The Concert

The Concert               

Music, sadly, was never my thing. Strange really, when you consider the talents of my parents. My mother was an opera singer, in great demand on the stages of Europe. My father played bass guitar in a rock band still stuck in the summer of ’69. 

It was assumed that I would sing, but by the age of five, they realized from the wildly inaccurate droning coming from my lips, I was tone deaf. So they sent me off for music lessons.

I started out with the violin. I loved the smell of polish and mustiness as I took the instrument out of its case and rosined up the bow. I saw myself as another Vanessa Mae, wading into the sea, strains of Vivaldi’s Four Seasonsfilling the air. Somehow though, the screeches that I produced bore more resemblance to the backing sound in a horror film. One day after my lesson, I heard the teacher telling my mother, in his scary Austrian accent that the violin had many enemies. I concluded I was one and put my violin away. After that I was enrolled for piano lessons. 

My teacher kept cats, many cats. You could smell them as soon as you opened the door to her house. There were usually at least two in the music room at any time and I learnt all their names. My teacher’s obsession with cats made her very easy to distract when I hadn’t practised my scales, which was most of the time. I would simply enquire about the welfare of each of her kitties and half the lesson would be wasted with not a thought to the amount of money my parents were paying for these diversions.

Thus my progress was too slow for my mother’s exacting standards, so a new teacher was found, a teacher with a Reputation for getting Results. She did not keep cats, or if she did, they stayed well out of the way. Her pupils passed their exams with distinction. She put on concerts starring her pupils. 

Finally I was invited to perform in one such concert.  I was to accompany a girl singing Ave Maria. We had worked hard on the piece, and I was fairly confident. After all, she was the main act. I was just the backing.

On the day of the concert her skin had taken on a greyish hue. As we were about to go onto the stage, she grabbed my arm, whispered in my ear and pushed me to the front. She sat down at the piano, and with one hand, played the intro. There was nothing for me to do but sing. 

I was surprised at the sound my voice made. It seemed clear, resonant. I sang louder, confidence growing. 

Then I caught sight of my parents in the second row, sliding down in their seats, covering their faces with their hands, and I knew. Music, sadly, was never going to be my thing.