I played piano for a little while this afternoon. Erik Satie's Gnossiennes. Sparse, jerky, sad pieces of music. They fit the autumnal day. It has been foggy for days. The park opposite our limestone townhouse is empty, except for occasional dog walkers. Wet leaves lie in the gutter. I like days like this. It's comfortably sad and rich in atmosphere. Potent with drowsy possibilities.
James, our lodger comes into the room. I slow down but don't entirely stop playing. I crane my neck round to him and ask if my playing is bothering him. He says no, he loves Satie and asks me to continue. I know he likes Satie, I've heard him playing recordings of his work.
I heard the familiar creak of the settee behind me as James sits down.
He doesn't speak. He doesn't need to. We have known each other for a long time. He is like an older brother to me. He is a musician and a friend of my dad's. He moved into our basement a few years ago. His longterm relationship ended (she left him) and he was in a bad place. Dad had been doing up our basement with the idea of renting it out and James needed somewhere to stay. He's been here ever since.
We've always gotten along well. I think because I'm musical. Maybe he put up with me when I was younger because I was his landlord's kid, but he always seemed happy to see me and had time for me. I think he saw himself in me.
I'm sixteen now and he treats me more like an equal than his landlords daughter. He plays his music for me and genuinely seeks my opinion. I can actually give him a few tips on chord progressions or phrasing from time to time and he nods thoughtfully and takes my opinions onboard. He sees me as another musician.
His career isn't what it once was. I wouldn't say he was ever famous, but he teetered around the edges. One of his records went gold I think. That was back in the eighties. He writes too. He's frighteningly clever, but grew up in a bad housing estate and drifted away from school. He wrote a novel a few years ago but never let anyone read it as he was really dissatisfied with it.
I live in a house full of men. I don't mind it. I like being queen bee. James lives in the basement, my dad, me and my older brother Brodie live up here. My twin brother Jacob comes and goes. He lives with my mum and stepdad Graham in St Cyrus. Mum and Graham both teach at Grays art school in Aberdeen. Jacob is a natural artist. He is following in mum's footsteps and gets on well with Graham.
Me and mum have always had a tempestuous relationship. Well, since I came home from school early and caught her in bed with Graham. Soon after she announced she was leaving dad and taking me and Jacob with her to live in a shitty little village in the middle of nowhere. I rebelled hard against this. I would get on the bus for school in the morning but go to the train station instead and head back to Glasgow. I was awful to mum and Graham. I was pretty awful to Jacob as well, even though I love him more than anyone in the world. I felt betrayed by him at how he got on with Graham rather than despising him.
I just wanted to live in my own house, sleep in my own bed, with my own family. Coming to terms with my family having disintegrated was hard, I had to do it on the other side of the country living with a strange man. I was filled with unimaginable rage at this injustice. Nobody asked me what I wanted. I was lifted up out of my own life and plonked down into another one I didn't want and told to get used to it.
After much anger and tears on my part I finally persuaded my dad to let me stay. My mum was heartbroken. I wasn't choosing between my parents. I still wanted to live with both of them, despite my fury at my mum. I just wanted to live in my house. I wasn't angry with dad and kind of wanted to look after him. Brodie was there but he spent most of the time with his girlfriend Laura. We all know divorce is hard on kids as it inevitably separates them from one of their parents, but this had an added layer of hurt as it was separating siblings.
James moved in not long after this. I'd heard of him before he moved in. I knew he was a musician, he had bought stuff from my dad's music shop. I had heard some of his songs. I though having a lodger would be good for us financially. I really didn't give it any thought beyond that.
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Mum was brought up in Fife, in a small town near the south coast. Her family owned a bakery and it was expected that she would work there and take over when her parents retired. She didn't have a brother to carry on the family name. My mum balked against this. A primary school activity of rubbings wax crayons on sheets of papers over coins led her to a nearby graveyard to try the same trick over the weathered headstones. The experience was revelatory and she decided there and then she was going to be an artist no matter what her parents wanted. My mum is a head strong redhead. She clashed with her old fashioned father who felt she had ideas above her station. Mum felt her station in life is wherever she wanted to go. Her own mother just wanted to keep the peace, which meant telling her do what her father told her.
Mum realised shutting up was the best course of action and clutched her dreams tightly to her chest. She had an ally in an aunt who she went to live with after she finished school. She worked in the bakery, saved every penny she could and one day just never came back. My great aunt Moira helped mum apply to art school and sort out everything she needed. Mum basically had to run away from home to go to art school. She has hardly spoken to her father since and we've only met our grandparents a few times. I couldn't tell you much about them.
Dad grew up in a housing estate in Glasgow in a large catholic family. I used to think he had loads of siblings because of the Pope, but then I realised contraception just wasn’t a thing back then. He has three sisters and two brothers, but the youngest one died. One of the sisters lives in Australia now, which is as good as dying.
He was bright and creative, as were all his family but they were thwarted by a lack of opportunity. Granddad played the fiddle and accordian and granny has a lovely singing voice. Grandad worked in a factory for years, survived redundancies, was made redundant, striked, scrabbled for work elsewhere, found other jobs to barely get by.
Dad became a carpenter. Boys like him went into trades. He took a special interest in musical instruments, particularly guitars. When Glasgow was European City of Culture in 199o Dad got a small arts grant and a business grant and was able to become a full time guitar maker, musical instrument mender and opened a guitar shop in town.
He had a decent amount of success early on and has built a good reputation. We were able to move up in the world from a scuzzy estate to middle class slightly boho area.
Mum and dad met when mum was in her last year at art school. In a bar I think. They hit it off really quickly, because Brodie was born not much more than a year later. Mum had only just finished art school. She couldn't find work after she graduated because she was too pregnant. You can see her bump in the wedding photos. I think everyone was pregnant when they got married back then though. You can tell my parents were really in love though. I think my dad still is on love with her. He hasn't been out with any body else since she left.
When mum was pregnant with me and Jacob she wasn't very well. I imagine having twins must be extremely hard work. She had to spend a long time on bedrest and was bored out of her mind. She read quite a lot and got into Virginia Woolf. That's why my parents named me Virginia. She read Jacob's Room as well and that's why my twin brother is called Jacob. Looking back maybe it planted seeds in my mum's head to leave. Virginia Woolf said women need a room of one's own. Mum was lumbered with three kids and I know she wanted to work. It's not like she left us to be single or childfree or anything. She left with another man. One day when I've worked up the courage I'll ask her.
It was important to my parents that Brodie, Jacob and me follow our dreams. Jacob has always wanted to be a painter, nothing else. Brodie is studying architecture at university (much parental pride. I have always been the musical one. My main instrument is piano. I also play guitar and violin. I haven't played my violin for a while come to think of it. It's an instrument that requires regular practise otherwise it sounds like a having it's bollocks scraped down a blackboard.
I'm not sure what I can achieve now. Everything was going well until I hit a fork in the road. A couple of setbacks could ruin my dreams.