’s Messiah, with photographic words: “His yoke is easy and his tripod is light.”

  We cross the empty single-track road and set off down a sandy track whiskered with bright green grass. Across it is a low wooden bar, about knee height, to prevent the entry of motor vehicles. “Shall I leap?” I say to Pete. “I haven’t done anything like this since we did high jump at primary school, with poles and bamboo canes.”

  “Well, it’s up to you,” he says, “but try not to go flat on your face at the outset. That would be unfortunate.”

  “I’ll be prudent,” I say, stepping over the bar.

  The path snakes along as though at the bottom of a canyon, a pale sandy stripe mirroring a pale strip of sky. The trees are huge and intensely individual—fat, gnarled, tan-leaved oaks, smooth columnar beeches with their peachy, biscuity foliage, golden birches and sweet chestnuts, the occasional sober-suited conifer, refusing to be drawn in. Leaves crunch under our feet; now and again there is a rustling off to the side as some creature passes on its way.

  “Now here’s a fine tree,” Pete says, as we come to a large beech set slightly back from the path, which thrusts one of its muscular grey limbs out sideways, exactly parallel to the ground. The limb runs straight for a couple of metres before curving upwards, creating a perfect seat.

  I plunge through ankle-deep leaves and settle myself on the accommodating arm. “This is great,” I say happily. “Just the right height.” It’s shady on the branch, under the multi-layered canopy. I unhook my mask and stuff it in the pocket of my coat. Pete sets up his camera on its tripod, then comes towards me and takes my hand.

  “You know I love you ever so much, don’t you?”

  My heart drops through my body, as though a hangman had kicked away its stool. Oh God, I think, why do men do this? Why do they organise a nice day out, take you to a beautiful place, tell you that they love you—then explain that for various subtle and complicated reasons, you also have to break up.

  I take a last breath of sparkling air, and brace myself against the tree.

  “Will you marry me?” he says.

  For a few moments I am completely stunned. I stare at him, round-eyed. Then a cascade of mad mixed-up thoughts bursts through my head, whirling in wild eddies, throwing off question marks like fine spray. I don’t know what to say. “Are you sure?” are the words that come to the front of my mind. For we have reached this point by such a bizarre and unpropitious route, there must be a million reasons why it cannot be a good idea. Yet maybe this is part of the true pattern of life—one of the unlooked-for consequences that arise from its ferocious twists and turns, a strange new compound formed inexplicably inside its crucible of pain.

  In my mind, planets collide, civilisations evolve and decay. Like petals of a giant flower, possible worlds unfold. In reality, only seconds pass. I still do not know what to say; in the end my mouth speaks for me; it says:

  “Yes.”

  December 2005

  “I suppose I could retrain as a plumber,” I say doubtfully.

  “I’m not sure that would be a good idea,” says Pete. “You’d need to be able to lift a bath.”

  We are sitting at the table, replete with Sunday lunch, considering what kind of work I might be able to do, and attempting to think outside the box. The challenge is to find something that does not take place in modern office environments, does not involve spending too long out of doors, and does not require extended periods under fluorescent lights.

  “It’s got to be some sort of personal service,” I say, “where I control the surroundings and people come to see me.”

  “Psychotherapy or counselling,” suggests Pete.

  “I wouldn’t be any good at that at all,” I reply firmly. “Absolutely not. What about reflexology or kinesiology or some sort of complementary health thing?”

  It is Pete’s turn to look sceptical.

  “Prostitute!” I say. “One of the discreet, suburban kind.”

  “Suppose we try a different approach,” says Pete. “Apart from develop and implement government policy, what can you actually do?”

  “Er, play the piano?”

  “There you are, then.”

  “You mean teach it?” He nods. “Do you know,” I say, “that is not a completely silly idea, and it had crossed my mind. It would be a bit weird, kind of like entering the family business, but it could be good fun.”

  “Well, it seems the most realistic, darling.”

  So I look into the matter, and discover that some people set up as piano teachers without any specific qualifications at all, be
yond some grade exams, and then learn on the job. But I do not have sufficient chutzpah to do this. Being a bureaucratic soul, I know I will feel much more confident if I have done a training course and got a certificate.

