But Gran flicked her hand at her. ‘Null and void. A tickle is all that it is.’
Lily put her hand on Violet’s forehead.
It was warm, but not in a frightening way. ‘I think you should spend the day in bed. I’ll bring breakfast up to you and then you can rest and nap. And I will come home straight away after work, no dilly-dallying.’
‘You fuss too much,’ said Violet but Lily noticed she didn’t protest about breakfast in bed.
After Gran was set up in bed with tea and a crumpet and her newspaper, Lily gave her some paracetamol and her phone. ‘You call me if anything changes, okay?’
Violet rolled her eyes. ‘Be off with you,’ she said gruffly. ‘And drive safely.’
The first two days she had been doing training and learning the school and its routines but now she was ready to teach.
A mixture of nervousness and excitement greeted Lily as she entered the Silverton School music room for her first proper day of teaching. She set up in the music room and set the books up on her desk. She was really nervous. She heard a hesitant knock on the door as she was arranging some sheet music and setting up the piano.
The door opened and a small girl with red hair stood there.
‘Hi. I’m Emma. I’m learning piano,’ she said.
She gave a warm smile to the child, who looked to be as nervous as she was.
‘Well hi, Emma. I’m Miss Baxter, or Lily. I don’t mind what you call me, and I am your new teacher. Let’s get going. Show me where you’re up to.’
Emma sat down at the piano and looked at the exercises on the music stand on the piano and looked at Lily.
‘You want me to play these?’
Lily nodded. ‘Just as a warm-up, get those fingers moving.’
Emma started to play and Lily relaxed. This is what made her happy, she remembered, as she gave Emma gentle encouragement as she led her through some basic exercises and scales. Lily took her time going over each passage with Emma when she was having trouble with it.
‘Watch my fingers,’ she told her. ‘See how I’m crossing under with my thumb? You try now.’
Emma’s face lit up when she got the difficult fingering down pat. She cried, ‘I did it!’
As the morning went on, she changed between piano and singing lessons and each of the children brought with them their own talents and enthusiasm, making Lily laugh and remember how fun it was to learn with no other expectations.
‘Do you live in Silverton?’ one of the children asked her.
‘No, in a village not far from here,’ she said.
‘With your husband?’
‘No, with my granny,’ she said, finally having time to think of her for the first time all morning.
She wondered how she was going at home. That cough was worrying.
She would call her at lunchtime, she thought, as she went back to teaching.
She had called Gran but she hadn’t answered, and Lily hoped she was just napping.
She settled into her last afternoon lessons when her phone rang with an unknown number.
‘Excuse me,’ she said to her student who was learning the ‘Moonlight Sonata’.
‘I have to take this,’ she said to the student and she picked up the phone and answered it.
‘Hello, Lily Baxter speaking,’ she said.
