Free The Square by Rosie Millard Page A

before leaving. Patrick was dangling a bag from his hand.
    “Bought by Jane in one of her mad gardening schemes. Lost interest after about a week, ha ha! But I know you have an allotment. Would you like it? I’ll give you a trowel too, if you like.”
    She had slipped the trowel, its red unused blade and still shiny wooden handle, testifying that it had never been left out all night in a flower bed, into her coat pocket and awkwardly lugged the long, heavy plastic bag back home on the bus that night, slightly worried it might mix with petrol fumes and explode. Wasn’t that how the IRA used to make its bombs? Fertiliser and petrol? She’s not sure.
    Food before art.
    But that’s not true, she thinks, sitting at her upright, playing Bach’s Prelude No. 1 in C Major, the first of the Forty-Eight Preludes and Fuges. Art is food.
    She breaks off, notices her answerphone winking at her. She gets up from the stool, rewinds it. This machine is about to be as defunct as a typewriter, she notes. She’ll have to upgrade to something digital and seamless. She reaches the beginning of the tiny tape, presses Play.
    “Hello, Roberta, it’s Tracey here,” says Tracey. “Listen, Roberta, I need to talk to you about Belle. I’ve been thinking, well, she’s been thinking about her piano playing, and it’s sort of made me start thinking, about next term’s lessons. Can you call me please? Any time.”
    Roberta feels her stomach clench. She knows very well what that sort of message means. It means ‘my daughter is fed up with her lessons and wants to stop, and as I have done my parental duty to introduce her to the piano, I want to stop too.’ That’s the start.
    It is a piece in four movements. First, comes the theme. I want my child to stop learning. Then there are usually two variations on it. “Well, I’m not going to stand in her way, because the effort has become too great.” That’s the first variation. “Of course (laughs) we all know she will regret it when she is thirty, but that’s teenagers for you.” This is the second variation. “As Oscar Wilde probably never said, education is wasted on the young, ha ha, now thank you so much for all your hard work, really. Thanks so much, Roberta.”
    Finally, the coda. “Of course we will recommend you to all and sundry, you have been absolutely amaaazing, good night.” Exeunt, to rapturous applause and the scraping sound of a bank account, her own bank account, at rock bottom.
    No more Bach tonight. She tucks her hair behind her ears. She stretches her aching back. She pulls down the file above her piano, opens it. On it is a list of names each written carefully in a column. At the top of the page, a large heading:
    The Square. It’s the list of all her pupils. So far, there are no purple lines through the names. Parents in the Square do not want to deny their children piano lessons. If Tracey prevails, she will be the first to do it. And her move might encourage others.
    Roberta looks at the precious list of names. She thinks about Belle. Then she thinks about George. Boy George. Only a child, but with the singular cleverness and adult grace of the singleton.
    After his lesson last week he had lingered by the Blüthner grand, standing there in his shorts, his finger tracing the bright walnut grain with its shapes of skulls and berries.
    “Roberta.”
    “What is it?” she had said. “You did well today. Really well.”
    “I need your help.”
    She was slightly alarmed. Her relationship with George was uncomplicated, and this she found relaxing. What was the boy going to confess to her now?
    “You know there is to be a Talent Show here. Later on,” he eventually blurted out.
    Her first thought was simply marvelling at how this community will stop at nothing to proclaim how amazing it is in every way. Her second thought was one of genuine curiosity.
    “Oh, George, how fascinating. What will you show off to everyone?”
    George sighed mournfully.
    “Mother says