RSS

Contact us

Saturday 22 November 2008

Fond farewell

Melissa Kite lives a Real Life

The tuner who delivered the news could barely look me in the eye. After prodding at the keys of my piano for ten minutes he called me back from the kitchen where I had been making him a cup of tea. I knew the diagnosis was bad when he got up from the stool and walked towards me shaking his head. ‘I’m sorry, but there is nothing I can do.’

It seems that for some time now my piano has been suffering from a fatal fracture brought about by central heating. Other tuners have warned me. But I just didn’t think it would ever end like this. In a stark diagnosis of one desperate word: untunable.

I hadn’t really understood that a piano could die. Nobody ever warned me that they have a life expectancy. Not knowing the protocol for the situation, I fell back on the routine you go through at the vets. ‘Can we ease his suffering? Is it kinder to let him go now? How should I dispose of the body?’

The tuner shrugged his shoulders. There is no service for terminally ill pianos. Would not a kindly local nursery school take it in? Surely there was a themed honky-tonk bar in the West End that would be glad of it. He shook his head again. ‘I’m afraid you couldn’t possibly burden someone else with this.’

Short of finding a piano hospice there was nowhere I could take the poor instrument where it might live out the rest of its days in peace. And there is no piano undertaker service either. People who move pianos only move pianos they can make money from. I would have to take it to its final resting place myself. But where would this be? I have heard of fly-tipping fridges, but dumping an upright Neumeyer on Tooting Common, environmental outrage aside, would be just too weird.

The tuner said there really was only one recourse: ‘Battersea refuse dump. Mind you, they’ll weigh it in and charge you by the kilo.’ He must have seen the tears welling in my eyes because he added, ‘At the end of the day, it’s just a piece of machinery.’ But the look on his face said he knew this wasn’t true.

More articles from: Melissa Kite | this section

Print this article  |  Email to a friend  |  Permalink  |   Comments (1)

Post this entry to:   del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit

Advertisement

Spectator Business | Apollo Magazine

Corporate | Advertising | Privacy | Terms

Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London, SW1H 9HP

All Articles and Content Copyright ©2008 by The Spectator | All Rights Reserved