Grace Notes

by Karen Comer

Genres: Young Adult; YA Coming of Age

Synopsis

This song has a grace note,
a tiny note that's there for embellishment
but can easily be ignored,
not played.
Tonight, I add it in -
just because.
We can all do with an extra note
of grace.

Grace Dalfinch is a talented violinist who longs to play contemporary music in bars, but her mum forbids her.
James Crux is an aspiring street artist who promised his dad he wouldn't paint in public until he's finished school.

When Crux witnesses Grace's impromptu performance on a deserted tram, he's inspired to paint her and her violin; and when Grace stumbles across her portrait in a Melbourne alley by an anonymous street artist, she sets out to find its creator.

Grace Notes is a debut YA verse novel, set in one of the most locked-down cities in the world - Melbourne, 2020. For fans of Cath Crowley and Pip Harry.

'A classic in the making; Grace Notes is a vital balm of a book, a story to press into everybody's hands.'
DANIELLE BINKS, author of The Year the Maps Changed and The Monster of Her Age

Release date: February 1, 2023

Publisher: Hachette Australia

Print pages: 320

Sample

Wednesday, 26 February 2020

Daily Victoria Covid statistics

New cases: 0

Total cases: 1

Deaths: 0

JacksonzB71

This’ll be over soon –

Covid is just a bad cold.

OrganicBathtubs

Hope they’re screening

international travellers.

Grumpy_Goose

Feeling worried –

cases already in Aus.



School finished, sports training done,

I walk in through the side door.

The usual scene at home – the beginnings

of dinner on the kitchen bench,

a pot plant trailing its spidery leaves

over a newspaper,

an oil burner sending out wafts of geranium,

a book open on the table,

Mum’s bizarre three-headed goddess sculpture-thing,

– baring EVERYTHING –

on a kitchen shelf.

Wash your hands, says Mum automatically,

glancing up from the couch and TV.

I rinse my hands in the kitchen sink,

half-watch the news.

The report flashes to hospital scenes

in China. There are people

in masks buying food,

lining hospital corridors,

waiting outside clinics

to be tested for this virus –

coronavirus.

Covid-19.

Then there are scenes from Italy –

it’s chaotic,

people look frightened.

It’s really contagious, Mum says, frowning.

Already a few cases in Australia.

Her fingers stroke the purple stone in her hand.

Stop being a nurse at home, I tease.

You don’t have to care for these people –

they’re not your patients.

I flop down next to her on the couch.

Mum picks up my hand,

inspects it for cleanliness.

I pull it away,

mock-roll my eyes at her.

I’m fifteen! Stop mothering! Stop nursing!

She gives me her look –

closed-up mouth but bright eyes.

Not so easy to stop either.

She stretches an arm around me,

and I let her pull me in,

even though I’m bigger than her.

Molly runs down the stairs,

plonks herself down on the couch next to me.

Loser, she says affectionately,

twisting the neck of my black t-shirt.

Idiot, I return with equally friendly feeling.

Aren’t you two old enough

to stop this now? Mum asks.

Never! we say in tandem.



Dad’s given me a quarter of the garage.

Pretty generous

considering there’s a car,

Christmas decorations,

boxes labelled ‘stuff’

and Dad’s gadgets. And his equipment.

Tools and leather.

He makes leather kits as a side hustle –

wallets, bags, pouches, key rings.

It balances out his job as a camera operator

for a Melbourne news team.

My quarter

has an old easel splattered in paint, dozens

of canvases stacked against

the wall – covered with

a powerful owl, wings extended

fully – plus three milk crates full

of spray cans.

Dad’s already working in there,

car parked in the driveway, 90s music

in the background.

I’ve learned a lot of lyrics from the 90s.

He nods at me, pauses

punching holes into leather pieces.

How was your day?

Alright. Yours?

Busy. Lots of talk about this coronavirus.

I haven’t talked to Dad about Mack.

Half of me wants to tell him –

I met a street artist!

The other half knows

if Dad even suspects I’d go out painting

he’d stop buying cans.

We made an agreement –

he’d buy the cans with the money

I earn from my supermarket job

if I promised not to paint in the streets

until I finished school.

