Lessons

Content Warning: The source text depicts the sexual assault of a minor by an adult.

Roland Baines is a 37-year-old unemployed poet and father living in London in 1986. He recalls an incident between himself and a piano teacher, Miriam Cornell, when he was 11 at boarding school. Roland was playing a difficult piece of music by Bach, the final piece of which he got wrong. As a “punishment,” Miss Cornell pinched the inside of his leg and touched him at the edge of his gray shorts. She then hit Roland on the knee with a ruler. Roland recalls orgasming for the first time when he was 13, thinking about Miss Cornell. Roland is then awoken from these memories by the cry of his young child, Lawrence.

Roland reflects on how his wife, Alissa, has recently disappeared. She had left him a note saying that she loved him but that he should not try and find her, and that she’d “been living the wrong life” (9). Roland gets drunk thinking about his wife and whether he loves her. He also starts recalling another piano lesson he had with Miss Cornell, a week after she had pinched his leg.