Extract from Pixie's Song by Hazel Cooper

Book One Part One

î‚Še Beginning My greatest wish is that I would wake up one morning and find that nearly my whole life has just been one long nightmare...

Hearsay It is late November 1925. A stillness, a silence of the night - drifts of deep snow cover the ground and trees, the silent firs dip with the weight upon them but so still and so silent.‌ There is a feeling of lateness. My mother resting in her bed, returned home that day from the Convent maternity hospital - four days late; my father not able to afford more time there - the baby must be born at home. Suddenly from the still of the night, the shrills of pain. Father must take his bicycle to wake Dr. Donaldson - the only owner of a car in the village.

Hasten now - he drives to the house to save my mother’s life and possibly my own, but with what consequences‌..

Chapter 1 Ireland I begin this narrative when, running bare-foot on the sea shore and, with squeals of joy, I run into the cold briny waves of the sea.

“Up to my knees” is all that’s allowed but that is fine, I can get to the rock pools and collect the little crabs placing them on the shore for their “school.”

I am four years old. I have been here quite a long time but I’m not sure how long. I am looked after by three sorts of aunts. We live right on the sea shore in an old cottage, one of three, converted from a coast guard station which at one time was here.

I know that the country is called Ireland and that there was a place called, “England,” where I came from, but my memory is vague on that. Just as sometimes I lie in bed, snatches of memory come rushing in and I feel afraid. There are visions which come to me, of people women fat, or very thin, and incidents in the woods. Sometimes at night I wake up yelling and afraid, but Aunt Allie, or Lallie as she was called, would come in with her candle. She is so kind, and would help me to smile and forget the nightmare and sleep again.

These names...Violet...Dolly...Molly...names...kept coming into my mind.

It is morning, and the aunts ask if I would like to go with them to the pump in the village. They take the big pail each day and carry it home full of water which must serve for all purposes until the next morning. I feel naughty to-day; I hold onto their arms and swing myself along. “Don’t do that Pixie,” they say, “you are too heavy and we have the water to carry.” They are never cross, only a few scolds do I get when I am really naughty or disobey.

We arrive back at the cottage. We live mainly in the kitchen where it is warm. A big iron stove is kept alight all the time with coal. It heats the kitchen and boils the kettle, which is always on, and cooks the potatoes in the big iron pot.

The aunts have funny names; ‘Bunny,’ who is the oldest, she does all the cooking. ‘Lallie’ does the house cleaning and the beds. ‘Ta,’ though sometimes known as Kate, does all the washing.

We see our neighbours sometimes. A very quiet family live at the end cottage, an old man and woman. My aunts visit sometimes to ‘take some broth’ as the woman is often ill, and at those times, I’m kept away.

On the other side, lives a very grumpy old man with a long beard. He is called Mr. McGuire. He sits outside his cottage door and smokes a very long, smelly pipe. I must not go near him or speak to him because he ‘doesn’t like children.’

I am called in for the meal of the day. Bunny has cooked the potatoes. Mine are mashed with butter, a big knob of it on top and floating around in milk. I know that all these things come from the farm in Ballywalter.

I play in the sea again in the afternoon until the sun goes down and then, I’m given a glass of milk and a piece of home-made potato cake. Now, it’s bath time, and the aunts carry me down to the water’s edge. Ta carries a kettle of hot water and pours it into a rock pool. I am then immersed in the warm, briny water and pieces of seaweed are collected. The bulbous jelly-like substance is rubbed all over my body.

“This will make you grow a big, strong girl,” they say. I am then carried back to the cottage and helped, with the light of a candle in a tin carrier, up the narrow stairs to bed. I sleep with one of the aunts - I am not sure which one, Lallie I think it is, because I always sleep soundly until morning except for the nightmares.

The morning comes, and I am awoken to be helped sleepily down the stairs for a bowl of warm porridge floating in milk. Then, dressed and down on the shore, I search once again for my crabs my friends and playmates, and the day has started again.

