"Room, play Beatles Abbey Road"
"Shuh Duh" followed by Lennon's strained tones came together from the walls and Gregis sat down to his screens and the dreaded aeronautics homework.
He wasn't making much headway on the basic principles of lift, but his brain knew all about that shiny hammer of Mr Maxwell. And, preventing further progress, here was his grandmother coming into the room with her endless chatter. But a diversion is a diversion....
"Oh I wish it would!"
"Nan?"
"The sun. I wish it would come out, like Georgie says. It's been raining for so many days now." She sang along in the melodic alto that always surprised him, seemed so at odds with the small woman it floated out from. Joined in the handclaps too, but suddenly threw in an extra loud one that jarred against her oneness with the music.
"What was that?"
"What?"
"That extra big clap you threw in? It didn't seem to have much to do with the song."
"Oh, but it does boy, it does. It's where the crackle goes. It's the missing link to the past, it's the sound of my youth, and mother's and her mother. It's real music. I sometimes think your mother isn't really mine, the way she rejects it."
He looked sceptical, and being subjected to the ramblings of an old woman was something he'd got used to and generally ignored. But this, and he couldn't have said why the thought came to him, this felt different. Right enough, there was usually some grain of sense or truth in Nan's words, if you worked hard enough.
"Is this going anywhere Nan? What's Mum done wrong?"
"Wrong? No, nothing wrong. Not really. Except by breaking the tradition. By being so desperately 'modern' in everything. For having no feel for her heritage." She looked at him quizzically, teasingly. "Why did you choose the Beatles today Gregis?"
"Um, I just, um, like them I guess. Heard this one at Donal's place, his mum's really into this ancient stuff and it kind of, you know, talked to me..." His voice tailed away, his sense of stupidity growing.
Nan clapped her hands again. "Perfect. Perfect. You are one of us. Maybe the gene just skipped a generation. And a gender. Have you ever wanted to be a woman Gregis?"
"Err, no, not really. No, no, not at all, not really."
"Oh well, it was too much to hope for. But that shouldn't stop us. Next time you're at my house I'll show you what I mean. Oh, and best not mention it to your mother..."
And with that she left. Gregis got no further with lift.
------------------------------------------
His curiosity raised, he went round to Nan's place as soon as he had time. Two days had passed and he still hadn't come up with a single plausible explanation for that conversation. Crackle? That was a noise from physics experiments. Or the unwrapping of packaging.
"Ah, Gregis, I didn't think you'd take long to come and see me. Intrigued, eh? Or just trying to humour a crazy old woman?"
Gregis blushed, not sure which answer was the correct one. She took him into the main room.
"Room, lights fifty five" she commanded, and the lighting came on softly, but enough to see by. "Room, deck shelf out, speakers out." Sections of the facing wall opened up and three 25mm shelves slid out. To left and right the shelves supported large boxes with a black mesh material covering their fronts. In the middle sat a curious device, an antique of some sort, with actual physical knobs and buttons. It was a low black box, sat on small rubber feet, with a rectangular clear plastic canopy on top. Through which he could see a circular plinth with dulled pin sticking up in the centre, a curiously bent metal arm to the right, and more of those little hand controls. WTF?
"Room, record storage out, highlight Abbey Road." From the bottom of the wall six large drawers slid out, each filled with... old bits of cardboard? Gregis had no idea what was going on, or why was he being shown all this junk from the past.
Above one of the drawers a narrow beam shone. Nan went over and pulled out one of the old bits of cardboard, held it up for him to see. On one side there was a lot of writing, some of it clearly a list. On the other side a picture showing four guys in weird outfits, with even weirder hair, walking single file across a black and white striped bit of old road. He looked askance at his gently smiling relative.
From the cardboard she slid a circular piece of black plastic, on which he could see concentric lines, and a label in the centre. She pulled up the see-through cover on the box, and placed the round plastic ever so carefully on the plinth, the central pin sticking through a hole in the middle. She pressed a couple of buttons, adjusted a knob, then lifted the bent arm and lowered it very very slowly on to the outside of the now spinning piece of plastic. He was still mystified until...
Shuh Duh, Shuh Duh, rattling percussion, deep bass. #Here come old flat top,
He come grooving up slowly, He....#
They smiled at each other. They listened. The crackle came. And some understanding.
It took patience, but Nan gradually explained what was happening, what the device was (a 'record deck', what the bits of plastic were (LPs, or records, or albums, of discs, or 33s, or simply vinyl, they had so many names for these things in the old days), how the sound was produced, how precious these items were now, how rare they'd become. She allowed him turn the record over, to play the 'B side', made him take his time, savour the sensations of doing it all by hand. Sense the value it created in being joined to the original creation.
"And Mum never liked this?"
"Hated it. Wouldn't have it in her home. Backward she always said. Like being a primitive. Couldn't understand why you'd want to do something slowly by hand that was available in a few syllables. She never got it at all. I can see you do though." Her smile warmed him through. "Want to try another album? Plenty here to choose from."
He nodded. "Where does all this come from? Why haven't I ever heard about this stuff? How old is that Abbey Road music?"
She laughed, a rejuvenating giggle, and adopted a conspiratorial stance, came close. "It first belong to my great great grandmother, back in the early days of the last century. The LPs are mostly even older than that. But they've been loved, cared for, and every little scratch and crackle is precious now, it's part of the music to me. This equipment, and the collection, has been passed down through every generation since. Until your mother decided to break with it. So maybe you'll..." She didn't get to finish.
"Yes. Please. Yes, definitely. Yes."
Although she was a good 20cm shorter than him her hug felt all enveloping, as welcoming a hug as he could recall.
"Of course it will have to wait until you have a place of your own, where your mum can't interfere. And it might be best if we kept this little chat between ourselves, eh? But until then you're welcome to come here as often as you like and maybe I can guide you through what the collection holds? Is that a deal?"
Nod, grin, nod, grin, exuberant laugh.
"That's done then. So now... how would you like to be introduced to Steely Dan? I think Pretzel Logic would be a good place to start..."
