Chapter 61
FRASER
By the time Rachael and I have arrived at the back of the concert hall, Parker is already onstage.
She sees us, and I follow her gaze into the audience and to spare seats beside Maggie, Josh and our parents.
Given my brother’s intended inaction, and the fact that I am determined to protect my daughter from Ridges, this is one event that’s unlikely to go down the way Mum will want to retell it later.
Parker is in long sleeves, despite the warm evening.
She’s always in long sleeves lately, I realise with the benefit of hindsight and a pang of guilt.
You can only notice so much as a parent, Maggie said during a quick phone call in the car on the way here.
We’re on the lookout all the time for subtle signs that something might be wrong.
Are they eating properly? Are they being bullied?
Murphy’s Law says the one thing we didn’t check for, injured arms, is the first place we should have investigated.
AUDREY
Josh and I manage to fight our way through the parents milling about in the aisles and find Maggie and the rest of the family just before the lights go down.
I squeeze her hand. She’s not the hand-squeezing type; nevertheless, her other hand comes over mine in a moment of understood, silent solidarity.
Thanks for the call on the Harbour Bridge—
Thanks for rescuing things with Parker—
She’s not even aware that another rescue is imminent. Josh is a cat on a hot tin roof beside me, glancing around the room, looking for Ridges. Looking also, perhaps, at his adoring audience, as whispers of the presence of a famed international conductor spread through the auditorium.
FRASER
With Parker’s hands poised over the keyboard, I shoot a look at Josh and, beyond him, to the VIP seats.
‘We’re just going to let this happen?’ I whisper, fuming.
He looks panicked. This is the older brother I admired for all the years we were growing up. The man who sold out Audrey, and who looks with every passing second as though he’s about to sell out my daughter, too. All to protect his precious success.
AUDREY
I taught her this. Taking this moment to collect her thoughts.
Closing her eyes. Hearing the music in her head.
Willing it from her imagination onto the keyboard.
I can tell already, just by looking at the way she has stilled, and her presence, that she is about to channel this performance from elsewhere.
She may be thirteen, and those long sleeves might be covering a deeper story, but in this moment, she is sheer confidence.
I nudge Josh. He has seconds left to stop this. Seconds to redeem himself.
FRASER
In the face of my brother’s inertia, I prepare to take a stand myself. I put my hands on the armrests, ready to push myself to my feet, swoop in, and drag the prey from the predator.
But just as I get out of my seat, so does Parker. She moves away from the piano stool and takes the microphone from its stand, shaking.
‘Sorry,’ she starts. ‘Actually, no. I’m not sorry. My mum taught me girls are always apologising when they should be taking up more space. Let me start that again …’
AUDREY
‘Professor Ridges is here today,’ Parker begins, speaking into the mic. ‘He taught my stepmum at university, and she is also here.’
Maggie and I exchange a glance. I shake my head to convey that I had no idea Parker was going to mention me, nor any idea where this is going.
‘She’s the one who inspired me to chase this dream. So, Professor, I guess I owe you, because you taught her.’
There is a sickening round of applause. Parker only has half the story! It’s like watching a train crash …
FRASER
‘My stepmum passed away three years ago,’ she says, as Rach takes my hand discreetly. ‘She died still chasing her dream. In fact, she was killed on her way to help me, and I’ve spent three years trying to think of a way to—’
She looks right at Joshua now. He seems trapped in his seat, and in this tower that he’s built, where he’s climbed so high he’s beyond the reach of his entire family.
‘My uncle knew my stepmum at university. He saved tons of videos from their time composing and recording in the studio together and sent them to me soon after she died, so I’d feel like I still had her with me.’
AUDREY
‘So, sorry for the last-minute programming change, but instead of playing my own composition today, I want to play you one of hers. Date-stamped eighteen years ago. Especially for you, Professor.’
FRASER
Beamed on the screen is footage I’ve never seen of Audrey and Josh, laughing in the studio together, experimenting with chords and melodies, drinking coffee and writing, before Audrey finally settles down to play.
My heart pounds at visual evidence of what I’ve always known—that their creative bond was electric. Beside me, Josh has frozen.
AUDREY
I know exactly the piece I’m about to play in the video. This was the moment I first played it for Josh. It’s the moment I improvised it. He is staring at the screen, mouth slack, as if he can’t believe he sent Parker this recording.
We watch as I play the opening lines, creative imagination sparked.
I’ve never seen it from the outside in—my breathlessness.
The flash of inspiration across my face.
But a few lines in, Parker has edited the video.
The music soars, but the visuals transition from me playing the piece for Josh to Ridges performing it at one of his acclaimed performances at the Sydney Opera House.
