Strange Noises Fiction by Rachel Greenham

Hethan is making gestures at me. The bar has got busier while we were talking, and at some point an interrupt in Hethan’s mind triggered, saying ‘there needs to be music now.’

I get the message. “Sorry guys. I’ve got to earn my keep,” I excuse myself and stand to make my way to the small stage. The moment I put a foot on the stage, it seems, the noise level in the bar drops. Oh shit, I think, and turn around to see a room full of expectant faces. Oh deep shit.

I manage to unfreeze myself and smile, trying to point out to myself that it’s really not that many people. Only, oh, thirty or forty? “Hello,” I say. From some deep recess of my subconscious I’m pushed to bob a little curtsey. “I haven’t played for an audience before so… be kind and I’ll try not to suck too much.”

Confused faces, except for Kerilas and Lotan, damn them, who are grinning broadly. I don’t think Jeodine uses ‘suck’ in that context. “I mean, I’ll try to play well.” I get out.

I think I’d better just play. I only know one song, so I find a way to hold the box-harp while standing. It has a dent in its bottom that sits comfortably at my waist. I start playing Selkie’s Lament again. I just try to forget the audience and concentrate on the music, and out it comes. Again, like before, it’s not removed from me. I remember learning it. I remember playing it before. I remember playing on deck on a warm summer evening and a still moonlit sea. My eyes are closed, and I think I’m moving a little to the music. I have to not think about that or I’ll get self-conscious. I have to concentrate on what my fingers are doing, and play.

Selkie’s Lament is not a short song, but eventually it has to end and I open my eyes. Everyone is still watching me, and the bar is quiet. I smile as if to say ‘that’s it,’ and a sigh ripples through the bar. I think that means they liked it. Lotan claps once, then a second time, hesitantly, realising no-one else is joining him, before Kerilas thumps his arm to make him stop.

“Thank you,” I say. “I’m going to try something different now. This might not work. This is something I heard a long way away. I haven’t tried to play it before.” I smile again and concentrate on the box-harp and see if I can play the opening bars to Street Spirit. I fumble the first time and try again starting from a different note. It comes out wrong again, and dissonant, but I stare at the instrument and suddenly figure out why. The notes are spaced differently. No wonder it sounded strange. You probably couldn’t even play Selkie’s Lament on a piano, for the same reason. It would sound out of tune. “Sorry sorry,” I say aloud. “That’s not going to work. All right, I’m going to stop now so Hethan can sell you more drinks and food.” That gets smiles and a few laughs. “And I’ll come and play some more later on.”

I escape off the stage and make it as far as the table Kerilas and Lotan are sitting at. “Fuck,” I say. “That was embarrassing.”

“No, it was good, the one you played,” Kerilas said.

“What happened with the other one? What was it?” Lotan asks.

“That was supposed to be Street Spirit. You can’t play it on this.”

“Why not?”

“I need to get hold of Jalese,” I mutter, turning away from the table to look for Jalese. Hethan himself is taking orders at the tables, as is another young woman I haven’t been introduced to yet.

“The musical scale is different,” Kerilas explains to Lotan behind me.

“I should’ve thought of it,” I mutter.

“You haven’t had musical training back home, have you?” Kerilas asks.

I shake my head, then turn to look at him. “Have you?”

“Parents made me had piano lessons when I was younger,” he says, shrugging. “I didn’t keep it up. You should talk to Sam about it.”

“What do you mean it’s different?” Lotan asks.

“You know what a piano keyboard looks like?” Kerilas explains.

“Yeah…”

“Okay, so a simple scale is,” and he sings quietly, “do re me fa so la te do” up the octave. “Eight notes, got it?”

“And the black notes,” I add. “Where is Jalese?” Helping Samila, I remember, slightly annoyed.

“Yes, and the black notes,” Kerilas agrees laconically. “Tani, can you play a scale on that thing?”

“Um…” I have to shift my attention properly. “Sure.” I sit and rest the box-harp on my thigh and play a scale.

“See?” Kerilas says, to both of us. “That’s sixteen notes, total, from one note to the same note higher up. And that’s a straight sequence isn’t it? There’s no major or minor keys.”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Yes, I’m right. I remember,” Kerilas says. Of course, it’s reasonable to think that he has memories of music too. “May I?” he asks, holding out his hand for the box-harp.

I actually hesitate for a moment, then I shake myself of the silliness and hand it to him. He hefts it, and shifts his sitting posture so he can rest it on his own thigh and plays a few notes, a scale, then a phrase out of Selkie’s Lament, then something I haven’t heard before, played with a completely different fingering technique.

“What’s that?”

“I don’t know,” he says, sounding very distant.

“It brings back memories doesn’t it?” I say.

He stops playing and passes the box-harp back to me in silence. “Yes,” he says, quietly. Then he clears his throat. I can only guess that his memories are less pleasant than mine. “You could re-tune it to play our music, I reckon,” he says. “You’d have to keep tuning it back and forth though, which would suck. Be better to get a second one. There’s Jalese if you’re still looking for her,” he adds, looking past my shoulder. “Why?”

I turn to look. Jalese’s appeared at the bottom of the stairs. “Oh, finally. I need her to teach me more Jeodin songs,” I explain, and get up and head through the bar towards her.