The Small Piano

I attended a writing workshop in Havant today with the insane and wonderful Stella Duffy, who I hadn’t even heard of until I was invited to the workshop by someone at college (but I will be buying one of her books soon). She talked us through many different excercises and techniques, and had us running around the room calling stools elephpants, and at one point she asked for a volunteer.

Being me, I felt compelled to stand up and join in with this mystery activity. She told me to take a book off an imaginary bookshelf behind me then look at it. Look at the title and the spine and a message written on the inside of the cover. I stumbled through pulling these things literally out of the air and saying them in front of a group of strangers, and soon she was questioning me on the content of the story. What’s on page 83? A picture? A little girl? Where is she? What is she wearing? What has she got with her?

By the end of this, I’d come up with a very odd but quite interesting story concept. Later on, I wrote a few words based on it. (Aforementioned words available after the jump.)

The Small Piano

My grandmother gave it to me. Granny Nora, the one from my mother’s side, and there I was, sitting on the soft-pile carpet in front of the Christmas tree, waiting for my parents to get up and tell me where it was.

I looked down at the red material of my special festive dress, it had little pictures of reindeer dotted all over it, and made me feel very babyish and out-of-place. I was only 7, but Granny Nora had the amazing talent that most grandparents do, for buying gifts that seem very nice, but would  actually only be nice if you’d received them two or three years earlier in your life.

I heard footsteps coming down the stairs, and in walked my dad in his tartan slippers and oversized grey dressing gown. He looked just about awake, as most adults do as they wander the house in a haze on Christmas morning.
“Morning Sam” he mumbled, injecting as much festive cheer into his voice as he could manage.
“MerrychristmasdadcanIpleasehavemypresentnowthankyou!!!” I said with not much hope but a lot of excitement.
“Soon Sam, just let me get a cup of tea first, please, and we should wait till your stepmother’s up too.” He always called her my stepmother, not my mother, which although true, had always bothered me. I hadn’t been alive for more than a few days before my mother had upped and left the country with no explanation, never to be seen again.

It hit my dad hard, but I don’t even remember her, and I have to go back to my earliest of early memories to find a time when Julie (my stepmum) wasn’t in our lives. She’s my mum, really. A real mum doesn’t run off just after giving birth to her daughter.

Anyway, back to Christmas when I was 7.

I sat with mum on the old sofa near the tree as we waited for dad to bring the present in. The story had been in the family for years, but both my parents loved to tell it to me, and secretly, I loved hearing it, so I didn’t -really- complain as she went over it again for the last time.
“I bet you’re looking forward to your surprise, Sam,” she said, beaming. I rolled my eyes. “Every single first-born Wilkinson girl has been given this on their seventh birthday. For as long as we can remember.”
I could feel my little heart ticking away: this was it, the moment I’d been waiting all those years for. “And what is it, mum?” I said, trying to catch her off guard though I knew I wouldn’t.
“I could never tell you that, Samantha. But I can tell you that every Wilkinson daughter who has ever been given this present, knew just what to do with it. Even your birth-mother,” she sighed, “though she didn’t do too well with passing it onto her own daughter.”
“That’s okay.” I said, bouncing a little, paying more attention to the rustling coming from the kitchen cupboard where dad was getting the present, “I’ve got you.”
She smiled. It was a very big smile, and I only realise now how sincere it really was.

My dad staggered in carrying a big red box covered in little trees. He came over to us, supporting its weight as carefully as he could, clasping his fingers around the bottom of it. I the box almost covered his face it was so big, and I saw him smiling at me as he stooped down to set it on the floor.
“Merry Christmas!”
I was on it before the last word had left his mouth, my little claws ripping off all the paper to reveal an ambiguous cardboard box. I frowned for a moment, before pouncing again and wrenching open the flaps with such force that the cardboard tore a little down the sides.
“Careful Sam,” laughed my mum.
“I think we should lay it down before you slide it out. Slide it out. Was it fragile? One way to find out.
I pushed the side of the box and my mum and dad both reached out to catch it before it fell down. I heard a quiet ringing sound from inside, like the sound of a reception bell but from far away.
“Oooh, a clue,” my mum teased. They set the box down on its side for me and I was already down on my knees peering in. Brown paper. How much did they need to wrap this thing? My parents sat back to let me finish the job, and I didn’t hang about. My determined hands slid the paper-coated present out of the box, and promptly removed all the paper. There it was.

Of all the things I’d imagined it could be, I did not expect this. Fifteen little white keys, ten even littler black keys. One small piano, painted red.

It took a while for it to dawn on me, mostly due to Christmas excitement, but I remember clearly how nervous I suddenly felt. I stared at it, cautious, as the wooden pendulum clock ticked away on the mantlepiece. Me, Sam, innocent little 7 year old Sam, only just realising what my parents- no, my whole family, expected me to do.

Composers. That’s what they’d all been. Every single one. My grandmother, my great-grandmother, my great-great-great-great-great-great grandmother. Even my mother before she ran off. Every first born Wilkinson girl had filled the chambers of the family home with glorious music, and I hadn’t even seen the pattern until now.

I thought back in wonder to all the films we’d seen, where my dad had pointed out, “Hey, your granny wrote the score for this,” and the sheer ammount of music from the family in our extensive record collection.

And my mum and dad put this piano in front of me. I’d never touched a musical instrument before in my life – family tradition I suppose – but I was going to now, and I had a horrible feeling about what was going to happen.

They still sat there, tentative, my hands quivered. What was I supposed to do? No matter what I tried, I was sure I’d let them down. My hand was moving towards the keys before I could stop it, my finger raised, almost in contact. I could see the look in both their eyes as if they knew something I didn’t, something amazing and magical was about to happen.

PING, the note rang out through the quiet air. Nothing amazing yet, but at least that was a start. I thought back to times I’d seen pianists on TV. How hard could it be, really? I raised both my hands over the keys, poised.

I can still remember the look on their faces when they heard me play for the first time. It’s impossible to forget their stunned expressions of pure simple unadulterated horror. They shrank back from the assult on their eardrums, exchanging confused glances and clamping their hands down over their ears.