The audience was stone-faced. The music was not.
The Last Note
Otto finished with a flourish large enough for a much bigger audience.
The two fish in front of the little reef stage looked exactly as they had before it.
One had a mouth that turned down at the corners. The other appeared to have received disappointing news some time ago and kept it.
Beside Otto, Pearl lifted her bow from the violin. The last note faded over the pale sand.
“Thank you for coming,” she said.
Neither fish moved away.
Otto kept one arm across his guitar and lowered another from its final, hopeful gesture. They had played six pieces. Halfway through the fourth, he had tried smiling directly at the fish on the left.
It had looked back.
Any Requests?
“Perhaps we should have done the shorter programme,” Otto murmured.
Pearl glanced at him.
“Which bit would you have left out?”
He looked down at his strings. He had rather liked all of it until a moment ago.
“The middle, possibly.”
“The whole middle?”
Before he could decide how much of their concert he wished to remove, Pearl turned towards the audience.
“Would you like to hear something else?”
“The quick one,” said the fish on the left.
“The slow one,” said the other.
Otto looked up.
“From tonight?”
“The one with the little climb at the end,” the first fish said. “You played it second.”
“Third,” said its companion.
“Second. The third was yours.”
The second fish considered this.
“Yes. With that low bit on the violin.”
Pearl rested her bow lightly across the strings.
“That one?”
She played a short phrase. The fish leaned forward.
“From a little before there, please.”
One of Each
Otto shifted his guitar into place again.
“We could do both.”
The two fish turned towards each other.
“Slow first,” said one.
“Quick first. Then we can settle down.”
“I am settled.”
“You can be more settled.”
Pearl looked at Otto. This time, he was smiling without checking whether anyone returned it.
“Quick first,” he said. “Then the slow one.”
He began with the little run that had taken him most of the morning to get right. Pearl joined him, her melody rising over the bright pluck of his strings.
At the front of the stage, one fish moved a fin against the sand in time. Its companion waited through the quick tune, then lifted its head as Pearl began the slower piece.
Otto let his guitar fall quiet beneath her last long note. He watched her bow and came back in softly when she nodded.
They left the ending room to fade.
For a moment, even the fin on the sand was still.
Ready Now
“That’s the bit,” said the second fish.
Otto looked at Pearl. She lowered her violin, keeping the bow in her other arm.
“The ending?” she asked.
“The part just before it. When he stops and you keep going.”
“I like when he comes back,” said the first.
Otto glanced down at the guitar resting against him.
“So do I.”
He bowed. Pearl bowed beside him, and the two fish watched with their solemn faces tilted up.
“Good,” said the fish on the left. “Now you’ve finished warming up.”
Pearl’s bow stopped halfway to its case.
Otto looked at their entire audience.
Both fish had moved a little closer.
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