Mum’s Music Box

A woman recalls a year of change in this moving short story by Meg Stokes.

She was starting a new life, and Susan wondered how much this little ballerina had to do with it . . .

SUSAN stood in the middle of the empty room and breathed in the scent of her childhood. “Have you got everything, love?” her husband called up the stairs.

So much had happened in the last year to bring her to this moment that she could hardly believe it.

Memories flooded back as she stood there, watching dust motes dancing in the beams of sunlight.

Susan had been dancing, moving en pointe across the stage, her arms like wings arcing and folding around her, showing the agony of the dying swan.

As she sank to the ground, the music had continued, a persistent tinkling noise that now caused her to frown and stir.

She opened her eyes. The thin curtains let in the grey dawn light. She was lying on her own bed in her own room, and yet she could still hear the music.

She lay for a moment, listening, then, with a sigh, got out of bed.

She crossed the landing and paused for a moment at the door of what had been her mother’s room, before quietly going in.

The music stopped. On the dressing table the music box was open and the ballerina was frozen in position, her arms splayed out in an eternal pose.

Susan gently closed the lid.

“This is the third time?” Karen leaned across the café table, concern written on her face.

“Yes, it is rather odd,” Susan replied.

“Odd?” Karen’s voice rose in pitch. “I’ll say it’s odd. Positively spooky.”

She took a sip of her coffee.

“You don’t think it’s your mum trying to contact you, do you?”

Susan smiled.

“No, I don’t believe in that stuff. Anyway, it’s far more likely that the catch is loose.

“I bought it for Mum as a present one Mother’s Day, years ago.”

“And what about the music?”

There was silence for a moment.

“That will be from whatever dream I’ve been having, I suppose,” Susan said eventually.

“You know how you sometimes wake up still with a dream in your head.”

“Three times, though?” Karen raised her eyebrows.

“Anyway, are you all set for the big move yet?” Susan deftly changed the subject.

“More or less,” Karen replied. “Just a few things to sort out now. “I can’t believe we’ll be in Wales this time next week.”

She paused.

“Are you going to be OK?”

“Absolutely,” Susan assured her friend.

Karen sighed.

“If it wasn’t for Bill’s job . . .”

“I know, I know, Karen. You’ve got to go. I’ll be fine, honestly.”

“Why don’t you try to get out in the evenings? You know, maybe classes and such?” Karen suggested.

“I’m sure there are lots of different things you could try and it’s a good way to meet people,” she added.

“You might even meet someone nice.”

Susan gave a rueful smile.

“That ship sailed a long time ago, I think.” She pushed back her chair. “I really fancy some of that chocolate cake. Would you like some?”

Karen shook her head, so Susan joined the long queue at the counter.

She would be all right without her best friend. She would have to be. Yet Karen had been such a good friend to her both before and during her mother’s final illness, that she knew she would miss her terribly.

Skype and FaceTime just weren’t the same as having a good old natter over a cup of tea.

The queue moved slowly forward as she thought back over the years.

As an only child, it had seemed the natural thing to stay at home and take care of her parents as they aged.

Perhaps that was oldfashioned in this day and age, but she was oldfashioned and she didn’t care who knew it.

Relationships had come and gone, and once, after her dad had died, she had even become engaged.

But as soon as Harry realised that her mother had to be included in their future plans, it hadn’t taken him very long to tell her that he had changed his mind about the marriage.

The house felt so empty without her mother’s presence.

Sometimes she would hear a noise and look up, expecting her to come through the door – forgetting for a moment.

Occasionally, she thought she caught sight of her out

of the corner of her eye, wearing the red silk blouse she had loved.

Karen was right: she should look into evening classes. At least it would get her out of the house.

Susan had given up her job as her mother’s illness had worsened, and now she just about managed on a small pension.

The evenings were definitely the loneliest time of the day.

“A piece of chocolate cake, please,” she said to the young woman behind the counter.

Later that week, Susan dropped into the library, had a chat with her excolleagues, then perused the noticeboard.

Flyers and posters littered the board, advertising various classes and courses.

Yoga, plumbing, carpentry, photography, guitar . . .

Susan read through them, hoping to find something she could feel enthusiastic about.

A DIY course might be useful, but did she want something so practical?

No, she wanted something to take her out of herself – an escape from the everyday.

Hmm . . . French for beginners. She might try that.

Swiftly, she jotted down the venue and the times, then hurried home.

The course was held in a classroom of the local secondary school.

When she got to the door, Susan held back for a moment and let other people enter in front of her.

The last person went in and the door closed, but Susan still stood in the corridor.

What if she made a fool of herself?

The last time she had studied French had been at school, and that was an eternity ago.

Maybe she wouldn’t be able to do it?

Oh, get a grip, Susan, this isn’t like you at all, she chastised herself.

She opened the door and went in.

“It was all about verbs and conjugations,” Susan told Karen on the phone later. “I’d assumed it would be conversational. So, no, it didn’t suit me.”

“Well, don’t give up,” Karen urged her. “I’m sure you’ll find something you’ll enjoy.

“Have you had any more problems with the music box?”

Susan hesitated for a moment.

“Just once last week,” she admitted slowly. “The same thing, really. It’s just the catch, I’m sure.”

Neither said anything more for a few seconds.

