The violin in the attic

Written for (Fiction)Friday


Simon was born when his parents were getting on in life. They'd never really wanted children and Simon's birth was unplanned. They weren't bad parents, it was just that they never possessed the skills to help Simon develop as other children did. He had no friends and always played alone.

He was also born without the gift of hearing, so interacting with other kids at school was part of growing up that he missed out on.

He was nine years old when it first happened. It was a very warm night and he was laying in bed in the early hours of the morning unable to sleep. The hissing noise that usually filled his head faded away and he heard a sound. It was the sound of a violin; although he of course had no idea what it was he was listening to. He drifted back to sleep and when he awoke in the morning he felt he must have dreamed it, for once again he heard nothing but the hissing in his head. But it happened again the following night, and the night after that, until it became part of his nightly routine. Soon he realised that the sound of the violin was coming from above his head, from the attic.

Simon had always wondered what he would find if he were to climb the ladder and push open the hatch to the attic, but his parents always forbade him from venturing up. But now, it had to be done, so one night whilst the music was playing in his head he crept out of his room and slowly climbed the ladder to the loft. The hatch opened easily and the light from the hallway below flooded into the beamed space above his head. The music faded away.

Something caught his eye, something shining a few feet away from him. He crawled towards it then discovered it was a violin lying on a golden satin blanket. Across it sat a bow. He took the bow in his hand then picked up the violin. The neck felt warm as if it had recently been held. Someone must have played it, but there was nobody in the attic but himself.

He tucked the instrument under his chin the way he'd seen it done on the television, and then drew the bow across the strings. Suddenly he heard the music again. Simon was making music.

That at least is how the story goes. Today, twenty years on, his parents have passed away. Simon hardly speaks so we will never know exactly what happened after that night, and he seems to have no relations to tell us the whole story. What we do know is that Simon ended up in a music school where he was taught to play the violin to an extremely high standard, and today he is in demand by orchestras all over Europe and beyond.
.

The house where it all started was demolished many years ago and a block of apartments has taken its place.


Some of the residents say that in the dead of night they can hear the sound of a violin playing in the distance.

Glorious Goodwood 2010 - look at that hat!!!

This week sees one of the year’s greatest British sporting events, Glorious Goodwood. Every year horses, trainers, owners and jockeys from all corners of the world over gather for a week of flat racing.

Goodwood race course with its undulating grass track, is set high up in the Sussex hills surrounded by some of the most spectacular scenery our country has to offer. King Edward V11th famously referred to Glorious Goodwood as a garden party with racing tacked on, and that about sums it up. It’s an annual event which gives one the perfect excuse to get dressed up and join ones fellow Goodwood enthusiasts in the bars and under the sunshades drinking Pimms and Gin and commenting on the hats and dresses so perfectly displayed.

I go every year, and yesterday I joined a group of friends and my daughter Rachel, and we made our annual pilgrimage in the luxury of our stretched limo, and treated ourselves to passes into the exclusive Gordon Enclosure. But if you are hoping to see some pictures of horses you may be disappointed! I’ve posted those in previous years. This time I thought I’d people watch, and that’s exactly what I did. So, grab yourself a glass of something summery and join me, do!

  

A letter from the devil

Have you seen the movie Devils Advocate? It’s one of my favourites and last night I was watching it for the umpteenth time. Just at the crucial moment everything went dark! The power had failed. I have a candle at hand for just such events, but try as may I couldn’t get it to light. As I sat there trying to come up with a plan of action there was a bang on the door.

I felt my way along the wall in the general direction of the door and just as I got there something fell onto the floor. I could just make out an envelope at my feet. Somebody had it pushed it through my letterbox. I pulled the door open and looked up and down the road and just as I did so, a full moon peeped out from behind the clouds. I just made out the shape of a little man in a black cloak scurrying down the road. He stopped, looked back at me and grinned a devilish grin. It was probably a trick of the moonlight, but I felt sure he had a pair of horns on his head! I told myself not to be stupid and found my way back to my sitting room. Just then, in the darkness I heard something smash.

