little blue cups

The other day, my friend Y came round for dinner. I don't see him so often, we live in different cities. But he was staying with P, a mutual friend, so they both came by.

I think very highly of Y. He lives a good life, his critical faculties are well developed, as is his sense of the absurd. He's smart, funny, politically engaged. He likes dancing as much as he likes books, food as much as art, people more than politics. He's got a sure grip on life though not such a strong one on the crockery when he's washing up. Somehow, though, I never think of Y as clumsy. I think of him as innately graceful. Even though I've seen him dancing.

P's the clumsy one.

My blue teaset sustained a high number of casualties when Y and his wife S, another good friend, were staying with me for a while. But it was always P's smashes that I noticed. P, who claims he is only ever clumsy in my presence (why, I don't know - I'm always warning him not to drop/trip over/spill things).

P had always promised to replace what he'd broken. It proved difficult as the set was a second-hand find but the other day, he presented me with six dear little coffee-cups the same shade of duck-egg blue. He'd found them in a charity shop. I thought I'd leave them at his until I could bring them home safely but when I got to mine and opened my bag, I'd found he'd put the cups in there. One of them had smashed.

I don't know who's responsible. I felt inexplicably sad when I saw that cup in pieces. P has said he will glue it together for me. But it won't be the same.