3: Walking on Sunshine
SATURDAY. No getting up at seven. No trudging to the bus-stop at 7.40. No school. Just homework and pleasing myself. Waking just after nine to hear the rain pattering on my window, I rolled lazily back into my duvet and curled into a warm, cosy ball. Saturday was the best day ever invented. Soon the folks would be off to Sainsbury's, B & Q and my grandparents, so I would listen to Radio 3's CD Review on the black Crown radio I got for passing the 11+, have a wank, take a hot, steamy shower, blast a quick game of Deathchase and wrap my head round linear equations, transpiration, gas laws, chapter 1 of The Mayor of Casterbridge and the German essay: 'An einem Samstagsmorgen wachten sie frueh auf; es war herrlicher Sonnenschein. Wie war der weitere Verlauf des Tages?' Ha ha, Herr Phillips. If only.
''Jonny?'' Mum was shouting up the stairs for all the hippos in Africa to hear.
''What?''
''Mow the lawn, pick some blackberries, some runner beans and some tomatoes, please. I want to make chutney this week.''
''Right!''
''And cut back the brambles by the compost-heap and empty the dish-washer.''
''Okay!''
It was like half-past nine and I'd already got this massive job-list. What did your last servant die of? I didn't shout. Overwork, came the imagined reply from the African hippos.
''I have got homework, you know, and music practice!'' I called irritably.
''You should've done it last night!''
On a Friday? What does she think I am? Who does their homework on a Friday? Not when there's It's a Knockout (Belgians dressed as giant squirrels, man!), Starsky and Hutch and the Last-But-One Night of the Proms, James Loughran conducting the Hallé in a mind-blowing Beethoven 1 and 9. Snorting, I listened to Michael Kennedy assessing recordings of Elgar's Introduction and Allegro for strings and read Bleak House for another hour as the morning sunlight seeped softly through the butter-coloured curtains. I'd really got into Dickens after Oliver and had read that, Christmas Carol and Great Expectations already. Halfway through, Krook had like spontaneously combusted, Esther had smallpox and Richard had broken with Jarndyce his guardian. It was like Corrie, but more believable. Finally, like around eleven, I set aside my book, silenced the radio, stripped off my PJs and threw back my duvet.
Although I absolutely loved doing it, and totally loved spurting more than anything, I didn't masturbate as often as my friends. Though I started when I was about eleven, I hadn't like spurted back then, not really. That didn't start till I was like thirteen, you know? And it was the best feeling ever, I mean, like EVER! Anyhow, Gray claimed he did it like twice a day into a tissue, once before he got up then again before he went to sleep. Collins said he did it every night onto his bedsheet. Maxton said he did it only when he had 'the urge' but, being fifteen and packed full of hormones and stuff, that was probably three or four times an hour. I knew for a fact that he once swapped a French class for a toilet cubicle, preferring a five-knuckle shuffle to a vocabulary exercise on sport and leisure. I joked he had made his own sport and leisure that morning. Tim Wilson, of course, had read in the Bible that God disapproved so, having got me hooked and sent to hell, stopped, saving his spunk, I suppose, for Jesus, while Paulus, we supposed, was far too prissy to put up with the mess.
I usually did it three times a week, every Sunday in the bath - there was something about wanking in hot, soapy water that really turned me on, you know? – and every Saturday when my parents went shopping when I could stretch out on my bed, stroke my whole body and get totally lost in ten minutes of absolute bliss. I also did it on Wednesdays when Mum went to yoga, locking myself in the bathroom for a quarter of an hour and squirting directly into the toilet. Occasionally, of course, I had to do it at other times too, like when I had a wet-dream or when I'd been reading or watching something really sexy, but I didn't really like doing it while the folks were at home. I mean, if they caught me, mega-embarrassment or what?
