Read Online The Children's Bach by Helen Garner - Free Book Online Page B

floor.
    They found the textbooks and paid for them, but Poppy lingered to admire the blocky reams of paper and the silver bulldog clips clamped into a chain. Elizabeth picked up a handsome bound diary.
    â€˜This is reduced,’ she said. ‘I’ll buy it.’
    They stood by the register, but the boy serving would not come. Minutes passed. Poppy lounged and read on. Elizabeth observed that the diary was invisible in her arms among their already wrapped purchases. The adrenalin squirted and twinkled in her veins. Oh! did I forget to pay for this one? Sorry! You kept us waiting for so long! How much is it again? ‘Come on,’ she said to Poppy in an ordinary voice, and walked quickly towards the door.
    â€˜ Elizabeth !’ said Poppy.
    â€˜Shutup!’ she hissed. She barged out on to the bright street. Poppy trotted after her, keeping her finger in the book to mark her place, and caught up with her half a block away. Elizabeth was panting. She sat down on the deep window ledge of a furniture shop and pulled the furious girl to face her. ‘Now don’t you ever do what I just did,’ she said.
    â€˜ Me? ’ said Poppy. ‘It’s got nothing to do with me !’
    â€˜You’re such a puritan!’ said Elizabeth. ‘You make me feel like a criminal.’
    â€˜You are a criminal. Taking other people’s stuff is wrong.’
    â€˜You should talk! What about that camera.’
    Poppy held her book to her chest. ‘That was different. Finding things is not the same as stealing them.’
    â€˜You could’ve reported it.’
    â€˜I will, then,’ said Poppy. ‘I’ll take it back.’
    â€˜Don’t be pathetic. It was years ago – you don’t even remember which motel it was.’
    â€˜It was one of them. On that highway.’
    â€˜It’s too late now.’
    They were both red and breathing hard. They stared away from each other, their arms folded round their possessions. Cars passed. The asphalt was spongy.
    â€˜We’ll both burn in hell,’ said Elizabeth.
    â€˜I don’t believe in hell.’
    â€˜We’ll burn somewhere else, then.’
    â€˜Are you going to keep the diary?’
    â€˜Are you going to keep the camera?’
    â€˜I might. Or I might not. I might . . . donate it to charity.’
    â€˜They’d know it was hot. People don’t give away good stuff that works.’
    Elizabeth waited. Poppy stood up and brushed off the seat of her pants. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Let’s go to Allans. I feel like playing the pianos.’
    The house of music was lumbered with grands, a noble line of them, each fluttering a many-digited price tag. Their lids were propped open as if to catch a breath of air. Their perfect teeth, their glossy flanks, their sumptuous smell caused customers to tiptoe past them on their way to the secondhand uprights at the back; but Poppy fronted up to a big black Bösendorfer and settled herself on the bench. She handed her book to Elizabeth, wiped her palms on her thighs and launched into something that used all her fingers.
    â€˜That’s a lovely piece of music, that is!’ sang out a young salesman who was sitting at a Steinway, five juggernauts down the line.
    She stumbled, she paused to listen to him. He picked it up and played the next two bars. He waited for her, poising his hands above the keys and raising his eyebrows. She hesitated, with a glance and a smile at Elizabeth, and then she skated away into the elements. Their game was clever: the man teased, the girl echoed him, they were flirting with each other, laughing; they played three slow chords in unison. People stopped and listened, pretending not to, because it was so intimate. Elizabeth wandered away to the head of the stairs. From the lower regions the grim thumping of an electric bass rolled up and throbbed in the metal banisters.
    *
    Vicki spent an hour getting