There was only one book I wanted to read right then – had Hannah guessed that as well? I took out Granga’s book of verses from my suitcase and carried it to my bed. The fly was still pressed between the last two pages as if to highlight the poem “The End”. I read it again. Then I took out the pen that I always kept now in my pocket and wrote the following on a notepad by the bed:

It seems we’ve reached an end, our last verse over,
Yet there is one thing more I’d like to say:
If you are right about ends and beginnings,
Then you’re the yesterday in my today.

I gave it a title, “The Beginning”, and placed it in Granga’s book beside “The End”. Hannah knocked at the door before she came in with my milkshake. “I’ve made it with vanilla ice cream,” she said handing it to me. “What’s this?” picking up Granga’s book. “Verses of a Solitary Fellow – your Granga’s poems, how lovely!”
She sat next to me on the bed and flicked through the book, reading one or two. “He’s a talented man, your grandfather,” she said. “I had no idea he was such a fine poet.”
“We wrote poetry together,” I told her. “He taught me. We composed our first one by my grandmother Sophia’s grave. And he taught me all sorts of things – about the thoughts of different great philosophers and about art and how to appreciate good food and use your senses. I even learnt how to dance while he played my mother’s favourite song on his mouth organ in front of a whole crowd in France.”
I would have carried on, but Hannah had found the poem I’d just written and asked, “Who wrote this?”
“I did,” I replied nervously, unsure what she would think of it, “just now, while you were making my milkshake.”
“It’s beautiful, Rufus. It’s so . . .”
She didn’t get to finish telling me what she thought of my poem because we were interrupted by the telephone ringing in the hall.
“Rufus, answer that, would you?” she asked with a smile.
I ran downstairs, while she carried on reading Granga’s poems.
“Hello?” I panted into the receiver.
“What kind of day is this?” came the booming reply. “Describe the blue to me.”
My hands and voice shook just a little as I said, “Right now, it’s like Miró’s blue.”
“Aha!” he exclaimed. “Miró’s This is the colour of my dreams. An unreality, then? A sense of the magical realm of the unknown?”
I hesitated. “It’s just that I didn’t expect to hear your voice again, that’s all.”
He was silent after that and I worried that he might have hung up. “Granga?” I whispered. “Are you still there?”
“I am here,” he replied quietly, as if he was distracted by other thoughts in his great big brain, thoughts too deep for someone like me to understand. “But my question is where do we go from here?”
Was he asking for my opinion or asking himself? If the latter, then why now, why . . . “Hannah rang you, didn’t she? That’s why you called now. You didn’t really want to speak to me, you just felt sorry for me because I told her I missed you!”
My voice was too loud again, like in the restaurant in Morocco. But I couldn’t help it. I was angry, with him, with Hannah, with the world.
“Lower your voice, will you? Your temper is a trait in your character that I do not admire. You need to work on restraining it. But you’re young and the young are prone to extremes, as Aristotle would have told you. Too angry, too emotional, love too much, hate too much, everything to excess. Aim at finding that Golden Mean we discussed.”
“Sorry, Granga,” I muttered, which didn’t make me feel any better at all, but at least my voice was quieter.
“No need for apologies, Blue,” he replied. “It’s yourself you let down, not me. We all do it from time to time. It’s how we know which areas we should be working on. Take mine, for instance. A man of a mountain of years, my weaknesses, extremes, are those of the old. Aristotle was swift to assess those too. He thought that the old were prone to cowardice through their fears, distrustful as a result of experience, and small-minded because they’ve been humbled by life. Unlike the young, who have a long future ahead of them, the old know that their future is short. The young have exalted notions – life hasn’t yet humbled that out of them – they are joyfully hopeful that they will achieve great things. Read Aristotle’s Rhetoric when you have a moment. He spells it out in Book two, Chapters twelve and thirteen.”
“I found some books on him in the school library,” I told him enthusiastically. “I didn’t know that he’d been orphaned too, when he was about my age.”
“Indeed,” Granga replied, “and it might interest you to know that he was also brought up by a guardian, Proxemus, his uncle, who encouraged him towards poetry, amongst other things, before Aristotle went off to study at Plato’s academy.”
