On Failure and Lucy Revealed.

Today was one of those strange days which leave me questioning whether I’m going about the business of life in quite the right way. I opened a door, you see, to leave a shop, and coming the other way was a man who wanted to enter the shop. He was youngish and looked like a bit of a tough guy, which wasn’t the reason why I stood back to let him through. I did that because I was the one holding the door and it’s a time honoured tradition in England that the one holding the door gives way. It’s the more functional option.

But no, the other man stood back and waved me out with ‘After you. Come on, friend.’ Friend? Why would a youngish man who looked like a bit of a tough guy call me ‘friend?’ It doesn’t compute, and it’s forming a pattern. First I have strange women smiling at me, and now I have a youngish man who looks like a bit of a tough guy calling me ‘friend.’ What on earth am I doing wrong?

And what about Lucy? Remember Lucy – the ¼ Greek ex-dental nurse from Ashbourne who disappeared for years and then turned up serving in a coffee shop in Uttoxeter? Well, she disappeared again and I was told she’d gone into the business of teaching yoga.

Today I bumped into her for the first time in about a year and she told me about her yoga activities. In return, I told her about my health woes and said that if I get through the whole business with a favourable prognosis, I’d quite like to take up yoga. (Which is true; I’ve seen some on YouTube and it appeals.) But then – me being me – I said that there would be no point in starting it yet because I might be dead this time next year and I didn’t see the point. ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘I could always teach you the corpse pose.’

Isn’t that splendid? Somebody made a joke of my possibly near-imminent demise instead of giving me the more usual ‘You shouldn’t talk like that’ etc, etc. And so I expressed my delight, and you know what she said? She said ‘I know you quite well and I know you have a dark sense of humour.’

Knows me quite well? How can she know me quite well when we’ve only exchanged the odd few words here and there down the years? Ah, now, that led me to the strong suspicion that Lucy is a lot more intuitive, or aware, or socially adroit, or whatever construction you care to put on it, than you might imagine of a quietly spoken person who – in my experience at least – is not given to thrusting herself into other people’s realities. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I’ve come to warm quite a lot towards a dental nurse cum yoga instructor called Lucy.

But I do hope she doesn’t do something outrageous like inviting me over for lunch or anything. What the hell would that do for my reputation, and what on earth would I wear? (Something that disguises my identity, I suppose.) Fortunately, the likelihood of such an invitation is about on a par with Trump evolving into a creature of intelligence, refinement and common decency, so I think I'm probably safe.