What I don’t understand is why my dad cut us off from my mum’s side of the family straight after her funeral. I mean, you might have thought it was an important thing to keep in contact with your family, but then my dad doesn’t even have that much contact with his own mother, let alone someone else’s. My dad is an only child and my grandpa died years ago because he was very old. So Granny is my dad’s only surviving relative, apart from Sebastian and me of course. My dad says that Granny is an interfering old battleaxe who needs to learn to keep her opinions to herself. I disagree; I think he should listen to her more, because sometimes she says things that I think make sense.
“What your father doesn’t understand, Liberty,” she said one day, “is that I inhabit the Wisdom of Age, not the Insanity of Youth.”
On the few occasions in my life I’ve been brave enough to ask my dad about my mum he just sighed and said, “It’s not helpful for any of us to be talking about your mother, Liberty. Let the past stay buried in the past.” Which is all very well for him, because it must be a terrible thing when your wife goes and dies, leaving you with two small children to take care of, but it’s not very helpful if you’re a curious type of person, like me.
I tried asking my granny the last time I went to stay with her. But she only had to look at me once with her shiny black eyes for me to know that questions about my mum are out of bounds. I do love my granny because, well, because she’s my granny, but also because she takes me out for fun. We go on these amazing shopping trips and out for lunch and to the theatre and the ballet. I love the ballet, but we have to keep that secret from my dad.
“What we do in our time, Liberty,” she says, “is our business and there’s no need for your father to know any different.”
When I go shopping with Granny it’s always to Harrods. She thinks my dad is useless at buying the right kind of clothes for me, so twice a year she travels down from Scotland to take me out. I’m pretty much allowed to have what I like, so long as I have some sensible things like a warm coat and a special occasion dress and comfy shoes and things like that as well. After shopping we always have tea at the Ritz. The Ritz is my granny’s favourite place for tea and sometimes we have to meet her friends there too, which means I always get covered in bright red lipstick and half choked to death with old ladies’ perfume. And it means my manners have to be impeccable. Granny likes teaching me about manners and deportment and elocution because she says it’s important for a young lady to be able to carry herself well in the world.
Even though our main house is in London, Granny always prefers us to stay in a hotel. She says that then my dad can’t butt in on our fun.
Granny doesn’t really understand about my obsession with the violin either. Whenever I try to talk to her about it she just coughs and changes the subject, then a little later she might whisper into my ear something like, “Never give up on your dream, Liberty, just keep it under wraps for now.”
I think when she says things like that she is speaking from the Wisdom of Age. My dad has probably told her that the violin is a no go area for my life and for once she is listening to him and doing as he asks. I wish they would be friends; it would make Christmas and things like that much more fun. Granny always goes away for Christmas on a month-long cruise. She says that the winter sun is good for her constitution.
The first time I actually picked up a violin was when Alice and I both began boarding at our school. We were about seven years old and the moment she pulled it out of its case, I just knew I had to learn to play. The shiny chestnut wood and beautifully shaped bow and four little strings hypnotised me. I didn’t even know anything about my mum and her violin obsession then; just the look of it, the feel of it and the sound of it were like wonderful magic to me and I couldn’t take my eyes off of it or stop the thought of it dancing around my brain.
“Daddy,” I said, on our first weekend home, “can I have violin lessons like Alice?”
“No, Liberty!” he shouted, so loud it made me jump out of my skin. “I am not wasting my money on music lessons and you are not to indulge an obsession like your mother’s. Do I make myself clear? You’ll learn what I want you to learn and do what I want you to do and that is that. End of story.”
So I never asked again and Alice has never minded me borrowing her violin. We have our secret all worked out. Alice’s mum pays for her to have the lessons and then Alice teaches me what she’s learned. She isn’t really interested in the violin, she’s more of a bookworm and she only plays because her mum insists that it’s an important addition to a young lady’s list of accomplishments. Parents have very strange ideas sometimes. I’m not brilliant at it, but I can play quite well, especially for someone who’s never had a proper lesson. Alice thinks I’m a natural. I wish, I wish, I wish I could play for my dad one day. Then he might see that I’m not such a total failure as he thinks and he might even start to love me just a little bit more. I truly think that if Alice were to ever leave our school and I couldn’t play the violin any more, I really would just shrivel up and die.
Chapter 3 a glittering success…
“My summer was rubbish,” I tell Alice while we’re unpacking our trunks and settling back into school for the start of the autumn term. “My dad just dumped me in our French house for the whole ten weeks with strict instructions that I had to do at least four hours’ school work every day. My granny wasn’t well so he hired this scary dragon woman with whiskers on her chin to look after me and he didn’t bother to come and see me, not even once. He kept phoning and saying he’d be over soon so we could go out on the boat. But he never even did. He just got more and more stressed and snappy on the phone as the weeks went by. Apparently something big was happening at work again, and he said it was too impossible to leave. Lucky Sebastian was off jet-skiing with a friend so I didn’t get to see him either. Boring is an understatement, Alice. I had nothing to do but work, work, work, apart from the pool I suppose, but that’s not much fun on your own. Sometimes I think my dad forgets I’m still a child.”
“My summer was terrible too,” sighs Alice, lying back on her bed. “My parents just bickered the whole time we were in Greece. I sometimes wonder why they even stay married. I mean, plenty of parents get a divorce. I don’t know what the big deal is.”
“Parents have strange ideas,” I say. “I tried to talk to Sebastian about my mum and about what happened to her when we were out buying our uniforms. I wanted to see if there’s an actual reason behind the fact that my dad won’t let me play the violin. But he said he doesn’t remember anything about her, except her red hair and a tune that she used to play to him while he was drifting off to sleep.”
“That’s so sad,” says Alice. “I can’t imagine what it would be like without my mum.”
“I wish I could remember something about her,” I say. “I wonder if she ever played a tune to me?”
When we’ve unpacked and had our tea and sat through a house meeting and shared summer stories and welcomed the new girls, Alice and I sneak out of our window and on to the flat roof to look at the sky. Above us is a soft glittering blanket that twinkles through the darkness and wraps us up in stars.
“I’m so glad to be back,” I whisper.
“Me too,” says Alice.
“Whoever invented the stars,” I say, “truly was a glittering success. Can you imagine what it would be like to fly through them and feel them glittering all about you?”
“Of course a person