‘Do you know Pythagoras’ Theorem?’ my daughter asks, as I drive her to hockey on Saturday morning. She’s holding a bunch of coloured ‘flash cards’ – covered in hieroglyphic-like mathematical equations – which she’s using to help her revise for a test coming up after the summer holiday.
‘Something to do with triangles?’ I mutter back.
‘Something to do with right-angled triangles!’ Annie replies, brightly. She launches into a spirited explanation about the theorem – and how it allows you to calculate the length of one side of a right-angled triangle (the long side). I nod appreciatively, not really following… trying to follow the road ahead, instead.
‘Do you know trigonometry?’ Annie now asks.
Time stops.
Do I know trigonometry? It’s one of those perfect moments. An extraordinary stroke of serendipity. An unplannable convergence of events into an indelible, undeniable instant.
The perfect question, with the perfect answer. The best possible set-up, with only one possible response.
‘Don’t know much trigonometry!!!’ I sing/shout back at Annie, doing my best soulful Sam Cooke impression.
YEAH! What a great reply! I think to myself. What a ZINGER!
But Annie hasn’t responded to – or even noticed – my sung-zinger AT ALL. She’s too busy explaining trigonometry to me.
What a waste, I think to myself, as Annie obliviously babbles away about maths. If Sam Cooke’s ‘(What a) Wonderful World’ was on TikTok, Annie would KNOW what a zinger of a response that was.
As I continue driving, it occurs to me how much like a moment from a musical, my last interaction with Annie was.
I begin to wonder… if they were to make a jukebox musical, about me, Lizzie and the kids’ last year and a half, what would it be like? Would it be full of sad songs? Or happy songs? A mixture of the two, I guess. But what songs would they be? I mean, Lizzie and I can never even agree on what to play in the car. How could we possibly agree on what songs should be included in a West End musical about our lives? Would Lizzie get first dibs, because she’s the one who had cancer?
Has there ever been a feelgood musical about the three ‘C’s (Cancer, Covid, moving to the Countryside) I now wonder. And would anyone be remotely interested if there was?
I stop at traffic lights and now play Sam Cooke’s (What a) Wonderful World to Annie on Spotify. Including the line about trigonometry. Just to show Annie how clever – what a zinger – my earlier response was.
Annie is duly unimpressed. By my earlier zinger (still). And by the song too, sadly, sacrilegiously.
‘He’s only singing “trigonometry” because it ends in a “y” and rhymes with the other words,’ she sniffs.
How can she say that, I think, aghast.
I bet she’d like it if it was on TikTok, I conclude.
P. D. Clifton 
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