The Unfinished Symphony of You and Me

by Lucy Robinson

  Barry and Teddy were coming to watch the next performance in a couple of days; I’d go out then.

  I smiled politely at a family huddled by the doorway, waiting for their clever offspring to appear. The father was wearing an Aston Villa scarf, which made me feel even sadder. Dad. Why wasn’t my dad here?

  ‘There she is!’ said the father. He was pointing at me.

  ‘All right, sis!’ yelled an overweight man, who also had a Villa scarf on. ‘Surprise!’

  I stared at them, uncertain as to what was happening here. Who were these weirdos? Noon’s family, probably. You couldn’t trust a family who called their son Noon.

  ‘Surprise, Sally, ha-ha!’ echoed the woman. Then she clapped her hand over her mouth in case she’d been too loud.

  I stared at them, goggle-eyed, and they stared at me. My family. My family were here, for the first time in my life. Mum was clutching Dad as if she were a sapling and he an oak. Dad was trying to go along with the oak role but he was far too excited. ‘You were FANTASTIC, you were!’ he cried. ‘Great!’

  Tears filled my eyes. ‘Bet you didn’t expect us, eh?’ crowed Dennis’s wife, Lisa. In all the years I’d known Lisa she’d only ever worn jeans and fake Ugg boots. Tonight she was wearing some sort of a dress. With a heel! A medium heel!

  ‘Great legs,’ I said, staring at them in wonder. My family were here!

  ‘You were great,’ Mum said nervously. She moved over and patted my arm self-consciously. ‘We were ever so proud, and the story was actually quite easy to follow … Although I was gutted that you didn’t sing that “Nessun dorma” song. Do you remember when Paul Potts sang it on Britain’s Got Talent? It was still great, though, and now you’re off to New York to do it!’

  It was the most Mum had said to me in one go for as long as I could remember. I smiled tearfully at her, feeling no compulsion whatsoever to explain that ‘Nessun dorma’ was from a different opera and written for a male tenor. Mum and Dad had got into a car and driven to London. Not for Dennis and Lisa, but for me. For me!

  I didn’t hug them, because I knew it would be a bit too much. But I touched Mum’s hand as it rested on my arm and I half punched Dad on his anorak and I saw it in their eyes: love. Real love. Love way out of its comfort zone, but indisputable love all the same, suffused with pride and respect.

  ‘I can’t believe you’re here.’ I snuffled. ‘Thank you so much!’

  ‘Weren’t going to miss this, were we?’ Dad said shyly. ‘Our Sal up there with the big knobs! Next stop, New York!’

  ‘Do you … Do you fancy getting a bite to eat? Or a drink?’ I asked tentatively. ‘I’m starving?’ I trailed off, allowing them ample opportunity to say no.

  ‘What do you think, Pat?’ Mum turned to Dad. She looked keen, albeit anxious.

  Lisa spoke: ‘We’ve got to get back for the babysitter,’ she said. ‘But the trains run till midnight. You’ll be fine. You know where you’re going, right?’

  ‘Right,’ Dad said.

  ‘Right,’ Mum echoed dazedly. ‘I reckon we could have a quick bite,’ she said. ‘But, Sally, it’s after ten – won’t everywhere be shut?’

  I smiled. ‘London never shuts.’

  ‘We surprised her good and proper.’ Dennis chuckled as he and Lisa walked off towards the tube. I still couldn’t believe it.

  We went to Byron Burger and Mum asked if they did ham, egg and chips. Every now and then she stared at the young, rich Kensingtonites around her in their quilted jackets and ruby trousers, bewildered beyond any imagining. ‘These girls look like they should be in a TV advert,’ she muttered at one point. ‘Why are they so dressed up, Sally? It’s a Tuesday night.’

  I said I had yet to understand the people in these parts and we all laughed. It didn’t last long, the communal Howlett laugh, but that it had happened at all was a miracle.

  ‘So, how’s it going with Jan?’ Dad asked bravely. ‘He was an energetic young thing!’

  I smiled. ‘We split up. He got back together with his ex-wife. Which is fine,’ I added hastily, when they looked panicky. ‘I think we were just very good friends, really.’ Mum and Dad nodded. While they both had exceptionally conservative values, they watched enough soaps and TV dramas to accept that young people did do mad things, like getting divorced and changing their minds in the space of four years.

