Vivienne had spent the walk to the record shop composing a description of music she had not yet heard. By the time she stood beside Vera, she had made it longer than most songs: a low voice, unhurried, with room around it to hear someone breathe. The description sounded entirely reasonable to her until she considered the woman beside her. Vera might want considerably more happening. Vivienne invited the objection with a reference to cutlery, then held her ground. She wanted that voice. Being beside Vera had not persuaded her to exchange her own taste for someone else's.
Vera wanted a piano with intentions of its own. Something underneath the singer that did more than wait politely for her to finish. She did not require a falling saucepan, she explained, and she had no objection to hearing someone breathe. She had listened attentively enough at Vivienne's. The remark gave their disagreement a familiar warmth without settling it. Then Vera found a sleeve offering voice and piano, with two names neither woman recognised. It might provide Vivienne's slow singer and Vera's ill-mannered pianist. They might both regret the choice. Vera considered that a fair beginning.
Vivienne’s sideVivienne asked to hear the first song in full. It took no elaborate account of their personalities, which she called a small disappointment. Then the music began and immediately failed to match her description. The piano sounded respectable. The woman's voice was higher than she had wanted, and rather beautiful. Beneath it came a small chord, then the same chord again. Vivienne had been promised a pianist with intentions; apparently his intention was to stay exactly where he was until someone offered him lunch. Her joke left the repeated sound quite intact.
Vera had wanted him to interrupt. By the fourth repetition, she was anticipating the fifth and failing to hear the singer properly. She admitted as much, though she warned Vivienne against looking pleased too soon. Then the woman stopped singing. The pianist played the chord again, and Vera liked it. Nothing in the accompaniment had become busier. Her attention had changed. So intent on demanding something interesting from him, she had missed what the singer was doing above him. She asked for quiet through the next passage. She wanted to hear where the voice might go.
Vivienne listened too. This time the singer came down to the chord, and she heard the arrival. It left her with an inconvenient wish: now she wanted the pianist to change. After her complaints about Vera's liking for musical cutlery, this was an awkward development. Still, she did not want an explanation that would tidy the wish away. Wanting something and not getting it yet had its own pleasure. So did watching Vera become absorbed. When Vera leaned forward, Vivienne nearly followed. She liked the moment when Vera forgot to look clever because something had caught her.
Vivienne wondered whether they would soon argue over who took the record home. Vera wanted another hearing before she wanted to own it. Then she admitted something less comfortable than a musical preference. She had chosen the sleeve because it appeared able to accommodate both their wishes. Without noticing, she had been trying to find something they could not quarrel about. Now that seemed a dreary ambition for a morning with Vivienne. The song ended; the pianist had never changed. Vera admired his nerve, though she allowed that she might find it unbearable tomorrow.
She also returned to Vivienne's unfinished movement. Vivienne could follow when she leaned forward. Vera would enjoy that more than a tactful verdict. Vivienne came nearer. She did not want a tactful morning either. Even Vera's dreadful flourish had given her more pleasure to complain about than an agreeable record might have done. She would ask to hear this song again, without offering to buy it first. During another hearing, she wanted Vera to identify the place where her patience had almost failed. They might have missed two entirely different songs while standing together.
The fourth chord, Vera said. Vivienne had caught her counting. After that, she had stopped waiting for the pianist and wanted the singer to go lower, which the woman eventually did. Another hearing might answer whether knowing the descent in advance would spoil the wait. Vera wanted Vivienne to stay close enough for an objection to reach her before it had been polished. But she had an objection of her own to the unfinished conversation. When Vivienne wanted the pianist to change, what exactly had she wanted him to do? The song was over. Their answer to it was still taking shape.