it was sticking up in the wind, bright orangutan orange.
Suddenly self-conscious of how similar we looked, I put my hand up to my ginger ponytail, hoping I didn’t also have a wild halo of frizz around my head. I waved at him without success. He would have cycled right past if I hadn’t shouted, jumping up and down like an aerobics instructor. He braked, frowning.
“You’re so rude!” I yelled across the street.
Hank pushed his bike across, glancing at his watch. “I didn’t see you,” he said, still frowning.
He didn’t seem to “see” anyone these days, except Caryn when she cycled past our house, which was probably why he started using his bicycle. She also went to the Music Academy in Mill Park, like Hank, but her parents had the money to send her there, whereas my brother had won a piano scholarship.
His teacher, Madame Pandora, who worked with several select pianists at the Academy, also taught piano to a few of us at my school. She said that she contracted work at various schools around Port Elizabeth out of the goodness of her heart – to nurture talent and give opportunities to those who couldn’t afford the Academy – but I secretly thought being able to bustle continually from one school to the other, looking constantly busy, reinforced her conviction that she was terribly important.
Somehow, she decided that I was worthy enough of the lofty privilege of being her student – not that she ever seemed to think that my playing had much promise.
“The heart,” Madame Pandora always declared passionately to me in her foreign lilt, stamping her foot at me as I stared blankly at my music book. “It must, must, must be from the heart, not the fingers!”
Her eyebrows were arched to perfection, and her skin was so smooth that I imagined her home had drawers full of empty Botox syringes. She always dressed like a member of a philharmonic orchestra, with layers of loose black chiffon almost succeeding in blocking any glimpse of the marshmallow softness of her chest, which preceded her into the room whenever she made an entrance.
Hank was still looking at me, annoyed, and I gathered my thoughts quickly.
“This is June,” I said.
He nodded, but I could see he wasn’t really noticing her. It made for a nice change to see a guy, even if it was my brother, whose eyes didn’t bulge at the sight of her.
“Hey, June,” he said absently. “I’m off to work now. Helen, did you remember to buy dishcloths, like Mom asked?”
I sighed. “I forgot. Can’t Mom do it on her way home?”
“Pep will be closed by then.”
I kicked a few stones of gravel into the gutter, where they sank silently into the rubbish-clogged slush that was welling from the manhole. “Isn’t there anywhere else she could go, like Clicks?” I knew the answer even before I asked.
Our cemented driveway, its uneven cracks being pushed even further open by determined moss, and our low wall which leered at an angle at us over the gnarled roots of the neighbour’s tree, shouted the answer to me. Since my dad lost his job and had to start up again at a construction company, everything we bought had to be the cheapest.
“Never mind,” I snapped. “I’ll do it. When will you be back?”
“I don’t know,” Hank replied.
“I suppose you’ll be practising for the competition afterwards?” I said, resentful that once again I would end up doing the dishes while Hank had another lesson with Madame Pandora.
“What competition?” asked June.
“There’s a yearly piano competition at my school that’s open to all grade elevens and twelves in PE,” answered Hank. “The winner …” He stopped, looking suddenly much older than seventeen.
“Whoever wins gets piles of money,” I said. “Hank will be able to study medicine and become a doctor, like he’s always wanted to.” I turned to look at the cracking driveway and wobbly wall and imagined Hank being able to fix them.
My brother followed my gaze and jumped back onto his bike. “See you later,” he shouted over his back, his shoulders hunched over his handlebars.
“We’ve got a stack of dishcloths that were given to my sister when she got married,” offered June hesitantly. “She doesn’t need them, and they’re just taking up space. You’re welcome to them if you like.”
I chewed the skin on my lip, unsure.
“You’d be doing us a favour, really.”
“Well, if you put it like that …” It sounded better than being given her sister’s old leftovers.
“Do you need to let your mom know you’re coming over to my house?”
I shook my head. She wouldn’t even know that I hadn’t been home.
“Your brother must be really good at the piano,” said June.
“I suppose so,” I said grudgingly. “He certainly should be, considering the time he spends practising. I never get enough chance to play.”
“You must be pretty talented too,” she said thoughtfully, “for Madame Pandora to take you on as a student. Do you enjoy playing?”
I wasn’t sure what to answer, realising that no one had actually ever asked me that before. Even I had never asked myself that before.
“I don’t know.” I tried to imagine my life without playing piano. “I just kind of … do it, without thinking why.”
That wasn’t quite true, but I didn’t want to tell her the truth. I was secretly hoping that I could also go to the Music Academy in Mill Park. In my more optimistic daydreams, I went one up on my brother and became star pupil of the school.
“Ahhhh, she has the heart!” Madame Pandora would at last exclaim in her funny accent, clasping her little bejewelled fingers, which always clicked against the piano keys until she threw off her rings in exasperation.
No one actually knew where she came from. Some people thought she was Iranian, Hank suspected she was from Greece, and Kean maintained she was putting on the accent and had been born in Pofadder. I secretly thought she was like Mary Poppins – no one would ever know from where or how she had arrived, and she would never tell. And one day, when her work was done here, she would just vanish into thin air.
“I like playing when I’m angry,” I said, deciding to tell June a half truth. “I crash the keyboard and drive everyone crazy. Last week the neighbours complained twice.”
“You must get angry quite often,” she said, startled. I felt as though she’d leaned too close, like she’d pried open a sealed corner of my mind.
“Nah, the walls are just really thin,” I said quickly.
“I wouldn’t have blamed you for being angry this morning.” June fiddled with her sandwich paper, unsure whether she should have brought up the topic. “When your satchel broke.”
“What?
