The Music Connection: Keynotes, #2

By Ruth Hay

When Rosalie Frobisher joined The Minstrels group, there was no one more pleased than Carlos Gonzalez.
 For him, she formed a bridge between his early life and the present one.
He dreamed of finally blending these two realities, with Rosalie by his side.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ruth Hay
• Release date: Sep 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201292379

Book preview

One

Although Wendell Patrick was the first one to make a move toward Rosalie Frobisher, it was Carlos Gonzalez who was watching her from the beginning when she first arrived at the Data Collection Centre and took up her place at a desk nearer the break room.

She was not aware of how often his eyes were on her.

There were only a few women on their crowded floor. It was not the kind of work that appealed to women. Working in the semi dark, with basic pay scales and little chance of promotion, drew only the sidelined and hopeless types like Carlos and the other Minstrels, as they laughingly called themselves.

Rosalie had a trim figure and the kind of curly brown hair that made you want to run your fingers through it. Not that she was trying to get attention.

Quite the opposite. She came in every day, sat down at her computer and began to work without a word to anyone.

She went to the break room on her own and ate alone.

To Carlos, she was fascinating and he longed to know her better.

She left at the same time as everyone on the first shift, and Carlos found out by observation that she took a bus home after work. It was a downtown circuit bus so it provided no information about where she actually lived. He figured she must live in the Toronto core somewhere, but was she married, or living with family, or did she have a steady boyfriend?

He lacked the courage to ask her for answers. That was not his style.

Carlos asked Wendell if he had any clues about Rosalie, since he sat right behind her every day.

Are you interested, mate? was Wendell’s response. I can make enquiries for you, if you like, but I warn you she is not sociable. I tried when she first arrived and she cut me off pretty fast.

Carlos did not attempt contact with Rosalie through Wendell again. Wendell was a pal and group member but he did not possess discretion of any kind whatsoever.

If Carlos even hinted that this woman reminded him of his mother, it would lead to jokes and laughter and he definitely did not want that.

---

Maria Gonzalez was a quiet Englishwoman, living in Gibraltar with two sons and a daughter and a Spanish husband who worked for a small airline based on The Rock.

Carlos loved and respected his mother. Rosalie not only had the same soft brown hair and slender figure, he suspected she also had the hidden determination that was a strong characteristic of his mother. Being married to a Spaniard while living on a predominantly British Colony, was not always easy. Most Spanish people came across the land bridge checkpoint every morning to work on the island, and they returned home every evening.

In Gibraltar, English accents and appearance were preferred over the more exotic European ones. Carlos’ father had the Spanish darker skin and dark good looks that attracted his mother in the first place. These characteristics skipped Carlos, other than his olive skin, and descended onto his brother and sister with good effect for them. Carlos in this, as in other things, remained in the background and was his mother’s favourite.

It was Anton Gonzalez’ good job as a pilot that made the family accepted. They could pay their way, lived on the island, and did not depend on handouts.

As part of this ‘fitting in’ business, his father wanted one of his sons to join the Territorial Army contingent in Gibraltar, a part of the Royal Gibraltar Regiment. This was a prime job, much respected, as the regimental band travelled the world for special events, including Ceremonial Duties at Buckingham Palace.

There was one catch. Members of the regiment must perform as expert musicians on drums, bagpipe, fife or bugle and attend one year of training at the Army Junior School of Music.

When Carlos’ brother, Miguel, realized he would be required to wear full dress uniform and march in time while playing an old-fashioned brass instrument, he categorically refused to participate and promptly signed up for work on one of the many cruise ships that docked in Gibraltar’s harbour.

That left Carlos as the only possible candidate.

He did not like the physical strain of drumming. He disliked the sound of bagpipes. The fife was too much like a tin whistle for him. He took up the bugle and eventually became proficient enough to graduate to the String Bass for occasions when the band was not marching.

Carlos also played for the cruise line passengers who were bussed to the caves on the top of The Rock for concerts, amid stalactite formations and cold drips of moisture. The sound of drums and brass echoing from the cave walls on these occasions was a remarkable experience for the audience, but it had a bad effect on Carlos’ hearing. The regimental doctor recommended that Carlos Gonzalez change his occupation for something easier on his ears or he was in danger of losing his hearing altogether.

By this time, he had travelled with the band to several other countries and formed opinions about where he might like to live when he left his home ground and struck out on his own.

His mother pleaded for him to go to England and stay with her relatives there.

His father wanted him to apply for ground staff duties at the airport, but his doctor soon rejected that noisy option.

His sister, Ava, was happily married and settled. Carlos needed to find a life of his own and, hopefully, to find a life partner in another country.

Of all the places he had travelled to, he preferred Canada. It seemed less formal than English society and more expansive in land size than life on the crowded Rock had been.

He left behind the cumbersome String Bass and set out for Canada and a new beginning.

Two

New beginnings are all very well but Carlos Gonzalez soon found he had left all his school and army buddies behind, and he was starting over in a very big city with nothing and no one to rely on.

