The Children's Bach by Helen Garner Page B

him?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜He’s always looking for new blood. Something new. A little thrill for that amusement park he calls his mind.’
    Their fingers met formally at the high corners of the sheet. Elizabeth’s relinquished, Athena’s accepted. As they folded, as they spoke, the light left the garden.
    The teacher opened the door. He had a red pencil between his teeth and his feet were bare.
    â€˜The Herald ’s on the kitchen table,’ he said, ‘if you want to wait out there.’
    Athena unfolded the paper. They went round the corner on to the flowery carpet and out of her sight. They left the door ajar.
    â€˜What can you tell me about Mozart?’ said the teacher.
    â€˜Nothing.’
    â€˜Come on.’
    â€˜He was a composer.’
    â€˜Right. What else? How old was he when he gave his first concert?’
    â€˜Six?’
    â€˜About that. He was a bit crazy. Did you know that?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜Yeah. He was a bit crazy. Too clever. Too bright. Have you practised?’
    â€˜A bit.’
    â€˜A bit. We’ll see about that. We’ll start with this.’
    â€˜Oh. I didn’t know I was going to play that for you. But I’ll play it anyway.’
    â€˜I don’t want any honkytonk, understand? I want ’em all smooth. Hold up that hand nicely. Bend that thumb. Away you go.’
    Athena opened the glass door and sat on the kitchen step with her feet on the gravel. The big back yard was dark, but women were talking in quiet voices, perhaps in the garage, or on the verandah of the house next door. Somewhere in the garden there was a large bush of daphne. Over there must be Essendon. A plane was coming down, too far away for her to hear.
    She was cold. She slid the door shut and went back to the table. Now the teacher was playing too. His vibrato was steady and confident. Poppy wavered, but kept going. She was game. He bellowed at her.
    â€˜Scrub at it a bit more! Get a nice meaty tone! Go back to B. B, ya sausage! Not B flat! Sounds like you’re swinging a cat round by the tail. Don’t just throw in the towel! You gotta keep going!’
    â€˜Where am I? I don’t know where I am!’
    â€˜Strike a light. Look, Poppy. What does it say here? What’s written here? Dolce . What’s that mean? Sweetly. Not like a monster. Flat! You’re flat as a tack.’
    â€˜It’s wrong. I’m playing it wrong.’
    â€˜It’s riddled with mistakes, like a piece of cheese. It’s never all right. There’s always something wrong.’
    â€˜Well what’s the use of playing, then?’
    â€˜Hmmm. At the stage you’re at , there’s always something wrong. Later . . . that comes from experience. You must have some patience. Do you know what patience is?’
    â€˜Yeah. Not being in a hurry. Waiting.’
    â€˜That’s it. Take your time. Don’t get worried and upset. Take your time and work it out. Look at each individual trouble spot and analyse why it’s giving you trouble. See? There’s an explanation to it, isn’t there?
    Don’t think I’m not pleased with you. I am. Now we’ll play together. You do the bottom line, OK? Lightly, sweetly – two three four .’
    *
    Like many women of her age whose opinions, when they were freshly thought and expressed, had never received the attention they deserved, Mrs Fox had slid away into a habit of monologue, a stream of mild words which concealed the bulk of thought and knowledge as babbling water hides submerged boulders. She was the kind of private-minded, endlessly good-humoured woman whose sons, even in their twenties and in fact until they married, had brought home from other states suitcases full of dirty clothes for her to wash; the kind of woman who, when Doctor Fox, almost tiptoeing with reverence, put on his record of the Goldberg Variations, could cheerfully whisper to the