My folks never talked about sex or body-parts or anything like that, right? So they'd never sat me down for, like, THAT talk, you know? Never explained puberty, adolescence or what this strange wispy hair that floated seaweed-like in the bathwater was all about. I got my sex ed. from Gray in 2W and from Brudenall's Razzles in 3Y. It was like during those breaks that I'd really experienced my first real erections and, like everyone else, had occasionally shot my load into a school bog while claiming a gyppy tummy during RE. Nonetheless, if Mum or Dad, I didn't know which would be worse, ever caught me wanking, I just knew I would literally die of shame. Anyway, they weren't in now so I grabbed a tissue, raised my knees, closed my eyes and slicked my right hand sharply down. Spunk spurted everywhere, like some epileptic hosepipe was pumping it out, spattering my chest with long, warm ribbons then fat sperm-splashes on my stomach and fingers. I uttered a joyful groan and, as my heart-rate and breathing slowed, wiped my skin with a tissue, staggered weak-kneed to the shower, dried quickly, chucked on a plum-coloured slip, a pair of black knee-length shorts and a plain, dark green T-shirt then danced downstairs two at a time to the kitchen for breakfast, the gold cross bouncing on my chest.
The fridge was packed with salad, fruit, vegetables, the whole-fruit Innocent smoothies I liked, skimmed soya-milk, bottles of wine, several types of low-fat yogurt, organic eggs and a variety of farmhouse cheeses. I know they aren't low-fat but Dad won't give them up, whatever the doctor says about his cholesterol, and I could scoff a block of Double Gloucester with chives in like one sitting, so Mum was stuck with it. We avoided processed food, except bacon and ham, and virtually everything containing preservatives. If we couldn't pronounce what was in it, we agreed, we wouldn't eat it. Occasionally, when I needed a high-carbohydrate input, like for sports, a play or a concert, I had pasta with Dad's tomato, garlic and basil sauce. This was so delicious I wished I played rugby every day, though my favourite meal ever was shepherd's pie with baked beans and gravy. That made me drool like a dog and on Sundays we usually had a roast. Coming in from church at 12, Mum would do a joint of beef or a leg of pork or a whole chicken with crispy roast potatoes, seasonal veggies and fluffy Yorkshire puddings bathed in gravy so thick you needed a spoon, and we'd share a bottle of wine so they could teach me 'responsible drinking'.
At least once a week we had fish, usually salmon, trout or something like plaice, whatever was fresh in the market. We never bought frozen. Dad said it was all water unless it'd been flash-frozen in nitrogen and would you really want to eat something saturated in nitrogen? Friday night was Curry Night. We usually made it together, me chopping stuff, Dad grinding spices and Mum stirring it all together in a big red Le Creuset pot. It was usually chicken or prawns but we experimented, the three of us poring over this curry encyclopaedia together. Mum baked na'ans, I made cucumber and yogurt raita, Dad fried black-pepper poppadums and there was always a jar of mango chutney on the side. The best one we did was a Sri Lankan black-pork curry. The least successful was a tomato-and-egg curry which made us fart like dogs. We followed the recipe fairly closely but curried eggs? Oh boy. But Fridays were great because it was the three of us working together and also my pocket-money night. I earned this through drying the dishes after dinner, hoovering the carpets, mopping the kitchen and bathroom floors once a week and washing the car every fortnight. I got £5 a week, to save, or spend, on anything I liked, except junk food, comics, sodas or crisps.
