Joanna Trollope - The Other Family

She put the song sheet back in the carton and got stiffly to her feet. Better not to remember what those months and years had been like, after Richie left. Better not to recal how desperate she had been, both emotional y and practical y, how unreachable poor Scott had been, mute with rage and misery, and twitching himself away from her hands. Better, always, to focus on what saved you, saved you from bitterness and nothingness.

She glanced at Dawson.

‘We’l have some nice times, with those songs. I’l sing and you can turn your back on me, and then we’l both be happy. I just hope the piano makes Scott a bit happy too, poor boy.’

Scott had asked Margaret to come and see the piano in situ . She had bought champagne to take with her and, for some reason which wasn’t quite clear to her although the impulse had been strong, flowers. She knew she couldn’t put flowers on the piano – Richie had been adamant that nothing should ever, ever be put on the piano – but they could sit on the windowsil near by, and lend an air of celebration as wel as compensating for the fact that Scott seemed to feel no need for either blinds or curtains.

She’d gone up in the lift of the Clavering Building with an armful of flowers and the champagne ready-chil ed in an insulated bag, and Scott had been on the landing to meet her, looking animated and more than respectable in the trousers from his work suit and a white shirt open at the neck.

He’d stepped forward, smiling but not saying anything, and he’d kissed her, and taken the champagne and the flowers, and then he’d gone ahead of her into the flat and just stood there, beaming, so that she could look past him and see the Steinway, shining and solid, sitting there with the view beyond it as if it had never been away.

‘Oh, pet,’ Margaret said.

‘It looks fine,’ Scott said, ‘doesn’t it?’

She nodded.

‘It looks—’ She stopped. Then she said, ‘Have you played it?’

‘Oh yes. It needs a tune, after the journey. But I’ve played it al right.’

Margaret moved down the room.

‘What have you played?’

‘Bit of Cole Porter. Bit of Sondheim. Bit of Chopin—’

Margaret stopped in front of the piano.

‘Chopin? That’s ambitious—’

‘I didn’t,’ Scott said, grinning, ‘I didn’t say I played it wel —’

He put the flowers down on the kitchen worktop. He lifted the insulated bag.

‘I guess this is champagne?’

‘Laurent-Perrier,’ Margaret said.

‘Wow—’

‘Wel , if it’s good enough for Bernie Harrison, it’s good enough for a Steinway, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Our Steinway.’

Margaret sat down gingerly on the piano stool.

‘ Your Steinway, pet.’

Scott extricated the bottle from the bag.

‘I even have champagne flutes.’

‘Impressive—’

‘They came free with something.’

Margaret put a finger lightly on a white key.

‘I’m getting the shivers—’

‘Good shivers?’ Scott said. He was almost laughing, twisting the cork out of the bottle and letting the champagne foam out and down the sides, over his hand.

‘Just shivers,’ Margaret said, ‘just echoes. Just the past jumping up again like it wasn’t over.’

Scott poured champagne into his flutes. He carried them down the room to the piano.

‘Don’t put them down!’ Margaret said sharply.

‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ Scott said. He handed her a glass. ‘What shal we toast?’

Margaret looked doubtful.

‘Dad?’ Scott said.

‘Don’t think so, pet.’

‘Us? Each other?’

Margaret eyed him.

‘That wouldn’t suit us either, dear.’

‘OK,’ Scott said, ‘the piano itself, music, the future—’

Margaret gave a little snort.

‘Don’t get carried away—’

‘I feel carried away. I am carried away. I want to be carried away.’

Margaret looked up at him. She took a sip of her champagne without toasting anything.

She said, ‘Talking of carried, who paid for the carriage? Who paid for this to come up here?’

Scott hesitated. He looked fixedly at his drink. Then he said, ‘I did.’

There was a silence. Margaret looked at him steadily. She took another sip of her drink.

‘Why did you do that?’

‘I wanted to,’ Scott said. ‘I needed to.’

‘How did you arrange it?’

‘Doesn’t matter.’

‘Who did you speak to?’

‘Mam,’ Scott said, ‘it doesn’t matter. It’s done, it’s sorted and I’ve got the piano. I couldn’t bear to be obliged to them.’

‘No,’ Margaret said, ‘I see that.’ She paused, and then she said quietly, ‘I wonder how it was, for her, when it went.’

Scott moved round behind the piano and leaned against the windowsil , his back to the view.

He said, ‘She wasn’t there.’

Margaret looked up sharply.

‘What?’

‘ She wasn’t there. It went while she was out. They arranged it that way on purpose. She’d gone out with a friend.’

‘How do you know al this?’

Scott took a big swal ow of champagne.

‘Amy told me.’

‘Amy—’

‘I rang her.’

‘Again? ’

‘Yes,’ Scott said, ‘I rang her to check she was OK about the piano, that she didn’t think I was party to some kind of plot. I rang her to say I wanted to pay for the carriage.’ He grinned at his drink. ‘She said she thought they’d expect me to do that anyway.’

Margaret gave a second smal snort.

‘She said she hoped I’d real y play it,’ Scott said. ‘She said she hoped it’d bring me luck. She said—’ Scott stopped.

Margaret waited, holding her glass, the finger of her other hand stil lightly poised on the piano key.

‘What?’

‘She said,’ Scott said with emphasis, ‘she said that one day she hoped she’d hear me play it. She wants, one day, to hear me play the piano.

She said so.’

Margaret’s finger went down on the middle C.

‘And,’ Scott said, ‘I told her I hoped so too. I told her I’d like her to hear me play. I’d like it.’

‘I see.’

Scott put his champagne glass down on the windowsil .

‘Move over,’ he said to his mother.

‘What?’

‘Move over,’ Scott said. ‘Make room for me.’

‘What are you doing—’

‘I’m going to play,’ Scott said. ‘I’m going to play Dad’s piano and you’re going to listen to me.’

Margaret moved to the right-hand edge of the piano stool. She felt as she used to feel at the beginning of one of Richie’s concerts.

‘What are you going to play?’

Scott settled himself. She watched him flex his right foot above the pedals, settle his hands lightly on the keys.

‘Gershwin,’ he said, ‘“Rhapsody In Blue”. And you can cry if you want to.’

Margaret’s throat was ful .

‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ she said.

The door of Richie’s practice room was shut. While he was alive, it had never been completely closed except on very rare occasions, because he liked to feel that his playing belonged to al of them, to the whole house; so much so that Chrissie had had to organize insulation for the party wal with the neighbouring house, and have ugly soundproofing tiles fixed to the ceiling. But now the door was firmly shut so that none of them, Chrissie said, would have to see the sharp dents in the carpet where the little wheels on the piano’s legs had dug almost through to the canvas.

‘It’s worse than his shoes,’ Chrissie said.

There was a silence when she said this. Al the girls felt a different kind of relief once the piano had gone, but it wasn’t, plainly, going to be possible to admit to it. Tamsin felt relieved because she might now be able to implement a few plans for the future; Dil y felt relieved because her own part in an alarming plot was over, and Amy felt relieved that justice had been done, and the piano was at last where it was supposed to be.