Sing Like You Know the Words by martin sowery Read Free Book Online

Swan Upping at Effingham and you can see they are
collecting the swans in baskets from the river. Do you know
Spencer?
    -No
    -You see how that the curve of
the birds’ necks is repeated in the shape of the men’s arms?
    -Oh yes it’s clever. And
this?
    -It’s called The Garden of
Earthly Delights. It’s a detail of a painting by Hieronymus
Bosch.
    -I don’t like that one much.
    Christ we’ve been here five
minutes, Matthew was thinking, and we’ve already killed off art and
music, what next?
    -Books then.
    -I beg your pardon, Carol
replied. Matthew could not remember that anyone had actually used
the words I beg your pardon to him before.
    -You said you liked literature.
I wondered what books you’ve been reading lately.
    -Oh, nothing really.
    -Well what sort of books do you
like to read?
    -Anything I suppose. As long as
it holds my interest. And I don’t like there to be politics in it.
Too dull don’t you think? Matthew nodded his agreement. Other than
that anything at all.
    -And film of course.
    -What?
    -You like films. Meeting you at
the film club.
    -Yes of course. Although that
one tonight was a bit pretentious.
    -I suppose it was. Matthew had
thought that the whole point about film club films was that they
should be pretentious. Did you see the one last week, he
ventured?
    -No, what was it about?
    -I’m not sure really. It was in
black and white of course. A very significant work. Very
influential and very old. There were these French people on a barge
travelling down a river. I suppose it would have been the Seine.
Not much happened to be honest.
    -Was it interesting?
    -Not really, no it was dull. Do
you fancy going to the pub?
     
    ***
     
    Two days after what Matthew
remembered as the Carol debacle, he came home and found David and
Patricia sitting on the couch with books open before them. He was
about to leave them and go quietly to his room, but David greeted
him warmly.
    -There you are Matt,
perfect.
    Patricia beamed at him.
    -Thanks Matthew, it’s good of
you to offer to help.
    David noticed Matthew’s blank
look and spoke to intercept any reply he might make.
    -Like I said last night, Matt.
The drama group: Pygmalion: Pat is going to be Clara. She’s been
struggling a bit with it and I said we would help. You’re the
expert of course, but I mean, it’s not such a straightforward part
is it?
    -It’s quite straightforward
actually. Clara only has a few lines.
    David smiled, relieved.
    -So you’ve read it? I mean, yes
good.
    But now Patricia was
frowning.
    -That’s partly the problem Matt.
I have so little to say. God knows it’s not that I want to make the
part bigger. I don’t suppose I could play Eliza if I practiced for
a hundred years. But I want to do my little part well. It’s a
matter of, how to get the character across with so few words. I
mean, when you read the lines, she just sounds like a silly,
snobbish girl who is desperate to be fashionable and catch a
husband. But then I read the epilogue, and Shaw tells us that later
on she becomes a progressive thinker. She meets H.G. Wells and
everything. So there must be something more in her character that I
should try to get across.
    She paused for a moment to allow
him to consider the difficulty.
    -And there’s just this one
moment really, after Eliza’s accent slips, and because Eliza looks
so beautiful and Higgins pretends that cockney is becoming
fashionable, Clara, wants to imitate her. So I make this comment
about Victorian prudery, and Higgins agrees, and then I am
encouraged to make this comment “such bloody nonsense”, but it has
to come out as shocking, because no proper lady would use such
language then.
    -Just say it with an affected
upper class voice, as if you’re trying the word out for the first
time.
    -But then, Matt, it goes on. Let
me read it, I say “Ha! Ha!” Well that’s not so easy to get right is
it? And then it says “she goes out radiant, conscious of being
thoroughly up to date, and is heard