“Well, we’ve all met that type before, haven’t we, Gilda?”
“Oh, sure.” Gilda pretended to be just as experienced with boys as Jenny apparently was. “Tell me about it.”
Gilda had to admit that Jenny had a special knack for deflecting jealous, competitive comments. Maybe it’s a skill she picked up from all those beauty pageants, Gilda thought.
“Jenny,” said Ms. Pickles, “can you grab that harbrush and the pair of scissors for me, darlin’?”
Jenny reached for the scissors and caused a small avalanche of beauty products to cascade from the folding chair. Her mother’s purse spilled open and vomited its entire contents onto the floor. The chaotic pile included a cell phone, numerous lipsticks, a wallet with loose credit cards, packs of gum and mints, a lighter, a key chain, and a miniature photo album labeled BRAG BOOK.
“Oh, Jenny, good night!” Ms. Pickles exclaimed. “That purse had more junk crammed in it than a redneck’s front yard, and now look!”
Gilda and Jenny crouched down to help Jenny’s mother, who was hurriedly stuffing objects back into her bag.
“Oh, don’t bother, hon, I’ll get it,” said Ms. Pickles, breathlessly, her sun-spotted hands and coral fingernails moving quickly to grab objects and stuff them back in her bag.
Just then, under a wad of tissue, Gilda discovered something so interesting and incriminating, it was all she could do to keep from shouting out loud.
The contents of Ms. Pickles’s spilled purse included a deck of cards labeled The Gill Tarot.
Ms. Pickles reached for the deck of cards, but Gilda snatched it first.
“Just drop that back in, sugar. Must have been some crazy thing that made its way into my purse at a flea market back home. I don’t know the half of what’s in here.”
Gilda looked at the back of the deck and saw that it was priced at three pounds. “Actually, Ms. Pickles, this deck of cards was purchased here in England.”
“That’s nice, sugar.” Ms. Pickles sounded calm, but her sun-speckled skin looked flushed. She made another sudden lunge to grab the deck of cards from Gilda, but Gilda clung to the cards stubbornly—the way she had seen Wendy’s little brother hang on to a favorite toy.
For a moment, the two were locked in an absurd tug-of-war. Gilda met Ms. Pickles’s eyes and perceived a gold glint of rage.
“Mother! What are you doing?”
“Gilda,” said Ms. Pickles, ignoring Jenny’s protests, “if you don’t mind, please unhand my personal property so I can help my daughter get ready.”
Instead, Gilda wrenched the deck of cards from Ms. Pickles’s hands. She opened the box and swiftly flipped through the deck to see whether any cards were missing. She felt a triumphant sense of excitement combined with shock at the realization that someone’s mother was now the prime tarot card suspect. “Aha! Just as I thought!” Gilda waved the tarot cards in front of Ms. Pickles’s nose. “The cards missing from this deck are the very ones that have been turning up among the other performers—all of the most disturbing cards in the deck, I might add.”
“Are you both crazy? What is going on here?”
“Jenny, this girl is talking blarney,” said Ms. Pickles. “Let’s get you ready.”
“But why do you have tarot cards in your purse, Mama?”
“Who knows? Probably an old party favor. Lord knows there’s a landfill full of trash in that bag.”
“Ms. Pickles, was your daughter in on this with you, or was this your own secret little plan to undermine the other performers?”
“Gilda, I hate to be rude, but you’re disrupting my daughter’s concentration. Jenny, turn around so I can hurry up and finish your dress before your performance time.”
Jenny faced her mother with hands on hips. “Mama, tell me what’s going on. Is this a repeat of the Miss Blossom Pageant?”
Gilda’s ears perked up. “What happened at the Miss Blossom Pageant?”
Ms. Pickles ignored the question. She knelt down to collect the remaining objects strewn about on the floor.
“Mother did something unsportsmanlike at the Miss Blossom Pageant,” said Jenny, watching her mother warily. “But she promised it would never happen again.”