I wasn't allowed sugary drinks like Fanta or Pepsi, and I didn't like them anyway. I was more your beetroot juice and lemon in hot water kind of guy. I also hated milk, I mean seriously hated it. Just the smell of it made me puke like a cat. We had a zillion types of tea, black, green, white, fruit-flavoured, herbal, and every type of honey you can think of and a few you can't. Coffee was, inevitably, decaffeinated. I couldn't remember the last time a bag of crisps, Cheetos or Monster Munch got into our house. Instead we had dried apricots, pumpkin seeds and soya-nuts, although I had recently discovered banana chips. Fried in coconut oil and shamelessly high in calories, Mum
hated them but since I could barely remember chocolate bars either, which was a shame, 'cos I love chocolate and the simplest bar of Galaxy made me drool like a fool and sneeze like a donkey 'cos of an allergy, she accepted the banana chips, at least for now, as my 'teenage rebellion'. As for comics, I'd once bought a Warlord, because of Lord Peter Flint (Codename: Warlord), the dandified conscientious objector who was really a crack British spy fighting the Nazis, and such a storm broke I felt like 'Union Jack' Jackson storming the beaches of Guadalcanal with Sergeant Lonnegan and G.I. O'Bannion.
''I haven't signed you into the library so you can read comics,'' Mum had said, promptly confiscating it for Dad to enjoy later.
So I tended to save my pocket-money, all stuffed inside my piggy bank, a pink plastic pig with a great fat belly, a smiley face and big flappy ears. He had a round red hat with a slot in it for depositing the loot. Mum paid my bus fares and cut my hair whilst Dad paid for clothes and stuff so that fiver a week was for books, CDs and Airfix kits. I didn't care that I was an only child. I had room to be myself. Anyway now I needed to start my homework so took my brain-food, this massive yellow bowl of chopped strawberries, banana slices, blueberries, pumpkin seeds and yogurt, two slices of granary toast with honey and a peach and passion-fruit smoothie, back to my room.
With the little fluffy owl imaginatively called Ozzie who I took to exams for luck, about an inch high and an inch across with a red back and a white front, an orange, carrot-shaped felt beak, little orange feet and black googly eyes, watching me beadily from beside Piggy Bank on the shelf over my desk, I opened my pencil-tin, which was pale blue with a colourful map of the world printed on the lid, the USA in green, Canada in plum, Mexico in orange, Russia in yellow and a minuscule UK in pink, all on a sea-blue background, and rooted around for a fresh blue-black cartridge for my silver Waterman, a yellow pencil-sharpener with Winnie-the-Pooh on the front and a black and yellow HB pencil topped with a yellow rubber banana. This had a smiley face, buck-teeth like Julie Wilson's (I mean, you'd never know her old man was a dentist, would you?), and little arms and legs. I collected these humanised-fruit pencil-ends and had an apple, a plum and an orange in the tin, along with some pencil-shavings, a couple of pencils, two gel-pens, one silver, one gold, a searing yellow highlighter, a small Pritt-Stick, an inky, furry lump of blu-tak and some loose paper-clips which I liked to unbend while I was thinking. Spooning up my home-made Fruit-bowl, I stared at this like head-breaking SMP Maths book and my even more incomprehensible black Casio FX-85 calculator and read
''Draw axes with x and y from 0 to 15, then
a) draw and label the line where 3x + 4y = 12,
b) draw and label the line where 3x + 4y = 24,
c) draw and label the line where 3x + 4y = 36.
d) what do you notice about the lines?
e) Shade the region where 3x + 4y > 36.''
I mean, what the fuck does it mean and who the fuck cares anyway?
I sucked the banana's foot, scribbled some shit, banged Pink Floyd's The Wall into the CD player and started writing up last week's Physics experiment in this green book:
''A beaker was filled with water and ice cubes and a thermometer and a capillary tube with oil in it were placed in the beaker. The length of air between the bottom of the tube and the oil was measured and noted down. The water was heated and every 5° C the temperature went up, the length was noted down again. A graph was drawn up to 100° C.''
I'd already drawn this on the facing squared-paper page.
''When the Charles Law and Pressure Law are extrapolated back to zero pressure and volume, it is found the lines cut the temperature axis at about the same temperature. Accurate experiments show that this temperature should be nearly 273° C below 0. This is the lowest possible temperature when as thermal motion stops completely. This is called the absolute zero of temperature.''
Re-reading it, I realised I had no idea what any of it meant. I carried on regardless.