The lights flickered back into life and on came the TV. There was a puddle of wine on the table and in the centre, shattered glass. It was then I noticed that the envelope in my hand was black with my name scrawled on the front in red. I opened it. Inside was a letter written in red ink on black paper. 

Sure enough this is my 666^th post. I had planned some witty poem or story making a joke at the devils expense, but under the circumstances I thought better of it! As he said, he'll be watching!

 Written for the Sunday Scribblings prompt 'Letter'

Don't forget to drop in on Carry On Tuesday!

I put a spell on you

This week on Writers Island we've been given the task of choosing a favourite album and using as many of the song titles as possible in a story. I chose Nina Samone's 'Gold', a double CD I play often, and managed to squeeze in 20 of the 36 tracks!

It was one September day, and Jimmy was feeling good. He’d been with his girlfriend Porgy since last September and this year’s kisses had been the best he’d ever had! ‘My baby just cares for me’ he told his friend that night.

Quite what happened even he didn’t really understand. He met another girl in a bar and got chatting to her. It was completely innocent on his part but she was he was determined to grab him for herself. He remembered her words. She looked him straight in the eyes and said ‘I put a spell on you’. Suddenly he found himself unable to resist her. From that moment on there was another woman in his life.

There’s no way he could keep it to himself. He decided to tell all to Porgy, and it was the most difficult thing he’d ever done. All he could do was break down and let it all out.

Porgy was very calm. A tear trickled down her cheek. ‘Don’t explain Jimmy’ she said. ‘Just love me or leave me’.

‘I loves you Porgy’ he pleaded. ’‘What more can I say. Please, don’t let me be misunderstood.’It’s just that I love her too’.

‘I love your lovin’ ways’ Porgy said ‘but I’m not going to share you. I’m gonna leave you.I know you are no sinnerman Jimmy and I hold no grudge but I’m going home to Mama'.

That night he went back to the bar. The other woman was nowhere to be seen. He looked around, and people who’d the previous night enjoyed a friendly word with him all ignored him. It was if he was invisible. The bartender meandered up to him. He could see what had happened.

‘Nobody knows you when you’re down and out’ he said. ‘ But don’t you pay them no mind’.

‘Tell me more and then some’ said Jimmy with a half smile on his face.

This week's prompt at Carry On Tuesday awaits you! Click here and enjoy!

Bread for the birds

This week the good folk at Fiction(Friday) have suggested we write a story which brings together two of our established characters. This I have more or less done!

I’d had a hard day at work. All I wanted to do was collapse in front of the TV and let the pressures of the day dissolve into the night. There was a ring at the doorbell. I was not happy! ‘Must be someone trying to sell me something’ I said to myself. ‘I’ll ignore it’. The bell rang again, but this time with a little more urgency as it went on for about thirty seconds. I plonked my whisky down and reluctantly ambled towards the front door.

I opened it, just a little at first and found myself staring straight into the setting sun. I screwed up my eyes and just made out the silhouette of...my friend Rosey!

She pushed the door and asked if she could come in. I had no choice as she was already on her way, and in any case I never expect her to ask anyway. As far as I’m concerned my home is hers. But clearly something was not right. She walked straight past me and marched into the lounge where she perched herself on the edge of a chair. Something was most certainly not right, not right at all. I got the bottle of chardonnay from the fridge; I always have one ready for Rosey visits! I handed her a brimming glassful and she swallowed it in one long gulp. She held the empty glass at arm’s length in my direction which I assumed to mean that she was in need of a refill.

I was in the kitchen pouring her wine when I saw through the doorway that she was staring at the book on the little table to the side of her seat. I noticed her shudder. It was my book; you may be familiar with it, The Stranger. The cover features a somewhat menacing blackbird. As I watched’ she slowly picked up the book then placed it face down on the table.

