It didn’t look too difficult, but maybe there was a trick? Still smarting at his rebuke, she followed Miss Brook’s advice: take a deep breath, count to three. The keys were silky under her fingers, the tone beautiful, and she thought she played the piece quite well as the notes went dancing sweetly across the page ...
Abruptly, Mister L’estrange motioned her to stop. ‘Not bad,’ he commented, without smiling. ‘If you could not play it properly, I didn’t wish to teach you.’ Again he flicked his dark hair.
How dare he say ‘Not bad’ as if she was barely good enough to sit at his precious piano. Sandra felt herself rebel, and bit her lip so as to remain silent. Now she was stuck with this horrid teacher. Mister L’estrange – what sort of a stupid name was that!
She looked up into the darkest brown eyes she’d ever seen, the glint of earring in his black hair. He smiled – a brilliant smile that showed neat white teeth.
How could her mother like this awful man? She would complain tonight, as soon as she got home. He was a foreigner!
23 Tyrell St,
Randwick, N.S.W.,
Tuesday, 21st February, ’61.
Dear Emmy,
At my first piano lesson Mr. L’estrange was so nasty. He made me do a test and he was really rude but Mum didn’t want to talk about it. She thinks he’s the ants pants. He calls me Sarn-dra and he has long hair!
Today’s lesson was better. He told me Percy Grainger died yesterday and he played “Country Gardens” as a memorial song. He plays really well so maybe he’s all right for a teacher. He said he used to play piano at home in his pyjamas that his mother sewed for him. I mean Percy Grainger not Mr. L’estrange.
Have you seen Mrs Morgan again or Nick or anyone apart from Lofty? Tell me some exciting NEWS!
Aunt Meredith said one day we’ll go into town to the shops and have lunch at Mark Foys or David Jones, just the two of us. I’d rather go to DJs and see their piano player. He wears a tuxedo and plays a shiny, black grand piano and I like how he looks all around while he plays.
We’re reading “The Merchant of Venice” and “The History of Mr. Polly” by H.G. Wells, which I like because it’s funny and old-fashioned. We did a poem by Elizabeth Riddell about a lifesaver that drowned. I like it better than lots of English poems. The lady teachers for English and Geography are very nice thank goodness. I’m glad I don’t do French as the other kids don’t like the teacher.
Carol asked me to go to the beach with her but I didn’t want to because my swimming costume is all wrong and I always get dumped by a wave.
It’s been raining and today was boiling hot.
Love from Sandra xxx
P.S. Mr. L’estrange has an earring!! I bet he didn’t wear it when he met Mum.
15 Bentley St.,
Curradeen, N.S.W.,
Friday, 3rd March, 1961.
Dear Sandy,
I got your letter and I think maybe its nice to go to a big school and not sit in stinky hot classrooms like ours. Tony left school after his Intermediate and works at the flour mill. Boo hoo. Anyway I don’t mind, he never would have liked me.
Guess what, Lofty asked me to go with him !! We have “Henry V” for Shakespeere and our book is “The Passage” which is about fishing in the ocean. That story “The Monkey’s Paw” gave me a nightmare. I didn’t get to read the rude book.
There was a grass fire between here and Denalbo but they put it out real quick and no sheep got burnt. Pa says there are big bushfires in Western Australia from lightening, and nearly a million acres got burned and some buildings. I’d be so scared.
I have to work at the shop after school every day. I haven’t seen Mrs Morgan again. Your piano teacher sounds scary. Whose Percy Granger?
Love from Emmy xxxOOO
10 / 3 / 61.
23 Tyrell St, Randwick.
Dear Emmy,
Are you really going with Lofty? We called him googly eyes because he was an annoying little squirt, so why? He’s all right, I suppose. It’s better with no boys at school. Remember how Wilkins raved on to the boys in Geography about his old university days and what a good time he had? I hated him. I don’t like the Merchant of Venice, it’s horrible, about asking for a pound of flesh to pay a debt. I don’t know how it ends yet.
Mum and Dad like living here. It’s a long walk to the shops but I’m getting used to it. Prue sometimes comes with me. She’s made lots of friends already, lucky thing. She came a cropper off her bike and got into trouble for riding on a main road.
Mr. L’estrange doesn’t look old for a music teacher. I think he might be a gypsy, his hair is very inky black. In my last lesson, the phone rang while I was playing and I tried to play with long pauses but I couldn’t hear what he said except it wasn’t English. He’s got the blackest eyes I’ve ever seen.
I can’t believe Tony would leave school, what a drip.
Sorry, but he is, I never knew why you had such a crush.
On Saturday I’m going by myself to the Art Gallery specially to see a painting I like.
I’ve got to practice before dinner, I’ll write more next time. Percy Grainger was a world famous pianist.
Love from Sandra XXOO
Today was the day. If she couldn’t go with Nick, she would go by herself. From the front steps of the Art Gallery, Sandra gazed across the velvety grass of the Domain. She and Nick had sat on this exact same step after they walked through the park that long ago sunny day when Nick had described his secret visit about studying architecture at university, and how he’d paid little attention to the real reason his father sent him. And Sandra had tearfully told Nick of her father’s transfer to Randwick.
Ever since that day, she’d promised herself to return to the gallery and find the painting; stand in front of it one more time, re-live the moment when Nick had suddenly said, ‘Hold my hand and close your eyes ...’
Her sandalled feet made barely a whisper on the parquet floor as she walked quickly through the halls. But not too fast, she decided, as people may be curious – although she badly wanted to run. There was hardly anyone around yet, so she would have the painting all to herself.
With great control, she strolled past the old paintings in their gilded frames, pausing to stand a moment at Gruner’s cows in the early morning spring frost. ‘Dad’s favourite,’ Nick had told her. It used to be hers too, but now she had a new favourite ... one more room and she would find it ...
She imagined Nick taking her hand again, her eyes obediently closed as they walked the few steps to where he’d already glimpsed the picture: seated beside a pool, a young girl threaded red poppies in her long fair hair, daisies in her lap, a golden girdle around her hips. Then he’d said, ‘Open your eyes and look at this painting. Who does she remind you of?’
Unable to think of an answer, shaking her head, Sandra stared at the girl who looked so thoughtful, so beautiful, painted so perfectly as if the paint had been licked smooth.
‘She reminds me of you,’ Nick said. ‘Same pretty profile, same hair ... and if you wore a long dress like that ...’ She remembered how she had blushed, brushed off his compliment. It was nothing to do with the sad story of Ophelia, he explained, it was simply how John Waterhouse painted the girl. She could still see the painting clearly