Education first,

don’t

get into trouble,

then you can do what you want, he’d said.

Dad’s in this brother-to-brother program –

Nathan Crux, mentor.

He spends time with kids who have

parents who are drug-addicted,

alcoholic,

violent,

or have a mental illness,

  or maybe the kids are drug addicts themselves,

  alcoholic,

  violent,

  or have their own mental illness.

He wants to protect Molly and me.

Wrap us in cotton wool, Molly says.

Keep you straight, Dad says.

I pull out my iPad, open up Procreate,

start a new piece –

draw a masked doctor in scrubs

with a huge line of patients in front of him.

No colour yet,

just sketching the outline.

But I can’t quite get it right –

stuffed up the perspective.

Dad tidies up his tools,

comes over to see my work

but doesn’t comment.

He pats my shoulder

with leather-smelling hands.

Have a break, dinner’s ready.



My violin teacher, Rani,

has known me since forever.

As soon as I arrive at her house,

there’s a patter of running, jumping footsteps,

and her two small boys open the door to me.

Grace! they shout,

hurl themselves around my legs.

I high-five them. Hey, guys!

Rani untangles them.

Grace is here for her lesson,

which is just about the length of your movie.

Her voice is mum-in-charge, don’t mess with me, kids,

but her smile shows

her mother-heart,

full of nursery rhymes and sticky hugs.

Heartbeat quick,

semi-quaver quick

  lucky kids

   to have her heartbeat

     metronome steady.

She points the control at the TV

with the precision of a conductor,

and leads me to her studio.

Warm up with your scales, she says,

lowering a music stand for me.

Legato, then detaché.

My violin always feels warm,

like there’s still a breath in it

from the spruce tree,

from the maple tree,

living wood

cut down, carved out

to create a stringed voice.

There’s still a life-force that sings

and can’t ever be suppressed,

even when my violin lies alone in its case.

What do you think about my gig? Rani asks.

Paying job, and it’d be great experience for you.

My bow glides over the strings,

the chords perfectly pitched.

She slides onto the piano seat.

You’re ready.

None of this school concert stuff anymore.

She’s hit a dissonant nerve –

I’m so tired of playing the same pieces

over and over in orchestra,

waiting for everyone to catch up,

no room for expression,

no space for me.

I want you to improvise,

read the mood, follow my cues,

anticipate what the pianist will do.

What do you think?

Let me know if you want me to persuade

your mum.

Ha! She might take

some persuading, I say.

She’s away – I’ll have to message her.

Rani angles her head to the side,

the way she always does

when she wants me to think through

a challenging piece.

Your mum wants the best for you.

You just disagree on exactly

what that is.



After my lesson,

I meander home

through Richmond’s streets,

both narrow and wide,

with skinny, single-fronted houses

and towering apartment blocks.

Rani’s jazz violin

fills my head and heart,

while I think about playing in Jay’s bar.

Equal parts hope and hopelessness.

I unlock the front door

of our weatherboard house,

soft grey boards, charcoal grey trim.

Wait for Griffin,

our tangle-haired teddy of a dog,

to meet me as usual.

No-one else home.

Hey hey, Griffin,

how was your day?

Bet it was peaceful,

bet you didn’t have to make

any big decisions,

I say, scratching him

on top of his head.

I’m about to open the fridge

but I pause to re-read the notes there

from Mum, even though

they’ve been up for a week.

Liv,

cancel your bakery shifts for next week – you have too much study to do.

Sam,

good luck for your netball trials but don’t forget to study for the next French test.

Grace,

remember to do an extra maths question every night. Maths first, violin second.

See you soon,

Love, Mum xxx

It still feels unusual for Mum to be away

in Italy. Away from us,

away from her job as a lawyer in a city firm.

She’s gone there for a few weeks

to shop and see the sights.

In that order.

Mum is a big shopper –

she likes her things.

I turn and look around the kitchen

and family-room –

beautiful art on every wall,

too many cushions on the couch,

fancy sculptural ornaments on the shelves.

I don’t want things, I want

P O S S I B I L I T I E S,

I say to Griffin.

Our conversation is interrupted

by Liv and Sam coming in the door,

late home after a VCE study session in the library –

Liv’s in Year 12, Sam in Year 11.