Other times I just sit and dream. But at times I dream about things which have really happened. This time, I am remembering a young man who came to visit us. His name was Stanley I had to call him, ‘uncle’ Stanley. He was tall and pale looking with quite a longish chin and black-rimmed glasses. He talked a lot, although he was gentle and cheerful. I learnt he lived in a “college” which was in a big town called Dublin.

The aunts listened enthralled in the parlour whilst Stanley would lean against the fireplace, or pace the floor backwards and forwards, talking, talking, about what? I had no notion but I too, sat in wonder as these clever words would pour forth from his lips, always smiling as

he talked. Addressing them by name such as, “Do you know, Allie,” or “Kate, it states in (some book, or some volume) that this is so, or, that is so,” my aunts worshipfully taking in everything he had to say. There is a photograph of him on the dresser, he was dressed in a black robe and flat square hat on his head with a tassel.

There was something else I liked about Stanley. In the parlour was a large instrument called a harmonium. It was always kept locked, but when Stanley arrived it was opened up and he played on it quite a lot of the time. I loved to listen; at times he sang too, and, although he had a very powerful voice which filled the little room, I still sat quietly enjoying the music he made.

He stayed with us for a while, I am not sure how long, then, one morning a carriage came in the road behind and he and his cases were put in it. Fond embraces followed and farewells were said, the aunts holding hankies to their eyes, and he was off. We were back to the quiet uneventful routine again.

Another event happened way back last summer. A bus drew up in the back road and from it poured out lots and lots of school girls. My aunts told me they were all from a school in Bangor called the Princess Gardens School. This was a day’s outing for them as a special treat to spend an hour or two on the shores of Ballyhaskin. They all wore a uniform of navy ‘gym slips’, white blouses, dark-coloured ties and straw hats.

The aunts had arranged to give tea to the accompanying teachers whilst the children played on the sands. They ran about, just like I did, but some were big girls; in fact they were all bigger than me, of course, they were at school. They made a fuss of me, and the bigger girls picked me up. Their fronts though, felt hard against me, so different from the soft bosoms of the aunts. I enjoyed that day, my aunts brought us all out drinks and slices of potato cake. When they had all left again in the bus, I asked the aunts about ‘school’. “Yes,” they said, “you will go there one day.” I felt I couldn’t wait for that time.… other children to play with and ‘big girls’ to look after us.

I felt very excited too, on one particular day. As a great treat, the aunts, that is Lallie and Ta - Bunny never left the house - took me for a ride in a bus for a day in Bangor. This is a big seaside town, although the shore wasn’t nearly so nice as Ballyhaskin. Two sea-water pools

were built for people to swim in as the shore itself was so pebbly and rocky. The Aunts took me to a shop and bought me a new dress. It had a label on it which called it a ‘Judy’ dress. It was made of a stiff cotton material and the skirt stuck out a little. It was patterned in pink and blue colours and had a little purse sewn onto the waist.

After the purchase, I was taken for a very special treat. There was an ice cream shop run by Italians called, Caproni’s. Oh my! Their ice-cream was so delicious. We sat by the big windows of the shop looking out where a glass canopy surrounded the outside. Our tables were glass and we sat on cane chairs, and the ice cream was served in glass dishes with a biscuit wafer stuck on the top.

Then, after the big and exciting day, the bus ride home again. The following day I just had to wear my new dress. Mr. McGuire was sitting outside with his pipe and Aunt Lallie took me over to him. “Look Mr. McGuire, at Pixie’s new dress, isn’t it pretty?” I felt very shy, feeling I should not be approaching him, but all he said was.. “Yes, very nice,” rather impatiently as if we should leave him alone.

Chapter 2 Mummy My life continues pleasantly day after day, until one day, I am sitting idly on the rocks, I think I hear voices. I take no notice. One voice gets louder and I hear my name being called, it is the woman from the end cottage. She is approaching me with her skirts all ruffled and blowing in the breeze and her apron flapping...“Pixie,” she shouts. “Don’t you hear your great-aunt Kate calling you - go at once! “ I was taken in the house and lead into the parlour. The aunts were sitting around the table. Bunny was holding a piece of yellow paper in her hand. No-one talked as I entered, there seemed to be a serious look on each of their faces as they bade me sit down. “We have had a telegram.” (What’s that? I wondered.) “It’s from your mummy, she is coming here the day after tomorrow.” (Who or what is ‘mummy’?)

