Song for Emilia Read online

  Sandra put her handbag on the bed, but Emilia pushed it away. ‘Same as when you visited me last time. You didn’t really come to see me, you came to see Nick.’

  ‘It’s not like that—’

  ‘You’re a selfish pig.’

  Emilia refused to face her, and Sandra saw she’d been crying.

  ‘I’m sorry, Emmy. Your mother didn’t seem to mind when Mrs Morgan phoned—’

  Emilia reared up, her face red with anger. She shrieked, as Sandra knew that only Emilia could shriek, ‘You pretend that you want to visit me, but all the time it’s Nick.’ She sucked in a deep breath, ‘And you’re a sneak too, because I know you still like your old piano teacher, and you say you like Nick, but it’s not possible to like two people at the same time – not like that.’

  Mrs Ferrari appeared in the doorway, her usually sunny face crestfallen. ‘Is no good,’ she said. ‘Best friends fighting again. What is it this time?’

  ‘Emmy’s cross because I stayed at Morgans’ last night—’ Sandra blurted.

  ‘Sì, Emilia, I know you are unhappy Sandra stayed with Morgans. But Nick is an important friend too.’

  ‘But Mamma, why does she pretend?’ Emilia asked, blowing her nose on a handkerchief.

  ‘She stay only one day with Morgans. Three more days with us. No more cross, per favore.’

  Emilia heaved a great sigh. Reluctantly she put her arms around Sandra, kissed her on each cheek. ‘I’m sorry, I’m a selfish pig too,’ she said, not looking at her.

  ♫

  The corner of an envelope poked out of the letterbox – Emilia’s awkward handwriting: Miss Sandra Abbott. Sandra had just arrived home from her disastrous visit to Emilia, so why was she writing so soon – why write at all?

  Sandra tore it open. The envelope was lined with green tissue, violet ink on tissue pages. What, now Emilia was writing to her on tissue paper? It looked expensive, the paper was fine. Show-off, Sandra thought, wondering why Emilia would choose it. Unfolding the letter, she sat at her desk to read it.

  “Ferrari’s Farm”, Curradeen.

  12 June, 1964.

  Dear Sandra,

  I wanted to write to you to make sure everything is all right because we had such a fight and I don’t want it to be like that. Mamma is right, we are best friends and I think maybe your jealous because now I live with Nick’s grandparents when I’m at college and you don’t like it.

  I know you still like Mister L’estrange, because I saw how you looked at him at your Auntie’s party. Mr. L is very handsome and I think he is exotic and this is maybe why you like him?

  I want you to know that I like Nick very much and I know for sure he likes me too. I always see him when he’s on holidays because I’m on holidays too, and twice he came to stay with his grandma and pa and I never told you.

  If you say you still like Nick I will back off, but I like him a lot. Please write and tell me what you think.

  With love from

  Emilia xox

  It was all Sandra could do not to scream angrily at Emilia, screw up the letter and hurl it across the room. How dare Emilia write such hateful words! She kept it a secret and so did Nick. Sandra had such a beautiful day with Nick, but if there was something going on with Emilia, why did he kiss her, standing so close and Sandra in her nightie so he would’ve felt everything through the nightdress. How dare he do that!

  She read it again, desperately wondering why Emilia, her Emmy, had never told her. She was a coward, that was it. So much for their promises: Remember our pact to be friends forever? She wouldn’t answer the letter. Or if she did, what could she say? Yes, I like Nick, of course I like Nick, more than ever.

  But love? Really, Sandra didn’t know. She’d waited so long, so very long. Perhaps Emilia was right, and she loved both men. One was unattainable and the other ...

  Sandra waited for the bus, Emilia’s letter crumpled in her pocket. Please let auntie be home by herself, she told whoever or whatever might be listening to her thoughts. Not Mister L’estrange, please.

  Once upon a time she would’ve run to see Aunt Meredith without a second thought – the one person who seemed to understand her. No judgement, offering only her advice and support. Dear Meredith, who also had confided in Sandra, spilling the story of her lost love, William. She would understand this situation too, just as she understood it when Sandra ran away after arguments with her parents about school.

