Gift

“I hate country and western”, I stated with absolute certainty.


He looked at me disbelievingly. “You haven’t been listening to the right recordings”.


Damn right. I haven’t been listening to any of it, any time, no way, no how. Rawhide. Dolly and her freakish breasts. Kenny Rogers and his Coward of the County. Bleargh. Yawn. No no no.


“You could like it”. He spoke with authority, and perhaps there was even at hint of the patronising there, as if we were speaking about Shakespeare or Wagner. I felt slightly irritated. After all, he hardly knew me.


I mentioned some of the music I enjoyed and it drew a blank. So I threw down the gauntlet. “Ok then. Find me something I like.” He raised an eyebrow and the conversation moved on.


Later, much later, he sent me a song: Mary Chapin Carpenter’s Sudden Gift of Fate. I loved it. I told him. Then he sent me another one, Late For Your Life, with a rather cryptic note. I listened - and I realised that he had the measure of me better than I thought. So much for my mystery. I’m off to buy a new CD.