Dear Thing by Julie Cohen

Author:Julie Cohen [Cohen, Julie]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Transworld
Published: 2013-04-10T14:00:00+00:00

22

B Flat Major

SUMMER DAYS WERE too long.

Claire had made an orange chiffon cake for the village fête, and several lemon drizzle cakes while she was at it, for the freezer. She left one out for the IVF support group. She hadn’t been for months now, not since she’d miscarried and decided to give up on treatment, but she was thinking she might go on Thursday. She was just about ready to face the group in person, rather than via email, and she knew that they would all be happy for her. Or at least they’d act as if they were happy for her. The ones who had succeeded with IVF would probably feel sorry for her, and the ones who were still trying would thank God that they weren’t that desperate just yet.

On second thoughts, she put the extra cake into the freezer with the others.

She did her yoga, and she washed the curtains in the spare bedroom and hung them out on the line to dry in the sunshine. She wrote a letter on proper paper, and put it aside for later. She made herself a salad for lunch. She weeded the garden and sprayed soapy water on her roses, which had shown signs of a few aphids. She squinted at the little green insects and tried to see the honeydew Romily had said they made, but she couldn’t see anything and she wasn’t going to taste to find out. She thought about ringing Ben, but they’d already chatted this morning and besides, he was busy. Helen and Andrew were on holiday with the kids. She rang her mother, who wasn’t home. She picked up the novel that her book club was reading, a complicated story about several generations. She hadn’t been to book club in months, either; after a few glasses of wine, they spent too much time talking about their children. She put the novel down and went for a walk instead, on her usual route through the fields south of the village to the Thames. She watched the ducks squabbling and the swans not deigning to notice anything.

By the time she got back, it was only quarter past two.

She shook out her hands to loosen them, fluttered her fingers and sat down at the piano. The piece on the music-stand was a Bach fugue with melody and counterpoint twisting in mathematical perfection, and she hadn’t practised enough. She never had time to practise, although she had all the time in the world.

Once, the hours had slipped away while she was at the piano. Other children had to be forced to practise; her own parents had had to force her outside to play, to get some fresh air, and even then, the music would spin through her. She would jump rope to its time, run to its cadence.

The melody tripped along. Her fingers didn’t feel light or deft enough. Claire closed her eyes and tried to let the music guide her hands. Fugue in G Minor, BMV 861.

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