by Dean Mayes
“What happened there?” Virginia scolded questioningly.
Ruby lowered the instrument and blew a puff of air up over her nose in frustration.
“It’s those last notes, Nana. I always trip myself up on them.”
Virginia smiled whimsically and she glanced at Asher and Minty who had drawn his legs up and cuddled the teddy bear closer to him, yawning behind the ears of the stuffed toy.
“That’s because you’re impatient,” Virginia said gruffly, pointing a gnarled finger at Ruby. “Always rushing to get to where you’re going rather than taking your time to experience the journey. I keep telling you—you must be patient with the song—the palti—for that is what the violin is all about.”
Ruby pursed her lips awkwardly and nodded.
The palti.
Her grandmother often used curious words and phrases to make her point or to explain herself and though they were mostly unfamiliar to her, Ruby knew what palti meant. Virginia always referred to the violin’s song as its palti. Ruby had never heard the phrase spoken by anyone else and she had assumed it was some sort of made up language known only by her grandmother.
Virginia raised the china cup to her lips and sipped noisily from it while Ruby regarded her instrument, stifling her frustration. In the four years since she had first picked up this violin, she had received that scolding from her grandmother dozens of times. And it was no less frustrating every time.
She lifted the violin and held it in both hands momentarily, calming herself, then she brought it to the ready position once more.
Virginia nodded.
“Let’s hear it again.”
Ruby lifted the bow and gently lowered it over the bridge, eliciting a soft first note that she held expertly for a moment before delving into the heart of the piece.
This violin…
The instrument had once belonged to Virginia, though Virginia herself had never spoken of its origins. Ruby had found it amongst her belongings at Virginia’s house, before they came here.
That shed at the back of Virginia’s old home had been locked up for years, ever since her husband had died. It was once a well ordered workshop, a carpenter’s workshop but since his death it had become little more than storage space for furniture, clothing and a myriad of other items that were no longer required.
Ruby had been warned not to go near that shed. Virginia had made up some story about it being riddled with snakes and spiders—a ruse that had been effective to ward off any inquisitive children…or so she thought.
Ruby, Jeremy, Asher and an infant Minty, had inevitably found a way in, and had made the shed their ultimate adventure playground—the centrepiece of which was an ancient car, a Ford Anglia that was almost completely buried under boxes and cases and paraphernalia.
Usually led by Jeremy, Asher, Ruby and Minty snuck inside the dormant motor vehicle. There in the cluttered interior, they would make room amongst more boxes and bags, books and clothing and pretend to drive away on some fantastic motoring holiday—like the ones their grandmother used to talk about going on with their grandfather.
They would go wherever their imaginations led them, far away from the grime and the grey of their life here at home.
It was Ruby who was the most reluctant. She didn’t feel comfortable disobeying her grandmother’s warning especially since it would be her that would incur her wrath if they were ever caught.
But, on one occasion, her curiosity drew her toward the belongings, the clothes and books, the furniture pieces, items of crockery, old shoe boxes—all the things that represented the life her grandmother and grandfather had shared. Of particular note were the books printed in French that belonged to her grandfather, a native of France.
The day Ruby found the violin sitting on the shelf behind the back seat of the car remained particularly vivid in her memory. She had never seen the case before and, upon dragging it from its resting place, Ruby became immediately intrigued by its strange form.
Extricating herself from the vehicle while the others continued to play inside, Ruby carefully set the case down on the concrete floor. She brushed her hands over its dusty surface, revealing a small brass plate upon which a name was inscribed.
“Virginia Crammond”
Her curiosity aroused, Ruby flipped the latches of the case, lifted the lid and gazed down upon a seemingly ancient violin sitting snugly in the plush lining.
The surface wood was scratched and had lost much of the gloss that once characterised the instrument. The handle and scroll work at the end were equally weathered and looked as though they hadn’t been cared for in decades. But the strings of the violin were all present as well as the accompanying bow whose horse hair fibres were still taut and intact.
Ruby had never seen anything quite like it. She was utterly fascinated.
“What are you looking at?” Jeremy called out from inside the car.
Ruby whipped her head around and shushed him, fearing her grandmother would hear them.
Lifting the violin from the case, Ruby carefully held it in both hands, noting the chin rest, the rusted metal work that held the strings in place on the face of the violin. She took out the bow then and considered it.
What am I supposed to do with it? she wondered.
Instinctively, Ruby nestled the end of it in the crook of her neck, so that her chin sat perfectly on the rest. She held it like that for a long moment. Something about it felt very comfortable, very natural. Whatever this thing was, Ruby thought it was very pretty.
Lifting the bow, Ruby balanced it in her grip and gently lowered it onto the bridge, drawing it slowly across the strings. The action was true, delicate and the resulting note was crisp and pure.
Without warning, the garage door swung noisily up on its rusting hinges, screeching in the darkness of the shed, causing the children to jump clear out of their skins. The piercing racket drowned out the sound from the violin.
Silhouetted in the blinding day light that had suddenly flooded in, Virginia stood, an expression of clear anger on her face. Her eyes drilled into Ruby, who sat frozen on the concrete. Her jaw opened but she was too scared to speak.
