Phyllis Goodwin's Blog, page 7

Places visited by my characters in ‘Cry for me Argentina

Perrito Moreno Glacier :  ‘Gigantic and so inspirational that it makes our problems insignificant!’

 

   

  

Rabbit Pie

‘One day Dad came home with a furry creature. It was a stoat. The boys called him Sam and they were taught by Dad to catch and shoot rabbits. Sam’s job is to flush rabbits out of their holes. Mother makes stews and pies with the meat and rabbit is everyone’s favourite food. I never go on the shoots but I do forget the cruel bits when I’m eating the delicious pies. Jason calls me a hypocrite, but I can’t help it because I don’t like seeing animals being killed.’

(Chapter three – ‘Cry for me Argentina’

I’m only six

    I’m only six but I can run my

own bath. I struggle a bit with the taps but I keep on trying until I manage to run enough water. I undress carefully. It’s hard to push my long pinafore over my head but I concentrate and get it done. Then I copy Mother and fold my clothes neatly and I put them on the chair. Last of all I clamber in and wallow in the water like a baby hippopotamus. I love pretending to be an animal. (from ‘Cry for me Argentina’)

The Garden in May

The first lily blooms in the pond and the Goldfish are coming up to be fed.

The Copper Beech is the last tree to break into leaf in all its glory. Now we are waiting for the Laburnums to flower, probably next month unless we have a heatwave!

William was Seven when Queen Victoria died

            WILLIAM AT SEVEN

CRY FOR ME ARGENTINA (Beginning of Chapter Four)

‘Come away from the window, William, you’ll knock the candle over.’

‘He’s only six, Rosie, you can’t expect him to sit still.’ I ran to my dad and clambered on to his knee.

‘He’ll be seven next birthday and he needs to learn,’ my mother insisted. ‘You let him get away with everything, Henry.’ My mum and dad are always bickering and it’s usually about me. On this occasion the three of us are sitting in our front room and there’s a candle burning on the windowsill. I’m dressed in my best clothes that I wear on a Sunday. Dad was up early to light the fire. It had snowed in the night and he guessed that Mother would want to sit reverently in her best room.

It’s bleak in here and I hate the musty smell. Dad says that the pungent mustiness of the room will clear after a while. I couldn’t see why we had to dress up in our best clothes. I prefer to sit in the parlour where it’s warm and cosy. Dad went to shovel some more coal on the fire and Mother jumped up quickly. ‘Don’t make the fire too big, the heat will damage the piano.’ She walked over to the instrument and opened the lid to reveal its shining keys.

‘Ivory and ebony,’ she said to me once. That was the first exciting moment when she allowed me to put my hands on the glistening keyboard. ‘This is middle C,’ my mother pointed out. ‘Remember, William, you must never bang the keys and don’t dare touch the piano when I’m not in the room.’ I’m frightened of my mother. She looks like a witch or a gypsy with her staring black eyes and long dark hair. Sometimes I see tears trickling down her face.

‘Leave your Mother alone when she’s in a bad mood,’ Dad told me in a low voice. It’s a different story when my mother sits down to play her beloved piano. It’s like a magic world where I imagine demons and angels locked in battle. At times there is a sweet calm in the middle and, occasionally, joy at the end but mostly it finishes with a feeling of sorrow. I can tell when the end is happy by the expression on my mother’s face. She allows herself a gentle smile. But when it’s a sad ending she sobs and the tears stream down her cheeks. Sometimes she hides her face in her hands and her whole body trembles. I am afraid but also obsessed by her playing and I adore her when she reads the stories of the operas.

At ordinary times Mother wears black for practicing but when she plays in concert (as she calls it) she wears royal red. I know when I’m in for a treat because she comes down the stairs in her long dress with her thick black hair coiled up on the top of her head. Showing above the hair is a large jewelled comb. Dad says it’s her tiara. I think she looks beautiful, like a princess!

Today, Mother is dressed in black and Father is wearing his sombre funeral suit. It’s a sad day for everyone – our beloved Queen Victoria has died, far away on that small island, somewhere near the south coast. ‘It’s the Isle of Wight,’ said mother. She always knows everything. On the way to the corner shop I said to dad: ‘Why is the Queen dead?’

‘The Queen was very old and we all have to die sometime,’ he answered. Groups of people were huddled together, whispering and looking grey and sad.

‘You won’t die Dad, will you?’ I started to wonder what would happen to me if I were left alone with my mother.

‘I will one day dear, but you’ll be grown up by then,’ he said squeezing my hand.  In the shop people were talking about the funeral. ‘It’s always in London and we never get the chance to see the coffin and pay our respects,’ said one old lady in the queue. ‘She was our Queen too, even though we only saw her in photographs.’ I suddenly remembered that Aunt Emily lived in London. ‘Could we go and see the coffin? We could stay with your relations.’

‘No lad, your Mother hates London and we can’t leave her on her own, can we?’ I live in a row of terraced houses and according to my mother we are the Queen’s loyal subjects and this is why we are gathered in our front room. We have been to buy candles to burn in the window. ‘It’s a vigil,’ Dad says, ‘in honour of our dear Queen who has reigned over us for so long.’ No one in our road ever thought about going to London.

It was to be a long year of sadness for the Lawson family because Mother’s idol, Guiseppe Verdi, died in January. ‘Why does Mother keep crying?’ I asked.

‘It’s because that idiot Verdi has died,’ Dad replied with an angry sigh. He showed me the photograph in the paper. ‘Anyone would think he’s family by the way your Mother goes on.’

‘Does she want to see the coffin then?’

‘No William,’ he replied. ‘She’s just sad and don’t keep asking silly questions.’

The truth is that my Mother is fanatical about Verdi. He’s her idol. She knows all his operas and can play many of the famous arias on the piano. A photograph in a gold frame hangs in our front room near to the piano. I gaze at the picture when my Mother is playing. According to her, he is a distinguished looking man. I can see that he has a long beard and bushy eyebrows and I quite like him. I wish that I could grow up and write beautiful music. He doesn’t look a bit like my Dad.

‘Do you know William, Verdi played the organ in public when he was only ten years old? And look at you – you can’t play a note yet.’ I blushed and felt sad.