Violet rocked my world.
In Year 11 at High School, she was the dynamic hub of a musical cohort. Her school uniform was below the knee when everyone else’s uniform was above the knee (including mine). She scoffed at fashion and sourced her clothes from “op shops”.
“Can you believe this jumper cost five bucks?” she’d say, not caring that it was a poo-coloured brown and as unflattering as a sack of potatoes.
Violet had long, thick, dark hair that reached beyond her waist. She didn’t shave her legs or under her arms. Her pallid skin never tanned in summer and her pock-marked cheeks never reddened. Everything else about Violet was colourful. Her aura was a kaleidoscope of neon, and her smile was the sunniest I’d ever seen.
I’d have voted for Violet at the Ballot Box to become Prime Minister. I’d have waved banners sewn with peace signs to promote Violet, the pacifist. I’d have become a vegetarian if Violet had been one. Violet didn’t seem to register that she had a devotee in me. Violet was too busy being a force of nature to pay much heed to anything left in her wake. If I’d been a plastic lid lost at sea she may have cared more, not so much for me mind you, but for the poor creature that would consume me.
In Violet’s company I forgot about diets, hip-width, and hairstyles. I forgot about boys and boobs. I forgot about smoking and drinking and whatever else was supposed to be cool. I went to school eager to sit with Violet, to work out how Violet could be Violet when no boy could possibly like her.
She was proud of her Maltese heritage. Her gentle mother was a nurse and her father, a doctor. They were Catholic and Violet was one of five children, fourth born. She drove a blue Datsun hatchback that never gave her one day of trouble despite its rust, dents, and dodgy ignition. As a passenger, I was surprised by the comfortable bucket seats and disturbed by the engine rattle that increased in volume the higher the speed. Violet seemed unconcerned as she wrestled the heavy steering wheel with her muscular arms.
Violet was the first to raise her hand in class. I never raised my hand. Violet flapped her wrists when she talked. I didn’t talk. Violet was both composed and messy. I was tidy and decomposed. Violet was never still, even when motionless. I was made of stone. Violet’s thoughts chaotically swirled about her head like invisible space junk. I didn’t have thoughts.
It was hard not to notice Violet was in a room and when she was not in a room it felt as if absence itself yearned for her return. No-one missed me. Violet didn’t apologise for offending someone, but she was never intentionally mean. I walked on eggshells, always eager to please.
Violet relished a heated debate, digging deeply into a repository of long words and pithy phrases. She often left the opposition with their mouths hanging open. She confessed to studying the dictionary every day as if it was a bible. I pictured Violet on her knees, pouring over the tome with a candle lit in one hand and an apple in the other. She was always eating an apple. She took big gouges out of it with her sturdy teeth, and I could see the marks they made on the red and green skin. Violet ate life the same way whereas I nibbled at life.
Violet played her double bass with fluid, soulful sweeps of the bow as her long tresses fell around her shoulders like a shroud. Violet and her instrument fused into one, sonorous body. I wondered about the appeal of such an unwieldy instrument as Violet’s fingers stretched from one note to the next. The double bass was an unusual choice but perhaps that was the point. Violet was never short of a point, whether it was a point of view or a point-blank refusal to dim her light. I didn’t have points. I was blunt but not in a forthright way. Nothing was straightforward and my light was as dim as I could make it without extinguishing myself.
Despite listening closely to Violet’s chatter, I struggled to master the art. My voice was carefully modulated so that, for the most part, it conveyed neutrality. If someone touched me, I’d have felt squishy. I was forever reshaping myself like plasticine to suit those I encountered. My skin changed colour to blend with the walls so that no-one would suspect I was anything but normal.
In front of school assembly, Violet articulated each memorised word of her speech without hesitation. I sat in the audience waiting for the big mistake that would unplug Violet’s confidence. None came. Her performance was perfect, not that Violet aspired to be perfect. She was perfect.
Violet generated power by tapping into an unshakeable source within herself. Her hairy, wiry, strong body was not a problem to overcome but the seat of her aliveness. I marvelled at the magic while my seat of aliveness buckled and bent like a crash dummy’s. Violet could feel the whole world inside of herself while I felt nothing. Violet’s body knew things. Only my head knew things. Violet’s instincts were solid gold. My instincts were nickel-plated. Violet was a force to be reckoned with. I could be blown over by a feather. Violet was wild and free. I was tamed and trapped. Violet was Violet. I was?
Then, in Year 12, Violet declared her love. She wanted coke-drinking, Monty Python-addicted Brian. All eyes followed Brian. If Brian was watching anything it was TV. Skinny, weedy Brian with his black bangs falling into his eyes. The brightest boy in school. Violet called it a Meeting of Minds but, around Brian, Violet was vapid. She didn’t want to become Prime Minister of Australia. She wanted to marry and have babies, not that there was anything wrong with that, but Violet seemed capable of so much more. Had I missed something? Was loving someone a reason to compromise one’s potential? Disappointed, I withdrew my vote from the Ballot Box. Extraordinary Violet had become ordinary, and life instantly lost its lustre.
Violet and I auditioned for the Conservatorium almost at the same time and gained admission. So did a few of the musical cohort from school. I studied piano performance while Violet continued with her double bass. Our paths rarely crossed.
No one wore makeup at the Conservatorium. No one had smiles or suntans or fashion-sense. Students wore buttoned up shirts and Roman sandals. I tried to fit in as was my way. I was shy enough and conservative enough but was I enough?