“I do worry about you,” Karen said eventually.

“Well, you mustn’t. I’ll be fine . . . I am fine.”

That night, for the first time in weeks, Susan slept well.

Yet, at three a.m., once more she woke to the sound of “Swan Lake”.

Was it in her head? No, she could definitely hear it.

As she turned the handle and entered her mother’s room, again the music stopped abruptly.

The ballerina on the dressing table was lit by a beam of moonlight – frozen in the pale, unearthly light.

Susan closed the lid. She remembered her mother’s pleasure when she had opened the gift.

“Oh, ‘Swan Lake’, my favourite ballet!” she had exclaimed on hearing the music.

She had taken Susan’s hand and they had danced round the room.

But, over many years, the mechanism had become worn and now it no longer played. So how could she hear it?

She looked around the empty room, at the empty hook where her mother’s dressing gown had hung, at the empty bed.

Oh, Mum, I miss you so much, she thought.

There was a pottery class on Wednesday evenings at the village hall, and so, willing to give evening classes another try, Susan went along.

It was something she had never attempted, although she had seen many people throwing pots on TV.

It doesn’t look that difficult, she thought.

There were only two absolute beginners, so Susan and a pleasant man about her own age, called David, were paired together for the evening.

After a demonstration, they were encouraged to try their hand at two adjacent wheels.

It was much harder than Susan had anticipated and she struggled to get the clay centred.

David, however, seemed to have got the knack and Susan watched as he slowly began to draw the clay up into the shape of a vase.

In fact, she was so preoccupied watching him that she forgot about her own clay which, left to its own devices on the accelerating wheel, whipped off and landed with a thump on the table.

Maybe pottery wasn’t going to be her thing, she thought to herself.

When they had a break for a cup of tea, David came and sat beside her.

They discussed why they had come to the class, and Susan found herself admitting that it was partly to fill her evenings.

“I know all about that,” David replied. “I’m divorced and recently retired, so my daughter is determined I have to make the most of my retirement instead of ‘mooching around the house’, as she puts it.

“This pottery is fun, but my real love is golf. Do you play?”

Susan opened her mouth to reply, but David had already carried on to relate, in excruciating detail, a game he had played a month ago when he had nearly hit a hole in one.

As his voice droned on, in a way, Susan was quite pleased. It had saved her from being tempted to talk about her mother’s death.

Her loss was so personal, so raw, still, that in some ways she felt it was like a small betrayal to talk about it with a stranger.

She wondered if that was a normal part of grief.

It didn’t matter; it was how she felt.

At the end of his monologue, David excused himself, got up and went to join a conversation with two other group members.

She had loved ballet lessons as a child

Susan quietly took off her apron and went home.

She decided to give evening classes a miss for a while.

The following week, the incidents with the music box increased.

Four times the music woke Susan, then stopped when she went into her mother’s room to find the lid of the music box open yet again.

Perhaps she ought to take it to a jeweller to see if he could fix the problem.

On Saturday she went back to the library to return her books.

It was on her way out that she noticed that one of the posters had fallen off the noticeboard and was lying face down on the floor.

Tutting to herself, she picked it up and began to fix it back in place.

Maybe it was because the music-box incidents were on her mind, but her eye caught the line Adult Ballet Classes.

She read on.

Adult ballet classes were being held in the hall of the primary school near to where she lived.

All welcome, it said.

Wear soft shoes.

A spark of excitement ignited within her.

She had loved ballet lessons as a child.

Maybe she would

give it one more try. What did she have to lose?

She would buy ballet shoes, she thought as she began her walk home.

Use the right tools for the job, her mother used to say, and you won’t go far wrong.

A few days later, her pink ballet shoes in a bag, she walked to the school.

As she reached the entrance door, it opened outwards and a man barrelled into her, knocking the bag to the ground.

“Oh, I’m really sorry!” he cried, picking up the bag and dusting it off.

He looked at the bag. “Are you going to the ballet class?”

“Yes,” she replied with a smile.

Dark hair, lightly streaked with grey, fell across his forehead above warm, brown eyes.

“I was going to go,” he admitted, “but now I’m here, I’m not too sure about it.

“Crazy, isn’t it?”

“Not really,” Susan replied.

“I felt like that the first time I went to a French class, but I’m pleased I did try it.”

“Well,” he said, “if you’re going, then I’ll go, too. At least I’ll know somebody now.

“I’m Ralph,” he added with a grin.

“Susan.”

He opened the door for her and they made their way down a corridor lined with brightly coloured displays towards the school hall.

As they got nearer they could hear the sound of a piano.

Ralph stopped and closed his eyes.

“Listen,” he said. “‘Swan Lake’, my favourite ballet.”

A tingle went down Susan’s spine as she recognised her mother’s words.

“I’m just coming!” Susan shouted back down the stairs.

After she had met Ralph there were no more musical dreams, nor nightly experiences of the music box.

Perhaps it had played its part, or perhaps the catch had finally just remained shut.

It didn’t really matter what you believed, Susan thought, but meeting Ralph had changed her life and now her old home was up for sale.

He, too, had suffered heartbreak and loss, so they understood one another perfectly.

She picked up the music box and took a final look around the room.

“Thanks, Mum,” she whispered.

The End.