These thoughts and questions I kept to myself as I rarely, if ever, asked a question because, ‘little girls don’t ask questions.’ My aunt Ta was

Chapter 24 I don’t know why it should be that the best part of my life had to be tinged with conscience. It was fortunate for me that the main horrors and monstrosities of the war were not fully revealed until near the end, but this in itself is a terrible thing to say, because, had those discoveries been made sooner, so many lives would have been saved and so much intense suffering avoided.

I must though, be allowed to recall and relish the fact that it was during this period I learned what it meant to experience moments of happiness.

After the initial shock of the broadcast and Mr. McKay had left, Mother, with much sighing and in a trembling voice uttered… “All the best young men will be sent to war,” but in the next breath voiced concern as the Xmas trees were just beginning to show profit.

Father remained silent which in effect indicated that no matter what was to befall, life would go on. But for me, from that moment on, life began to change.

Out of the cloudiness of my mind, I could feel some relief; some lifting of the oppression which had always been with me.

The most obvious weight on my mind was, of course, the uncanny hold my mother had over me. Did I feel at that moment a very slight lifting, as if the burden on my shoulders had become suddenly a fraction lighter? Was it that Mother’s attention seemed now ever so slightly lifted from me and transformed to a more outward sphere? In all events at that moment I felt different; a ray of light perhaps at the end of a very dark tunnel. For me a hope, whilst for others it must have brought a feeling of deepest despair.

As I had always been an observer and never a participant in life, I noticed certain things; patterns, of which maybe others were less aware.

Above all, I hated pettiness. This practice seemed to be all around.

Gossiping, bullying of which I was so often the recipient. Cliquey little circles and groups. Mother’s constant battle to be accepted in the ‘upper circles’ where she felt herself to be even superior.

At school, the ‘house’ and ‘team spirit’ prevailed to the extent that one was, in fact, regarding, if only temporally, the idea that the other

side was the ‘enemy’. Indeed one’s best friends could indeed belong to the other side.

Each family or unit self-centred on ‘me or mine’ or ‘we or ours’- a narrow concept - surely this may change with a common enemy. It certainly did.

Within days we had word that Lallie had died. (Why, oh why, couldn’t it have been the other one!) Mother hurried over to Ireland to help with the arrangements but returned within a week or so, bringing with her a woollen coat, hardly worn, and a few other ‘useful things’ that Ta hadn’t wanted.

The coat was to be turned into a new coat and hat for me. I was measured by the village dressmaker and soon could boast my first outfit that Mother had bought, which hadn’t been for the purpose of school.

To match the grey coat, Mother splashed out on a brand new grey skirt and a ‘powder blue’ woollen jumper, “In case things get difficult.” I felt so smart.

The news was listened to constantly on the wireless, but locally too, there was much talk and activity.

One great project about to begin was the turning over of a large acreage of Common Land for the purpose of erecting numerous brick and wood buildings. This was in preparation for the housing of a very large Camp for Canadian soldiers who were about to be shipped over.

The national news gave forecasts of proposals to move the children in the danger areas of London, into the country. I wondered if we might be taking some - that would be fun!

Mother though, a step ahead of all others, and not wishing for any children, arranged, through her Institute for an East End mother and baby to occupy our spare room. This arrangement however, lasted only days. Father was furious saying, “Why did you have to be the first...etc.”

Mrs...was soon moved elsewhere.

By this time my Aunt Doris and Uncle Kenneth were well established in their new house next to ours. I was not invited to their wedding, but, on their return from their ‘honeymoon’, the light was turned on in their new house and I watched, unseen from our window, as my new Aunt donned an apron to set about her new house duties.

