CORONATION
CHICKEN
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L to R: Cousin Roxanne, Aunts Beryl, Fiona and Joan
An everyday story of
ordinary folk This is a piece of fan fiction based around characters from the ‘I Want to Break Free’ video, which was originally a ‘pastiche’ of the British soap ‘Coronation Street’. Another famous British soap ‘Eastenders’ can also be parodied here - I realised that there was a personal and a Queen connection with an East London street! One thing I’ve written on this site about my mother dying when I was young is the result that I lacked a female mentor. It was through this that I hit on the humorous idea of assigning female 'alter egos' to the members of Queen using the idea already created on the video. There are character traits which have been transferred from group members – this is only a bit of fun and not meant to offend anyone.
The Knitting Pattern I’d always remembered my visits to Bohemia Place as a child. There were three maiden aunts on my mother’s side of the family – they were her aunts, so they were my great aunts. My mother never talked much about the fact that none of them were married. I was also never really told where cousin Roxanne fitted in, although I did overhear something once about a baby being found abandoned by Aunt Fiona, after which she and the other two took pity on the infant and brought them up in their spinster ‘pad’ at Bohemia Place. And so it was that one day I came to live at Bohemia Place when there were so many problems at home. But I was soon to discover that staying with my maiden aunts and my cousin Roxanne was very different from day visits. In fact, I was to find out that they had quite a few problems of their own. It started with aunt Fiona, the very evening of that day in late November when I arrived to stay. I was reading a book in the corner as Roxanne was at the table doing some school work, and aunts Beryl and Joan were sitting on the arm chairs in the living room. Aunt Joan was mulling over all the latest scandals in the newspaper. Aunt Beryl, who was perusing one of her astronomy books, had her rollers in as was usual - at home, she usually lived in them. Aunt Joan often used to say she wanted to arrange for her to have psychoanalysis to establish why someone with naturally curly hair would want to use them in the first place. Suddenly, this scene of peaceful domesticity was disturbed when Aunt Fiona burst through the door, swiftly removing her overcoat and storming towards the stairs, but not with great speed, because she was expecting someone to ask what was wrong. She was half way up the stairs when, not having been challenged by anyone for her passionate entrance, she turned round to address all of us who were sitting there minding our own business. “I’ve done it!” she yelled “I’ve handed in my notice! I’m not working it either – I’m not going back!” Aunt Joan lowered her newspaper in shock, and Aunt Beryl looked up from her astronomy tome in disbelief. “Yes, you heard me! I’m totally sick of that boss – I was told to pay for my own paperclips, and, what’s more…”, Aunt Fiona flicked back her pageboy-cut dark hair for effect. “my photocopies as well!” There was so much emotion in her voice I thought she might keel over and have an instant hernia. But instead, she instantly drew herself up, and with an earnestness which for most would be belied by her leather skirt, but for us who knew her could only speak of an unshakably held intention, she continued: “But I have my revenge up my sleeve already! ‘Woman’s Weekly’ has already accepted my short story all about him!” Aunt Beryl went quite pale. “That manuscript you showed me the other day?”, she asked. “The very one!” Aunt Fiona replied, triumphantly. “You’ll be sued! In fact, we’ll all be sued! At the very least, we’ll get the heavies round here…” Aunt Beryl was genuinely anxious. “Don’t be silly, dear” Aunt Fiona assured in a dismissive tone, “no names are mentioned, and I’m using the nom de plume of Venus Cutthroat. Even if he sees it, he’ll never guess who it is”. Aunt Beryl said nothing, but her look betrayed her feelings of genuine misgivings over the publication of the story. Unperturbed, Fiona changed the subject to mention her annoyance that Aunt Beryl had bought a new air freshener for the bathroom called ‘Belladonic Haze’, letting her feelings be known that ‘we should stick to ‘Lily of the Valley’’. “Never mind that!” interrupted Aunt Joan. “How are you going to earn money now, then? There are no spare savings, and Christmas is coming up”. I looked at Roxanne, who’d been looking forward to starting to learn to drive – her seventeenth birthday was coming up – and had been asking for a down payment for her first few lessons as her Christmas present. “Don’t worry, I have just the thing” Aunt Fiona quipped confidently. “A knitting pattern that will take the country by storm!” “You mean that jumper you were doing in the spare room on scraps of paper involving 180 balls of wool?” questioned Aunt Joan. I found it really hard not to laugh – who was going to look at a knitting pattern of that complexity, that would clearly take so long before you had your finished garment?
