Breaking free from the tyranny of symmetry - a lesson in chiropody
‘ARE you getting up at all this morning?’ Hermione, ever energetic Hermione, was keen to set about the business of the day while her spouse was disposed to have a lie on. She had specifically timetabled these three minutes for plumping pillows and straightening bed-clothes, patently impossible while I was flat on my back with my feet sticking out the end of the bed. She made a show of tidying the magazines she keeps on her bedside locker and flicking a few flecks of dust off the lampshade before speaking once more.
‘I was hoping to have everything done before going to the supermarket.’ She swept back the curtains with a flourish and let the light of a beautiful morning flood into the room.
‘I was hoping to be finished with housework and shopping early today.’ She picked up a discarded pair of slacks.
‘I was hoping maybe to go for a walk later but obviously not if the house is still in a state.’ It was only when she made to switch on the vacuum cleaner that I was roused to utter.
‘Have you heard of the tyranny of symmetry, darling?’ Hermione mercifully held back from starting up the hoover and considered the question with furrowed brow.
‘ The tyranny of what did you say?’
‘ The tyranny of symmetry, dearest. It was something Julius mentioned the other day. The tyranny of symmetry.’ Our friend Julius is an architect. He arrived the other day at Medders Manor as I was improvising a lean-to for drying logs. A designer of smart skyscrapers and regal residences, he was surprisingly enthusiastic about my amateur assemblage of spare planks and a few nails.
Julius pronounced me a genius for breaking free from the tyranny of symmetry in the execution of the lean-to. He reminded me that symmetry is balance, symmetry is equilibrium, symmetry is evenness. The classic design of a simple house, such as any child may draw, has a door in the middle of the façade with one window on either side. A grand mansion may have a door in the middle with a dozen windows on either side, plus matching statues of Greek gods on either side.
Symmetry dictates that the left half of the façade is mirror image of the right and modern architects itch to break from this right-reflects-left conformity. With its lopsided roof and off-plumb uprights, the humble lean-to propped up by the tool shed certainly offers no matching halves and no mirror images, though I remain hopeful that it will remain standing until at least next spring.
On reflection, Julius was probably taking the mick when he praised this slapdash erection. Still, he had given me food for thought as I looked sleepily across the expanse of flowery patterned duvet cover to focus on my protruding size nines.
‘You would hardly think they were a pair at all, would you? My feet could belong to two different people. There is no tyranny of symmetry going on below my ankles.’ Dear Hermione’s curiosity was reluctantly roused. She sat down beside me at the head of the bed and joined in examination of my extremities. I am blessed with matching ears, matching eyes, matching arms, and two hands recognisably cut from the same gnarled cloth. But my feet look as though could have come from different planets.
The left foot appears to have had the easier life, resulting in nicely rounded toe-nails which protect healthy pink flesh. The right foot has been beaten grotesque by six decades of hardship which have rendered it misshapen and oddly orange in patches. The toes on the left are straight while those on the right are kinked to accommodate the distorting effect of a massive bunion. The skin of the left foot is passably smooth while the appearance of the right foot is riddled with blemishes and knotted veins.
Presumably, these two contrasting feet were more or less matching at birth. Together they then soldiered through the hardship of childhood soccer, boy scout hikes, adult five-a-sides and all the everyday burden of carrying me through life. Yet these mirror image twins have ended up markedly un-identical. Strange, Hermione agreed, with a shiver of distaste.
‘I’ll find you a nice pair of socks, while you make the bed. Then we’ll go together for that walk – if you think your feet are up to it.’