Edris Ro: The Wrong Song

An evening left empty

The model ferry still occupied Edris Ro's folding table, although its crew compartment now stayed attached. After the school evening and their restday meal, the household had resumed its familiar arrangement of laundry shifts, homework and repairs. Evin was spending this restday with his mother. Edris had the flat above the cobbler to himself and no compelling reason to leave it.

He liked being alone there. He could read without answering questions about propulsion, stretch his legs across the spare chair and listen to the quiet after the workshop closed. Lately, however, each free evening had ended with him putting down a book he had barely opened. A notice for a singer at the Common Gardens caught his attention on the way home. He knew her recordings. Her voice had a low, unhurried quality that made him imagine she had never been asked to finish something yesterday.

The performance was free. He took enough money for a drink, left the rest in its usual place and chose a shirt whose collar sat properly. Nobody had invited him, which made the care he took feel faintly ridiculous. He changed it anyway.

A substitution

At the garden entrance, a replacement notice had been pasted over the singer's name. An illness had prevented her appearance. Edris read the apology twice, hoping the second reading might restore the rest of his evening. Beyond the gate, someone struck a drum hard enough to make a child cheer.

He considered going home. Then the band began tuning, benches filled, and he found himself walking towards an empty seat. A woman in a yellow coat moved her bag so that he could sit down. She had brought a folded cushion and appeared to have made much better arrangements than he had.

The first number used three brass instruments and a drum that took a personal interest in the space behind his eyes. The woman tapped one foot. Edris kept both of his still. Around them, people chatted, applauded and carried cups past a child trying to catch falling petals. It was an excellent evening for people who had wanted this evening.

Then he recognised a melody. It belonged to an old song about a lover waiting beside an extinguished lamp. His mother had sung it while sewing. The band played it at a speed suggesting that the missing lover had been seen approaching with creditors.

'That's the wrong song,' Edris said before he could stop himself.

The woman turned. 'It's the same song.'

'I know. That's the difficulty.' He regretted the sharpness and looked towards the platform. The trumpeter lifted her instrument, waited through two bars and played a phrase so cleanly that he forgot what he had meant to say next. He listened for it to return. It did not.

What remained in the music

During the interval, Edris bought his drink and walked along the beds behind the audience. From there he could see the river light between the trees. He had spent years hearing music in pieces while doing something else. Tonight, somebody was playing it for people who had come simply to sit and listen. He had spent most of the first half objecting to the arrangement.

He returned to the bench. The woman offered him the corner of her cushion; he thanked her and declined. When the band resumed, she rose and joined several people dancing near the path. Her empty place gave him room to stretch one leg. He was grateful for this without feeling obliged to dance as well.

The second half included a slow piece he did not know. He watched the trumpeter's breath lift her shoulders before each entry. At its end, she lowered the instrument and looked towards the others, pleased. Edris applauded before the people beside him began.

The final number brought back the lamp song, faster still. He disliked what they had done to it. He also waited for the trumpet, following its thread through the noise until his heel began keeping time against the path. Nobody noticed. The woman in yellow was too busy dancing to look back.

The way home

Edris stopped at the platform long enough to read the band's name on its case. At home, he wrote it on the back of the cancelled programme before forgetting it. Then he took off his shoes and shook garden grit onto yesterday's paper. He was humming the lamp song at the wrong speed. He tried the old version, lost the tune halfway through and began again.

The programme in his pocket

The cancelled programme stayed in Edris's jacket until Marit noticed him emptying the pockets before work. She read the band's name upside down.

'You heard them?'

'I heard almost nothing else.' He began folding the paper. 'They did the lamp song.'

'Badly?'

'Unreasonably.'

Marit laughed. Edris had not known she knew the song. For several minutes they discussed the trumpet phrase while sorting linen whose owner had apparently attempted to extinguish a candle with his sleeve.

Marit's brother had once played in a small touring ensemble. She said it casually, then stopped at the damaged cuff. Edris waited. He had learnt something about pauses while living with a boy who did not always want help filling them.

'His hearing went,' she said. 'Works noise. He thought the music would be the dangerous part.'

Edris looked at the drums through the partition. They were not especially loud from there. He had no idea what they measured beside the operating machinery, and asking Marit now would turn her brother into a workplace discussion she had not offered.

'Can he still play?'

'At home. He says the neighbours benefit from the injury more than he does.' Her smile appeared and went. 'He misses knowing whether it's good.'

At lunch, Edris copied the band's name onto a clean scrap. The next announced garden performance was free. He gave Marit the scrap with the date, taking care not to call it something her brother should do.

'If he wants,' he said.

She put it beside her shift book. That was all. No arrangement was made, and Edris did not ask for one.

Walking home, he heard the old version of the lamp song in his head. This time he remembered his mother's voice giving way on the high note, then starting again without apology. He tried the note quietly. It escaped him too.

At the flat, Evin asked what he was humming. Edris pulled out the battered programme and set it beside the model ferry. 'A song I apparently have opinions about,' he said. 'Move that glue. I'll show you the part I like.'