For the garden club's autumn evening, Ruth had agreed to record a short introduction. She had once produced radio programmes, though usually someone else did the speaking.
Her neighbour Dev brought his little recorder to the conservatory. They set it between two pots and waited for a delivery van to move away.
Ruth began. Halfway through a sentence about the garden, rain started tapping the glass roof. She stopped, sighed, and reached towards the recorder.
“Let it run a moment,” Dev said.
They listened. The rain grew steadier. Beyond the window, water gathered at the tip of a long leaf, then dropped into the gravel.
After a while, Dev stopped the recording and played it back.
Ruth heard her own unfinished sentence, a small rustle, then the rain. Without anyone speaking, the conservatory sounded larger.
“The introduction is rather short,” she said.
“We could begin with the garden itself.”
Ruth tried the recording again from just after her voice ended. She left the volume low. On the table, the tiny speaker gave them the roof, the pauses, and one distinct drip.
They saved that section for the club evening. Then they sat together naming the file, changing Dev's first choice of “New Recording 8” to “Rain at Four.” Outside, the leaf filled again.