The Moon Musician

David Hayden

Gerard sat in his usual seat in the concert hall, well back from the stage, counting the changes. Changes that no one else could hear. Changes that had not been written. A violin, an accordion, two baritones and a soprano singing in unison, a percussionist holding a cowbell in one hand and a feather in the other. The ceiling’s plaster had collapsed a little above the stage exposing wooden runners, and, visible through those, a small piece of darkening sky. The musicians endeavoured not to move, as there was nothing in the score to indicate the cracking grinding sound of highly polished shoes shifting white dust and gritty fragments.

There were fifty-seven people in the audience in addition to Gerard. None of them were asleep. Some of them were men, some women, some, as is normal, somewhere in between. Two people were humming along perfectly in key, four were flat and six were sharp. Forty-two people were not entirely aware that they were slightly too cold, fifteen were in an unhappy swelter due to the fact, in the case of fourteen of them, that they were wearing heavy fur coats, and in the fifteenth case due to an advanced pulmonary infection.

Gerard was sitting in perfect comfort, as he always made thoughtful and generally effectual plans for the regulation of his body temperature, and he took full cognisance of the atmospheric and other environmental conditions, usual or, should there be any, unusual.

A man walked on, from stage left, wearing full formal attire and slippers, and carrying a twitching bundle. He stopped and turned to face the audience, to face the conductor. The condition of the man’s face was intermediate between five o’clock shadow and convincing beardedness, his eyes were bleared and bloodshot, the skin beneath them was dry, saggy, and bruised looking. There was a long streak of white that started near his right lapel and disappeared over his shoulder. The accordion played, unaccompanied, tootling along aleatorically. The conductor stood on the balls of her feet, her shoulders slumped forward, arms by her sides, the baton loosely held in her right hand. The hand twitched and the soprano spoke.

The unreadable is the last living place, the final moral place, the place that remains open, unenclosed, as resistant as possible to commerce. A place of knowing, known only to itself. Not in a state of resistance for, or towards, anything, but only to keep in existence, even momentarily, the idea of life. We are the unenslaved, the unsold. There is no colony in our minds, we seek none in yours.

The bundle moved around, and a baby pulled back their blanket and fixed the conductor with big brown eyes. The conductor gestured sharply, the accordion stopped, her left index finger punched the air, and the percussionist stroked the cowbell with the feather. The baton flew up in the direction of the baby, who cried out in F-sharp. The baby seemed very pleased with herself.

The first violinist winked to the second violinist, who winked back. The conductor winked at both of them, and they played three bars of a slow, sweet French lullaby. The baby smiled, soothed on her thumb for a moment and fell asleep.

A skinny boy, or perhaps a girl, in blue overalls staggered on stage carrying a tuba followed by an old man in chef whites, dirty apron and a white hat, under which his hair was secured in a green plastic net. In one hand he carried, waiter-style, a tray with two shakers, in the other a foldout stool.

The boygirl dropped the tuba heavily, dug about in the open end and pulled out a crinkly white package. The man unfolded the stool. The girlboy sat and, on a hand wave from the conductor, unwrapped the package on their lap. A savoury odour of hot fat drifted from the stage into the auditorium. The man handed over the shakers. They took one in each hand and looked up at the conductor. She nodded. The baritones stepped close together to face each other, and commenced alternately to growl and shout wordlessly. The soprano emitted, and held, a low B and began to sing, to climb, chromatically, higher and higher, until the sound exceeded the frequency discernible by the human ear. The conductor gestured simultaneously to the boygirl and the baritones. Heshe shook salt for a time onto the steaming package, then stopped. One baritone slapped the other on the face with the flat of his hand. Shehe shook vinegar into the paper for a longer duration than the salt shaking. The second baritone slapped the first one. Everyone paused.

At a signal, the violins sawed percussively, violently, as the girlboy stuffed chips frantically into their mouth. The chips were finished. All the other musicians made those tiny body gestures that indicate that a piece has been completed. The boygirl stood. The musicians faced the audience and bowed. There was no applause. The musicians bowed again.

The girlboy wiped their greasy fingers on their overalls. Gerard dropped his notes, which spilled at his feet, and stood clapping loudly. The audience, slowly at first, joined him, until all were standing, applauding, some howling in approbation, others stamping on the floor or kicking the seats in front of them. At first dust, and then small fragments of plaster began to fall from the ceiling onto the stage. The conductor turned around smiling. Plaster continued to rain down in ever larger chunks. An enormous crack was heard from above and the conductor waved her hands to still the crowd but, instead of falling into the contented silence she anticipated, she found that they were thumping and shouting in time to her movements. The conductor waved more and more vigorously. She shouted in an attempt to be heard over the ecstatic racket, but the audience seemed thrilled and energised with the sounds that she made, which they could not discern as individual words with their own, contrarising purpose.

The conductor stood still, in the hope that this gesture would be read correctly by the audience, most of whom, it was clear, had not enjoyed the benefits of a conservatory training, but the wild riot did not abate. A wrench and a shatter stage right was a box, fortunately uninhabited, that had broken free from the wall, where it fell into the empty seating close to Gerard. The applause grew louder. Surely, the audience might have thought, this was a coda to the performance. Boards and brick and stone fell onto the stage. The musicians huddled together.

The theatre lights flickered and fizzed and went out. The audience went quiet.

Through an enormous hole in the ceiling, in the roof, a giant pale rose moon swelled in the sky. The baby came out from her blanket and pointed.

‘Ahhhh…’ she said. ‘Ahhhh…’

And the audience returned to their seats and sang with her.

‘Ahhhh…. Ahhhh…Ahhh.’