I didn’t mention what I’d seen, I just gave her a refreshed glass. Still she sat on the edge of the chair. I had to say something. I asked her straight out what the problem was as clearly there was something really troubling her. Suddenly she started talking, extremely quickly; I couldn’t make out a thing she was saying. I stopped her by holding my hand in front of her face; it was all I could do. She went silent and I asked her to sit back in the chair, take a couple of deep breaths and tell me what was troubling her. She did as I asked. She starting speaking very slowly, very quietly.

It seemed that she’d just come from the park. She’d taken some dry bread with her to feed the birds, something she often did. As usual, as soon as she sat on the bench a small flock of pigeons had descended on her and started strutting around her feet pecking at the crusty morsels as she scattered then. Then suddenly and with no warning they took off, as one, into the evening sunshine. Rosey couldn’t understand what had happened until from nowhere five blackbirds swooped down and landed on the pavement in front of her. They started squawking and screeching, their necks straining toward her and their yellow beaks wide open. And then they flapped their wings and started flying around and around Rosey. She covered her face with both hands as the noise from the blackbirds got louder and louder and the disturbed air ruffled her hair. And then it stopped. Silence. Not a sound, and once again she felt the warmth of the setting sun. She parted a couple of her fingers and saw that the blackbirds had gone. Needless to say she was very relieved and it was then she noticed a family sitting on the grass a few feet away. They were sat on a blanket eating what she assumed were sandwiches. She was certain they weren’t there before, and as she looked at them they seemed somehow familiar. It was then that my story, The Stranger came flooding into her mind. A father, a mother, two kids and a grandmother. And five blackbirds.

My story was supposed to be a bit of fun. A little sinister perhaps, but not exactly in the Steven King mould! But Rosey always felt uneasy about it, in fact she discreetly gave her copy of the book away – she doesn’t know that I know!

Anyway, I told her not to be silly and reminded her that sometimes her fertile imagination builds something small into a major event. My story was nothing more than fiction. Gradually she began to return to the Rosey we all know and love. She finished the bottle of wine as we sunk into a funny movie on the TV.


Both of us were feeling very relaxed when, you guessed it ,the door bell rang! I couldn’t believe it. What happened to my quiet night in? I made a bit of a performance about opening the door in the hope that whoever was there would get the message that I was not impressed about being disturbed. Imagine my surprise when I found no-one standing on my doorstep. I looked up and down the street. Not a soul in site. My immediate thought was ‘stupid kids’, but as I was closing the door I suddenly caught site of something on the grass.

Five blackbirds, all staring at me.

Regular visitors to my site will be very familiar with the antics of My Friend Rosey You can read all about her if you click HERE.


The book, The Stranger which so upset Rosey is available from Lulu Publishing, or you can save money by reading it for nothing right HERE! 

  

When I think how life used to be....

When I think how life used to be;

We survived being born to mothers who smoked and drank while we grew inside them.

Then after that trauma, our baby cots where painted with bright coloured lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles or locks on doors of cabinets.

When we rode our bikes we had no helmets and weren’t bothered by the risks we took hitch-hiking.

As children we rode in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding loose in the back of a van was great fun.

We drank water from ponds and garden hoses, never bottles.

We ate cakes, white bread and real butter. We drink full cream milk and bottles of pop but we were never overweight because.........

WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, just as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No mobiles so no one could reach us all day and we were OK.

We would build go-carts out of old prams and wooden crates then ride down steep hills only to realise we had no brakes. After running into the bushes we learned how to solve problems for ourselves.

We had no Play Stations, Nintendos, X-boxes or video games. There was such thing as texting, no computers, and no chatrooms. Instead we had friends and we went outside to find them.

We fell out of trees, broke bones and teeth but there were no lawsuits from our injuries.

We played with worms and licked mud pies but the worms did not live inside us forever.

