By nine the ropes had already collected their metronomes from a tin on the park rail. Each one was no bigger than a button. The keeper pinned a card to the post: please wait for the boot to be greeted, then wait for the bench to nod, then skip once.
We asked at the kiosk. A man with a jam bun said his left shoe had been introduced first, and after that the rope turned so politely he almost forgot to jump. In the notebook by the lawn someone wrote: the click was tiny, and the bench seemed proud of the tempo.
The next afternoon the same pair came back. They stood still until the metronome finished its hello, skipped once, and went to sit where the bench had already kept time.