‘Miss Pilkington, children, today we will have a little happiness, yes? Now what do you think I have here?’ He waved a magician hand over the case. Pilkington. It tickled Matthew’s tongue. It was quite a nice name—a light, bright stutter. She should have had a heavy name, a name with sounds that crushed everything they fell upon. Or a snarly name that twisted the tongue into a tight knot. Pilkington was wrong unless you tittered it behind your hand because you were too afraid to speak it.
‘I will show you, yes?’ He searched for a response but although the faces in front of him looked eager, mouths remained tightly shut and eyes wary. Mr Werther sighed.
‘Do you see this funny chap, shaped like a pear, like me?’ And he patted his waist. ‘I wonder what is inside? We will look, yes? You and me?’ He nodded and a few tentative nods imitated him. ‘Good, good. Now we look.’
He undid the clasps on the side of the case and reverently raised a violin from the green felt bed. The wood of the instrument glowed a soft golden-brown. He plucked a string and the sound shot into the spaces of the room. He plucked several strings and the single explosions became a runnel of colour mysteriously linked together, each tone separate yet each part of the whole. He cupped the violin under his chin like a loving mother nestling her babe and caressed the bow across the strings. Now there were no single explosions. The sounds melted together, mingling and spreading, singing even after the bow had stopped.
‘It is beautiful, yes?’ And he nodded again.
Matthew nodded in response and smiled at Mr Werther, at one with his pleasure.
‘Ah, my little friend Matthew. You like it. You would like to try? Eh?’
Matthew hesitated. Miss Loyal Empire Woman was watching him. She stood in the shadow and the light from the window picked out the bones of her face, peeling away the flesh. He couldn’t leave his seat. Something reached out from her and leaned on his shoulders, pushing him down.
‘Come, Matthew. You are shy? Eh?’ Mr Werther, all spontaneous joy, bounced across the dais and down the aisle. He handed the violin to Matthew and with encouraging chirrups slipped it under his chin, adjusted his hand to support the instrument and handed him the bow.
‘Now Matthew will make some music. Put the edge of the bow against the strings and draw it across. Tenderly. You must love it. Music grows with love. Like people, you know. People are like music. Love makes them grow. Tenderly, Matthew, gently.’
The violin felt warm in Matthew’s hand, like a tree on a hot day. It was warm, growing wood. He tilted the bow and holding it as steady as he could drew it across the strings. It sang a medley of sounds, some sweet, some jarring.
‘They don’t melt.’ His disappointment echoed in the silence of the room.
‘Not yet but you will see. We will make them “melt” as you call it. They will all sing together. It takes practice, Matthew, but you have taken the first step, yes?’ Reluctantly Matthew returned the violin.
‘Now I will play you a story. You have stories in English. Miss Pilkington reads you stories. All children like stories? Eh? In my country we have many stories—legends they are called, because my country is very old. You, too, will have legends, one day.
‘But music has stories, too. Mr Schubert wrote songs and his music tells a story. It is about a little trout. You know little trout? Eh? Perhaps not. A little fish—a little fish we will call it. And about a fisherman. He wants to catch the little fish. It is a happy day. The sun shines. The brook, the stream—creek you call it—hurries along jumping over the rocks, running smooth in deep pools. The sun glints through the willows, or the gum trees. The fish is happy. He swims about flicking his little tail. But the man, it is sad, he wants to catch him, to end his life. The man and the fish they struggle together. It is sad because the man will win. Men usually win. He catches the little fish and it no longer flicks his little tail in the water, and the man he has what he wants. But it is sad.’
He stopped, no longer beaming, and he drew the bow across the violin so that a thin, soft wail filled the room. Its desolateness made Matthew’s throat ache.
‘So sad,’ Mr Werther whispered. ‘But I should play it all, shouldn’t I? Today we were to have some happiness.’ And he filled the room with images of the stream bounding over the rocks, the silver frisking fish, the angler impatient, the crescendo of drama when the captured fish gasped on the bank, the final sadness.
Matthew saw it all and he understood. It was the same when he caught yabbies.
‘Now you will draw a picture for Miss Pilkington. On your slates. Whatever you like—about the man and the little fish. So beautiful the music. You will remember as you draw. Mr Schubert would have liked to see your pictures. You can imagine that he is coming to look at them. He will say to Miss Pilkington: “What lovely drawings. I will collect them and take them back to Heaven with me and prop them up in God’s room so that He is reminded of how beautiful music is.”
‘Mr Schubert would like to see them because he was a lonely man. He didn’t have many friends. That is sad? Eh? Not to have friends. Only a very few were kind to
