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It rained the day she left Rupert. Heavy, noisy rain that poured from the darkest clouds. It pounded against the windows in the hotel room where she hid while the press hovered on the doorstep of what was her home, catching nobody but a frowning Rupert.
It rained the day she moved into her new house. Loud that day too, but not loud enough to drown out her thoughts, a grey, filthy day, the sky laden with a doom she tried not to read too much into.
It rained the day she decided to pay for a storage unit. As she found herself weighed down by the one thing she knew she wanted to keep but wasn’t ready to face quite yet. A month after Ted left and the email landed to remind her to renew her storage payments, the sun came out and she knew it was time.
Now it has a room all of its own, overlooking the garden and in a corner providing the perfect light. The early evening sunlight dancing across the keys the first time she played again had made her cry. She realised she felt alive again for the first time since she had wiped away her tears, sat down, and refused to move until Ted’s flight status changed to ‘departed’ on the terminal screen.
She remembers the day she started piano lessons so clearly, exactly two weeks after her eighth birthday. She recalls the nerves, excitement, curiosity bouncing around in the pit of her stomach; she remembers wondering if this is what the old lady who swallowed all those animals in the story felt like. She remembers the first time she sat on the stool, the woman who was to be her greatest champion for so long sitting beside her, and it somehow feels like yesterday.
Her name was Gabriella and on the days when it felt like her parents had truly forgotten she existed she would daydream about how her life would be if Gabriella was her mother. She liked to think that when she wasn’t teaching her to play they would sing together or maybe they would bake biscuits that would make the whole house smell warm and safe. She liked to imagine that Gabriella would encourage her to share what she loved about the books she was reading. The polar opposite of her parents, who would offer a distracted “sounds lovely, darling”, if she was lucky.
Gabriella taught her how to embrace her love of music, to lean into how it made her feel and what it helped her to express. She taught her to speak Italian too, a cheeky glint in her eyes when an eleven-year-old Rebecca asked her for the naughtiest word she knew. She was thirteen when Gabriella sat her down at the end of a lesson and gently explained that she had to leave, to go back home to Italy, that her parents were getting older and being so far from them wasn’t working out for her. It was Rebecca’s first realisation that you can love someone with every beat of your heart but sometimes they leave anyway.
Gabriella told her mother that Rebecca was talented, that she had a natural ear for music, both for piano and for singing, and recommended another teacher before she left. Penny was good, kind, encouraging, and full of praise for Rebecca’s talent. But she wasn’t Gabriella. She kept playing, she couldn’t imagine not, couldn’t fathom how she would exist without making music; she wouldn’t know what to do with her hands without the piano.
At sixteen she walked in on her father fucking someone who wasn’t her mother. Without her piano, without the opportunity to lock herself away and just play, her anger and disappointment would have consumed her even more deeply than it did, she’s certain of that.
When she moved out and refused to take a penny of her father’s money, the piano stayed behind. The series of shared houses and tiny flats that she called home throughout her rebellious twenties wouldn’t have had the space anyway. She briefly dated a music student who was sweet enough but whose main attraction was the access to the piano in the rehearsal space that she, as a business and languages student, didn’t have.
“With that talent, why are you not studying with me?” The sharp, clipped question from the head of the music department stayed with her much longer than the boyfriend.
She found herself wondering the same thing so many times over the years. She thinks that other Rebecca, braver Rebecca, could have been a really great concert pianist.
Gabriella stayed in touch from the day she left; Christmas cards, birthday cards, and sweet, heartfelt letters telling Rebecca about her family, sharing what she loved about being back in Italy and what she missed about London. When Rebecca found herself adrift at twenty-three, directionless and unsure what she wanted from her post-university life, it was a month in Italy with Gabriella that cleared her head. A month of sun, music, and unconditional love helped remind her that the world was beautiful and that music was as much a part of her as her green eyes or her long legs.
“You’re still so young, tesorino mio.” Gabriella had smiled softly and squeezed her hand. “You have so much time.”
Back in touch and on tentative ground with her parents, she took the opportunity to get back to the piano as often as she could, sometimes losing herself for entire Sundays before her mother would tap on the door with a raised eyebrow and an offer of a sandwich. She spent too long job-hopping, feeling guilty for not settling for something permanent, always returning to the piano when the guilt or frustration threatened to overwhelm her.
And then she met Rupert.
Looking back she knows the reason he hated her playing piano was because she was good at it, really good, probably better than he was at anything in his life.
At the time he somehow managed to convince her that it was a silly hobby, a waste of time now she was married and had a house to manage and a husband to spend her life with. She remembers playing long into the nights that he was away, allegedly on business. Code, she knows now, for fucking half of London. She would hang on to the belief that one day her child would sit beside her and she would pass on what Gabriella had passed to her. So many nights she would sit and picture tiny hands on the keys in between her own. She would imagine her little one’s delighted smile and something would bloom inside her chest just for a moment.
“You’re not going to have time for that now we’re married, darling.” She almost left him the day he locked the room holding her piano, pocketing the key with a cruel delight.
A different Rebecca, the Rebecca who existed before him, would have fought him on it, would have told him that if she couldn’t play then she may as well not breathe. The Rebecca of today would have a whole team willing to kick that door down for her. But trapped Rebecca, friendless and isolated Rebecca gave up arguing and tried to hope that when they finally had a child the piano would come out again. Looking back now, her dreams of motherhood long gone, she thinks allowing Rupert to take her music from her might have been the worst agony of all.
*
For a while she doesn’t tell anyone she’s playing again, that her piano is back in her possession. That it holds pride of place and makes her smile every time she walks past the room.
Her loneliness had threatened to eat her alive in the days after Ted left. She felt it physically, her entire body heavy, her mind lacking the power some days to even push herself up and out of bed. She went to work, got through her days, pasted on a smile and discovered she was a better actress than she ever knew.
Back home she spent every evening fighting darker thoughts than she’d had in years. She would force her way through them, somehow talking herself back from the edge of despair but feeling painfully hollow in the aftermath. Lying awake night after night, she would remind herself to count her blessings; her friends, the club, even her relationship with her mother, stitched together like an old stuffed toy but somehow stronger for it.
On the darkest nights her treacherous brain would tell her that these people might be blessings to her but to them, she’s nothing but a burden. Poor, sad, lonely Rebecca. Nice big house, stunning shoe collection, successful football club, but starting and ending each day alone.
She told Keeley first, that she was playing piano again. Showed her, really. Opened the door and watched as her friend’s eyes widened before she asked her how long she’s been playing.
“I barely remember a time when I didn’t.” It was an honest answer, the only answer.
“Play something for me?” Keeley’s request had been made with a gentle tone and a curious smile, instantly wiping away the ridiculous fear she’d had that people would think it was a silly idea. It reminded her again that other people are not Rupert.
The first time Ted had seen the piano he had grinned, unsurprised but delighted. When she asked why he didn’t seem surprised, his answer was simple.
“You sing in the office when you don’t even know you’re doin’ it and you tap your feet when half the time I haven’t even noticed there’s music playin’.” She’d laughed at that because her mother used to say the same, albeit less sweetly. “You have music runnin’ through you, Rebecca, so that beautiful old piano there? Makes sense to me.”
It rained again the day Ted moved in. This time it felt like a cleansing, a fresh start, rather than a sign of impending doom. She’s different now, they both are. He broke her heart when he left and he’s putting it together again, piece by piece, now that he’s back. They’ve lived life within walking distance of one another, they’ve lived life four thousand miles apart, but living in the same house? It’s her favourite life of all.