Short story

A very short story of a teenage girl’s public humiliation with a guitar.

Curtain Call

 

Jane burst in through the front door and clambered up the stairs like a rhinoceros. She rarely had that sort of energy after a school day, generally flopping on to the sofa and saying ‘yeah I guess’ after I’d asked her if she’d had a good day

 

‘Hello mum would be nice,’ I yelled.

 

But as I said it her bedroom door slammed. The radio would now go on and silence would be expelled from the house. But the radio didn’t go on and silence maintained its supremacy. I crept up the stairs, waiting to hear what? I wasn’t sure. Weeping perhaps? Her first love had ended? There’s nothing in life worse than a first love that ends. I knocked on the door.

 

‘Everything all right darling?’ I called quietly. There was no answer. I knocked again and opened the door a fraction. ‘Everything all right?’

 

She was on the floor, knees straddling the carpet like riding a flat horse. In front of her were an array of coins and notes.

 

‘I’ve only got about £30,’ she said.

 

She looked up at me. She was growing into a beautiful woman. Auburn hair that enwrapped her head like a caress, small retroussé nose and eyes of oriental, drooping curves when she laughed but that could look like full moons when she needed something. At the moment they looked like full moons.

 

‘What do you want the money for?’

‘A guitar, mum.’

‘I didn’t know you were learning the guitar.’

‘I’m not yet. But I’m going to.’

‘I’m not convinced they’re always safe.’

‘What do you mean, safe?’ Jane gave me one of those scornful ‘Oh God, adults!’ looks. ‘I’m not going to drive it, just play it.’

‘Well you know. All those wires and plugs and things. You could be electrocuted.’

‘I want a classical guitar, mum, not an electric one. We had this man come in today.’ She hoisted herself off the floor and sat on the edge of her bed. ‘He gave us a demonstration. It was so beautiful. You could see his hands. He could do anything.’

‘Well how much are guitars?’

‘Depends. You could pay hundreds.’

‘Let’s enter the real world. If it’s not too much, I’m sure Daddy and I could help if we thought you’d enjoy it.’

 

Our contribution was an advance on her birthday present. But then came the guitar lessons and our gift suddenly seemed without end. But as long as she was practicing regularly, Andrew and I considered it a reasonable investment. I could even hear the improvement, echoing faintly through the floorboards, over the weeks. The hesitant scales full of discordant, misplaced flats and sharps gradually became a smooth, musical flow. Once she’d left for school I would make my regular visit to her room, primarily to ensure a certain limitation to the chaos, and find the guitar lying casually over the bed partly obscured by bedclothes and beginners guides.

 

I thought it was far too early to play in public but the music teacher had asked and Jane had agreed.

 

‘He just wants me to support the rhythm and harmony,’ said Jane. ‘He thinks it’ll be good experience.’

 

It was going to be a short concert, about an hour long, so Andrew and I were happy to buy seats to watch our daughter in her first public performance. The first piece she had little to do but it was in the next, the section from a guitar concerto, that it all went wrong.

 

I heard the discordant note then two frantic efforts to correct it by which time of course she was seconds late. I saw her face redden. The rhythm fell apart though the lead guitar soldiered on. Later it happened again. Jane never recovered her composure. Afterwards, we found her sitting with her head lowered to her hands.

 

‘It was a disaster, mum. A total disaster. Did you hear the mess I made of it? I was crap.’

‘No you weren’t.’ said Andrew, ignoring her language for the moment. ‘You all have to learn. There were plenty of mistakes. You’re all beginners. You’ll be fine with practice.’

 

Jane stayed in her room the rest of the evening not to be consoled. The next morning we endured a silent breakfast and, on my morning visit to her room, I saw the guitar was no longer strewn across the bed. I looked around but for a while, I could not see it. Then I noticed the sombre black case just peering below the long curtain, behind her music centre, as though it had never been touched. At the end of her bed was a waste bin. Usually it was empty even though she could have filled it twice over. Now it held ‘Acoustic Guitar for Beginners’.

 

Several pages had been torn out.