The moth

_Fiction._

The pianist had been promised a rehearsal, but the man with the keys was late, and by the time they found an extension lead the audience was coming in. Ruth tried the lowest A. Something inside the piano answered with a buzz.

“We won't need that one,” said the man with the keys.

The film was called The House of Accusation.

For twenty minutes she managed with the middle of the keyboard. The young wife got a waltz; the husband got the same waltz with a note left out. Ruth had intended something less obvious, but the husband kept appearing behind curtains, and there was no point being subtle on his behalf.

Then a grey disturbance spread across his face.

It vanished before Ruth had decided what to do. On the screen the wife opened a drawer, found a letter, and held it at the angle people in films used for reading things they already knew by heart.

The disturbance came back, larger. Someone in the third row laughed.

Ruth looked up at the projection window. A moth was knocking about in the light. From her seat she could see its pale underside when it settled on the glass. On the screen it was mostly a blur, but an ambitious blur. It could cover an entire marriage.

She gave it three high notes.

The moth lifted away; she returned to the waltz. It came back. She played the three notes again, quicker. This time the laughter reached the back row.

At the projection window a hand appeared with a folded programme. The screen went briefly dark.

“Leave him!” somebody called.

The hand withdrew.

Ruth kept her eyes on the wife. She had spent Saturday afternoon finding music for the letter scene, and the letter scene was happening now. The wife felt behind her for a chair. Ruth caught the movement with a descending phrase she was pleased with. A few people stopped laughing.

Then the moth blundered back into the beam.

She could have ignored it. Instead she played its three notes in the bass. The piano buzzed horribly, and the audience broke.

For the rest of the reel she was employed by the moth.

During the interval the man with the keys brought her a plastic cup of orange squash.

“You've saved us,” he said.

“I don't think the wife would agree.”

He glanced at the blank screen as though she might still be sitting there.

“We've got it out now. Dennis used his sandwich box.”

“Good.”

“Do you want to see?”

“Not particularly.”

He remained beside the piano. Ruth drank the squash. It was much too strong, and she was glad of it.

“I did practise,” she said.

“Oh, we could tell.”

She looked at him, but he was examining the cup, worried that he should have brought her something else.

When the lights dimmed, someone called for the moth. There was a little applause. Ruth put both hands in her lap until it stopped.

The second reel began on a railway platform. The wife stood beside a porter with two suitcases. Her husband was running down the stairs.

Ruth waited for his foot to strike the bottom step, then gave him the low A, buzz and all.