Piano Lesson

PIANO LESSON
A cautionary tale by Eamon Henry; 24 June 2008

Jo brought home the good news to her husband Jim - a piano in good condition available at no cost, only take it away - thanks to a notice in the window of the fish and chip shop. For their daughters aged six and nine, they agreed that learning the piano would be very nice indeed. All they needed to arrange for was a van to move the piano from A to B.
However, better have a look at it first, where it resided, at number 7 Woodbine Close. As Jim reached number 7, a fly-past of cawing rooks on his left-hand side portended bad news, if Jim were an ancient Roman, but he wasn’t. He found that the man and woman who lived there were out, and didn’t have a telephone. Their teenage daughter could offer little help, and so piano discussion proved difficult. At all events, a time of collection for transport was agreed.
Jim found himself admiring the strength and skill of the four van-men, as they maneuvered that large and heavy object through the living-room door towards a gentle rest beside the fire-place. Next necessity was to get the piano tuned before the girls would start any practice. The report on this was unexpected. Rusty string-wires could of course be replaced, but the wide-spread woodworm could spread quite rapidly throughout the whole house.
Most people do not want their neighbours to think of them as being stupid. Jim and Jo were like that. To solve the problem, the piano must be brought out the back in the dead of night and burned, without any comment or discussion. What can a couple do in this situation, without involving other humans?
Jim took a handsaw and sawed the piano down the middle into two equal halves. He noticed how the saw-teeth made a higher sound while sawing through brass screws than while sawing through the wood. By lifting and pulling, Jo and he managed to move the piano halves out of doors and well away from the house, into the vegetable garden patch, now idle in mid-winter.
By midnight a merry cremation blaze engulfed the piano, whose wood flamed and sparkled. Through the glowing embers there gradually appeared a large iron harp. Jim felt behind and above him the shade of Tom Moore, who spoke clearly through his mind “Dear harp of my country, in darkness I found thee. Thy breaking heart sounds a final elegy”. And, indeed, in the strong heat, the wire chords burst asunder, sounding high, middle and low notes in a final wild threnody.
Such a noble harp deserved a decent burial. In the soft well-worked soil, a shovel could easily provide a suitable grave. As Jim shovelled out the soil onto one side of the hole, he spoke softly some words from Charles Wolfe’s poem “The burial of Sir John Moore” as a suitable burial service. “We buried him darkly at dead of night, the sods with our bayonets turning”. And thus, beneath a Yorkshire vegetable garden, that harp awaits its resurrection.
As they moved back indoors, Jo could feel that Jim was in a thoughtful mood. She fetched the whisky bottle and poured two generous measures. As she handed him one, Jim spoke: “Life can have its difficult moments”. No reply was needed as they drank in silence.