Emma Hooper

Dale has William and me practice our spoon-holds twenty-five times before we are allowed to make a sound. The utensils stick gawky and unnatural from our fingers, one held just above the middle finger, one just below, in a sort of fist with the thumb on top for support, their rounded backs to one another. Dale drops his top spoon and smiles sheepishly. His hand grazes my right calf as he reaches to pick it up.

We start with very simple rhythms, playing along to the beat of the train, taka-taka taka-taka taka-taka. The goal is to keep perfectly steady. You’ve got to keep the angle and distance between the spoons exactly right; you can’t let the top one slip off the bottom. If there is too much space between them, you’ll lose your control, fall out of the proper angle, and lose the tempo. However, if your spoons are too close together there won’t be enough momentum for either the connection or the bounce-back and you’ll miss beats. It’s stressful work this, and William drops his spoons three more times before we hit an established stride, taka-taka-taka-taka-taka, constant with the train. ‘Keep it up!’ orders Dale, preparing his own spoons. By now, many of the others in the car have turned to watch the spectacle; a couple in the corner with matching spiky hair work away with their own plastic canteen spoons and a pretty Japanese girl taps along with the pencil she was using to do crosswords. As we continue to taka-taka with schoolchild glee, Dale begins his concerto.