April 06, 2024
Tim Dowling: I’m taking requests on the piano. The only one I get is ‘Stop’
T here is a piano in our kitchen. It’s a digital piano, a few keys short of the full 88, that I bought for myself a couple of years ago. It normally lives in my office shed, but I carry it into the house on band rehearsal nights so the piano player can turn up straight from work. After rehearsals it usually takes me a couple of days to summon the will to carry it back to my office – it takes three trips: piano, stand, stool. If I haven’t moved it after four days, I start to think about how the next band rehearsal is actually closer than the previous one, so at this point it makes sense to leave the piano where it is. As a result of this reasoning, the piano has been in our kitchen for a month. I like having the piano in the kitchen because it takes up a lot of space in my shed, and also because I can serenade my wife during cocktail hour. I think she would enjoy this more if I could play the piano, but I try not to let her disapproval hold me back. I’m sitting at the keys at 7pm on a Wednesday, playing something bluesy and error-prone in G, when my wife walks into the kitchen with the laundry basket. “Oh God, not again,” she says. “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” I say. “And welcome back. I’ll be taking your requests later …” “I wish you’d take that piano back to your office,” she says. “But first,” I say, lifting my fingers from the keys. “Something a little bit different. A song written specially for you.” I point at my wife and begin to play a tune in the key of B-flat, before quickly losing my way. “Oops,” my wife says. “It’s jazz,” I say. “It sounded like a mistake,” she says. “There are no mistakes,” I say. “All these chords have names.” “I do have a request,” she says. “Certainly Madam,” I say. “Was it Pennies From Heaven?” “Can we please eat before eight?” “Or a Christmas song? Do you like Christmas songs?” “I’m hungry,” she says. “I hear the veal is good tonight,” I say. On Thursday morning I am sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee and reading headlines, waiting for a break in the rain to go out to my office. The cat comes over and looks up at me, but I ignore it. I’ve had it with the cat. It wakes me up every morning at 6.30 to be fed. Then from 7.30 onward it follows me around until I feed it again. It is now 8.30, and the cat is asking to be fed for a third time. “Go away,” I say. The cat puts one paw on my knee, and with the other reaches up and hooks the breast pocket of my shirt with a single claw, dragging me down until we are nose to nose. “Miaow,” it says. “You’re not even hungry,” I say. “Miaow,” the cat says. “In fact, I’m pretty certain that if I stand up and look, I’ll find your bowl still has food in it.” “Miaow,” says the cat. “And if I do and it is, I’m going to play the piano.” The cat hates the piano. I stand. The cat and I walk to the end of the kitchen, where we find a bowl brimming with food. The cat looks at the bowl, and then up at me. “You know what this means,” I say. I sit down at the piano and play a loud C major chord. The cat shoots through the flap. Satisfied, I carry on with a jaunty improvised tune, including several notes not normally associated with the key of C major. The dog is lying in its bed, too deaf to care. After a while I become aware of something unsteady in my playing posture – the stool rocks beneath me slightly as I lean from side to side. I look down and see a strange lump under the rug between the stool’s legs. This lump – about the size of an adult cycling helmet – is big enough to lift the feet of the stool off the ground. How odd, I think. Then, while I am looking at it, the lump moves. I find myself instantly standing on the other side of the room. A bit later, when I cautiously creep over and move the stool and pull back the rug, I see the tortoise looking up at me. That evening my wife comes home to find me sitting at the kitchen table. She looks across the room, noticing something. “The piano’s gone,” she says. “Yeah,” I say. “I don’t like playing it in here.”
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