‘A really skilled chef must take great pains so that not only is the first bite delicious but also the dish continues to taste wonderful, right until the moment you’re scraping the plate. It’s exactly the same with the sound of the piano. You want the first note to take the listener’s breath away but you also want them to enjoy every last note, right to the very end.’

Not an easy assignment – a taste or a sound that you love from the very first moment, that you still find appealing as it fades into your memory.

‘If the tuner lacks focus, though, there’s no way they’ll manage to create a sound that tugs at the listener’s heartstrings from the very first note.’

Mr Yanagi looked over at me, biting his lip. ‘Don’t let it get to you.’ He patted me on the shoulder. ‘You didn’t do a bad job at all.’

‘Thank you.’

I felt guilty about worrying him. But if my job had been up to scratch, then why did the client complain?

‘He was just in a bad mood. It often happens. There’s nothing to be gained by fretting about it.’

Mr Yanagi seemed on the point of saying something else. He gazed up around the edge of his umbrella at the white sky as he walked, and avoided my eye. ‘Your hard work isn’t all wasted, Tomura.’

‘What do you mean? Of course not!’ I blurted out, more loudly than I had intended. Mr Yanagi seemed taken aback, letting out a little ‘What?’ of his own. We came to a halt and faced each other.

‘I never thought that for a moment.’

I was being honest, and Mr Yanagi chuckled.

‘I envy you, Tomura. So you’ve never thought it was a wasted effort?’

His chuckle turned into an enormous belly laugh, and by the time he’d put his hand on the door of the car he was properly roaring with laughter. He looked at me in wonder and asked, ‘You’ve never regretted or looked back on something and wondered if it might have been a wasted effort? I mean, you don’t actually feel the concept of something being wasted?’

‘I do understand the word “wasted”,’ I replied hastily.

‘Of course you do.’

‘But I don’t understand what it refers to.’

It felt to me as though nothing was a waste, but at the same time everything was on some level a colossal waste. Even working with a piano, and me just being here.