FRASER
There is a confused and increasingly horrified hush in the audience while the final notes reverberate, the acoustics delivering a slam dunk as Parker’s editing lands on a still shot of Ridges’ album cover, the track circled, his name credited.
‘I have written an original composition this week,’ she says, looking straight at their patron, who looks on the verge of apoplexy. ‘But I am not playing it in front of you.’
AUDREY
The lights come up. There’s an extraordinarily uncomfortable pause while Ridges, ashen, clambers to his feet with intent to remove himself from the auditorium, career in tatters.
‘Professor Ridges, as I’m sure you know from the stacks of research you’ve done on this topic, plagiarism is a criminal offence,’ Parker continues as the people on either side of him block his exit from the aisle.
‘I was going to call the police ahead but didn’t know if they’d listen to a thirteenyearold girl, so if the security guards could just barricade the doors, maybe one of the five hundred adult witnesses in the room could make the call? Audrey?’
I stand up, Joshua sinking further into his seat, and pull out my phone to make undoubtedly the most satisfying call of my life.
Every adult rises to their feet after I’ve audibly requested police presence, and Ridges is escorted from the auditorium in disgrace, having to push himself through a unanimous standing ovation for the child who tore him down.
Our child. The one we are all so concerned about, whose welfare has kept us awake since the day she lost her dad. Will she survive this loss? Is it going to ruin her life? And here she is, clever, radiant, courageous—standing up for herself in a way that none of us could.
FRASER
‘I think she’ll be all right,’ Maggie says, turning to hug me, wiping tears from her eyes, actively sobbing, in public, in a way that she’s never done. ‘Self-harm can be linked to a lack of control. But look how much control she just took back …’
‘Maggie, just this once, forget you’re a psychiatrist? Just be her mother. Isn’t she incredible?’
Earlier tonight, I’d gone deep into a panic that life had been too much for Parker. That the divorce and losing Audrey had caused irrevocable damage. That the big picture of it all had ruined her. Now it seems the resilience she was forced into has done the opposite. It has emboldened her.
‘Fraser, did you know about this?’ Mum asks. ‘Did you, Josh?’ ‘I had a suspicion,’ Dad confesses, red-faced, looking at my brother. ‘I remember you mumbling something when you rolled in from a night out with the music faculty years ago, back when everyone thought Audrey was the problem.’
‘And you never said anything?’ I ask him, freshly angered. No, of course he didn’t. Heaven forbid our father stand up for something.
‘Looking back, there’s a lot I should have said …’
Mum has tears in her eyes. ‘It felt like you left me out on a ledge with the boys,’ she explains to Dad. ‘I did the best I could on my own.’
Freshly terrified about the self-harm, I finally understand where she has been coming from all this time, and I pull her into my arms.
‘I was scared to death one of you would fall,’ she whispers into my ear, holding me tighter than she ever has. ‘If it had been you, I believed you would fly.’
‘Parker Miller,’ the announcer begins, restarting the concert over an hour later, after an unprogrammed, extensive intermission during which it was decided the kids should still have their chance to perform. ‘Welcome back to the stage.’
There’s more applause, wilder than anything I’ve ever heard for Josh.
‘I think you’ll agree, this talented young woman deserves another moment in the sun.’
The audience won’t stop.
‘Parker, on behalf of your fellow students and the parents, we would like to extend our deepest gratitude. You and your peers are some of this country’s most talented emerging composers, songwriters and performers.
Also, clearly, some of the most vulnerable.
What you did tonight took enormous courage.
You’ve exposed someone in a position of power over you, knowing you risked your own path. ’
Josh can’t look up.
‘I’m sure that all institutions with which Professor Ridges has had an association will be asked to provide full cooperation in the unfolding investigation. We will keep parents updated in due course. But for now, Parker, you can safely play whatever you’d like.’
The second her fingers strike the keyboard, three years of music avoidance simply evaporates. I’m entranced. She is so alive onstage—so light and hopeful and liberated—it barely seems possible she’s wrestling such torment, or maybe that’s exactly why she’s expressing herself so beautifully.
And I have been blocking this at home, all this time. Not letting her play. Keeping her quiet. Protecting myself from reminders of Audrey. Pushing her to find other ways to let out her emotions.
Ironically, the way she’s playing now seeps into my veins like it has been me bleeding out, and this tune is a transfusion. This is the music I mentioned in the eulogy. The music I longed to be able to listen for again. It’s been the medicine, all along, and I’ve been avoiding it.
My thoughts are overrun by a second standing ovation.
As I get to my feet with tears of pride streaming down my cheeks and she takes another bow, I can’t wait to lavish her in music.
I want to race home with her and throw open the lid of Audrey’s piano—I want it to be her piano and for her to play it as much and as late and as loudly as she dares.