St. Mallory's Forever!

23: HELEN: A note on music.

It wasn't until first break on Monday that I was able to see Mum, which is pretty weird until you think about the fact no one else sees their parents for weeks. I'm still weighing up the pros and cons on that one.

As a teacher Mum gets a welcome break from us all on Sundays, unless she's on supervisory duty, which hasn't happened yet. Yes, even in private boarding schools they let you have one day a week off. Well, not really off. Just no proper lessons, so it's more a break for the teachers than us.

We have a chapel service, too, which is nice and calming, though I'm not entirely convinced by everything they tell us. I like the hymns, and they're asking me to join the choir. I went to a church once or twice before at home, but it was nothing like this. Back home was much more modern. Strangely, I kind of like this better.

Anyway, I met up with Mum and the first thing she wanted to know was if it was true we had been skinny-dipping on Brighton's "nudie beach" as she called it. So that little escapade was public knowledge. Fortunately Mum trusts me enough not to jump to silly conclusions, and when I told her the true version of events (well most of it — I felt it best not to mention that dishy bloke we saw with his meat and two veg on display) she burst out laughing.

"I'm sure you've seen much worse on the internet," she said, eyes twinkling in that conspiratorial mother-daughter fashion. I almost responded when I realised the question was a no-win game. Yes I had seen worse. No I hadn't seen worse. Either way was an admission I'd seen stuff I ought not to have.

"I found a Nils score," I said, and the "nudie beach" was instantly forgotten. Phew! "And that Tchaikovsky piece you were after."

"Really? Hels, that is so thoughtful." Mum took the two music sheets from me and pored over the Tchaikovsky piece, humming as her eyes scanned the score. Then she picked up the Nils piece and fell strangely silent.

I looked at Mum, wondering what I'd done wrong. I knew she had almost every Nils score going, but was pretty sure she hadn't got this one. Leastways, I'd never heard of it before. But it looked like I was wrong. Ah well, it was only two quid.

"You can always donate it to the school's collection," I suggested helpfully.

Mum looked aghast at me. "Donate it? You're joking! This is going in my collection! It's one of the few Nils pieces I haven't got." She looked at the score and back at me again. "In fact, between us two, I've never heard of this piece before." She grinned. "Maybe it's a lost masterpiece!"

Good old Mum. She's not the greatest comedienne on the planet, but she does try. I forced a laugh to be kind. "Maybe it's worth millions," I said, "and we can both retire early."

Okay, I inherited her non-ability at humour. Bite me.

I gave it another shot, hoping to raise a smile. "If it's worth a tenner we could celebrate with a pizza." Not that I had any idea if take-aways were allowed on the school premises. Probably not. I think school rules are designed to minimise all possible enjoyment of life.

Still no response from Mum. She was just sitting there with a glazed look in her eyes. Then she suddenly snapped out of it and reached over to her laptop (all teachers have school laptops that are strictly off-limits to students — even their daughters), fingers ablaze.

Up came a website I was more than familiar with. It listed all the great composers (actually, pretty much all recognized composers, great or otherwise) and had a database of all their known works and, if rare, where the originals were held. It's a bit nerdy, I know, but I have occasionally passed an evening browsing it, and Mum considers it the best thing since sliced bread.

Up came the webpage for David Nils. Mum stared at it a while, then back at the score in her hands, then back at the laptop. "This doesn't exist," she said.

"Don't be daft, Mum. I bought it, didn't I? Of course it exists. They must just not have listed it. Easy mistake to make, missing a piece when there's millions of entries. Either that or it's a fake," I added. "Well, it was only two quid. But guess we can forget about that pizza then."

"It's not a fake," Mum said in that monotone voice she uses when something is not quite right. "I did my university thesis on Nils."

I shrugged. Fun as it would be to have discovered a lost masterpiece, I wasn't inclined to crazy flights of fancy, and nor was I that interested in sheet music. Mum loves it. But me, I collect the sound of the music in my head. Music on paper is just notes. It was good at first, until you'd freed it, and then it just seemed tied down.

Mum grabbed my arm. "Hels. Look at this."

I looked. Another shrug. "And?"

"Look at the date on this music. Then look at this web-page."

Hmmm. It would appear that Nils composed this work after his death. If that's not necromancy, I'm not sure what is. I stared at it for about a minute, trying to work out if we were both seeing things, or if the year was just badly written and open to misinterpretation. But no, it was a very deliberate scrawl, and so was the stuff on the sheet of music.

"Well, maybe he didn't die," I said, trying to keep it light hearted. There wasn't any other explanation. "Maybe he just pretended to, so that his wife could claim life insurance or something. I don't know."

"This was a while ago," Mum pointed out, drat her.

A third shrug. I mean, what other response is there? "Well, it must be a fake," I said. "Sorry."

"It's not," Mum said, after humming the few bars. "No, this is his style all right. And his signature. And the paper feel solid enough... If this is a forgery, Hels, it's a remarkable one. But why would anyone bother? He wasn't that famous."

A fourth and final shrug. Yeah, my shrugs are like London buses. You wait ages and then four come along at once. "Well, I'll let you ponder that one. I need to get to my next lesson. It's maths," I added. That normally got a sympathetic smile from Mum, who shared my view on the pointlessness of learning any maths that wouldn't help you work out your change was correct in a shop. But Mum was still staring at the music sheet. She looked worried.

Worried by a sheet of music? There had to be something else. And I thought I knew what it was. Or rather, who.

I paused at the door. I had to ask. "Mum, is the Bursar, like, harassing you?"

Mum looked up like a startled rabbit caught in the headlights. "The Bursar?"

"Well he always seems to be around, in lessons and that. Or peering through the windows."

Mum forced an unconvincing smile. "Don't be silly, love. He's just making sure the girls don't play up, as I'm new here."

I stepped outside the door and turned to play my ace. "And I saw him in Brighton."

Mum froze. Not so much the startled rabbit caught in the headlights as the rabbit being hit by a ten-ton truck. "You did? Where?"

"He'd just been in the music shop, where I bought that Nils piece. He was staring at the coach as though it had stolen something from him but he was too afraid to get it back."

Mum glanced at the clock. "You'll be late for Mr. Breeze, dear."

Mum was obviously pretty flustered, so I hurried off to my maths lesson with Mr. Breeze, Not that I'd ever hurry for maths, of course. I wanted to find Abby. She was proving to be a first-rate source of information, with other students reporting to her. And that girl they all called Don Pedro, whose real name I am forever forgetting (names have never been my strong point, and matching them to faces is impossible), seemed to know everything that's going on.

But when I got there the Don and Abby were already paired off and Christie, bizarrely, was sat with Xuan, so I ended up next to Philippa.

My investigation would have to wait. Right now I had another, more urgent, mystery to solve. Trigonometry.

Now what's that all about?