  I also discover that the European Piano Teachers’ Association (UK branch) runs a piano pedagogy course that starts in January, and involves going to the Royal College of Music every second Sunday for six months. Given the state of my face, this would be difficult, but just about achievable. I qualify to go on the course, because I have passed my Grade 8 (when I was seventeen) and have been playing pieces of diploma level since. The deadline for enrolment is looming, and I am feeling keen and motivated, so I decide to sign up—but there is one snag. In order actually to be assessed and therefore qualify for a certificate, I am expected to have procured two students on whom to try out what I will be learning from week to week. For each student, there are lesson plans to be prepared, a lesson diary to be kept and an extended essay to be written about their progress.

  The course is aimed at a wide range of levels of experience, so, for those participants who already have a teaching practice, this does not present a problem. However, I am new and green, and therefore have somehow to lasso two pupils from the local community, from a standing start, before the middle of January, which is in about four weeks.

  I design an advert. “Have you always wanted to learn the piano?” it says. “I am looking for two students to take part in a teaching project.” Pete photoshops the text white on black, with a piano keyboard running up one side, and we distribute copies around the neighbourhood in local shops and the library. Nobody does anything over the festive season, so I settle down to enjoy Christmas, and hope I will get some replies in the New Year, when people peel themselves off the sofa, and start to look about them.

  Christmas 2005

  I am in charge of Christmas dinner!

  It is the first Christmas that Pete and I have spent together. I am looking forward to being the person delegating tasks rather than one of the hapless delegatees, required to hang about looking helpful and making periodic offers to peel sprouts.

  I have drawn up a Project Plan, which indicates at what times various activities need to happen, in order to meet the objective of lunch at half-past one. (I find this very satisfying, and it is indeed similar to what I used to do in the civil service. Clearly I am missing work …)

  We have invited my mother and brother, Sam, who arrive on one of the last trains out of south-west London before everything shuts down. My father is not with us, having died a few years before. He and my mother divorced when I was fifteen, a great surprise for my brother and me. We had a very happy childhood full of jokes, laughter and affection, with no tensions evident between our parents until my father fell in love with someone else.

  On Christmas morning, I am up at eight o’clock to get the turkey out of the fridge. Soon my mother comes in, in her dressing gown. “Hello, my best daughter,” she says. “Happy Xmas. Now mind what you’re doing with that turkey. Are there any oats?” Both my mother and my brother, although living independently, are on a healthy eating kick.

  “In the cupboard,” I say. “Pete got some specially.”

  My mother prepares a large bowl of oats and chopped apple. Then she goes back into the living room, sits down at the piano and breaks into an extempore version of “Merry Christmas Everybody” by Slade, thus ensuring that everyone else is also awake.

  Soon creaking and sloshing from upstairs indicate that my brother is having his morning shower, about which he is always very thorough, so that afterwards the bathroom looks as if someone has been trying to wash a baby elephant; plastic bottles of shampoo upended and squeezed in the middle, water on every available surface, towels and bathmat askew.

  “Morning, Sam,” I say to him when he comes down. “How’s tricks?”

  “Not too bad, thanks. Are there any oats?” I point them out. When he has finished his breakfast, he sits down at the piano and does an alternative version of “Merry Christmas Everybody,” all slow gloopy chords and dramatic modulations, because it is in the style of Brahms, who is his favourite composer. He finishes off with a fugue.

  “Very good, Sam,” says Pete, who has come down, having attempted a modest lie-in after going to Midnight Mass. “But could we have something other than Slade?”

  “Oh sorry,” says Sam, always sweet-natured and obliging. He begins a series of variations on “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing” in various musical styles, including baroque and blues.

  It will have become obvious by this point why, although a competent pianist myself, I have always felt intimidated by the extreme facility of my mother and brother, particularly when it comes to improvising. They also have very good musical memories and perfect pitch.

