St. Mallory's Forever!

42 HELEN: Goodbye, cruel world.

WHY?!

Why did she do that? Of all the stupid, ignorant things to do, why that? After spending so long muttering about it and hiding it and telling me, "It's nothing, don't worry, go back to lessons because it's all kittens and rainbows in here," why did my mother have to go and do something so unutterably thick?

I'm not even referring to the fact that her combination of red tights and blue suede shoes would have given Abby a heart attack had she been there.

Do you remember a couple of posts ago I mentioned that Mum was being secretive about the piece she was going to play at the concert? Well, I should have seen it coming.

She played the Nils piece. The Nils piece! The piece she said she'd sent off to her Nils-expert friend for analysis — may all photocopiers die painful deaths for this!

And the worst part was, she didn't seem to care what it was doing to me. Nope, she just sat there, playing away at those accursed notes that had got me locked in the library for half the night. Uncle Sam the Bursar was loving every second of it too — sat there with a dirty great grin on his face. I wonder if Mum told him she was going to play Nils tonight?

It wouldn't surprise me. I could see Mum and the Bursar all through the lacrosse matches, chit-chatting away on the sidelines. Why does Mum even talk to him? She says she doesn't know half the teachers in the school, so why did she have to pick the creepy notes thief to be her best buddy? Or rather, why has she let him stay in her life, if they go 'way back'?

And then he's there at the concert, in the front row, applauding Mum's every note like some sycophantic cyborg. He even halfway stood up when she finished, like she deserved a standing ovation

"What's up with you?" Xuan had whispered to me, while I was silently wishing the old piano would keel over and die before my mum could play another note.

"Nothing," I replied, though it came out more like 'muffih' — I was biting my knuckles so hard that it hurt.

Xuan's eyebrow twitched infinitesimally. "It's not that embarrassing, you know. She's a good player."

She evidently didn't recognise the piece. Why should she? She hadn't stared at it wide-eyed and breathless whenever she had the chance like me — she'd only seen it once, peering over my shoulder in the dressing rooms of New Look in Brighton. I almost said something, but my brain was so confused and full of angry thoughts that I knew I'd only bite her head off if I opened my mouth. So I just sat there, looking like a junkie with withdrawal symptoms, resisting the urge to jump onto the stage and tear the stupid score into a thousand tiny bits.

By the end of the concert I was in such a state that I didn't even stop to wait for Mum or Xuan to come back to the boarding house with me, I just went straight for the doors before the crowd could block my escape route.

Even the Bursar lurking just outside the doors didn't distract me. I didn't see who he was talking to — I didn't care at the time, though I'm beginning to regret that now — I just ran straight back to my room, crawled under my duvet with my laptop, and as soon as I've finished this blog post I'll go back to pretending it never happened.

Why didn't she tell me?