There are benefits

to being the third daughter sometimes –

I get to see how Liv and Sam navigate life.

We shuffle around the kitchen bench,

getting snacks,

tripping over Griffin and schoolbags.

I can hear Mum’s voice in my head:

Bags in the laundry, girls!

But she’s not here to enforce it.

We are three in a row behind the bench

when Dad walks in the door,

home from work,

training communication leaders

to be nimble, flexible, agile.

My Lear daughters three! He smiles

and plants a kiss each

on our dark curly hair.

Ready art thou for netball practice? he asks Sam,

car keys still in his hand, misquoting Shakespeare.

Matt Dalfinch, comedian – not.

So glad it’s Mum who’s away,

not Dad.

Even if he thinks he’s funny.

Even if he shares Mum’s high standards.



If our family

had to be labelled in a word:

Over-

  achievers.

The Dalfinch family

achieve and

succeed and

outperform and

perfect and

power through and

make everyone around us

shake their heads in admiration

at our abilities.

We win awards,

lead the team,

play the solo,

captain the side,

address the board of directors,

earn postnominals.

We are the Dalfinches,

 even Mum,

 even though she uses her maiden name.

And if we fail even slightly

in our brilliance –

there are two choices:

Work harder, then succeed.

OR

Don’t. Even. Bother.



Mack messages me with an address:

Come over to the warehouse at 5.30.

The others will be there.



The warehouse is down a lane

sprayed with art

by artists

whose work I worship.

There’s music coming from the warehouse,

loud, on a Monday evening.

I tug at my favourite t-shirt –

small flecks of paint to show I’m serious,

not so much

that I look like I’m trying too hard.

  Although I am.

I knock on the door

– even the door is covered in art,

Kasper’s trademark eyes and lines –

and roll back and forth on my feet.

No-one answers.

I knock louder.

The only way to get anywhere with street art

is to hang with other artists,

  paint with them,

  learn their techniques,

  earn their respect.

Every single street-art podcast, article, YouTube video

has told me this.

Keep knocking, I tell myself.

A man comes up behind me.

Hey! You going in?

Don’t wait for them.

He wears a checked shirt, torn,

and a purple beanie,

carries a sixpack of beer,

looks like he’s in his early twenties.

Fendix, he says, holding out his hand.

Crux,

voice rough.

Better too low than too high.

You’re the kid who paints birds.

Mack told me.

Great YouTube videos, pro.

He grins,

opens the colourful, swirly door, waves me

through.  

Gulp. He’s watched my videos.

Fendix, painter of silos throughout Victoria –

awesome portraits of rural people –

has watched my videos.

Hey, says Fendix, striding in.

Found him outside.

His voice sounds kinder than his words.

Feet roll,

  stop,

    stop,

      stop.

Mack jumps up from a couch

with the stuffing spilling out.

This here

is Crux.

You might have seen his birds on socials.

The only girl there, lolling

against a sprayed piano, smiles at me.

I know your birds!

Nice feathers.

I blush a thanks

at her summer-tan face,

bleached blonde hair.

I’m Issa,

but I paint as Uni-Girl.

You do all the chalk characters, right?

That’s me!

She looks Molly’s age,

maybe eighteen or nineteen.

Another guy in his twenties

comes forward,

smiles through his beard,

holds out his hand.

I’m Bindy,

welcome to the warehouse, mate.

I smile,

tell myself to relax.

I’m in, I’m here.

And Dad doesn’t know. 



The artists talk loudly around an old table,

voices rising,

banter flying,

laughter vying

for attention.

I’m trying to focus on them

but I sneak looks around the warehouse.

Mack offers me a beer,

and before I can think of what to say, like:

– I’m fifteen, or

– It’s a school night, or

– Yeah, thanks, mate, or

– Nah, I’m right, mate, or

– I have training at 5 am tomorrow, or

   or

     or …

Fendix waves him away,

steers me toward the far end

of the warehouse.

C’mon, I’ll show you around.

There are two large trestle tables,

covered with years of paint dribbles,

droplets from spray cans.

A thousand stories right there.

Along one s. . .