  It was already cold, although it couldn’t be much past midday. Sandra knew that Mister L’estrange often went out by himself on a Sunday. He liked to join his musician friends to play new pieces at one of the jazz clubs. Meredith occasionally joined him, but today ... it was a calculated guess she would be at home, and if not ... well, Sandra would get the bus home.

  Meredith’s car was in the driveway. No sign of his car. The front door was closed, but she could see a light in the lounge room. So far, so good.

  Opening the door to her knock, Meredith swept Sandra inside with a hug and a kiss. ‘Sandra, how lovely to see you. What’s been keeping you away?’

  ‘Oh Auntie, something awful’s happened,’ Sandra began.

  ‘Nothing so awful that I wouldn’t have had your mother on the phone already,’ Meredith gave a little laugh. ‘Sit down and tell me all about it. Is it a love affair? What about Nick, I know you and Donald went back to Curradeen—’

  ‘Yes, and that’s the problem.’ She couldn’t hold back her tears – tears that anger had checked when she read Emilia’s hateful words. ‘I got this letter,’ she snuffled, dropping the envelope in Meredith’s lap.

  Carefully Meredith took out the pages, raising her eyebrows at the flimsy pale green, the violet ink. ‘Very dramatic,’ she said, and then was silent as she read the brief letter.

  ‘Dear me, no wonder you’re upset. Did you have any idea?’

  ‘No, never. She never said anything and neither did Nick.’

  ‘I’ll make us a cuppa, back in a minute—’

  ‘Is Mister L’estrange out?’

  ‘Eric’s around somewhere, not far away.’

  This brought on a new burst of weeping. He was the last person Sandra would ever want to see right now.

  Meredith returned with two mugs of tea and they sat together on the couch. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘this could all be one-sided. Emilia’s wishful thinking?’

  ‘It’s true, Auntie, I know it’s true because she wouldn’t make that up. Why didn’t she tell me? She’s a mean pig, and I never want to see her again.’

  ‘But Angela said you had a wonderful day at Wilga Park. Nick took you on a ride, and you unexpectedly stayed the night. Surely that shows you something?’

  Sandra couldn’t speak for the ache of tears in her throat, her runny nose. She wiped it away and put her head on Meredith’s lap, squashing the letter. Taking a deep breath, she sighed, long and heavy. ‘Nick kissed me,’ she admitted.

  ‘Aah, then perhaps you have nothing to worry about.’

  ‘No, Auntie. Emilia boards with his grandparents in Melbourne. Plus she’ll see him every single holiday. I hardly ever get to see him even when he’s at uni.’

  ‘Sandra, darling, there’s nothing you can do. You need to let this work out the way it will. Remember I told you when you first moved to Randwick: life is full of variables, and all our paths criss-cross in different ways?’

  Sandra gave a weak smile, ‘Yes. I’m still trying to work it out.’

  ‘Que sera, sera, as the song goes – whatever will be, will be.’

  The front door clicked as a key turned. Eric tossed his jacket on the back of a chair, gave Meredith a little kiss on each cheek.

  ‘Hello, stranger,’ he said to Sandra, then realizing that she was in tears, he left the room, murmuring, ‘I’ve got a few things to do.’

  ‘He’d make a fine diplomat,’ Meredith said. ‘Will you be all right to go home soon? I’ll drive you – it’s far too chilly to be out.’

  It was almost dark when Mere
dith parked the car at Sandra’s gate, and leaned across to give her a hug. ‘Love is a heart-ache, sometimes. The best idea is to push on with your music and let Nick come to you, if that’s what will happen. Okay?’

  Sandra nodded for the truth of it, although it didn’t lessen the hurt. ‘Should I write to Emilia?’ she asked. ‘I don’t really want to.’

  ‘I’ll leave that to you. Off you go now, and get stuck into your compositions. Have faith in yourself, darling girl.’

  Meredith was right, there was nothing she could do. Que sera, sera. If Emilia and Nick want to be together, their paths have crossed, just like Auntie said. If somehow she could transfer her feelings into music, Sandra knew she would feel better – to write the long- promised song might help – get her anger out in the open, onto the score sheet, let it boil over there.

