The Old Man and Me by Elaine Dundy

each other off: his rotundity emphasizing my slenderness; his air of portly affluence my fragility; his ruddiness my pallor. Even his very hat, a bowler, emphasized my hatlessness, seemed to make my hair shine as it never shone before, while the rough, blunt cut of his English features somehow rendered my ordinary American ones exotic.
    Another thing: it would be absurd to say he brought beauty into my life, it would be carrying romantic statement to ridiculous extremes, but it was the damnedest thing the way the clearing of the weather happened to coincide with our meeting almost, as it were, at his bidding revealing all manner of pretty streets and buildings and squares. Or was it just that he was so clever about steering me through some of the best bits of London? Oxford Street splattered and soggy with rain is quite a different proposition from St. James’s Park in the cool dappled sunshine, where we now took our ease reclining upon the soft grass that sloped gently down to the pond.
    “Animals!” I exclaimed in surprise, looking at the pond, “Why the place is full of animals. Look at ’em—ducks, pelicans, geese, and gosh, even a black swan. How divine.”
    “Surely they’re called birds.”
    “In a city anything that isn’t a sparrow or a pigeon is an
animal
. As a matter of fact pigeons and sparrows aren’t really birds
to me either; they’re people. Like the poor who are always with us,” I said, looking around for the poor as I spoke but there weren’t any.
    “Parks are for the poor. Alas, that they haven’t a chance to enjoy them. Only the very young and the time-wasters like us can.”
    “That’s because you hide them so well. This beauty, for instance. How d’you expect them to find it? I wouldn’t if you hadn’t led me to it.”
    “It is pretty, isn’t it?”
    “Ravishing. You really do grow the most sensational trees. The ones in Central Park are spindly by comparison. Look at the huge thing we’re sitting under—whatever it is.”
    “Don’t you know?”
    “Should I?”
    “Slum child.”
    “Not at all,” I said haughtily. “My father has a huge estate on Long Island, if you must know. I don’t go around asking the name of every tree I come across for heaven’s sake.”
    “But really, not to know the simple elm—”
    “No, nor probably the simple oak.”
    “Nor the simple sycamore—maple, I believe you call it? Nor the simple lime?” he asked pointing them out to me.
    “Lime? No kidding, is that really a lime tree? With
limes
on it?”
    “You call it linden.”
    “Oh.” I sat up suddenly. “Hey, as a matter of fact I did know all the names once. There was this batty old Botany teacher we had at college who used to race her class around the campus every spring making us tear the leaves off the trees for an identification exam. I did very well, I remember, fifty out of a possible sixty. Something like that. Couldn’t remember a single one by the end of a week, of course.”
    “What were you doing studying Botany? Surely Science wasn’t your subject?”
    “God, no. It was a required course.”
    “For what?”
    “For anything. I happened to major in the Dance. I mean I planned to,” I corrected myself, suddenly remembering I was Honey. “Actually I was an English major and graduated with honours.”
    “The
Dance
. What an extraordinarily whimsical thing your university education is. Botany and Dance on the same curriculum.”
    “Oh there were a lot of subjects you could work into your course if you wanted to. Taxonomy and Ecology, Hymnology, Public Finance.”
    “To what purpose?”
    “The well-rounded person, of course,” I said beginning to feel irritated.
    “Well-rounded, my foot,” he snorted. “Eclecticism run mad, that’s what it is!”
    “Quit picking on us.” I rose from the grass and walked slowly away towards the pond pretending to be hurt; and under the pretence I really was hurt and damned annoyed at myself for being so. What was eating me?