We’re pleased to announce the winner of the March WWWC: Kristin Murdock! Kristin’s response to the prompt ‘hands up’ is a haunting and sad story about the way that trauma affects us. In Kristin’s winning story, ‘The Broken Pedal’, a mother haunted by her past behaves strangely in the present.
Read Kristin’s winning entry below.
The Broken Pedal
2022
Jane’s skin prickled as soon as she saw him.
Nara slipped from the back seat of the car, bare legs sliding across hot vinyl. The heat was oppressive. Typical late summer in Australia where the air, even this early, burned along nostrils.
The young girl hoisted her school bag over one shoulder with an exaggerated sigh and didn’t glance backward as she slammed the door. Yesterday, Jane had bought the used green and yellow bag from the school’s book room, not meeting the eyes of the volunteer who welcomed them to Smith Street High.
Second school for the year already. Getting an early jump on last year’s total of seven.
No point buying anything new, but at least the school logo gave Nara a sense of belonging amongst the crowds of kids and square, brown buildings. It helped her blend in, be anonymous.
Jane gripped the steering wheel, willing this to be true.
It was hard running from shadows, especially when they were in your own mind. Jane had spent years, almost a lifetime, attempting to do just that.
These days Nara detested the constant change. Where once she viewed it as an adventure, her recent slide into adolescence had turned their regular moves into another thing she resented. Jane’s shoulders slumped. She couldn’t blame her.
Nara, tanned and gangly, was swallowed up by the door to the administration building. Jane searched for the other figure – tall, bearded, stocky. Thin fingers wiped sweat from her brow. He had gone through the same door. Probably a teacher. Probably perfectly fine.
1997
If felt like forever that she had been watching tiny yellow birds frozen in flight on the busy wallpaper of the hallway, seconds counted by booming ticks from a wooden grandfather clock. Her bare legs swung restlessly, almost long enough for her black school shoes to skim the floral woollen carpet. The wooden door at the end of the hallway opened slowly.
‘Jane, it’s time for your lesson.’
Jane gripped a leather satchel in her small hand. Inside the bag was her new piano theory book, five blank lines repeated along each page, waiting to be filled with squiggles and circles that could be turned into music. It was like magic. Jane had pestered her parents for two years to take piano lessons. And now, here she was with the best teacher in town – Mr Positano.
He was almost 40, Jane had heard her mother say, and been playing piano since he was five. Though to Jane 40 seemed very old to still be playing piano, she wasn’t about to give up the chance she had begged so long for. Mr Positano had travelled around the world and played on stage. A genius. They were lucky he had squeezed Jane in.
She looked up at her piano tutor. He was tall – though most everyone was tall to Jane. And he was wide as well, at his hips and chest with his waist cinched in by a leather belt. He resembled a double bass rather than his chosen instrument.
‘Nice to meet you,’ he said, a small smile twitching his fleshy lips. He ran long fingers though the thatch of dark beard that covered his chin. ‘Please come in.’
2022
Jane turned the car from the Smith Street High parking lot, joining the crawling traffic of morning rush hour. Her mind was travelling a different path, one she hadn’t ventured down since they left the last school. New locations usually refreshed and distracted Jane’s thoughts. Having to remember new guidelines and school rules – it settled the unsteady space in her mind that consistently threatened to drift.
It usually took more time for the door to the past to open, its dark shadows reaching out to clutch at her with caustic fingers, burning the shroud she tried valiantly to keep in place. Could this sudden regression signify something? Was Nara in danger?
Turning on to a side road, Jane considered a quick U-turn, but a vision of Nara’s disgusted expression if she came back changed her mind. A familiar black and orange logo leapt at the corner of her eye, dragging her vision to the left.
She entered the drive-through just as the attendant was opening up, a rising door revealing rows of bottles. He didn’t seem surprised that someone would be making a purchase so early in the morning. Jane thanked him and searched her the maps app on her phone for the closest park.
1997
Mr Positano was expensive. Jane’s dad joked that the ‘s’ in his name should be a dollar sign. Jane didn’t miss pride in her father’s eyes though, when her normally clumsy fingers found all the right notes. It was only her right hand initially – treble, as she’d learned – but each small tip found the white keys without clipping another. Every night after school, notes hung in the air of their spare room where the second-hand piano was sandwiched between a filing cabinet and bookcase.
Every lesson, Mr Positano smelled of peppermint and cigarettes.
‘Keep your fingers arched,’ he said kindly when Jane’s small hands began to tire of finding the right notes. He smiled as he leaned over and pointed to a tiny circle on the page ‘That’s a semibreve, Jane.’
‘We hold that for four beats,’ Jane said.
Mr Positano’s beard was skimming her shoulder, its rough hairs tickling bare skin. She heard him swallow loudly.
‘I’m very proud of you Jane,’ he said.
2022
It was hot in the park, the shade of the eucalyptus tree serving little purpose. But extremes of weather had always been good for Jane. You couldn’t help but feel something. Hot or cold; at least it was something.
It was one of those still, silent days where every sound clung to the sultry air.
And, as fate would have it, as Jane finished her second swig of vodka, someone in a nearby house began playing the piano. Every note landed like an explosion.
1997
There was something wrong with Mr Positano.
The smell of mint and cigarettes was present, but there was another aroma in the mix as he leant over Jane to point at the sheet music. Was it medicine?
Jane was used to his beard touching her skin and had learnt to hold her breath until it moved away. But today, when his breath was hot on her ear, his words were unclear.
‘You are my best student Jane,’ he said, words stumbling and falling into each other. ‘Keep playing,’ he urged.
Uncertain fingers sought out the keys, ones that she found without an issue at home.
‘Stop, stop,’ Mr Positano said. ‘There’s something wrong with the pedals.’
He bent his double bass body and knelt down on one knee. Jane flicked her feet far back from the three gold pedals that she could only just touch. They weren’t even up to using pedals yet, so what could be wrong?
She froze. Mr Positano’s hand brushed her leg on the tapestry-topped piano stool as he eased himself to the floor. Suddenly his breath was elsewhere.
2022
Jane knew she was stumbling, almost careering into an indoor plant in the administration building. She demanded to know what class Nara was in.
The middle-aged office woman was taken aback, her hand on the phone before Jane even exited the building.
Nara’s look of disgust as Jane dragged her from the class only matched the consternation on the teacher’s face. He was stocky and bearded – the man she had seen earlier. Now she could see he was younger than she originally thought, and clearly stunned by her intrusion.
He tried to talk to Jane, but she wasn’t about to fall for that or let him anywhere close. She had saved Nara again.
1998
Jane bit at her lip.
‘He put his hands up,’ she started, words quivering and a traitorous tear bouncing on her cheek.
‘Up what, dear?’ A policewoman sat opposite them, calm and smiling. There was a smudge of pink lipstick on one tooth.
‘He put his hands up my dress,’ Jane said finally.
Her Mum was there. Dad too. And now she had wasted their money. Mr Positano had stopped taking piano lessons. It was all her fault.
Jane had refused to practice at first, hoping that would make her parents cancel her lessons. But they had paid in advance – a whole year.
She had waited a long time to tell them; past her birthday and Christmas and their March camping trip. Every night she had prayed Mr Positano would fix that pedal.
2022
Nara slumped against the passenger side door, her latest school bag discarded in the back seat. She was less angry than resigned. Long ago she had learned that this running race had no finish line.
Wonderful writing, Kristin. Engaged from the start. Love the transition from child to adult. Sad story about the impact of cruel actions by people you trust.