Mary was sitting in the kitchen drinking some tea whilst admiring the wild plum tree in blossom.
Suddenly her neighbour Annie ran into the room wearing a pink corduroy dress with long sleeves buttoned at the wrist and her legs were covered by striped tights that she had a bought in Woolworths in 1998.
She looked at Mary quizzically
You don’t look yourself this morning
No I’m not myself today I think it’s that schizoid remoteness that I have heard about recently. Could you become schizoid when you’re over 70? Annie teased her gently.
I don’t suppose it’s paranoid anhedonia.
Just plain and simple grief.
When was grief ever pkain and simple Mary wondered out loud
I’ve never heard of ak Anhedonia before. It sounds like a very good name for a cat
Come here Anhedonia.
Emil Mary’s beautiful cat woke up and cried out, I told you I should have learned Greek at school, mother.
But you didn’t go to school Mary told him kindly
You could have got me a private tutor in that case but first of all I would have to learn to read and write which is something I never got round to.
So what made you think that that word was Greek?
It just reminds me of things I heard you saying to Stan before he died.
Oh yes it was probably when I was discussing my anisometropia with him.
Is that a house plant Annie asked nervously.
No it’s something to do with the fact that you can’t get both of your eyes sorted with super suitable lenses simultaneously
That sounds dreadful cried Annie mournfully.
And you know what the optician said to me Mary told her
He said you’ve got 90% of your eyesight back compared to a blind person but only 60% back compared to someone with perfect vision.
So I said to him don’t talk to me like that I am a mathematician I used to teach statistics to trade union students. You can’t do that with percentages they’re not metaphors you know or similes.
But on reflection I realised that I could understand perfectly well what he meant.
It reminded me of Stan when he used to say
The distance between 0 and 1 is bigger than the distance from one to two
That would not be allowed in a mathematics book but actually he was 100% right compared to a human being but only t 10% compared to God. And even that’s an exaggeration.
We have just sorted out the Greek alphabet and mathematics and percentages and metaphors why don’t we put the kettle on and make nice cup of tea. A coal fire in this room would make it perfect why we could even boil the kettle on it and reduce the electricity bill
Oh mother you are so funny cried Emile graciously I just love the way you talk I could listen to you all day long
Thank you very much Emile that’s wonderful to know that you don’t mind listening to me like this all day because I have no one else to talk to
Excuse me said Annie you can talk to me.
Thank you dear I know I can but sometimes I remember that you only went to Grey’s road polytechnic whereas I went to Cambridge university on a scholarship although I would rather have gone on the train
You went to Cambridge university but did you actually go inside and learn anything?
That’s what we’re all wondering but sk at least she has a little humility.
I wish that we could say the same for the most powerful man in the world.
Yet even a modest poet is more powerful in reality than someone who rules by lies power and force and probably even death.
The poet alters our vision.
Though sometimes it’s easier to get new spectacles instead
And so say all of us
How my heart sings 