  She’d always imagined her Song for Emilia would quietly develop, and one day she would sit at her piano or the desk, take a blank music sheet, and begin the first sweet bars.

  It did not begin like that.

  Still so shocked by the letter, when she took up her pencil, only angry notes emerged. She couldn’t even think of a key. B major, G minor?

  Deciding to begin with C minor, she drew a time signature then scribbled over it. So much rage and jealousy churned inside her, no wonder she had bad dreams. All her love for Nick had fallen on dry ground – ground baked hard by drought. In-between stood Emilia, best friend since fourth class, and now ... a hateful and odious witch.

  Start with the first bars of the introduction, adagio non troppo. Chewing the end of her pencil, she imagined the notes C, E flat and G. Continue mezzo forte with expression. She drew a progression of chords, loud in her head, dominating. Page after page lay screwed up in the wastepaper basket or strewn across the floor.

  Seated at the piano, pencil behind her ear, Sandra placed her score on the keyboard shelf. Playing the melodic treble line, she repeated it an octave higher with a rush of semi-quavers, wanting the melody to float above the strong bass line and continue into the chorus leggierissimo ...Oh, no no no! She hammered the keys with her fist. It shouldn’t sound like that! It’s got to be filled with fury – appassionato, furioso – except, she knew that wasn’t at all like Emilia – it sounded more like herself right now. Emilia’s always cheerful and affectionate, and she often makes me laugh, even if sometimes she’s naughty and annoying. Emilia’s beautiful.

  Her throat tightened, tears prickled her eyes. My music’s lying, she decided, scribbling hard over the score, breaking her pencil in half. Perhaps it was impossible to compose anything for Emilia? Grounded in anger, her piece wasn’t going to work.

  Angela came to see what was happening; arms folded, she looked cross. ‘All this noise, what on earth are you doing?’

  ‘I’m trying to work on a song—’

  ‘More like the Battle of Britain. For heaven’s sake, the poor piano.’

  ‘It’s supposed to be the song for Emilia, remember I told you—’

  ‘Emilia’s song?’ Angela’s face relaxed into a laugh. ‘But it sounds so angry, and the treble is piercing. It’s very disturbing music – if you can call it music. I really don’t know what’s got into you lately. You’re out all day at the Conservatorium, you don’t want to perform any more, and now you’ve suddenly decided to play at some jazz club without a word to your father or me.’ She sighed, long and exasperated. ‘We had such plans for you—’

  ‘Yes you did, and so did I. But it’s different now. Billy’s friend at the club got us an audition and they liked us—’

  ‘This Billy person, we’ve never met him—’

  ‘There’s lots of people I know that you’ve never met. I told you, he’s in my year—’

  ‘Well, right now, play a little quieter please. I can’t stand that racket.’

  She heard her mother mumbling crossly as she left the room: ‘You faffle around on the piano or in your room, I don’t know what good comes out of it—’

  Squeezing her eyes shut to stop the tears, and remembering Auntie’ advice, Sandra shouted at her mother’s retreating back, ‘Have a bit of faith in me, Mum!’

  Silent, hands in her lap, she stared at the keys. Maybe her mother was right, and it was awful – a collection of notes storming along, going nowhere.

  Prue appeared unexpectedly at the door. ‘That was good. I liked those big booming bits. It was exciting. Play it again?’

  Her sister liked it? What a surprise. Anguish lodged in her diaphragm, with an effort Sandra collected herself to play the piece again: so loud and angry to begin, it grew tender with the flowing chords. Following the leggierissimo melody that she’d instantly hated, but that fitted the song, the notes came defiantly as her hands reached the final sweetest chord.

  The broken pencil and score sheet had dropped to the floor but she retrieved them, and commenced to write: a frame she could build on, like a garden, or a house – developing bit by bit over time until the song was completed.

  Only one thing left to do ...

  Scrawled in Emilia’s awkward handwriting: 17th December, 1960, the first letter ...‘I miss you too, its not the same now your gone’ she’d written. Ever since, Sandra had saved the increasing number of letters in a shoebox, tenderly placing it in the wardrobe drawer.

