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By Root 476 0

backs to me. But this time, instead of cuddling, they sat there on the grass with surprisingly upright postures, each with a hand up to the brow to shield away the sun. They stayed like that all the time I played, peculiarly still, and what with the way each of them cast a long afternoon shadow, they looked like matching art exhibits. I brought my incomplete song to a meandering halt, and for a moment they didn’t move. Then their postures relaxed, and they applauded, though perhaps not quite as enthusiastically as the last time. Tilo got to his feet, muttering compliments, then helped Sonja up. It was only when you saw how they did this that you remembered they were really quite middle-aged. Maybe they were just tired. For all I know, they might have done a fair bit of walking before they’d come across me. All the same, it seemed to me they found it quite a struggle to get up.

“You’ve entertained us so marvellously,” Tilo was saying. “Now we are the tourists, and someone else plays for us! It makes a pleasant change.”

“I would love to hear that song when it is finished,” Sonja said, and she seemed really to mean it. “Maybe one day I will hear it on the radio. Who knows?”

“Yes,” Tilo said, “and then Sonja and I will play our cover version to our customers!” His big laugh rang through the air. Then he did a polite little bow and said: “So today we are in your debt three times over. A splendid lunch. A splendid choice of hotel. And a splendid concert here in the hills!”

As we said our goodbyes, I had an urge to tell them the truth. To confess that I’d deliberately sent them to the worst hotel in the area, and warn them to move out while there was still time. But the affectionate way they shook my hand made it all the harder to come out with this. And then they were going down the hill and I was alone on the bench again.

THE CAFE HAD CLOSED by the time I came down from the hills. Maggie and Geoff looked exhausted. Maggie said it had been their busiest day yet and seemed pleased about it. But when Geoff made the same point over supper—which we ate in the cafe from various left-overs—he put it like it was a negative thing, like it was awful they’d been made to work so hard and where had I been to help? Maggie asked how my afternoon had gone, and I didn’t mention Tilo and Sonja—that seemed too complicated—but told her I’d gone up to the Sugarloaf to work on my song. And when she asked if I’d made any progress, and I said yes, I was making real headway now, Geoff got up and marched out moodily, even though there was still food on his plate. Maggie pretended not to notice, and fair enough, he came back a few minutes later with a can of beer, and sat there reading his newspaper and not saying much. I didn’t want to be the cause of a rift between my sister and brother-in-law, so I excused myself soon after that and went upstairs to work some more on the song.

My room, which was such an inspiration in the daytime, wasn’t nearly so appealing after dark. For a start, the curtains didn’t pull all the way across, which meant if I opened a window in the stifling heat, insects from miles around would see my light and come charging in. And the light I had was just this one bare bulb hanging down from the ceiling rose, which cast gloomy shadows all round the room, making it look all the more obviously the spare room it was. That evening, I was wanting light to work by, to jot down lyrics as they occurred to me. But it got far too stuffy, and in the end I switched off the bulb, pulled back the curtains, and opened the windows wide. Then I sat in the bay with my guitar, just the way I did in the day.

I’d been there like that for about an hour, playing through various ideas for the bridge passage, when there was a knock and Maggie stuck her head round the door. Of course everything was in darkness, but outside down on the terrace there was a security light, so I could just about make out her face. She had on this awkward smile, and I thought she was about to ask me to come and help with yet another chore. She came right in, closed the