Yellow Paper, Part 8

It was the day before the concert. Sitting at the piano, her figure slouched and her head leaning over the keys, playing but not concentrating, Ava was thinking about what her mum had told her the day before. The notes came hesitatingly, the sound was completely different from the assured, confident way Ava had played only a few hours ago. It was as though, in that short time, something had changed in her, and now she wasn't sure what she thought, or what she wanted. Things that had seemed so simple and clear-cut before were complicated and difficult now. Kathy was not just the evil villain of a story, Ava was realising, she was a real woman, who had suffered and sometimes made other people suffer, but who loved her daughter.

But, Ava thought, my mum loves me and she doesn't want me to do what I want? What kind of love is that? If she really loved me, she would want me to play in the concert, she would want me to have a career doing something I love to do. I can't let her get in the way of that.

I will play in this concert.

Her back straightened as she thought this, the notes came out more firmly, and the room was filled with clear, slightly grim music.

Then Ava remembered the look on her mum's face when she said : “ He left me.” Wasn't that what she was doing? Just like her dad, she was cutting herself away from her mum. Ava was the only person left to her mum now, and she was planning on going away to do lessons when her mother was so against it. Besides, Ava realised, her mum wasn't just telling her not to have this career for a selfish reason. She really seemed to believe that there was no money and no future in it. So her mum was actually doing it for her?

Ava looked down at the piano, at the long row of black and white keys, the old, brown wood of the lid and the open book of music that sat on the stand. Suddenly, the memories came back. Leaning back on the couch which was close up to the piano, she remembered the early wish she had had: she'd decided, back when she was about 11, to play the piano for a career. Back then, things were simpler, Ava thought. You could be an astronaut when you grew up just as easily as you could be a soldier, a ballerina... or a pianist. She remembered days when she had cried over some piece that a teacher had made her learn, hating music. Hating being forced to learn it. Then that day when she'd discovered she actually liked playing. That was the day someone had complimented her on a piece she'd just perfected.

Funny, that a small thing like that could lead to all this, Ava reflected. All these problems, just because I want to play the piano. She couldn't give it all up for some eccentric idea of her mum's. I won't. I'm gonna play in that concert tomorrow, and mum better not try and stop me.

For some reason, Ava felt worse when she'd made this decision. Instead of feeling confident that she'd made the right choice, she felt increasingly worried about the concert, and played hard all evening, making more mistakes than she had in a long time.