“I only did that at the Blossom show after that horrible girl stained your evening gown on purpose.”
“We don’t know that she did it on purpose.”
“Believe me, Jenny, she did it on purpose.”
“Still, there was no call for you to ruin her hairstyle that way.”
“You think what I did was so bad?” Ms. Pickles snapped. “What about that mom who snuck laxatives into the smoothies?”
“That’s not the point, Mama. This isn’t one of those back-stabbing beauty contests! People around here are thinking about music!”
“That does not make them saints, Jenny. Why, I see the dirty looks some of those kids give you because of your talent and your hair.”
“I haven’t noticed any dirty looks.”
Gilda cringed, remembering the comments she and Wendy had made about Jenny’s hot rollers.
“Well, I have. You’re just too naïve and trusting. . . . Why, just the other day I caught one of the little Chinese girls crossing your name off the list for one of the best practice rooms and writing in her own instead.”
I hope that wasn’t Wendy, Gilda thought, noticing something annoyingly dismissive about Ms. Pickles’s reference to “little Chinese girls.”
“I don’t care if you’re in a piano competition, a beauty contest, or a tractor pull: people who win aren’t afraid to use a little intimidation to get ahead.”
“Listen to yourself, Mama. You’re saying people should cheat to win?”
“Jenny, that isn’t the point. For most people here, winning this competition is just something to brag about at the country club. I am a single mother, and we actually need the money.”
“Wendy and I could use the money, too,” Gilda interjected.
“Jenny, if your mother can do something to help give you a little edge, then so be it,” Ms. Pickles continued. “You deserve a chance to win this, honey.”
“But tarot cards, Mama? If you were setting out to humiliate me, then mission accomplished!” Jenny hitched up the bodice of her dress angrily. She looked close to tears.
“‘Humiliate’ you? Who is looking out for you except for me?”
“Me! I’m looking out for myself.”
“Is that so? Well, your hooters are going to be looking out at the audience if you don’t let me finish altering your cottonpickin’ dress!”
Gilda stifled a nervous laugh. The truth was, it was hard to maintain a sense of outrage at Jenny and her mother. A situation that had seemed terrifying minutes before now seemed utterly ridiculous and also somewhat sad.
“Who cares about my dress?” Jenny wiped her nose with the back of her hand. Black mascara trickled from the corner of her eye. “My concentration is totally ruined now.”
Gilda no longer felt jealous of Jenny. At the moment, she actually felt sorry for her.
Applause vibrated through the wooden floor, followed by a pervasive silence that settled through the whole theater—a silence that seemed to last a bit too long. Was it close to Wendy’s performance time? Was the audience staring at an empty stage, waiting for her?
Gilda abruptly rushed from the attic room down to the balcony level of the performance hall. As she peered down at the stage floor, she was relieved to see Wendy walking toward the piano, wearing her red silk dress.
Gilda caught her breath. Something was different about Wendy: she didn’t slouch or shuffle her feet apologetically. She almost seemed to glide toward the piano and slip into her seat. Wendy closed her eyes to concentrate, and Gilda prayed that her best friend would be able to get through her music.
Then the atmosphere in the performance hall changed. The lights flickered for a split second, the temperature in the room seemed to drop, and people did not move or breathe as the first notes of the “Gho
st Sonata” filled the auditorium.
49
The Ghost Sonata
As Wendy played, Gilda heard faint rustling sounds as the music students and teachers in the audience began to check their program notes and whisper to one another. This music was obviously not the Bach French Suite in G Major announced in the program notes. It was something modern—possibly contemporary—but who was the composer? Not knowing maddened them and piqued their curiosity. They leaned forward in their chairs and squinted at the ceiling. The rest of the audience sat very still with electric attention. Everyone listened.
In the front row of the theater, Mrs. Mendelovich clutched her fur stole and sat up even straighter than usual. She felt as if she might be dreaming. How could it be that she did not recognize Wendy’s music? How could it be that she did not recognize anything about her own student? Wendy’s posture, her gestures, her hair—everything looked different!
