Fall on Your Knees by Ann-marie MacDonald Read Free Book Online

equal parts anxiety and awe, like the striking of a wide seam of gold. The prospector sinks to his knees — he’s only been looking for coal. At a gush of oil he’d hoot, baptize himself and buy the drinks. But the sight of gold is different. He observes a moment’s silence. Then he rises, eyes watering. How to get it properly out of the earth? How not to be robbed in the meantime?
    Eventually it would require real money. For now, he set aside his own studies and started teaching her himself. He read up on it. He bought a metronome, a gramophone, and began a collection of records. He ordered whole scores and song sheets from New York, Milan and Salzburg. He decided it wasn’t too soon to start in on the Vaccai Practical Method of Italian Singing . Mozart composed at three. At three, Kathleen sang, “Manca sollecita Più dell’usato, Ancor che s’agiti Con lieve fiato, Face che palpita Presso al morir .”
    Materia was permitted to play piano again, this time exactly what was put in front of her:
    scales, intervals, i semitoni
    “this lesson must be sung adagio at first, and the time accelerated to allegro , according to the ability of the Pupil”
    syncopation, ornamentation, literal translation, “The flame fails rapidly/more than usual/even if it flickers/with a light breath”
    appoggiatura, introduzione al mordente
    “the acciaccatura differs from the appoggiatura in as much as it does not interfere with the value or the accent of the note to which it is prefixed,” intervals of thirds, intervals of fourths, salti di quinta, salti di sesta
    “the little bird in a narrow cage/why does one never hear it sing?”
    Lesson XI, The Shake, “I would explain my anguish”
    Lesson XII, On Roulades, “I cannot believe my thoughts”
    Lesson XIII, Per Portare la Voce, “I cannot keep silent about everything.”
    Materia played. Kathleen turned seven.
    Materia watched it all from a great distance, and as the years flew by she missed her father more and more, forgetting everything but that he had once cared enough for her to find her a husband. All memories soften with age, and the good ones are also the most perishable — her mother and sisters had long ago been caressed to disappearing soapstone, conjured up till they faded to nothing. Like cave paintings by candle-light, she could only glimpse them now in the dark from the corner of her eye. But her father’s memory was durable. Obelisk eroded to a dome of rock, the touchstone of her loss.
    “You’re too fat.”
    Materia looked at James from afar and said, “Okay.”
    He shook his head. Other men went strolling with their wives of a Saturday evening. Took them to church on Sunday, sat at opposite ends of a row of children. But not James. He didn’t want people thinking he’d married a woman old enough to be his mother, for one thing. But mainly, what with Materia gone slack in mind and body, he didn’t want his child stigmatized. For on top of everything else, Materia was dark. He tried not to see it, but it was one of those things that was always before his eyes, now that the scales had fallen from them.
    He took Kathleen everywhere. They went on long walks — Kathleen in the beautiful English pram at first, and then hand in hand. Their walking language was Gaelic. With her faery hair and fine deportment, people stared because she looked like a princess. Her clothes came from England. Nothing showy, all quality, like a real-life princess. And James trusted his immaculate shirts to no one but himself, shaved his face clean every morning. Together they turned heads.
    It was 1907 and there was a town now. It had sprung up overnight starting with Number 12 Colliery. Numbers 14, 15 and 16 followed in short order. The railroad came in and so did the miners. At first they came from all over the Maritimes, England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. In time they came from everywhere. The Dominion Coal Company bought up land and built a sea of company houses —