  With grim satisfaction, she opened each envelope, shaking out pages, ripping each one to pieces. Random words lay about on scraps of paper, and she took special pleasure in tearing apart the last green tissues. Finally, she snatched up the china angel from her dressing table. ‘My angel will look after you,’ Emilia had said. Not any more it won’t!

  A glance through the window that no one was in the garden, Sandra took a box of matches from the kitchen drawer. Her father burned the rubbish every few weeks, and shoving aside the heavy lid of the incinerator, she found a big heap of newspapers and cardboard. Excellent – it would make a very nice fire and she’d be rid of Emilia’s letters, now all so meaningless.

  She lit twists of paper like her father did, but the breeze blew out each struggling flame, until eventually one caught fire and she poked it down into the papery nest, giving the angel an extra prod with the poker.

  With an unexpected whoosh, the ferocity of the blaze alarmed her and she jumped back. A roaring noise came from deep inside the incinerator and burning fragments of paper spiralled skywards, drifting into the neighbour’s trees and scattering on the lawn like so much black snow. If she could replace the lid of the incinerator, calm the fire ... but a gust of wind pushed the flames in wild directions, embers blowing into her hair, her sweater. Horrified at how the fire began to lick at the paling fence, using the poker she tried again to lever the lid onto the incinerator but only succeeded in knocking it onto the grass.

  ‘Sandy! What on earth—’ Don’s voice startled her and she swivelled around, catching a shower from the hose as he dampened the flames with a strong jet of water.

  ‘Never, never light a fire on a windy day, you should know that,’ he admonished her.

  ‘It wasn’t windy when I lit it.’

  He brushed off Sandra’s protest, picking up the poker. ‘Why didn’t you leave it to me? The newspapers need to be stirred so they burn right down. It’s not a job for a girl.’

  ‘I was only burning paper—’

  ‘I’d thrown out solvent and oily rags from the toolshed,’ Don said, still annoyed. ‘It’s not allowed in the garbage bin, and I was going to burn them tomorrow. No wonder the fire took off. You’re lucky the fence only got scorched.’

  He stirred the papers with the poker, hooked something out of the smouldering fire. ‘What’s this thing, did you mean to burn this?’

  Dropped on the grass was the angel, sooty but otherwise undamaged.

  ‘That was careless. I’m surprised at you.’ Don looked at Sandra – her sooty fingers, her wet face streaked with ash, scarlet from the heat. ‘Never mind, you can probably fix it with a good scrub. Ask your mother.’

  Thinking she wo
uld pick it up, Don gave the angel a little tap with the poker, but Sandra ignored it. Tears streaming, she pulled at the frizzled ends of her hair. ‘I don’t care. I don’t want the stupid thing. I wanted to burn it.’

  She turned from the hideous incinerator which had flared and crackled like a demon, and rushed into the house.

  From the back fence, her father heard a door slam.

  Ignoring her sister as she hovered at the bedroom door, Sandra ruled a fresh score sheet – she kept forgetting to buy more blanks.

  Tired of waiting for her to say something, Prue wandered in to sit on the bed. When Sandra continued to ignore her, she eventually asked, ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘You can see very well, I’m busy,’ Sandra replied curtly.

  ‘Do you have to spend every weekend doing that?’ Prue swung her leg, kicking the bed. ‘Come with me—’

  Irritated, Sandra flicked her sister’s foot with a ruler. ‘I have to study.’

  It was true that except for their trip to The Gap, whenever Prue asked her to go somewhere, she refused. Twice, she’d given in and gone to the Stadium, but she disliked the push of screaming girls, the hard, packed benches; boys’ appraising stares where she felt as if she wore no clothes.

  ‘Do you get homework like at school?’ Prue asked.

  ‘I have to compose a trio for piano, violin and cello.’

  ‘Ooer, is it hard?’

  ‘It is, if you keep talking to me.’

  She was stuck on the cello part, although the opening of the arrangement worked well enough in her head – the difficult part was noting it on the score – and sitting at the piano wasn’t much help. Sandra bit the end of her pen, listening to the piano open the main theme in D minor ... the violin would introduce the second theme fifteen bars later and—

  ‘Why don’t you just write it for a piano,’ Prue persisted. ‘Why do you need other instruments?’

  ‘It’s in the course. Don’t you have something to do, like your own homework?’