Very short and unsophisticated. Only 8 minutes listen
The Piano
By Tony Walker
“Rain at Christmas,” Amanda said.
The letting agent turned her head. “It’s not quite Christmas; maybe we’ll get snow yet.”
The woman stood at the top of a flight of worn sandstone steps that led to the front door of the old house in Abbey Street.
As we climbed, the cathedral bells pealed out.
“Practising for the Christmas service, I suppose,” I said, following them up.
We first viewed the house on a damp dog day in early December. Drizzle and darkness wreathed Carlisle but I hoped there was still time for a winter wonderland.
Amanda turned at the door and grinned at me. She loved the house. The fabric of the building was far older than its Victorian facade. In this part of the city, the house foundations went back centuries, maybe even to the Romans.
“A six-month let, isn’t it, Mr Hutching?”
I nodded. It was pricey, but the company were paying. They had a contract on an engineering project for flood defences. I was the lead engineer. Not the choicest job in the company, but I’d volunteered because I was born in Carlisle and not been back since I’d left aged six.
She struggled with the key in the lock.
The letting agent, a red-headed woman in her mid-forties, said, “Full of character,” finally getting it open.
As we entered, the house had a presence; a hush inhabited the vestibule like the place was a concert venue waiting for the performance to begin.
In the hallway, Amanda glanced around, head tilted up, eyes wide. It was old — Dickensian almost. A picture hung on the wall.
“Who’s that?” Amanda pointed.
“The current owner’s grandmother,” the agent said.
‘She looks miserable.”
I grimaced. Amanda always had spoken her mind.
“The grandmother was a piano teacher,” the agent said as if that explained the woman’s sad expression, then she changed the subject. “You know it comes furnished?”
I nodded. Amanda stepped up to the picture. “On second thoughts, she looks very gracious—very refined.”
The agent either didn’t hear or preferred not to answer.
Behind the woman’s back, I hissed, “I bet the house is haunted.”
Amanda laughed.
She had the Christmas Tree up three days after we moved in. I’d had a soggy day on site, and when I arrived home, she gave me a glass of mulled wine and a mince pie. The tree sparkled. I looked at Amanda and she looked so happy. I was glad. She had been so sad since she lost her mother. It was nice to see her smile again.
That night, I heard piano music. I lay in the dark, and Amanda knew I was listening because she said, “Is that from next door?”
“Must be. Or have you left the radio on?”
“No. Anyway, the piano sounds out of tune. Must be the neighbours having fun.”
“It’s three a.m.”
“Party animals?”
“Party animals playing Chopin?”
I laughed then we slept.
Three nights later, I sat bolt upright in the dark and woke Amanda. She put her hand on my arm. “What’s the matter?”
“I thought I heard someone downstairs.”
“Surely you locked the door.”
“I did.”
“Then there’s no one in the house but us. There can’t be.”
Piano music started again — a cascade of notes like snowfall, but still with that dissonance.
“Out of tune again,” Amanda said.
“Those crazy neighbours,” I joked.
Amanda replied, “It’s in this house, and you know it.”
When I woke before dawn, it was snowing. Amanda had left the curtain open, and the flakes fell, illuminated by the mock-Victorian streetlamp onto the genuinely Victorian cobbled street out front. I could still hear the piano, soft, beautiful, full of longing.
After that, the piano music came every night. But it was sad, mournful.
“I think her heart’s breaking,” Amanda said.
I was hanging a bauble — a glittering mouse with a sword on the Christmas tree. How the little thing sparkled, next to the golden deer’s head. I stood back admiring my work.
Amanda was next to me. “I love that you still get excited by these things.”
The tree gleamed. The baubles turned. I pointed. “There’s a draft.”
“It’s an old house.”
But it was the spider that gave it away — a giant wolf spider, the kind that comes inside from the cold when the year is turning.
Amanda stepped back, hand to her throat. “What a beast.”
The spider scuttled through a tear in the wallpaper. I’d never noticed that rip before, but now when I looked, I saw an edge. I moved behind the tree, avoiding needles and tinsel. I followed the edge of the torn wallpaper with my eyes then my fingers.“There’s a door here. It’s been papered over.”
“Must be a closet.”
“Let’s open it.”
“No, we shouldn’t. It’s not our house.”
“There’s a mystery inside, and you know I can’t leave mysteries.”
But still, she was concerned. “No, Don. They’ll keep our deposit or something.”
“It’s not my deposit, anyway.”
And so, reluctantly, she helped me move the tree, and I went to get a knife from the kitchen. It was a door. Someone had papered over it. And it wasn’t just a cupboard. It wasn’t a huge room, granted, but big enough.
“A piano!” she said.
“A dusty old piano too.”
“Didn’t the agent say the owner’s grandmother was a piano teacher? It’s probably hers.”
“And she’s probably our ghost.”
I went and lifted the lid to reveal the keyboard.
Amanda tried the keys. She knew how to play. The notes plunked — some melodic, but most of them off.
“Let’s get it tuned!” Amanda’s eyes gleamed.
“I thought you said we shouldn’t mess around with things?”
She laughed.
The owner was fine about it, pleased even. It turned out her father had closed off some rooms to save money after his wife died in the 1970s. He’d moved the piano out of the way, and they’d simply forgotten about it.
The piano tuner couldn’t come until Christmas Eve. He fitted us in as his last job before going home.
After we wished Merry Christmas to him and his family, Amanda gave me a personal concert, sitting on the piano stool, playing Schumann and Chopin and Satie, all by candlelight and the soft, quiet sparkle of the Christmas tree lights. Outside on the darkening street, the rain turned to snow.
That night, the playing woke me again.
Amanda lay quiet beside me. She reached out and stroked my arm.
I said, “She doesn’t seem to mind we messed with her piano.”
Amanda listened. “Note-perfect. I think she’s pleased.”
The new tenants came for a look around before we left. I was standing there in the hall when they entered.
The man pointed to the portrait and said, “What a lovely picture of that lady.”
And his wife said, “What a beautiful smile she has. Is she a relative?”
Amanda shook her head. “No, but we do know her quite well.”
The Piano (A Christmas Story)