‘You’ve stopped,’ Veronica said, putting the iPad away. Charlie had helped her order an iPad last year and she’d never looked back. She had a laptop too and used it often, but after some basic lessons from Charlie, she now found this an absolute gem to get things done quickly, especially when she couldn’t get out to the shops – you could buy anything online these days, everything from electronic items to loo rolls.
Layla shifted from the piano stool. ‘Play something else, Veronica, please.’
‘I’m not really sure what to play.’
Layla lifted up the lid to the piano stool and began rifling through the music in there. ‘These two are Christmas tunes,’ she said, discarding the top two music books. ‘What about this? Who are the Beatles?’
Veronica let out a chuckle. ‘In my opinion, the best band in the whole world.’
‘I’ve never heard them on the radio.’
‘Before your time dear, but you will as you get older, I’m sure.’ She nodded for Layla to go ahead and open up the well-thumbed Beatles Collection that Veronica had had since she was first married.
The music book evoked an avalanche of memories. Back in those Beatle-loving days, everything between her and Herman had been perfect, they were giddy and head-over-heels in love. Back then he’d enjoyed listening to her play music or sing. They hadn’t been able to afford to go to a Beatles concert but he’d had a record player at his house and lazy summer evenings in the garden with the windows to his upstairs bedroom open, they’d listened to track after track, singing along. Herman wasn’t musical at all. When he sang in the shower, it was as though two cats were outside being tortured in the alleyway, but she’d loved listening to it anyway. And he loved how she had perfect pitch if she sang and could rattle out tune after tune on the piano.
Veronica opened the music book up to one of her favourites, ‘Hey Jude’, and with a deep breath she began. She had a false start and started again, then it began to flow from her fingertips as though she hadn’t neglected the beautiful instrument for years on end as it stood feeling sorry for itself and gathering dust. Her life had changed incredibly since she last enjoyed playing this instrument. She’d gone from being sociable and happy to a woman who shrank away from nearly everything. And now she had a sad measure of daily interactions with only a handful of people – Charlie, Layla, Trevor the gardener, and Ian the mailman, who sometimes hung around for a bit of conversation on the doorstep if Veronica was in the mood.
Veronica had a problem but she was too scared to do anything about it. Her existence had become sad, contained, like nothing she’d ever imagined.
She was still playing, her fingers moving deftly along the keys. The piano was well and truly out of tune, but not enough that the song didn’t shine through and the longer Veronica played, the more the sound washed over her like a balm she couldn’t explain. And the more she played, the more she wanted to. Layla was swaying in time with the music, a smile on her face that Veronica returned again and again.
‘Another,’ Layla demanded when the tune came to an end.
She’d have to look up a piano tuner, it would give her something to do when Layla left. But for now, in tune or not, she was on a roll with the piano. It was on to ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’, which brought some more lively moves from Layla, followed by ‘Yellow Submarine, which Layla joined in with. One of the teachers at her school had taught them the song and she remembered most of the words. Veronica was so enthused by the end of the rendition and playing the piano with such vigour that she almost didn’t hear the phone ringing.
‘One day I want to learn to play like you,’ Layla announced as Veronica vacated the seat and she jumped right in her place.
‘You will,’ Veronica called back over her shoulder, shutting the door behind her or she’d never be able to hear who was calling.
In the kitchen she picked up the wall-mounted phone. ‘Mapleberry 459.’ She’d always answered in the same way: the village and the last three digits of her number, never her name. You got so many nuisance calls these days and if they didn’t know her name already, it was a red flag. There were a few of those – requests for bank details, telling you you’d been in a car crash, for goodness’ sake. Funnily enough they hung up when she told them she hadn’t left the house in years, let alone run amok on Britain’s roads.
‘Mapleberry 459,’ she repeated when she got no response. She’d been tempted by these nuisance calls to have a whistle handy and blow it down the phone. She would’ve done as well if part of her didn’t know she’d then lay awake for weeks stressing that she’d ruined the eardrums of the scam artist. Probably no less than they deserved but she didn’t have it in her.
‘Mum…’ came a voice from the other end.
Her heart thumped. ‘Sam? Is that you?’ It wasn’t Veronica’s birthday, or Easter, or Christmas, and Sam rarely called unless it was one of those dates. They weren’t close, not by a long shot, but something in the timid way her daughter had said ‘Mum’ had Veronica worrying.
There was a pause at the other end of the line, and then it all poured out: the loss of Sam’s job, the teenage daughter she didn’t seem able to reach. Veronica knew first-hand about that particular dilemma. She listened as her daughter’s voice wobbled. Veronica wondered: was she crying? As a child Sam had never fallen apart or ended up in tears unless she’d really hurt
