The trainer at the gym is looking at my left shoulder. He presses a spot at the base of my neck with his thumb, causing a deep twinge that runs all the way down my left arm, and whistles in ironic admiration. People who work in physiotherapy are invariably impressed by how tense I am. I'm like a giant fist, permanently clenched in anxiety.
"It could be from the way you sit while you work," he says. "You probably lean forward when you type."
"Probably," I say.
"But it's odd it's only on one side."
I know exactly what it's from; I just don't want to tell him. It's from playing the banjo.
When I took up the banjo three years ago, I thought of it as a harmless pastime, or at least as a pastime that would harm only others. When I joined a band last year, I didn't imagine I was following a path that would inevitably lead to injury.
But being in a band means keeping up with other musicians, and I have some unfortunate history here. When I was in the City Youth orchestra, I had to teach myself the violin without making any noise, the bow hovering just above the strings, because any noise I made was the wrong noise. When I was in a band in college, I was always on the verge of being kicked out for my lack of application. When you hang out with students who drink beer, smoke pot and play guitars all day, establishing yourself as the lazy one is no mean feat, but I managed it.
This time I don't want to be left behind, and I have vowed to attack musicianship with as much dedication as I can muster without inviting unwanted sarcasm from my wife. As part of this new ambition, I have devised a banjo arrangement for a song that is both fiendishly complex and nakedly impressive.
Or it would be if I could play it, but I can't. I spend most of my time sitting at my desk, banjo on my knee, running over the same notes at half speed and staring at a blank computer screen. The ritual might be calming if progress were in any way perceptible. After a few hours of frustration, I go downstairs to the kitchen, where my wife is sitting.
"Working hard?" she says. "Plinkety plink."
"It helps me think," I say. At that moment I'm thinking: index, middle, thumb, middle, thumb, index, middle, thumb. "My neck hurts."
"I see," she says. "Anything else to report?"
"Next week's gig is cancelled," I say, looking out the window. "But the rehearsal is still on, because the studio was already booked."
"Oh, are we still talking about you?" she says. "How interesting."
So I have failed to master the banjo part, I have failed to evade my wife's sarcasm and I am now unable to look over my left shoulder. There has been some progress – I've learned to type with finger picks on my right hand – but I'm still worried about holding the band back.
The next evening my wife catches me in the hall as I'm preparing to leave with my banjo case.
"Where are you going?" she says.
"Acton," I say.
"What for?" she says.
"Rehearsal," I say. "It's Thursday."
"It's election night," she says.
"Yes," I say, "so it is. But, I mean, there's never really any news before midnight. I'll be back by then."
"We're having a party," she says. "Eight people are coming to dinner."
"Are they?" I say. "Well, in that case, um…" I stop, poised between two competing commitments, feeling obliged to weigh my next words carefully. I breathe out and think: index, middle, thumb, middle, thumb, index, middle, thumb
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