Was the older sister’s playing so banal? Perhaps my inexperience with the repertoire for the piano led me to think that an average player was properly talented. The image came to me again of a baby chick cheeping as it toddled after its mother. This had been my very first experience of going to tune a piano in a home, the very first time I heard a client play. Perhaps that was why it was so special to me?

No, it wasn’t. I refused to think her playing was ordinary, it was undeniably superior. As far as I was concerned it was close to magical. It moved me, made my eardrums ring, sent pleasurable chills up and down my body. I would never ever forget it.

‘Her playing is really quite extraordinary,’ Mr Yanagi said. ‘The younger sister, I mean.’

I nodded. The younger sister was good, her performance vivid and full of joy. Surely she’d had no reason to want the piano tuned to a brighter sound than it already had.

I pressed on the clutch and let down the handbrake slowly.

And then I understood. It wasn’t for herself that she wanted the cleaner, more sparkling sound from the piano, but for her older sister, whose playing was somehow darker and more restrained.

‘I get it,’ I said suddenly, and Mr Yanagi shot me a glance.

‘What? You’re being very weird,’ he said.

‘Sisters are cool,’ I explained.

Mr Yanagi laughed. ‘Especially twins, right?’

‘Yeah.’

‘They’re both good pianists, and they’re both adorable,’ he said cheerfully, stretching his feet out in the footwell.

Although I now felt even less confident of my ability to assess the quality of anyone’s piano technique, it was the perfect first home visit. If I could continue to work along these lines, then I would surely keep on learning, slow and steady.

Tuning Is Like Cheese

The berries on the yew trees that lined the streets of the city were changing colour now, brightening everything with their rich gleaming reds and purples. When I lived up in the mountains, I’d long for the wild kiwi fruit and grapes to ripen so I could pop one of each into my mouth on my way to and from school every day.

‘Is anybody going to eat these?’ I asked Mr Yanagi as we walked along, side by side.

‘Hmm?’

‘I wondered if the trees along these roads are considered public property? Are we allowed to pick the berries?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The onko. Autumn’s come late this year.’

As I was speaking I realized that city-dwellers had a different name for yews – not onko, but ichii.

‘You know a lot about them,’ Mr Yanagi said, sounding impressed. ‘I don’t know any names of trees. Where did you learn them?’