The Thread
Wilbur Budd died around midnight, but he had trouble remembering the details.
He had been standing out on his gravel driveway saying goodbye to his piano teacher. ‘Thanks,’ he said, a bit breathless from the walk through the house. ‘Have a good time tonight in Cambridge.’
The piano teacher opened the door to the car that was waiting for her.
She was in her forties. Half his age. But already seemed to have life sorted out.
She smiled in the afternoon sunshine as Wilbur’s gardener drove by on the tractor-mower, attending to the lawns that rolled down to wild meadow borders.
A Saturday in April. The sky was blue, the breeze light, and birdsong could be heard above the distant traffic.
One of those bright, cool days that sprinkled hope throughout spring.
‘I will. And thanks for the conversation. Remember what I said, don’t try and rush it when you play. Take your time … Slow and steady. You’ll get there in the end.’
‘Yes,’ said Wilbur. ‘I suppose I will.’
He felt a bit light-headed. A bit nauseous.
Wilbur raised a frail arm, clicked the gates open and waved her off as she departed down the country lane, then walked the short distance back to the house.
He had been having piano lessons for two years, ever since he had seen an advert in the window of a music shop. His doctor had told him of the importance of learning new things now he was in his eighties, and he looked forward to his weekly lessons.
Once back inside, he walked over the flagstone floor and across the vast living room towards the piano.
He felt peculiar again. This time there was a pressure in his left shoulder, but it passed and he sat down and began to practise his study piece, remembering to take his time.
Music had a way of threading through decades like nothing else.
A song, after all, was a needle pulling the thread of time, stitching disparate moments into something whole.
It was bittersweet. The needle could hurt.
And this piece had too many memories. Yet his life was what it was. He had the life he had.
He was about halfway through the piece, struggling to reach an E flat with his little finger, when the phone rang.
The landline. It took him a while to get to the phone.
His legs weren’t what they were. Nothing was.
He braced himself for a sales call, or one of those robot-voiced scams. They were just about the only calls he received nowadays.
But no. It wasn’t a robot or a scammer. It wasn’t anything to do with marketing or artificial intelligence.
‘Hello, is that Wilbur?’
It was a voice he hadn’t heard for a long time. For decades, in fact. It sounded a little fainter. A little weaker. But it was definitely her.