He took a room in a cheaper hotel while he looked around Toronto for work.

It did not appear that anyone needed a man in his thirties, who played a number of somewhat unpopular instruments, quite well.

He fell back on his other skills.

His mother had encouraged him to acquire computer skills while he was at school. She said these skills were portable in the modern world. Carlos enjoyed computer games and doing research when he wanted to find out about something, but he never saw himself working in that field, at least, that is, until he discovered there was nothing else for which he was qualified.

The job in the Data Collection Centre turned up when he was almost out of money.

He grabbed the chance, hoping it would be temporary. To his surprise, he liked the dim atmosphere of the workplace and the background click clack of computer keys did not bother his sensitive hearing.

In time, he made up some fanciful story about his Canadian success that satisfied his mother and father, and he augmented his income by playing in a small orchestra that performed popular classical pieces, mostly in concert halls on side streets and in shopping malls. The group needed a violinist and they were willing to supply the instrument to Carlos when they heard about his musical background.

The violin was a small, portable, stringed instrument. He quickly transferred his training skills from the Royal Gibraltar Regiment and found friends among the trained, but out of work, musicians in the orchestra.

It was something to do other than sitting alone in his tiny studio apartment that was all he could afford. When he was asked by the orchestra leader to play a solo now and then, he was paid a small additional sum of money and encouraged to remain a valued part of the ensemble.

The only problem with this situation was that Carlos did not meet any women. The ensemble consisted of male musicians and the shoppers who passed them by in the malls, only occasionally stopped to hear the finale of a favourite piece, and then walked on.

---

In order to get up to speed with the light classical music the orchestra preferred, Carlos used his lunch time hour at work, to go over the printed notes in his head while he munched on a sandwich and drank a bottle of pop.

One day, Peter Robinson noticed the music score sitting on the lunch table. He was immediately curious because his cousin Jack, who also worked at the Data Collection Centre,

owned an electronic keyboard. The cousins had a mad scheme to start a band but they lacked players. Peter had a good singing voice from years in a church choir with his school friend Wendell, who could also play a mouth organ and banjo. They needed more players who would raise the tone of their band and give them the chance to play a variety of musical styles.

Peter waited until Carlos resumed his seat and asked him what instrument he played.

Carlos was surprised to be spoken to in the first place, and surprised that anyone recognised the treble lines of his sheet music represented an instrumental score, and not a singer’s part.

Their conversation moved along at a great pace and it was not long before Carlos was introduced to Wendell as a fellow musician. The two men were keen to add him to their group and Carlos was delighted to be noticed at all, as well as to be appreciated for his skills. He invited the two men to hear the mini orchestra play in one of Toronto’s underground malls on the weekend.

The reaction of Wendell and Peter to the mall concert was not what Carlos expected.

Do you always play that orchestra stuff?

Can you play jazz or something less formal?

Carlos stood up straight and gave the two men a rundown of his regimental training, complete with all the different instruments he had mastered along the way.

After that recitation, the tone of the conversation changed and Wendell apologized for his remark, while Peter clapped him on the back and welcomed him into their band.

"Wait a minute! You clearly don’t like the classics, so what kind of a band is this?"

At first, Carlos was not impressed with the Minstrel idea but Wendell, who seemed to be the group’s manager, explained that there was money to be made by playing old familiar music that retirement home residents loved.

We are not likely to make a fortune. This is just a chance to get some pocket money and give us something to do on weekends to counteract the boring computer work we all do.

Carlos got the message but he did not fully commit until he attended a band practise in Jack Carter’s house on a Saturday night.

Jack’s mother, Leona, was a sweet older lady who clearly adored her son and her nephew. She made them all a meal and then left them alone to work on their music.

Carlos waited to see what the others had in mind. They started out with a familiar theme song from a popular television series. Jack carried the tune on his electronic keyboard but there was no sign of a score to follow. Wendell strummed along on his banjo and Peter kept time and hummed under his breath as if he wanted to sing an accompaniment.

When they stopped playing, the three men turned and looked at Carlos.

What do you think, Carlos?

He did not know what to say. This casual kind of made-up music was not like anything he had ever participated in before. He had a sudden flash of seeing the bandmaster of the Royal Gibraltar Regiment with his baton and his strict approach to perfect timing, and he almost laughed out loud. Taking a moment to cough into his hand, he replied as kindly as he could manage.

Guys, I don’t see how I can help you. I work from a score and play more classical pieces, as you know already.

Before he could elaborate, Wendell jumped in and explained their intentions.

We know we have a lot to learn, Carlos. Playing by ear limits us. We need someone who can add style to our group and bring some variety. Jack here has not heard your violin. Will you play a short piece for him?

Carlos felt he could hardly refuse. He thought for a moment and chose an old song that his mother loved. It was about loss and longing, and the hope that friends and family would meet again in the future. It was a soldier’s song from the Second World War and its message was dear to his mother.