Pier Pressure 
Pier Pressure
by Sara Todd
Staying at my daughter's house I realise how used I am to my bungalow where everything is on one level. At Jenna's house there are stairs everywhere. There are four tiny storeys on four levels and even the garden is accessed by a fire escape. As I run up the fire escape to collect the garden shears my breath is short and my heart palpitates.
I am on another staircase. At the top is a young man with a curly mop of dark brown hair. He has a shiny maplewood violin, along with the bow in the same hand and is fastening his trousers with the other hand. 'Sorry I'm late,' I say. I've run all the way across campus.'
'It gave me 20 minutes extra to practice. Look what I bought today when I went into Brighton.' James shows me a LP box set with brightly coloured artwork by Kandinsky and 'Messiaen' written across the bottom in black letters. I groan inwardly. Messaien is one of the many twentieth-century composers I don't understand.
'Have you got those shears yet Mum?' Jenna calls.
I catch a glimpse of my hand on the rail, as I make my way back down to her garden. It is wrinkled and age-spotted with raised, thick blue veins.
James and I lie in the music practice rooms and listen to the new Messalen records. It is completely dark. We kiss. 'I love your hands. Your fingers so long and smooth. From all that piano playing I guess,' he laughs. I say nothing, reflecting that our tutor has told me my piano playing is 'infantile'. When the last record is finished, I walk over to the Steinway and play Bach's sixth Prelude. Violet, whose playing is 'superior' can play the Fugues. I begin the sixth Fugue and give up after three bars. James plays one of the cello suites on his violin. As he plays he walks around. He even walks towards me, playing his violin and looking me straight in the eyes. He is dressed in black, as always.
We go back to his room. His record collection covers an entire wall and his music book collection the other. He has pinned black cloths on the remaining two walls and on the ceiling. The sombre mood is completed by a black bedspread. 'It's such a shame you missed Jonathan's lecture on the Avant-Garde.' James is unusually animated. 'I'll tell you what I remember...' I sit on his bed, trying to look interested. Secretly, I am hoping for another kiss. Instead I get an out-of-hours seminar. I go home at three, my head spinning and still no kiss. That is what it was like with James. No sign of him for two weeks and then he would have you up half the night chatting away.
'Are you going to prune that rosebush or just stare into space with your shears open?' asks Jenna, annoyed. I take a snip at the 'Wedding Day' rose.
I am lying in my room when I hear the sound of pebbles at the window. It is 2am. James is staring in my window, wild-eyed. His hair is tied in a ponytail, so he looks rather like Mozart. Some of his locks have escaped and stand at gravity-defying angles from his head. 'Come for a swim,' he urges. It is November. I throw on a sweatshirt.
At the ornamental pond he takes off his shoes and socks. He rolls up his trousers. He puts his horse-hair violin bow in his mouth and wades in. Standing in the pond he begins the Mozart violin concerto in B flat, the moon illuminating one side of his face. The water at his feet sends ripples to the sides of the pond, distorting his moon shadow. I stand in wonderment as the haunting notes pierce the silent campus and resonate in my chest. After a few minutes of playing he is shivering violently and it is then the security guard appears.
I am back in my bed but I can't sleep. Two security guards have hauled James out of the pond and a third escorted me back to my halls. Now I can hear the sound of an altercation outside the practice rooms and I'm not sure if it is James.
At about 6 am, I'm woken by the blue flash of an ambulance light. Each time the circling light passes my window, the blue illuminates the objects in my room. I kneel on the side of my bed and look out the window.
Two ambulancemen have James and they are strapping him to a stretcher at the door to the ambulance. James is singing something in German, Mahler perhaps, seemingly oblivious to the arm restraints. But as they put the stretcher in the ambulance, he stops singing and starts crying out my name, 'A-nn-a, A—nn—aa, A—nnn‑aaa... And the vehicle has pulled away out of sight.
'Mum, M-u-m, Mum! There'll be nothing left of that rose by the time you've finished with it,' Jenna snaps. I turn to look at her and see her face change as she registers my tears.