Rock Collections, Birth Pictures...
Saturday, May 6, 2006
[9:57am] Collette happened to be thinking that day, rather out-of-the-blue, about an episode which took place when she was twelve. Nine years ago that summer, she had been spending one afternoon with Diana. But before their activities could begin for the evening, Diana had to attend her piano lesson from Mrs. South at their old home in Twin Chimneys. By that year, Diana and Collette had both spent a year to two in choir, and Collette was still getting used to the firecracker of Mrs. South and her flaming red hair. That particular afternoon, Collette opted to stay with Diana through her lesson and was invited to sit in the piano room, until Lolli came into the room. She couldn’t have been older than six at the time, likely not more than five. And she quickly invited Collette upstairs to her room, to spend the hour looking over things. The first thing she displayed, and rather proudly, was her rock collection. It might have included shells as well. Lolli giggled happily, pleased to have someone interested in her collection (as Collette had always liked different sorts of rocks herself). But as the hour progressed, Lolli, who was rather excitable at the time, decided that it was time to move to another sort of collection – a picture collection. And this time, Lolli got the giggles, because she obviously knew that she was about to show Collette something very, very funny. She ran off and soon returned with a rather fat photo album which she set on the floor by her bed.
“They’re Relev’s birth pictures!” She giggled, opening to the first page.
Collette thought, at that moment, how strange it was that she was sitting in her choir director’s house looking at (or rather, trying not to look at) birth pictures of her choir director’s 14 year-old son, who was currently in his room doing physics or something, and completely oblivious to what was going on, and everything else. It was already a rather embarrassing situation. And on top of it, Lolli then found it necessary to tell Relevance what they were doing.
“Oh, Relevance!” She crooned outside his door, and pushed her way inside. “I’m showing Collette all your birth pictures!”
“Lolli!” Relevance yelled at her angrily. “Get out of here! I told you never to come in here. Out!”
He slammed the door and apparently never even heard what Lolli had said to him in the first place.
Several years later, when Collette was 15, she recorded another sort of incident, a conversation which she and Diana overheard from behind the kitchen door at the English’s one Friday:
“…when Mrs. South came over for lunch, she was speaking about how Relevance would be probably wanting to get married in five years… Diana and I about died,” of surprise and laughter, it would seem.
“Well, I’ve swept her front doorstep, I’ve polished her plate.
I’ve put coals in the pan for her bed-oh.
I’ve rose before sunlight to blacklead her grate,
And at midnight I’ve laid down me head.
Oh, dear me, how can it be?
The life of a servant is all drudgery.