Frozen Music

MARIKA COBBOLD

Prologue

Part One

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Part Two

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Part Three

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-one

Twenty-two

Twenty-three

Twenty-four

Twenty-five

Twenty-six

Twenty-seven

Twenty-eight

Twenty-nine

Part Four

Thirty

Thirty-one

Thirty-two

Thirty-three

Thirty-four

Thirty-five

Thirty-six

Thirty-seven

Epilogue

Acknowledgment

A Note on the Author

By the Same Author

My name is Esther Fisher and I'm just about to walk out on the only man I've ever loved. I'm thirty-four and a latecomer to love, which makes this all the harder.

I pause in the doorway of the house before stepping out into the dark November morning. The cold air makes me cough as I feel my way across the garden, my suitcase in one hand. My coat sleeve gets caught on one of Astrid's roses. The blooms are long gone; it's winter after all, but the thorns remain, always there, ready to catch you.

I'm leaving the island on the seven o'clock ferry. I can just see it approach through the mist so I'll have to hurry if I'm to make it on board. But still I linger by the wooden gate. I turn and cast one last glance up at the blue-painted wooden house. There's no one at the window. I pick up my suitcase and walk down the hill towards the harbour, cracking the frost beneath my feet.

I had found love at last, and truth, and that was the problem, because in my life they turned out to be each other's enemies. Like rain and harvest, starlight and sunrise, my mother and reality.

I have to try to make light of it. How else do you survive in a world which seems like a nursery ruled over by a capricious six-year-old?

So where is Nanny? Or God? I don't know.

My mother wanted me to be a child prodigy. I wanted to be a psychiatrist. Not that I knew much about what that entailed, I was only nine after all, but I had heard it said that a psychiatrist was someone who looked into people's minds, and I really liked the idea of that: I already liked looking at people's outsides – ‘It's rude to stare, Esther, how many times do I have to tell you?' – so to be able to see right inside their heads as well sounded very interesting, almost as interesting as talking to the animals, like Dr Dolittle. And I enjoyed the reaction from grown-ups when they asked me, the way they always do when they can't think of anything else to say, what I wanted to be when I grew up. Then, as often as not, they would answer themselves, ‘An air hostess, I wouldn't mind guessing, or maybe a nurse?'

‘A psychiatrist,' I'd say. That usually shut them up.

Right now, Audrey, my mother, was speaking to me as she drifted through my bedroom, messing it up. ‘Have you practised your flute, darling?'

I didn't answer her straight away. I was busy practising on her, staring at her head, trying to see through her high forehead and into her mind. I was concentrating hard, and just for a moment I thought I had succeeded, as I glimpsed something green, a Harrods bag probably, and something swirling, dancing. Then everything got covered in a pink mist.

‘Esther, what are you doing? You look quite demented.'

I frowned at her; it wasn't
my
mind that was covered in a pink mist.

‘I asked you if you had practised your flute today?' She picked up my teddy bear on her way through the room and, of course, put him down in the wrong place. I took him from the small wicker chair and put him back on my pillow where he belonged, dead centre.

‘Life is Art, Esther, Art is Life. I don't expect you to understand, not yet, but trust me, it's the only truth I know.'

‘I know lots of true things,' I said proudly. Audrey was annoying, but she was my mother and I yearned for her approval.

‘Oh childhood, childhood, enjoy its rosy innocence while it lasts.' Audrey sighed and absent-mindedly picked up my doll's teapot from the top shelf of the small blue dresser, wandering off to the window, the pot in her hand. ‘So pretty,' she mumbled. I couldn't tell if she meant the teapot or the Kensington street below – the cherry trees were in blossom – but I did know that she was going to put the teapot back in the wrong place.

My mother turned away from the window and fixed me with her soft blue gaze. ‘Now get on with your practice, an hour at least. That little Japanese girl, Miko… Misho… you know the one I mean? – Divine – She practises five hours a day, apparently, which is why she is well on her way to becoming a world-class performer.'

‘I don't like the flute, I like the trumpet.' In my mind I saw the glinting brass and heard its triumphant noisiness.

‘Don't be silly, Esther, the trumpet is a hideous solo instrument, hideous. Anyway, your music teacher tells me you have it in you to be a very good flautist indeed.'

‘I have it in me to be a very good psychiatrist who plays the trumpet,' I insisted.

My mother ignored me, the way she ignored most problems. ‘And when you've finished, Janet will give you your tea; then you must come and say hello to Olivia.' Audrey had reached the door before she remembered the teapot in her hand. With a vague glance around my room she put it down on my bedside table, rather than back in its place on the dresser. I was pleased; I liked it best when things happened the way I expected.

‘And do a drawing for Olivia, will you. I know she'd like that.' My mother blew me a kiss and disappeared out on to the landing, leaving behind her instructions and the sweet scent of gardenia.

I put the teapot back on the top shelf of the dresser (I had to draw my chair up to reach), giving my flute in its velvet-lined case a nasty
look as I passed. Then I returned to my game of the French Revolution. I had managed to construct a guillotine from an old Rice Krispies packet and some elastic bands, but Barbie's and Ken's heads remained resolutely fixed to their rubbery necks. ‘Problems, problems, problems,' I muttered as the crowd – two anatomically correct dolls (one boy, one girl), an inflatable crocodile, a Beatles doll (Ringo) and a cuddly rabbit, normally called Rupert but known now as Jean for the purpose of the game – grew restless.

