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out because I rather wanted to be able to play the piano. I attended weekly lessons for a couple of years and practised grimly most days. I became passably competent at playing a few tunes, but I was so hopelessly unmusical that Miss Bates would cover her ears and shudder.
    ‘No, no, with
feeling
!’ she’d protest. ‘Not
plink-plink, plod-plod
. Where is the passion? Don’t you have any
soul
, Opal?’
    This upset me, because as I grew older I was starting to worry that I really
didn’t
have any soul. I didn’t seem to think the same way as anyone else. The girls at school became passionate about the silliest things. They screamed with joy if they scored a goal at hockey, they giggled and nudged each other in geography lessons because they all had a crush on the fair-haired master, and they vied with each other to run errands for Judith, the head girl. I detested hockey and couldn’t see the point of knocking a ball into a net. I thought Mr Grimes, the geography master, was a silly, vain man who delighted in all the attention, and I didn’t give a hoot for rosy-cheeked Judith and her favours.
    I couldn’t seem to let go and just
be
. I felt as if I were watching myself all the time, commenting slightly sourly on my actions. I couldn’t really feel passionate about anything at all. I didn’t believe in romantic love. I suppose I loved Father and Mother, and even Cassie, but in a reserved, embarrassed fashion.
    I hated playing the piano now, horribly aware of my shortcomings, but I loved Father more than anyone else, so I did my best. I hadn’t been taught any amusing singsong-in-the-parlour pieces. Miss Bates would wince at the very notion. The tunes I could play properly were either classical extracts or a selection of particularly melancholy hymns, which were completely unsuitable. So I tried very hard to play by ear, reproducing plonking versions of the music-hall numbers Mother used to sing when she was dusting, plus several silly novelty songs Olivia and the other girls sang at school. I frequently missed the right notes, but luckily Cassie knew all the songs and was word-perfect. I played badly and she sang loudly but off-key, yet somehow we sounded jolly enough to please Father. Mother joined in too, but Father didn’t try to sing. He just sat in the soft lamplight, gazing at us intently, as if he were trying to commit every little detail to memory.
    We didn’t go to bed until nearly midnight, an unheard of event in our house. Not surprisingly, we all overslept in the morning.
    I woke to hear Mother shrieking, ‘Ernest, Ernest, get up! It’s gone eight o’clock! Oh my Lord, you’ll never be at work by nine, and you’re on your last warning at the office.’
    I expected poor Father to fling on his shabby business suit and bolt from the house within minutes, but when Cassie and I went down to breakfast, pulling on clothes and doing up laces as we staggered downstairs, Father was there in the kitchen, chewing on a triangle of toast and marmalade.
    ‘Father! Why aren’t you going to work?’ I asked.
    ‘I am going to work at home today,’ said Father calmly.
    We stared at him.
    ‘Your father’s not going to the office any more. He’s going to concentrate on his writing,’ said Mother. She said it proudly, but her voice was high-pitched and she kept giving Father worried little glances.
    ‘You mean you’ve given in your notice, Father?’ I asked.
    He shrugged. ‘I don’t really need to,’ he said.
    ‘What about a reference?’
    ‘I don’t
need
a reference.’
    ‘Do stop your silly questions, Opal,’ said Mother. ‘You can be very aggravating at times. Now, take a piece of buttered bread and get yourself off to school, sharpish. You quit gawping too, Cassie, and get to Madame Alouette’s. Dear me, what a pair you are.’
    So we had to leave the house. I dare say Cassie was late and got told off. I arrived at school a full ten minutes after the bell, and then Mounty screamed at me for a