To be disappointed, your expectations have to be thwarted and until a few days ago I don’t think I had ever been disappointed. Sometimes, of course, things haven’t turned out as I had been hoping.
I suppose that when Norwich City Football Club, a 3rd Division South side, lost to Luton Town in the FA Cup semi-final of 1959, it was a disappointment but really it was more of an anti-climax after the wonderful run they had enjoyed up until that point. Of course I was saddened, but that wasn’t real disappointment as I had never expected Norwich to win. I just hoped that they would.
I thought that the general election result of 1979 was regrettable, but its inevitability prevented it from being a disappointment.
I have just been watching England play against Scotland in the Rugby Union World Cup. England played appallingly. I can’t say that I’m disappointed because England have been awful for the last three games and I wasn't expecting anything better but I am certainly frustrated and dissatisfied.
Last Tuesday I had my last golf lesson. I shall have no more. It’s not that I no longer need them, far from it. The sad fact is that I have gained nothing from those lessons. I realised on Tuesday that after six lessons I am worse than I was before the first one and I have made no progress at all.
I am genuinely disappointed. Six weeks ago, I told you in ‘Bon Mots’ that I had visions of playing golf regularly and often over the coming years. I expected to. It would give me something enjoyable to do with my copious leisure time but alas it is not to be. I wrote that, “I am not quite hopeless but I’m certainly bad.” That is not the case anymore. I am definitely hopeless and I am consequently, for the first time in my life, genuinely disappointed about something.
However, I am much better off than Sophie who was only 12 years old when in 2004, she experienced deep, scarring disappointment.
Sophie was a pupil at Fortismere School and one of my students. Her parents are from Cyprus and her grandparents still lived there. Sophie told me that they owned and ran a family restaurant in Paphos.
Caroline’s parents own a house in Paphos and before moving to live in the Cayman Islands, Caroline and I would go to stay in their house during August when the temperatures were highest and her parents sought refuge in the cooler climes of England.
One morning in August 2004 when the temperature had reached 39°C (102°F) and it was too hot to do anything outside, I sat under the air conditioning unit inside the house, with the Paphos edition of Yellow Pages on my lap and looked for the restaurant. I thought I found it and later that evening we went there to have dinner and discovered that it was indeed the right place.
When I told the who I was, Sophie’s grandparents were absolutely overjoyed to meet us and they made a huge fuss, plying us with unlimited amounts of food, wine and Filfar – a Cypriot liqueur made from oranges. By the end of the evening, we were well and truly filfared.
They told us that Sophie and her parents had moved up into the Troodos mountains to escape the heat, but they would all be back on Sunday for Grandpa’s birthday party.
He was to be 80 and we had to come too. It was a lunch party that would start at around eleven in the morning. They insisted that we came and told us how surprised and delighted Sophie would be to meet her teacher.
I wasn’t so sure about that but it would have been rude and even churlish not to say “yes” to the invitation and so accept it, we did.
We didn’t want to arrive too early and so we turned up at noon. I parked the jeep and we went in through a gate in the middle of a long wall that ran along the side of the courtyard. Directly opposite us and at the end of a ten-metre path was a long series of tables with about 60 people in total sitting along both sides. Facing us, with two empty seats in front of her, was Sophie.
Grandpa saw us and let out a welcoming yell. 60 people looked at us and started applauding. I was very embarrassed. I gave Sophie a little wave and smiled at her.
Sophie certainly looked surprised but not at all delighted. She nodded towards me and gave me a sort of half smile. Caroline and I took our seats opposite Sophie and her parents and for the next seven hours or so we had a wonderful time.
It was just getting dark when I found myself talking to Sophie alone for the first time since we arrived.
“What did you think when you saw me come through the gate and walk down the path?” I asked her.
“I was surprised but a bit disappointed,” she said. “They told me to sit there in that seat and keep an eye on the gate and I’d get a nice surprise. So I did and then you came in.”
“Oh, I see. I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have come if I thought you’d be upset.”
“Oh no, that wasn’t the reason,” she said, before adding wistfully,
“I thought I was going to get a donkey.”
Now that is a degree of disappointment that neither you nor I can imagine.
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