Broken English

A bit of a cheat this one… first draft was done in 15 minutes – but polishing doubled the word count. Not so much fast as medium paced, then.

I turned the brass doorknob, bigger than my hand. Mr Crampton was waiting, trumpet poised, turning pages.  A Sugarloaf Mountain silhouette against arched, white-out windows, he inspects crotchets and minims, quavers and semitones, with half moon glasses.

There were two chairs. High, wooden and as brown as burning butter. Seats of brittle leather and horsehair stuffing were squashed into inverted buttock shapes. Mr. Crampton’s and mine.

I heaved the torn, brown case onto the desk and popped the clasps. Inside, a soprano cornet; a nest of tarnished tubes, like pipes in a cellar.

Mr. Crampton settled on a page, bent the spine of the book over his bristly knee. Rattling valves, the mouthpiece held close to his lips; a thin bow accented by a circumflex of moustache.

“Au Clair de la Lune, Mr. Bradley,” he said.

The mouthpiece, unwrapped, would not find its way into the instrument. A thin metal cuff, worn from replacement and removal, refused penetration.

Mr. Crampton remained still, fingers in first position.

I sat and raised the assembled cornet to my puckered lips. The taste, like an old teaspoon.

“Au Clair de la Lune, Mr. Bradley,” said Mr. Crampton.

Starting on G – four crotchets, two minims. Another bar of crotchets, a dotted minim. The music rests for half a note. It stops for a breath and…

“No, no, no,” said Mr. Crampton, “Has this instrument been cleaned?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Open the water valve,”

I blew through the open cornet. Nothing but a pipe, now. A meagre dribble from morning practice leaked from the hole.

“Again,” he said.

One, two, three, four. Three. Four. One, two, three, four, one…

“Stop!” he said, “The minim is dotted, then a rest. Da da, DA da, daa… then wait,”

In the silence, Mr. Crampton’s amphibian eyes rolled white and skywards.

“Have you practiced?” he asked.

“Yes,”

“Every day?”

“Yes.”

He slapped down his hair, greased into a flap, short white bristles at the back and at the sides.

“Again. Two, three, four,”

And this time I only played two bars. Just eight beats.

“No!” he cried, slapping the book. The music stand teetered, wobbled and righted itself. He covered his eyes, inhaling long through congested nostrils, whistling a perfect C.

“I should be selling snow to Eskimos!” he said, mist popping from thin lips trained to spit air, “I may as well with all… this!”

He gestured towards me, my borrowed cornet, the mothballed room. My chair rocked back on two legs creaking.

“I ask you to practice, you don’t practice. I ask you to clean your instrument and it is filthy. It is filthy!”

His face was red. Red pushing at the walls of his veins and his body, escaping. And he trembled. A shiver and a twitch that pulsed accelerated in his pink hands and pounded inside his waistcoat.

“It is filthy like you. Filthy like all of you!” he spat, the valve now fully open. No music – just a tangle of pipes. And this time, when he hit the book, it flapped and clattered across the room along with the stand and the notes and the song about the moonlight.

Then I spoke. He did not hear me.  I could not hear myself over the sting. I was wet. My face and my new school trousers. I was filthy. My mum would kill me.

I said:

“I did practice,”

Though he did not hear, he looked. His face became soft, jowls quivering like an old dog’s. The blood drained away and he fussed in his pockets.

“Oh, my dear boy,” he said, “Blow your nose”.

He handed me a paper tissue. I wiped my face and blew my nose. I offered the tissue back.

“No, no, put it away. Save it for later,” he said.

I did as I was told.

“There’s no need for tears now,” he said, “It’s only a tune,”

I nodded. Held my cornet hard on my lap, hooks and collars catching my fingers. He picked up the book and the stand. Tears still came, swelling inside me and silently bursting through. One drip. Another.

“Here,” he said, holding out a brown mint in a cellophane wrapper, “There’s no need for all this. No need for anyone to know. We know how to play this, don’t we? You and I?”

I nodded. The humbug was buttery.

“What’s the first note?”

I looked. The dots and lines meant nothing.  Sticks and scratches, now. Doodles on a page.

“What are the notes on the stave. How do we remember?” said Mr. Crampton. He placed his hand on the back of my head.

“Every Good Boy Deserves Favour,” I said.

“That’s good,” said Mr. Crampton, “So the first note is?”

“G,” I said.

“That’s good,” said Mr. Crampton, “That’s very good”.