But Aunt Fiona was adamant. “People will LOVE it! They’ll have a SUPER jumper to wear at the end!” Aunt Joan expressed her apprehension over the use of 180 balls of wool, complaining that even Aunt Fiona’s cat, Blanche, had been totally confused about the vast number of these objects of play - it had taken all her time to arrange the items in the spare room to ensure that there hadn’t been an accident and that no creature, human or feline, had been strangled. “It’s finished now, anyway”, declared Fiona “Good job too” quipped Aunt Joan. “I thought there had to be a final limit to the number of Royal Quilting stitches that went in!” “Oh but that MAKES it – not to mention the trellis stitches!” enthused Roxanne. She winked, the secret signal we shared which indicated that we needed to speak in private. “Well, I hope it’s a big success” wished Aunt Beryl, full of good will. “But we’ve always got my thesis on interplanetary dust to fall back on just in case – it’s had a definite acceptance from dear Patrick!” Aunt Fiona never wanted to question anything Aunt Beryl did – all this ‘Sky at Night’ stuff wasn’t completely her thing, except when it came to the stuff of myth and legend, which contained plenty about planets and stars. “Yes, DEAR Patrick!” she replied, “but the only dust I can see at the moment is definitely not INTERplanetary!” at which point she whipped out her feather duster and ran around the furniture with a great sense of purpose and a perfect rhythm. But it wasn’t until Aunt Beryl was making one of her lengthy decisions as to whether she wanted tea or coffee that Roxanne and I were able to escape upstairs so that she could tell me what she was bursting to reveal. “You know that knitting pattern – Aunt Joan would have gone mad if Aunt Fiona had said it STILL wasn’t finished!” “I’m not surprised – it sounds like it’s been blocking up the spare room big time!” I agreed. “No, it’s not THAT!” said Roxanne excitedly. “Aunt Joan has already sent it to Mr Knickerless!” “Oh!” I responded, now with a full understanding. Mr Knickerless was the name Roxanne gave to Mr Nicholas, a family friend who knew exactly which people to approach for any desired contract. At the same time, I was quietly admiring Aunt Joan for her coolness in not betraying what she had done behind Aunt Fiona’s back. There was clearly more to this woman than meets the eye. “And I’ll tell you something else”, grinned Roxanne. “Strictly our secret – but she gave it to me to post – so I steamed it open and enclosed a picture of me modelling the thing to put on the back!” “What? You put it ON?” I asked, astonished. “Yes! ‘featuring Roxanne’ – so if Mr Knickerless gets people interested, I’ll be part of it – I’ll be famous!” she grinned. “Wow, Roxanne, that’s GREAT!” I replied excitedly, hoping that the project would be a success – or Roxanne would not only not get her desired fame, but might be blamed for any failure. So, as Christmas approached, we settled down to wait for news of the reception to the most complex knitting pattern ever made, hoping that Mr Knickerless, or at least Santa, would bring the ultimate present to us at Bohemia Place.
My writing © 2005 Now-im-here.com
The months passed by with my maiden aunts and we were all delighted that Aunt Fiona’s bizarre creation was a blazing success. For nine weeks over Christmas, people spent most of their waking hours knitting furiously and frantically to produce their own sweater. The pattern was ingeniously designed so that each garment could be it own unique creation, totally individual for each wearer. As a result, Roxanne’s driving lessons were easily afforded and Aunt Fiona’s apparently rash decision to quit her job was no longer an issue. Before too long, the company she had been working for went bankrupt. Aunt Joan recalled how her father had worked for the same company all his life and had been awarded a gold watch for his loyalty. She wrote a radio play entitled ‘Another One Might Go Bust’, which, after being broadcast, became very popular over the years as it came to epitomise the instability of the eighties.
Another lamentation expressed in the play was the rapid demise of the drinking of loose leaf tea, straight from the pot, but there was a public outcry over possible implications against the convenience of having an alternative. Aunt Joan held a press conference to say it had more to do with a way of life, and vehemently denied that she was sending out any subliminal messages that teabags in any way produced an inferior drink.
Despite being very busy with the marketing of the knitting pattern, Aunt Fiona had to halt her work when she was called up for jury service. She was selected for a murder trial, and was despairing that this would most probably last some time, keeping her away from her new business. As it turned out, it was just a brief episode because, no sooner was Aunt Fiona and her fellow jurors sworn in than, to everyone’s shock, the defendant got up and admitted that he had killed a man by shooting him in the head with a gun, then continued a discourse about his guilt which soon became a set of unconnected words, degenerating into nothing more than nonsensical ramblings. The case was then dismissed.
Coincidentally, Aunt Beryl was also called for jury service around the same time, and her stay was equally short, because one of the defendants was known to her as a woman who used to own a hot dog stand and had refused to serve her vegeburgers on several occasions. She was not called for another case, which was just as well for her too, as she had also been busy writing a young people’s science fiction book called ‘Commander Bri of Star Fleet’, was coincidentally also called to serve on a jury at around the same time. She tested the appeal of the book by reading it to Roxanne and myself – I really enjoyed it, and so did Roxanne. It was easy to follow and full of adventure, but Roxanne did tend to drift off when the hero made speeches from what became known as the ‘galactic soapbox’. In the meantime, a new neighbour had arrived next door, a gentle punk called Steve Virtuous, who spent a lot of his time arranging Sex Pistols songs for a string quartet, and we could often hear his efforts through the walls. Aunt Fiona was particularly enthusiastic about this, but Steve, being a quiet young man, was somewhat overwhelmed by her eccentric manner. It was as the result of Aunt Fiona’s habit of accosting him when he came home that Aunt Joan observed how Steve walked warily down the street, covering his face with the brim of his hat low in the hope of being unnoticed when he approached his house. Aunt Fiona would therefore have to think of less imposing ways of showing her enthusiasm as we all continued to live happily but hectically at Bohemia Place.
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