I silently traversed the scuffed lino corridors that were awash with soft, disjointed musical refrains emitted from a variety of instruments. I clung to the shadows and avoided the glare of the overhead fluoroes. I kept my brows drawn together to respect the fact that life at the Conservatorium was serious. My shoulders ached. My eyes lost their ability to focus and within months I needed to wear reading glasses.
Mr Longland was my new piano teacher. His grey moustache twitched when I said “hello”. He wore grey suits and grey ties and grey scarves. He played Chopin’s Ballade No.3 from a grey Urtext and never missed a note.
“Impeccable technique,” someone said at his annual recital.
In the gloom of his cavernous studio, Mr Longland recommended six hours of piano practice per day. Eight hours nearer a performance. Practice rooms at the Conservatorium could be booked in advance. The upright pianos were worn but serviceable. Attendance at weekly masterclasses were mandatory. Every semester, I had to play in masterclasses twice and perform a fifty-minute concert. I could feel the colour drain from my face.
I went to ethnomusicology and music history lectures, as well as theory and composition classes. Boredom made me listless. When I was due to perform on stage, dread gnawed at my guts. I felt sick. My hands and knees shook. I pulled my hair back into a tight bun. I paced the floor in the green room, flicking excess energy out of my fingers. My feet were blocks of ice. My mind was awash with a myriad of mistakes I’d surely make, the notes I’d forget, the terrible fatigue that would incapacitate me. Failure would mean death.
During piano lessons, Mr Longland sat at a desk behind me. His swivel chair squeaked like a mouse caught between the claws of a cat. Sometimes he approached the grand piano to squint at the music book and point his pencil at something I needed to correct like my fingering, phrasing, or pedalling. Sometimes he asked me to play something again and then said nothing except, “Go on.” Sometimes I played a section of a new piece and stopped. Mr Longland asked, “Is that all?”
Mr Longland’s words had the well-cultivated air of someone deeply unimpressed.
Amid a myriad of tensions and tediums I met Alison. We had the same piano teacher, but she was a year ahead of me. She started the conversation, sitting in the sterile Common Room. It was the first time a stranger spoke to me.
Soon after, Alison invited me to have coffee with her in the city. I’d never had coffee with anyone, let alone in the city. We walked across North Terrace and dived into a cosy coffee shop called “Possums”. It was here that Alison proceeded to light a cigarette and tell me about her life. Her divorced parents. Her mother who was her main support. Alison revealed that she had a lover who was three years younger than her. They had an “open relationship”. It seemed risqué. I was happy that someone wanted to talk to me. I was happy to escape the Conservatorium. I was happy drinking a cappuccino and feeling like an adult.
Alison was tall and sturdy. She had large, pale, capable hands. Her blond hair was bleached. She was charismatic and ambitious about her piano playing. She tackled Beethoven Sonatas that I preferred to avoid.
Soon enough we were going for coffee at Possums weekly. I didn’t know if I liked Alison, but the commonality of music was enough to keep the connection alive. Then Alison invited me to her home to meet her mother and an aunt. When I met them, they were enveloped by thick clouds of cigarette smoke. Alison’s gaunt, bejewelled mother was recovering from an operation that had removed several fibroids. She made some comment about her ex-husband being obsessed about boats. The old house was large and packed with antique furniture. Alison’s grand piano inhabited a spacious living room, and it was here that she played a half-mastered rendition of Beethoven’s Appassionata. It went on forever and I tried not to squirm. At the end, her mother and aunt applauded loudly for quite some length. I tried to be as enthused. Everyone looked elated. I tried not to yawn.
Then Alison invited me to dinner at a restaurant in the city. I didn’t know how to say “no”, so I said “yes”. As we ate, Alison’s stories about her lover became more salacious. She even suggested that she had more than one lover. I wondered if she was telling the truth.
During a university break we went away together in Alison’s car. We stayed for three nights at a rundown shack and lay outside on a patch of yellowing grass. We read books, drank coffee and cooked meals although neither of us had a flair for cooking. Mainly we ate toast and cereal and canned soup and baked beans and fried eggs. I still didn’t know if I liked Alison.
A year or so into our friendship – although I wasn’t sure if we were friends or colleagues or acquaintances – Alison said she was keen to explore a same sex relationship. We were having dinner in the city again. This time there were candles and I’d failed to register that it was supposed to be romantic. When I didn’t get the hint, Alison said that she was open to having a sexual relationship with me. Surprised I almost dropped my knife and fork. One thing that I knew for sure, I wasn’t attracted to Alison. I didn’t know how to say this without offending her. Heat rose to my cheeks. I’d completely missed the subtext of Alison’s interest in befriending me.
I muttered something about wanting to be friends, but that was a lie. I didn’t know what I wanted from Alison. Perhaps she was a curiosity, a distraction, a plug that stopped loneliness from consuming my life.
After that, I tried to avoid her at the Conservatorium. At least I knew her schedule well enough. I felt bad about my subterfuge. We conversed a couple of times, but I never lingered and promised to catch up soon.
Violet needed an accompanist for one of her solo concerts and she asked me. I was grateful for the company even though we’d drifted apart. I almost told her about Alison but wondered what the point was. Perhaps that was the problem. I was adrift in a sea of pointlessness.
I was well on my way to experiencing a crisis of meaning which, of course, I didn’t know at the time. The path ahead was as dimly lit as ever and getting darker by the day. I didn’t know that my life was about to radically change, some might say for the better. But before I head there I need to tell you about another aspect of my life that may surprise you and hopefully entertain you.
Please stay tuned. It’s wonderful to have your company on this convoluted journey. Thank you for your comments and likes. A very big thank you to my paid subscribers who are totally awesome.
With love,
Lil X
Gifted Friendships (Part Three)