I go really close so I can feel the heat of her skin, and watch the tiny pulse in her throat beating. She’s not gone yet. She’s still alive. I just have to reach in and find her.
‘You look beautiful tonight,’ I tell her. ‘Want to listen to some music?’
Of course, she doesn’t answer. I go to the piano, open the lid and begin to play for her.
December
Thirty-five
Zane
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thoughts.
- Percy Bysshe Shelley
As soon as I finish the call I rush to Dahlia’s room. The nurse is exercising her legs, and usually I would come back, but today I cannot wait.
‘Could you finish that in a bit?’ I ask.
‘Certainly,’ she says and, placing Dahlia’s leg gently back on the bed, covers it and leaves the room.
Dahlia’s hair has started to grow back. It is not yet two inches long, but it is enough for Stella to bring some pink clips and get the nurses to decorate it with them. To be honest, I don’t like the clips. I’ve never known Dahlia to wear anything so babyish. She was always a woman thru and thru and now between Olga, Stella and the nurses she’s always dressed like a kid.
I run my finger on her cheek. ‘Oh, Dahlia, Dahlia,’ I sigh softly. ‘When will you wake up and come back to me?’
Careful not to touch any of the tubes and lines running into her, I rest my forehead against hers. My lips brush her eyelashes. I close my eyes with the familiar sensation. This should have been such a happy moment, but it feels so sad.
‘You did it. You really did it. Guess what you did, my little thieving angel?’ I whisper. ‘I just had a phone call from the great Andre Rieu. I thought it was a prank call until he told me that a violinist named Eliot Scarborough had called him. I know you went with Stella to a client called Eliot so I pricked up my ears and listened.’
The sharp edge of the plastic juts into my cheek. I lift my head, take off the clip and smooth her hair.
‘He said Eliot sent him a few pages photocopied from a symphony I composed that my girlfriend had apparently given to him. It was all meant to be a great surprise. And believe me it was. An unbelievable surprise,’ I say.
‘Anyway Andre said he wanted to personally thank my girlfriend because during his many years as a celebrity composer and conductor with his own orchestra, he is inundated daily with phone calls, emails and letters from people who have composed arias, overtures or waltzs, all begging him to play their work. Over time he came to the conclusion that a new Johann Strauss or Mozart were things of lore, until he played my music.’
I smile at her. Please be listening, Dahlia. Please respond to this news.
‘He said he almost fainted when he heard it. He thought it was grand, exciting, romantic, and fabulously enthralling … and, wait for it, he wants me to send the rest of my notes because he wants his orchestra to play my symphony!’
I stop and put in as much excitement as I can into my voice.
‘You did that, little fish. You made it happen,’ I say, my voice throbbing with excitement, while my heart weeps with sadness.
She doesn’t wake up when I hold her, thank her, touch her or talk to her.
January
Thirty-six
Olga
It is Dahlia’s birthday. I have baked a chocolate cake from a recipe I found in the American cookbook I bought, and the girls have spent the morning decorating her room with lots of balloons. I have also cooked a lot of food for the boys, and Noah has brought in a crate of vodka. The house looks festive, but there is an air of sadness that cannot be erased. She was the light of the house. When she came she brought fun and laughter and noise and now that she has fallen silent the house has become like a tomb.
I saw Zane this morning and he looked as he always looks nowadays: haunted.
I hear the doorbell and I know it is Stella. When she comes in I see that she has been crying. I open my arms out and she runs into them.
‘Oh, Olga. I can’t bear to see her like this.’
‘Shhh ... she will wake up. Give her time,’ I say gently.
She pulls out of my arms and dashes away her tears roughly. ‘What if she doesn’t?’
‘I know she will.’
‘What makes you so sure?’
‘I don’t know why I’m so sure. I feel it inside me. Just like I knew when she came to live in this house that she would become the mistress of it one day. I just know she will wake up.’
‘Well, you’d better be right,’ she says gruffly.
‘Do you want a cup of coffee or do you want to go in and see her now?’
She sniffs and blows her nose from a tissue she finds in the pocket of her jeans. ‘Thanks. I’ll just go see her first.’ She wipes her eyes. ‘I’ve got a surprise for her.’