The station piano

Source: an original fiction extract.

At seven on Wednesday evening, Imani reached the station with a shopping bag full of music books. She had agreed to help choose pieces for the public piano beside platform four. The station manager, Mrs Cole, had reserved the instrument for half an hour before the evening train arrived. Imani placed the bag beneath the piano stool and opened a book with a yellow cover. Her first task was to check whether every key worked. A cleaner pushed a trolley past the ticket machines, and the departure board clicked above the waiting passengers.

The middle notes were clear, but one near the top made only a soft wooden thud. Imani tried it twice and marked the page beside the keyboard. She had imagined a fine instrument neglected by careless travellers. Instead, the piano seemed to have adapted to the station: scratched, practical and louder in some places than others. A man looked up from his sandwich when she played a scale. She stopped before reaching the silent key. He went back to his food, and she felt oddly disappointed.

Mrs Cole came over with a roll of sticky tape. They discussed putting a small warning above the faulty note. Imani suggested waiting for the repair before advertising the sessions. Mrs Cole said that the piano had been there for months and people played it every day. 'They find their way around it.' To demonstrate, she sat down and picked out a tune with one finger. It was uneven and rather slow. A woman near the barrier began humming the next phrase before Mrs Cole reached it.

Imani knew the tune. Her teacher would have stopped her for the hesitations, and she could hear exactly where a fuller chord ought to go. She stood beside the piano with her hands in her coat pockets until the woman hummed again. Then she sat at the far end of the stool and added a few low notes. Mrs Cole laughed and started the phrase once more. They reached the place where the broken key should have sounded. Imani let the woman carry it. The missing note passed between them without anyone naming it.

When the train was announced, the woman lifted her case and hurried through the barrier. Mrs Cole stood to answer a question about the platforms. Imani was left beside the open book. She had not chosen a single piece, but she knew that the programme she had planned was too difficult and too solemn. On a fresh sheet she wrote three familiar tunes, then left a space for suggestions. Before closing the piano she checked the silent key again. It still needed repairing. She wrote that down too, beneath the list of songs.

Refer only to the first paragraph. Choose one answer for each item. Write the four letters in order, labelling them 1 to 4.