Music Monitor

  

A tale of Deep Purple, bruised buttocks and my first act of rebellion. From my new collection of autobiographical short stories: Kill Me Now

Enquiries: charlieadley1@gmail.com
 

Music Monitor

You sit terrified behind the curtain at the edge of the school stage.

The only other person up here is the Headmaster.

A lanky skinny man, he is compassionate, yet unpredictable in everything except his wardrobe and his rollups.

He sports green leather patches on the elbows of his omnipresent tweed jacket, nicotine yellow fingertips and moustache.

He also wears the rich scent of Old Holborn tobacco.

There are worse smells.

You peek out, around the edge of the curtain.

His fingertips rest regally on the arms of his wooden throne.

Below, the entire school fidgets excitedly on polished wooden benches. Each boy’s head twists to look up at you: excited if they don’t like you; nervous if you’re their friend.

You start to sweat.

Your heartbeat crashes around your eardrums.

For the first time you taste your own bile, along with a pre-pubescent whiff of damp armpit.

You wonder why the hell you’ve decided to do this.

At the age of 12, your life is as good as it will ever get. You’re Patrol Leader, a School Prefect and a Dormitory Prefect. You scored straight ‘A’s on all your exams and you’ve loads of friends.

A few weeks ago the Headmaster approached you to ask if you’d like to be Morning Music Monitor. Every function at English Preparatory School has to have a title.

Now you have the honour of choosing a piece of music each morning, which you then play while Assembly dissembles.

The corresponding record sleeve has to be displayed in front of the Headmaster’s lectern on stage, enabling everyone in front of it to know what music they can look forward to.

Behind the lectern, the Headmaster has no idea which composer you’ve picked, but he’s very familiar with the entire school collection.

At least, he thinks he is.

All he’s done today is come into Morning Assembly, as he always does.

He hasn’t seen what the rest of the school has seen.

Next year you’ll start Public School and because they think you’re smart enough to be an Oxbridge candidate, you’ll be thrown into a class a year ahead, and pushed to take three ‘O’ levels in a single year.

You’ll go from top of the form and popular to being the class dumbo and a social pariah.

A boiling bag of hormones, paranoia and primal urges, you’ll react by putting on 45 pounds of weight, and decide that you’ve no desire whatsoever to go to university.

Right now though you’re bricking it.

So far you’ve been the model of a modern music monitor, done exactly what you’re meant to do, choosing safe crowd-pleasing favourites such as Grieg’s In The Hall of the Mountain King or Sibelius’ Karelia Suite.

Each morning you lift the needle and set it down so very carefully onto the LP, in an effort to avoid deafening everyone with the ear-splitting crunch of a stylus sliding through loudspeakers.

Today the boys hold their breath, their eyes transfixed by the cover of the LP on display.

Your first act of rebellion.

Punishment awaits.

After the hymns and prayers, the Headmaster stands to make his daily announcements, sits down, turns to you and nods his head.

Your signal to play the music.

Nobody will stand up from their seats until the music starts, and then they will file out, age by age, class by class, except for the Prefects who wait until all others are gone, and then file out in order of their own seniority, followed by the Deputy Head Boy, then the Head Boy.

This obsession with hierarchy drives you crazy.

This is why you feel the need to break rank, and it’s too late now.

Everyone apart from the Headmaster has seen the album cover.

If you don’t do it you’ll be chicken.

If you do it, you’ll be a hero and in serious trouble.

Slowly, gently, the needle is lowered.

You sit back and wait for the opening chords of Deep Purple’s Smoke On The Water.

A gasp is audible from below, but still, row by row, the boys stand up and file out, each staring with a smile as they walk by.

Some whisper

“Nice one, Adley!”

Others drag their fingers across their necks, in simulation of the slaughter to come.

After the boys have all left the hall, the teachers file out in their correct order, by seniority of age and department, followed by the Deputy Headmaster, and finally the Headmaster.

This morning he’s not gone anywhere though.

He sits in his chair and looks over. Just the two of you in the empty hall. He looks down at his knees.

He places the palms of his hands over his cheeks, hiding his weary kind eyes. Now he inspects the frayed hems of his ancient gabardine trousers.

You sit and say nothing.

That’s a simple fact of life in private schools in England: speak only when spoken to, and even then, only when expected to reply.

This long silence drowns you in dread.

You imagine the Headmaster is contemplating which particular line of punishment to choose.

Finally he turns to you, and speaks softly across the stage.

“Hmm.     Well, Adley    that was               that was         hmm.     What was that?”

“That was Smoke On The Water by Deep Purple, Sir.”

“Hmm.       Heard worse things.          They appear able to play their instruments and create a melody.        Hmm.         I suggest that from now on, you stick to the wonderful world of Classical music from Monday to Thursday.       Hmmm.         On Fridays, I will trust you to be sanguine about your choices, but if it has a tune,       some kind of musical merit   and is     ermmm     popular with the boys,       I see no reason to avoid the contemporary canon completely. Are you capable of choosing such pieces?”

“Er, yes. Yes Sir!”

“And that doesn’t include Chuck Berry and his ding a ling, nor Benny Hill and the likes of Ernie.”

“No sir. Hate that anyway, Sir.”

“Very well, Adley.”

He stands up and leaves.

You sit there in shock, wondering what the hell ‘sanguine’ means, aware that you’ve got away with a whopper.

You stand up, and discover something that will affect each subsequent performance throughout your life.

While you have the nerve to speak in public, to make a marketing presentation, to open an exhibition or launch a book, afterwards your legs become feeble wobbly sticks, completely failing you, and you will fall over.

Alone in the school hall, you slowly topple backwards.

Your arse slams hard

against the wooden boards

with an echoing eye-jarring thump.

You have escaped the cane.

You have neither been reprimanded nor beaten, but contrived somehow to smack your own behind and end up in pain.

It was worth it though.

©Charlie Adley

19.02.2023