TOM EATON: Nostalgia ain't what it used to be
When people fall in love, the music of the time often becomes the melody of their happiness
On most days the elderly woman sits and watches the world from her balcony, waving to people she knows, peering at people she doesn’t. She offers gossip, sometimes cake. She’s eager to tell the story of her dodgy leg and she tells it well. But beyond that she keeps her feelings to herself and her home is dark and quiet. Once in a great while, however, she plays her music. It fills her flat and spills out onto the street. And then you know that she is missing her late husband terribly. The music, she tells you, is the soundtrack of their love. It was their music when they were first married and the world was perfect and everything would last forever. Sometimes they danced to it. Sometimes they just lay and listened. When I first heard it, I thought she was having a party. But when she came out onto the balcony, her cheeks wet and her face softened and brightened by nostalgia, I realised my mistake. But I was confused. Because her music, full of longing for and joy over times past, is...
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