''The absolute scale has its zero at the absolute zero of temperature and the degree is the same as that on the centigrade scale, e.g.
Freezing point of water = 273K
Boiling point of water =373K
Room temperature = 290K
Air freezes = 70K
CO2 freezes = 200K''
''Hey you, out there in the cold, getting lonely, getting old, can you feel me?'' I sang, ''Hey you, don't help them to bury the light, don’t give in without a fight.''
''We can now see that pressure and volume proportional to the absolute temperature and write:
V1 = V2 P1 = P2
T1 T2 T1 T2
''Hey you, would you help me to carry the stone?'' I warbled as I scrawled an example, ''Open your heart, I'm coming home.'' Cue air-guitar.
''A given mass of gas has volume 500 cm3 at 0° C. What will be its volume at 100° C?
V1 = 500,
T1 = 0° C → 273K,
T2 = 100° C → 373K,
V2 = ?
V2 = 500
373 273
Therefore
V2 = 500 x 373 = 683 cm3.''
273
Eccellente. Job done.
I fired a paper pellet at the yellow sun on the wooden part of the wind-chime and hit the curtain instead then chucked a table-tennis ball at the wall for a low catch at first slip to win the Ashes back for England, tossing it up to the ceiling in victorious celebration.
''No matter how he tried, he could not break free, and the worms ate into his brain.'' I chucked the Physics book aside for the marbled grey Biology hardback book. ''Transpiration is a process where water-vapour is lost by the plant to the atmosphere principally by evaporation through the stomata.'' Blimey. There was even a diagram of a potometer to be drawn. I would have to dig out the Crayolas. This song was so awesome. ''Hey you, standing in the road, always doing what you're told, can you help me?'' - Alistair was so awesome - ''Hey you, out there beyond the wall, breaking bottles in the hall, can you help me?'' – I chucked the table-tennis ball again and dived forward onto my bed to take it one-handed at cover. Everything was awesome. Winning the Ashes was awesome.
''Don't tell me there's no hope at all, together we stand, divided we fall,'' I sang, slapping the Bio book on top of the others. It might be right. I didn't really care. I'd never need to know this stuff ever again in the remaining seventy-odd years of my life. What a waste of fucking time. Still, it kept people in jobs. Otherwise what was the point?
As the table-tennis ball bounced back at me, I flung myself full-length on the carpet getting both hands under it, running in from extra cover. I decided to play sock-football next and win the FA Cup for Norwich City. After I'd scored a stunning left-foot volley into the top corner of the curtains from a rebound off the wardrobe, and punched the air, then got into a fight with one of my pillows, who got arsy 'cos I'd nutmegged him for a second goal under the diving body/bed of the goalkeeper, I knelt on my bed, air-guitared 'Now I've got that feeling once again, I can't explain, you would not understand, This is not how I am, I have become comfortably numb…' then karate-kicked the pillow through the open bedroom door.
I really didn't know what to write for this German essay. How would I spend a sunny Saturday morning, given the opportunity? In our earliest German lessons, we learned that Herr Ehler's 'Stopplicht ist kaput' and that he was a Farter and we all obligingly giggled. Beaky had taught us prepositions that took the dative case by setting the list, 'aus, bei, mit, nach, seit, von, zu' to the German National Anthem (the accusative case 'durch, für, gegen, ohne, um' fitting the next part of the tune – go on, sing it. You know you want to!) but all I could remember about my earliest French lessons in primary was that the teacher gave us all French names, like I was Patrice or Patroclus, something beginning with P. I mean, why?
Sucking my pencil-banana again, I like stared at this glowing golden lava flow from Nyamalagera in Zaire depicted on my most awesome Volcano poster and considered the rarity of a sunny Saturday mor
ning where I was free to do what I wanted.
