Failing Amelia.

Back in the days when I worked at the theatre, my manager was a woman who had a young child called Amelia. On one occasion the two of them were sitting in the bar area and I went over and joined them. I talked to Amelia and frowned about something jokingly, but Amelia was evidently a sensitive child and didn’t get the joke. She stood up, pushed her chair to one side and backed away from me looking scared.

I was horrified at my error, of course. I wouldn’t deliberately scare a child if my life depended on it, but all efforts to placate the little girl failed. Eventually the two of them moved to the Czech Republic where her mother came from and I never saw Amelia again. Her mother and I still keep in touch occasionally, however, and today I received an email from her. It included the sentence: ‘Amelia is now nineteen and driving.’

Oh my, there’s that egg timer again. There’s the boat of life taking whatever detours it likes, but always heading downstream. The image of a little blonde girl now has to be re-imagined as a young woman behind the wheel of a car.

I feel a sense of having been denied something. I believe I could have been a good friend to Amelia because I understand sensitivity and would have known how to be careful. But the moving finger has written and moved on, and now I want to know whether the young woman continues to be sensitive as the child was, and whether she still regards me as an ogre.