I got this story sent to my inbox the other day and loved it. It’s by writer, fiddle player, fiddle teacher and community education worker from Edinburgh Becky Leach. Check out Becky’s other stories at http://beckymleach.wordpress.com/
Where the Tune Lives
It was the tune that did it. I wouldn’t have said it if it weren’t for that tune.
It was a reel. Not a long one, just eight bars to it, but you could start it off slow and then build up the speed till it changed shape, turning from one thing into another.
I’d learnt it a few weeks before, at the session at the pub. A session’s where you go and play tunes or sing songs with other people. I don’t know many of the tunes, so most of the time I just sit and listen. But sometimes I pick up my fiddle and have a go.
This one tune. It was the old man in the corner who played it. He said it was from Shetland, but he’d forgotten the name. I picked it up really quickly, it wasn’t hard, and I played it straight away when I got home. I couldn’t stop playing it after that, I liked it so much.
Which is how I found myself at the final band rehearsal before the fundraising concert, when Miss Drummond asked if I fancied doing a solo spot, saying… ‘okay’. It only took a few moments for me to feel a claw of panic in my stomach and realise what a phenomenally fucking stupid thing it was I’d just done. I’d never played in front of anyone before, not by myself. I was going to take it back, say I’d been joking, but Miss Drummond had already left the room.
I went out for my tea with the others from the band. When I got back to the hall, I looked for Miss Drummond, but the only sign of her was a piece of paper stuck up on the wall backstage: the set list. It had my name on it.
‘Nervous?’
The voice came from behind me.
When I turned round, I came face to face with the old man from the pub, the one who played the tune. He was so close, I could see all the lines and wrinkles on his face, so many more of them than I’d ever noticed. His eyes, though. You wouldn’t expect eyes like that on someone his age: they were a light, bright blue. The thought passed through my head that I should have been scared at an old man I barely knew being up so close. But I wasn’t. Not exactly.
‘Worried you’ll mess it up’, he said, ‘forget the tune?’
I was going to deny it, I could hardly admit it, but before I could, he said ‘Don’t worry’, and he took hold of my fingers, clasped his own bony fingers around them and said,
‘The tune lives in yer fingers. You can’t forget it, cause it’s no just in yer brain, it’s in yer fingers, it lives there. No matter what, it’ll find its way out. It wants to be played. It wants to be heard.’
‘Shona.’
It was Miss Drummond. She was back. And just like that, the old man was gone.
‘You okay for tonight?’, she asked.
‘Yeah.’
‘You sure?’
‘Aye, I’m.. I’m grand.’
‘Excellent.’
And I wasn’t lying either. Because what he’d said was true. I knew it straight away, it just made sense. Some people would be awfy suspicious of him, but no me.
The band were on first. There are nine of us in the band: four fiddles, three guitars, an accordion and a saxophone. I looked out while we were playing at all the people in the audience. Mum wasn’t there, she’d hoped to come but wasn’t well enough. But it was a nice, friendly audience all the same. They cheered when we finished. And no wonder, it was the best we’d ever played.
Twenty minutes later, I was about to go back onstage to do my spot and I was still buzzing. I got an introduction from Miss Drummond. I walked onstage, right up to the microphone and put my fiddle on my shoulder. I played. And the tune, it came alive as soon as I put bow to string. It was majestic. I was only going to play it three times, but after the third time it was begging for another go and I knew the audience wanted to hear more.
That’s what was supposed to happen, at least.
Instead, when I got to the microphone and started playing, it all sounded wrong. The noise coming out of my fiddle was weak and thin, anyone could tell from hearing that my fiddle was just a cheap one. Then, out of nowhere, my left hand started shaking and my fingers stumbled over the notes, as if they were pished.
I managed twice through the tune, then stopped and walked off. The audience clapped, but I knew they didn’t mean it. I put my fiddle in its case, and left out the back door before Miss Drummond could see me.
When I got home, I put my fiddle case under the bed, right under where I couldn’t see it. Then I put the kettle on, made two cups of tea, and took them through to the living room where Mum was sitting on the couch.
‘Aww, thanks Shona’, she said, ‘you’re a star. How did it go?’
‘Great,’ I said, ‘really great’.
She smiled a smile that had a question in it, but then said, ‘Good. I’m glad.’
That was on the Saturday night. Sunday came and went and on Monday I was back at school.
The first time it happened was on the bus. I hate getting the bus to school, I walk if I can. But sometimes Mum needs help in the morning, and by the time I’ve made it out the house it’s too late to walk.
That morning, the bus was waiting at the traffic lights, just before the stop where the boys from the year above were huddled. I wondered where they would sit. It probably wouldn’t make any difference, I was the only girl on the bus that morning. I knew what they’d say. It was the same every time, they weren’t exactly imaginative. I knew not to tell them to fuck off. They’d only get worse if I did.