We made up fighting games with pointed sticks but never poked our eyes out.

At school not everybody made the sports teams or won races and we simply learned to deal with the disappointment.

The idea of parents rescuing us if we broke the law was unheard of – they SIDED with the law.

Our generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever. The last 50 years has seen an explosion of innovations and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT!

For Carry On Tuesday # 65

Rosey's reunion!

Written for Writers Island prompt 'Reunion'


It wasn’t any old reunion. As reunions go it was more than a little different. Why? Because it was my friend Rosey’s reunion!

You see, she thought it would be nice to get together as many people as possible who’d had some influence over her colourful and not uneventful life. So, one Saturday in May a few of us, her current friends, got together at The Bicycle Arms to help her draw up a list. There she sat with a note pad in front of her and a pen in her hand, whilst we fired categories of acquaintances at her.

Could she still get in touch with her childhood friend? How about schoolmates from her very posh school, Roedean? A short but perfectly formed list was taking shape. How about people she’d worked with? Anyone from her time as a checkout girl at the superstore? She also thought it would be good to invite Lady Emilia Jameson and her husband Lord Somebody-or-Other Jameson. You may recall that she once ran a play group for posh toddlers at their posh stately home. Thinking about it, some of the kids would be ten or more years old by now. Perhaps she could invite some of them too. What about the staff at her Father’s car dealership? Not sure, they always felt she was a bit aloof being the privileged daughter of the boss, although Ted on the petrol pumps was always very friendly toward her.

She wondered if she should get in touch with Simon Pargitter Pratt. He was the blind date that she nearly got involved with a while back; it certainly was one of the funniest evenings we all spent together when he tried to impress her in front of a group of us! Probably not a good idea.

She said she would love to bring over a few of the people she worked with in Africa last year, but we suggested it simply wouldn’t be practical or given their financial plight, affordable. That just left the school she works at now as a classroom assistant. We delicately pointed out that the idea of a reunion is to bring together people from way back, not those she saw yesterday and would in all probability see again next Monday. But she insisted and started reeling off names. The names all sounded quite youngish, and before long we realised they were children’s names not teachers! She said she’d far rather spend an evening with them even if they did have to be home by seven thirty!

So there we had it. We left her to go back through the volumes of diaries and address books she keeps in a pile by her bed and hopefully entice as many people as possible to the village hall close to her parent’s home on the chosen Saturday in June. Sadly she got few replies, so she decided to change the venue to somewhere cheaper, and those who had accepted her invitation were given a new venue, Rosey’s allotment!

On the big day, the twenty sixth it was, I helped her get some food for the buffet from the local store. As most of the respondents were little people, the fare consisted largely of chocolate cakes and jelly, although given Rosey’s taste in party food I suspect the selection would have been pretty much the same if the guest were all to have been pensioners!

Anyway, about twenty five people, plus our group of friends, duly turned up in our party gear at about five in the evening. She’d decorated the shed with balloons and paper chains and set up her ghetto blaster in the corner. There were cases of chardonnay and quite a few bottles of Coke. It all felt quite festive. Of the adult gests, a couple were from her schooldays, and two were previous work colleagues. There was also someone that even Rosey didn’t know, we never did find out where she fitted in but we didn’t question it as she helped swell the numbers. She’d also got old Bert along; you may remember that he owned the allotment before Rosey took over. Quite what he made of the transformation I don’t know because he just sat there looking bemused in his chair until the nurse said it was time to wheel him home. We played party games and sang along to songs, and when the kids had gone home with their goodie-bags, those that remained sat on the floor chatting about the old times and downing Rosey’s wine well into the early hours of the morning.

As I said, it was an unusual reunion and certainly one we’ll never forget!

