A clash of symbols

"Who's gone? Colin?" I ask Ra

"Not Colin. Tom," says Cultured Mum, a touch of impatience edging its way into her tone through the tears.

"Tom's gone? But I thought - "

"Quite. The thing is, I just don't know what to do. Can I come round?"

Vicky is mouthing something at me in an exaggerated, conspiratorial way, all teeth and tonsil, like somebody leading a lip reading tutorial for beginners, but I still can't make it out.

"What?" I say, when I've finished on the phone.

"It's not Colin who's round at Lindy's. It's Tom."

I stare at her.

"I'm going there now - while you're seeing Ra."

"You are? Does Tom know."

"Who cares," says Vicky.

"Well, he might," I say. "And should I tell Ra?"

"Personally, I'd save it for the time being," says Vicky. "After all, it's not as if you're going to run short of things to talk about."

Cultured Mum tends naturally to the brusque side, conversationally. Where others would um and er, her favourite all-purpose word is 'quite' which she uses for punctuation and is despatched from her lips like a bullet, making it hard to resist the urge to dive for cover whenever a sub-clause hoves into view.

But today she's more brioche than biscotti when it comes to verbal crunch.

"I saw this couple today," she says. "There was a girl, and a man. But the strange thing was that he was wearing a hoodie - it was grey, enormous, almost monastic and I couldn't see his face - just hers, young and pretty, sipping her coffee opposite this hooded, brooding figure. It looked like a visual representation of 'Death and the Maiden'"

I look blank.

"That famous quartet. By Schubert."

"Oh. I see. Or like that film with about the plague - by - um -"

"The Seventh Seal. Bergman. Quite," she says, repeating it for greater emphasis. "It made me feel - oh, I don't know, as though it were a message."

Despite her careful use of the subjunctive, this is very bad. Cultured Mum's messages are delivered through the normal channels - computer, mail and phone. She does not do symbolism, unless, of course, it's embedded, like a journalist on army duty in Iraq, in a major work of art.

"I've been listening to a lot of Rachmaninoff," she says, apparently by way of explanation for what, for her, is an unprecedented marshmallow mood.

"So, going back to Tom. I thought it was all over."

"It was," says Ra. "But now he's gone, I'm beginning to find out how much I miss him. Take the wireless computer system he installed. He's the system administrator - nobody else can get into the system without his password."

This isn't exactly high romance, but I suppose it's a start.

"And then there's the in-line descaler we've just bought. Heaven knows which valve you need to unscrew before you clean it out."

I can't help wondering how, exactly, Ra and Tom worded their marriage vows, but from the sounds of it they might just as well have cut and pasted them from an instruction manual and then chosen the Bob the Builder theme song as the bride made her triumphal entry down the aisle.

"And what about Colin?"

"Oh, he's there, all right. I never believed Lindy for a moment. It's just he doesn't do anything. I ask him for to sort out the computers and all he does is rant on about Rameau's neglected role in early French opera. It's no help at all, frankly."

"Ra," I say. "What would you like to happen?"

"I don't know," she says. "Help me."

The doorbell rings. "That'll be Vicky," I say. "Let's see if she's got any suggestions."