The Sweetest Thing

Dad danced around the kitchen while my dinner slowly burned in the pan. ‘Jack Sprat could eat no fat. His wife could eat no lean. And so between them both, you see, they licked the platter clean,’ he whispered, banging his spoon on the plate in time to the rhythm. There was no wife, of course, just Dad and me, and we were both as skinny as greyhounds. But when it was his night to eat, he left me the plate to lick.

Dad always insisted we took turns with everything. It seemed fairest. We couldn’t live together otherwise. So I wore his old brown woolen coat to go to school in the winter, while he stayed at home and smoked by the gas fire. In the afternoon when I came back, he wore it to visit the chemist while I did my homework. On Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday nights I slept on the narrow single bed in the corner of the bedsit under the pink blanket. He slept on it on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Sundays, although, as he said, he was used to the floor.

The one thing we shared was the piano. It had come with the room, and must have been about a hundred years old. It had faded pictures of flowers on the front and had a strange white patina all over the dark wood, as if it had been out in the frost. When you played it, the notes came out at once sharp and muffled, like a swarm of bees. Dad said that it could only be played by two people, and I believed him. Why else was it so wide, and with so many keys for so many fingers?

Every evening, then, after dinner, we stood next to each other and played a tune. There was no stool, but Dad was close enough for me to feel his warmth and smell the cigarettes on his sweater. He always played the same chords - C major, A minor, F major, G major. I don’t think he knew any others. I was on his right and played the tune. I can’t remember when I learned it - it was as if I’d always known it. Dad sang in a low, thoughtful voice. Love is the sweetest thing./What else on earth could ever bring/such happiness to everything/as Love's old story? We played until the neighbours banged on the walls and ceilings. Over time, I began to improvise and play with both hands. My fingers tapdanced on the old piano and made it sound almost good.

One evening, however, when I came home from school, Dad wasn’t there. He didn’t come home at all that night, and the next morning my teacher told me he’d collapsed and died on the way back from the chemist. I had to leave the flat and the piano. Before I left for the last time, I did something very daring. I lifted the lid and played middle C. It rang out, first sharply, then dully, and the note continued for a few seconds, as if bleeding slowly and lugubriously from a small hole in the wood itself. I wondered if Dad would respond.

The foster home I went to next had food and was much warmer than the bedsite, but it didn’t have a piano. When I was 18 I had to leave, and spent a few months wandering the streets with nowhere to live. One day, I met a man in a cafe who said I could stay with him if I had sex with him. He was tall and had hard, thick fingers, like chisels. I was very tired and hungry by this point, so I agreed.

I didn’t like sharing things with him. I couldn’t even share his bed. He didn’t care either way, so I often slept on the sofa. I got used to lying there all day while he went out to work. I smoked too much, ate in secret, and lost weight. I felt like I was turning into Dad.

I spent a lot of time thinking about the bedsit. ‘Can you play the piano?’ I asked the man one day.

‘Nah,’ he said.

‘I wonder how much they cost. Maybe we can buy one.’

‘Maybe I can, you mean. What will you give me for it?’

I didn’t know what to answer. I had no idea how much a piano cost. And so my life went on, until one day walking back from the chemists I saw a man on our street carry something to a bin outside his house. It was lime green and had white and black keys. An electronic keyboard. I ran up to him and he looked scared, his dark mouth pursing.

‘Can I have that?’ I asked him.

He relaxed a little. I didn't want money. ‘Yeah, but it’s got no batteries.' My face must have dropped. He gave me the keyboard and told me to wait, pulling up his grey tracksuit bottoms as he re-entered the house. A cold wind blew along the street. A few minutes later he returned, dropping the batteries in my hand. They were heavy and icy, like large diamonds. I inserted them into the back and played middle C. It made a cold, rough sound, like a razor.

When I got back to the man’s flat he was back from work. He didn’t like me being out when he wasn’t. His face was red and he was running his hand back and forth his shaved head.

‘Look what I found,' I said, showing him the keyboard, trying to calm him down. 'Shall we learn how to play it?’ This was the one thing I could share with him that didn’t involve sex.

‘Where did you get that from?’

‘A man on the street.’

‘And what did you give him for it?’ He normally spoke quietly, like a TV programme on low volume, but now he was yelling. Dad never shouted. He even sang quietly.

‘Nothing, it was free.’

‘Well, I don’t want it. What are you, a child? It’s going to sound like shit.’

Well, I had offered to share it. By refusing it, I felt that he had released me from our agreement. The keyboard could be mine - just mine.

I switched it on and began to play our tune. The noise of the keys sounded like razors shooting from my fingers. I realised I could play Dad’s part too. Dad seemed to agree. Between them both, they licked the platter clean. I turned the volume right up. The air was full of knives, chopping and slicing, but the keys felt smooth and clean.

‘Fucking stop that noise,’ said the man. His thick fingers trembled near my neck, but I couldn’t stop playing. The music came out of me like steam from a kettle. I began to sing at the top of my voice.

What else on earth could ever bring/such happiness to everything/as Love's old story?