  “Right,” says my mother, bouncing back into the living room after having a bath. “Now, what shall I do in respect of lunch? And when are we going to have presents?” She enters the kitchen just as I am lifting the turkey out of the oven to baste it. “Stop!” she yells, aghast, and I nearly drop the roasting tray. “That does not look at all good for the back. Can’t you get Pete to lift it in and out? And that oven is very badly designed. I’ve always said you ought to get the door rehung, so that it opens sideways, like mine.”

  “Mum, I’m doing fine,” I say, putting the bird on the worktop. “Just don’t come up behind me and make a loud noise.”

  “Oh all right, but you should think about that oven door. Shall I start peeling potatoes?”

  “Well, we don’t have to do that until ten fifteen and there’s some other things I need to concentrate on first. And I thought we’d have presents at eleven o’clock, once I’ve got the spuds in the oven.”

  “What about sprouts?”

  “We’re not having sprouts. We kind of thought—neither of us like them, so we’d have broccoli.”

  “Hmmm. I rather like sprouts. A very traditional winter vegetable.”

  Sam wanders in, looking helpful. “Can I chop something?” he enquires.

  I am becoming flustered. I foresee that unless I provide some sort of distraction to keep people out of the kitchen until I need them, something is going to go wrong.

  Pete realises what is happening and nudges me. “Didn’t you want these two to have a look at ‘Little Donkey’?” he says.

  This is a brainwave. In the run-up to Christmas, Alex, a friend of ours, had asked me if I would make an arrangement of the children’s carol with an easy piano part so that she could accompany her daughters, who had to learn it for school. I wrote out the melody for the right hand and added some basic chords underneath, even developing a clip-clop bass line, of which I was rather proud. The exercise made my brain feel stretched in unusual directions, because I had not thought about harmony for years. Alex was pleased with the result, and she and her daughters performed it to me over the telephone, with gusto. However, I would also like some feedback from the experts.

  My mother and brother become immediately alert. Their spines lengthen and their noses twitch. Pete leads them to the piano, and indicates the small manuscript book in which I have written out my masterwork.

  For the next hour, two ferocious musical intelligences are trained upon this modest arrangement.

  “There is an implied consecutive fifth between the first and second bar,” says one.

  “I’d say the C in the bass is far enough away from the D not to matter,” says the other. “However, the use of the supertonic chord in bar two is weak. I would prefer a subdominant.”

  “Well, what about bars five and six? Now that is a serious implied consecutive octave.”

  “Yes, there ought to be G followed by A in the bass, rather than E followed by F. That gives a nice bass line and circumvents the problem.”

  “And in bar six, one would swap the harmonies round.”

  At times, the debate becomes heated.

  Pete and I get on with the Project Plan, seething with suppressed giggles whenever we catch e
ach other’s eye.

  Lunch is delivered on time and pronounced a success. The verdict on “Little Donkey” is that what I wrote was mostly OK, but that improvements could be introduced at various points, if I wish to make it truly rigorous.

  In the afternoon, we have a game of Scrabble, which my mother wins, with two seven-letter words.

  January 2006

  Very soon in the New Year, I have my first piano pupil. She is Libby, a sober, intelligent ten-year-old, with googly blue eyes and straight pale hair. Her mother wants her to “have the opportunity to try lots of things, to see if she likes them.” She is already doing football and French, and learning the recorder.

  Having made such a good start, I am sanguine about finding a second student, but the days tick by and the telephone is maddeningly silent. I reread the rubric supplied by the course. Yes—definitely two students—and furthermore, two contrasting students, each posing different pedagogical challenges.

  I begin to look at my fiancé with a speculative air.

  A few days before the start of the course, Pete is relaxing on the sofa after a day at work, reading a bit of the Saturday paper. “Pete,” I say, “could I ask you a huge favour?”

  “What sort of favour?”

  “Look, I’m really sorry about this, I wouldn’t ask if I had any other options, but … you know I’ve only got one student?”

  “Yes.”

  “And if I don’t have two students, I could end up doing the whole course and not getting the certificate, which would be really frustrating.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I was wondering—would you be my other student?”