Curious, I watched, feeling a tinge of envy. “So, this was marriage,” I murmured to myself.

And now, they had a ten year old boy evacuated with them and at times I would go over and spend time with him to the accompanied sneers of Mother. “Oh, you now have to play with a ten year old.”

Mother joined the Red Cross, and was soon bossing all those ‘dear ladies’ she had for so long, boasted of belonging to their acquaintance, particularly those with double-barrelled French sounding names and big houses.

As the sticks and umbrella handles were exported to many parts of the world, a client from Montreal in Canada wrote to Father offering to take me into their family for the duration. The offer was gratefully accepted and I, with many others, were assembled in a large hall in Guildford for the purpose of a Medical test and then a Registration to be placed on the waiting list for the next boatload of children being despatched to Canada.

This would take a while as one laden boat was already crossing the Atlantic and we would wait for its return. But plenty was happening in the meanwhile.

The day, that was to really change my life came, when Father announced that we would make a trip to a big store in Kingston called Bentalls.

Father was a step ahead…we were to get in a quantity of such things as blankets and other bedding, clothes, blackout material, footwear and anything else that may become in short supply or unavailable.

The following Saturday we set off. I wore my ‘new’ coat and matching hat, and my really new grey skirt and blue jumper.

We drove to Kingston, parked the car and entered the shop. Then came the argument of who was to have me. “I’ll be mainly in the Men’s Department,” said Father, “better she stays with you.” “But I want time to choose carefully,” continued Mother. “How can I when I have her round me.”

Something started up...music! I looked up and there, in the centre of the large store on the level of the first floor, was a large open ‘stage’.

Bedecked in artificial garlands of flowers, were a band of men producing the most heavenly of sounds, filling the whole arena and

drawing crowds, pausing from their attention on shopping, to draw nearer, gaze and listen.

I was off! Leaving my parents to continue the argument, unaware that I was no longer there…

Two hours must have elapsed. During that time I had made my way up the moving stairs and slowly edged my way to the front row. I was enraptured...time stood still, until I was jogged into reality by Father who had spotted me and was indicating it was time to find something to eat.

Back again after lunch, and back again was the Hawaiian Band, led by the very glamorous dark haired man.

Again, I worked my way to the front and again remained fixated until it was time to go home.

The car was loaded; I was shoved in the back and we drove off into the dark evening, the music ringing in my ears.

Ten or so miles from home, someone was signalling to us. It was a Canadian soldier, tin hat under his arm, requesting a lift. “Do stop Daddy,” I requested. Father obviously in a satisfied mood, complied.

“Going to the Camp?” asked Father. “Yes sir, please,” this soft spoken and courteous man replied.

He told us he was from Ontario. “Our daughter is going to Montreal,” remarked Mother for conversation. He turned to me and smiled, “Are you?” Timidly, I replied, “I hope so...” “It’s very ‘French’ in Montreal,” he said again addressing me. I smiled again, blushing this time. No-one had ever addressed me in this direct way before. I began to dream; did I look ‘attractive’, and ‘grown-up’ enough to draw the attention of the first man I had ever looked at in this way? He descended near the Camp and walked out of sight. I was in love...would I ever see him again?

That night I went to sleep with not only heavenly sounds in my ears but the vision of that beautiful Canadian soldier.

Book Two Part One

HELL

Chapter 55 I presented myself to Mr. C in his office. “I wish you weren’t leaving us,” he said. “You don’t know anyone else as talented or gifted as you are with the instruments?”

I told him, “No.” I only wished I had known that I was so appreciated.

Being only an apprentice, I had not made much in salary. I was already tucking into my precious savings. I had already lost out on the short time at Trinity.

I had though, still my ‘consolation’ in mind and had been making tentative enquiries on the purchase of a harpsichord and had been sent photos of one recommended to me for my consideration. But, with the coming of a further try at a college, it would not be possible to have both.

My greatest problem was where was I to practise? Besides Mother’s continual reminder that “You can’t practise at home,” I wondered if the facilities at the Guildhall would give me sufficient opportunity.