That was when I heard it. I thought someone was having a laugh. It was the tune. They must have recorded it at the concert and now they were playing it back to have a go. I looked around the bus to see who it was. But there was no one there who was at the concert, and nobody else seemed to hear it. As I listened, I realised that it didn’t really sound like a recording after all, it just sounded like… the tune.
I had a weird feeling at that point, a crazy idea about where it might be coming from. I didn’t want to look down at my left hand. But I did, and saw that my fingers were playing out the tune on the edge of the seat. I tried to stop, but it was like they had a life of their own. I sat on them, but they continued to play, tapping against my thigh, and the tune was just as loud.
The lights turned to green and the bus came to the stop where the boys were waiting. But the doors didn’t open. The driver stared at them in disbelief. The boys were shouting but the driver just shrugged. Then one of them started banging on the doors. The driver stuck his fingers up at them and drove off.
The tune stopped as soon as the bus started. I took my left hand out from under my leg and stared at my fingers. They felt a bit tingly, like pins and needles, but I was able to move them again and they weren’t doing anything funny. When we came to the next stop the bus doors opened as usual, and did so at every stop after that.
The rest of the day was pretty normal, right up until last period. History with Mrs Young.
Lauren came to the school half way through third year. There were whispers about why she’d moved, but nobody really knew and she didn’t say. Mrs Young didn’t like Lauren. She looked at her like she was stupid and ignored her when she put her hand up.
That wasn’t even the half of it. Each class, while everyone was working, Mrs Young would walk round the room, peering down over shoulders at what was being written. She would spend just a few seconds at each desk, until she came to Lauren. She always stood just behind Lauren’s right shoulder, just out of her line of vision, and would remain there for close to a minute. It was a long minute for Lauren, who would freeze as the eyes of the class fell on her. Sometimes she would drop her pen. Sometimes it just sat motionless in her hand.
That Monday, Mrs Young was doing her usual round of the class. And when she got to Lauren, as usual, she stopped just behind her right shoulder. That’s when I heard the tune again. My fingers were tapping it out on the desk. I sat on them so no one would see them, but again the tune was just as loud.
I wasn’t the only one who heard it, this time. Mrs Young was no longer looking down over Lauren’s shoulder, but instead was staring around the classroom, looking for the source of the tune. She opened her mouth as if to speak but no sound came out. Her face paled and her pupils grew big and black. She looked at me, for just a moment, then spun on the spot and ran out of the classroom.
The whole class watched her go. Some stood up and peered down the corridor as she disappeared through the door at the end, others laughed, put their feet up and started chatting. Lauren, though… she’d gone back to her work, she was writing away. I could only see the back of her head, I couldn’t see her face. I wondered what I’d see on it if I could.
That was no ordinary Monday, and not just because of the bus and Mrs Young. I’d been dreading that Monday for weeks, ever since they sent Mum the letter with the date and time for the assessment. 12 noon. Not in the morning, not quite in the afternoon. A strange in-between time that surely did not bode well. I said I’d go with her, I wanted to. But she said no. I had to go to school, she said. I knew it wasn’t just about school, I knew more than she thought.
I’d been dreading it for weeks. Walking home from school that day, inching closer and closer to the house, feeling a claw in my stomach and my heart banging away in my chest. She’d have been back for over an hour. She’d be in the living room, sitting on her usual spot on the sofa. She’d try to hide it, but it would be written on her face. Their assessment. Fit. For. Work.
I’d been dreading it for weeks. But that afternoon, coming home from school, it was different. I’d imagined myself walking home slowly, putting it off as much as possible. But on the day, I nearly ran home. It was in my fingers. The tune. It knew what to do.
I unlocked the front door and went straight through to the living room. She was sitting on the sofa. She smiled when she saw me, but it was there on her face. The fingers on my left hand tingled. This was it, the tune was going to fix it.
But no sound came out. Come on, I said to the tune. I could feel my fingers starting to move of their own accord. But I must have been imagining it, cause when I looked down at them they were just hanging there at the end of my hand. Come on, I said. But the tune just shook its head, gave a quiver, and left. Leaving me and Mum, in the living room. Just the two of us. With that look on her face, and me not knowing what to do.
A few weeks later, I dug my fiddle out from under the bed. The strings were all flat and the pegs didn’t want to stay in place when I turned them, like it was in a huff, but I soon had it back in tune. For the first time since I’d started playing, I was glad that I didn’t own my fiddle, that it was on loan from the school. That way, I wouldn’t have to think about selling it for the extra cash and the bailiffs couldn’t take it if they came round.
I started going back to the session as well, after a bit. It’s always there, every week at the same time. The old man hasn’t been back, though. He moved on to another place, the others said. For the summer. He was always did, they said, he never stays for long.
I haven’t played the tune since then. I’m not sure I ever will. I’m not sure I could even remember it if I tried.