“Wow!” I exclaimed, which didn’t sound very philosophical, so I added, “We have even more in common than I realised.”
“But to return to our main topic of conversation, you see, Blue, that I recognise my own weaknesses as well as yours. The difference between us is that I was young myself once so I understand you better than you, who have never been old, understand me. One minute you think you love me, the next you think you hate me, and Hannah for having contacted me. You probably even blame your parents from time to time for having left you. No need, boy. We’re all in this together, this world of which we know so very little. You and I just happen to be at opposite extremes of age’s Golden Mean, that’s all.”
It seemed to make sense, what he said, at least the bits that described me. I wasn’t so convinced by his description of himself, though.
“I don’t think you’re distrustful,” I said, “or small-minded . . . even if you may have seemed cowardly once or twice.”
He laughed and replied, “I must hide my weaknesses better than I thought. But they’re there, nonetheless, deep within my chest, fed by the duplicitous air that I breathe.”
I didn’t understand the last part, so I didn’t say anything and let him carry on. I knew he would – he was on a roll. The right foot of his crossed leg would be swinging backwards and forwards in the duplicitous air.
“You know, Blue, it feels good conversing with you again. You encourage me to reflect far more than I would have thought possible for one so young. Never underestimate the value of applying the mind to worthwhile ideas – Aristotle put it well when he described thinking in his Metaphysics as
the most divine of things in our experience – Book twelve, Chapter nine if my memory serves me well.”
“You taught me how to think,” I said, “it’s what you do.”
“A task that helps me, boy, as much as you.”
I was sure that he’d made his reply rhyme on purpose – he still wanted to share poetry with me.
“I miss being Blue,” I felt ready to confess, “even the Blue who’s a miserable little fellow singing the blues. I’d rather be him than a grey cloud.”
“A cloud, you say? Come, come, I suspect a hue of youthful exaggeration once again. You have your schooldays, do you not, fine opportunities to learn, and you have all your friends.”
“I thought I wasn’t to trust a fellow with too many friends,” I reminded him. “Isn’t that what you taught me when we were in France?”
He laughed and replied, “You remember your lessons too well!”
This time I was on a roll rather than Granga, so I felt confident enough to say, “Granga, how you just described my extremes wasn’t quite correct. I never really thought I hated you . . . or my parents. I was angry, but I didn’t ever hate you.”
“Well said!” he exclaimed. “I stand corrected. And perhaps you also had a right at times to be angry with me. It is so easy to be angry, is it not? Any fool can be angry. But to be angry with the right person, and to the right extent, and at the right time, with the right motive, in the right way, as The Greek explained in his Nicomachean Ethics, Book two, Chapter nine, is not possible for everyone, nor is it easy – that’s why goodness is so rare and worthy of praise and noble. In your case, it is perhaps the degree of anger that is faulty. Whereas, in my case, it is perhaps that my anger has been aimed sometimes at the wrong person.”
“You mean by blaming my mother for Sophia having died?”
“I mean that very sin. And not dissimilar to your own of being angry with me on occasion for no reason, and with poor Hannah, perhaps even with your parents for a departure that was not in any way of their making. Our anger would be better aimed at ourselves for having been so very foolish, would it not? But to experience is to learn.”
“I’m not angry with my parents any more,” I thought I should tell him, “or with you or Hannah.”
“Nor I with dear Grace,” he thought he should tell me. “In fact I applaud her for having reared a child as wise and loving as you.”
I didn’t often receive praise from Granga like I had from my parents, so it came as a bit of a shock and I didn’t know what to say.
Fortunately, Granga spoke first: “The gentle breeze called Hannah will be awaiting your presence. She’s a good woman, don’t forget that, nor take it for granted.”
It felt like the drop in temperature when the sun is disappearing and I knew our conversation was coming to an end.
“And to answer your question, boy, yes, Hannah did telephone me earlier and mentioned in our conversation that you missed me – you were correct in that part of your vociferous assumption. As to your subsequent suggestion, that I didn’t really want to speak to you and that I only called you because I felt sorry for you, I can only presume that an absence of sunlight and Maria’s paella has caused you some form of cerebral deficiency.”