By over there she meant over in another town, which had a wonderful concert hall. They had quite a few pianos, and whenever a famous pianist visited Japan, the kind whose recitals sold out months in advance, they would always use a Riesenhuber piano, the mark of a first-class concert hall. We had to accept that no great pianist would choose the modest hall in our own town – unless talked into it by Mr Itadori and his contacts – and that only tuners who worked exclusively for Riesenhuber were assigned to that particular breed of piano.

Mr Yanagi had overheard us and shrugged his shoulders. ‘What can you do if it’s in another town?’ he said.

A towering presence in the world of piano manufacturing since the early days, the Riesenhuber company always dispatch their own tuners, regardless of distance. No local tuner is permitted to handle or even touch their instruments. Of course their employees are highly skilled, but they are also well known for their arrogance, unabashed in their contempt for anyone not connected with their illustrious firm.

‘I’ve always hated the word “illustrious”,’ Mr Yanagi said, ‘probably because it implies an elite I’ll never in all my life have any connection with. I could stand on my head and still never be a match for them.’

‘Standing on your head isn’t going to get you to their level, Mr Yanagi. You have to stand on both legs, upright, or you won’t be steady enough.’

Mr Yanagi stared at me dubiously as if he couldn’t quite work out if I was joking or not.

‘But we do have Mr Itadori on our side,’ he continued proudly. ‘They may be an illustrious firm and all that, but how many people do you think are better tuners than him? How many other people can make a pianist and their audience quite so happy? Even in the unrivalled Riesenhuber company, their tuners will be a mixed bag. I defy them to show me someone better than Mr Itadori. Don’t you agree, Tomura?’

‘Absolutely,’ I replied. Mr Itadori’s tuning was amazing. He was in a league of his own.

‘The only ones who can touch this make of piano are employees of this company – have you ever heard of anything so ridiculous? The world is full of pianos and tuners. I could understand if they’d won some competition and the right to tune it. But they won’t even let us compete. That’s about all you can expect from a so-called illustrious company resting on its laurels. Not that I care one jot – that’s not what we’re aiming for.’

His eyes flickered as he mulled something over for a moment, but then he glanced up. ‘Did I just say something cool?’

‘Not really,’ I said.

‘Oh well, whatever.’ He gave a small laugh.