Lost Notes

 

 

Major scale 

c – In the playground of my mind I see myself. Just thirteen. I’m sitting beside my new friend.

d – Ann and I are in the first year of secondary school, drawn together from the start. We love school, life outdoors, and music. Mr Cook is recruiting for the school brass band and we join his team, soon spitting and blowing ‘Abide with Me’ and ‘Born Free.’

We’re taken to the nursing home where we play for the elderly, their eyes hiding the suffering of war, of pain and grief, for the brief spell that we’re there, our souls empathising, but only until the school disco. Then the pop music brightens us, dresses short, faces bare. Laughter bubbles along with ‘Heart of Gold’ while we dance with two boys from our class.

e – The sun glistens in the sky and we’re walking now, the country air putting colour in our cheeks. We wander by a reservoir, daffodils nodding their yellow heads as we pass, then sit by the glimmering water and twirl the long grasses through our fingers. We speak about our past, and about our future, a peewee flying above us, adding his point of view. He listens to our childish chat about music, our would-be wedding dresses and babies, while watching as the words float above us into a cloud, waiting to fall as rain.

There was a bridge separating our homes. I see that bridge many times in my waking dreams. In them I’m walking to Ann’s home over it, under a canopy of trees, along a country road. Ann’s brother and sister come to play with us and we make friends with a pony in a nearby field. I get on his back. Not for long, I’m soon flying off into a soft mound of manure.

We play hide and seek, boil rhubarb in the kitchen and eat it on bread. We listen to Ann play the piano, her photo in pride of place on the mahogany top, her rosy cheeks, the gap in her teeth, the waves in her hair portraying her well.

f – Back at school there’s sewing class where we make cotton nighties, in cookery class, lentil soup, physics, electric shocks. Laughter follows us everywhere as we follow the fun. Netball, hockey, playing in the band. Life is ours to live.

g – Then school finishes for the holidays.

I don’t see Ann again.

I’m told she’s dead.

Meningitis took her, quickly, warning signs too late. The pain is agonising. I want to sleep for a hundred years to shut it out. How can my friend be dead? Where has she gone? She’ll be alone and scared. Tears fall, floods of grief spilling from my heart, Ann’s face constantly there, in my mind. The face is her but it isn’t her. It’s quiet, vacant, a stranger in death.

a – The holidays are over now and I have to return to school without Ann. The orchestra beckons but I don’t want to go. The playground is my shelter, my other friends close by, all grieving as we play netball and hockey, running, jumping, burning energy, keeping our minds busy.

b – A few weeks pass before Mr Cook calls me into his room. His glasses glint, his lips are tight as he asks me why I haven’t been to music practices. I can’t talk, I don’t know how to make meaning of the words that play within me, hidden under my tongue, lost notes slipping from the scale.

He’s annoyed, his voice is raised in his demand for me to return to the band. I don’t recognise this man. Where is his gentle manner, his soft voice? I run from the room to cry alone. I want to cry alone. My tears are for me alone.

And Ann.

c – After a few more ball games and a lot of reflecting I realise Mr Cook isn’t angry at me, he’s angry at a life cut short. I know now that I must return to the band and blow my horn again, but when I do, I’ll hold Ann close, and together we’ll embrace the harmony.