Fitz walked us down the corridor at five past nine with the torch off, because the corridor in Dublin is lit, and counted us into the wings by touching each of us once on the shoulder as we passed, so she’d know where we were when the lights went.
Forty steps. Breeze block, a yellow line on the floor we don’t cross until we’re told. Lenny in front, hitting his sticks on his leg. Femi, phone off. Dot with the fiddle under her arm like a parcel she’d been asked to mind. Then me. Then, behind me, where I couldn’t see him and could hear every step, Ezra, with the red guitar, humming one note.
In the wings Marek put the plywood-top into my hands, and I put my hands on the neck of it and checked the tuning the way I do, without a tuner, by feel, the two…
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