There's
a piano teacher in this building. On my floor, the third.
On
exiting the lift he would, if the flat number's right, go right, then
left, whereas I, although I take the lift rarely, go left, through a
partitioning door and then straight ahead to the dead end of the
corridor. However, if either of us took the stairs, we'd both, after
coming through the door to this floor, take a left, then he'd go
straight and I'd take another left which would take me to the lift
and to the partitioning door. So although he's on my floor, as I've
so recently learned, it's like he's in a separate building.
I'm
not sure if I've ever seen him. I think I might have done, perhaps
once or twice, but he didn't strike me on either occasion as a piano
teacher. But possibly it was the right flat, different tenant. Or
maybe the flat number where I've been told these lessons are held is
wrong.
When
I pass through this section of the building I don't linger, yet now
I'm sorely tempted, because maybe if I do I'll hear some notes being
beautifully played or laboured over. And maybe too, I'll find out
which flat burns incense.
I've
been told his name is Jack. Just Jack, I wonder, like in Will
and Grace?
My mind, of its own volition and not long after I'd heard of him,
began referring to him as Mister Jack after an old childhood
neighbour now long gone, though this Jack is apparently young. Only
twenty-one, so I'm told.
But
that was before my mind began associating him with Jack London whom I
was reading of at the time, despite the only link being the name of
Jack. Unless, this young man, too, also harbours compulsions to swim
and a love of 'the Road'. You never really know someone when you know
them, and I don't know him at all, so maybe he does.
Piano-playing,
in itself, doesn't sum a person up.
I
came to know Jack London through his novel Martin
Eden,
whereas his more popular works: Call
of the Wild
or White Fang
don't interest me at all, which means that up until now I've only had
that one view of him and knew little of his character, and even less
of his other lesser-known (and hard to come by) novels, which
feature, so I've read, more battles of lone man against the elements.
But
that Jack and his philosophy has nothing to do with this
piano-playing Jack. I don't even know if this Jack has a philosophy.
Or if indeed he does what it is. I have to remind myself constantly
the two Jacks aren't related, although living close to London doesn't
help.
Stupid
mind.
So,
I don't know this Jack, to speak to, and maybe not even in passing,
so how did I come to know he's in this building, on my floor,
teaching piano? For that's what you're wondering isn't it? And the
answer is of course from the same source that all such snippets come
to be learned: my mother. Who one morning after visiting me shared
the lift with one of his pupils, a retired lady which my mother
presumed, much later upon divulging all to me via that long-abandoned
instrument, the telephone, put her in her sixties. She gave me a
description of her personage too but it wouldn't be fair, I feel, to
disclose that since I didn't see her for myself, although it was all
quite complimentary I assure you.
My
mother can never resist a chat and I suppose in the confines of a
lift, and it is quite a cosy lift, it seemed appropriate to engage,
and naturally being of similar ages it came quite easily to the pair
of them, I imagine. Although I've always been amazed (and embarrassed
a number of times too) by my mother's conversational skill. I rarely
meet anybody in this building, from this building, much less converse
and yet my mother somehow always manages to.
However,
she failed to, in this instance, get to the bottom of how in Jack's
name did a piano get in here?
Picture credit: Young Man Playing the Piano, 1876, Gustave Calliebotte (source: WikiArt)
This post was penned in 2019. Jack , if rumour (and my ears) are to be believed has since left the building.
