Geoff suffers from a complaint (although I’m the one complaining, not him) that goes by the name of selective hearing.
His tendency is to go all unresponsive and distant just when I am saying something important. I may be saying it for the 14th time, but if he had listened on one of the previous 13 occasions he needn’t have to put up with me being, well, just a little tedious in a stuck-needle sort of way.
As it is, I talk to myself so much that I get bored with the sound of my own voice. It would be nice to share my witterings, especially when they are informative and life-affirming. You’re missing so much, I tell him. He catches that without a problem and gives me a disbelieving, sideways look.
The selective deafness has built up over the years and gets activated especially when I talk about Cornwall.
Geoff has visited a few times and come away with the impression it is inhabited by people he can’t understand and ribboned with narrow lanes lined by stony banks that leap out and scratch the sides of his car. In other words, he hasn’t always had the happiest of experiences, and if it weren’t for the lure of Cornish pasties and saffron buns I might never have got him to my native county for five days last week.
“You’ll love it. I can tell you all about it,” I enthused. “I’ll even sing you some Cornish songs and explain some of the customs and give you the lowdown on the different types of boats the fishermen use and point out some of the features of Bodmin Moor and you wouldn’t believe how many famous writers and artists are from Cornwall, and . . .”
Of course, I lost him on the first corner – mention of the Cornish songs would have done it – and he went into selectively deaf mode.
I sang the songs under my breath as we headed west, every mile taking me closer to my homeland and the ridiculous joy I knew I would feel on crossing the border.
That joy stayed with me for the duration of our visit, and I’m happy to say it infected Geoff as well. By his own admission, he fell under Cornwall’s spell, seduced by its uniqueness and pride, its breathtaking landscapes and seascapes, its happy people, its excellent food (not all pasties), its pretty towns and villages and its excellent roads.
I resisted the urge to say “See, I told you so,” and also managed to resist singing ‘Lamorna’ when we visited beautiful Lamorna Cove, or ‘Goin’ Up Camborne Hill Coming Down’ whenever we saw a road sign to Camborne.
In fact it was the road signs and signposts that held a particular charm for Geoff. He cherished some of the more outlandish names, exclaiming over such places as Mawnan Smith (“Surely that’s a greeting, not a village”), Gweek, Perranarworthal, Praze-an-Beeble, Mousehole and Indian Queens.
Having grown up with them, they didn’t tickle me as they did Geoff, but as a grockle (a visitor to Cornwall) he was entitled to be charmed. For me, they simply acted as accelerators of my emotions, flooding my nostalgia reservoirs as my mind flipped back and forth across the years.
The selective deafness was fully engaged as I droned on in my riveting way about “Friends who’d lived down that road,” or “I went to a party in that village.” Poor Geoff. He did enjoy it, even though his hearing problem seems to have become markedly worse.
Sally Hill's Journal 