A Thousand Perfect Notes(2)

Joey’s face puckers. ‘It’s not Monday.’

‘Every day is Monday.’ A perpetual string of Mondays – he does belong in a horror film.

It takes his aching fingers two tries to get the buttons.

‘I made you lunch,’ Joey says, spider-climbing up his doorframe. ‘A surprise lunch. A scrumptious surprise lunch.’

‘That sounds … terrifying.’ Beck balls his holey pyjama shirt and throws it at her face. She gives an indignant squeak and drops from the walls.

To prove his point – OK, fine, because Joey loves a good show of theatrics – Beck drops to his knees, clasps his hands together, and wails like an impaled porpoise. She’s giggling before he even starts to beg.

‘Don’t punish me. Please. What have I done to deserve this torment?’

‘It’s not torment!’ Joey says, indignant. ‘I’m a scrumptious cook. Even if you’re a bad brother for being late yesterday.’

That would be on account of his English teacher, Mr Boyne, having a flare up of I-care-about-your-horrible-grades-so-I’m-going-to-bawl-you-out-to-prove-it, which included a demanded display of Beck’s comprehension of the text. The ‘comprehension’ was, of course, non-existent. Hence Beck was late to pick up Joey.

The preschool teacher, whose face reminded him of a king crab, snapped at him about ‘responsibilities’, too.

‘If I was a witch, I’d turn you into a toad,’ Joey says, confidentially, ‘’cause everyone gets mad when we gotta go to the city for you, and Mama says we’re going again soon.’

Beck cringes. There’s a state championship coming up to obligingly stress everyone. Oh joy. And failure, with the Maestro hanging over his shoulder, is not an option.

‘But I’d turn you back into a boy someday,’ Joey says, warming up. ‘’Cause I like you, even if you always play the same notes over and over and over, because Mama says you’re a Schwachkopf—’

Beck covers her mouth. ‘OK, calm down. My delicate self-worth can only take so much. Is the Maestro already foaming at the mouth?’

Joey glares from behind his hand.

He removes it. ‘I’m sorry I play the same song so much. I’m – practising. For that big concert.’ Practise, or the Maestro’s fury will know no bounds.

‘Lean close,’ Joey says, ‘and I’ll whisper I forgive you in your ear.’

Beck does without thinking. But she jumps on him, yowling like a kitten made of cacti, and Beck goes down in a tangle of shirtsleeves and mismatched buttons.

She’s only his half-sister – the Maestro has an affinity for short relationships that end in screaming fits and neither he nor Joey knew their fathers – but Joey’s a pocketful of light in his gloomy existence. He has to love her twice as hard to make up for the sin of hating his mother.

Predictably, breakfast is cornflakes with a side dish of disapproval.

Has there ever been a time when the Maestro didn’t greet him with a glare?

She sits in a corner of their tiny kitchen with squash-coloured décor that probably looked trendy thirty years ago. Who is Beck kidding? That shade of yellow never looked good. A single piece of burnt buttered toast sits next to her mug of coffee. The table can seat three, if no one minds bumping elbows, but as usual it’s flooded with the Maestro’s sheets of music. She tutors musicianship and theory at the university. Beck wonders how often her students cry.

Beck slinks past, telling himself he did everything right. She has nothing to erupt about. It’ll be OK – totally OK.

He reaches for two bowls as Joey bangs around his legs, prattling about how she’s going to be a chef when she grows up.

‘And I’m gonna call my restaurant –’ she sucks in a deep breath to yell ‘– JOEY’S GOODEST GRUB.’ She jabs her spoon into Beck’s ribs to get his attention. ‘That’s a great name, right?’

‘Yow – yes.’ He snatches the spoon off her.

He fills Joey’s bowl with cornflakes first, which leaves him with the mostly smashed flake dust. With milk, it’ll become sludge. Brilliant. He sets Joey’s bowl on her pink plastic kiddie table in the corner, and eats his while leaning on the fridge.

Joey launches into a detailed description of what her chef apron will look like – something about it being shaped like a unicorn – which exactly no one listens to.

Beck watches the Maestro’s red pen whip over the music. The students’ work looks like something has been murdered over it.

Beck checks the plastic bag with his squashed sandwich. Joey has a thing about making his lunch. He sniffs it and detects peanut butter, tomato sauce and – are those raw pasta shells? Maybe he’d rather not know.

‘You’ll be late.’ The Maestro’s voice is deep and raspy. Even if she didn’t have the temperament of a bull, she’s an intimidating-looking woman. Broad-shouldered, six foot, with a crop of wiry black hair like a bristle brush – and she has long, spider-like fingers born for the piano.

Beck shovels the last globs of cornflake sludge into his mouth and then runs for the school bags. He crams in his untouched homework and sandwich, but takes more time with Joey’s – checking that she has a clean change of clothes in there, that her gumboots are dry, and her rainbow jacket isn’t too filthy. A finger-comb through his curly hair and duct-taped shoes on his feet, and he’s ready.