The Piano Exam

The Parabola Of The Flying Saucer

  The characteristics of thrown domestic objects vary with the items chosen. Light pans offer relatively little satisfaction; they make lots of noise but do little damage, whereas heavier ones such as frying pans - despite the reputation that they and rolling pins jointly undeservingly enjoy - have the huge disadvantage that they are likely to do lasting damage to the intended target. While this might seem at first to be a good thing, it is important that the thrower retains the option to fire further missiles; the main pleasure derived from doing anything enjoyable is the knowledge that one can do it again without feeling guilty. Le Creuset will probably be fatal, which defeats the object completely. Cutlery, especially knives, is particularly unsuited to being thrown, since it’s a matter of sheer chance whether the metal slices through dermis and epidermis to permanent and lasting effect, bounces off the target, or skims past and embeds itself in something else which the thrower actually quite values. Sharp knives also have an unnerving habit of spinning vertically in the air.

  Some individuals err on the safe side, making soft cushions, wet cloths, or perhaps oranges their weapons of choice. However, these people are not, in my opinion, really taking part in serious projectile-throwing at all, but instead are indulging in a perverse attempt to demonstrate affection. If the missile lands on its target, it should cause pain, either physical or, better still, mental.

  That’s why fine crockery is made of porcelain and not plastic or enamelled metal. It’s light enough to fit in the smallest of hands - even heavier teapots come with convenient handles - fragile enough to shatter against any reasonably hard surface, and, if well-chosen, items can be of sentimental value to the target - like Great Aunt Ethel’s Victorian hundred-piece tea-service - can strike deep into the soul of the mark, perhaps also shattering on his or her skull. For this purpose it helps to select quality china; nothing from TK Maxx or Asda will do here.

  But even within the range offered by a china tea-set, different pieces of china perform differently. A jug or a sugar bowl, both heavier objects, will travel through the air in a flat arc, barely deviating from its initial line of flight. A cup, because of its handle will be unbalanced in the air. This might straighten its flight, in fact, in much the same manner as a bullet fired from a rifle barrel, although there remains a good chance that the thrower will catch a finger in the handle and make a mess of things. Plates, even side plates, can, like jugs, be a little heavy for effective use.

  Which leaves the saucer. In fact, owners of tea-sets must wonder if there is any other purpose for saucers, especially in the modern era when tea- and coffee-drinkers are so wedded to mugs for everyday use. Let’s face it - when did you last use a saucer when you didn’t have guests in the house? These things sit in some difficult-to-reach corner of a cupboard or dresser (lower cupboards of dressers are really suited to nothing else, are they?). The chosen drinking vessels of the twenty-first century are the mug and the wine glass. Wine glasses throw well, too, by the way, and of course they shatter brilliantly, but nothing beats the saucer in the air. And who needs saucers? There are always more than you ever need, especially since cups and saucers seem to break in a ratio of three to one.

  So there they sit, these saucers, just waiting for the next domestic dispute to come along so that they can fulfill their true purpose, like butterflies whose finest hour is the instant before their death. Saucers are the Ferraris of the domestic projectile world, the go-to implements for all would-be pitchers. They can be hurled directly, just like teacups and jugs, but far more satisfyingly they can be slung backhanded, whereupon they assume one of their two extraordinary frisbee flight-paths. Right-way up, the right-handed thrower will see the saucer set off, bank slightly upwards to the left, then fall away to the floor and its certain destruction; upside-down, the saucer will bend left-to-right, then dip sharply downwards to the right and an even faster terminal impact. If you see a saucer flying upside-down towards you, it is fatal to duck - you’ll duck into its flightpath, like as not, increasing the impact speed - instead, the correct technique is to sway smoothly backwards and forwards to allow it to pass harmlessly by. During the Falklands, British naval helicopters used a similar technique to dodge Exocet missiles, I’ve been told; I suppose they in turn might have learned the trick from Spanish matadors.

  By now you must be asking how I’ve become such an expert in the parabolas of flying crockery, and, yes, you’d be correct in guessing that it’s born of personal experience, sometimes painful experience at that. Picture the scene: Brunhilde, my wife of thirty-one years, has once again decided that I am a useless, no-good piece of manure fit only for the wheelie-bin (once while I was sleeping, she pinned a notice on my favourite lambswool jumper which said “DO NOT RECYCLE”). We’re standing in the kitchen/dining-room of our rather nice house in Newington in the south side of Edinburgh, just off Minto Street to the left going down. She’s thrown things before, but this time she’s found the mother-lode, the aforementioned Aunt Ethel’s tea-set. It had actually been worth quite a lot of money, at least while it was only in one hundred pieces. Brunhilde’s not her real name, incidentally; her real name’s Jane, but her valkyrie-like features make the nickname inevitable. Now she’s gone, having swept out the front door, leaving me behind to sweep up thousands of pieces of what was Aunt Ethel’s pride and joy. Hopefully, there’s no life after death and she can’t be aware of its fate. Personally, I wasn’t that bothered, thus displaying the very indifference that had driven Brunhilde mad in the first place. Indifference about my job, life, Brunhilde, the universe, whatever. Almost everything, but not quite everything.

  She didn’t leave permanently. Later that evening she returned and demanded that I did instead, her reasoning being that the children needed her to be in the family home. I could have debated this, especially since one of our children, Becky, was twenty-two at the time and coming to the end of a degree in French and Linguistic Studies at St. Andrew’s, while the older one, Harry, was well and truly off the payroll - with both a law and an accountancy degree - and safely settled in his own Bruntsfield flat with his long-term partner Danni. I certainly wasn’t indifferent to them, but they weren’t coming home in a hurry. And contesting the occupation of a home with so much grief attached was another thing I was indifferent to, so out I went, to find myself to rent a small basement flat in the West End. There, my life became quieter, safer, and - frankly - more boring.

  For a while, at any rate.