Innocence

‘Tits! I think I’m getting a cold!’ She wheels round, glaring at me accusingly. ‘Does Alex have a cold? I’d better not be getting a cold, Evie.’

I shake my head ‘no’, relinquishing any hope of actually finishing a sentence.

‘It’s the stress. The stress is outrageous! This concert is doing my nut in! Look at my glands, will you?’

I can’t tell you how many times a week I have to look at Allyson’s glands.

She sticks her tongue out. ‘Do you see anything? Is my throat red? Splotchy?’

No one is more paranoid about her health than Allyson. The kitchen counter is lined with vitamin bottles and herbal tinctures; her room emits a steamy, Arthurian mist from under the door, the result of a humidifier churning away constantly in a corner, and she sleeps more hours a day than a cat. Still, all her effort pays off: she has one of the clearest, most powerful singing voices I’ve ever heard.

I take a peek. ‘No, darling. It’s fine.’

‘Thanks. Oh God, Evie! What am I going to do?’

‘Well.’ I pick up another mug from the draining board. ‘You could always…’

‘Balls! I’ll have to call Junko again. But she’s like a robot; she understands nothing of the power and passion I need for these pieces!’ She looks at me. ‘You have heard about Piotr, haven’t you?’

I shake my head and she leans forward, her voice uncharacteristically low.

‘He’s the one who walked out in the middle of the final rounds of the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow a few years ago!’

She stares at me eagerly.

I’ve no idea what she’s talking about.

‘It’s the most famous piano competition in the world, Evie! He just stopped playing in the middle of his second concerto and left! When he was on the verge of winning!’

‘But why?’

‘It wasn’t good enough…he didn’t like the way he was playing.’ She rolls her eyes. Ally’s competitive nature is so keenly honed that the idea is clearly anathema. I find it quite intriguing. ‘He’s crazy, Evie! Insane! He was playing Prokofiev Three, with a full orchestra and suddenly he just stands up and walks away!’

‘So if he’s crazy, Ally, why are you so keen on working with him?’

‘Have you heard him? He was playing Gaspard de la Nuit yesterday and I thought I would faint it was so heart-breaking…Oh fuckity fuck fuck fuck!’ She collapses her head into her hands. (If Puccini had been composing for Allyson, ‘One Fine Day’ would’ve become ‘Where the Hell Is He?’.)

I take a piece of cheese out of the fridge, turning this new information around in my mind.

‘And now he teaches at the Royal Academy’

‘But he could’ve been huge!’ she mumbles.

We sit a moment.

Eventually, she looks up. ‘You know what we should do? We should go out, you and I; just the girls! We could go dancing or something!’

Every couple of months she does this; she launches into a campaign to force me into socializing, usually just after she’s finished some big job.

‘Well, maybe. I don’t know, Ally. I think I’m a bit old for dancing.’

‘I’m older than you are,’ she reminds me.

‘Yes, but you’re, you know, trendy…’

‘You could be trendy. Let’s go shopping. It would be fun!’

She’s staring at me with those huge, unflinching diva eyes.

‘I’ll think about it.’

‘You always say that. If I had your face and your figure…’

‘Ally! Stop it!’ Why am I so embarrassed?

‘You’re not even wearing make-up, are you?’

‘Please!’ I shake my head.

‘I’m just saying it’s a waste! I’m going to stop asking one of these days and then you’ll be sorry!’ Opening one of the dozen bottles, she tosses a few pills into her mouth. ‘So the old fart walked out on you, did he? You’ve mentioned him before—what’s his name?’

‘Mr Hastings.’

‘Poor Mr Hastings.’

‘Actually, he’s a very difficult character,’ I point out, suddenly defensive.

‘Yes, but you would be difficult too, wouldn’t you? If you’d never lived out your dreams. Makes people crazy, Evie.’ She retrieves her drink and kisses me on the top of my head. ‘Night, darling.’

Standing alone, I pour what’s left in the kettle into my mug. There’s not enough for a full cup, so I leave it. And I stare out into the vast black space that’s the garden in the rear.

I’ve never thought of Mr Hastings as having dreams. Or at least not any that extended beyond making my class a misery. The revelation that he might endows him with an unwelcome vulnerability in my mind. This, along with Piotr’s anti-happiness diatribe, has finally tipped me over the edge. I’m exhausted and unexpectedly riddled with self-doubt.

I’m done slaying dragons for today.

Moving mechanically, I wipe down the kitchen counter before turning off the lights. And I have that feeling I get at the end of almost every day: the sensation of having left my body and watching it from a distance—a kind of physical déjà vu. Walking back up into the hallway, I’m floating, insubstantial; repeating the same evening rituals; pausing to make sure the front door’s locked, checking and rechecking.

I turn to make my way up the stairs.

And there, sitting in the darkness of the living room, is Piotr.

He’s at the piano. But there’s no sense of impending action. No crinkle of anticipation, as if he might, at any moment, begin to play. Instead, a powerful calm surrounds him.

It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask him if he’s all right. To break the silence, smoothing it over with noise, questions and conversation.

But then an unexpected intimacy overwhelms me.

His stillness is revealing. It’s as if he’s unfolding, very slowly, before me; invisible layers dissolving into the shadows. The longer I linger, the more I can see…