How long had Wendy been planning this, and why? Who had Wendy been studying with in secret, and where did this phantom teacher find such music?
Mrs. Mendelovich had to admit, somewhat grudgingly, that this composition—whatever it was—suited Wendy’s playing despite its outrageous departure from the standard repertoire. But Mrs. Mendelovich had always thought of her piano students as her “very own children,” and now she saw that she was not a mother at all, because her “children” had always been perfect. None of her students had ever run away from her, purposefully ignored her advice, or severely disappointed her. Mrs. Mendelovich felt betrayed.
She could have won, Mrs. Mendelovich thought, but now she won’t.
As she heard her prize student drift further away upon waves of the unfamiliar music, Mrs. Mendelovich felt a new surge of loss. Wendy was more talented than she had understood. At the same time, Mrs. Mendelovich realized that she was saying good-bye.
Gilda observed the reactions of the judges. She couldn’t see Professor Maddox’s face clearly, but she noticed that Professor Waldgrave fidgeted: he tapped a pencil on the table, then patted his clothes as if searching for a lost weapon. Finally, he removed his glasses, wiped them off, then put them on again in a familiar gesture—as if seeing Wendy more clearly might help him understand the disturbing and inexplicable miracle of the music that now assaulted his ears. Next to him, white-haired Professor Winterbottom sat calmly with elbows on the table, his jowly cheeks resting in his fists.
Professor Waldgrave recognizes this music, Gilda thought. He’s hearing a ghost.
As Wendy neared the end of the music, the storm outside gathered intensity. There was a sharp snapping of thunder. A moment later, the lights in the theater went out completely. Wendy concluded her performance in complete darkness. Warm applause combined with pockets of nervous laughter welled up from the audience. A moment later, the lights in the hall came on again, but both Professor Waldgrave and Wendy had disappeared.
50
“Curiosity Killed the Cat”
Gilda raced down the balcony stairs to the theater lobby just in time to see Professor Waldgrave hastily cloaking himself in a rain poncho and hurrying out the front door. Gilda instantly recognized the flat, outward-pointing feet, the hunched posture, the mournful meow! that surfaced from beneath his rain gear.
Gilda hitched up her trailing evening gown and did her best to chase Professor Waldgrave, who moved down Broad Street at a surprisingly fast clip.
“Professor Waldgrave! Wait!” Having left her jacket in the theater cloakroom, Gilda made a dramatic spectacle as she sprinted in her tiara, high heels, and sleeveless, sequined gown past a group of merrily drunk college boys.
“Let him go, luv!” one of the boys yelled. “Come to the pub with us!”
“Professor Waldgrave!” Gilda shouted at the top of her lungs.
To her surprise, Professor Waldgrave suddenly stopped and turned to look at her. He seemed stunned by the sight of Gilda charging through the rain toward him in her evening gown, as if she might be some apparition flying through the stormy air.
Gasping to catch her breath and shivering in the cold, Gilda finally caught up with him.
“Oh,” he said flatly. “It’s you.”
“Professor Waldgrave . . . I need to know what happened to Charles Drummond.”
The professor’s face looked very white, as if no blood pulsed beneath his skin. For a moment, he seemed at a loss for words. “How—how did your friend know that music?”
Professor Waldgrave’s cat peeked out from the neck of his rain poncho as if she was also curious about the answer to this question.
“Wendy knows that music because she’s been haunted by the ghost of Charles Drummond ever since we came to Oxford.”
Professor Waldgrave stared at Gilda thoughtfully, a sad expression in his eyes. He seemed to be trying to decide whether or not to become someone who actually believed in ghosts. “Come with me,” he said, “and we’ll talk.”
