The Music Room: A Memoir by William Fiennes

Author:William Fiennes [Fiennes, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780393072587
Amazon: 0393338789
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2009-09-13T16:00:00+00:00

Rich was telling Joyce, Mrs Upton and Mrs Green about imminent Leeds United fixtures, showing off his new velveteen Leeds United slippers.

‘Are you having a drop of coffee, then, Richard?’ Joyce asks.

‘I wouldn’t say no.’

And what mug are you going to have it in?’

‘I should think you know the answer to that, Joyce,’ he says, smiling. He reaches for the Leeds United mug hanging from a hook below the cupboards, and holds it up so the blue and gold shield catches the light. ‘There’s only one mug I can drink from. There’s only one mug for a Leeds United supporter.’

‘Good old Leeds,’ Joyce says.

‘Yes,’ Rich continues, dreamily. ‘It’s got to be Leeds. It’s got to be Leeds United, every time.’

He stares at the blue and gold shield in a trance of pride.

‘Do you know something, Joyce?’ he says, looking up.

‘What’s that, Richard?’

‘Your little dog, she licked my cheeks, she was so happy to see me. She painted my face with dog kisses.’

‘Sweet little thing!’ Joyce says, laughing.

‘She did! She painted my face all over with dog kisses!’

I was just hanging around. The twins were at university; Dad was at work in the office beyond the kitchen gardens, or meeting landowners, farmers and tenants; Mum was showing groups of students and tourists round the house, or arranging flowers in the Great Hall and Oak Room vases, or rubbing oil and wax into books, floorboards and armour. I played nonsense chords on the piano and loitered in the kitchen with Joyce, Mrs Upton, Mrs Green and Mrs Dancer, but by lunchtime they’d have disappeared through the gatehouse arch, back into their lives on the far side of the moat, and if Bert didn’t have a job for me and I was bored of being on my own I’d look for Richard.

Sometimes I’d find him in a small room off the west stairs, a few steps down into a bedlam of rolled-up rugs and decrepit fishing rods, a carpenter’s workbench with screws and clips in the backboard to carry tools. Rich had used a black marker to trace the tools like bodies at crime scenes — hammer, drill, awl, screwdriver and tenon saw outlined on the wood, a name above each shape in my brother’s rounded handwriting. The workbench had an iron vice, and now I watched Rich fit a piece of scrap wood between the clamps and turn the shiny bar to close them up. Even after the wood was tightly held he put all his strength into it, forcing the bar round another inch or two, holding his breath, reddening with exertion. The wood seemed to be getting smaller between the clamps, and when he forced the bar again the whole bench shifted on the floorboards, the awl dropping from its fixture and chinking in a box of nails.

‘Blast!’

He didn’t know his own strength. He liked to pull the handbrake on when Mum parked the Dormobile. He’d yank it up and keep pulling, beyond the highest ratchet, as if he was

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