Becoming increasingly uncomfortable with this, Joely said, ‘I’d rather we didn’t bring my daughter into it, if you don’t mind.’
Freda’s expression darkened, although her words were mild as she said, ‘It’s a difficult subject. We naturally feel very protective of our children, but we have to accept that very few, probably none of them, are angels. What they do when their parents aren’t looking is very often something the parent would rather not see, that way they can perpetuate the myth of their offspring’s innocence and believe them blameless if something happens to them that shouldn’t have.’
Since there was no arguing with that, Joely didn’t try. She was intrigued though to realize that Freda was putting up a bizarre sort of defence for Sir, which at least provided some indication of where the story was going.
‘Young Freda’s parents – my parents – were hedonists, dedicated to the experiments of free love. They set no rules or none that were clear enough to help keep a fifteen-year-old out of trouble. They accepted, encouraged, nudity and much more at their weekend parties, and seeing all this with impressionable eyes we have to ask ourselves was it any surprise I went on to behave the way I did?’
Joely said, ‘So you’re not only blaming yourself for whatever it was you went on to do, you’re blaming your parents?’
‘Precisely.’
‘And you’re not holding him, the hebephile, responsible at all?’
‘Oh yes, he has to be responsible, after all no one forced him. He didn’t have to get involved.’
‘But he did.’
‘I could say as a hebephile he couldn’t help himself, but let me tell you what happened after he cancelled the piano lesson, then you can take your time while writing it up to decide what you think of him.’
CHAPTER TEN
Today I’m having my second private piano lesson and Sir says he’s really impressed by all the practice I’ve put in; he’s proud of me and sorry he had to cancel last week.
‘It was a family matter,’ he explains, ‘but everything’s fine now.’
I want to look at him just to see his eyes but I carry on staring past my hands on the piano keys down to my bare legs. I’m wearing my hockey kit and my skirt has wriggled all the way up. I imagine him putting a hand on my thigh, running it under my hem and over my knickers, and I feel a quickening like electricity flicker through me.
He says softly, ‘Why don’t you show me more of what you’ve been practising?’
I play ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ with both hands and it makes us both laugh.
I love it when he laughs. It changes his face in a way that lights him up from the inside and makes me feel as though I know him even better than I know me. His eyes crinkle up at the corners and his white teeth that are slightly crooked are beautiful. The sound of his laugh is deep and quiet and I want to tell him that it’s like a different, but better kind of music.
I carry on looking at him, but his laughter dies and he turns away.
I think to myself, Better run, girl.
I’m completely sure now that’s what he said when he came into the rec room to tell me he couldn’t make our lesson. He’s scared of his feelings for me, and I understand that, I’m scared of mine too, but I don’t think that’s any reason for us to hide from them when we’re alone together. In another few months I’ll be sixteen, old enough to get married, and he’s definitely who I want to marry.
Mummy says I shouldn’t be thinking about going down the aisle until I’m at least twenty-five, even thirty, and it makes me want to cry when she says things like that. It’s as though she doesn’t understand how I feel about Sir, but I know she does.
Last weekend, after he’d cancelled our lesson, she said, ‘It’s only this once, sweetheart, and I’m sure he cancelled for a good reason. You’ll have plenty more opportunities to swoon away to your heart’s content; you can even flirt with him, you little minx, but if you do you mustn’t be too hard on him.’
‘You said once we could invite him here to one of your parties. Can we do it?’ I asked.
She laughed at that and said, ‘We’d have to be on our best behaviour if we did, and I’m not sure we’re capable of that when it’s the only time we get to relax.’
‘He wouldn’t mind about the pot. He’s really hip and I expect he smokes it anyway.’
‘The answer is still no, my angel … No, no, please don’t pull that face. Daddy would never allow it even if I would, so we must stop talking about it.’
I cried so much that weekend, and I didn’t really stop until yesterday, the day before my next private lesson. Everyone thought I was having my period so I let them; I wasn’t going to admit how terrified I was that he’d cancel again. Just in case he wanted to I avoided any places I might run into him, I even said I was sick to skip his music appreciation class but then I wished I hadn’t because all I did instead was lie on my bed wondering if he was falling for someone else because I wasn’t there. It drove me crazy, I wanted to scream and kick my feet, and I knew I’d kill whoever it was if she even mentioned his name.
Now I’m here and although I’m listening to everything he’s telling me I’m not taking much of it in. I can feel him next to me, his breath on my cheek, his fingers so close and even sometimes touching mine. I hear him when he says that it’s a pleasure teaching someone so dexterous and who has a good ear, and it makes me glad that I’ve practised so much in my spare time in order to show him how important it is to me. I want him to know that it’s only because of him that I’m doing so well.
After an hour of being close to him, of listening to his voice, of breathing in the scent of him, and learning about flats and sharps he looks at his watch and says, ‘It’s time for the lesson to end now.’
I don’t want to go. I can hardly make myself move, but I have to. I say, ‘Do you promise not to cancel next week?’
He doesn’t answer straight away, he stares at nothing, it seems, but then he’s staring at me. ‘Next week when you come,’ he says softly, ‘you mustn’t wear your hockey kit.’
I leave in a hurry so upset and angry that I think he should be punished for being mean to me, something to make him sorry so he’ll never make me feel stupid again. I go up to my dorm thinking up ways to hurt him as much as he’s hurt me, and I decide that one of them could be to report him for putting a hand on my leg while I was practising my scales. Or I could say that he tried to kiss me when he leaned forward to point out the bass clef symbol on the sheet music. That would definitely get him into trouble, a lot of trouble, but then our private lessons would be stopped and I couldn’t stand for that to happen. I know I’ve only had two so far but already I live for those lessons. Nothing else matters.
It’s lesson three and I’m wearing my usual school uniform of navy kilt and pale blue blouse. I’ve rolled my waistband over a few times so my hem is above my knees and when I sit down I toss back my hair and say to him,
‘Is this better?’
He looks puzzled.
‘You told me not to wear my hockey kit,’ I remind him.