The piano tuner, the monk and a ghost

(Sorry – the blog about strikes is still parked. I’m having difficulty justifying anyone’s right to strike, ever.)

Hubby went off to France yesterday afternoon for a week-long MAMIL-fest (Middle Aged Men In Lycra). There might be some MAFILs there as well. As long as they’re Middle Aged and not Young Females, I’m cool with that. Then again, whether they’re younger, prettier and slimmer than me or not, I reckon my nails are sharper and I can still emulate Norman-bites-your-legs-Hunter better than anyone. What if there’s a MATIL? (You really don’t need it spelled out.) Then Hubby has strict instructions to take notes for a future blog.

In a perfectly comfortable ‘been married a long time so don’t read anything into this’ kind of way, I was looking forward to a week on my own: a clean and tidy house; no meal-prep twice a day every day; no sport on the Telly; snore-less nights (not me; him!); a fully stocked wine fridge (well, at the beginning of the week); and oodles of time to catch up with various projects.

First, I checked out the piano. I’d had it tuned on Tuesday and thought I’d better make sure the tuner hadn’t missed a note. All sounded good to me, even though I hadn’t played that Chopin waltz for ages. Playing the piano is like riding a bike, except I can’t ride a bike and Hubby can’t play the piano.

Anyhoo, the whole episode reminded me of when I had the piano tuned Stateside. The chap who’d sold me the piano (I bought it to replace the old one we’d shipped over that couldn’t cope with the extremes of humidity, and the sounding board cracked) did the honours. He was cute and sexy so I gave him the good biscuits. When he’d finished, he asked if he could practise something for a few minutes as he was a bit early for his next appointment. He proceeded to play Beethoven’s 9th! This was before I’d developed a visceral hatred of the piece, it being the EU anthem. Had he played it today, I’d have snatched back the good biscuits and force-fed him stale ginger snaps.

After he’d gone, I jotted down this poem on the back of a biscuit wrapper. It was published not long afterwards:

The Piano Tuner

I expected you at nine.

You came at seven after.

You said you’d be thirty minutes.

You took forty-two.

Your estimate was eighty dollars.

You charged eighty-five.

You said you’d try some scales.

I heard Beethoven and Bach.

You offered to stay awhile.

Three years later, I need a new piano.

Wishful thinking? I’ll say. I found out before we came back to Blighty that he’d joined a monastery. That’s what organic custard creams do to you.

While my new piano (or the tuner) had inspired a poem, the defunct piano had inspired a short story. The old piano had been my mum-in-law’s and she’d given it to me when I married her little boy. At some stage we moved to a delightful cottage in Hertfordshire. It was built in about 1730 (I think) as a one-up, one-down. It was extended to become a two-up, two down in the mid-19th century, and we bought it after it had been extended again to be a four-bed (if you count the attic), four-reception (if you count the conservatory) not-quite-executive cottage.

When we moved in, I placed (actually, I asked some burly guys to place) the piano in what I had designated the music room and library, where I could play without disturbing Hubby in his study or the main drawing room. The attic room, above the guest bedroom, was the ‘dumping ground.' I went up there quite often to dump more stuff and to find other stuff, always switching on the light at the bottom of the stairs when I went up, and switching it off again when I came down, being green even then. So I got really frustrated and confused when I kept finding the attic room light on. I was convinced I’d turned it off because, well, that’s what I do.

A couple of months after we’d moved in, I was playing a piece on the piano I didn’t know that well and it sounded really dreadful – plinkety plonk – but suddenly it sounded wonderful. I remember looking at my hands moving across the keyboard and, while they looked like my hands, it felt as if I was watching someone else’s. The phenomenon lasted a few bars before the plinkety plonk was back, courtesy of my own real hands.

This happened on several occasions. Rather than being freaked out at being possessed by a musical ghost, I enjoyed the experience and called him Samuel, that being a popular 18th-century name. Most people when I told them thought I was bonkers, except Dad, who was jealous. He said he’d give anything to have that happen to him and played as often as he could when he came to visit. Samuel never possessed him though, probably because he knew he couldn’t improve on Dad’s playing.

The possession inspired a short story but I don’t think that one was ever published. The tale was rather gruesome – someone ended up murdered in the bath tub – but it wasn’t any less disturbing than some of my blogs.

Hubby and I moved from the cottage to the States a few months later with the bear minimum of belongings. The rest was shipped over, arriving about six weeks after we did. We rented this lovely ranch-style house in small-town Massachusetts, no attic but a ubiquitous basement. All was normal until the shipment arrived. The burly blokes on that side of the Atlantic sited my piano in my office per my directions. Almost immediately, whenever I went down to the basement, the light was on when I was sure I’d turned it off after a previous visit. And the strange perfect-playing-with-other-hands experience kept happening. Had Samuel hitched a ride in the piano? Did he have a passport?

After a year, we bought a house in the neighbouring town, and the piano ended up in the dining room, but Samuel was nowhere to be seen. The first winter we were there, there was a very cold, dry spell, the sort that makes your skin itch, and I emptied the drugstore shelves of E45.

One night, I was woken up with a bang that resonated for a few seconds. Hubby kept snoring, as is his want. Not long after, I heard it again. Stupidly, as is my want, I tiptoed downstairs, still hearing some sort of a faint resonance, and traced it to the dining room before it petered out. It was the piano. I pressed a key and it sounded funny. I can’t explain it now; ‘funny’ will have to do. I was told later that the sounding board had cracked. It could be repaired but it wasn’t a great piano and wasn’t worth it. So I bought the new one. Samuel never returned.

Had he actually joined us in the new house or had he decided to stay in the basement in the ‘ranch’. Had he been in the piano in the new house but couldn’t get out because he’d caught his coat tails in the strings? Did he crack the sounding board trying to escape? I’ll never know. 

I miss him to this day, almost as much as I miss my cute, sexy piano-tuner monk.