47 - Resolving cognitive dissonance

A young woman is browsing in shop windows. She stops outside Back Room Books. What catches her attention there is a slim volume of flocculant verse by the bohemian Sapphic poet, Carmel Weinz. A thrill runs through her soul as she remembers drunken evenings when they were both studying James Joyce together in Dublin, before Carmel became a writer, and Clarissa a horticulturalist. She sighs, but casts aside the days of wine and roses. Now Clarissa is older and much more staid, and has come to Gwair-on-Wye to visit her sister Gwendolyn, who sadly is away in London.  Clarissa buys the book, then crosses the road to choose the flowers.