Free Interpreters by Sue Eckstein

mother, a pause, the equally muffled answer from my father, the footsteps receding, the study door shutting, the TV going on. Cilla. Anyone who had a heart.
    Sometimes, I would wake up in the night to the sound of my parents arguing and come and lie here, curled up in a little ball, my nightie pulled taut over my feet, envying Max as, safe in his cupboard, he slept through my mother’s shouting and my father’s silent response.
    ‘They all treat me the same. Like I’m the enemy. Your mother, the whole lot of them,’ I once heard her cry out, her voice hoarse with despair. ‘Well, don’t they? Why don’t you ever support me? Why aren’t you ever on my side?’
    ‘What, dear?’
    What, dear . I don’t think I ever once heard my father use my mother’s name. It was as though she didn’t have a name. The few friends of mine or Max’s who met her called her Mrs Rosenthal, my grandmother called her your mother and we called her Mum – and that was that.
    On Thursday afternoons, we were banished to this landing with a packet of Bourbon biscuits. We used to sit on the top step, nibbling away at the dense chocolate filling as we listened to Schumann’s Kinderszenen or the Moonlight Sonata , interspersed with the piano teacher’s sporadic words of encouragement. After an hour or so, my mother would open the frosted glass door and we’d be called downstairs for our own lessons. I hated the piano but loved the piano teacher. Mr Elliot was an old man – he told me he was fifty-four – and reminded me of the doctor in Brief Encounter – a film that Max and I had yawned our way through one rainy afternoon some time before the advent of our own matinee idol.
    For the love of Mr Elliot, with his dark brown slicked-back hair and his hazel eyes that disappeared into a mass ofcrinkles when he smiled, I struggled hopelessly with bass clefs, treble clefs, minims and quavers. I did everything I could to make sure he would never realise that I couldn’t make any sense whatsoever of the symbols on the sheets of music that he placed in front of me unless I’d first heard the piece played through a few times.
    ‘All right, Julia. What about a new piece? This one looks a lot of fun. “In Grandmother’s Garden”. Just two notes for the left hand to worry about and the right hand’s playing the tune. It’s in four four and don’t forget the F sharp here and here. Right. Off you go.’
    ‘Mr Elliot?’
    ‘Yes, Julia?’
    ‘How many times have you seen The Sound of Music ?’
    ‘Just the once. What about you?’
    ‘Three times. Sarah Woodley in my class has seen it seven times.’
    ‘Good gracious. All those singing nuns and stormtroopers. Now, let’s start with the left hand.’
    ‘I’d quite like to be a nun.’
    ‘Would you?’
    ‘I’d like to give all my things to the poor and wear a wimpole.’
    ‘I’m not sure many nuns wear wimples these days but I’m sure you’d look very fetching in one. Now, Julia – the left hand starts on a G. This G.’
    ‘Mr Elliot?’
    ‘Yes, Julia?’
    ‘What’s your favourite kind of torture?’
    ‘Torture?’
    ‘Yes. You know – like being rolled down a hill in a barrel full of nails or having a tap dripping on to your head for years and years, or one of those racks where they turn the handles until your arms and legs come right out of their sockets and fall on to the floor.’
    ‘I think I’d go for the barrel full of nails. I tell you what, why don’t I play this through for you a couple of times before you start? You count me in.’
    Max – who also loved Mr Elliot, though perhaps not quite as passionately – took it all very seriously and learned very quickly, before transferring his allegiance to the violin, if not the violin teacher.
    When Mr Elliot was in the house, everything felt different. The house took on a festive, party atmosphere. My mother laughed. We all laughed. Quite often he would stay for tea.
    ‘Come again tomorrow!’ Max and I would beg as