It wasn’t just Mother’s words. When I entered my room, I immediately ‘stiffened up’, my fingers would tremble and I would be ready to jump ‘to the ceiling’ at every sound made either in the house or outside.

How could I deceive myself that, getting ‘back into the environment of music’ I would be cured of these predicaments?

The problem of the practising remained. The whispers now seemed more pronounced than ever. What was being planned for my destiny?

What I could occasionally make out were the words, “Get her out of the house.”

Now, Father’s new partnership was proposing the marketing of a new product. It was the invention of a revolutionary flooring made from a rubber compound which when heated would be poured onto the surface it was to cover.

Father needed an area to be used as an experiment for the trying out of this new flooring. I am sure though, with all his contacts and

odd buildings at his disposal that he could have easily found somewhere, which could have been used as a show-room.

Instead, he proposed that he build me a ‘hut’ and would use the floor as a try-out for the new product before putting it on the market.

This sounded a wonderful idea. It would be built somewhere in the garden and I could choose the location - within reason that is, as far from the house as possible.

I chose the old orchard. The idea was twofold, one to be away from the house as was my parents wish and two, to put distance from the fiend next door. It would be close to my woods where I had spent so many peaceful hours - I would be ‘safe’ there.

I wasn’t really aware that during this time since leaving the old instrument factory, that I had become so pre-occupied in the evolvement of a ‘hut’ where I could practise, that I would go to my room and spend long hours there without doing any constructive work.

The fact was, I was not admitting that I could no longer ‘concentrate’.

Already my fingers were becoming stiff so I could hardly move them. I was kidding myself that I could still play at all.

The hut was finished before the new year. It was build with the new innovation of ‘breeze blocks’, a tin roof unlined inside. The floor being the best feature but for the rest there was, of course, no electricity so, Father had put in an old coal burning stove and an oil lamp. A very flimsy and hastily made door though, gave no protection from outside draughts or weather.

My furniture had been transported down there and Father had provided me so kindly with a beautiful mirror as he knew it was useful for checking correct stance posture etc.

It was starting to get really cold after Christmas. I took my instrument down the long track to the orchard on the first day. I also had to carry a hod full of coal, some paraffin and matches.

The first thing was to light the stove. One thing I had overlooked: after such activity my hands would need washing. I therefore had to trudge back and carry a bowl full of water.

This was all proving impractical and difficult, but I kept saying to myself, “It is all to have the quiet I need and to create my own ‘atmosphere’.” Also, it would be ‘safe’ no-one would harm me here and I would begin to play again.

All that done, I was ready to start. I picked up my instrument.

Starting on the first exercise. “What was that!” A roar - so loud and so near.

I couldn’t believe it. I went outside.

There, pushing its way through the narrow path between our hedge and the trees was a large vehicle; there were four or five men….no-one has ever been in these remote woods, that is, not during my life-time.

I climbed over the fence (as I did since the tender age of seven) and I asked what was going on.

“We’re going to clear the woods,” said one of the men. “No...no.”

“What in the name of God can I do?” The awful Mr. Vendal had taken down all the trees near our house. Now all these trees are coming down.

“What can I do?” Tears streamed down my face. Try and ignore it...but the heavy thuds were soon to start.

My hands had got dirty with the fence. I tried to wash off the mossy green of the wood but it wouldn’t come off.

Through the thuds and noise I took up my instrument and set up the first exercise. After a while, I looked at the clock. I had been doing the same two bars of exercise for two and a half hours!

What could I tell Father? As a further trouble the sound in the hut was terrible. The bare walls sort of echoed.

There was only one thing to do. It was certain I could not tell Father that the hut was no good, after all he’d done, neither could I even hint so to Mother.

All I could do now was lose my mind...‘Pretend’ that everything was alright - from now on and forever.

Chapter 56 I returned to the house in a daze. No-one noticed anything different.

To me the world had changed. I tried to wash my hands again but still the green colour would not come off. I took the nail brush and scrubbed and scrubbed.