“I…I,” she stammered.
When Virginia spoke, Ruby was completely unprepared for what she said.
“Do that again,” Virginia snapped.
Ruby fumbled with the instrument, as Virginia stepped forward into the darkness. Ruby dropped the bow and winced as it clattered to the floor beside her.
“Slowly,” Virginia hissed.
Picking up the bow again, Ruby desperately tried to slow her breathing while the other three children, huddled in the car, peeked over the dashboard.
Ruby drew the bow smoothly across the violin again, producing an almost identical sound to the first one. She held it for several moments, failing to notice that Virginia had closed her eyes and was listening intently.
Ruby drew the bow up and away and sat there expectantly, waiting for Virginia’s countenance to erupt.
But it never did.
She simply opened her eyes, stepped toward Ruby and knelt before her granddaughter.
Taking Ruby’s free hand, she placed her fingers around the end of the bridge and gently manipulated them into position on the strings.
Ruby, her fear now replaced by curiosity, watched as she held her fingers in place, where Virginia had set them. The others in the car had slowly exited and stood a little way off watching the interaction.
Satisfied, Virginia nodded firmly at Ruby and stood again, folding her arms.
“Again,” she instructed.
Ruby steadied herself, and adjusted her grip on the bow. She brought it down and glanced the strings, this time producing a soft and languid note that was pure as silk.
Virginia stood silent. But her expression was unmistakable. It was one of approval, of satisfaction.
It was the beginning of a new relationship—that of teacher and student. Virginia’s expertise was considerable—that much was clear. But where she had
come to acquire such expertise was a mystery.
Standing in Virginia’s bedroom now, Ruby’s skill had grown and matured into something far beyond her years. She played with a technique that was refined, if a little brash.
Approaching the challenging end of the piece once again, Ruby intensified her concentration as she lifted the end of the violin slightly and rode down the fingers required to finish the piece.
This time she did not falter, though her execution remained a little stilted.
She looked expectantly to her grandmother who sat there with a blank expression for a moment.
Finally, she nodded.
“Better…but it needs work.”
Belle appeared in the doorway then, looking half asleep.
“Come on you lot,” she croaked in a gravelly voice. “Time to give up that racket and get to bed. You’ll never get up in the morning.”
Ruby screwed up her face and gripped her violin tightly.
“Awww…do we have to stop now? I’m so close to getting this part right.”
With a wan smile, Virginia shook her head.
“Come now, child. Listen to your aunty. You need to get a good night’s sleep.”
Ruby reluctantly set the violin down into its case and closed the lid, then shuffled across to her grandmother, planting a kiss on her cheek.
“Can we do this again tomorrow?”
Virginia nodded as Belle lifted a sleeping Minty up into her arms and carried him out of the bedroom while Asher trailed wearily behind.
“Of course,” Virginia assured her. “We’ll get it right, don’t you worry.”
Ruby smiled faintly and left the bedroom, leaving Virginia alone.
Virginia regarded the violin case on the chair adjacent to her and allowed her mind to drift. A procession of images flashed before her mind’s eye, memories from another time—another life.
Her life.
She let them hover, then she shut them out before they could linger too long.
Late into the night, Ruby sat huddled in her bed, her sheets and blankets drawn over her head like a makeshift tent. Underneath, she sat cross legged, the light from a torch illuminating her little cavern as she held a fence paling in her arms—a crudely fashioned imitation of a violin without the body or scroll work or neck rest. On the face of the timber, Ruby had attached four lengths of woollen yarn that represented the strings, while at one end, she had painted strategic dots with nail polish she had borrowed from her aunt. Completing the simulacrum was the disused handle of a feather duster, which Ruby now used as her bow.
She was oblivious to the sounds around her. Her aunty Belle and uncle Rex were screaming at one another out on the back lawn as her aunt tried in vain to get him inside the house. Distorted death metal music continued to blare out from the neighbour’s house across the street. A police siren wailed somewhere nearby. All of the violence, all of the chaos—Ruby heard none of it.
Closing her eyes, Ruby practised the fingerings of the piece of music she and her grandmother had been working on earlier. She imagined the music in her mind and performed her part silently. She was at one with her imaginary orchestra. The despair of the street could not touch her here.
Ruby employed this technique when she was restless or challenged by a composition. It was also a way to improve her dexterity, a way of remembering her scales and tweaking them. The method was one Virginia had once described to Ruby as useful and so, Ruby had procured a fence paling in order to construct her own practise model.
Her need to practise bordered on the obsessive. Ruby loved the violin so much and she was driven to become the best that she could be, that she kept practising whenever she could. For it was her dream to play and perform on a real stage one day, to become a true artist. And the only way to do that, was to keep practising, practising, practising.
Eventually tiredness overcame her and she did finally settle down to sleep. In doing so, Ruby’s concentration drifted back to the present, the sounds around her, and it was then that she heard a quiet weeping across from her.
It was Asher and she was crying.
Ruby immediately felt awful that she hadn’t heard her cousin before now. With Aunty Belle and Uncle Rex continuing to rage outside their window, it was almost impossible to hear something as quiet as Asher’s crying.
