Earlier in the week, I had arranged to meet a friend of mine at a nearby coffee shop to discuss a subject of great mutual interest: our love of Joyce's great masterpiece, "Ulysses". She had inspired me to give it one more crack at reading it all the way through, having made two failed attempts earlier in my life. Yesterday she confirmed the date, but added the caviat that her husband had been admitted to hospital. I sent her a supportive email, which included the words:
"I know you can have faith in the clever doctors at the hospital who are extremely skilled in dealing with his problems"
This morning I get an email from the darling lady saying he had died in the night of "unexpected complications". My wife and I are stunned. She is an even closer friend of my Joyce fan than I am. All day, both of us have been in a sort of daze, our minds constantly returning to the thunderbolt and the plight of our dear friend.
Most unsettling is the knowledge of the words I used in my email, and of their terrible irony.
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