Where the painting had previously hung, there was a picture of a father with a sleeping child. Rapidly she went from room to room, anxious and tearful, but the painting of Ophelia had definitely disappeared. She recalled the little card had said ‘on loan from a private collection’ – so it must have been returned to hang in the home of its owner – vanished from the gallery.
Outside, Sandra slumped on the steps. It was a stupid idea anyway. Why should the picture have been hanging there, months later? She was a stupid fool to think she could recapture that wonderful day with Nick. Stupid stupid stupid.
It was hard not to cry, and her throat ached with unshed tears. She didn’t want to live in the past, as her mother chided her on bleak days when Sandra complained – but the past held her dreams, her memories of all that was lovely. She felt a tear run down her cheek and angrily wiped it away so strangers wouldn’t see her distress. Counting one-two-three, she breathed in deeply, tried to calm herself.
More people were arriving at the Gallery, stepping around her where she sat. It must be nearly lunchtime. She stood, dusting the seat of her skirt. Across the road was a kiosk and she bought an icecream in a cone. She would sit there and figure out a melody to play when she got home. It will be a song for Nick, she decided, a song without words in a key full of happiness and hope.
It might begin with morning at Wilga Park, a ripple of notes andante con brio like the wind brushing through dry winter grass and paper daisies, and high above, oh, maybe two swallows scooping up pieces of sky. She hummed some experimental notes. Perhaps the key might change ... a discord, a change in beat with the staccato stamp of horses’ hooves on frosty ground. She smiled to herself ... that might be the easiest part. And finally, a cadence for the peace of evening, the way she remembered shadows lengthening across the fields until daylight faded into darkness.
Forgetting to lick it, her icecream had melted softly into the cone. So easy to say the words, to call her imaginary song Winter’s Day, but the melody remained elusive, the harmonies would not come.
That night Sandra lay uneasily in her bed, cradling the pillow. So many times she had misted her bedroom mirror with kisses, whispered: I love you Nicholas Morgan. With her eyes closed she could imagine Nick. But it wasn’t enough – it was never enough. Was it wrong to want more of a person, she wondered ... when did it become possessive? Ideally we should be like two stars circling about each other, drawn together. A double star? But while Nick stays at Wilga Park he can only be a sun, with me spinning around him, alone on my own orbit.
Five months since she’d watched over him as he lay bruised and sleeping in the hospital. Five months of far-away dreaming on her pillow each night, reliving the touch of his hand on hers at the gallery when she told him her family must leave Curradeen. I will write Nick’s song, she promised, and one day soon, I’ll take the score out of my handbag and I’ll say, ‘This is something I wrote especially for you,’ and push the pages across the table – yes, we’ll be in a café, and instead of picking up the pages immediately, Nick will look at me with so much affection, he’ll be so impressed that I wrote a piece for him... he’ll finally wake up that I love him, and he’ll feel it too, and he’ll take my hand and tell me, ‘Now I understand, it’s been in front of me all the time. I’ve been in love with you without knowing it, ever since we met that day at the polocrosse.’
The dream was magnificent and Sandra allowed it to flow, Nick close beside her on the pillow, his lips in her hair whispering secrets, loving her, circling like a star, and at last she slept deeply, her arm curled around the pillow.
15 Bentley St.,
Curradeen.
16 March 1961.
Dear Sandy,
I think you are real brave going to the art gallery by yourself, I would be scared stiff. I suppose you have been to Sydney lots and know where to go. I never went and would get lost on a bus for sure. Did you find your picture, what is it of?
Maybe Mr. L’estrange is Italian like me. If you hear him again on the telephone tell me what he says. Italians say “pronto?” when they answer but I suppose he won’t if he dont know whose calling him. He has not got an Italian name but.
I’ve nearly read all of “The Passage” but Shakespeere is hard and I don’t understand any.
Love from Emmy XOX
Seated at the piano at home, Sandra sorted through sheet music to find the Mozart Sonata. At her first lesson Mister L’estrange had announced: ‘Nine years old is quite late to begin lessons’. The scalding words still echoed. Music teachers were supposed to be encouraging, so what sort of encouragement was that? ‘Hmm, we shall see,’ he’d said. Like she was some sort of experiment.
Mozart’s dizzying notes flew from her fingers. Sonata in C Major, first movement allegro, try to keep every note pure, bright ... a blur of semi-quavers, this bar fortissimo – all these darned grace notes diddle-diddle-diddle. Principal Theme andante ... Oops. Why did she have to learn this stupid piece, impossible to put her heart into it.
She’d rather practise her own songs, threading them among the set study pieces, surprised that her mother never seemed to notice. Prue sometimes teased, mimicking her songs until Sandra drowned her voice with a loud set of scales or crashing bass chords. And in her dreams, Nick stood close beside her at the keyboard, turning the pages as she played.
Nick Nick Nicholas Nick ... she hadn’t hummed his name like that since they moved to Sydney. It had disappeared on the endless seven hour train journey, changed by the rhythm of the wheels to a click click clickety click. Nick was at home at Wilga Park. Perhaps as he got used to a wheelchair and regained his strength, he would forget her ... but that was too too sad to think about.
Concentrate on Mozart: Secondary Theme ... pianissimo ... those trills were not crisp enough. Would he recall that she’d visited him in hospital? In the midnight dimness of the ward, she had leaned over his bed, pressed her lips to Nick’s forehead in the precise spot where his own lips had kissed her. His eyelids had opened briefly, closed again. Did he recognize her?
Only the nurse knew she was there – the nurse who’d found her searching for him on the third night, and told her Nick had been sent to Sydney for surgery. She hadn’t seen him again.
She heaved a deep breath. Last page ... together she and Nick were riding their horses, the wind tossing manes and tails, Nick smiling beside her, cheeks flushed, brown hair blown back from his face as he leaned forward into a gallop. When they came to the steepest drops, the other riders fell back, leaving Nick the only one, the bravest one, shirt flapping as he disappeared into the distance with the final fortissimo chords.
Angela came to the door, wiping her hands on an apron. ‘That sounded very nice from the kitchen,’ she said. ‘Finish up now, dinner’s on the table.’
Her father and Prue were already seated. Angela continued, ‘Tomorrow you’ll have to start your practice earlier so you don’t run into meal time.’
Don smiled a hello as he sliced his pork chop. ‘Pass the apple sauce, please,’ was all he said.
Sandra wondered why her father was so quiet lately. He used to talk to them about his day in the office, stories about some of the customers, the odd reasons some people gave for wanting a loan – not that he ever told any names. One man even wanted to start a fish farm! When she asked her mother, Angela said he was weary from his new job and Sandra thought it was probably true. But an earlier companionship between them all was missing.
Last winter, bundled into the car to travel the fifteen miles to Denalbo polocrosse field had been very special – even mugs of tea on the sidelines were joyous, cheering the game and talking to whoever was there. Especially Nick and the Morgans. And Lofty, whose family owned the farm next door, who’d been such a pest at school. Was it possible she missed Lofty, too?
Now