The Neighbour's Piano

The nocturne began every evening at half past eight. Clara could set her watch by it. Her neighbour, whom she had never properly met, played it with great feeling and very little accuracy, always stumbling at the same passage in the middle, always starting again.

At first it drove her mad. By autumn she had started to listen for the stumble, wincing in sympathy. By winter she found herself humming the bar he always missed.

In February, the music stopped.

Three silent evenings later, she knocked on his door with a box of biscuits and no plan. The man who answered was older than she had imagined, unshaven, with his right arm in a sling.

'Fell on the ice,' he said. 'Six weeks without playing. It's torture.'

She was a passable pianist herself. Without quite deciding to, she offered to play the right hand while he played the left.

So began the strangest evenings of her life. They sat side by side on his narrow piano bench, shoulders touching, hands crossing over the keys. They spoke very little. When he leaned across her to reach a low note, she could feel the warmth of his breath against her cheek. When she missed the passage he always missed, he laughed, and it was the nicest sound she had heard all winter.

The sling came off in March. Neither of them mentioned that she no longer needed to come.

On the first evening he played the whole nocturne alone, perfectly, she stood behind him and rested her hands on his shoulders. He stopped on the final chord, turned, and kissed her palm.

The piano was quiet that night. Nobody minded.