I return to Pythagorion, Samos

Having written on several occasions about my jaunts to the Greek Island of Samos it’s becoming difficult to find anything new or original to say. The same can be said for photography. There are only so many pictures of bobbing fishing boats and blonde beaches I can get away with! But even though I’ve spent more time there than in any other foreign place, I never tire of it. The olive trees seemed even more laden with fruit this year, and the orange, lemon and lime trees hung heavy with their rich harvest. Bunches of grapes, green now but beginning to change colour dangled above my head wherever I sat, their vines providing welcome shade from the searing heat of the summer sun.

The little near-deserted beach was as welcoming as ever, and my good friend Lefritis was waiting for me at the Pegusus bar which still remains the same as the first time I stepped inside it.

I was however extremely warm during my stay. Samos is always hot, hence its nick-name as the ‘frying pan of the Greek Isles’, but this week the heat was blistering – literally! When I got back to my room after my first day In the sun and stood with nothing on in front of the mirror I looked like the English flag but with the red and white bits placed in a different order! Even the locals were complaining (about the heat, not me!) The best advice was of course to drink plenty of water, and having tried on numerous occasions added to a glass of ouzo I can thoroughly recommend it!

   

I’m getting a little weary of Greek food. If you didn’t know better you’d think they survived on nothing more than kleftiko, stifado, Greek salad, pastitsio and of course moussaka. They are the stable of every restaurant menu. To find something a little different requires a certain amount of research and investigation. I’m getting a bit better at now and I’m beginning to build up a list of specialist eateries which offer something a little different. But the measure of a goof chef is how his moussaka tastes and looks! They vary tremendously from dry to sloppy, heavy to light and bland to overpowering. Now I reckon I make a pretty good one myself, so I tend to judge what I’m served by the way I make it! For the uninitiated it is a dish of minced lamb with sliced potatoes, onions and aubergine ( I believe they are known as eggplants in the US, although I’m reliably informed that eggs do not in fact grow on trees!) with the whole thing assembled in layers and topped with a creamy cheese sauce and baked. Yum!

I had a bit of a start the other afternoon. I was strolling around the backstreets of Pythagoria when I suddenly clapped eyes on what I thought was Rosey’s car! There in the shade of a pink tree sat a pink Smart Car! I thought she’d followed me! On closer inspection it wasn’t Miss Pinkerton’s car, but I thought I’d take a picture of it for her!

Walking the back streets can be very interesting. You come across all kinds of buildings in differing states of repair, but each with character of its own. In typical Greek style, groups of little fat ladies sit around outside their doors chattering about goodness knows what, often long into the night. There are cats and their kittens everywhere, geckos hang to walls and unseen birds screech in the trees.

Zorba the Greek. Now where do I start? Do you know the piece of music I’m talking about? It was the tune used in the film of the same movie and wherever you go on Samos you can’t escape it. There are no words, just a clinking clanking repetitive group of notes played over and over on a lyre. It may as well be the national anthem. It’s certainly the best known piece of Greek music. It starts off slowly then gradually gets faster and faster and more often than not the people listening to it clap along with varying degrees of accuracy as the tune speeds up! You hear it in restaurants, tavernas, gift shops and in taxis and buses. The worst culprit that I know of is the affable and eccentric Kapitan Jainnus who carries dozens of trippers day in day out on his the merry tour boat. Every day at about five pm as I sat enjoying my late afternoon libation at Gregor’s Bar, the calm was disturbed by the sounds coming from the Kapitan’s approaching boat and his happy crowd of clapping passengers dancing and swaying to Zorba the bloody Greek! As I had to put up with it each day, I thought it only fair that you dear reader should experience it too! So, especially for you I present a short video, just a few seconds, so you may enjoy it too!







I'll leave you with a few pictures!


DON'T FORGET! You can click once on any of the photos to ENLARGE IT and once again to make it EVEN BIGGER! Enjoy

To see these and more photos of Samos in higher quality visit my gallery at KEITH'S IMAGES


To read 'Samos, another day in paradise' CLICK HERE
To read 'Samos, an unspoilt Greek island' CLICK HERE