Mr Yanagi stood up. He was scheduled to tune the pianos in a number of rural schools. It was a large area we had to cover; some jobs were two hours away by car. Since it was such a distance, he would often stop off at kindergartens and local community centres to tune their pianos along the way, too. It added up to a long and gruelling day.

‘I’ll be at a home appointment today,’ I said. ‘I’ll close my eyes and do my best.’

‘You know, some day I’m going to pass all the schools over to you, Tomura.’

I wasn’t ready yet, but I looked forward to the day I could help at these places where children would be encountering a piano in the music room or gym for the first time.

My schedule now involved tuning pianos in homes a few times a week. In cases where the piano hadn’t been tuned in years, or there seemed to be some problem with it, Mr Yanagi took the lead, and I just watched and learned. I wasn’t ready for that responsibility yet, and while I felt apologetic towards my older colleagues that I hadn’t made faster progress, frankly it was also a relief. There is nothing more pitiable than a piano tuned by an incompetent technician.

I was just preparing to leave for a job when my phone extension rang.

It was a call from Miss Kitagawa.

‘Your first appointment this morning – Mr Watanabe – needs to cancel. He wants to reschedule for next week at the same time.’

‘All right. That’ll work.’

I hung up the phone and noted the appointment on my desk calendar, crossing out the one for today.

‘Was that a cancellation?’ Mr Yanagi was almost out of the door but turned around before leaving. ‘An appointment for this morning just cancelled?’

Tunings are usually carried out just once a year. Normally a tuning for a home piano takes two hours and is by appointment only, but clients often change the appointment or fail to keep it. Perhaps they find it a burden to have someone come to their house and stay for two hours, which I can sort of understand. But changing an appointment so casually seemed proof at the time of how little some people really cared for their pianos, and the whole thing left me feeling quite deflated.

All we need is a piano. The client doesn’t need to be by our side the whole time, and the ordinary household noises they might make – vacuuming or using the washing machine – don’t bother us in the least.

‘Some clients even think they can’t cook while we’re tuning,’ Mr Yanagi said.

‘Can’t cook? Why not?’

‘They’re convinced that the smell would interfere with our sense of hearing.’

‘I see.’ I could sort of picture that.