This Is All Read Free Page B

Little Goody Two Shoes usually does. Seems to me, it’s never too good to be too good when you’re growing up. The longer you leave being bad, the harder you fall. I know what I’m talking about, as you’ll find out.
    From the time my mother died, I had a room of my own in Doris’s house – the house where both she and my mother were born and grew up – and often slept in it for a row of nights at a time. From my early teens, when she and Dad thought me responsible enough, I spent the night there when she was away, sometimes alone and sometimes with Izumi for company, we playing at being grown-up and independent.
    It was Doris from whom I caught my devotion to the piano. A peach of a player herself, she was the proud owner of a white Bösendorfer baby grand, which lived in a music-only room painted a deep blue-green with white trim at the back of her house. We called it the music box. I first put my fingers to that magnificent instrument when I was seven, after which Doris taught me till I was eleven, when she decided I needed the detached discipline of a professional, a teacher I still see once a week.
    *
    Being the guardian of my secrets, confessor of my sins, best comforter in calamity, I had told Doris of my hankering for Will. But I hadn’t mentioned that my hankering was only for initiate sex. I hoped this could be taken as read. And it was Doris who suggested I use music as bait to entice him.
    ‘They used to say,’ Doris mused, ‘the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. I’ve never found that to be true. In my experience the way to a man’s heart – if he has one, which in many cases is doubtful – is via his dingus. But from what you tell me about the boy William, I’d say the way to his heart is through his head. If, that is,’ she added, smiling, ‘it’s his heart you’re after. And,’ she went on, not pausing for an answer, ‘I’d say what he needs in a girl is someone he can admire. Pretty girls, beautiful girls, certainly sexy girls, are ten a penny. Sounds to me like your William could take his choice. My guess is he’ll choose someone who inspires his respect. And a full frontal approach won’t work, Cordy love.’ (Doris is the only person I ever allow to call me Cordy, a diminutive I detest. Delia I don’t mind; but prefer to be called by my full name.) ‘Lure him with music. Hook him unawares. Play him into admiration. That’s my advice.’
    So here we are, a few days later, William and myself, the two of us alone in the music box, setting up our scores and sussing out the interpersonal subtext.
    ‘Didn’t know you played,’ said Our Hero, wetting his reed with erotic succulence and eyeing the set-up.
    ‘Just for myself,’ said Our Heroine, with obnoxious modesty. ‘Don’t expect too much. Only a hobby really. Don’t want it to become a school thing.’
    ‘Bit of a hobby horse, then. Nice piano. And a room just for music. How tonic.’
    I’d explained about Doris and the home-alone situation.
    ‘Should be the dining room, I suppose. But Doris prefers music.’
    ‘If music be the fruit of love,’ he said.
    My heart missed a beat. Had he seen through my plot?
    I said, fussing with my score to cover my panic, ‘Food, I think.’
    ‘Shakespeare?’
    ‘Who else?’
    ‘Most quotations seem to be.’
    ‘Or the Bible.’
    ‘Or pop songs.’
    ‘Want to make a start?’
    We slaved at the notes for two hours. Two hours! And guess what – in all that time Will uttered not one word, shot not one glance, made not one slightest move that even hinted he was interested in anything but the music. I was not scoring with this score. If music be the food of love, all it seemed to do, as far as I could tell, was feed his desire for more of it.
    ‘Like a drink – or anything? ’ I asked with hint-full emphasis at one moment when we stumbled over a phrase, hoping that during a fermata for refreshment he might move his eyes from the score on to me and I might modulate his