‘Josh didn’t steal my music,’ she says, sipping her tea. ‘My PhD supervisor did that. Your brother was just the accomplice.’
13
AUDREY
I’m going to tell Fraser this story if only to distract us from the mood in this kitchen, because I swear I’m imagining bedroom eyes.
‘My professor’s argument, as issooften the case when you’re a man, and a woman has a hot idea, was that he thought of it first. He showed me samples of his unpublished work and claimed it was me who had liftedhisideas.’
He arches an eyebrow.
‘I wrote the music, Fraser. Every single note of it. I brought it to him, the DNA of it fully formed.’
The accusation marinates and I focus on the tick, tick, tick of Fraser’s watch on the table between us. It pushes time forward dispassionately, carrying me further and further from the incident that derailed me, every soft flick of the hand another wasted second. How quickly it adds up. Minutes. Hours.Years, in this case—
Fraser’s arms are crossed on the table, the rest of the toast untouched, body poised for a brawl, despite the absence of an opponent. ‘What happened next?’
That’sthe question that has haunted me. The one that’s kept me awake not just tonight but for years. Because what I did next was open an enormous void of inaction into which I should havepoured the fight. I should have stood up for myself. I should have ripped my music from his thieving hands and raised academic hell.
‘He included my piece in his bestselling solo piano album, passed it off as his own, and gave zero credit to me. The album won an ARIA. It all feels very William Shakespeare and Emilia Bassano. Not that I’m saying my music was in that league …’
‘Plagiarism is a criminal offence, Audrey. You know it can involve prison time?’
I get a flash of Professor Ridges in solitary confinement. Guards passing inedible slop through iron bars, while he’s entirely deprived of music. That would be punishment enough for him. Of course, in reality he’d probably know the judge—he had that sort of network. He’d evade punishment altogether, or end up in some state-of-the-art detention centre where he’d be the hero, offering free music therapy classes for fellow inmates and discovering some protégé. He’d be like the Martha Stewart of the music world.
‘Are you with me?’ Fraser is saying when I finally come to.
Am I with him how?
‘I was fantasising about Professor Ridges and Martha Stewart.’
The way he ignores this statement, as if it’s a completely normal thing to have said, suggests he can handle even the quirkiest parts of me. The aspects former boyfriends used to criticise and try to change.He is not your boyfriend, Audrey!
‘Did you report this at the time?’
Now I’m really off my toast.
There is no way through this part without involving Joshua, and I can sense my face rearranging itself, searching for the expression that says,Don’t take this personally, Fraser, but your brother’s a dick.
‘It’s not too late,’ he goes on, before I can articulate it. ‘At the very least you could sue him for royalties, but the man should lose his job.’
‘That’s what Joshua said,’ I cut in. ‘When I first confided in him.’
Fraser sits back and runs both hands through his hair, a long, slow breath rising out of his chest. I know he’s angry, but, wow, he has no idea that the action, in that singlet and those pyjama pants, makes him look like a billboard model.
‘Josh and I had been partnered for a film score assignment,’ I forge on. ‘So we got to know each other pretty well. You know how intense he can be. There wasn’t a piece of mine that he didn’t know so intimately he might as well have written it himself. I mean, if anyone had been in a position to steal my work, it would have been him—’
Fraser is looking at me like I’m a first-year student whose various great-aunts’ deaths are mystifyingly on the same timeline as their assignment deadlines. Or like I’m the vice-chancellor after the announcement of a departmental funding cut.
‘Anyway, Josh worked with Ridges as a grad student. He promised to help me confront him—’
‘Ridges? Wasn’t he Josh’s mentor?’
I’m glad he’s putting this together himself. I won’t have to spell out every part of it.
‘Let me guess. Instead of helping you plead your case, Josh gave Ridges a heads-up?’
‘By the time I confronted Ridges, he’d got the university legal team involved. He’d fabricated this whole body of supporting evidence showing he’d had the idea first. He completely gaslit me.’
