I’d been too scared to touch the piano at home after the lid-slamming incident and, given that I’d been shooed out of the cottage and told never to return, I hadn’t dared go back to collect my beloved instrument. But then Mum’s sewing machine had turned up on the doorstep of my new home a couple of weeks after I’d moved in with Cliff. Somebody had pressed the doorbell and scarpered, leaving the machine and my sewing box behind. Marianne barely left the hamlet so there was no way she’d have walked or cycled to the nearest village to catch the bus all the way to Keswick on her own, so Cliff and I reasoned that Dad must have had a change of heart.
‘He might let you have the piano,’ Cliff said.
‘I doubt it.’
‘It’s worth a try. He said you couldn’t have the sewing machine but you have it now and it’s not damaged. Let’s go and ask him.’
Marianne answered the door. ‘He’s not here.’
‘I wanted to ask him if I can have the piano.’
‘I don’t think you’ll want it.’
We followed her through to the dining room and I released a strangled sob when I saw it – or rather what was left of it. ‘What did he do?’
‘Took an axe to it.’
My beautiful piano had been hacked to pieces. Some of the keys were scattered on the floor and others had chunks out of them. The top board which protected all the inner workings had been ripped off and the strings slashed and there were chunks of wood missing from the side and front panels. I felt sick and grabbed onto Cliff’s arm to steady myself. Why had he done something so brutal, so destructive, so hurtful?
‘You might be able to salvage your music,’ Marianne said. ‘He’d run out of steam by then.’
I had stacks of sheet music and books, having inherited all of Mrs Kellerman’s to add to my own collection. I kept my favourites in the storage compartment of the piano stool and the rest in the sideboard. Dad had taken his axe to the stool too. The cover was ripped, stuffing was spilling out, and there was a leg missing, but the music spilled across the floor looked relatively unscathed. Cliff gathered everything together while I retrieved the rest from the sideboard, determined not to cry and desperate to get out of there.
‘Are you okay?’ I asked Marianne, worried for her safety. ‘Why don’t you come with us?’
‘I’m fine,’ she said, her voice small. ‘I don’t want to be out there with all the people. It’s too much.’
‘But what if he?—’
‘He never has before and he won’t now.’ She headed for the door. ‘You should take your music and go. He’ll be back soon.’
We took her advice and beat a hasty retreat. All the way home, I stared out of the window, my throat on fire, my eyes burning with unshed tears because I was determined not to let that man make me cry. As soon as we arrived home, all it took was for Cliff to put his arms out and I was a goner. It wasn’t just about the piano; it was abouteverything.Mum dying, Marianne’s indifference, Dad’s hostility, the misery of the past decade, my unsatisfying job. Every time I felt like I might have it together, another memory or injustice hit me and Cliff held me and whispered reassurances that everything would be all right.
‘I’ll buy you a new piano,’ he said when I’d finally run out of tears.
‘I don’t want one. It wouldn’t be the same.’
‘I know, but you love playing. If only I hadn’t sold my mum’s.’
‘It’s not just the piano, it’s the memories. They’re too sad. I need to move on.’
Even though we’d salvaged all my music, I doubted I’d ever play again. Having Dad destroy my piano like that broke my heart so badly. I felt deeply that, instead of bringing me joy and making me think of my beloved mum, playing the piano would remind me how much my dad hated me. I didn’t want to keep feeling that pain. Better to walk away.
26
TWENTY-THREE YEARS AGO
Cliff and I got married in the October of the year he proposed with only his boss and wife, Ernie and Joan, in attendance. It was very low-key – a registry office wedding after which the four of us had a pub lunch. We’d been married for four years when Ernie sold the business and Cliff decided it was time to set up on his own. He was a skilled joiner, reliable and personable, so it didn’t take long for him to get established, at which point I left the council and became his assistant. The offer remained for me to go to college and retrain but there was nothing that appealed. As long as I had time for crafting, I was content and fulfilled.
The years sped past through my twenties and early thirties and I never once regretted accepting Cliff’s proposal. Our friendship grew stronger and stronger and I couldn’t imagine my life without Cliff in it – my best friend who made me laugh, who understood my difficult relationship with Marianne and supported me after every challenging phone call, who radiated positivity and who made me feel so loved, albeit platonically. Every year as our wedding anniversary approached, he asked me if I was still happy and reminded me of the promise he’d made to release me from our marriage if I ever met someone I wanted to be with romantically or physically. I always smiled and assured him that, as long as he remained happy with our arrangement, I was still fully committed to making our marriage work. I meant it. Cliff had promised to be the best husband possible and he’d fulfilled that promise in so many ways.
But something happened shortly after my thirty-seventh birthday which made me so much more aware of the ways in which Cliff couldn’t be a husband. It was a chilly Saturday afternoon in early February. After a morning of work, Cliff and I had planned to go into Keswick to buy some fabrics and thread, get an early pub tea then go to the cinema. As we were preparing to leave the house, a call came through from a potential new client who I’d been trying to pin down for a quote appointment for weeks.
‘He’s free now,’ Cliff mouthed to me, grimacing.
It would be a huge project and great for the business so I nodded vigorously.
‘But that messes up our plans,’ Cliff said after he’d hung up.