Ruby slipped from her bed and crept across to Asher’s, climbing in beside her and holding her in her arms.
Ruby knew how much her aunt and uncle’s behaviour affected Asher and it made her feel sick with worry. Right now, Asher was shaking like a leaf. All they could do was wait until both Belle and Rex gave up their useless battle.
He was aware of a wet, sticky sensation on the side of his face, along with an accompanying smell that he could not put his finger on. It was something akin to cooked meat, though it had a slightly putrid quality.
Rex’s eyes fluttered open and he found himself lying on the dewy grass at the bottom on the steps leading up to the house.
“What the…?”
The swirling fog in his head, the furry taste in his mouth slowly gave way to the realisation that one side of his face was stuck fast to a pile of dog shit on the lawn. Rex recoiled in disgust and sprang up into a sitting position, swatting angrily at his face in a desperate effort to remove the faeces that was caked there.
“Jesus!” he growled.
The disgust Rex felt quickly gave way to an intense throbbing in his head. He realised then, that he was hung over—severely hung over.
Staggering to his feet, Rex went over to a nearby garden tap and washed the offensive excrement away. The perpetrator of the dog shit, an elderly mutt, appeared from behind Virginia’s granny flat, its ears flattened down, sad eyes angling toward Rex. Rex, who was now washing his mouth out, spied the mutt out of the corner of his eye and flicked his head in its direction, growling malevolently at it.
He spun awkwardly on his heel and stomped away as the dog backed up from where it had first appeared, whimpering softly.
The back door to the house was locked and he cursed under his breath. Despite his hung over state, Rex had enough smarts to work out what had happened last night. When he and Davo got together, the result was usually the same.
Banging the door with a fist he listened, hoping someone was inside. He had no idea what the time was beyond the fact that it was morning.
Several moments passed. He heard nothing.
Growling in frustration, Rex lifted his fist again and prepared to bang once more when the door abruptly swung open to reveal Virginia standing there with Minty peeking out from behind her legs.
Rex blinked stupidly and almost over balanced on the step.
His mother’s expression was ice cold.
She turned away and led Minty into the house, leaving Rex standing in the doorway. Eventually, he followed her inside.
In the kitchen, Asher turned as her father entered and she froze, not quite knowing where to look. Virginia patted her shoulder gently and whispered something into her ear. Slowly Asher turned from the kitchen sink and rounded the table on the opposite side from where her father stood. She kept her eyes down as she scooted past.
“Asher?” Rex said, pleading for her attention before she disappeared. “Asher!?”
His daughter didn’t respond and she was gone from the house a few seconds later.
Virginia stood at the bench pouring boiling water into a cup and following that with a splash of milk.
A cursory glance at the clock told Rex that it was after nine in the morning. Immediately, the dark pall in the pit of his stomach amplified. He’d missed the opportunity for another day’s work.
He slumped down at the dining table just as Virginia placed the coffee cup down in front of him and stood, hands on hips. He reached across for the sugar—a glass ‘Vegemite’ jar that served as a sugar bowl.
As if reading his thoughts, Virginia nodded in acknowledgement of his unspoken realisation.
“Davo called by this morni
ng to pick you up. We couldn’t wake you though. We actually thought you were dead.”
The way she said that last sentence, sounded almost as if she were disappointed that he wasn’t.
“You know,” Virginia began. “I should have put salt in that bloody coffee.”
Minty, who was sitting across from his father, buried his face in his teddy bear, trying to conceal a broad smirk.
For his part, Rex just sat there, stirring his coffee sullenly.
“You were a disgrace last night,” Virginia continued, turning her back. “God knows what damage you’ve done to your kids.”
Rex brooded as Virginia paced back and forth on the other side of the table.
“Poor Asher was beside herself for hours. So were Minty and Ruby. As for Jeremy—well he didn’t come home. We haven’t heard from him at all.”
“Off with those dip shits he hangs around with probably,” Rex finally mumbled through a mouthful of coffee.
Virginia stepped forward deftly and slapped Rex hard across his cheek, causing Minty to jump.
“That’s enough!” Virginia thundered, as Rex sat bolt upright, the stinging in his cheek shocking him rather than hurting him.
“You’re a miserable bastard,” Virginia continued, standing over Rex, her white hot anger palpable. “The children don’t deserve this. You going off half cocked, wiping yourself out when you should be setting an example. They need you—Jeremy especially. He’s struggling. You should be bloody ashamed of yourself.”
Rex glared at his mother but she remained steadfast, unmoving.
“The boy needs to toughen up,” he retorted. “Instead of behaving like an idiot—following the pack.”
Virginia leaned in close then, and Rex flinched, thinking she was going to slap him again.
“Maybe if his father stopped getting blind drunk, throwing him up against the wall every other night, he might listen more. At this rate, you’re going to ruin him, Rex, not to mention Asher and Minty and Ruby. Then what?”
“That child’s not mine,” Rex countered with bitter sarcasm.
Virginia’s nostrils flared and she gripped the back of the chair she was standing next to.
“Ruby is a part of this family, whether you like it or not and you are responsible for the effect your behaviour has on her—just as much as you are for your own children.”