  ‘And what about the other one? The one with the funny accent?’ Mum asked. She blushed slightly. ‘He was ever so nice, he was.’

  ‘They are both very nice,’ I said firmly. I still wasn’t OK about how they’d behaved towards Jan that night.

  ‘Oh, yes, yes! Jan was nice too. I hope he didn’t think badly of … I hope he didn’t …’ Mum looked anxiously at Dad, asking him to take over. For once he did. The trip to London had evidently emboldened him.

  ‘What your mum’s trying to say is that we hope he didn’t take offence when we were talking about the Chinese. Or, um, the Eastern Europeans,’ he mumbled. ‘We didn’t mean anything bad, Sal, honest, it was just one of those things.’

  I took a deep breath. Here was another fork in the path. I could turn left, accept what they were saying and move on, or I could turn right and continue to wallow in resentment. ‘It’s OK,’ I said, choosing the left-hand path and feeling rather proud of myself for it. ‘Jan wasn’t offended. It was me who was, on his behalf. And I clearly didn’t need to be.’

  I paused as the waitress put my burger in front of me. ‘Sometimes I get upset about things I’ve decided other people are thinking,’ I added quietly.

  There was a long silence. Was I going to go there?

  Yes, I was. I needed to. And for all their fear of confrontation – of any sort of conversation, really – I sensed that my parents wanted to talk now.

  ‘For example. Deciding that you two blamed me for Fiona,’ I began. ‘I don’t believe that any more. In fact, I think the only person who blamed me for Fi’s death was me.’ Mum’s eyes glazed over with distress but, like me, she seemed determined to stick with the conversation. Perhaps we all knew that the gap between us had grown too wide; that this was our last chance to bridge it.

  ‘I’m beginning to wonder if some of the other things I’ve thought about you aren’t true either.’ I coughed nervously; Dad followed suit. We sat and did some rubbish coughs for a bit.

  ‘I’m sure it’s all OK,’ Mum began, in what she probably thought was a soothing voice. (It was not.) ‘We can put it behind us.’

  ‘No, I, um, I’ve not finished.’

  Dad did some more coughing.

  To everyone’s dismay I started crying. And continued to cry. In the end I gave up even trying to stop. Years and years of sadness and frustration and disappointment leaked out of me like a thick, sad soup. I knew Mum and Dad loved me and yet – and yet –

  ‘Why didn’t you call me?’ I wept. ‘Why didn’t you call me after New York? Why didn’t you do anything after Fi died?’ Great sobs racked me. ‘I felt like I was dying, I could hardly breathe at times. Mum, Dad, why didn’t you call me?’

  Mum and Dad stared alternately at their plates and at me. Both were anguished but neither really knew what to do.

  My sobs eventually lost momentum.

  Then: ‘I’m so sorry,’ Mum whispered. ‘I’m so sorry, our Sal.’ A tear fell out of her eye into the lap of her new trousers. ‘I … we …’ She wrung her hands. ‘I didn’t know what to say. I’m not very good with words, me. And you know what your dad’s like.’

  Dad nodded in guilty agreement. ‘We never meant no harm,’ he muttered. ‘We were worried about you, Sal, but you never called us and we …’ He scratched his temple tiredly. ‘You seem to like this life of yours down here.’ He was almost whispering. I had to lean forward to hear him amid the horsy shouts of posh people. ‘You didn’t seem to want to come home or speak to us either, so we thought we’d …’ He trailed off. ‘We’re sorry, Sally.’

  I wanted to get angry, to shout that it didn’t matter how they thought I
was, that it didn’t matter that they were ‘not very good with words’. I was their daughter! I’d practically lost my sister!

  ‘That’s why we decided to come down,’ Mum faltered. ‘Thought, you know, try and patch things up …’

  ‘I feel like you’ve always disapproved of me,’ I persisted miserably. ‘My job, my decision to live here, going to New York, going to college. You’ve questioned it all, everything. You’ve never sounded happy for me.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ Mum objected. ‘We just worry about you, bab. We don’t want no harm coming to you like it did to – other people.’ Her lip trembled. It was the second time in my life that I’d seen Mum in tears and it was strangely moving.

