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Phoebe chuckles. ‘If there aren’t rumours that you’re the father of my baby by tomorrow morning, I’ll be disappointed.’
‘You’re not, are you?’ Papa asks from the doorway, a tray containing takeaway coffee cups in his hand. His eyes are wide and the colour’s drained from his face. If it wasn’t such a serious moment, I’d have burst out laughing at his horrified expression. Instead, my stomach clenches in fear; fear that if he had walked in a few moments earlier, he would have heardeverything.
Phoebe drops my hand quicker than Sam Groth serving a ball. ‘No, Mr Madani, Aaron and I got back together in June.’
He actually exhales in relief. ‘Well, congratulations, Phoebe. I thought I’d walked in on a little secret just then.’
A nervous bubble of laughter escapes me. ‘No! No secrets here.’
Papa looks from Phoebe to me, clearly aware that he’s missed something. Phoebe bites her lip, trying to hide her smile.
6
Noah
It’s forty-one degrees in the city. The air is stagnant; there’s no breeze, no reprieve. Just heat. From inside the carriage, I watch commuters crowd towards the doors as the train pulls up to the platform, desperate to board. It’s common courtesy to move to the side and let passengers get off first, and I glare at a sweaty businessman who dares to push past me as I disembark at South Yarra station.
While some establishments might prepare for a trickle of customers once they open, I . . . polish cutlery. I wipe down the shelves. Dust the tops of the televisions. Check the undersides of chairs for bubble gum:Clean! Just like last week!
Eventually, I make my way to the piano at the top of the stairs. It’s a Brodmann baby grand, stylish and petite. Mark had planned to throw the instrument out on the street for anyone to take until I’d gently talked him down; even in its current condition, it would fetch eight grand on the second-hand market. Of course, Mark had only half listened to me. He’d listed it on Gumtree for almost double what I’d suggested, and it’s sat here ever since.
After wiping down the lid and fallboard with a damp cloth, I pull the bench from where it’s tucked away under the keys, and with my heart hammering in my chest, take a seat.
I find the ledge of the fallboard and pull it up, revealing the keys. My fingers fall into the C position. I’m just checking the piano is in good working order, I tell myself. For the listing.
I press down on the keys, and a slightly out-of-tune C-chord rings through the bar. The piano desperately needs maintenance but that’s unsurprising given its condition. On a whim, I play the first few notes of Tchaikovsky’sSwan Lake, one of the first pieces I learnt. Truthfully, I expect it to feel weird. I haven’t played seriously in ages, but to my surprise thefeelingof playing comes back to me quickly. It’s muscle memory, I guess.
Soon, whatever nerves I felt when I first sat down at the piano begin to melt away. It feels like it used to; I’m confident and skilful and finallygoodat something. At school, I was never the art kid, or the sport kid, or the English kid. I never had a natural talent for anything—until I began playing the piano. The more I practised, the better I got.
My fingers move nimbly, the vibration of the keys travelling up my fingertips to my hands, my arms. The piano meets every note, like it’s sat here for the last four months just begging for someone to play it again, and now we’re caught up in a dance neither of us wants to break. The music moves through me, just like it used to, just like—
‘Working hard, I see.’
I jump, and the fallboard drops over the keys with abang, the lip barely missing my fingers. Whirling around, I see Peaches leaning against the doorway, looking smug.
‘Hey, you.’
‘Shit, you scared me half to death,’ I gasp, heart still racing.
Today, Peaches sports an apple-green bob that curls around her jawline. Her flowy white-and-yellow daisy dress is ruffled by the warm breeze that blows through the open doorway, and she’s switched her black pumps for a pair of canary-yellow strappy heels.
‘Please, don’t let me stop you.’ She nods towards the piano. ‘Play on.’
I roll my eyes and stand up, pushing the bench back underneath the piano. ‘The usual?’ I ask as I descend the stairs.
‘You know me, darling,’ she says with a smile. ‘You should really start me on a loyalty card or something.’
I slip behind the bar and make up her gin and tonic. ‘Mark doesn’t value loyalty.’
‘He should.’ Peaches takes a sip of her drink and lets out a satisfied little sigh. I can’t help but notice her hot-pink nails. ‘As always, your talents are wasted here. When did you learn to play the piano?’
‘I started lessons when I was thirteen.’
‘Can you play anything else?’
‘A couple of things.’ I grab the vodka bottles from the shelf to dust them. You know business is shit when your vodka is on the shelf long enough to get dusty.
‘You’re being cagey about this, darling. Why?’ Peaches asks over the lip of her glass.
