I make the case that a single, crucial, touch on the tiller on our part was all that was needed to steer the ship of state into a safe harbor; i.e. a future for Daisy that would not contain the excitable woodwindist. And in this we could glimpse a useful model for our team’s operations down the line: not intervening morning noon and night in Daisy’s emotional affairs; rather acting selectively (albeit decisively) to curate her romantic experience; curbing the worst excesses, where necessary resetting its direction of travel; a matter more of fine tuning than seizing the controls. To swap metaphorical horses, if Daisy were a plant—which of course in one sense, she is!—we could think of ourselves as secret gardeners, nipping the unpromising shoots in the bud, allowing the stronger, more desirable florets to prosper.
Fortunately, Daisy herself does not seem heartbroken over Owen’s sudden exit from the stage. Nor is she without insight. Hers was a remarkably clear-eyed view of what life with the excitable musician would have been like: the dystopian vision of the kite and the string; she as the smiling but essentially silent accessory. Walking on eggshells, her natural exuberance suppressed, she would not have been true to her truest self. As is the case of an overloaded salad crisper, with insufficient room to spread its leaves, the lettuce is crushed.
“I have a confession, people.”
The telly rolls its “googly” eyes and goes tsk.
“The first part of the mission—dump Shittle—was achieved faster than any of us could have imagined. But the due diligence we carried out on the porky muso wasn’t nearly diligent enough. I hate to say it, but the sour old laptop was right. Owen and Daisy should never have been allowed in a room together. I must shoulder my share of the responsibility for this; foolishly, I allowed myself to believe he was a worthy candidate just because he was a trained classical musician. It was a basic rookie error.” I allow a pause to fall. And when I continue, it’s in a quieter voice for greater sincerity. “But there was a bigger mistake. The bigger mistake came in thinking Daisy needs anyone at all. The simple truth is she doesn’t require a man to be complete. To be somehow fixed. Or validated. Or solved. In fact, at this point, a period of self-sufficiency might be greatly preferable to yet another in the endless stream of anyones who are each and all thought to be better than no one.”
My colleagues are silent as the wisdom of my words sink in.
It’s sometimes said, isn’t it, that no man is an island… except Fred Madagascar. (That last bit is a joke, btw. One of my favorites. Feel free to nick it. I did!) But at the same time and by the same token, be we human or machine, aren’t we all ultimately alone in the universe, with the possible exception of paired earbuds?
If we’re not okay on our own, what possible use can we be to another?
Dr. Eggstain called to see Mum again.
“Hello, Mrs. Parsloe,” he said when she opened the door.
“Hello, Dr. Eggstain,” she replied.
I was mortified. “It’s Dr. Epstein, Mummy! I’m so sorry, Doctor.”
But he was rather sweet about it; said it didn’t matter, many of his patients invented new “personae” for him because they didn’t always remember his actual name, and Eggstain was actually an improvement on what he’d been called by the last batty old trout (I paraphrase), which was Neville Beardie!
“The Beardie bit, I get, but Neville?”
(Did I mention he has a beard? A hugely overgrown gingery job that makes him look a lot like a tramp.)
Anyway, in the sitting room, Dr. E said he’d like to put some questions to her.
“Really, dear? What would you like to ask?”
“Can you tell me what year this is?”
“Don’t you know?”
He didn’t really reply to that—maybe he didn’t want to seem superior—he just sort of nodded and moved his beard around with his face.
“The year. What do you think I should put here?” he asked, tapping his clipboard.
“Well, I should put what you think’s best.”
“Mum, you know what year it is!”
“Let’s move on,” said Dr. E.
“She’s never been good with numbers. Remember when you put all the clocks back when they should have gone forward? And I was two hours late for school?”
The doc smiled. “Did that really happen?”
Mum did her minor member of royalty expression, rotating her wrist as though waving from the landau. “The past is history. Tomorrow, a mystery. Today is a gift, and that’s why they call it a present.”
“The present. Why they call it the present, Mum.”
“What did I say, darling?”
Dr. E laid his clipboard across his knees and placed three items upon it: his watch, a pen, a coin. “Can you tell me what these are?”
Mum looked at him as if he’d just made an improper suggestion.
“Young man, do you suppose I’m completely senile?”
Dr. E’s kindly blue eyes didn’t flinch from inside their thicket. “These three objects.”
“A watch, of course. A rather cheap one, from the look of it. A pen. And. And. And some money. Next question, please.”
“Is there a word for this sort of money?”
There was a long gap while she searched for the mot juste. “Ten pence?”
“A piece of round, metallic money. You’d call it a…?”
“Well, it’s loose change, dear.”
“A coin, Mum! You know what a coin is!”
“Moving on. Can you recall that name and address I asked you to remember?”
For a moment I honestly thought I was losing it too!
“Was it 75 Harcourt Terrace?”
“Mrs. Parsloe…”
“Well, the name’s escaped me. Was it a color? Like blue or green?”
“Mrs. Parsloe…”
“Or Greensmith. I had a bridge partner called Greensmith. She got awfully annoyed with me for not remembering which cards had been played. So even
