A Thousand Perfect Notes(32)

‘There will be a lesson,’ the Maestro says, finally.

‘I thought it was a performance.’

‘Ja und nein. First there’s a performance at an acquaintance of Jan’s mansion. A small detour from his main tour.’

Mansion? Rich people.

‘Then,’ the Maestro says, ‘a lesson. For Jan to assess you. We’ve spoken and arranged this.’

‘But—’ Beck stops. He shouldn’t carry on – but they’re in an open place. Not like she can slap him. ‘But I don’t want to go to Germany.’

The Maestro appears not to have heard. She pauses by a rack of frilly little girl clothes. Glittery stockings and pink tees that say ‘Daddy’s Princess’. Currently, Joey’s wearing clothes from a second-hand sale – red jumper, polka dot leggings and pink glitter gumboots.

‘You do not understand the opportunity.’ The Maestro’s lips curl. ‘To learn from the greatest? To make something of yourself? You could be as great as me – perhaps. I thought you might try, Schwachkopf.’

Beck flushes. ‘I’m your kid. You can’t just sell me—’

The Maestro waves her hand sharply, done with him. ‘Take your sister and wait outside.’

All he can do drag Joey towards the exit while she says, ‘It’s not fair, I didn’t get a present!’ with a five-year-old’s righteous indignation.

‘I know, Joey,’ Beck says, soothing. ‘It’s not fair.’

He doesn’t want to do well at the performance. He doesn’t want to impress Jan.

He doesn’t want to leave.





The air smiles with winter teeth – an official welcome to time-for-your-hands-to-freeze-on-the-piano season. Joy.

Beck stuffs his fingers beneath his armpits as he and August trudge to school. She’s jacketless and shoeless as usual, and mildly blue. She rubs her arms and bounces on the spot while Beck disappears into the noisy chaos of paint and dress-ups to bodily remove his little sister as she shouts at the teacher and stomps her small feet in fury. The teacher’s face is plum, and she’s ready to throw Joey at him. There’s also a letter.

Joey’s been suspended.

The preschooler has been suspended.

Even Beck hasn’t fallen that low yet, though he’s never turned in complete homework in his life. No one expects much from him. But tossing the cherubic, big-eyed five-year-old out? He’s furious.

‘She’s a meanie,’ Joey howls, as Beck drags her out by the hood of her red coat. ‘She didn’t listen. I’m not a liar. I’m not! I’m a good girl.’

Beck stuffs the letter into his backpack, half wishing he could rip it and toss the pieces in that pedantic teacher’s face.

‘What did you even do?’ August seems curious instead of shocked.

‘Who cares? No one should suspend a preschooler,’ Beck says, harsher than he intended.

August commences a round of jumping jacks while Beck buttons Joey’s coat.

‘I got expelled from a preschool once,’ she says. ‘This kid found a bird half drowned in the water tank, so he used a plastic shovel to “put it out of its misery”. Seriously, the bird was not dead. He murdered it and had its blood on his shoes.’

Joey’s eyes went wide. ‘What did you do?’

August pauses and Beck isn’t sure if her cheeks are flushed with cold or embarrassment.

When she doesn’t answer, he nudges her. ‘What did you do?’

‘I might’ve bashed him with the same shovel,’ August confesses. ‘He might’ve had to get nine stitches. Look, I’m not proud of it. I retaliate peacefully now—’

‘Like with the frog,’ Beck reminds her, ‘and that guy you kicked.’

August shrugs. ‘I possibly have a mild violent streak. At least the last dude didn’t have to get stitches. While I, on the other hand, lost a toenail and nearly bled dramatically to death.’

Beck is actually impressed. August’s never going to be bulldozed in her righteous fights. She’ll be the one chained to a tree for three months to stop it being chopped down, or in prison for maiming hunters.

They start off down the footpath, Beck in awed silence, August embarrassed and Joey with her head hung low in dejection.

‘All I did was call Bailey a Scheisskerl,’ Joey mumbles, ‘and then I bit her nose.’

‘You bit her?’ Beck’s jaw drops. ‘You’re not a baby, Joey. What is this?’

‘She said my mummy doesn’t love me because she never brings me to school!’ Joey says. ‘Then she broke my crayons. All of them. Even the glitter crimson. And I’m never, ever, ever going to get new crayons because – because …’ She stops, hiccupping through her tears.

Because the Maestro won’t care enough to buy more. He knows. As much as the Maestro occasionally cares about Joey, she doesn’t lavish affectionate gifts on her. And Beck understands the specialness of glitter crimson since he got kicked for attempting to use it while colouring companionably with her.

Beck is helpless in the face of justified rage. ‘You still shouldn’t have bitten her,’ he manages.

August bounces over a crack in the cement footpath. ‘What would you have done, Beck?’