My favourite place in the universe was Malham Cove, this massively awesome, expressionless 260 foot limestone cliff in the Dales that might once have been a waterfall. I also really liked Aysgarth Falls, where the River Ure descends a triple flight of waterfalls over a one-mile stretch but then there are like a million fabulous places in Yorkshire and many of my best days out had been spent cycling round Wharfedale with Gray or Wilson or hiking up Buckden Pike or across the moors with my parents before tucking into a well-earned fireside lunch in some cosy country pub. Then I had this like brainwave, you know? I would go to Scarborough with Alistair, and do what I'd done as a kid when Mum's folks had the B & B overlooking the North Bay. I loved Scarborough. We'd let the train take the strain, like snuggle into each other as the world flashed by, then walk barefoot, hand-in-hand, on the beach. We'd paddle in rock-pools, share an ice-cream, get fish and chips then head to the castle to gaze at the sea and cuddle up to watch some cricket at the best ground in the country. That's a day out, I thought, just like in that song by Fiddler's Dram, 'Didn't we have a lovely time, the day we went to [Scarborough]?' Jeez, that was one of the few singles I'd like actually bought, that, Rat-Trap, Bohemian Rhapsody, Space Oddity and Bay City Rollers' tartan-trousered Bye Bye Baby. Mum said singles were a waste of money. Wait for the album. More bang for your buck. But what if the other songs were, like, a bit crap, Mum?
I inserted a fresh cartridge into the Waterman and The Magic Flute into the CD player, feminized his name to 'Alison', wrote the date, Samstag 13th September, and produced the most romantic story I'd ever written whilst this exhilarating opera about love being tested by fire and water roared around me. I had to look up the word for 'snuggle' in my Langenscheidt dictionary and then write an edited fair-copy for Beaky which finished with the words ''Und dann, wir küssten…'' but I was proud of my work. It was a good story.
I steered the motorbike through the trees and zapped a white helicopter with one of my heat-seeking missiles then veered to the left to loose another off at a pink tank on the horizon. I pressed hard on the Z key and blew the yellow bike out of the forest to raise my score to $4231 and into the night patrol level. The blue sky went black and the trees got thicker. My whole body swayed to the right as I leaned on the arrow keys and guided the handlebars to the left. Eight minutes later - Sector 7. $31,835 and rising. Ha ha. Closing in on new high score. Blue bike, white tank – blown apart, ha ha. $38,750. Sector 8…. Closing in. $15000 bonus if you finish Sector 8…. Come on, come on, come on… SHIIIIT. Fucking nerve-shredding jangle of the telephone jolted me out of my world and sent me smashing into a tree for a faceful of bark, no bonus and another gloating GAME OVER. Bollocks.
It was about half-one and the bloody lawn was still awaiting the mower. Mentally preparing my excuses, I answered the phone. It was Alistair Rose. Christ, I'd just been thinking about him. My stomach did this violent somersault and my voice dried to a croak. He wondered if I wanted to meet up. A bazillion thoughts like thundered through my throbbing brain. He wanted to see me. Today. At the weekend. What did it mean?
''You promised to play me the B minor Mass,'' he said semi-accusingly.
''All right,'' I kind of squeaked. ''Do you want to come to my house?''
''Sure. Half an hour?''
''You know where I live?''
''Black gate.'' I could hear the grin.
Shit.
Half an hour. Oh. My. God. I had to get ready.
What should I wear? Should I wear jeans? Should I wear shorts? I knew he liked my legs. What about my T-shirt? What colour would he like?
Damn what he liked. It was more important to smell good.
Pounding to the bathroom, I cut my fingernails, brushed my teeth twice, flossed, sloshed Listerine round my gums, then dived under the shower with the Imperial Leather and this avocado, lime and coconut shower-gel, soaping my boy-bits several times. Just in case.
Fuck. In case of what?
How should I do my hair? Should I do it straight, or spike it with gel?
What would he be wearing?
What should I wear? I hadn't settled that yet.
What about my hair?
