The choir had booked the room from six to seven. The tai chi group had booked it from half past six. The committee for the winter fair had booked it from six forty-five, though no one knew who had accepted the booking.
At six, the choir arrived carrying folders and one thermos. At six twelve, a man in soft shoes came in, bowed to the room and began moving his arms as if he were parting curtains.
“We’re rehearsing,” said Ruth, the choir conductor.
“So are we,” he said.
At six thirty, the other tai chi members entered. They placed their bags in a line along the wall. The fair committee came early, carrying a box of paper snowflakes and a large roll of tape.
“We can’t sing over this,” Ruth said.
“We don’t sing,” said the man in soft shoes.
“That’s the problem.”
The fair committee chair, Mr Dube, lifted both hands. “Let us begin with the minutes.”
“We were here first,” said Ruth.
“We have the room until seven,” said the man in soft shoes.
“We have it from six forty-five,” said Mr Dube. “The booking says so.”
Everyone looked at the paper. It did say so. It also said “Main Hall”, the label beside the door. Across the corridor, someone in Room 3 had laid out twenty-seven cups and a plate of biscuits.
“That’s the knitting group,” Ruth said.
From Room 3 came a chorus of needles clicking.
The first rehearsal began anyway. The choir sang one note. The tai chi group breathed in. The fair committee tested a strip of tape. It came loose and stuck to Mr Dube’s sleeve.
“You’re all making sound,” Ruth said.
“The tape is not sound,” said Mr Dube.
The tape tore with a noise like a small flag being lowered.
The man in soft shoes watched them. “What if the room is not divided by time but by direction?”
“Meaning?”
He pointed. “We face that wall. You face the window. They use the table. No one crosses the centre.”
“We need the piano,” Ruth said.
“I can move the table,” Mr Dube offered.
“The tape?”
“I can move the tape.”
They tried it. The choir took the window side. The tai chi group faced the blank wall. The fair committee laid out its paper snowflakes on the table. The knitting group remained in Room 3, but their biscuits were passed over the corridor as a gesture of peace.
The arrangement lasted one verse. The choir could hear the tai chi group’s shoes scuffing in time with the lower notes. Ruth stopped singing and asked for the door to be shut. The tai chi group asked for it to stay open because the room was already warm. Mr Dube set the snowflakes in a row, but the tape kept lifting from the table’s varnish.
“We need a proper run-through,” Ruth said. “Not one verse at a time.”
“And we need to practise the sequence,” said the man in soft shoes. “It changes when we stop and start.”
One of the committee members held a snowflake by its narrowest point. “We need the table clear before people arrive. The glue is still wet.”
The knitting group’s door opened. A woman stood there with two cups. “We can give up the corridor if someone can keep the kettle out of our room.”
Nobody answered straight away. Ruth looked at the clock. She had told the choir they would sing the whole piece before seven; she had promised the accompanist a recording to practise with. The man in soft shoes rolled his shoulders, waiting without folding his arms. Mr Dube peeled the tape from his sleeve and stuck it to the side of the snowflake box.
“Could we use the piano for ten minutes, then leave the middle clear?” Ruth asked. “I’ll have to change the order of the songs.”
“And we can do our standing sequence first,” said the man. “The floor pattern needs the middle more than the warm-up does.”
Mr Dube suggested using the table only after the singing. The committee could prepare the paper shapes on the floor for now, but they would need the chairs stacked along one wall. The knitting group would keep the kettle in the corridor and take their tea in Room 3.
Ruth hesitated. She had arranged the rehearsal so the choir could watch her hands. “I don’t want anyone walking between us once we start.”
“We can mark a route along the wall,” said the woman from Room 3. “I’ll move the cups when it’s our turn.”
They shifted the chairs. The route was narrow, and the snowflakes kept catching on sleeves.
Ruth raised her hand. “One note. Then we decide.”
They sang. The tai chi group moved slowly in the same breath. Mr Dube held a snowflake up to the window. For a moment the room had three kinds of concentration and one uncertain bit of tape.
At the end of the note, Ruth lowered her hand.
“We can share the room,” she said. “But I’m not conducting through a snowflake.”
Mr Dube took the snowflake down. “Fair.”
The man in soft shoes smiled. “Then we have an arrangement.”
“A trial,” Ruth said.
They began again, all facing their chosen direction. Ruth stopped once to move someone back from the route. The note wavered when someone laughed. This time no one stopped it.
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