  I sighed, accepting that, however mad it sounded, she was telling the truth.

  ‘OK.’ I took a deep breath. ‘But … what about Fiona? Did you care about her?’ Just saying her name, here in front of my parents, started me crying again.

  ‘Like she was our own,’ Mum said immediately. ‘She was more like Mandy than Mandy herself. Of course we cared about her.’

  ‘Then why? Why couldn’t I be friends with her? Why did you send her to London? Why were you always telling her off?’

  Mum started crying properly. She cried into her hand, pulling a worn hankie out of her sleeve, and Dad put his arm round her, which made me cry even harder because I’d never seen him do that.

  And as we cried I felt myself somehow let go. I stopped fighting. Because it was all there in front of me: the truth of my family. The reasons why they were as they were. I didn’t need to keep on poking around.

  At this moment I knew – had perhaps always known – that they simply hadn’t known what to do with Fiona, that they were terrified of her losing control, and that they’d kept on punishing her in the desperate hope that she’d change. That they’d sent her to London because they were out of ideas, and that they’d tried to stop me getting too close because they feared the worst. And, of course, the worst had happened anyway and I’d experienced all the desperate agony from which they’d tried so fruitlessly to protect me.

  It made everything no less painful, but it at least made sense.

  Mum cried, Dad comforted her, and I cried. Dad even reached out and took my hand too. Neither of them seemed to care that they were being emotional in public.

  ‘It’s OK. You don’t need to explain,’ I said eventually. I sounded calmer; kinder now. ‘I think I get it.’

  Mum eventually stopped crying and Dad, probably quite relieved, removed his arm from her shoulders. There was an awkward transition as we all came back to the busy restaurant. I wondered if Mum might one day want to talk about her own dreadful loss, but small steps. This was not the time.

  ‘Well, that was very dramatic,’ Mum said shakily. Dad got to work with his burger. Please don’t make us talk about this any longer, their body language begged.

  I smiled wearily. I was done. I was also exhausted. The adrenalin had stopped and I was left with my parents, who loved me probably quite a lot but would never really know how to show it. And that was OK. I’d learn, somehow, to accept it. In fact, I was already halfway there. Enough of anger and sadness. Enough.

  I took them up to Baker Street to get the Metropolitan Line and Dad fell asleep twice en route. Mum alternated between reading adverts out loud and talking about tonight’s opera and Paul Potts off Britain’s Got Talent.

  Just as we went to say goodbye, she put her hand on my arm. ‘That Julian,’ she began awkwardly.

  ‘Yes?’ I asked innocently.

  ‘Is he the one you were, um, dating in New York?’

  ‘Er – yes. How did you know?’

  Mum smiled sheepishly. ‘Fiona sent us a postcard. Said you were seeing a man called Julian who had a half-Devon half-American accent.’

  I was taken aback. I didn’t remember Fiona being capable of buying stamps and posting an airmail postcard. It was rather touching, especially that she’d told them about me. ‘Um, well, yes. That was him.’

  Mum looked pleased. ‘How funny that he ended up being one of your teachers!’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘He was gorgeous, he was,’ she said. ‘I wondered if you and him … you know, now that you’re single again …’

  ‘He’s in New York,’ I said brightly. ‘Went back at Christmas. He went back to being a singer.’

  Mum nodded. ‘Oh.’

  There was an awkward moment when they got on the Metropolitan Line train – to hug or not to hug? – we settled on a half hand-claspy thing and then Mum turned back to me. ‘You still like him, don’t you?’ she said shyly. ‘And we thought he was great, we did. Don’t let him go, Sal! Send him an email!’

  It might have been that I got carried away in the excitement of seeing my family, or perhaps it was just that I couldn’t take it any more. Another moment without contact. But whatever it was, against all my better instincts, against everything Julian had asked of me, I went home and wrote to him.

  Scene Thirty-two

  From: Sally Howlett [mailto howler_78@gmail.com)

  To: Julian Bell [mailto JulianBellSmells@hotmail.com)

  Sent: Tuesday, 16 April 2013, 23.59.55 GMT

  Hello you.

