The Taste of Fallibility

Learning to accept one’s mistakes has become an integral part of surgical training. I’m all for it. In my experience though, lessons in humility often occur outside the hospital and when you least expect them.

Last week, I got home after a long operating list to find a box in the middle of the kitchen counter. Glossy pink, over a foot wide, and undeniably elegant, the mysterious object immediately piqued my interest. What could it be? Had my publishers sent me a new anatomy book to review? Had my husband, on holiday with friends for a few days in France, undergone a character transplant and bought me something silky?

I looked for a label but could find none. Gingerly then, I unfolded one edge of the box and lifted its lid, before gasping at its contents. Inside lay the most beautiful lemon tart I have ever seen. Egg-yellow, rink-smooth, as generous as a sun.

“A delivery guy brought it” said one of the twins. “It’s for the people over the road but they’re not in”.

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My heart sank. And not because the tart wasn’t for me. This little loss paled into insignificance compared to the realisation my kids had unwittingly taken something in for people we usually have nothing to do with, neighbours we stopped talking to years ago after a dispute, whose details now feel too petty to narrate, settled into chronic animosity: no eye contact, no greetings, nothing.

I gazed once more at the perfect sphere before lowering the lid and pushing the tart carefully into the corner where it wouldn’t get damaged. Then I took off my coat and set about making a rudimentary supper for the three of us. We ate our meal and the box stared at me. I was on tenterhooks about the door ringing, not sure how I would respond. By the time we finished eating, I had started to worry the tart would spoil.

“Put it in the fridge” one of the twins suggested. So we cleared a shelf and I felt better for moving it there, though still uneasy.

A couple of hours later, just as I was about to lock the house for the night, I saw a car pull up across the road and our willowy neighbour step out into the gloaming. Without thinking, I went over and said hello and told her that I had taken in a delivery for her. She followed me into the driveway and then the house, where the twins were on the stairs, wide-eyed as pups from The Tinder Box. I introduced these children she hadn’t met since they were toddlers and she asked them about school. I led her into the kitchen and she complimented us on our renovation. I handed her the tart from the fridge and said how beautiful it was. She told me she’d bought it as a surprise for her husband’s birthday and I thought: of course she is this loving. What have I been thinking all these years?

A few minutes later, we said goodbye amicably, and when I closed the front door, both twins cried out in unison “She’s so nice!” and I when I said “Of course she is” there was the briefest pause before they said, “You’re nice too, mum” which I felt much less sure of in that moment.

I’m embarrassed to tell this story. I don’t like to think of myself as the kind of person who falls out with a neighbour. And even now, picking apart this tardy reconciliation, it’s clear that my initial feelings of care weren’t directed towards my neighbour so much as her lovely pastry. But, over the past decades, I’ve learned more times than I can count that there is genuine satisfaction to be had in recognising one’s own mistakes. I’m so glad things have thawed with our neighbours and hope they had a happy celebration. I wonder if the lemon tart was as delicious as it looked? Turns out humble pie is surprisingly tasty.

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