Janet was clearing away the tea. I didn't want to leave the table. I liked the large basement kitchen best of all the rooms in the house and I liked Janet, our housekeeper. Janet was sensible. She wore shoes you could walk in and it didn't seem to bother her if her hair got wet from the rain. She spoke in short, clear sentences and her mood hardly ever changed from its customary brisk friendliness. You knew where you were with Janet.

‘Come on, Esther, off you go. Your mother and her friend are waiting for you.'

‘She's very tall, Olivia,' I said, staying where I was.

‘You say that about everyone.' Janet gave my chair a little shove as she passed on her way to the fridge. ‘You're short, have you ever thought about that?'

‘I'm supposed to be short,' I protested. ‘I'm nine years old.' But I slipped off my chair and ambled upstairs, dragging my feet on the parquet floor of the hall and the cream stair carpet, pausing briefly on the first-floor landing to pinch an apple from the copper bowl where they had been arranged by Audrey in a cider-scented pyramid. I could hear her languid murmuring and the louder, firmer tones of Olivia Davies, her old school friend. I bit into my apple and tried to conjure up a picture of her. All I saw was a mass of hair, darkish brown and wavy, not unlike my own. As I looked at the picture in my mind I ran my fingers through my hair, twisting a strand round and round my index finger.

‘Esther, is that you out there?' my mother called and with another bite of my apple I sidled into the drawing-room, feeling shy all of a sudden. ‘Darling, what have you done to your hair? You look like a Hottentot. Oh, never mind. Come and say hello nicely.'

I shot Audrey a mutinous glance. Why did she insist on treating me like a child? Then I remembered; I was one. I felt more cross than ever.

‘There's no need to kiss me.' Olivia smiled. She put out her large hand to take mine as I approached from across the room, a dutiful pucker already formed on my lips. I released it into a smile as she added, ‘After all, Esther, we hardly know each other.'

I had forgotten what a nice, sensible person Olivia was. Transferring my apple to the pocket of my red dungarees, I put my hand in hers and she shook it firmly. I was looking hard at her face, wanting to see if I could count all the freckles on her left cheek before she let go of my hand: one two three four five… as I counted I began to get flustered. Suddenly it was really important that I managed them all… six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen… the numbers raced through my mind as if chased by some monster or a wolf. There was still a big bit to go. Fifteen sixteen seventeen eighteen…

‘Esther, how many times have I had to tell you, you're not to stare at people,' my mother's voice interrupted my counting.

‘Can I have my hand back now?' Olivia asked nicely.

I shook my head, counting feverishly, thirty thirty-one thirty-two thirty-three…

‘Let go of Olivia's hand
immediately
,' Audrey snapped and I dropped it as if it were stolen chocolate. I still had an area on her cheek the size of half a crown to count, but it was too late. I grinned stupidly. ‘And don't grimace, child.' Audrey sighed.

‘I don't know what's got into her.' My mother's voice followed me like an embarrassing smell as I padded across the room to my favourite chair. It was green, shabby and worn, and very different from the rest of the furniture in our house, but Madox, my father, had decreed that it should stay and my mother, although muttering darkly at it as she passed, had not dared to throw it out. I liked it because it was large enough for me to curl up in and almost disappear, and because it didn't matter if I spilt anything on it or dropped flakes of chocolate down the side of the seat cushion. In fact, my mother was almost pleased if she saw me eat while sitting there, or if I forgot to take my shoes off when I put my feet up, and normally she was the fussiest person in the world.
Tucking my legs up under me I fished out what was left of my apple from my pocket and took a bite, resting my head against the back of the chair. It smelt comfortingly of dirty wool and old pipe smoke.

‘So there I'll be,' Olivia was saying, ‘the mother of an instant family. A boy of twelve called Linus. Strange little chap, podgy, mostly quiet.'

‘That's a mercy, that he's quiet I mean. Boys can be so… so hideously there.' Audrey lit a cigarette and I sniffed the first tobacco sweetness before the smoke turned acrid, and munched on my apple.

‘Then, all of a sudden he'll have these outbursts.'

‘Outbursts?' Audrey asked. I stopped chewing and leant forward in my chair.

‘Sudden explosions of joy. I think that's the best way of describing it. Very disconcerting and drives his father up the wall, but then, to be fair to the little chap, any child would. Bertil is such a perfectionist, and so utterly in control and on top of life, so bloody good at everything he does. I told you he's an architect, didn't I?'

‘Darling, he sounds exhausting.' At that they both laughed, although I couldn't see what was funny. Instead I wondered if Olivia would be impressed to hear that I knew what perfectionist meant. Then again, if I spoke they would remember I was there and I would be told to go away and play, when I much preferred to stay in the large green chair and listen to the grown-ups talk and imagine what I would be like if I were one. That afternoon I very much wanted to have freckles all over, like Olivia, and large hands with big rings set with stones.