  I hope it’s OK to contact you and I hope you’re well.

  Tonight I played Mimi and it went brilliantly and I didn’t die. Mum and Dad came. And Dennis and Lisa. We sorted some stuff out and I think we’re going to be OK. I can still hardly believe it.

  I know it was never your intention but you really helped me arrive at this point with my family and I wanted to say thank you.

  You told me once that you sent your wife off to do that audition in Vienna because you thought it would help get her well. Did it work? No. But it was the best solution you could come up with at the time. You told me that when Catherine died, your mum forced you to move in with her because she didn’t know how else to look after you. You said it probably helped your mum more than it helped you.

  It really got me thinking about the things we do to protect those we love. We all try to do what we think is best but really we have no idea! As often as not we can make things worse. Look at how I spent years being Fiona’s mother because I thought I could save her from herself. Did it work? No! But I was doing what I thought was best because I loved her.

  I am realizing, finally, that my family aren’t monsters. They’re just a bit useless and emotionally constipated, but most of the stuff I couldn’t forgive them for happened because they loved me. And Fiona.

  So, again, thank you so much for helping me see that. It took a while but I’m there now and I think we can start again as a family, which is amazing.

  I miss you. I wish you were part of all of this. I understand that for us to move on and lead our new lives we can’t be in touch but … I dunno. I miss you.

  If I don’t hear from you I promise I won’t contact you again.

  Love, Sally X

  I didn’t hear from him. And although I was sad, I knew it was right. I’d lost Julian but I’d gained a family and my life was truly beginning again.

  Act Four was over. I was ready for Act Five to begin.

  ACT FIVE

  Scene One

  May 2013, one month later

  Act Five started well.

  Then disaster struck. It was a disaster with a Hungarian accent.

  Spring had come slowly but when it did arrive it was beautiful. ‘I reckon it’s going to be boiling in New York,’ Helen remarked, shovelling a vast spoonful of syrupy porridge into her mouth. Her new wedding ring sparkled in the sunlight streaming in from the plate-glass window beside us and I basked in the oddly summery feel of Terminal Five, even though it was only May.

  We were sitting in a café near the check-in desks, having got there five hours too early because of wild excitement. Jan was so crazed he’d had to go to the toilet and had been there for quite a long time.

  ‘I’m not sure it’ll be boiling just yet, Helen …’

  ‘Rubbish. New York�
�s always boiling, isn’t it?’ I thought about my own boiling hot summer there, nearly two years ago, and felt a twinge of sadness. Helen cocked her head to one side. ‘Do you still love him?’ she asked conversationally.

  I chose to ignore her.

  ‘Oi,’ she said, poking me in the ribs.

  ‘Bog off.’

  ‘No. Answer my question.’

  I sighed. I did still love Julian. It was now five months since I’d seen or heard from him, yet nothing had changed. Every part of me loved him. Tibia. Lungs. Kidneys. Bladder. Even my bladder still loved Julian Bell.

  I snorted, wondering if I was going insane.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I was just thinking something odd about my bladder.’

  ‘Well, stop it. Answer my question.’

  I stopped eating and looked at her. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, I do. I think it’ll take a long time for me to stop loving him.’ Her face lit up. ‘And no. I’m not going to try and find him in New York.’

  Helen’s feline eyes narrowed. ‘You’re mental,’ she announced.

  ‘No.’ I laughed. ‘I’m just respecting him. He asked me not to contact him, and I disobeyed him. He didn’t reply to my stupid email and nor should he have done. It. Is. Totally. Over.’

  ‘Meh. OK.’ Helen helped herself to the rest of my sultanas. ‘But I think you’re a dick,’ she added sulkily. ‘By the way, where’s Jan? He can’t still be having a dump, can he?’

  Jan was in a bad mood at the moment, which was an odd thing to witness. When our piano rehearsals for La Bohème had finished and Dima had found herself without further work (the college staff were fed up with the live sex shows) she had demanded that Jan go back to Minsk with her, and when he had refused, there had been some fairly dramatic scenes. She had gone and Jan had howled with agony for days on end, uncertain as to whether to finish his diploma or follow his love.

  When I’d asked him about her yesterday his face had reddened. ‘Ah, Dima. We are writing many letters.’