Frantically scooping a handful of gel from the jar, I dragged some through my fringe to lift it a little but it went too spiky so I flattened it again, didn't like that either, so dragged my fingers through it again, standing it up like a hedgehog's spikes. Shit and bollocks. I'd have to start again. Worse, I thought I'd seen a couple of spots emerging at the corner of my nose and on my forehead. Fucking hell! I stuck my head under the shower again.
I didn't really have time for this.
Fuck's sake.
I sprayed myself liberally with Dark Temptation, slapped on some of Dad's Old Spice.
Clothes. What clothes?
I was searching my wardrobe manically when the doorbell rang.
He was here.
At my house.
And I wasn't ready. I was naked and sweaty and my hair was a fucking disaster. My palms perspired and the elephant leaping around my guts made me feel sick. I just literally threw the clothes I'd taken off back on, and ran barefoot downstairs to the front door.
He was wearing black jeans and a white open-necked polo-shirt. The thick lock of bruise-black hair fell carelessly towards his right eye. My heart thudded and, as his cool hand shook mine, I felt again that electric tingle.
''You look good,'' he commented. ''That green really suits you. Nice house.''
''Thanks.'' Fucking hell. Get a conversation, you loser.
''So what were you doing when I called?''
''Writing a story for Beaky,'' I said. About you, I didn't add. ''It's a romance.''
''I knew you were a romantic,'' he grinned.
''I was gonna do my piano practice,'' I said. ''Do you wanna listen?''
The music room had once been a small dining-room at the front of the house across the hall from the living-room. Three old sofas in muted autumnal reds and browns were arranged in a U-shape facing the battered brown Bechstein upright piano my teacher had given us. A large, intricately woven, slightly faded rug lay in the centre of the uneven walnut-stained floorboards. One wall bore bookshelves. My parents were not great fiction readers so most of their books were about local history, gardening, flowers and plants, yoga and Pilates, nutrition and child-rearing, titillating titles like Amateur Astronomy, Get to Know your Local Churchyard, A History of the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry (KOYLIs), Pond-Fish for Beginners, Make the Most of Geraniums, Fighting the Flab: Easy Exercises for Weight-Watchers and Bringing up Baby: A Guide for New Parents. There was a Koenig and Meyer music-stand, my clarinet and Dad's guitar. He'd played a lot when I was younger, mainly stuff by Paul Simon and Pete Seeger. I remembered him crooning 'Puff the Magic Dragon lived by the sea' to get me to sleep but he'd given up around the time I'd started the piano. Why he'd stopped I didn't know. I just supposed he'd got bored with it, like so many of his other hobbies.
Sitting at the piano, I played some scales then rolled into the first movement of Mozart's F major sonata K332 I'd played for Grade 8, enjoying the punched dynamics in bars 60-65, the dancing, syncopated, bouncing left-hand and flourishes from bar 84 to the repeat at bar 93. He simply stared at my frowned concentration, then kind of sighed.
''Man, you're sooo good. I can't play anything.'' He looked enviously at the framed certificates with the red crown crest of the Associated Boards of the Royal Schools of Music (in gold) that clustered on top of the piano, the four I had for clarinet, presented for examination by Martin Angus BA, LRSM, and the eight 'to certify that JONATHAN DAVID PETERS was examined in Grade… Piano' and presented for examination by Barbara Lennox OBE, MA, FRSM, D.Mus. (Hon).' Yes, my teacher was that good she had an OBE, and an honorary doctorate from Leeds Uni. So ha.
''Nothing?'' I said, slightly disappointed. He shook his head. ''Never too late to learn, Alistair. Maybe I'll teach you.''
