‘One more thing.’ Mr Akino peered into his bento box and seemed to be checking the remaining contents. He leaned his elbows on the table for emphasis and narrowed his eyes. ‘There’s a pattern, too, when it comes to clients’ requests. To give you an example, it’s like the set vocabulary people use to describe the bouquet of a wine and its taste.’

‘I’m afraid I’ve never drunk wine, Mr Akino.’

Mr Akino tilted his head a degree in surprise, and snorted. ‘A teetotaller, are you?’

I was twenty. The only spirits I’d ever had was a sip of omiki, the sacred sake people had at New Year’s when they made a visit to a shrine, or at autumn festivals. The training and homework on the piano-tuning course were so intense I had no time to feel in need of a drink. The first time I ever had a beer was at the welcome party when I joined this company. But the whole event had been pretty dull and I’d been left to my own devices as the new guy.

‘Even if you haven’t had wine you’ve certainly heard about these things. The fragrant nose of a certain wine, the aroma of mushrooms after rain, a smooth, velvet-like texture and so on.’

I nodded vaguely, eyeing the grains of rice that lingered at the corner of his mouth.

‘There are patterns to descriptions. And tuning is similar. There are set patterns to the words we use when we talk with clients.’

‘A tone with a fragrant nose and so on?’

‘Yes, a bright sound, a clear sound, a lively sound – these are the sorts of requests you hear most often. To try to think what kind of sound you should make every time is too much. You set things beforehand: a bright sound means you take it to this level, a lively sound to this level, et cetera. That’s all you need to do.’

‘You choose a set tuning pattern to fit the set description?’

‘Exactly.’ Mr Akino picked up a little sausage carved into a cute octopus shape with his chopsticks. ‘You go to a typical home to tune their piano. They don’t ask for anything more than that, and doing anything more is pointless. In fact, if you make it too precise for them’ – he popped the sausage into his mouth, and his next words were somewhat muffled – ‘they might not be able to handle it.’

An offhand remark, to which I had no response. I’d heard that Mr Akino had wanted to be a concert pianist. He had graduated from a prestigious music college and had performed for a while, but had later returned to study piano tuning.