The studio felt unnaturally cold when the red light above the door finally clicked off. Outside, rain lashed against the high arched windows, blurring the yellow streetlamps of the city into soft, golden smudges.
Howard adjusted his headset, resting it on the mixing console before running a weary hand over his face. Across the double-glazed partition, Casey was still sitting in the soundproof booth. Her music sheets lay scattered across the piano lid, illuminated by the faint glow of a single brass lamp.
They had spent four hours trying to record the final movement of the sonata. Before the tea break, every attempt had felt wooden, burdened by the silent resentment that had grown between them over the past months. Their tempo was always slightly off, their harmonies subtly clashing as if two different pieces were being played at once.
Casey pushed back her stool and walked through the heavy acoustic door into the control room. She wrapped her woollen cardigan tightly around herself and poured two mugs of black tea from the vacuum flask on the side table.
‘It was better towards the end,’ she said softly, handing him a mug.
Howard took a sip, letting the heat seep into his cold fingers.
‘It was. The tempo held during the second verse.’
‘I stopped trying to rush the cadence,’ she admitted, looking down at the worn floorboards. ‘I realised I was overcompensating because I thought you were dragging behind.’
Howard managed a faint, repentant smile.
‘And I was holding back because I thought you were taking it too fast. We were both listening to our own fear rather than each other.’
Silence settled between them, though for the first time in weeks, it did not feel heavy or hostile. The brief half-hour break with a walk down to the corner shop and a draught of fresh night air seemed to have cleared the fog that had plagued their rehearsals for a fortnight.
‘Shall we try one more run-through?’ Casey asked, gesturing back towards the glass. ‘While the rain is still heavy outside?’
Howard looked at the clock on the wall, then back at Casey. The tension that had held them captive all evening had melted away into the quiet rhythm of the late hour.
‘Right,’ he said, adjusting his headphones once more and turning to the desk. ‘From the top, then. Let us see what happens now.’