I'd started learning aged six
. I don't really know why my parents invested in me. I mean, Dad's record collection consisted mainly of James Last and The Shadows whilst Mum favoured Barry Manilow and The Carpenters. They said I sat down at someone's piano and knocked out a tune by ear and whoever it was said I was really good so my parents talked to the music teacher at primary who got me to play something and the next thing I knew I was off to audition for Barbara Lennox, the most famous teacher in the north. The woman had written books, for God's sake, and taught professional concert-pianists, competition prize-winners and one famous conductor. She rarely took on new pupils, especially children, and she only agreed to hear me because my primary teacher was an old college friend. Sitting with her arms folded and her eyes shut, she'd looked both grumpy and scary until I played this lovely, lilting Brahms lullaby I'd like learned by heart? I'd been tremendously nervous and made some mistakes but, as I played, her whole expression softened.
''The boy has potential,'' she'd remarked. ''I'll take him.''
The rest, as they say, was history, Grades 1 and 2 in the first year, then steady progress through the others, concerts, recitals, festivals, prizes, cups, acclamation in the Press, I had become Mrs Lennox's brightest star and six years later, I passed Grade 8 with distinction and was now preparing for Grade 8 on the clarinet which I'd started because of my asthma. Like swimming and singing, it really helped me control my breathing.
When I started at the grammar school, in the first music lesson, Fred Perry went round the class asking who played an instrument and there were a bunch of kids saying 'piano' and 'violin' and Perry asked what grade and they were all going 'two' or 'three' so he got to Mark Gray who said 'Piano, Grade Five' and there was this kind of whistle of appreciation. Perry said 'play something for us', so Gray played Debussy's Clair de Lune. It's kind of slow and languorous, very famous, very beautiful, and at the end, although he made a few mistakes with his fingering, everybody clapped. He looked a little embarrassed while Perry continued round the rest of the class – we sat in alphabetical order – and gets to Andy Paulus, who was a 'cellist, and he also said Grade Five, but he didn't have a 'cello to prove it. I was sitting next to him, so Perry goes 'Who are you?' and I go 'Jonathan Peters, sir,' and he goes 'Do you play an instrument, Peters?' and Tim Wilson shouts 'He plays piano, sir, and he's awesome.' Perry asked what grade I was, and I said 'Distinction in Six, sir, and now doing Seven.' He does this double-take, like he can't believe this 11 year old kid's preparing for Grade 7. Anyway, voice dripping scepticism, he goes 'Play something' and I go to this massive fuck-off Steinway and did 'Farewell to Stromness' by Maxwell Davies, the most beautiful piano piece I ever heard, from memory and without a mistake, rocking through those opening bass crochets and treble triplets into these powerful six-finger chord progressions and back again. You could've heard a feather drop by the time I'd finished. It felt like I'd woven some strange magic spell over them. Perry's ruddy, fat face was rigid with shock as the whole class sat, suspended in time, and I played Debussy's Golliwog's Cake-Walk as a perky encore, but despite that, and everything else, Perry never really warmed to me. I guess it's hard to teach a prodigy when you haven't like made it yourself, you know? Besides, he never really forgave me for turning down a place in the Chapel Choir. I had a voice like an angel but I didn't want to commit the time. Every Sunday morning (and I had piano lessons in the afternoon), plus Friday after school and Wednesday lunchtime. I had other stuff to do, you know? Also, I didn't fancy the get-up, these floor-length blue cassocks like dresses and frilly white ruffled neck-pieces? Man, ticket to Lamesville, or what?
''You must remember this,'' I grinned, flowing into Chopin's D flat major nocturne, Opus 27 number 2. I'd won both the individual and the house music contests last year with this and played it in the summer concert. Rosie had totally raved in the reviews about my 'singing right hand,' 'liquid beauty' and 'steely fingers'. What he wrote had utterly thrilled me.
''Oh man,'' he sighed again, ''I love hearing you play that. Sooo beautiful.''
Lost somewhere, he was like gazing at my face now. Shit. The magic spell again. Electricity kind of crackled through my tingling body. There was a sudden singing in the air that might've been angels as I hit that top note that made audiences shiver.
Standing abruptly, I closed the lid and said ''Do you wanna see my room?''