Eleanor Soane Penrith Anglican College A Winter Symphony ...

Eleanor Soane Penrith Anglican College

A Winter Symphony

A woven canopy of foliage obscured the midday sun whilst the chill of freshly fallen snow drifted
aimlessly. I wandered the narrow path; my eyes fixed on the iron construction ahead with the dulcet
tones of Debussy vibrating across my lips. It was her favourite and mine. We had debated about his
overuse of dynamics, but the sonata was one of my favourites nevertheless.

My eyes searched the profusion of winter’s frosty remains. A shield of snow that seemed to guard
the entrance loomed in the distance. I spied a forlorn heath of grass nestled at the base of a dense wall
of pine trees. The disorganised blades were encased in a rigid layer of frost that was suffocating the
vivacious green beneath. Life was buried alive in this place.

I never particularly favoured the idea of a cemetery. What an odd thing, indeed, the notion of a
designated place to conceal all that you hold most dear. An unexpected sigh escaped my lips, causing
steam to dance before my eyes like musical notes on a page. The steam, still dancing, hypnotically,
was a reminder that I was above the earth and standing in a clearing, and she was somewhere hidden
in an icy chamber.

A mutt yelped in the distance and then gaily bounded in my direction, holding a gnarled stick in
its jaw. At the last moment it swerved in a psychotic eruption of excitement and then headed towards
its master, still faithfully clutching its prize. I wondered if she too could feel the animal’s staccato
vibrations through the earth; the unstructured meter of the living.

I willed the dog to be still; forcing it to obey my telepathic desires, but still it careered into logs
and bracken causing a cacophony of disruption. She deserved a secluded and peaceful place. I knew
she would have detested the throbbing din of this disorderly jungle.

Eventually the two shadowy figures smudged into the horizon and I fixed on the iron gates that
towered before me. The handle, red with rust, gave way beneath my fingertips and the grating sound
of irritated iron pierced the white noise of winter. If I had perfect pitch I would have said the ringing
note was a C.

Flakes of red metal drifted from my fingertips and floated toward the earth, and lumps of
disturbed ice fell upon my boots. The wind voiced its objections once more, causing me to yank
instinctively at my downy hood but my feet remained firmly planted in the brittle ice that blanketed
the landscape.

The stone path that stretched into the distance tracked a passage through corridors of headstones
covered in glassy ice. It was like the organised contents of a filing cabinet, each one placed directly
next to the other to form identical, methodical rows.

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Eleanor Soane Penrith Anglican College

She was just where I left her, to the east of the Iron Gate, not far from the ice covered creek bed,
nestled beneath the outstretched arm of a Lime Tree bough. My fingers gently caressed the curved
headstone and I pictured her sitting on the piano stool, poised before the keys. She was called
‘Jingles’ you know, but not for reasons you would have imagined. Oh, she was a virtuoso most
assuredly, but she was called ‘Jingles’ because of her adhoc collection of jewellery that rattled a
percussive accompaniment as she banged out ragtime rhythms.

I fed on her love of music. It was a magic nectar dropped by Puck into my dormant fingertips.
She brought me to life. She made me an eager student, hungry to learn more of the mystical world
she inhabited.

I was clumsy at first, but she was patient, determined for me to succeed. We would frolic through
sheets of music together; she on the harmonious bass line with soaring arpeggios, while I staggered
through the four or so glorious notes I knew of the melody. Next she taught me scales and I adapted
the technique of fast and fluent fingering quickly. Soon words were a thing of the past. Her fingers
spoke and I listened. Music had become our secret language.

A carpet of icy air floated over the grave stones causing a shiver to roll through my body. I
retrieved a mint from my pocket and wrestled with the wrapper as a young couple entwined in each
other’s arms like pieces of a jig-saw, walked beyond the iron fence. They were wrapped in scarves
and deep in conversation, each gripping a steaming paper cup. I wanted it to be hot chocolate but
something told me the cup contained a concoction of decaf or soy or chai. If she were here we would
have had hot chocolate. The real stuff made with milk and melted chocolate from a block that had
been packaged in a gold leaf wrapper. A crackling sound erupted through the quiet in the distance
beyond the interlocked couple and, for a moment, I thought it might have been the delightful
crunching of a golden foil wrapper opening and revealing its chocolaty prize. But it wasn’t.

I snatched my gaze from the wandering couple in irritation. They had stolen my quiet moment of
conversation with her. Then I forced my thoughts back into the past, like bundles of clothes shoved
into a suitcase. I sifted back through memories, one by one, until I had returned to her.

She loved languages, you know. And she was skilled, too. They say it’s a talent that only a few
possess, but I have inherited her talents. From the language of music we shared other secret words. I
was told she had decided to learn a new ‘tongue’ at the youthful age of five. When other little girls
were playing with dolls, she had come upon a pictorial French dictionary and had quite boldly decided
to teach herself a new language. I don’t believe anyone truly imagined that she could, but she did.
Well of course when I heard this extraordinary account, I too borrowed a French dictionary from the
library.

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Eleanor Soane Penrith Anglican College

The mint rattled between my teeth noisily as a smile curled the corner of my lip. We had all
travelled to New Caledonia for a summer holiday when I was perhaps nine or ten. She was masterful
and I was ever so proud. I remember her vividly standing at the counter of a Patisserie fanning herself
in the heat with her straw hat. I wanted to nestle myself into the folds of her dress but I had been
firmly instructed to stand to the side with my younger brother who had done nothing but wail the
entire trip. Flowery French words rolled effortlessly from her tongue as she ordered a box of
macaroons for each of us. The cardboard box was like a clam; the outside rough and creamy brown in
colour. Whilst inside was the pearl; an abundance of shiny pastel packages each delicately piped with
a velvety layer of filling.

My lips mouthed her secret French words in the dimming light and ice slipped in, a cold reminder
that I was not in New Caledonia. I was still here, beneath the receding sun, alone apart from a faint
chorus of birds that had begun their own private symphony in the distance.

The muscles in my legs ached from chilled air that had buffeted the hill for the best part of the
day. Over time it had seeped through my jeans and down to the bone, sending icy needles within. I
shuffled, dislodging the white froth from my boots, and took refuge against the side of the Lime Tree.

The bark was alive under my fingertips. It was a reminder that even though winter had called halt
to most signs of life it could not stop the Lime Tree’s secret silent breaths. It was one of the quiet
living, just like me; careful not to breathe too loudly in case it offended those who could not. Tree.
The word rolled around in my heard. I could hear her flowery French conversation once more. Her
words crept back into my thoughts. l’arbre. Yes, that’s it. But I could not mimic the guttural
elegance of her rolling Rs.

I drew my fingers into a ball and warmed them with my breath. Steam once more rose into the
air. My eyes travelled onward, devouring every detail, capturing the world in a photograph within my
memory for later. The fractured shards of snow, the gravestones plated in ice, the pine trees masked in
white, the towering fence beyond, the soothing hum of cars lost somewhere in the dissolving light on
the main road beyond. A bird in one of the boughs above me seemed to call ‘time’ and I took this as
my invitation to move on. Making my way back onto the uneven cobbled path, I pulled at the zipper
on my jacket and forced it till it could go no more. I knew my grandmother would have hated for me
to catch cold.

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