piano and settled onto the bench like a migrating butterfly. She touched the keys tentatively without pressing down, as if playing the wrong combination would make the world explode.
“I’d better be getting back,” Dieter said, draining his cup to the dregs.
“Oh, can’t you stay?” Feely said. “I’d been hoping you’d translate some of the annotations on my facsimile edition of Bach’s
The Well-Tempered Clavier.
”
“They should call it
The
Bad-Tempered
Clavier
, when you play it,” I said. “She swears like stink when she hits a clinker,” I explained to Dieter.
Feely went as red as the carpet. She didn’t dare swat me in front of company.
With her flushed face and her green outfit, she reminded me of something I’d seen in a recent color supplement. What was it, now …?
Oh, yes! That was it …
“You look like the flag of Portugal,” I said. “I’ll leave you alone so that you can wave good-bye.”
I knew that I would pay for my insolence later, but Dieter’s hearty laugh was worth it.
The house, generally so cold and silent, had suddenly become a beehive. Carpenters hammered, painters painted, and various people looked at various parts of the foyer through makeshift frames formed by touching thumbs and extending their fingers.
An astonishing number of lights had been put into place, some hanging from clamps on skeletal scaffolding and others mounted on spindly floor stands. Black wires and cables twisted everywhere.
Wig-wagging my extended arms for balance, I navigated my way carefully across the room, pretending I was walking across a pit of sleeping snakes—poisonous snakes that could awaken at any moment and …
“Hoy! Flavia!”
I looked up to see the ruddy face of Gil Crawford, the village electrician, grinning down at me through the framework of a high scaffold that had been rigged to span the great front door. Gil had been of much assistance in bringing back to life some of the more Frankensteinian of the electrical devices in Uncle Tar’s laboratory, and had even taken the time to drill me in the safe handling of certain of the high-voltage instruments.
“Always remember,” he had taught me to recite:
“
Brown wire to the live
,
Blue to the neutral
Greenery-yallery to the propensity
So’s you don’t wake up in Eternity.”
When it came to wires and eternity, Gil was said to be something of an expert.
“ ’E was a Commando durin’ the war!” Mrs. Mullet had once whispered, while gutting a rabbit on the kitchen table. “They was taught ’ow to gavotte people with a bit o’ piano wire round their necks.
Gzaaack!
”
She’d grimaced horribly, her eyes rolled up, her tongue lolling out the side of her mouth by way of illustration.
“ ‘Quick as a wink,’ Alf says. Next minute the victim finds ’isself sittin’ on a cloud with an ’arp in ’is ’and, wonderin’ where in ’eaven’s name the world’s ever got to.”
“Mr. Crawford!” I called up to Gil. “What are you doing here?”
“Keeping the old hand in,” he shouted back above the din of the hammering.
I put one foot on the ladder at the scaffold’s side and began, hand over hand, to haul myself up.
At the top I stepped off onto the broad planks that formed a makeshift floor.
“Used to work this film lark when I was an apprentice lad.” He grinned, rather proudly. “Keep my dues up just in case. You never know, nowadays, do you?”
“How’s Mrs. Crawford?” I asked.
His wife, Martha, had recently invited me for tea while she ferreted out, from a box of cast-off valves, an obsolete rectifier for a radio-frequency fluorescing tube—for which she would take not a penny. It was a debt which I had so far been unable to repay.
“Topping,” he said. “Fair topping. She’s minding the shop so’s I can come out on this caper.”
He worked as he spoke, fastening a second long-snouted spotlight to a tubular cross member with a couple of clamps.
“Busiest time of year it
“I’d better be getting back,” Dieter said, draining his cup to the dregs.
“Oh, can’t you stay?” Feely said. “I’d been hoping you’d translate some of the annotations on my facsimile edition of Bach’s
The Well-Tempered Clavier.
”
“They should call it
The
Bad-Tempered
Clavier
, when you play it,” I said. “She swears like stink when she hits a clinker,” I explained to Dieter.
Feely went as red as the carpet. She didn’t dare swat me in front of company.
With her flushed face and her green outfit, she reminded me of something I’d seen in a recent color supplement. What was it, now …?
Oh, yes! That was it …
“You look like the flag of Portugal,” I said. “I’ll leave you alone so that you can wave good-bye.”
I knew that I would pay for my insolence later, but Dieter’s hearty laugh was worth it.
The house, generally so cold and silent, had suddenly become a beehive. Carpenters hammered, painters painted, and various people looked at various parts of the foyer through makeshift frames formed by touching thumbs and extending their fingers.
An astonishing number of lights had been put into place, some hanging from clamps on skeletal scaffolding and others mounted on spindly floor stands. Black wires and cables twisted everywhere.
Wig-wagging my extended arms for balance, I navigated my way carefully across the room, pretending I was walking across a pit of sleeping snakes—poisonous snakes that could awaken at any moment and …
“Hoy! Flavia!”
I looked up to see the ruddy face of Gil Crawford, the village electrician, grinning down at me through the framework of a high scaffold that had been rigged to span the great front door. Gil had been of much assistance in bringing back to life some of the more Frankensteinian of the electrical devices in Uncle Tar’s laboratory, and had even taken the time to drill me in the safe handling of certain of the high-voltage instruments.
“Always remember,” he had taught me to recite:
“
Brown wire to the live
,
Blue to the neutral
Greenery-yallery to the propensity
So’s you don’t wake up in Eternity.”
When it came to wires and eternity, Gil was said to be something of an expert.
“ ’E was a Commando durin’ the war!” Mrs. Mullet had once whispered, while gutting a rabbit on the kitchen table. “They was taught ’ow to gavotte people with a bit o’ piano wire round their necks.
Gzaaack!
”
She’d grimaced horribly, her eyes rolled up, her tongue lolling out the side of her mouth by way of illustration.
“ ‘Quick as a wink,’ Alf says. Next minute the victim finds ’isself sittin’ on a cloud with an ’arp in ’is ’and, wonderin’ where in ’eaven’s name the world’s ever got to.”
“Mr. Crawford!” I called up to Gil. “What are you doing here?”
“Keeping the old hand in,” he shouted back above the din of the hammering.
I put one foot on the ladder at the scaffold’s side and began, hand over hand, to haul myself up.
At the top I stepped off onto the broad planks that formed a makeshift floor.
“Used to work this film lark when I was an apprentice lad.” He grinned, rather proudly. “Keep my dues up just in case. You never know, nowadays, do you?”
“How’s Mrs. Crawford?” I asked.
His wife, Martha, had recently invited me for tea while she ferreted out, from a box of cast-off valves, an obsolete rectifier for a radio-frequency fluorescing tube—for which she would take not a penny. It was a debt which I had so far been unable to repay.
“Topping,” he said. “Fair topping. She’s minding the shop so’s I can come out on this caper.”
He worked as he spoke, fastening a second long-snouted spotlight to a tubular cross member with a couple of clamps.
“Busiest time of year it
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