Da Coda

The fat man sat hunched over the keyboard, concentrating, struggling to play the piece. Each time he got it wrong he returned to the beginning, determined to play the whole piece, just once, flawlessly.

The metronome stopped its tick-tack-ticking. He stood up, his joints protesting at having been in one position for so long, rewound the metronome, returned to his position and recommenced his practice...

‘If I had only’, he thought to himself for the oh, how many-th time? ‘If I had only… no. Not “I” – if She had only.’ He squinted, concentrated on getting the sequence right, a bead of sweat slugtrailing its way down his nose to fall and land with a fat, silent splash on the keys.

‘Practice makes perfect, practice makes perfect, but She’, he glanced over at the still form of his mother, ‘She “couldn’t stand the noise” – not after one of her special evenings’.

‘But then, every evening was one of your special evenings, wasn’t it?’ This last sentence, spoken aloud, broke his discipline. Losing his place, he had to start the sequence all over again.

‘If I had only… if I had only practiced, I could have been, I should have been… the great Marcus Seasalter, Marcus Seasalter the maestro, maestro Marcus Seasalter, piano virtuoso, if I had only… no. Not “I” – if She had only.’

The metronome stopped its tu-tu-tutting. He went across to it, his joints protesting, rewound it, resumed his position and recommenced.

‘I could have been, I should have been…’

In his imagination he saw himself, white-tailcoating his way across the stage to the grandest of grand pianos, there to take his place and play his signature piece.

‘Couldn’t stand the noise so she locked my piano away, locked it away, and wouldn’t let me play.’ And now, out loud again, ‘But now I have the key, and now I am playing, aren’t I, Mother? And what do you think of my playing?’

He almost smiled as Mother rocked her head in time to the music, almost smiled and then remembered that he had promised himself never to smile for her again.

‘I should have been the great Marcus Seasalter, on stage at the Albert Hall, the whole world at my fingertips, but She couldn’t stand the noise. If only I had practiced, if only She…’

The metronome stopped its pic-pic-picking. He went across to it, his knees cramped with biting pain.

‘If I had only’, he thought to himself for the oh, how many-th time? ‘If I had only… no. Not “I” – if She had only.’ He closed his eyes, visualizing the sequence of notes, determined on getting them right.

‘If She had only…’

Coda: getting no response to their knocks, the police forced the door. From the recesses of the house they heard a muttered mantra. They pushed open the door to the back room, searching for the source of the noise.

The first thing they saw was the woman. No; fairer to say that the first thing they smelled was the woman. She had evidently been dead for a number of days, her flesh mottled green and white like a succulent plant that has remained unwatered too long. In her cupped hands, rigid with rigor mortis, she held the base of a metronome. Its spike had been forced up through the soft underside of her chin into the interior of her skull where its regular to-and-froing kept her head, on its broken neck, bobbing from side-to-side in a parody of musical appreciation. And in the corner…

The fat man sat cross-legged on the floor, hunched over a keyboard, struggling to play. Each time he got it wrong he returned to the beginning, determined to play the whole piece, just once, flawlessly. As he hit the keys he repeated over and over the notes he played; ‘B, A, D. B, A, D.’

And the mechanism of the ‘Tiny Tots First Tunes Piano’ (“Twelve Real Notes To Set Your Child On The Road To Musical Accomplishment” the box declared, “Contains moving parts. Not suitable for under 18 months. Made in China.”), the mechanism of the toy, sticky with blood, sweat and shreds of man-meat continued bravely to offer a muffled response to the pressure of the tips of his fingers, worn bare of flesh now so that ivory bone clicked on imitation ivory keys: B, A, D; B, A, D…