Deep in the gloom of her bedroom,
Young Kathy dried her tears,
It wasn’t as bad as the red room
She’d been banished to for years,
At least up there she could lie and dream
And play with her music box,
Not hear her parents arguing,
Whether they did, or not.

At least up here was her sanctuary
Where she could dream all day,
Of skipping out in the poppy fields
Where all the children play,
She’d lie there nursing a broken heart
For the loss of her former life,
For all had changed in her home, The Grange
When he took a second wife.

When her father took a second wife
And his face became so grim,
It seemed she couldn’t do anything right
For the sake of pleasing him,
The woman snapped and the woman snarled
And she said to call her Ma,
But Kathy had kept her lips shut tight
That was just one bridge too far.

So she lay and opened the paste-board lid
And the dancer, up she leapt,
Straightening out her toutou as
She tried one pirouette,
With one hand up to her forehead and
The other fixed and set,
The dancer twirled in her private world
To a Mozart minuet.

And Kathy thought she was beautiful
As she balanced on her toes,
A look of grace on her tiny face
And the flush of love, it shows,
With glitter up in her auburn hair
And a spangle on each shoe,
The thought had formed as the doll performed,
‘I wish I could be like you!’

‘I wish I could be like you,’ she thought
‘So small, and full of grace,
I’d never have to go down again
With tears on my face,
I’d wait till somebody wound me up
Then I’d dance for them with pride,’
And something happened to Kathy then,
A change that she felt inside.

For all the while that the dancer twirled
To the Mozart minuet,
It took in Kathy’s tear-stained face
And it seemed somewhat upset,
‘Why should she have this lovely room
And a life that I’m denied,
I wish I could be like you,’ it thought,
And the two thoughts did collide.

There seemed a change in the very air
Of that too secluded gloom,
When everything with bated breath had
Stopped in that fated room,
Then Kathy leapt to her feet with joy
And a final pirouette,
While the dancer smiled as at first she trialled
To that Mozart minuet.

The father arrived back home that night
To a scene of blood and gore,
His wife impaled with a table knife
Lay dead on the kitchen floor,
While Kathy twirled in the poppy fields
In a show of poise and grace,
And there in the bedroom, up above
There was blood on the dancer’s face.

David Lewis Paget