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I glare at the piano keys, a lump of fetid anger in my chest, bile in my lungs.   Naturally mother had won. Had it been worth the fight? Now I am incarcerated in this airless room, curtains shutting out the summer sunshine, and I’m supposed to blot out the birdsong with my discordant and clumsy attempts at harmony.

Music is the food of love, they say. Music will set you free, they sang. Remember those romantic novels where the entrapped heroine finds her freedom and salvation through music?How her soaring voice allowed her to escape the claustrophobic confines of her disagreeable existence? Where was that freedom now? All I can see is this grid of horizontal and vertical lines mocking me like the bars on a prison cell. And a prison warden who barks at me from beyond the grave:  Be quiet, now.  You may play loudly now. See the discreet ‘3’ above the semiquaver A flat, demanding that I play the note with the third finger, the third!  How dare that bearded, long-dead German enforce upon me how I play this note?  I will not use my finger, you fusty old man!  I will play it with my thumb!  No, I will bash it with my fist. I can head butt it with impassioned fury if so I choose!

The crow in the kitchen screeches over the sound of the clattering dishes. Why aren’t you playing? And so I clench my muscles, take a deep breath and hammer out that lullaby, as if inviting all the hordes of hell to descend upon the baby’s cradle.