Gilda walked with Professor Waldgrave to Holywell Street. When they reached his row house, Gilda felt a twinge of anxiety. The only things I really know about Professor Waldgrave are that he’s obsessed with his cat, he just walked away from judging an international piano competition, and he has some connection with a boy who’s now dead, she thought. Was it potentially dangerous to follow him into his darkened, cluttered house? On the other hand, Gilda was simply too curious to turn back, now that Professor Waldgrave was finally willing to talk to her. I’m so close to discovering some crucial piece of information, I can almost taste it, Gilda thought.
The room was filled almost completely by a grand piano barricaded with stacks of piano music, suggesting that nobody had played the instrument in a very long time. Gilda scanned the room for potential weapons, wondering if there was some object she could grab if she suddenly needed to defend herself.
“I’ll put the kettle on,” said Professor Waldgrave.
Gilda followed him into a small dining area that smelled of cat food. The table and chairs were stacked with music, scholarly books, student papers, and hundreds of pages of a typed manuscript.
“You’ll have to forgive my clutter,” Professor Waldgrave called from the kitchen. “I’m afraid academics like me have a habit of making every room an extension of the study.”
“What are you writing?” Gilda was curious about the manuscript pages.
“A little book about the rise and fall of the piano as a status symbol in the middle-class home. Not the sort of book one would take on holiday to read at the beach.”
“Oh.” Gilda couldn’t help thinking that Professor Sabertash’s titles had sounded far more exciting.
Professor Waldgrave appeared, carrying two cups of tea. “Please sit down, if you can find a spot that isn’t taken over by papers.”
The teacups in Professor Waldgrave’s hands shook slightly as he placed them carefully on the table. He removed a stack of books from a chair, sat down, and took a sip of his tea.
“He was here, wasn’t he?” Gilda could no longer contain herself: her gut feeling that Charles Drummond had been in that very room was growing far too strong to ignore.
“Of course he was here,” Professor Waldgrave replied. “I was his teacher.”
“You were?!”
Sophia jumped up on the professor’s lap and purred as Professor Waldgrave stroked her behind the ears. “I also killed him,” he added.
51
Professor Waldgrave’s Confession
As a boy, I was considered something of a child prodigy, and my teachers all anticipated a successful concert career. I attended the Royal College of Music in London and promptly won a series of concerto competitions. For a time, life and my career looked very promising indeed.
“Then, everything instantly changed. Almost without warning, a medical condition made it impossible for me to perform. No doctor could pinpoint the exact cause of the syndrome that made pain shoot through my fingers and arms whenever I touched the keyboard; all I knew was that I could no longer play. Naturally, I
was forced to cancel my concerts. I assumed I would recover, but months and years passed without any improvement, and in the meantime, a fresh crop of young, talented performers had emerged from the competition circuit, ready to take my place on the concert stage.
“The unthinkable had happened: I had been completely forgotten before my performance career even got started.
“I had no choice but to turn to teaching. I was lucky to get a post at Oxford University, but in all honesty, I was always secretly bored by my students. ‘Why would there ever be a future in this for you?’ I wanted to ask them. ‘Why are you wasting my time?’
“I also turned to writing about music, and before long, I was known as one of the most caustic music critics for The Independent newspaper.
“It was around this time that I began to perceive a flurry of interest in a performer I only vaguely remembered from my days as a student at the Royal College of Music—someone called Rhiannon Maddox. I had scarcely noticed her when my own star was on the rise. Now this Rhiannon Maddox—who had not been able to win even a single major competition—was becoming famous.
“She gave international concerts. She produced edgy music videos. She dyed her hair acrylic red or pink and wore ridiculous clothes designed by student fashion designers. She appeared in concert with Madonna and was photographed in silly, gossipy magazines like Tatler.
“I admit it; I resented her success, and I vented my frustration by writing scathing reviews of her concerts. What disturbed me was that nobody seemed to notice that she was merely a rather ordinary piano player and a very successful self-promoter.
“Then—everything changed. I stopped caring about Rhiannon Maddox’s brilliant career because in a single day, my own life became far more interesting.
The Ghost Sonata Page 22
